If you like your baked goods served with a side of socialism, perhaps the only place in the world where the two go hand in hand is La Conquête du Pain, a Parisian bakery that operates on communist-anarchist principles. The name – translating literally as "The Conquest of Bread" – comes from the eponymous book by Russian activist and philosopher Peter Kropotkin, an anti-capitalist who advocated heavily for anarchism and libertarian communism in the 19th century.
From the outside, La Conquête du Pain looks like any other French boulangerie in Montreuil, an eastern suburb of Paris. Once inside, though, you can bite into a 3-5 euro sandwich named after a renowned revolutionary, sip free Zapatista coffee and hoe into some communist-anarchist literature in plush armchairs – just don’t forget to fight capitalism at the same time.
La Conquête du Pain came to life in 2010, with members of the French anarchist movement Pierre Pawin and Thomas Amestoy at the helm. “We wanted to practice the ideas of the moment,” Pawin explains. “And I had some experience as a baker, so we thought a self-organised bakery was the right way to do it.”
But don’t call Pawin and Amestoy the owners. The bakery is entirely self-managed, with decisions being made by “general assembly” rather than through hierarchy. Unlike your average Bakers Delight, ‘the boss’ is a foreign concept at La Conquête du Pain – everyone works together as colleagues and plays vital roles in keeping the bakery going, with a rotating roster of tasks. Everyone (including Pawin and Amestoy) is paid the same wage of around 1350 euro per month ($AU2068), and receives an equal share of the profits. “The aim is to work together as a collective, and to feel free to run any kind of project we want,” says Pawin. In an AJ+ video, he explains, “we are not an alternative to capitalism, we are in capitalism. But we handle it differently because we make different political choices concerning prices and salaries.”
“Conquête du Pain is a totally organic bakery, however it’s different to other organic bakeries in the way it's run and in the solidarity initiatives we offer,” Pawin tells SBS. The bakery offers training programs for underprivileged youths, and provides heavy discounts on products for disadvantaged Parisians. If a customer volunteers to pay an extra euro for their baguette, the next customer will get their baguette for free. This is a bakery where equality rules.
“We are anarchists, and the trainees are mostly Muslim – they’re believers,” Pawin tells AJ+. “It’s interesting because we often discuss religion and we often disagree, but you don’t find those discussions in the classic world of bakery, which is rather a racist world.”
If a customer volunteers to pay an extra euro for their baguette, the next customer will get their baguette for free. This is a bakery where equality rules.
It might sound idyllic, but running a communist-anarchist bakery is not without its challenges, according to Pawin. “Working in a collective is not so easy,” he says. “Just the same as a capitalist workplace, there are tensions and egos, problems with power.”
Perhaps the products can help with that. The Karl Marx sandwich comes with ham, Gruyère cheese and crudités, and is yours for the reasonable price of 3.40 euros. Or there’s the Angela Davis, made with chicken salad. You’ll see all your favourite historical revolutionaries in sandwich form: Friedrich Engels, Louise Michel, Rosa Luxemburg and the man who started it all, Kropotkin.
Since opening, La Conquête du Pain has expanded from five employees to nine, and appears to be moving from strength to strength. Pawin and Amestoy are looking to open a second bakery in the near future. “We want to make the social revolution,” says Pawin.
La Conquête du Pain runs on communist principles. Source: La Conquete du Pain
Social revolutions aside, La Conquête du Pain highlights one essential teaching that Marx, Engels and all their followers have probably known all along: we may live in complex times with competing systems, but everyone needs croissants.
