The people of Valdivien learned of the disappearance of Michel Populus on October 7, 2024, at the age of 90. He was the founder and director of the Populus furniture factory in Cubord, commune of Valdivienne.
The history of this company began in June 1959 with Michel Populus, born November 8, 1934 in Cubord. Then holding a CAP carpenter and cabinetmaker, the future business manager left his employer in Lussac-les-Châteaux to set up on his own. With the money from his last paycheck, he set up a wooden workshop in his parents’ courtyard, rue des Entrepreneurs in Cubord, where he was born.
After an initial production of “gas furniture”, a small piece of kitchen furniture on which a gas stove is placed, thousands of wooden trivets are produced in the Populus company. The activity developed and a first building of 130 m2 was built on rue de La Chapelle-Viviers, in Cubord. The workshop then employs five people.
287 employees worked
for society
In the following years, the Valdivien company prospered in the manufacture of so-called Fonteneau bookcases, named after a publisher from Poitou, a customer of the factory, but also in kitchen furniture, then in children’s bedrooms.
To meet ever-increasing demand, between 1963 and 1973, the surface area of production and storage buildings continued to increase to reach 4,585 m2. The Populus company then employed 54 people.
“In total, 287 employees worked for the company “, underlines Christine Populus Gourrier, the daughter of Michel Populus, who, from a very young age, joined the company until becoming its director in 1995. Unfortunately in 2000, the company lost the majority of its customers, due to competition from so-called developing countries. No longer able to align, the Populus company preferred to cease its activity on its own.
The funeral of Michel Populus took place in the strictest family privacy.
