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Forging Europe: Industrial Organisation in France, 1940–1952 pp 177–212Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

From Organisation Committees to Monnet’s Modernisation Commissions

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Abstract

This chapter examines the decision to abolish the Organisation Committees and the creation of the Monnet Plan. The dissolution of the Committees, although initiated by a Communist minister, paradoxically ended up weakening trade unions and handing greater powers to employers’ associations. Meanwhile, Jean Monnet created new institutions, called Modernisation Commissions, which largely replicated the reformed Committees, and made them the keystones of the Monnet Plan. These new Commissions retained many of the functions as well as much of the staff and structure of the Committees. As such, this chapter reveals significant continuities from Vichy’s Organisation Committees to the institutions of the Monnet Plan.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For a discussion of the expulsion of Communist ministers from the Ramadier government, see Philippe Buton, ‘L’éviction des ministres communistes’ in Serge Berstein and Pierre Milza (eds), L’Année 1947 (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 2000), 339–372.

  2. 2.

    Charles de Gaulle, Mémoires de guerre. Le salut: 1944–1946 (Paris: Plon, 1959), 517 and 327. De Gaulle appointed himself as Minister for Defence, removing hitherto Minister for War André Diethelm from Cabinet for good.

  3. 3.

    The Ministry for Finance, however, remained firmly in the hands of the liberal René Pleven.

  4. 4.

    A trade unionist and member of the PCF since 1923, Marcel Paul was captured as a POW by the Nazis but managed to escape in 1940. An active member of the interior resistance, he organised a failed assassination attempt against Hermann Göring in August 1941, for which he was arrested and tortured by Vichy that November. He spent the remainder of the war in prisons and concentration camps, being transferred to Auschwitz in April 1944 and to Buchenwald the following month.

  5. 5.

    ‘Note. Objet: Dissolution du CO du sel’, 31 October 1945, F 12 10028, AN.

  6. 6.

    These are contained in the folder F 12 10028, AN.

  7. 7.

    The CNR Programme of March 1944 outlined broad policies to be pursued in post-war France and was endorsed by all major political parties. Among the central policies was the ‘return to the State’, a euphemism for nationalisation, of France’s strategic industries. The best study of this programme is Claire Andrieu’s Le programme commun de la Résistance. Des idées dans la guerre (Paris: Editions de l’Erudit, 1984). See also Isser Woloch, ‘Left, Right and Centre: the MRP and the Post-war Moment’, French History, 21:1, 2007, 85–106.

  8. 8.

    Richard Vinen has noted that the nationalisation of the coal mines was not punitive – as the nationalisation of Renault had been – and that ‘the preamble to the act of nationalization stressed economic strategy not business misbehaviour’. See Vinen, The Politics of French Business, 1936–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 198. The PCF criticised this first wave of nationalisations as ‘furthering the interests of capitalists’ private interests rather than those of the State’, and demanded that priority be given to ‘the confiscation of goods from the traitors who are numerous among the managers of trusts’. See ‘Note de MM Billoux et Tillon sur les projects de nationalisation soumis par M le Ministre de l’Economie nationale’, 3 March 1945, 3 AG 4 26, AN.

  9. 9.

    Claire Andrieu argues that while the first wave of capitalisations was ‘insurrectionary’, the second, ‘parliamentary’ wave of nationalisations overseen by Marcel Paul was in fact more anti-capitalist. See ‘Les nationalisations disparates’ in Claire Andrieu, Lucette Le Van and Antoine Prost (eds), Les nationalisations de la Libération (Paris: FNSP, 1987), 250–266.

  10. 10.

    Energie de France and Gaz de France. This project was proposed by Paul in the National Assembly on 27 March 1946 and was approved by parliamentary vote on 8 April.

  11. 11.

    ‘Loi relative à la nationalisation de l’industrie des combustibles minéraux’, 19 April 1946, Assemblée nationale.

  12. 12.

    ‘Procès-verbal, Assemblée générale du 12 juin 1946‘, CNPF, AS 72 835, ANMT.

