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L’Unité de l’Europe est à ce prix: The Struggle Between CORSID’s Successors and the Creation of the ECSC

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Forging Europe: Industrial Organisation in France, 1940–1952

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Abstract

This chapter examines the disagreements between the successors of Vichy’s Organisation Committee for Steel (CORSID): the employers’ association for steel (CSSF) and the Modernisation Commission for Steel, which was part of the Monnet Plan. While they managed to find common ground concerning the modernisation of the French steel industry under the Monnet Plan, the Schuman Plan to pool French and German coal and steel provoked a protracted clash. Jean Monnet and his collaborators succeeded in overcoming the resistance of steel industrialists by resorting to unscrupulous methods. This chapter also reveals that nearly all French industrialists associated with the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) had deep ties to the Vichy regime.

‘This is the cost of European unity’. Lettre de Robert Schuman à Jules Aubrun, 19 June 1951, 81 AJ 135, AN.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Chapter 7.

  2. 2.

    Indicatively, John Gillingham, Coal, Steel and the Rebirth of Europe, 1945–1955 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Matthias Kipping, La France et les origines de l’Union européenne. Intégration économique et compétitivité internationale (Paris: CHEF, 2002); Françoise Berger, La France, l’Allemagne et l’acier (1932–1952). De la stratégie des cartels à l’élaboration de la CECA. PhD thesis. (Paris: Université de Paris I, 2000). For a longue durée study of the conflicting protectionist and free market impulses in Western Europe over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, see Eric Bussière, Michel Dumoulin, Sylvain Schirmann (eds), Europe organisée, Europe du libre-échange? Fin XIXe siècle – Années 1960 (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2006).

  3. 3.

    The first quotation is from Roger Martin, Deputy Rapporteur for the Commission for Steel, while the second is from Commission member Henri Malcor. Both are quoted in Kipping, La France et les origines de l’Union européenne, 41, as well as in Philippe Mioche, ‘Les plans et la sidérurgie: du soutien mitigé à l’effacement possible (1946–1960)’ in Henry Rousso (ed.), De Monnet à Massé. Enjeux politiques et objectifs économiques dans le cadre des quatre premiers Plan (1946–1965) (Paris: CNRS, 1986), 127–138, 131 and 132.

  4. 4.

    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 du régime de Vichy (Caen: Centre de recherche d’histoire quantitative, 2004). See also Pierre Gerbet, La construction de l’Europe (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1983), 129.

  5. 5.

    Gerbet, La construction de l’Europe, 129. A similar claim is made by Jean Baumier regarding the supposed political influence of the maîtres de forges; see Baumier, La fin des maîtres de forges (Paris: Plon, 1981). The lack of political influence of CORSID and the CSSF is discussed in the earlier chapters of this book.

  6. 6.

    The term ‘patronat du droit divin’ was used by Jacques Barnaud to describe the owner-presidents who dominated the Comité des forges, and who were shut out of the Organisation Committees designed by Barnaud in 1940. See Barnaud, ‘L’industriel’, Nouveaux cahiers, no. 2, 1 April 1937, 12. The ‘Second French Revolution’ was a journalistic label used, among others, by the New York Herald Tribune. See, for example, George Slocombe, ‘France’s Political Changeover’, New York Herald Tribune, 20 April 1946.

  7. 7.

    On the rupture between the Comité des forges and the Organisation Committee for Steel, see Chapter 3. The reforms of the Organisation Committees following the Liberation are discussed in Chapter 6.

  8. 8.

    Jules Aubrun, President of the CSSF, was born in 1881 and Eugène Roy, President of the CMSID, in 1884.

  9. 9.

    See, for example, Baumier, La fin des maîtres de forges, Gerbet, La construction de l’Europe, Kipping, La France et les origines de l’Union européenne, and Anthony Daley, Steel, State, and Labor (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996). Malthusianism in this context refers to the supposed practice of industrialists of limiting production in order to drive up prices, also known as under-production (freinage).

  10. 10.

    Communiqué du ministre secrétaire d’Etat à la production et au travail, Le Temps, 6 October 1940.

  11. 11.

    See Chapter 3.

  12. 12.

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

  13. 13.

    ‘La première session du Conseil du Plan’, 16–19 mars 1946, 80 AJ 1, AN. The figure of 12 million tonnes per annum was especially significant as this was the output for 1929, a total which the industry had been unable to match during the Depression, the war, or the early post-war years.

  14. 14.

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

  15. 15.

    Ibid.

  16. 16.

