Pierre Poujade
Encyclopedia
Pierre Poujade was a French
populist
politician after whom the Poujadist movement was named.
, Lot, France
, Europe
. When he was only 8 years old, his father died, in 1928.
Poujade studied in a Roman Catholic private school. He had wanted to continue on to college, but neither he nor his mother could pay the tuition, so he was forced to take a number of manual labor jobs. As a teenager, Poujade joined the Parti Populaire Français
of Jacques Doriot
.
From 1940 to 1942, Poujade supported the Révolution nationale
of Philippe Pétain
. After the invasion of the free zone
by German forces, he joined the Free French Forces
in Algiers
, where he met his future wife.
On 23 July 1953, with a group of about 20 persons, Poujade prevented inspectors of the tax board from verifying the income of another shopkeeper. This was the start of a tax protest movement by shopkeepers, first in the Lot, then in Aveyron
, and finally the whole south of Massif Central
.
On 29 November 1953, Pierre Poujade created the Union de Defense Commercants et Artisans (UDCA), to organize the tax protesters. This movement would soon be called Poujadism.
Poujadism flourished most vigorously in the last years of the French Fourth Republic
, and articulated the economic interests and grievances of shopkeepers and other proprietor-managers of small businesses facing economic and social change. The main themes of Poujadism were articulated around the defense of the common man
against the elites.
Besides the protest against the income tax, and the price control imposed by Antoine Pinay
to limit inflation
, Poujadism was opposed to industrialization, urbanization
, and American-style modernization
, which were perceived as a threat to the identity of rural France. Poujadism denounced the French state as rapetout et inhumain (thieving and inhuman). The defense of the common man lead to antiparliamentatism (Poujade called the Chamber of Deputies "the biggest brothel in Paris" and the deputies a "pile of rubbish" and pederasts) a strong anti-intellectualism
(Poujade denounced the graduates from École Polytechnique
as the main culprits for the woes of 1950s France and boasted that he had no book learning), xenophobia
, and antisemitism especially aimed against Pierre Mendès-France
(claiming "Mendès is French only as the word added to his name"), who was perceived as responsible for the loss of Indochina
. Poujadism also supported the cause of French Algeria
.
to re-found the French political regime and published the Fraternité Française newspaper.
The UDCA secured 53 seats in the National Assembly
in 1956. The youngest member of parliament, elected on a UDCA list, was Jean-Marie Le Pen
, then leader of the youth branch of UDCA. Poujade was opposed to decolonization of Algeria, and to the European Defence Community. To justify his support to the Algerian War, Poujade declared in 1956 to Time Magazine:
After the French Fifth Republic
began in 1958 under Charles de Gaulle
's presidency, Poujade and his party largely faded from view. Poujade distanced himself from Le Pen and declared in 2002 that he would have preferred to break his own leg than to make him a deputy.
In 1965, Poujade supported Jean Lecanuet
for president.
In the 1981 and 1988 presidential elections, Poujade favored François Mitterrand
, while in the 1995 election he voiced his support for Jacques Chirac
.
In 1984, Pierre Poujade was appointed to the Conseil économique et social by Mitterrand. Poujade used this position to promote biofuels.
In 1969, Gérard Nicoud started the CID-UNATI (Comité Interprofessionnel de Défense-Union Nationale des Travailleurs Indépendants), a tax protest movement similar to the one of Poujade. Examples of current political groups with strong poujadist leanings include Le Pen's own National Front (which has a strong anti-tax message), the Comité de Défense des Commerçants et Artisans of Christian Poucet (that encouraged French shopkeepers to declare their business in Britain in order to avoid paying the French Social Security taxes), and the Union des Contribuables Français. The magazine Le Cri du Contribuable owned by Nicolas Miguet also maintains the poujadist tradition. Others, such as the Third Way
, have also claimed to be heirs of the poujadist tradition.