  13. 13.

    See, for instance, ‘Projet d’organisation des groupements sidérurgiques, observations de la Chambre syndicale de la sidérurgie’, 29 December 1944, F 12 10062, AN.

  14. 14.

    ‘Procès-verbal de la première séance [de l’Assemblée Consultative Provisoire]’, 5 January 1944, C I 591, AN. Interestingly, Aubrun had worked for Schneider in the interwar period before pursuing a career with the Lazard Bank, although Marty does not seem to be referring to Aubrun in particular.

  15. 15.

    Ibid.

  16. 16.

    ‘La politique économique du gouvernement’, 21 July 1944, C I 591, AN. The SFIO was initially the most enthusiastic supporter of nationalisations, while the PCF was reluctant to endorse the policy since the overall economy would remain capitalist. By the time the PCF was given control over the ‘economic portfolios’, however, the party was firmly in favour of nationalising key industries.

  17. 17.

    See Chapter 4.

  18. 18.

    ‘Projet d’organisation des groupements sidérurgiques, observations de la chambre syndicale de la sidérurgie’, 29 December 1944, F 12 10062, AN.

  19. 19.

    ‘Organisation de la sidérurgie francaise’, 26 February 1945, F 12 10062, AN. Cf. Philippe Mioche, ‘Les entreprises sidérurgiques sous l’Occupation’ in Histoire, économie et société, 1992, 11:3, 397–414.

  20. 20.

    This motion was tabled by the PCF on 28 February 1945 but not voted on. The PCF would introduce similar motions to nationalise the steel industry well after the end of the ‘second wave’ of nationalisations, on 5 September 1946 and again on 12 December 1946, but neither motion was voted on. See Andrieu at al., Les nationalisations de la Libération, 262–265.

  21. 21.

    ‘Rapport sur la situation du CO de la sidérurgie fin 1944–debut 1945‘, 27 April 1945, F 12 10063.

  22. 22.

    ‘Rapport de la Commission de sidérurgie’, 6 September 1945, F 12 10027, AN.

  23. 23.

    Henri de Peyerimhoff, President of the Comité des houillères until its dissolution by Vichy in 1940, wrote to de Gaulle imploring him not to nationalise the coal industry. De Peyerimhoff held very little influence in post-war France, however, while Aubrun’s opposite number as President of the Organisation Committee for Coal, Aimé Lepercq, had died in 1944, depriving the coal industry of a possibly more effective defender. For de Peyerimhoff’s letter to de Gaulle, see ‘Un document sur le patronat. Une lettre de Henri de Peyerimhoff au général de Gaulle du 15 octobre 1944’ in Claire Andrieu et al., Les nationalisations de la Libération.

  24. 24.

    ‘Note sur les impressions préliminaires retirées des consultations que le Commissaire Général au Plan a été amené à avoir avec les représentants de l’administration et de la production’, 23 January 1946, AMF 1 6, FJME.

  25. 25.

    Andrieu et al., Les nationalisations de la Libération, 253.

  26. 26.

    ‘Note. Objet: Réembauchage des salariés licenciés à la suite de la grève du 30 novembre 1938’, 11 September 1946, F 12 10009, AN. The CGT-organised general strike on 30 November 1938 was to protest against the repeal of some of the Popular Front’s social legislation, notably the 40-hour work week, by Edouard Daladier’s government. Given that striking workers were technically in breach of their contracts, employers had the right to sack them, and many employers took the opportunity to dismiss ‘troublemakers’. For a discussion of the consequences of this strike, see Vinen, The Politics of French Business, 1936–1945, 68–87.

  27. 27.

    ‘Procès-verbal, Assemblée générale du 12 juin 1946’, CNPF, AS 72 835, ANMT.

  28. 28.

    See Jean-Pierre Rioux, La France de Quatrième République. L’ardeur et la nécessité 1944–1952 (Paris: Seuil, 1980), 110. For the PCF’s position on épuration, see Philippe Buton, Les lendemains qui déchantent. Le Parti communiste français à la Libération (Paris: FNSP, 1993),

  29. 29.

