Émile Pouget
| Émile Pouget | |
|---|---|
Portrait by Aristide Delannoy
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| Born |
October 12, 1860 Pont-de-Salars, Aveyron, France |
| Died | July 21, 1931 (aged 70) Palaiseau, Essonne, France |
| Occupation | Anarchist writer and activist |
| Nationality | French |
Émile Pouget (12 October 1860 in Pont-de-Salars, Aveyron, now Lozère – 21 July 1931 Palaiseau, Essonne) was a French anarcho-communist, who adopted tactics close to those of anarcho-syndicalism. He was vice-secretary of the General Confederation of Labour from 1901 to 1908.
As a young man, Pouget founded his first newspaper, Le Lycéen républicain (The Republican Student) at high-school, being revolted at the trial of the Narbonne's Communards in Rodez.
He participated as soon as 1879, aged 19, at the creation of a textile union, the Syndicat des employés du textile. He then joined in 1881 a group of French anarchists at the London International Congress, following the dissolving of the First International.
Pouget was arrested on March 9, 1883, following a demonstration in Paris by unemployed people, during which three breadshops were pillaged. He was detained while trying to free Louise Michel from the police's hands. Condemned to 8 years prison for "armed pillage", Pouget was detained from 1883 to 1886 at Melun's prison.
Once freed, he started on 24 February 1889, the publication of Le Père Peinard. Following the 1894 assassination of President Sadi Carnot and the ensuing repression in the ranks of the anarchist movement, he exiled himself to England in order to avoid being judged during the Trial of the thirty. He returned to France only after the 1895 amnesty granted by president Félix Faure.
Starting in 1896, he preconized sabotage actions as means of struggle, a view expressed in various articles and leaflets. From 1901 to 1908 he was elected vice-secretary of the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) trade-union, representing the anarcho-syndicalist tendency in the union. Pouget thereafter participated to the draft of the 1906 Charte d'Amiens, which set the foundations of the French trade-union movement. The following year, he became chief editor of La Voix du Peuple (The Voice of the People), edited by the CGT. But he finally took his distances with the trade-unionist movement starting in 1909.
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