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In September 1945, Paul Antier founded the ppus (Farmer’s Social Union Party), which replaced Fleurant-Agricola’s pre-war Agrarian Party. Though not very well known, the ppus played a key role in a country where working farmers still accounted for a third of the workforce, by elaborating a new conception of agriculture which required small farmers turned landowners after the French Revolution to adapt to the demands of a quickly growing “modern” economy. The study of the French département of Cantal, the elctoral stronghold of Camille Laurens, one of the prominent leaders of the ppus and former deputy administrator of the Corporation paysanne (a 1940 Vichy institution), provides an opportunity to examine basic political and social issues in post-war France.