Memory and history are sometimes a strange couple. A striking illustration is given by the French Unionism in the twentieth century. Some events - 1906, 1920, 1936, 1947, 1968 ... - are engraved in the "memories" and they have founded a collective identity. However, taking the example of the CGT Congress of Amiens in 1906, several dimensions - a priori essential - of this "memory" can be discussed: the importance of the strike, the relationship between parties and unions, the historical weakness of the French unionism. Historical data are not consistent with these representations usually carried about French unionism before 1914. One can wonder : would not it be the same discordance about the history of the French Unions during the twentieth century? More widely, the question is about the construction of these traditions: product of individual and collective agents but also generation by some mechanisms at the origin of the mythical discourse?
