born Jan. 15, 1809, Besançon, France
died Jan. 19, 1865, Paris
French journalist and socialist.
After working as a printer, he moved to Paris in 1838 and joined the socialist movement. His What Is Property? (1840) created a sensation with such phrases as "property is theft." While working in Lyon (1843–48), he encountered the Mutualists, a weavers' anarchist society whose name he later adopted for his form of anarchism . His System of Economic Contradictions (1846) was attacked by First International .