    In June 1947, over 71 per cent of France’s coal imports came from the United States. The CGP made it clear that ‘this situation is untenable’ and that it was imperative that ‘coal from the Ruhr and the Saar replace imports from the United States as soon as possible’. ‘Plan de modernisation et d’équipement. Objectifs généraux du Plan’, July 1947, 80 AJ 1, AN. The bread ration was reduced to 200 grams per week after the devaluation of sterling in August 1947 as part of a policy of putting all non-essential imports on hold. See Michel Margairaz, ‘La reconstruction matérielle: crise, infléchissement ou ajustement?’ in Serge Berstein and Pierre Milza (eds), L’Année 1947 (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 2000).

  17. 17.

    ‘Rapport de la Commission de Modernisation. Position de la Sidérurgie’, report written by Alexis Aron on behalf of the CSSF, 19 September 1947, 139 AQ 85, ANMT.

  18. 18.

    Ibid.

  19. 19.

    According to industrialist Henri Malcor, the CSSF’s reaction to CMSID’s plans to close factories was so violent that Roy retreated; a number of firms were accordingly saved from closure and CMSID watered down its plans to restructure the French steel industry. See Mioche, ‘Les plans et la sidérurgie’, op.cit., 135.

  20. 20.

    ‘Ibid. Alexis Aron, a close friend of Aubrun, had succeeded the latter as head of OPSID (as CORSID was renamed in 1945) in March 1945. Following OPSID’S dissolution in 1946, Aron joined Aubrun at the CSSF.

  21. 21.

    ‘Procès-verbal de la conférence tenue à Berlin le vendredi 17 septembre 1943 dans le bureau de Monsieur Speer’, 17 September 1943, 72 AJ 1926, AN. These efforts are also recorded in Kehrl’s memoirs, Krisenmanager im Dritten Reich (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1973), 310–318.

  22. 22.

    See Chapter 4.

  23. 23.

    ‘Rapport sur la modernisation de la sidérurgie de la Loire et les problèmes qu’elle se pose’, October 1951, 80 AJ 11, AN. By this stage it was feared that Soviet rather than British bombers might choose to attack French steel mills, particularly against the backdrop of the Korean War, which had reached a stalemate a year earlier.

  24. 24.

    Between 1947 and 1951 roughly one-third of total investments in the French steel industry came from public funds, chiefly from the CGP and associated Marshall funds. See Henry Ehrmann, Organized Business in France (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), 289.

  25. 25.

    Indeed, Monnet wrote to the British economist James Meade explaining that he ‘could not leave Paris during the formation of the new government in January 1947 for fear that ‘his plan’ would be stolen by another ministry’. 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, 241.

  26. 26.

    Procès-verbal de la séance de la Commission des Affaires Economiques, Assemblée Nationale, séance du 4 mars 1947, C/15329, AN.

  27. 27.

    Ibid.

  28. 28.

    For the post-war reforms of the Organisation Committees under Lacoste, see Chapter 6.

  29. 29.

    Journal officiel, 10 April 1947

  30. 30.

    Procès-verbal de la séance de la Commission des Affaires Economiques, Assemblée Nationale, séance du 13 août 1947, C/15329, AN.

  31. 31.

    Ibid. Fellow SFIO minister André Philip expressed similar regrets in December 1946, lamenting that ‘the State no longer control[s] allocations, and this power [has been] passed to employers’ associations’. Qtd in Margairaz, L’Etat, les finances et l’économie, 827.

  32. 32.

    Procès-verbal de la séance de la Commission des Affaires Economiques, Assemblée Nationale, séance du 15 juin 1949, C/15330, AN.

  33. 33.

    Lacoste advocated economic planning in France as early as 1933 in publications such as Nouveaux cahiers. See Pierre Brana and Joëlle Dusseau, Robert Lacoste (1898–1989) (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2010).

  34. 34.

    Procès-verbal de la séance de la Commission de la Production industrielle, Assemblée Nationale, séance du 13 mars 1947, C/15402, AN.

  35. 35.

    Henry Rousso has argued that Lacoste’s involvement in such ‘revisions’ of the Plan’s targets ‘clearly shows [his] desire to cooperate with the officials from the Plan’. Given his criticisms of Monnet’s figures and that this amounted to an attempt by Lacoste and Philip to exert more control over the Plan, however, Lacoste’s ‘desire to cooperate’ with the CGP must not be seen as an unconditional endorsement of Monnet or his methods. See Rousso, ‘Le ministère de l’industrie dans le processus de planification: une adaptation difficile (1940–1969)’ in Henry Rousso (ed.), De Monnet à Massé, op.cit., 27–40, 30.

  36. 36.

    Ultimately, the target set by the Modernisation Commission for Steel for the period 1946–1952 was nearly met. While the objective had been to increase production by 15 per cent over this period, 14.29 per cent was attained, largely due to higher growth in the final two years. According to Michel Margairaz, in December 1947 Jean Monnet was obliged to ‘propose a second Plan in order to save the first’. See Margairaz, L’Etat, les finances et l’économie, 993.

  37. 37.

