The National Federation of Taxpayers (FNC) or the National Federation of Taxpayer Syndicates and Groups is an assembly of taxpayer syndicates founded in 1928 by Louis-Alphonse Large, an accountant, and presided over by Baron Albert d'Anthouard de Wasservas, a retired diplomat, and later by the industrialist Jacques Lemaigre Dubreuil. The group is often mistakenly referred to as the "League of Taxpayers".[1]
Louis-Alphonse Large, general delegate of the National Federation of Taxpayers, taken into custody (Excelsior, October 24, 1933).
Its founding was supported by groups representing farmers, architects, shop owners and shareholders. It attracted numerous professional associations, trade unions, and groups of liberal professions.[2]
The FNC did not openly conflict with public authorities and presented itself as "a body for monitoring and controlling government actions without particular hostility towards it".[2] However, the worsening economic crisis in 1931 and the victory of the second Cartel des Gauches in 1932 radicalized its rhetoric.[2] From that point, the FNC opposed any tax increase or form of inflation, advocated for reduced public spending, and accused radical and socialist parliamentarians of squandering public funds.
Baron d'Anthouard de Wasservas, president of the National Federation of Taxpayers (Le Matin, February 6, 1933).
In February 1933, the federation organized protests outside prefectures and urged its local syndicates to close businesses.[2] On March 19, 1933, it held a National Taxpayer Day to protest "fiscal and statist plunder," coinciding with several demonstrations. Police recorded 100,000 demonstrators across 46 cities, especially in western and Parisian regions. Paradoxically, this radicalization weakened the FNC's integration into the larger representative organizations of economic interests.[2]
The FNC was involved in the riot of February 6, 1934 through the participation of its Parisian members and its support for calls to protest.
In 1935, the FNC was presided over by Jacques Lemaigre Dubreuil, a shareholder of the Société Générale des Huiles de Pétrole and managing director of Lesieur Oils.[3]
During the summer of 1936, shareholders of the Banque de France grouped under the Association des porteurs d'action de la Banque de France (APABF) allied with the FNC. Jacques Lemaigre Dubreuil was a candidate for the general council representing shareholders. He filed a lawsuit against Vincent Auriol, the minister of finance, for fraud to publicize his candidacy. He was elected and actively opposed Émile Labeyrie, Governor of the Bank of France, and Vincent Auriol during the Popular Front government.[4]
Ideology
The FNC aimed to symbolically represent taxpayers, who were theoretically already represented by parliamentarians. It sought "to substitute Parliament in defending taxpayer interests and negotiating with the Ministry of Finance".[2] To achieve this, it advocated regime change and promoted the salvation of the petite bourgeoisie through tax strikes and street pressure. The direct action strategy led by Louis-Alphonse Large placed the FNC among violent groups.[2]
Membership
The FNC claimed 400,000 members in 1931[2] and 700,000 in 1934.[5] Its decision-making bodies were composed of merchants, lawyers, notaries, and property owners.[2]
The left wing historian Annie Lacroix-Riz claims that the federation was a member of the Comité national d'entente économique (National Committee for Economic Agreement), which grouped major French economic, industrial, property and agricultural interests.[8]
William A. Hoisington Jr. (1973). Taxpayer Revolt in France. The National Taxpayers' Federation, 1928-1939. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press.
Related Research Articles
FNC may refer to:
François Marie Tanguy Prigent was a French Socialist politician who became a resistance fighter during World War II (1939–45). He was Minister of Agriculture from September 1944 to October 1947 and was Minister of Veterans and War Victims from February 1956 to June 1957.
La Cagoule was a French fascist-leaning and anti-communist militant group. It opposed the left-wing Popular Front and used violence to promote its activities in the final years of the Third Republic and into the Vichy Regime. La Cagoule was founded by Eugène Deloncle and bankrolled, among others, by Eugène Schueller, the founder of L'Oréal.
Lycée Janson-de-Sailly is a lycée located in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, France. The lycéens of Janson are called les jansoniens and they usually refer to their high school as Janson, or JdS. It is the biggest academic institution in the region: 3,200 boys and girls from 11 to 20 attend classes ranging from junior high school to Classes Préparatoires.
The King's Camelots, officially the National Federation of the King's Camelots was a far-right youth organization of the French militant royalist and integralist movement Action Française active from 1908 to 1936. It is best known for taking part in many right-wing demonstrations in France in the 1920s and 1930s.
Stanislas-Andre Steeman was a Belgian illustrator and French-language author. His family, originally of Flemish extraction, had long been settled in Liège.
Operation Jumelles was a military operation which was part of the Algerian War in Kabylia, Algeria. It lasted from 22 July 1959 to March 1960. It was fought between the FLN and the French Army.
Jacques Lemaigre Dubreuil was a French businessman and activist, born in Solignac murdered in Casablanca on June 11, 1955 presumably by members of La Main Rouge for being allegedly sympathetic to the Moroccan nationalist cause.
Gustave Jéquier was an Egyptologist and one of the first archaeologists to excavate ancient Persian cities in what is now Iran. He was a member of Jacques de Morgan's 1901 Susa expedition, which led to the discovery of the famous Code of Hammurabi, now on display in the Louvre.
Gabriel Jeantet was a French far-right activist, journalist and polemicist. Active before, during and after the Second World War, Jeantet's links to François Mitterrand became a source of controversy during the latter's Presidency. His brother Claude Jeantet was also a far right activist.
Annie Lacroix-Riz is a French academic Marxist historian specializing in France's relations with Germany and the United States from the 1930s to the 1950s, as well as World War II collaboration.
Bernard Henri Maris, also known as "Oncle Bernard", was a French economist, writer and journalist who was also a shareholder in Charlie Hebdo magazine. He was murdered on 7 January 2015, during the shooting at the headquarters of the magazine in Paris.
Auguste Alain Georges Pernot was a conservative French lawyer and politician. He was a deputy and then a senator before and during World War II (1939–45). He was Minister of Public Works in 1929–30, Minister of Justice in 1934–35, Minister of Blockade in 1939–40 and briefly Minister of the French Family and Public Health in June 1940. After World War II (1939–45) he was again a senator from 1946 to 1959. Throughout his career Pernot was a vocal pronatalist, pushing for government policies that would support the family and encourage higher birth rates to counter the demographic crisis in France. He believed that women should be encouraged to remain at home to raise children.
Banque Internationale à Luxembourg S.A. is the oldest private bank in Luxembourg. It offers commercial and corporate banking services, and was the country's third-largest employer by 2011, with 3,640 employees. Since 2018, it has been majority-owned by China-headquartered Legend Holdings. The bank has offices in Luxembourg, Switzerland and China.
Monique Pinçon-Charlot is a French sociologist, research director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) until 2007, year of her retiring, attached to the Research Institute on Contemporary Societies/ l'Institut de recherche sur les sociétés contemporaines (IRESCO).
Jacques Bloch-Morhange was a French economist and author. In 1970, he revived the Ligue des contribuables, arguing for the repeal of the income tax in France.
Thiers is a neighbourhood of the 1st arrondissement of Marseille. A cultural and student quarter in the centre of Marseille, it is located between Place Jean-Jaurès and La Canebière, near the Vieux-Port.
Uni-Air International, also known as Uni-Air, was a French regional airline based at Toulouse-Blagnac Airport in the Haute-Garonne department. The airline operated cargo and postal transport, on-demand passenger transport, international and domestic charters, medical transport, and chartered air services.
Adrien Joseph Marie Hilaire Thierry was a French lawyer and diplomat.
The Comités de Défense Paysanne or Peasant Defense Committees was a network of radical agrarian groups France founded in 1929.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
