Dumont, Rene

▪ 2002

      French agronomist (b. March 13, 1904, Cambrai, France—d. June 18, 2001, Fontenay-sous-Bois, France), unsuccessfully ran for president of France in 1974 on the nation's first environmental platform; although he garnered only 1.3% of the vote, his campaign triggered an ecological movement that resulted nine years later in the founding of the French Green Party. An outspoken professor at the French National Agronomy Institute (1933–74), the Paris Institute of Political Studies (1946–66), and the Institute for Economic and Social Development (1958–74), Dumont advocated traditional farming methods, international redistribution of wealth, and practical, small-scale aid to farming communities in less-developed countries.

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