Antonin Poulin
Antonin Poulin | |
|---|---|
 Poulin in 1995 | |
| 11th President of Montesayette | |
| In office 23 September 1993 – 12 July 2007 | |
| Prime Minister | Rogier David |
| Preceded by | Sévérine Dufour |
| Succeeded by | Rogier David |
| Member of the Senate | |
| In office 11 December 1978 – 23 September 1993 | |
| Preceded by | Jean Rambin |
| Succeeded by | Emmanuelle Gagnepain |
| Constituency | Technology and Innovation |
| Personal details | |
| Born | November 28, 1936 Cité-Nouvelle, Nerfoy, Montesayette |
| Political party |
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| Spouse(s) | Lucienne Roy (m. 1958; died 2021) |
| Children | |
| Mother | Elvira Parmentier |
| Father | Charles Poulin |
| Relatives | Poulin family |
| Education | Nerfoy-Sud University (B.Sc.) |
| Occupation |
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Antonin Poulin (Quebecshirite: /ɑ̃tɔnɛ̃ pulɛ̃/; born 28 November 1936) is a Montesayettean politician, businessman, and electrical engineer who served as the 11th president of Montesayette and leader of the Social Democratic Party from 1993 to 2007. He was the first and only member of the upper house of the National Assembly of Montesayette to assume the presidency. Since leaving the office of president in 2007, Poulin has focused on writing, business, sports, and charity work and has occasionally commented on current affairs as an elder statesman.
Poulin's mild-mannered style and moderate political stance contrasted with that of Dufour. Poulin's first-term actions as president centered around the Darbonnay Wars, which included highly controversial scorched earth practices such as food rationing, slaughter of animals, and aerial spraying of the herbicide Agent Orange. During the conflicts, he also authorized forced relocation of 300,000 to 500,000 civilians into concentration camps called "new towns." By the end of the millennium, the intense fighting in Darbonnay had subsided, and the conflict had evolved into a low-level insurgency that would outlast his time in power. Apart from the conflicts, Poulin continued Dufour's economic policies of deregulation and tax and spending cuts in the face of ongoing economic stagflation. By the second half of his first term, Poulin accelerated financial market deregulation, putting an end to the stagflation.
During his second term, Poulin invited the Communist Party into his government, an unusual move even by today's standards, to replace the Muslim Democrats, who had left the governing coalition in protest of his handling of the conflicts in Darbonnay. He appointed Olivie Fabron and David Maîtrejean to the Constitutional Court, with Fabron later becoming the first female president of the court, and Alain Saint-Yves and Éric Trouvé to the Supreme Court. Despite his unpopularity, Poulin achieved a political victory over the General Confederation of Labour during the 2003–04 miners' strike, weakening the trade union movement in Montesayette for the first time since the Apricot Revolution. By the end of his second term, Poulin had overseen an economic boom caused by his market deregulations, which became known as the "dot-com boom."