    See Buton, Les lendemains qui déchantent. Le Parti communiste français à la Libération, and Stéphane Courtois and Marc Lazar, Histoire du Parti communiste français (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1995).

  30. 30.

    ‘A Anger avec André Marty’, 27 March 1945 and ‘Il faut un meilleur ravitaillement et des salaires sufisants pour obtenir un renforcement de la capacité de production’, 28 March 1945, L’Humanité.

  31. 31.

    ‘Séance du mardi 23 avril 1946‘, 23 April 1946, C I 594, AN. Jean Palewski’s younger brother, Gaston, was de Gaulle’s chef de cabinet under the GPRF and both brothers participated in the creation of de Gaulle’s Rassemblement du Peuple Français (RPF) in 1947.

  32. 32.

    Ibid. This can be contrasted with Paul Giacobbi’s statement in the Provisional Consultative Assembly in July 1944 that there was ‘absolute agreement on the foundations of the economic doctrine of the Government and of the Nation’, which included the maintenance of the Organisation Committees. See ‘La politique économique du gouvernement’, 21 July 1944, C I 591, AN.

  33. 33.

    ‘Séance du mardi 23 avril 1946’, 23 April 1946, C I 594, AN. It is worth noting that the law referred first and foremost to ‘Organisation Committees’, even though these had formally been renamed ‘Professional Offices’ over a year earlier, in February 1945. This reflects the fact that the new label had never caught on, while it also associates the bodies more closely with Vichy.

  34. 34.

    ‘Rappel au règlement’ in ‘Séance du mardi 23 avril 1946’, 23 April 1946, C I 594, AN.

  35. 35.

    Those who were absent from the National Assembly that day were MM Solinhac, Deyron, Rencurel, Soustelle, Emmanuel d’Astier, and Barthélémy Ott. ‘Séance du mardi 23 avril 1946’, 23 April 1946, C I 594, AN. Robert Lacoste won a seat in the October 1945 elections but was not made a member of the Cabinet.

  36. 36.

    Ibid.

  37. 37.

    Andrew Shennan has observed that candidates from all three governing parties had campaigned against the Organisation Committees ahead of the October 1945 elections, demanding their dissolution. See Shennan, Rethinking France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 274.

  38. 38.

    ‘Assemblée générale du 12 juin 1946’, 12 June 1946, CNPF, AS 72 835, ANMT.

  39. 39.

    Ibid. At this meeting of the CNPF in June 1946, Blum was roundly criticised as well, despite his recent success in negotiating the Blum–Byrnes Accords the previous month.

  40. 40.

    ‘Séance du mardi 23 avril 1946’, 23 April 1946, C I 594, AN.

  41. 41.

    ‘Exposé de M. Ricard, Président de la Commission économique du CNPF’, 12 June 1946, AS 72 835, ANMT.

  42. 42.

    Ibid.

  43. 43.

    See, for example, Matthias Kipping, La France et les origines de l’Union européenne. Intégration économique et compétitivité internationale (Paris: CHEF, 2002) and Philippe Mioche, ‘Les comités 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 de Vichy (Caen: CRHQ, 2004), 95–108.

  44. 44.

    ‘A Japy, Maurice Thorez fait acclamer les mots d’ordre «S’unir, combattre et travailler»’, 2 February 1945, L’Humanité.

  45. 45.

    ‘Procès-verbal de la séance des Comités directeurs de la SFIO’, 3 December 1946, quoted in Michel Margairaz, L’Etat, les finances et l’économie: Histoire d’une conversion, 1932–1952 (Paris: CHEFF, 1991), 827. In January 1947, Philip asserted that ‘the [principal] mistake of the Gouin government was abolishing the Organisation Committees’. Qtd in Margairaz, ‘La reconstruction matérielle: crise, infléchissement ou ajustement?’ in Serge Berstein and Pierre Milza (eds), L’Année 1947 (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 2000), 24.

