François Vidal

Independent activity Utopian socialism 1812–1872 ○ Natural causes

Socialist economist, secretary of the Luxembourg Commission, elected for Paris in the by-election of 1850

Born at Coutras in 1812, he studied law in Paris, where he took up the doctrines of Fourier and Saint-Simon, and became a lawyer in 1831. He wrote against liberal political economy and contributed to Considerant's La Démocratie pacifique and Pierre Leroux's La Revue indépendante, and in 1846 published De la répartition des richesses. In the revolution of 1848 Louis Blanc made him secretary of the Luxembourg Commission, whose report he wrote with Pecqueur. In January 1849 he founded the weekly Le Travail affranchi. In the by-election of March 1850 he was elected for the Seine with Carnot and Paul de Flotte and sat on the far left. After the coup he withdrew from politics.

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