Poujade, Pierre-Marie (1920–2003)

French entrepreneur and rightwing politician. His ‘Poujadist’ movement made a dramatic entry into French politics in the 1956 parliamentary elections (when the youngest deputy elected on Poujade's ticket was Jean-Marie Le Pen) before fading in 1958. A salesman-turned-wholesaler in the rural department of Lot, Poujade came from a monarchist and anti-republican family. Beginning in 1953 with direct action against tax inspections and organized from 1954 as the Union for the Defence of Tradesmen and Artisans (UDCA), Poujadism came to denote a militant and nationalist protest against France's modernizing state, spreading out from its anti-taxation core to embrace the cause of a French Algeria. He published his political credo in J'ai choisi le combat (1956).