Twixt the Cup and the Lip: Building the New Industrial Order, 1940–1941

Brunet, Luc-André

doi:10.1057/978-1-349-95198-7_3

Luc-André Brunet⁴

Part of the book series: Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World ((SCCCW))

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Abstract

This chapter considers the individuals chosen to run Vichy’s powerful Organisation Committees. These bodies were originally meant to be tripartite and to include worker representation, but in reality they were run exclusively by employers. The selection of industrialists to run the Committees marked a significant change, as dominant pre-war owner-presidents like François de Wendel were replaced by managerial technicians from the industry. The dissolution of pre-war employers’ associations and the creation of the Organisation Committees was thus a turning point in French industrial reorganisation with far-reaching consequences.

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Notes

1.
Journal officiel, 18 August 1940.
2.
‘Note sur l’organisation industrielle’, 30 August 1940, AS 40 20, ANMT.
3.
This is true of early ‘orthodox’ scholarship as well as ‘revisionist’ works from the 1970s. The best of the former include Robert Aron, Histoire de Vichy (Paris: Fayard, 1954) and Henry Michel, Année 1940 (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1966). For the latter, see Robert Paxton, Vichy France, Old Guard and New Order (New York: Barrie and Jenkins, 1972) and Alan Milward, The New Order and the French Economy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970).
4.
Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 2 November 1942 in ‘Décret de fondation du Corsid’, F 12 22340, AN.
5.
Philippe Pétain, ‘Discours du 10 octobre 1940‘, Discours aux Francais (Paris: Albin Michel, 1989), 92.
6.
See Jean-Noël Jeanneney, François de Wendel en République: l’argent et le pouvoir, 1914–1940 (Paris: Perrin, 2004).
7.
Journal officiel, 12 November 1940. The Organisation Committees for Coal and for Steel were created on the same day, but the law announcing their creation was published one day earlier.
8.
Richard Vinen, The Politics of French Business, 1936–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 104–105. Both the President, François de Wendel, and the Delegate General, Lambert Ribot, of the Comité des forges were excluded from CORSID upon its creation, while the President of the Comité central des houillères, Henri de Peyerimhoff, was absent from the Organisation Committee for Coal.
9.
Philippe Mioche, ‘Le comité d’organisation de la sidérurgie: un lieu d’affrontement entre modernisateurs de la sidérurgie et gardiens de la profession?’ in Hervé Joly (ed.), Les Comités d’organisation et l’économie dirigée du régime de Vichy (Caen: Centre de recherche d’histoire quantitative, 2004), 95–108, here 95.
10.
Annie Lacroix-Riz, ‘Les comités d’organisation et l’Allemagne: tentative d’évaluation’ in Joly, Les Comités d’organisation, 60.
11.
Gérard Noiriel, Les origines républicaines de Vichy (Paris: Hachette, 1999); Philip Nord, France’s New Deal (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010); Jackie Clarke, France in the Age of Organization: Factory, Home and Nation from the 1920s to Vichy (Oxford: Berghahn, 2011).
12.
The first Organisation Committee created was the Committee for Automobiles, on 9 September 1940, with François Lehideux as President. Lehideux later served as Minister for Industrial Production in 1941–1942.
13.
In practice, individual firms often had to deal with more than one Organisation Committee, especially as the number of Committees grew to over 300 by 1944.
14.
Journal officiel, 11 November 1940.
15.
Journal officiel, 12 November 1940. The CGPF, France’s principal employers’ confederation, was also dissolved on 9 November.
16.