    According to Frances Lynch, the Marshall Plan ‘saved’ the Monnet Plan by providing it with the funds necessary to realise the modernisation of French industry. See Lynch, France and the International Economy (London: Routledge, 1997).

  38. 38.

    ‘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.

  39. 39.

    This idea was advanced by Monnet to de Gaulle as early as October 1943; see ‘Conversation du dimanche 17 octobre 1943’, 17 October 1943, AME 33 1 18, FJME. For France’s attempts to pursue such policies after the war, see William Hitchcock, France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Europe, 1944–1954 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998); Alan Milward, The Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1945–1951 (London: Routledge, 1984); and Raymond Poidevin, ‘Frankreich und die Ruhrfrage 1945–1951’, Historische Zeitschrift, 228:2, April 1979, 101–119.

  40. 40.

    At the Québec Conference of September 1944, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed upon the Morganthau Plan for the ‘pastoralisation’ of Germany, involving the dismantling of the majority of post-war Germany’s heavy industry and of internationalising (or annexing to Germany’s neighbours) the most industrialised regions of Germany, including the Ruhr. Churchill criticised the plan as ‘unnatural, unchristian, and unnecessary’, but seems to have endorsed it in exchange for the post-war continuation of Lend-Lease aid. The plan was never fully implemented by the Allies, and from 1946 the United States gradually overturned the policy. See Mark A. Stoler, Allies in War: Britain and America against the Axis Powers, 1940–1945 (London: Hodder, 2005), 170 and Hans-Peter Schwarz, ‘The Division of Germany, 1945–1949’ in Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (eds), The Cambridge History of the Cold War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

  41. 41.

    Alan Milward has famously argued that ‘the Schuman Plan was invented to safeguard the Monnet Plan’. See Milward, The Reconstruction of Western Europe, 395.

  42. 42.

    Déclaration de Robert Schuman, 9 May 1950

  43. 43.

    As early as 1943 Jean Monnet had predicted that the British reaction to a French initative for European integration would ‘probably be hostile’, although he added that ‘Great Britain might not be able to avoid joining the union itself’. See ‘Quelques éléments pour l’élaboration d’une thèse française de la reconstruction économique’, 3 August 1943, AME 33 2, FJME.

  44. 44.

    On the international political context of the Schuman Declaration, and for the Foreign Minister’s motivations for announcing the plan when he did, see William Hitchcock, ‘France, the Western Alliance, and the Origins of the Schuman Plan, 1948–1950’, Diplomatic History, 21:4, 1997, 603–630.

  45. 45.

    On American support for European integration, the most thorough account is Gérard Bossuat, La France, l’aide américaine et la construction européenne, 1944–1954 (Paris: Comité pour l’Histoire Economique et Financière de la France, 1997). See also Gillingham, Coal, Steel and the Rebirth of Europe, 1945–1955. Bevin, whose health was failing, had been in hospital for nearly a month and had only learned of the initative after it had been pronounced publicly. Note de Guillaume à van Zeeland, 16 June 1950, 12 284, MAEB.

  46. 46.

    ‘Record of conversation between Mr Bevin, Mr Acheson and M Schuman, 11 May 1950’, 11 May 1950, PREM 8 1428, TNA.

  47. 47.

    Ibid. As noted above, the devaluation of sterling in August 1947 severely disrupted France’s fragile economy and posed further obstacles for the Monnet Plan. See also Margairaz, ‘La réconstruction matérielle’.

  48. 48.

    On the British response to the Schuman Declaration and the negotiations leading to the creation of the ECSC, see Edmund Dell, The Schuman Plan and the British Abdication of Leadership in Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995) and Christopher Lord, Absent at the Creation: Britain and the Formation of the European Community, 1950–1952 (Dartmouth: Aldershot, 1996). Sir Edwin Plowden, a high-level civil servant, later recalled that ‘it took all Acheson’s diplomatic skills to stop Bevin from immediately issuing a statement condemning Schuman’s announcement’. See Plowden, An Industrialist in the Treasury: The Postwar Years (London: André Deutsch, 1989), 86.

  49. 49.

    Note du Comte de Meeus d’Argenteuil à van Zeeland, 23 May 1950, 12 284, MAEB. Petsche, a member of the Républicains d’action paysanne et sociale, had a long-standing rivalry with Schuman, while Buron belonged to Schuman’s party, the MRP.

  50. 50.

    ‘Discussion between Sir E. Hall-Patch and M. Putsch [sic] on the Schuman Plan’, 19 June 1950, FO 371 85853, TNA. The last two words appear in French in the original British document.

  51. 51.

    Note de Guillaume à van Zeeland, 16 June 1950, 12 284, MAEB.

  52. 52.

    Président du Conseil was the title of the Head of Government in the Fourth Republic; this is generally translated as ‘Prime Minister’.

  53. 53.

