Poujade, Pierre

Poujade, Pierre (-Marie)

(born Dec. 1, 1920, Saint-Céré, France—died Aug. 27, 2003, La Bastide-l'Évêque) French political leader. The owner of a bookstore in Saint-Céré, in 1953 he organized a local shopkeepers' strike to protest high taxation. Expanding his activities to other towns, he enrolled 800,000 members in his Union for the Defense of Tradesmen and Artisans. His right-wing movement, known as Poujadism, attracted discontented farmers and merchants; in 1956 it won 52 seats in the National Assembly. Poujade's influence soon waned, but in the 1970s he founded an organization for nonunion workers.