The text, published on 15 November 1940 as ‘Manifeste du syndicalisme français’, was written by CGT members Robert Lacoste and Christian Pineau. Both later joined de Gaulle and went on to become government ministers after the war: Robert Lacoste held the portfolio for Industrial Production for most of the period between 1944 and 1950, later becoming Minister Resident of Algeria between 1956 and 1958; Christian Pineau was Minister for Public Works between 1947 and 1950 and then Minister for Foreign Affairs between 1956 and 1958, a tenure marked by the Suez Crisis and the Treaty of Rome.
17.
‘Bonne chance, René Belin’, Au travail (a workers’ weekly), 30 November 1940. A copy is kept in the Belin Archives, 98 J 7, IHS.
18.
‘Observations sur le Rapport Belin’, 1 December 1940, F 12 10157, AN. On corporatism under Vichy, including the tensions between ‘corporatist’ and ‘syndicalist’ conceptions, see Jean-Pierre Le Crom, Syndicats nous voilà! (Paris: Editions de l’Atelier, 1995).
19.
‘Observations sur le Rapport Belin’, 1 December 1940, F 12 10157, AN.
20.
‘Rapport sur la société secrète’, (undated) 1941, 98 J 10, IHS. Synarchy was a myth propagated under Vichy that alleged that a group of industrialists and bankers, many of whom held key posts in Vichy, had long plotted to seize power in France. The classic treatment of the question is by Richard Kuisel, ‘The Legend of the Vichy Synarchy’, French Historical Studies (6:3), 1970. The best study is Olivier Dard, La synarchie, le mythe du complot permanent (Paris: Perrin, 1998); a revisionist interpretation is provided by Annie Lacroix-Riz, Industriels et banquiers sous l’Occupation (Paris: Armand Colin, 1999) and, in relation to the Organisation Committees, ‘Les comités d’organisation et l’Allemagne’ in Hervé Joly (ed.), Les Comités d’organisation.
21.
‘Note sur la francmaçonnerie’, 15 December 1941, 98 J 10, IHS.
22.
Lettre de Jules Verger et Léonce Raynès à Pétain, 14 December 1940, 2 AG 611, AN.
23.
‘Observations sur le Rapport Belin’, 1 December 1940, F 12 10157, AN.
24.
Ibid.
25.
‘Etude sur les CO’, 10 September 1941; ‘Discours de Pétain’ 21 November 1941, F 37 20, AN. Pétain made similar calls during his speech on 12 August 1941, which is discussed in Chapter Three. See ‘Discours du 12 août 1941‘in Pétain, Discours aux Français, op.cit.
26.
An additional member, Pierre Francou, from a smaller steel firm, Marrel Frères, was ultimately added to CORSID in September 1941, although this firm would not be classified as an SME.
27.
René Belin, Du secrétariat de la CGT au gouvernement de Vichy (Paris: Albatros, 1978), 152.
28.
Ibid., 153.
29.
Ibid.
30.
De Wendel and Schneider were the two largest steel companies in France. In addition to his duties at the family firm, François de Wendel was a member of the Assemblée Nationale from 1914 until 1940 and hence exemplified the political power held by the Comité des forges. He abstained from the vote to grant full powers to Pétain in July 1940.
31.
Qtd. in Jean Noël Jeanneney, François de Wendel, 595.
32.
The Labour Charter is discussed in Chapter 4.
33.
Communiqué du ministre secrétaire d’Etat à la production et au travail, Le Temps, 6 October 1940.
34.
Yves Bouthillier, Le drame de Vichy (Paris: Plon, 1951), vol. 2, 275.
35.
Richard Kuisel, Capitalism and the State in Modern France (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
36.
Paul Baudouin, Minister, and François Charles-Roux, Secretary General, resigned in reaction to Montoire. See Baudouin, The Private Diaries of Paul Baudouin (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1948).
37.
Belin, Du secrétariat de la CGT au gouvernement de Vichy, 153.
38.
‘Jules Antoine Marie AUBRUN’ in Dossiers individuels d’ingénieurs des mines, F 14 20693, AN.
39.
Mauve Carbonell, Les Hommes à l’origine de l’Europe, (Aix-en-Provence: Publications de l’Université de Provence, 2008), 211–212.
40.
Belin, Du secrétariat de la CGT au gouvernement de Vichy, 127–128.
41.
‘Groupement du Centre et de l’Ouest. Séance du 29 Janvier 1941‘, 21 January 1941, 139 AQ 82, AN. Daum’s participation is also mentioned in Michèle Cointet, Le Conseil national de Vichy (Paris: Aux amateurs de livres, 1989), 194–195.
42.
Le Crom, Syndicats nous voilà!, 108. Le Crom also refers to Daum as ‘an industrialist known more for his dubious practices than for the economic success of his business’.