In France, Poujadisme is often used pejoratively to characterize any kind of ideology
that declares itself anti-establishment or criticizes strongly the current French political system or political class, even when the anti-tax or anti-intellectual aspects of the original Poujadism are absent.
For instance, Le Monde Diplomatique
was accused of poujado-marxisme in the 1990s
.
In February 2010, New York Times
commentator Robert Zaretsky compared the American Tea Party movement
with poujadism.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
populist
Populism
Populism can be defined as an ideology, political philosophy, or type of discourse. Generally, a common theme compares "the people" against "the elite", and urges social and political system changes. It can also be defined as a rhetorical style employed by members of various political or social...
politician after whom the Poujadist movement was named.
Biography
Poujade was born in Saint-CéréSaint-Céré
Saint-Céré is a commune of 3, 540 people situated in the Lot valley in the Dordogne. The commune includes within its borders the castle of St-Laurent-Les-Tours, where the artist Jean Lurçat lived and worked for many years, and from which he operated a secret radio for the French Resistance...
, Lot, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. When he was only 8 years old, his father died, in 1928.
Poujade studied in a Roman Catholic private school. He had wanted to continue on to college, but neither he nor his mother could pay the tuition, so he was forced to take a number of manual labor jobs. As a teenager, Poujade joined the Parti Populaire Français
Parti Populaire Français
The Parti Populaire Français was a fascist political party led by Jacques Doriot before and during World War II...
of Jacques Doriot
Jacques Doriot
Jacques Doriot was a French politician prior to and during World War II. He began as a Communist but then turned Fascist.-Early life and politics:...
.
From 1940 to 1942, Poujade supported the Révolution nationale
Révolution nationale
The Révolution nationale was the official ideological name under which the Vichy regime established by Marshal Philippe Pétain in July 1940 presented its program...
of Philippe Pétain
Philippe Pétain
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain , generally known as Philippe Pétain or Marshal Pétain , was a French general who reached the distinction of Marshal of France, and was later Chief of State of Vichy France , from 1940 to 1944...
. After the invasion of the free zone
Case Anton
Operation Anton was the codename for the military occupation of Vichy France carried out by Germany and Italy in November 1942.- Background :...
by German forces, he joined the Free French Forces
Free French Forces
The Free French Forces were French partisans in World War II who decided to continue fighting against the forces of the Axis powers after the surrender of France and subsequent German occupation and, in the case of Vichy France, collaboration with the Germans.-Definition:In many sources, Free...
in Algiers
Algiers
' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...
, where he met his future wife.
Poujadism
After the war, Poujade was the owner of a book and stationery store.On 23 July 1953, with a group of about 20 persons, Poujade prevented inspectors of the tax board from verifying the income of another shopkeeper. This was the start of a tax protest movement by shopkeepers, first in the Lot, then in Aveyron
Aveyron
Aveyron is a département in southern France named after the Aveyron River.- History :Aveyron is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790....
, and finally the whole south of Massif Central
Massif Central
The Massif Central is an elevated region in south-central France, consisting of mountains and plateaux....
.
On 29 November 1953, Pierre Poujade created the Union de Defense Commercants et Artisans (UDCA), to organize the tax protesters. This movement would soon be called Poujadism.
Poujadism flourished most vigorously in the last years of the French Fourth Republic
French Fourth Republic
The French Fourth Republic was the republican government of France between 1946 and 1958, governed by the fourth republican constitution. It was in many ways a revival of the Third Republic, which was in place before World War II, and suffered many of the same problems...
, and articulated the economic interests and grievances of shopkeepers and other proprietor-managers of small businesses facing economic and social change. The main themes of Poujadism were articulated around the defense of the common man
Common man
Common man may refer to:*Common people*Champion of the Common Man*"Common Man progrum" on sport hosted by Dan Cole*The cartoon character by R K Laxman, The Common Man*The Common Man , the 1975 French film...
against the elites.
