Pieds plats

The Pieds plats (English: Flat feet) were an individualist and illegalist anarchist group founded in the 1880s in Paris. Bringing together workers from the Île-de-France region in the carpentry trade, some of its members participated in the Era of Attacks (1892–1894), such as Théodule Meunier, Jean-Pierre François, and Fernand Bricout, who carried out the Véry bombing or the Lobau bombing in the first half of 1892. Through their extensive use of propaganda by the deed during this period, they positioned themselves as counter-powers to the authority of prominent anarchist figures like Charles Malato, Errico Malatesta, or Peter Kropotkin, whom the Pieds plats and broader individualist anarchists openly opposed.

The group also gained influence through its combination of direct action, illegalism, and propaganda by the deed. Its members are thus credited with pioneering and theorizing 'déménagements à la cloche de bois' (‘silent move-outs’)—the practice of leaving a residence without notifying the landlord or paying rent. This became one of the ideological foundations for the later practice of squatting.