Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, socialist and free-thinker (1809-1865)

A member of the realist, socialist and utopist groups of Franche-Comté side by side with Fourier or Buchon, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon is the inventor of the mutualist system, of the worker trade-union and of federalism. A socialist at heart, he had a tendency to declare himself an anarchist. He coined the expression « l'anarchie c'est l'ordre sans le pouvoir » (anarchy is order but without power) a defender of the notion of free credit, opposed to property rights, these different positions led him to spend 3 years in prison. The house of his birth is to be found in Rue du Petit Battant, Besançon.