Political leader, born in Saint Céré, SC France. After serving in World War 2, he became a publisher and bookseller. In 1951 he was elected a member of the Saint Céré municipal council, and in 1954 he organized his extreme right-wing Poujadist movement (a union for the defence of tradesmen and artisans) as a protest against the French tax system. His party had successes in the 1956 elections to the National Assembly. During the 1960s his political career went into decline and he turned his energies to business interests.
Pierre Poujade (December 1, 1920 – August 27, 2003), born in Saint-Céré, was a French populist politician after whom the Poujadist movement was named.
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 movement's ideological issues were: lower taxes, corporatism, and the denouncing of politicians and media;
The political arm of the movement was the UDCA, which secured 53 seats in the National Assembly in 1956.
The word poujadisme now has in France the general meaning of some political ideology that articulates the worries of some part of the population facing social or economic change, and that blame the problems on the "establishment" and the political system. Examples of political groups with strong poujadist leanings include Le Pen's own National Front.
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