  46. 46.

    While André Philip and Jean Monnet both advocated economic planning, they disagreed over the degree of State intervention needed. Philip pressed for a more Statist version, directed by his Ministry for the National Economy, while Monnet proposed a more liberal system in which markets played a greater role. See Philippe Mioche, Le Plan Monnet: Genèse et élaboration 1941–1947 (Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne, 1987).

  47. 47.

    See Richard Kuisel, ‘Vichy et les origines de la planification économique, 1940–1946’, in Mouvement social, 98, January–March 1977, 77–101. A less detailed discussion is also included in his monograph, Capitalism and the State in Modern France (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 256–270.

  48. 48.

    Adrian Jones, ‘Illusions of Sovereignty: Business and Organization of Committees of Vichy France’, Social History, January 1986, 1–31.

  49. 49.

    Mioche, Le Plan Monnet. Although this monograph covers the years between 1941 and 1947, fewer than 20 pages are devoted to the Vichy period. See also Margairaz, L’Etat, les finances et l’économie.

  50. 50.

    Unsurprisingly, this is the view promoted by Monnet in his Mémoires (Paris: Fayard, 1976). See also William Hitchcock, France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Europe, 1944–1954 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 23–24 and Philip Nord, France’s New Deal (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010).

  51. 51.

    See, for example, Mioche, ‘Un tournant dans l’histoire technique de la sidérurgie: la creation de l’Irsid. Compétition et collaboration entre l’Etat et l’industrie’ in Histoire, économie et société, 1989 (8:1), 119–140.

  52. 52.

    This oversight is highlighted in Kuisel, ‘Vichy et les origines de la planification économique’, 87, and is apparent in the ‘Plan d’équipement national, tranche de démarrage’, November 1944, 80 AJ 11, AN. A copy can also be consulted in F 60 659, AN.

  53. 53.

    ‘Plan d’équipement national, tranche de démarrage’, November 1944, 80 AJ 11, AN.

  54. 54.

    The existing works which do compare the Organisation Committees and the Modernisation Commissions are discussed below.

  55. 55.

    The best detailed study of the Monnet Plan remains Mioche, Le Plan Monnet. For a discussion of the Monnet Plan in the broader context of the French economy in this period, see Frances Lynch, France and the International Economy: From Vichy to the Treaty of Rome (London: Routledge, 1997). Lynch argues that the first version of the Monnet Plan was drawn up to show the United States that greater American loans were needed. See Lynch, France and the International Economy, 40, and Gérard Bossuat, L’Europe occidentale à l’heure américaine, 1944–1952 (Brussels: Complexe, 1992).

  56. 56.

    ‘Mémorandum sur le Plan de Modernisation et d’Equipement’, 13 December 1945, 80 AJ 1.

  57. 57.

    On the role of the Monnet Plan in France’s international relations, see Irwin Wall, The United States and the Making of Postwar France, 1945–1954 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) and Hitchcock, France Restored.

  58. 58.

    ‘Mémorandum sur le Plan de Modernisation et d’Equipement’, 13 December 1945, 80 AJ 1.

  59. 59.

    Ibid.

  60. 60.

    Under the Provisional Government of the French Republic (1944–1946), de Gaulle was both Head of State and Head of Government, functions that would be divided under the Constitution of the Fourth Republic (approved in October 1946) between the President and the Prime Minister (officially known as the President of the Council). Under the Fourth Republic, the CGP was responsible to the latter. For a discussion of the Monnet Plan being situated under the Prime Minister rather than the Ministry for the National Economy, see Frances Lynch, ‘Resolving the Paradox of the Monnet Plan: National and International Planning in French Reconstruction’, Economic History Review 37:2, May 1984, 229–243.

  61. 61.

    Robert Marjolin, an economist, worked closely with Monnet in Washington during the Second World War on securing supplies for France following the Liberation. Monnet chose him as his deputy at the CGP, and Marjolin ultimately became Vice-President of the European Commission under Walter Hallstein.

