Which revolutionary leader was known as 'the friend of the people'?

The revolutionary leader known as “the friend of the people” was Jean-Paul Marat.

The title came from L’Ami du peuple, or “The Friend of the People,” the radical newspaper Marat founded in September 1789. Through its articles, he attacked ministers, aristocrats, moderate revolutionaries, and institutions he believed threatened the Revolution. The paper gave him a powerful public voice among Paris’s working-class radicals and helped make him one of the Revolution’s most recognizable figures.

Marat supported direct popular action and frequently warned of conspiracies against the people. His uncompromising journalism made him admired by sans-culottes but hated by many political opponents, especially the Girondins. His influence grew after the fall of the monarchy and the radicalization of the Revolution.

Marat was assassinated in his bath on 13 July 1793 by Charlotte Corday, a Girondin sympathizer. Revolutionary supporters treated him as a martyr, while later historians have debated how directly his writings contributed to political violence, including the September Massacres. “The friend of the people” refers to his newspaper and public persona, not an official governmental title.