While the CGT has remained the largest trade union in France, it has taken its independence vis-à-vis the PCF. Louis Viannet spectacularly quit the national bureau of the PCF in 1996 and Bernard Thibault, the CGT's leader between 1999 and 2013, left the PCF's national council in 2001. L'Humanité has retained closer ties with the PCF. The newspaper was founded by Jean Jaurès in 1904 as the socialist movement's mouthpiece, and it followed the communist majority following the split in 1920. After having been the official newspaper of the PCF, with a readership of up to 100,000 in 1945, the newspaper's readership and sales declined substantially partly due to the PCF's concomitant decline. In 1999, the mention of the newspaper's link to the PCF was dropped and the PCF no longer determines its editorial stance. It sold an average of 46,929 newspapers per day in 2012; down from 53,530 in 2007. Leadership Secretaries-general (1921–1994) and national-secretaries (since 1994) Ludovic-Oscar Frossard: 4 January 1921 – 1 January 1923 Louis Sellier and Albert Treint, interim secretaries-general: 21 January 1923 – 23 January 1924 Louis Sellier: 23 January 1924 – 1 July 1924 Pierre Semard: 8 July 1924 – 8 April 1929 Collective secretariat (Henri Barbé, Pierre Celor, Benoît Frachon, Maurice Thorez): 8 April 1929 – 18 July 1930 Maurice Thorez: 18 July 1930 – 17 May 1964 (president between 17 May and his death on 11 July 1964) Jacques Duclos, interim secretary-general: 17 June 1950 – 10 April 1953 Waldeck Rochet: 17 May 1964 – 17 December 1972 (deputy secretary-general from 14 May 1961 to 17 May 1964) Georges Marchais, interim secretary-general later deputy secretary-general from June 1969 to 17 December 1972 Georges Marchais: 17 December 1972 – 29 January 1994 Robert Hue: 29 January 1994 – 28 October 2001 (president between 28 October 2001 and 8 April 2003) Marie-George Buffet: 28 October 2001 – 20 June 2010 Pierre Laurent: 20 June 2010 – 24 November 2018 Fabien Roussel: since 24 November 2018 Factions There are no formal organized factions or political groupings within the PCF. This was originally due to the practice of democratic centralism, but even after the democratization of the PCF structure after 1994 the ban on the organization of formal factions within the party remained. According to party statutes, the PCF supports the "pluralism of ideas" but the right to pluralism "may not be translated into an organizations