  62. 62.

    After beginning his career in the chemical industry, Etienne Hirsch joined de Gaulle in London and worked closely with Monnet in Algiers from 1943. He succeeded Monnet as Commissioner for the Plan in 1952 and later became President of Euratom in 1959.

  63. 63.

    ‘Note pour MM. Marjolin-Hirsch. Agenda des choses à faire avant le Conseil du Plan’, 13 January 1946, AMF 1 0, FJME.

  64. 64.

    In their respective memoirs, Marjolin and Hirsch use almost identical phrasing when stating that ‘on 3 January 1946, the [Commissariat for the] Plan was created by decree’ (the text in square brackets is in Hirsch’s version only), and neither makes any reference to the activity that went on between that date and the first meeting of the Council on 21 January. Hirsch does, however, note that ‘the proposals we submitted to General de Gaulle became, without the slightest modification, the instructions given’ to the members of the CGP, which suggests that whatever Monnet gave to de Gaulle to sign before his resignation was approved without amendment. See Robert Marjolin, Le travail d’une vie (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1986), 163 and Etienne Hirsch, Ainsi va la vie (Lausanne: Fondation Jean Monnet pour l’Europe, 1988), 89.

  65. 65.

    De Gaulle, Mémoires de guerre. Le salut, 1944–1946, 334. ‘Leaving the Palais Bourbon [the National Assembly] the evening of 1 January [1946], I had already made up my mind to resign. All that remained to do was to choose the date.’

  66. 66.

    In de Gaulle’s papers at the Archives nationales, the folder pertaining to his resignation contains no documents concerning the decrees he signed on 19 January. A surprising number of the documents deal with de Gaulle’s efforts to exchange his presidential Cadillac for four French-made cars, which had to be authorised by Marcel Paul. Lettre du colonel Allegret à Monsieur le Ministre de la Production industrielle, 25 February 1946, 3 AG 4 97, AN.

  67. 67.

    ‘Note pour MM. Marjolin-Hirsch. Agenda des choses à faire avant le Conseil du Plan’, 13 January 1946, AMF 1 0, FJME.

  68. 68.

    See Chapter 5.

  69. 69.

    As with the removal of Diethelm in 1944, de Gaulle’s decision was informed by political rather than economic factors. In his correspondence with de Gaulle, Monnet presented his Plan as a means of restoring France’s power and influence as a great nation.

  70. 70.

    Jean Monnet, Mémoires (Paris: Fayard, 1976), 346.

  71. 71.

    The backing of Billoux, the Communist Minister for the National Economy, was especially important, since France’s economic planning was originally intended to be done by his ministry rather than by the CGP. He also expressed his support for the tripartite structure of the proposed Modernisation Commissions. ‘Compte-rendu de la séance du vendredi 14 décembre 1945. Organisation du Commissariat au Plan’, Comité Economique Interministériel, 14 December 1945, F 60 901, AN.

  72. 72.

    Lettre de Marcel Paul à Charles de Gaulle, 26 December 1945, 3 AG 4 55, AN.

  73. 73.

    Note de Blum-Picard à Marcel Paul, 18 January 1946, F 12 10028, AN.

  74. 74.

    One of the 80 deputies of the Third Republic who did not vote in favour of giving full powers to Pétain, Félix Gouin was an active participant in the Resistance, co-founding the Comité d’Action Socialiste (CAS) in 1941 and later being elected President of the Provisional Consultative Assembly in Algiers in 1943. He remained a deputy in the National Assembly until 1958.

  75. 75.

    ‘Lettre de Monnet au Président’, dated 7 February 1946 but not sent, AMF 1 3, FJME.

  76. 76.

    Ibid.

  77. 77.

    Monnet used similar tactics when developing the Schuman Plan and during the negotiations for the Treaty of Paris creating the ECSC, which are discussed in Chapter 8.

  78. 78.