    Lettre de Jean Monnet à Georges Bidault, 28 April 1950, AMG 1, FJME. According to Monnet’s memoirs, the reason Bidault did not respond favourably to the proposal was because he hadn’t bothered to read it. See Monnet, Mémoires (Paris: Fayard, 1976) and Georges-Henri Soutou, ‘Georges Bidault et la construction européenne 1944–1954’, Revue d’histoire diplomatique 3:4, 1991.

  54. 54.

    Telegram from Canadian Ambassador in Paris (Vanier) for the Secretary of State for External Affairs, 2 June 1950, RG 25 6529 10094–40, LAC.

  55. 55.

    See, for example, ‘Télégramme de Guillaume à van Zeeland’, 9 May 1950, 12 284, MAEB.

  56. 56.

    Some historians have suggested that this political influence enjoyed by the Comité des forges under the Third Republic continued until 1950–1952, with the creation of the ECSC being a turning point in this respect. This study, however, contends that such influence ended in 1940. For the case of the continuation of the Comité des forges, see Baumier, La fin des maîtres de forges and Gerbet, La construction de l’Europe.

  57. 57.

    Monnet, Mémoires.

  58. 58.

    Note de Guillaume à van Zeeland, 10 June 1950, 12 284, MAEB.

  59. 59.

    Lettre d’Aubrun à Schuman (with a copy also sent to Monnet), 12 July 1950, 81 AJ 135, AN.

  60. 60.

    ‘Communiqué released by French government’, 3 June 1950, FO 371 85846, TNA.

  61. 61.

    ‘Note pour le comité interministériel’, 12 June 1950, AMG 2 2, FJME.

  62. 62.

    Robert Marjolin, Le travail d’une vie. Mémoires 1911–1986 (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1986).

  63. 63.

    Note sur les missions de la Haute Autorité, 7 June 1950, 81 AJ 152, AN.

  64. 64.

    ‘Note pour le comité interministériel’, 12 June 1950, AMG 2 2, FJME.

  65. 65.

    Compte-rendu de la séance restreinte, 3 July 1950, AMG 3 3. This was resisted by the German delegation, led by Walter Hallstein, which argued that an intergovernmental Council would undermine the supranational character of the Schuman Plan.

  66. 66.

    Compte-rendu de la séance du lundi 3 juillet 1950, 3 July 1950, 12 284, MAEB. The term ‘democratic deficit’ was coined in the 1970s to reflect the fact that the members of the European Assembly were not directly elected; see David Marquand, Parliament for Europe (London: Jonathan Cape, 1979).

  67. 67.

    A thorough account of these wide-ranging negotiations is beyond the scope of this study. The best description of the negotiations is provided by Dirk Spierenburg and Raymond Poidevin, Histoire de la Haute Autorité de la Communauté européenne du Charbon et de l’Acier. Une expérience supranationale (Bruxelles: Bruylant, 1993). See also Klaus Schwabe (ed.), Die Anfänge des Schuman-Plans and Berthold Rittberger, ‘Which Institutions for Post-war Europe? Explaining the Institutional Design of Europe’s First Community’, Journal of European Public Policy 8:5, 2001, 673–708.

  68. 68.

    ‘Recours’, 7 June 1950, 81 AJ 152, AN. This note, prepared by Pierre Uri, would have allowed industrialists to appeal any decision that was supported by less than two-thirds of the members of the High Authority.

  69. 69.

    ‘Résumé du projet de traité’, 19 June 1950, 81 AJ 152, AN. According to this note, a member state could call on the High Authority to put together an ad hoc Court of Appeal with five members to appeal a particular decision taken by the High Authority.

  70. 70.

    See Anne Boerger, ‘La Cour de Justice dans les négociations du Traité de Paris instituant la CECA’, Journal of European Integration History, 18:2, 2008, 7–33.

  71. 71.

    Lettre d’Aubrun à Monnet, 5 August 1950, AMG 18 4, FJME.

  72. 72.

    Lettre de Monnet à Aubrun, 7 August 1950, AMG 18 4, FJME.

  73. 73.

    These meetings were held throughout the summer and it was at these meetings that many of the broader important questions, such as the creation of an intergovernmental Council, were discussed.

  74. 74.

    See ‘Liste des délégations’, June 1950, AMG 2 2, FJME. Despite the exclusion of representatives from employers’ associations, one civil servant in the French delegation did have experience in industry: Jacques Desrousseaux, the Director for Mines and Steel in the Ministry for Industry and Commerce. In this capacity, however, he represented his ministry and by extension the State, just as the ministry’s representative who sat in on CORSID’s meetings represented the State rather than industrialists. Moreover, while Desrousseaux had been Director of Mines in French Indochina from 1938 until 1947 and was an expert in the coal industry, he never worked in the steel industry. He therefore did not possess the ‘deep knowledge of a great number of technical details’ for the steel industry which Aubrun or Aron clearly did, nor did he advocate the CSSF’s position during the negotiations.

