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How did Voltaire support workers without civil rights in Geneva?
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Voltaire
Voltaire, plaster sculpture by Jean-Antoine Houdon; in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California.
Voltaire actively supported the workers in Geneva, known as natifs, who were denied civil rights and excluded from lucrative trades.21
To assist them, he took a direct role in Genevan politics on their behalf and established a stocking factory and watchworks on his estate at Ferney to provide them with employment and economic opportunity. His interventions in local politics and his efforts to improve the livelihoods of these disenfranchised residents earned him significant popularity among the people of the region.2