43.
Henry Rousso, ‘L’organisation industrielle de Vichy’ in Vichy. L’événement, la mémoire, l’histoire (Paris: Gallimard, 1992), 79–109, here 83.
44.
Ibid., 107. Aubrun had been Director General of Schneider, not President, and left the firm in 1929. As such, the link between Aubrun and Schneider which had been severed for more than a decade is insufficient for Aubrun to be seen as a representative of that firm in 1940.
45.
Aimé Lepercq studied at the Polytechnique and the Ecole des Mines before becoming Director of Prague-based holding company l’Union européenne industrielle et financière until 1929. During the war he joined the Resistance but remained President of the COH until August 1943. Lepercq was named Minister for Finance in de Gaulle’s first post-Liberation government in September 1944 but died in a car accident two months later.
46.
On his resignation from Renault in August 1940, see François Lehideux, De Renault à Pétain (Paris: Pygmalion, 2001), 220–231.
47.
Belin, Du secrétariat de la CGT au gouvernement de Vichy, 153.
48.
For a full list of member of the Comité des forges in 1939–1940, see Françoise Berger, ‘La France, l’Allemagne et l’acier (1932–1952). De la stratégie des cartels à l’élaboration de la CECA’, PhD thesis (Université de Paris I, 2000), 226.
49.
François Lehideux was only 36 when he was appointed President of the Organisation Committee for Automobiles. Pierre Ricard (President of the Committee for Foundry) was 41, while Antoine Pinay (President of the Committee for Leather) was 49.
50.
Jacques Barnaud, ‘L’industriel’, Nouveaux cahiers, no. 2, 1 April 1937, 12.
51.
Scholars, particularly sociologists, have since used the terms ‘patron familial’ or ‘patron propriétaire’ to describe the same phenomenon. See, for example, Pierre Bourdieu, La noblesse d’Etat (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1989) and Michel Bauer and Bénédicte Bertin-Mourot, Les 200: Comment devient-on un grand patron? (Paris: Seuil, 1987).
52.
For the rise of ‘technocracy’ in France, and the importance of the Vichy years in this process, see Gérard Brun, Techniciens et technocratie en France (Paris: Albatros, 1985), Delphine Dulong, Moderniser la politique. Aux origines de la Ve République (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997), and Olivier Dard, ‘Les technocrats: archéologie d’un concept, généalogie d’un groupe social’ in Olivier Dard, Jean-Claude Daumas and François Marcot (eds), L’Occupation, l’Etat français et les entreprises (Paris: Association pour le développement de l’histoire économique, 2000), 213–228.
53.
‘Bulletins de notes d’élèves-ingénieurs du corps des mines. Promotions entrées à l’Ecole de 1853 à 1960‘, annales.org/archives/images/n1, last accessed 5 September 2016.
54.
Olivier Dard, Le Rendez-vous manqué des relèves des années 1930 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2002); Clarke, France in the Age of Organization; on the Centre des jeunes patrons, see Florent Le Bot, ‘La naissance du Centre des jeunes patrons (1938–1944). Entre réaction et relève’ in Vingtième siècle 2012/2, numéro 114, 99–116. For contemporary examples from outside of France, see Adolf Berle and Gardiner Means, The Modern Corporation and Private Property (New York: Macmillan, 1932); Bruno Rizzi, La Bureaucratisation du monde (Paris: Presses modernes, 1939); James Burnham, The Managerial Revolution (New York: John Day, 1941).
55.
Peyerimhoff earned a degree in law from Sciences Po and became Vice-President and then President of the Comité central des houillères from 1925 until 1940. Atypically, he rose to this position without being a director of a particular firm, specialising instead in the management of the employers’ association, leading some to consider him a fonctionnaire patronal. See Alain Chatriot, ‘Henri de Peyerimhoff (1871–1953), le gentleman du charbon’ in Olivier Dard and Gilles Richard (eds), Les permanents patronaux: éléments pour l’histoire du patronat en France dans la première moitié du XXème siècle (Metz: Université Paul Verlaine de Metz, 2005), 45–73.