  75. 75.

    Monnet, Mémoires (Paris: Fayard, 1976), 465.

  76. 76.

    Compte-rendu de la réunion du Groupe du Travail ‘Production-Prix’, 4 July 1950, 12 284, MAEB.

  77. 77.

    Lettre d’Aubrun à Pleven, 13 November 1950, 81 AJ 135, AN.

  78. 78.

    Lettre d’Aubrun à Monnet, 6 September 1950, AMG 18 4, FJME.

  79. 79.

    Lettre de Monnet à Aubrun, 2 October 1950, AMG 18 4, FJME.

  80. 80.

    Note de la CSSF: Bilan du plan Schuman pour l’industrie, 12 octobre 1950, AMG 18 2, FJME. Text underlined in the original.

  81. 81.

    Ibid.

  82. 82.

    René Pleven succeeded Bidault as Prime Minister in July 1950. Pleven had been Monnet’s deputy in the Franco-British Coordination Committee in 1940 and joined the Free French that year, later holding the portfolios for foreign affairs and finance in the CFLN. In October 1950 he gave his name to the ill-fated Pleven Plan, proposing a European Army and the European Defence Community.

  83. 83.

    Lettre d’Aubrun à Pleven, 13 November 1950, 81 AJ 135, AN. A copy was also sent to Monnet. Text underlined in the original.

  84. 84.

    Lettre de Monnet à Aubrun, 17 November 1950, 81 AJ 135, AN.

  85. 85.

    Lettre de Monnet à Aubrun, 17 November 1950, AMG 18 4, FJME. Aubrun objected that his ‘intention is not…as you seem to imply, to misunderstand the services rendered by the Monnet Plan to the French steel industry’. Lettre d’Aubrun à Monnet, 22 November 1950, AMG 18 4, FJME.

  86. 86.

    This phrase is from Monnet’s ‘Note pour le comité interministériel’, 12 June 1950, AMG 2 2, FJME.

  87. 87.

    Monnet, Mémoires, 460.

  88. 88.

    Monnet admitted that ‘the entirety of the necessary technical studies’ were drawn up by the CGP rather than the CSSF, adding that this done ‘for the benefit of the [steel] industry’. Lettre de Monnet à Aubrun, 17 November 1950, 81 AJ 135, AN.

  89. 89.

    Lettre de Schuman à Aubrun, 19 June 1951, 81 AJ 135, AN.

  90. 90.

    ‘Note sur le plan Schuman’, 13 December 1950, AMG 18 2, FJME. Text underlined in the original.

  91. 91.

    Industrialists from other countries expressed similar apprehensions soon after the Schuman Declaration, fearing that their national industry would lose out while others thrived in the common market. Their reservations were overcome in part through the involvement of industrialists in the negotiations of the Treaty of Paris. On the reservations of Luxembourg’s industrialists, see ‘Note du Vicomte Berryer, Ministre de Belgique à Luxembourg, à van Zeeland. Objet: Plan Schumann [sic]’, 1 June 1950, 12 284, MAEB; for the position of Belgian industrialists, see ‘Note du Colonel Mampuys à Monsieur le Ministre de la Défense Nationale. Objet: Les répercussions de la proposition Schuman de pool franco-allemand de l’industrie sidérurgique’, 24 May 1950, 12 284, MAEB.

  92. 92.

    ‘Note relative aux effets du Plan Schuman sur les industries de l’Acier en France’, 9 December 1950, AMG 18 2, FJME.

  93. 93.

    Procès-verbal de la réunion tenue le 2 janvier 1951, Comité Hirsch-Gardent, 2 January 1951, AMG 18 3, FJME. A copy is also preserved in 81 AJ 135, AN. Etienne Hirsch was a collaborator of Monnet’s in the CGP and succeeded him as Commissioner for the Plan in 1952. Paul Gardent was a member of Jean-Marie Louvel’s cabinet in the Ministry for Industry and Commerce.

  94. 94.

    Louis Charvet was Deputy Director General of Air France from 1934 until 1945, after which he became Delegate General of the CSSF.

  95. 95.

    Ibid.

  96. 96.

    ‘Rapport sur les travaux du comité chargé d’examiner les effets du plan Schuman sur la sidérurgie française’, 21 February 1951, AMG 18 3, FJME.

  97. 97.

    Note à l’attention de Monsieur le Ministre des affaires étrangères (unsigned letter from the CGP), 11 April 1951, 81 AJ 135, AN.

  98. 98.

    Premier projet (de la proposition française), corrigé par J[ean] M[onnet], undated but written in late April 1950, AMG 1 2, FJME. Monnet also suggested to the other delegations that their national steel industries should be rationalised, with guidance from the High Authority, by cutting the least efficient firms – a proposal that caused alarm amongst the Italian steel industrialists, among others. See Ruggero Ranieri, ‘The Italian Steel Industry and the Schuman Plan Negotiations’ in Schwabe, Die Anfänge des Schuman-Plans (Brussels: Bruylant, 1988).

