Down with Taxes

"We're disciplined," boasts young, demagogic Pierre Poujade. "If I tell these people to take one step forward, they'll take one step forward; one step backward, and they'll take one step backward." For 19 months Poujade has been telling French tradesmen and artisans who are his followers to defy tax collectors and run them out of town (TIME, Jan. 3). Last week he told them to follow him to Paris for a demonstration of strength.

As tax officials watched in horrified fascination, they came--from Paris suburbs and distant cities--defying floods, government obstruction and police discouragement. Three of Paris' largest auditoriums were forbidden to them. Just outside the city limits, in two huge halls, 100,000 Poujadistes cheered and shouted approval as their young leader, self-styled "Robin Hood of taxpayers," insulted Premier Mendes-France, his Cabinet and his programs. " We want our share of the cake, too," shouted Poujade. "From tomorrow on, we don't pay any taxes until they show us a fiscal reform worth its salt. Agreed?" Bellowed the Poujadistes: "Agreed!" Poujade's ideas for reform: no more penalties for evaders if caught, no more tax inspections to discover fraud, amnesty for all past tax evaders.

Mendes-France's government retorted with statistics showing that four out of five of France's 1,540,000 artisans and small businessmen (who are famed for keeping two sets of records, one to run their businesses by, the other to show the tax collector) declared an average net profit of only $89 a month in 1952, whereas even office employees received an average $104 a month. "A presumption of fraud weighs heavily on tradesmen and artisans," said the government. But in southern and southwestern France, unabashed Poujade vigilantes went right on chasing tax collectors down the roads, mobbing police and defying troops assigned to escort them. Even as Poujade boasted that his movement had swelled to 800,000 members and was spreading to other areas, a tax official admitted wanly: "South of the Loire, we are no longer masters of the situation."

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