António Manuel Ferreira
Lovingly known as “Tonio”
2 April 1942 — 17 December 2021 · aged 79
Renault Flins worker, CGT delegate and Portuguese son of the Minho who made Mantes home
Mantes-la-Jolie, France Born in Arcozelo, Ponte de Lima, Minho, Portugal Resting at Village cemetery, Arcozelo, Ponte de Lima, PortugalAbout António
António Ferreira crossed the Pyrenees on foot in the autumn of 1964, aged twenty-two, with a cardboard suitcase, a borrowed coat and an address in Champigny-sur-Marne written on the back of a cigarette packet. He used to say it was the longest walk he ever took and the only one he was glad to have done alone.
He was born in 1942 in a stone farmhouse near Ponte de Lima, in the Minho, the second of seven children, and left school at eleven to work the land. France offered a wage; Portugal in those years offered the colonial war. He lived in a shantytown for two years, then in a hostel, then at last in a flat on the new estate in Mantes-la-Jolie. In 1966 Renault hired him on the assembly line at Flins, and he stayed thirty-eight years.
He joined the CGT in 1968 and served as a union delegate for twenty-two years, the man workers sought out when a form needed translating, a shift needed swapping or a foreman needed a quiet word. He never raised his voice, and he opened every meeting with the same sentence: 'Comrades, let's be short and let's be right.' He drove only Renaults, and kept one Renault 12 alive for twenty years and 380,000 kilometres, down to the Minho every August with a roof rack of presents.
He married Maria da Conceição in 1969 and they raised Paulo and Sandra in the Val Fourré, where Portuguese, Moroccan, Malian and French children shared stairwells and football pitches. Tonio kept an allotment beside the Seine, growing kale, tomatoes and his mother's scarlet runner beans, and every Christmas Eve he cooked the bacalhau himself. He wept openly at the Euro 2016 final, which half the building watched in his living room.
He retired in 2004, spent summers at Arcozelo and winters in Mantes, and called the ache of living between two homes saudade, saying he was lucky to feel it for both. He died on 17 December 2021 at the Hôpital François-Quesnay, with Maria and the children beside him. He leaves Maria, Paulo, Sandra, three grandchildren and a brother, Joaquim, who still tends the family vines.
“Comrades, let's be short and let's be right.”
- Faith
- Catholic
- Place of birth
- Arcozelo, Ponte de Lima, Minho, Portugal
- Resting place
- Village cemetery, Arcozelo, Ponte de Lima, Portugal
- Passed away
- 17 December 2021, Mantes-la-Jolie
Requiem Mass
Wednesday, 22 December 2021 at 12:00 UTC
Add to calendarLife journey
Emigrated to France
1964 · Champigny-sur-Marne
Crossed the border on foot at twenty-two with a cardboard suitcase.
Assembly line worker
Renault Flins1966 – 1980 · Flins-sur-Seine
Hired two years after arriving in France.
CGT union delegate
CGT Renault Flins1968 – 1990 · Flins-sur-Seine
Twenty-two years as the colleague everybody trusted with a problem.
Married Maria da Conceição Lopes
1969 · Mantes-la-Jolie
A marriage of fifty-two years.
Machine setter
Renault Flins1980 – 2004 · Flins-sur-Seine
Retired after thirty-eight years at the plant.
Allotment gardener and organiser
Jardins familiaux de Mantes-la-Jolie1985 – 2021 · Mantes-la-Jolie
Shared kale, tomatoes and advice with half the neighbourhood.
Tap an organisation to find others who studied or worked there.
Family & connections
António is survived by
- Maria da Conceição Ferreira· Spouse
- Paulo Ferreira· Son
- Sandra Ferreira-Martins· Daughter
- 3 grandchildren· Grandchildren
- Joaquim Ferreira· Brother
Tributes & memories
6 people have shared a memory of António.
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Niece in Luxembourg
Tio Tonio taught me to say 'thank you' to the bus driver in three languages. He said a person who is polite in three languages is never lost. I have thought about that at every border I have crossed since.
- PC
Portuguese chaplain, Mantes-la-Jolie
He sang in our Portuguese Mass choir for thirty years, always a fraction behind the beat and always in tears at the Salve Rainha. Nobody ever suggested he stop. It was never about the singing; it was about the home the song carried with it.
- ML
Cousin in Ponte de Lima
The whole village waited at the cemetery gate for the hearse from France. Every August for fifty years he came home with presents for everyone and left with a bottle of his brother's vinho verde. He was the proudest son of the Minho, though he lived most of his life far from it.
- KB
Neighbour in the Val Fourré
Tonio taught me to grow tomatoes when I was ten. He said the secret was to talk to them, and I thought he was joking until my first crop. He told my mother her son would go far. I did: I am an engineer at Renault now. Obrigado, Tonio.
- LD
CGT comrade, Mantes-la-Jolie
I met Tonio on a picket line in 1979. It was raining and he had brought a flask of coffee for everyone, including the security guards. 'They also have families,' he said. That was Tonio: solidarity with a thermos.
- JM
Fellow delegate, Renault Flins
Tonio never made a speech that lasted more than three minutes. When management wanted an hour of argument he gave them two sentences and a silence, and the silence usually won. Half the agreements at Flins carry his handwriting in the margin. We shall not see his like again.