  99. 99.

    Note destinée à la presse, 9 May 1950, AMG 1 3, FJME. The purpose of this note was largely to reassure the public that the eventual ECSC would not be a cartel itself, but the text is also clearly critical of the CSSF. There was a general preference among French and German industrialists for simply recreating a steel cartel as had existed in the interwar period, as this would allow the industry to decide upon rules rather than politicians; see Françoise Berger, La France, l’Allemagne et l’acier (1932–1952) (Thèse de doctoral, Université de Paris I, 2000), 924–925.

  100. 100.

    According to Gérard Bossuat, the CSSF’s opposition to the Schuman Plan was due entirely to the fact that steel industrialists ‘understood immediately that Monnet would oppose the cartelisation that they were used to’. See Bossuat, ‘Jean Monnet. La mesure d’une influence’, Vingtième siècle 15:1, 1996, 68–84, 77.

  101. 101.

    ‘Note sur les pouvoirs de la Chambre syndicale et du CPS, 21 January 1951, AMG 18 1, FJME. An earlier version of this document, dated 11 December 1950, was prepared for Monnet by Jean Ripert.

  102. 102.

    Aubrun felt obliged to ‘formally reject any accusation of under-production [freinage]’ by the French steel industry. See ‘Note sur l’évolution de la production sidérurgique française’ by Aubrun, 25 October 1950, AMG 8 5, FJME. Many industrialists claimed that they deliberately underproduced under Vichy as a patriotic means of cutting off supplies to the German war economy. In 1950, that same accusation was levelled against industrialists who were now accused of being anti-patriotic by placing their own profits ahead of the needs of the country.

  103. 103.

    ‘Commentaire sur la ‘Note sur le Plan Schuman’ daté du 13 décembre’ prepared by de Sellier, 21 December 1950, 81 AJ 155, AN.

  104. 104.

    Lettre de Sellier à Monnet, 21 December 1950, 81 AJ 155, AN.

  105. 105.

    Lettre d’Aubrun à Monnet, 6 January 1951, AMG 4, FJME. Aubrun names Georges Villiers, President of the CNPF, as the one who told him of Monnet’s comments, but adds that ‘this is not the first time that your opinion on this matter has been shared with me’.

  106. 106.

    Schéma pour la lettre au Président du Conseil de Jean Monnet, 4 January 1951, AMG 11 4, FJME.

  107. 107.

    ‘Remise au point des éléments retenus par la Chambre syndicale dans ses notes sur la comparaison des prix de revient et incidence du Plan Schuman sur ces prix’, 11 January 1951, AMG 11 4, FJME.

  108. 108.

    Philippe Mioche has observed that neither set of figures ‘was terribly reliable – not due to any insincerity on either side, but because so many factors remained unknown’; see Mioche, ‘Le patronat de la sidérurgie française et le Plan Schuman en 1950–1952’ in Klaus Schwabe (ed.), Die Anfänge des Schuman-Plans, 310. Alan Milward has similarly stated that the French government, including the CGP, was in no position ‘to forecast with any reasonable accuracy the likely impact of their policies on the steel industry’; see Milward, The Reconstruction of Western Europe, 374. In a note to Etienne Hirsch, the Deputy Director for Mines and Steel at the Ministry for Industry warned that ‘it would be fanciful to base estimates on the figures provided’ by his ministry. See Lettre de Herbin à Hirsch, 5 September 1950, PU 22, HAEU.

  109. 109.

    In a letter to the French Cabinet, Monnet rejected the CSSF’s figures entirely on the grounds that Aubrun and his colleagues ‘systematically ignored certain elements that are favourable to the French steel industry and deliberately failed to take into account elements that are unfavourable to the steel industries’ of the other countries. While Monnet’s characterisation is legitimate, the figures produced by the CGP are similarly biased. See ‘Remise au point des éléments retenus par la Chambre Syndicale dans ses notes sur la comparaison des prix de revient et incidence du Plan Schuman sur ces prix’, 20 January 1951, AMG 18 2, FJME.

  110. 110.

    Another notable critic of the treaty was the French Communist Party, which argued that the Schuman Plan was a ploy to unite Europe’s industrial capacity under American leadership in preparation for an attack on the Soviet bloc. According to the Communist daily L’Humanité, the ECSC ‘is not supranational, as they would have us believe: it is American’. See ‘Le plan Schuman, un pas de plus vers la guerre, a été signé hier à Paris’, L’Humanité, 19 April 1951.

  111. 111.

    Lettre d’Aubrun à Schuman, 5 April 1951, AMG 15 5, FJME.

