Modeste Legouez (1908–1989) was a French farmer in Normandy and senator for Eure from 1959 to 1989.
Legouez was born September 24, 1908 in Épreville-près-le-Neubourg. He was a reasonably large farmer who inherited his farm from his parents in 1930. He started in politics by becoming the first president of the Jeunesses Paysannes, popularly known as the "Greenshirts", the youth section of Henri Dorgères' Comités de défense paysanne in the 1930s. He came within 700 votes of defeating the future prime minister Pierre Mendes France in the 1936 French legislative election in what Mendes France regarded as his hardest electoral fight.
Legouez became the head of the Peasant Corporation for the Eure from 1942 to 1944 for which he was interned for a few months after the liberation of France.
As a senator Legouez was a member of the Groupe de l'Union des Républicains et des Indépendants.
Legouez was a knight of the Order of Agricultural Merit. He died on January 30, 1989.
References
- ^ Senate of France 2014.
- Ory 1975, pp. 183–184.
- Paxton 1997, p. 107.
- Ory 1975, p. 179.
- Charpon & Léonard 2015, para. 14.
- Charpon & Léonard 2015, para. 16.
Sources
- Charpon, Françoise; Léonard, Yves (2015), Pierre Mendès France, élu d’un département rural, Presses universitaires de Rennes, ISBN 978-2-7535-2339-5, retrieved 2024-11-19
- Ory, Pascal (1975), "Le dorgérisme, institution et discours d'une colère paysanne (1929-1939)", Revue d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine, 22 (2): 168–190, doi:10.3406/rhmc.1975.2416, retrieved 2024-11-13
- Paxton, Robert O. (1997-09-26), French Peasant Fascism : Henry Dorgeres' Greenshirts and the Crises of French Agriculture, 1929-1939, Oxford University Press, USA, ISBN 978-0-19-535474-4, retrieved 2024-11-13
- Senate of France (2014), Legouez Modeste, Ancien sénateur de l'Eure, Senate of France
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