Besides the protest against the income tax, and the price control imposed by Antoine Pinay
Antoine Pinay
Antoine Pinay |Rhône]], France – 13 December 1994) was a French conservative politician. He served as Prime Minister of France in 1952.-Life:As a young man, Pinay fought in World War I and injured his arm so that it was paralyzed for the rest of his life....
to limit inflation
Inflation
In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. Consequently, inflation also reflects an erosion in the purchasing power of money – a...
, Poujadism was opposed to industrialization, urbanization
Urbanization
Urbanization, urbanisation or urban drift is the physical growth of urban areas as a result of global change. The United Nations projected that half of the world's population would live in urban areas at the end of 2008....
, and American-style modernization
Modernization
In the social sciences, modernization or modernisation refers to a model of an evolutionary transition from a 'pre-modern' or 'traditional' to a 'modern' society. The teleology of modernization is described in social evolutionism theories, existing as a template that has been generally followed by...
, which were perceived as a threat to the identity of rural France. Poujadism denounced the French state as rapetout et inhumain (thieving and inhuman). The defense of the common man lead to antiparliamentatism (Poujade called the Chamber of Deputies "the biggest brothel in Paris" and the deputies a "pile of rubbish" and pederasts) a strong anti-intellectualism
Anti-intellectualism
Anti-intellectualism is hostility towards and mistrust of intellect, intellectuals, and intellectual pursuits, usually expressed as the derision of education, philosophy, literature, art, and science, as impractical and contemptible...
(Poujade denounced the graduates from École Polytechnique
École Polytechnique
The École Polytechnique is a state-run institution of higher education and research in Palaiseau, Essonne, France, near Paris. Polytechnique is renowned for its four year undergraduate/graduate Master's program...
as the main culprits for the woes of 1950s France and boasted that he had no book learning), xenophobia
Xenophobia
Xenophobia is defined as "an unreasonable fear of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange". It comes from the Greek words ξένος , meaning "stranger," "foreigner" and φόβος , meaning "fear."...
, and antisemitism especially aimed against Pierre Mendès-France
Pierre Mendès-France
Pierre Mendès France was a French politician. He descended from a Portuguese Jewish family that moved to France in the sixteenth century.-Third Republic and World War II:...
(claiming "Mendès is French only as the word added to his name"), who was perceived as responsible for the loss of Indochina
Indochina
The Indochinese peninsula, is a region in Southeast Asia. It lies roughly southwest of China, and east of India. The name has its origins in the French, Indochine, as a combination of the names of "China" and "India", and was adopted when French colonizers in Vietnam began expanding their territory...
. Poujadism also supported the cause of French Algeria
French Algeria
French Algeria lasted from 1830 to 1962, under a variety of governmental systems. From 1848 until independence, the whole Mediterranean region of Algeria was administered as an integral part of France, much like Corsica and Réunion are to this day. The vast arid interior of Algeria, like the rest...
.
Political involvement
In 1955, the UDCA was a strong political movement, with 400,000 members. Its adherents were encouraged to protest against taxes and withdraw their deposits from state-owned banks. The movement called for new Estates GeneralFrench States-General
In France under the Old Regime, the States-General or Estates-General , was a legislative assembly of the different classes of French subjects. It had a separate assembly for each of the three estates, which were called and dismissed by the king...
to re-found the French political regime and published the Fraternité Française newspaper.
The UDCA secured 53 seats in the National Assembly
French National Assembly
The French National Assembly is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of France under the Fifth Republic. The upper house is the Senate ....
in 1956. The youngest member of parliament, elected on a UDCA list, was Jean-Marie Le Pen
Jean-Marie Le Pen
Jean-Marie Le Pen is a French far right-wing and nationalist politician who is founder and former president of the Front National party. Le Pen has run for the French presidency five times, most notably in 2002, when in a surprise upset he came second, polling more votes in the first round than...