  112. 112.

    Louvel (MRP) replaced Robert Lacoste as Minister for Industry in February 1950.

  113. 113.

    Lettre de Maurice Schumann à Jean Monnet, 3 December 1951, 81 AJ 155, AN. Schumann addresses Monnet as ‘Mon cher ami’ and begins by stating ‘I consider the opposition of a trust like USINOR as a complement and even, to a certain extent, as useful’. For the letter from USINOR’s Director General, see Lettre de René Damien à Maurice Schumann, 28 November 1950, 81 AJ 155, AN.

  114. 114.

    Lettre d’Aubrun à Paul Bacon, 16 April 1951, AMG 16 4, FJME. Bacon is considered to be the father of the SMIG (the first guaranteed minimum wage in France), which he introduced in 1950. Interestingly, a national minimum wage had first been proposed by René Belin in the 1941 Labour Charter but was never implemented.

  115. 115.

    Lettre de Schuman à Aubrun, 9 June 1951, 81 AJ 135, AN.

  116. 116.

    Lettre d’Aubrun à Schuman, 19 June 1951, 81 AJ 135, AN.

  117. 117.

    Ibid.

  118. 118.

    ‘La sidérurgie française et le plan Schuman. Une conférence de M Pierre Ricard’, 4 July 1952, 81 AJ 135, AN. The industry did ultimately gain some concessions, most notably the commitment to canalise the Moselle River, which would make heavy industry in Lorraine more competitive.

  119. 119.

    It is worth remembering that many of the same concerns voiced by the CSSF were shared by their counterparts in the other five countries. Fears that the High Authority would have too much power, and that it would try to close down inefficient mines and forges, were voiced at various times by Belgian, Luxembourgish, and Italian industrialists. Again, the governments’ desire to ‘build Europe’ tended to override these concerns, but in all these cases the industrialists’ views affected the delegations’ positions during the negotiations. Ultimately, the steel industrialists of the other five countries were able to gain concessions that were not extended to the French industry, particularly favourable transition periods. The Belgian steel industry, for its part, was finally won over by the prospect of using coking coal from the Ruhr that would be cheaper than Belgian coal. In the case of Luxembourg, where steel represented over 80 per cent of the country’s industrial production, the government generally supported the industry’s position, and the Italian government was similarly supportive overall of the Italian steel industry’s position. This contrasts markedly with the French case, where the steel industry’s representatives were uniquely and consciously marginalised by the French delegation. Useful national case studies are provided in Klaus Schwabe (ed.), Die Anfänge des Schuman-Plans. For the Italian case, the most thorough study is Ruggero Ranieri’s doctoral thesis, L’espansione alla prova del negoziato. L’industria italiana e la CECA 1945–1955 (Florence: EUI, 1988); for Belgium, see René Leboutte, ‘L’industrie sidérurgique belge et ses réseaux dans les années 1950‘in Michel Dumoulin (ed.), Réseaux économiques et construction européenne (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2004), 163–188.

  120. 120.

    ‘Message de M Monnet à MM Etzel et Pothof (sic)’, 28 July 1952, AMH 1 3, FJME. Paul Finet was Secretary General of the Fédération générale du travail de Belgique, one of the two main trade union federations in Belgium. The junior German member, Heinz Potthoff, was a politician from the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who also had a background with the trade union the Deutsche Gewerkschaftsbund.

  121. 121.

    SOLLAC, in Lorraine, and USINOR, in Nord, were the sites of these two giant steel mills, which at the time were the largest in Europe. The new American equipment for these two firms consumed the majority of the funds available under the Monnet Plan.

  122. 122.

    ‘Rapport sur la modernisation de la sidérurgie de la Loire et les problèmes qu’elle se pose’, October 1951, 80 AJ 11, AN.

  123. 123.

    Spierenburg and Poidevin, Histoire de la Haute Autorité de la Communauté européenne du Charbon et de l’Acier, 70–71. In the estimation of Philippe Mioche, Daum’s nomination amounted to ‘compensation offered to the steel industrialists’; see Mioche, ‘Le patronat de la sidérurgie française et le Plan Schuman’, 314.

  124. 124.

    Jean Monnet, Mémoires (Fayard: Paris, 1976), 546. This is confirmed in Spierenburg and Poidevin, Histoire de la Haute Autorité and Mioche, ‘Le patronat de la sidérurgie française’.

  125. 125.

    Sylvie Guillaume, Antoine Pinay, ou, La confiance en politique (Paris: FNSP, 1984). Guillaume argues that Pinay’s exclusion from holding an elected office was due to the machinations of his enemies in the French Communist Party. The debate over the patron résistant under Vichy is discussed in Chapter 4.

  126. 126.

