Edmond Potonié-Pierre

Edmond Potonié (1829–1902), commonly known as Edmond Potonié-Pierre, was a French pacifist.[1]:31

Pacifist activism

During the 1850s, Potonié-Pierre was inspired by Richard Cobden's Anti-Corn Law League and aimed to do similar in France.[1]:31 He learnt German and Italian while travelling around Europe, and developed the liberal economics of his father to make it more socialistic and cooperative.[1]:31

During the 1860s, he associated with notable thinkers like John Stuart Mill, Franz Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch, Frédéric Passy, and Rudolf Virchow.[1]:31 After receiving financial support from Henry Richard, Potonié-Pierre founded the Ligue du Bien Public (Public Good League).[1]:31 The Ligue attacked monopolies and high levels of taxation while advocating individual freedom and organised world peace.[1]:31–2

Despite earlier support, Potonié-Pierre disagreed with Passy over his Ligue Internationale et Permanente de la Paix (International and Permanent League of Peace) due to Passy's legalistic approach towards peace and Potonié-Pierre's approach of social justice.[1]:34

In 1868, the papers detailing his international contacts were seized by the French police, and their status remains unknown.[1]:32

Family

Potonié-Pierre's father was an entrepreneur, a friend of the author Victor Hugo.[1]:31

Potonié-Pierre was the partner of Eugénie Potonié-Pierre (née Pierre), the French feminist.[2] They refused to marry, but lived together and took each other's names.[1]:228 They worked together to free exiled communards, bring women the vote, campaign against poverty, and cut military expenses.[1]:58

Selected works
  • La guerre à la guerre (in French). 1877.
  • Un Peu Plus Tard. 1893.[1]:4
  • Historique du mouvement pacifiste (in French). impr. de Steiger. 1899.
gollark: ***E V I L ***
gollark: People keep writing stuff in it and I don't know why.
gollark: Unfortunately, half the webby software I now run on my server is written in Go.
gollark: What's wrong with Erlang?
gollark: The same happened to me. I discovered that some languages are bad, but some others are horrifically bad.

References
  1. Cooper, Sandi E. (1991). Patriotic Pacifism: Waging War on War in Europe, 1815-1914. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199923380.
  2. McMillan, James; Mcmillan, Professor James F. (2002). France and Women, 1789-1914: Gender, Society and Politics. Routledge. ISBN 9781134589579. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.