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Pierre Poujade (; 1 December 1920 – 27 August 2003) was a French right-wing populist politician after whom the Poujadism movement was named.
From 1940 to 1942, Poujade supported the Révolution nationale of Philippe Pétain. After the Case Anton by German forces, he joined the Free French Forces in Algiers, where he met his future wife, Yvette Seva, with whom he would have five children.
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 department, then in the Aveyron department, and finally the whole south of the Massif Central.
On 29 November 1953, Pierre Poujade created the Union 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). Poujadism flourished most vigorously in the last years of the 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 concerned the defense of the commoner against the elites.
In addition to the protest against the income tax and the price control imposed by finance minister 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.Serieys, Jacques (23 July 2009). "23 juillet 1953 : Pierre Poujade lance le poujadisme sur le Lot, l'Aveyron puis la France rurale entière. Remarques sur le mouvement des commerçants et artisans". Parti de Gauche: Midi-Pyrénées, 23 July 2009. Retrieved from http://www.prs12.com/spip.php?article3648 .
The movement's "common man" populism led to antiparliamentarism (Poujade called the National Assembly "the biggest brothel in Paris" and the deputies a "pile of Solid waste" and "Pederasty"), a strong anti-intellectualism (Poujade denounced the graduates from the École Polytechnique as the main culprits for the woes of 1950s France and boasted that he had no book learning), xenophobia, and antisemitism, particularly aimed against Jewish Prime Minister Pierre 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 of French Indochina.Source Unknown (date unknown). Video of a speech of Poujade against Mendès-France. Uploaded to Dailymotion.com by MisteurCocktail on 2006-08-27. Retrieved from http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xbzln_poujade . Poujadism also supported the cause of French Algeria.
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 Fifth Republic was established in 1958 under Charles de Gaulle's presidency, Poujade and his party largely faded from view.Weill, Nicolas (28 August 2003). La mort de Pierre Poujade, précurseur d'un nouveau populisme. Le Monde, 28 August 2003. Retrieved from http://www.droitconstitutionnel.net/PierrePoujade.htm .
Poujade ran for National Assembly again, but was defeated in 1962, after which he went on to found an organization that distributed Nazi political speeches and military songs.
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.
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 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 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.
In France, Poujadisme is often used pejoratively to characterize any kind of ideology that declares itself anti-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.
For instance, Le Monde diplomatique was accused of poujado-marxisme in the 1990s.
In a 1990 pamphlet, reissued in 2012, Christopher Hitchens refers to a "... Poujadiste female with ideas above her station", presumably a reference to Margaret Thatcher and her humble origins as a Grantham grocer's daughter.Christopher Hitchens The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favourite Fetish published by Vintage Digital (29 May 2012).
In February 2010, The New York Times commentator Robert Zaretsky compared the American Tea Party movement with Poujadism.
In a May 2016 editorial, The New York Times columnist Ross Douthat identified Donald Trump as a Poujadist.
British historian Timothy Garton Ash used Poujade in discussing Brexit. In a piece published in The Guardian in June 2016, he wrote about some of those who voted for Brexit, 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 as Nigel Farage exploit these emotions, linking them to subterranean English 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 of George Orwell hijacked for the purposes of a Poujade.
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