The Union for the Defense of Tradesmen and Artisans was founded in 1953 by Pierre Poujade as a tax protest organisation in the Lot Department in Occitania.

[5] In the 1956 legislative election the party took 12.62% of the vote, winning 52 seats in the National Assembly, primarily from rural areas.

[1] One of its deputies was a young Jean-Marie Le Pen, elected for the Seine Department's 3rd electoral district.

It exhibited some antisemitic tendencies; its leader said that "[Prime Minister Pierre Mendès France, who was Jewish] is French only as the word added to his name".

After Charles de Gaulle re-entered the political fray in 1958, the movement largely faded from view, failing to hold its position in the 1958 legislative election.