    ‘Arrêté du 9 mars 1946’, 9 March 1946, 80 AJ 1, AN.

  79. 79.

    The first five Commissions, all approved by de Gaulle on 19 January 1946, were for coal, electricity, construction materials, animal farming, and agriculture.

  80. 80.

    ‘Présentation des programmes de base’, 9 September 1946, AMF 5 9, FJME.

  81. 81.

    Despite the vaunted tripartite composition of the Modernisation Commissions, it is worth noting that labour received only one-fifth of the seats in the Commission. Following the expulsion of the PCF from government in May 1947, the CGT refused to take part in the activities of the Commissions, which weakened the voice of labour even further.

  82. 82.

    Curiously in his memoirs Jean Monnet remembers having appointed ‘Etienne Roy’ to the post. While this might have been an attempt to distance the Monnet Plan from the Vichy figure, it was more likely an oversight on Monnet’s part. See Monnet’s Mémoires, 357. Industrialist Roger Martin similarly misidentifies CMSID’s president in his memoirs, this time as ‘Jules Roy’, seemingly confusing Roy and Jules Aubrun. See Martin, Patron du droit divin (Paris: Gallimard, 1984), 37.

  83. 83.

    ‘Dossier de presse’, March 1947, 80 AJ 2, AN.

  84. 84.

    ‘Rapport de la commission de modernisation de la sidérurgie’, February 1947, 80 AJ 11, AN.

  85. 85.

    As we have seen earlier in this chapter, the dissolution of OPSID, completed in autumn 1946, transferred that body’s powers of sub-allocation back to Aubrun at the CSSF. Although Aubrun and Roy had worked together closely in CORSID, they nevertheless clashed over a number of issues pertaining to the modernisation of the industry in the late 1940s; see Chapter 8.

  86. 86.

    See Chapter 3.

  87. 87.

    ‘Programme d’organisation de la sidérurgie française’, undated but from between September 1944 and February 1945, F 12 10062, AN.

  88. 88.

    ‘Note. Objet: Le Centre national de la recherche scientifique française’, 16 December 1944, F 12 9974, AN.

  89. 89.

    ‘Instructions envoyées par M. le Président du Gouvernement Provisoire de la République à M. le Commissaire Général du Plan, après décision du Conseil des Ministres’, 10 January 1946, 80 AJ 1, AN. Although this document was issued by the President, de Gaulle, the text is virtually identical to that of the memorandum written by Monnet and submitted to de Gaulle in December 1946. We may therefore attribute the statement to Monnet.

  90. 90.

    Monnet’s strategy was consequently to use funds, such as those provided by the Marshall Plan, on investing in modern wide-strip steel mills like those set with USINOR and SOLLAC, rather than on short-term spending on food and reconstruction of pre-war buildings. See Mioche, Le Plan Monnet.

  91. 91.

    ‘Rapport de la commission de modernisation de la sidérurgie’, February 1947, 80 AJ 11, AN.

  92. 92.

    ‘Résolution adoptée le 19 mars par le Conseil du Plan pour la Sidérurgie’, 19 March 1946, 80 AJ 1, AN.

  93. 93.

    Ibid.

  94. 94.

    ‘Projet de résolution soumis au Conseil du Plan. Objectifs généraux pour l’activité française’, 13 March 1946, AMF 2 3, FJME.

  95. 95.

    ‘Résolution adoptée le 19 mars par le Conseil du Plan pour la Sidérurgie’, 19 March 1946, 80 AJ 1, AN.

  96. 96.

    Ibid.

  97. 97.

    ‘Rapport de la Commission de Modernisation de la Sidérurgie’, November 1946, 80 AJ 11, AN.

  98. 98.

    Ibid.

  99. 99.

    See Alan Milward, The Reconstruction of Western Europe 1945–1951 (London: Routledge, 1984) and Matthias Kipping, La France et les origines de l’Union européenne.

  100. 100.

    ‘Simplification de la réglementation économique’, 24 January 1946, AMF 1 6, FJME.

