Georges Butaud (6 June 1868 – 26 February 1926) was a Belgian-born French individualist anarchist and veganism activist. He advocated naturist anarchism and founded early vegan restaurants in Paris and Nice.
Biography
Butaud was born on 6 June 1868 in Marchienne-au-Pont, Belgium, to French parents. He founded a vegan colony with Sophie Zaïkowska in Bascon, near Château-Thierry.Lummel, Peter. (2016). Food and the City in Europe Since 1800. Routledge. p. 218. Butaud and Zaïkowska eliminated all dairy products and sugar from their diet and consumed only plant products.Baubérot, Arnaud. (2004). Histoire du naturisme: Le mythe du retour à la nature. Presses universitaires de Rennes. p. 211. He founded Le Végétalien, a vegan journal. The word végétalien was later termed vegan in English.McKay, Robert; Miller, John. (2017). Werewolves, Wolves and the Gothic. University of Wales Press. p. 181.
Butaud with help from Émile Armand founded the La Vie Anarchiste journal.Sonn, Richard David. (2010). Sex, Violence, and the Avant-Garde: Anarchism in Interwar France. Pennsylvania State University Press. p. 107. In the 1920s, he contributed to the journal Le Néo-Naturien, which advocated a return to nature philosophy.Beaudet, Céline. (2006). Les milieux libres: vivre en anarchiste à la Belle époque en France. Editions libertaires. p. 66.
Butaud wrote an article in 1922 defending Le végétalisme (veganism). In 1923, Butaud established a vegan restaurant Foyer Végétalien at Rue Mathis, Paris.Legendre, Tony. (2006). Expériences de vie communautaire anarchiste en France: le milieu libre de Vaux, Aisne, 1902-1907, et la colonie naturiste et végétalienne de Bascon, Aisne, 1911-1951. Editions libertaires. p. 52. He also established another restaurant at Nice, in 1924. One could sleep there and conferences were also hosted.
Butaud firmly opposed hunting and linked human cruelty to animals to the capitalist economic system that exploited the consumers of animal products.Crossley, Ceri. (2005). Consumable Metaphors: Attitudes towards Animals and Vegetarianism in Nineteenth-Century France. Peter Lang. pp. 276-277. He advocated a fruit and vegetable diet and believed that humans were meant to be herbivores that share their food sources; thus vegans were bound to be good communists.
Butaud died on 26 February 1926 in Ermont, France.
Selected publications
Les conséquences pratiques du végétalisme intégral sur l'évolution individuelle et sociale par (The practical consequences of integral veganism on individual and social evolution, 1922) L'Individualisme conduit au Robinsonisme: Le Végétalisme permet le communisme (1929)
See also
History of veganism Louis Rimbault
References