Modeste Legouez

Modeste Legouez
Sénateur
In office
1959–1989
Preceded byJean Brajeux
Succeeded byJean Guénier
Parliamentary groupIndependent Republicans Group
ConstituencyEure
Mayor
In office
1971–1983
PresidentValéry Giscard d'Estaing
ConstituencyÉpreville-près-le-Neubourg
Personal details
Born(1908-09-24)24 September 1908
Died30 January 1989(1989-01-30) (aged 80)
Épreville-près-le-Neubourg, Eure, French Fifth Republic

Modeste Legouez (1908–1989) was a French farmer in Normandy and senator for Eure from 1959 to 1989.

Biography

Legouez was born on 24 September 1908 in Épreville-près-le-Neubourg, Normandy. He was a farmer of a reasonably large farm who inherited his land from his parents in 1930.[1] He started in politics by becoming the first president of the Jeunesses Paysannes, popularly known as the "Greenshirts", the youth section of Henri Dorgères' far-right Comités de défense paysanne in the 1930s.[2] He came within 700 votes[3] of defeating the future prime minister Pierre Mendès France in the 1936 French legislative election[4] in what Mendès France regarded as his hardest electoral fight.[5]

Legouez became the head of the Peasant Corporation for the Eure[6] from 1942 to 1944 for which he was interned for a few months after the liberation of France.[1]

As a senator, Legouez was a member of the Independent Republicans Group.[1]

Legouez was a knight of the Order of Agricultural Merit. He died on 30 January 1989.

References

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