  101. 101.

    Kenneth Mouré explains the administration’s need to maintain price controls and the unpopularity of this decision in ‘Economic Choice in Dark Times: The Vichy Economy’, French Politics, Culture & Society (25:1), Spring 2007.

  102. 102.

    ‘Simplification de la réglementation économique’, 24 January 1946, AMF 1 6, FJME.

  103. 103.

    See Shennan, Rethinking France, 274.

  104. 104.

    ‘Note de Jean Monnet sur le premier rapport de remise en marche de l’économie française en 1945, sur les objectifs pour 1946 et sur le but final à atteindre’, 11 November 1945, AMF 1 6, FJME.

  105. 105.

    Lettre de Marcel Paul à Charles de Gaulle, 26 December 1945, 3 AG 4 55, AN.

  106. 106.

    ‘Note pour M. le Secrétaire Général à la Production’, undated note, but certainly between March and October 1945, F 12 10063, AN.

  107. 107.

    Indeed, General Giraud’s decision, supported by Monnet, to abolish the Organisation Committees in North Africa in 1943 proved disastrous, since no equivalent bodies had been set up to take their place. See Chapter 5.

  108. 108.

    ‘Compte-rendu de la séance du vendredi 14 décembre 1945. Organisation du Commissariat au Plan’, Comité Economique Interministériel, 14 December 1945, F 60 901, AN.

  109. 109.

    Untitled document by Monnet beginning with ‘Les raisons pour lesquelles je considère qu’il n’est pas possible de rattacher le Plan à l’Economie nationale sont les suivants’, 12 February 1946, AMF 1 3, FJME.

  110. 110.

    ‘Note sur l’élaboration et l’exécution du Plan, ainsi que sur les questions qui doivent y concourir’, 23 April 1946, AMF 5 2, FJME.

  111. 111.

    Interestingly, Monnet’s preferred shape of the CGP was once again ensured by presidential decree hours before the president’s resignation. Then President Léon Blum decreed the permanent institutionalisation of the CGP on 16 January 1947 before resigning later that same day. The Minister for the National Economy during this period, André Philip, criticised the abolition of the Organisation Committees as a mistake and opposed Monnet’s attempts to establish the CGP as a permanent body beyond the control of Philip’s ministry.

  112. 112.

    Monnet, Mémoires, 347.

  113. 113.

    Ibid., 342.

  114. 114.

    Ibid.

  115. 115.

    Hirsch, Ainsi va la vie, 89.

  116. 116.

    Monnet’s tendency to exaggerate how innovative his method was has been noted by Andrew Shennan, although he does not address continuities between the Organisation Committees and the Modernisation Commissions. See Shennan, Rethinking France, 247–249.

  117. 117.

    Richard Kuisel, Capitalism and the State in Modern France (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 227. This explanation is reiterated in Sherrill Brown Wells, Jean Monnet: Unconventional Statesman (London: Lynne Rienner, 2011). François Fourquet reaches a similar conclusion based on his interview with Jean Ripert, another collaborator of Monnet. See Fourquet, Les Comptes de la puissance (Paris: Recherches, 1980), 56–57.

  118. 118.

    Elsewhere in the same study, Kuisel describes a proposal advanced by Hirsch in 1942 to reorganise French industry, which was so similar to Vichy’s Organisation Committees that André Philip rejected it as overly Vichyste. Kuisel himself labels Hirsch’s wartime plans as ‘technocorporatist’. See Kuisel, Capitalism and the State in Modern France, 279–280.

  119. 119.

    ‘La comparaison a priori peut paraître abusive.’ Henry Rousso, ‘Les Elites économiques dans les années 1940: Epuration et transition’, in Vichy: L’événement, la mémoire, l’histoire (Paris: Gallimard, 1992), 573.

  120. 120.

    Ibid., 574.

  121. 121.

