Pierre Poujade | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1920-12-01)1 December 1920 Saint-Céré, France |
| Died | 27 August 2003(2003-08-27) (aged 82) La Bastide-l'Évêque, France |
| Occupation | Politician |
| Spouse | Yvette Seva |
| Children | 5 |
Pierre Poujade (French:[pjɛʁpuʒad]; 1 December 1920 – 27 August 2003) was a Frenchright-wing populist politician after whom thePoujadist movement was named.[1]
Pierre Poujade was born inSaint-Céré (Le Lot), France, and studied at Collège Saint-Eugène d'Aurillac, a Roman Catholic private school. On the death of his father, an architect, in 1928, he was unable to afford the tuition and left school to work as a manual laborer. As a teenager, Poujade joined theParti populaire français (PPF) ofJacques Doriot.[1]
From 1940 to 1942, Poujade supported theRévolution nationale ofPhilippe Pétain. After theinvasion of the free zone by German forces, he joined theFree French Forces inAlgiers, where he met his future wife, Yvette Seva, with whom he would have five children.[1]
After the war, Poujade was the owner of a book and stationery store.[2]
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 atax protest movement by shopkeepers, first in theLot department, then in theAveyron department, and finally the whole south of theMassif Central.[2]
On 29 November 1953, Pierre Poujade created theUnion de Défense des Commerçants et Artisans (UDCA; Defense Union of Shopkeepers and Craftsmen), to organize the tax protesters. This movement would soon be called "Poujadism" (French:Poujadisme).[2] Poujadism flourished most vigorously in the last years of theFourth 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 concerned the defense of thecommon man against the elites.[2]
In addition to the protest against the income tax and the price control imposed by finance ministerAntoine Pinay to limit inflation, Poujadism was opposed toindustrialization,urbanization, and American-stylemodernization, which were perceived as a threat to the identity of rural France.[3] Poujadism denounced the French state as "rapetout et inhumain" ("thieving and inhuman").
The movement's "common man" populism led toantiparliamentarism (Poujade called theNational Assembly "the biggestbrothel in Paris" and the deputies a "pile ofrubbish" and "paederasts"), a stronganti-intellectualism (Poujade denounced the graduates from theÉcole Polytechnique as the main culprits for the woes of 1950s France and boasted that he had no book learning),xenophobia, andantisemitism, particularly aimed against Jewish Prime MinisterPierre Mendès France, with Poujade claiming "Mendès is French only as the word added to his name". Mendès was perceived as being responsible for the loss ofFrench Indochina.[4] Poujadism also supported the cause ofFrench Algeria.[5]
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 newEstates General to re-found the French political regime, and published theFraternité Française newspaper.[citation needed]The UDCA secured 52 seats in the1956 elections.[5] "Experts said he might win six to eight seats",The Saturday Evening Post wrote. "A great many political leaders, including M.Faure two years ago, have promised to do something about [the tax system]. If they had made good, Poujadism would never have been born".[6] The youngest member of parliament, elected on a UDCA list, wasJean-Marie Le Pen, then leader of the youth branch of UDCA. Poujade was critical of the decolonization of Algeria, and of theEuropean Defence Community.[7] To justify his support for theAlgerian War, Poujade declared in 1956 toTime Magazine:
BigWall Street syndicates found incredibly richoil deposits in theSahara, 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 theSaar is gone, and soon the Italians will wantCorsica...As for those who are against us, I need only say: let them go back toJerusalem. We'll even be glad to pay their way."[2]
After theFifth Republic was established in 1958 underCharles de Gaulle's presidency, Poujade and his party largely faded from view.[8]
Poujade ran for National Assembly again, but was defeated in 1962, after which he went on to found an organization that distributedNazi political speeches and military songs.[9]
In 1965, Poujade supportedJean Lecanuet for president.[8]
In the 1981[10] and 1988[8] presidential elections, Poujade favoredFrançois Mitterrand, while in the 1995 election he voiced his support forJacques Chirac.[8]
In 1984, Pierre Poujade was appointed to theConseil économique et social by Mitterrand. Poujade used this position to promotebiofuels.[11]
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.[12]
Poujade died on 27 August 2003 inLa Bastide-l'Évêque at the age of 82.[3] His funeral was officiated in the Church of Saint John the Baptist in La Bastide-l'Eveque, on 30 August 2003.[13]
Although the UDCA has lost its influence, some of the ideas of Poujadism persist in modern French politics.[14]
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 recent political groups with strong Poujadist leanings include Le Pen's ownNational Front (which has a strong anti-tax message), theComité 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 theUnion des Contribuables Français. The magazineLe Cri du Contribuable owned by Nicolas Miguet also maintains the poujadist tradition.
In France,Poujadisme is often used pejoratively to characterize any kind of ideology that declares itselfanti-establishment or strongly criticizes the current French political system or political class, even when the anti-tax or anti-intellectual aspects of the original Poujadism are absent.[citation needed]
For instance,Le Monde diplomatique was accused ofpoujado-marxisme in the 1990s.[citation needed]
In a 1990 pamphlet, reissued in 2012,Christopher Hitchens refers to a "... Poujadiste female with ideas above her station", presumably a reference toMargaret Thatcher and her humble origins as a Grantham grocer's daughter.[15]
In February 2010,The New York Times commentator Robert Zaretsky compared the AmericanTea Party movement with Poujadism.[16]
In a May 2016 editorial,The New York Times columnistRoss Douthat identifiedDonald Trump as a Poujadist.[17]
British historianTimothy Garton Ash used Poujade in discussingthe British vote to leave the European Union. In a piece published inThe Guardian in June 2016, he wrote about some of those who voted forBrexit, saying that:
It is a mistake to disqualify such people as racist. Their concerns are widespread, genuine and not to be dismissed. Populist xenophobes such asNigel Farage exploit these emotions, linking them to subterraneanEnglish nationalism and talking, as he did in the moment of victory, of the triumph of "real people, ordinary people, decent people". This is the language ofOrwell hijacked for the purposes of a Poujade.[18]
