Diligent Work-Frugal Study Movement

The Diligent Work-Frugal Study Movement, often referred to as the Work-Study Movement (simplified Chinese: 留法勤工俭学运动; traditional Chinese: 留法勤工儉學運動; pinyin: Liú Fǎ qíngōng jiǎnxué yùndòng; lit. 'Work-study movement in France'; French: Mouvement Travail-Études), was a series of work-study programs which brought Chinese students to France and Belgium to work in factories as a way to pay for their study of French culture and Western science. The programs aimed to train Chinese radicals between the ages of 16 and 30 through first hand experience in a workers' movement.^[1]: 35 The programs were organized between 1912 and 1927 largely by a group of Chinese anarchists who had come to Paris and wanted to introduce French science and social idealism to China.

After organizing smaller-scale programs starting in 1908, in 1916, after the outbreak of First World War, the Chinese organizers worked with the Chinese and French governments to establish the Diligent Work-Frugal Study program, which brought less educated Chinese workers, and continued to bring students after the 1919 end of the war. In all, several thousand Chinese came to France as student-workers, though not all as formal members of a program. They included future leaders of the Chinese Communist Party such as Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping, as well as others who went on to prominent roles in China.

The movement is commemorated in a small museum, the Historical Museum of French-Chinese Friendship, in the town of Montargis where many of the participant students resided.