Jean Poperen

Jean Poperen (9 January 1925 in

Angers Angers (, , ) is a city in western France, about southwest of Paris. It is the prefecture of the Maine-et-Loire department and was the capital of the province of Anjou until the French Revolution. The inhabitants of both the city and the pr ...

– 23 August 1997) was a French politician. Poperen joined the

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...

(PCF) at 18, and was also a member of the Union of Communist Students. He left the PCF after the

Hungarian Revolution of 1956 The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 10 November 1956; hu, 1956-os forradalom), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was a countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the Hunga ...

and became a founding member of the Unified Socialist Party (PSU) in 1960. Disagreeing with the PSU's party line, he founded the

Union of Socialist Groups and Clubs The Union of Socialist Groups and Clubs (french: Union des groupes et clubs socialistes, UGCS) was a socialist club in France led by Jean Poperen after he was expelled from the Unified Socialist Party. The UGCS joined the Federation of the Democr ...

(UGCS). The UGCS participated in the

Federation of the Democratic and Socialist Left The Federation of the Democratic and Socialist Left (''Fédération de la gauche démocrate et socialiste'' or FGDS) was a conglomerate of French left-wing non-Communist forces. It was founded to support François Mitterrand's candidature at the ...

and joined the new

Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of t ...

at the party's second national congress. Poperen, a member of the party's left-wing, was the party's second-in-command from 1981 to 1987. Poperen also served in the

Michel Rocard Michel Rocard (; 23 August 1930 – 2 July 2016) was a French politician and a member of the Socialist Party (PS). He served as Prime Minister under François Mitterrand from 1988 to 1991 during which he created the ''Revenu minimum d'ins ...

government, and was PS deputy for the

Rhône The Rhône ( , ; wae, Rotten ; frp, Rôno ; oc, Ròse ) is a major river in France and Switzerland, rising in the Alps and flowing west and south through Lake Geneva and southeastern France before discharging into the Mediterranean Sea. At Ar ...

from 1973 to 1988. 1925 births 1997 deaths People from Angers Socialist Party (France) politicians {{France-politician-Socialist-stub