ACTION POPULAIRE. - A publishing enterprise founded in Reims (1903) by the Jesuit Enrico Leroy with the aim of publishing and disseminating short and inexpensive pamphlets, designed to make known, with the collaboration of experts, the thought and activity of Catholics, especially in the social sphere.
The initiative developed rapidly; and the series of *Opuscoli gialli*, first monthly and then quarterly, numbered thousands of issues after ten years (General Studies, Social Works, Family, Profession, Foreign Works). To these were added the *Guides sociaux* (1904), with bibliographical repertories, followed in 1911 by an annual publication that assumed an intentional importance: *Année sociale internationale* (published for only 4 years), and then pamphlets on religious action. The exigencies of the increasingly violent religious struggle facilitated a large editorial output: popular leaflets, printed in millions of copies, the *Revue de l’A. P.*, the *Almanach*, and the journal *Le Mouvement social* (1909), a transformation of the *Association catholique* (q.v.).
This extensive activity, reinforced by intense propaganda from the clergy and professionals, provoked a reaction from the masonic government (Caillaux-Malvy ministry), which carried out searches (1912) on the pretext that the A. P. was directed by the Jesuits. Sharp clashes followed among Catholics who described themselves as “integrists.” The war of 1914 destroyed the Reims headquarters and interrupted the activity of the A. P. Resumed in 1919, it unfolded through the Institute of Social Studies and Action and the journal *Dossiers de l’A. P.*, followed in 1929 by the *Cahiers d’Action populaire et religieuse*. After the Second World War, which necessarily restricted but did not suppress the activity of the A. P., the *Dossiers* were replaced by the *Travaux de l’A. P.*, the *Cahiers* were resumed, and there was a wider dissemination of topical pamphlets.