, then leader of the youth branch of UDCA. Poujade was opposed to decolonization of Algeria, and to the European Defence Community. To justify his support to the Algerian War, Poujade declared in 1956 to Time Magazine:
"Big Wall Street syndicates found incredibly rich oil deposits in the Sahara, but instead of exploiting the discovery, they capped the wells and turned the Algerians against us...All this is a great diabolic scheme to dismember France. Already the Saar is gone, and soon the Italians will want Corsica...As for those who are against us, I need only say: let them go back to Jerusalem. We'll even be glad to pay their way."
After the French Fifth Republic
French Fifth Republic
The Fifth Republic is the fifth and current republican constitution of France, introduced on 4 October 1958. The Fifth Republic emerged from the collapse of the French Fourth Republic, replacing the prior parliamentary government with a semi-presidential system...
began in 1958 under Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
's presidency, Poujade and his party largely faded from view. Poujade distanced himself from Le Pen and declared in 2002 that he would have preferred to break his own leg than to make him a deputy.
In 1965, Poujade supported Jean Lecanuet
Jean Lecanuet
Jean Adrien François Lecanuet was a French centrist politician. He was born to a family of modest means, and gravitated towards literature during his studies. He received his diploma at the age of 22, becoming the youngest agrégé in France...
for president.
In the 1981 and 1988 presidential elections, Poujade favored François Mitterrand
François Mitterrand
François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand was the 21st President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra, serving from 1981 until 1995. He is the longest-serving President of France and, as leader of the Socialist Party, the only figure from the left so far elected President...
, while in the 1995 election he voiced his support for Jacques Chirac
Jacques Chirac
Jacques René Chirac is a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He previously served as Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988 , and as Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.After completing his studies of the DEA's degree at the...
.
In 1984, Pierre Poujade was appointed to the Conseil économique et social by Mitterrand. Poujade used this position to promote biofuels.
Legacy
Although the UDCA has lost its influence, some of the ideas of Poujadism persist in modern French politics.In 1969, Gérard Nicoud started the CID-UNATI (Comité Interprofessionnel de Défense-Union Nationale des Travailleurs Indépendants), a tax protest movement similar to the one of Poujade. Examples of current political groups with strong poujadist leanings include Le Pen's own National Front (which has a strong anti-tax message), the Comité de Défense des Commerçants et Artisans of Christian Poucet (that encouraged French shopkeepers to declare their business in Britain in order to avoid paying the French Social Security taxes), and the Union des Contribuables Français. The magazine Le Cri du Contribuable owned by Nicolas Miguet also maintains the poujadist tradition. Others, such as the Third Way
Third Way (UK)
The National Liberal Party – The Third Way is a United Kingdom political party that was formed on 17 March 1990 as The Third Way. In 2006, the Third Way registered the name National Liberal Party – The Third Way with the Electoral Commission....
, have also claimed to be heirs of the poujadist tradition.
In France, Poujadisme is often used pejoratively to characterize any kind of ideology
that declares itself anti-establishment or criticizes strongly the current French political system or political class, even when the anti-tax or anti-intellectual aspects of the original Poujadism are absent.
For instance, Le Monde Diplomatique
Le Monde diplomatique
Le Monde diplomatique is a monthly newspaper offering analysis and opinion on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first created mainly for a diplomatic audience as its name implies...
was accused of poujado-marxisme in the 1990s
1990s
File:1990s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope floats in space after it was taken up in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields and the USA Lexie in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on...
.
In February 2010, New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
commentator Robert Zaretsky compared the American Tea Party movement
Tea Party movement
The Tea Party movement is an American populist political movement that is generally recognized as conservative and libertarian, and has sponsored protests and supported political candidates since 2009...
with poujadism.
Writings by Pierre Poujade
- J'ai choisi le combat ( Societe Generale Des Editions Et Des Publications, 1955)
- A L'Heure De La Colère (Albin Michel, 1977)