Word: sainte
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Poujade had not started the revolt of Saint-Céré, or even organized it. But Poujade swiftly exploited and expanded it into a national force. He took off in his car, scoured the depressed countryside with his new doctrine of discontent. He ignored his business and forgot to sell his books. He transformed Saint-Céré's refusal to pay taxes into a patriotic duty. In cafés and village squares, Poujade cried: "We must refuse to pay tribute to a corrupt system which breaks our backs while sparing the giant profiteers...
...seat on the Economic Council of the Republic. Poujade refused. Belatedly the government brought suit against him for "organization of collective refusal to pay taxes." With this authority, detectives rummaged through Poujade's files, ransacked his offices, tapped his phones, even searched his mother's house in Saint-Céré. Faure hoped to turn up some hidden and sinister backers of Poujade, but the detectives turned up nothing. The government lacked the resolution to press its case before election in the face of 1,000,000 maddened shopkeepers...
Campaign Commandos. Poujade prepared for the election by leasing a 30-room hotel outside Saint-Céré, where he ran ten-day training courses for hundreds of picked followers. He created an amateur army of commandos who flung vegetables and abuse at rival speakers or broke up their meetings. He broadened his appeal, organized affiliates for peasants, youth, workers, professionals. He preached only discontent, "throw the rascals out." As it wore on, his campaign grew vaguer. "My program is to have no program," he declared. He put up 819 candidates, made each take an oath never to take...
When he returns to Saint-Céré, where a housekeeper takes care of his two youngest children in a new house he has rented (no central heat, no bath, meals in the kitchen), the town elders glance up from their cards and shrug: "It's only Pierrot." But his organization men, waiting in the backroom, are excited and cordial, report happily of hundreds of new dues-paying members since election, listen while Poujade regales them with a bit of gossip from the big city and a lot of Poujade propaganda...
...fascists on his staff, Poujade is abrupt: "I'm tired of people looking for lice in my hair. I fought the Germans and I know what resistance is. I don't need anybody to give me lessons in patriotism." Asked one man at a recent Saint-Céré meeting: "But what about tax reform?" Snapped Poujade: "That's precisely what we're fighting for, but to achieve real basic reforms we must reform the whole system...