In so far as organizations are concerned, the Congress decides that, in order that syndicalism may attain its maximum effectiveness, economic action should be exercised directly against the class of employers, and the Confederal organizations must not, as syndical groups, pay any attention to parties and sects which, outside and by their side, may pursue in full liberty the transformation of society.
The vote on this resolution showed that all parties interpreted the resolution in their own way. To the "reformists" it meant complete political neutrality, to the political syndicalist it emphasized the liberty of political action outside the syndicat; the revolutionary syndicats saw in the resolution the "Charter of French Syndicalism" in which their theories were succinctly formulated.
After the Congress of Amiens the General Confederation continued its policy of direct action. During 1907 it helped the movement for a law on a weekly rest (_Repos Hebdamodaire_) which was carried on by the commercial employees and by workingmen of certain trades. The movement expressed itself often in street demonstrations and riotous gatherings and brought the Confederation into conflict with the government.
The government of M. Clemenceau took a determined attitude towards the Confederation. Papers like the _Temps_ called upon the government to dissolve the Confederation. "Against syndicalism," wrote the _Temps_, "are valid all the arguments of law and of fact as against anarchy." Members of the Confederal Committee were arrested here and there for incendiary speeches and for anti-militaristic propaganda. In the Chamber of Deputies the Confederation was the subject of a heated debate which lasted several days, and in which radicals, conservatives, socialists, and members of the government took part.
The Confederal Committee in its turn vehemently attacked the government. In June, 1907, troubles occurred among the wine-growers in the south of France, and blood was shed. The Confederal Committee launched a manifesto against the government with the heading, "Government of Assassins," in which it praised one of the regiments that had refused to shoot into the crowd at the order of the officers.