56.
See Hervé Joly, ‘Fondateurs, héritiers et managers’ in Jean-Claude Daumas (ed.), Dictionnaire historique des patrons français (Paris: Flammarion, 2010), 777–782.
57.
‘Déclaration No. 1 du Corsid’, 25 November 1940, 139 AQ 80, AN.
58.
‘Lettre du Préfet du Nord’, undated 1941, F 12 10134, AN and ‘Note à M le Préfet du Département du Nord sur la validité de la législation française nouvellement parue’, 17 July 1941, F 12 9974, AN.
59.
‘Note sur l’application des décisions des CO dans les département du Nord et Pas-de-Calais’, 4 March 1942, F 12 9974, AN.
60.
‘Déclaration No. 2 du Corsid’, 3 December, 139 AQ 80, AN.
61.
‘Déclaration No. 4 du Corsid’ and ‘Déclaration No. 10 du Corsid’, 139 AQ 80, AN.
62.
‘Déclaration No. 6 du Corsid’, 139 AQ 80, AN.
63.
‘Compte-rendu de la première plénière des répartiteurs’, 19 April 1941, F 12 10134, AN.
64.
‘Déclaration No. 15’, 5 February 1941, 139 AQ 80, AN. Curiously, Daum’s name appeared on the first published list, which was corrected a week later. See ‘Erratum’, 12 February 1941, 139 AQ 80, AN.
65.
Philippe Mioche suggests this explanation, and Vinen provides an account of his criticism of Vichy. See Mioche, ‘Le comité d’organisation de la sidérurgie’, and Vinen, The Politics of French Business, 1936–1945, 104.
66.
Mioche, ‘Le comité d’organisation de la sidérurgie’, 98–99. Marxist historian Annie Lacroix-Riz similarly dismisses the dissolution as a ‘pure façade’, as the Organisation Committees were dominated by employers. See Lacroix-Riz, ‘Les comités d’organisation et l’Allemagne’.
67.
Lacroix-Riz, ‘Les comités d’organisation et l’Allemagne’, 61.
68.
Comparing the membership of the Commission and that of the Comité des forges in 1939, Mioche calculates that only three new members were added, and five removed, from the Comité des forges to create the Commission générale. See Mioche, ‘Les comités d’organisation et l’Allemagne’.
69.
Qtd in Mioche, ‘Les comités d’organisation et l’Allemagne’. The original quotation comes from the Carnets François de Wendel (CFW), 31 October 1940.
70.
The minutes of CORSID’s meetings can be consulted in 139 AQ 82, AN.
71.
On the jeunes cyclistes, see Belin, Du secrétariat de la CGT au gouvernement de Vichy; Jacques Benoist-Méchin, A l’épreuve du temps: Souvenirs II, 1940–1947 (Paris: Perrin, 1989) and Gérard Brun, Technocrates et technocratie en France (Paris: Albatros, 1985).
72.
Indeed, many supporters of Vichy’s National Revolution, notably Maxime Weygand, were French patriots who were at least implicitly anti-German. See Jackson, France, The Dark Years and Debbie Lackerstein, National Regeneration in Vichy France: Ideas and Policies, 1930–1944 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012).
73.
These motivations have been called the ‘logique du gestionnaire’ or ‘managerial logic’ in Renaud de Rochebrune and Jean Claude Hazera, Les patrons sous l’Occupation (Paris: Odile Jacob, 1995). Annie Lacroix-Riz, in Les industriels et banquiers sous l’Occupation (Paris: Armand Colin, 1999), on the other hand, has argued that profits were the primary motivation for industrialists. For a similar consideration of the motivations of civil servants under Vichy, see Marc Olivier Baruch’s excellent Servir l’Etat français. L’administration en France de 1940 à 1944 (Paris: Fayard, 1997). For a discussion of workers under Vichy, see Xavier Vigna, Histoire des ouvriers en France au XXe siècle (Paris: Perrin, 2012) and Ludivine Broch, Ordinary Workers, Vichy and the Holocaust (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016).

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Luc-André Brunet

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Brunet, LA. (2017). Twixt the Cup and the Lip: Building the New Industrial Order, 1940–1941. In: Forging Europe: Industrial Organisation in France, 1940–1952. Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95198-7_3

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95198-7_3
Published: 03 June 2017
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