    Philip Nord, France’s New Deal (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 156–157. Claude Gruson has suggested that Monnet’s gathering civil servants and employers within the Modernisation Commissions was ‘facilitated’ by the previous existence of the Organisation Committees, but he makes no mention of labour representation, nor does he explore any possible links between the two sets of institutions. See Gruson, Les Origines de la planification française (Paris: Dunod, 1968).

  122. 122.

    See Chapter 6 for a study of the reforms to the Organisation Committees under the Provisional Government.

  123. 123.

    Kuisel, Capitalism and the State in Modern France, 227.

  124. 124.

    Rousso, Les Elites économiques dans les années 1940: Epuration et transition’, 575.

  125. 125.

    ‘Rapport de la Commission de Modernisation de la Sidérurgie’, February 1947, AJ 80 11, AN.

  126. 126.

    Despite this initial invitation, differences soon emerged between the CSSF and CMSID; these are discussed in Chapter 8.

  127. 127.

    Nord, op.cit., 157. Boutteville was indeed the most glaring example of continuity from Committees to Commissions, as he was the only individual to serve as President of both institutions in a given industry.

  128. 128.

    Kuisel, Capitalism and the State in Modern France, 227.

  129. 129.

    The quotation from de Gaulle, perhaps apocryphal, is ‘I did not see many of you in London, gentlemen’. Qtd in Julian Jackson, De Gaulle (London: Haus, 2003), 24. The best study of French employers during the war is Renaud de Rochebrune and Jean Claude Hazera, Les patrons sous l’Occupation (Paris: Odile Jacob, 1995); for a revisionist interpretation, see François Marcot in ‘Qu’est-ce qu’un patron résistant?’ in Olivier Dard et al., L’Occupation, l’Etat français et les entreprises (Paris: ADHE, 2000), 277–292.

  130. 130.

    ‘Note sur la première étape de la reconstruction en France’, 22 September 1943, AME 33 1, FJME. In this note, Monnet was focused on which employers should be maintained within the post-war Organisation Committees, which he contended should be maintained.

  131. 131.

    ‘Lettre de Piette au Président de la Chambre de métiers de l’Ain’, 18 October 1945, F 12 10031, AN.

  132. 132.

    ‘Note pour MM. Marjolin-Hirsch. Agenda des choses à faire avant le Conseil du Plan’, 13 January 1946, AMF 1 0, FJME.

  133. 133.

    ‘Objectifs pour le 30 juin’, document dated 22 December 1946, but clearly from before 30 June 1946, AMM 2 1, FJME.

  134. 134.

    ‘Note du 7 décembre’, dated 8 December 1946, AMM 2 1, FJME. The term used by Monnet, ‘brochure populaire’, connotes that it was intended for the classes populaires, or the working class. Monnet specifies that the Plan should be promoted at both universities and elementary schools.

  135. 135.

    ‘Discours prononcé par M. Félix Gouin, Président du Gouvernement provisoire de la République française, le 16 mars, à l’occasion de la première séance du Conseil du Plan’, 16 March 1946, AMF 2 4, FJME.

  136. 136.

    While Monnet successfully mobilised public opinion in favour of the Monnet Plan and, later, for the Schuman Plan, his failure to do so for the Pleven Plan to create the European Defence Community was a decisive factor in the latter’s failure. See Edward Fursdon, The European Defence Community (London: Macmillan, 1980) and Michel Dumoulin (ed.), La Communauté européenne de défense, leçons pour demain? (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2000).

  137. 137.

    ‘Note pour M. le Secrétaire Général à la Production’, undated document, but certainly between March and October 1945, F 12 10063, AN.

  138. 138.

    Ibid.

  139. 139.

    Shennan, Rethinking France, 274.

  140. 140.

    The CNPF would later unanimously endorse the creation of the CGP and the Monnet Plan. See ‘Assemblée générale du 21 juin 1947’, CNPF, 21 June 1947, AS 72 836, ANMT.

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    Luc-André Brunet

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Brunet, LA. (2017). From Organisation Committees to Monnet’s Modernisation Commissions. 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_7

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