    ‘Biographie de M Léon Daum’, undated but from July 1952, AMH 1 4, FJME. Chief among Daum’s credentials highlighted were his time, since 1927, as (Deputy) Director General of Marine et Homécourt and his role as President, from 1950, of the French delegation to the Steel Committee at the OECE.

  127. 127.

    ‘Lettre de Filliol’, 18 June 1952, P 6353, MAE.

  128. 128.

    Jean Monnet, Mémoires, 546. Daum had been offered the Industrial Production portfolio by Pierre Laval in Vichy’s government, and Daum accepted. At the eleventh hour the offer was withdrawn and Laval instead appointed trade unionist René Belin. See René Belin, Du Secrétariat de la CGT au gouvernement de Vichy (Paris: Albatross, 1978), 127–128.

  129. 129.

    A third member of the CSSF, representing the Saar, was also named. The Saarland’s steel industries were administered as part of France until 1955, when the territory was restored to the Federal Republic of Germany.

  130. 130.

    After the war Baboin was named Director General of the mines in Saarland which were administered by France.

  131. 131.

    These schemes were generally opposed by Organisation Committees but supported by the Vichy government. For Baboin’s presence at CORSID’s meetings, and his demands that they comply with the STO, see ‘Comité d’organisation de la sidérurgie. Région du Centre et de l’Ouest. Réunion du 16 février 1943’, 16 February 1943, 139 AQ 82, AN.

  132. 132.

    On the evolution of French capitalism during this period, see Richard Kuisel, Capitalism and the State in Modern France: Renovation and Economic Management in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981) and Michel Margairaz, L’Etat, les finances et l’économie. On technocracy in post-war France, see Delphine Dulong, Moderniser la politique: aux origines de la Ve République (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997).

  133. 133.

    François Duchêne, Jean Monnet: The First Statesman of Interdependence (London: Norton, 1994), 358.

  134. 134.

    The EDC, proposed by René Pleven in what was known as the Pleven Plan in October 1950, would have seen the creation of a European Army, made up of soldiers from the Six. It was presented as a means to prevent the recreation of a German Army, an option being pushed by the United States in response to the perceived threat of the Soviet Union, particularly after the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950. The most thorough account of the EDC remains Edward Fursdon, The European Defence Community: A History (London: Macmillan, 1980); for Jean Monnet’s role in the EDC, see Renata Dwan, ‘Jean Monnet and the European Defence Community, 1950–1954’, Cold War History, 1:3, 2001, 141–160.

  135. 135.

    Monnet, Mémoires, 501.

  136. 136.

    De Gaulle, now the driving force behind the right-wing party the Rassemblement du peuple français (RPF), warned that the EDC would cause France to ‘disappear’, while PCF stalwart François Billoux asserted that ‘Europe is an idea of Hitler’s’; see Eric Roussel, Jean Monnet (Paris: Fayard, 1996), 588 and, for the opposition of the French Army, 654. Although the Socialist Prime Minister at the time, Pierre Mendès France, supported the plan, the SFIO and Radical deputies were divided over the issue, while most, but not all MRP deputies supported the EDC. Philippe Vial has pointed out that while most of the army opposed the EDC, this position was not unanimously held within the army; see Vial, ‘Le militaire et la politique: le maréchal Juin et le général Ely face à la CED’ in Michel Dumoulin (ed.), La Communauté européenne de défense, leçons pour demain? (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2000), 135–160.

  137. 137.

    See ‘Lettre de démission de Jean Monnet’, 10 November 1954 and ‘Note pour messieurs les ministres des affaires étrangères et du commerce extérieur. Objet: succession de M Monnet à la présidence de la Haute Autorité de la CECA’, 4 February 1955, 17 771 20 6, MAEB.

  138. 138.

    Monnet was succeeded by René Mayer, while Daum remained the second French member. At the Messina Conference, a ground-breaking agreement was reached to work towards the creation of a European Common Market as well as Euratom; this led to the Treaty of Rome of 1957 and the establishment of the European Economic Community the following year.

  139. 139.

    In his memoirs, Monnet describes how he found the ‘native state’ of the sector appealling, adding that, ‘if there were one sector where the method from the Schuman Plan could be fully and successfully applied, it was’ nuclear energy. See Monnet, Mémoires, 470. Monnet encountered resistance from the military establishment yet again when he tried, unsuccessfully, to insist that signatories of the Euratom treaty renounce the use of nuclear weapons, which a number of French generals saw as ‘necessary to [French] security’. See Pierre Guillen, ‘La France et la négociation du Traité d’Euratom’ in Michel Dumoulin, Pierre Guillen and Maurice Vaïsse (eds), L’Energie nucléaire en Europe. Des origines à Euratom (Brussels: Peter Lang, 1994), 111–130.

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    Luc-André Brunet

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Brunet, LA. (2017). L’Unité de l’Europe est à ce prix: The Struggle Between CORSID’s Successors and the Creation of the ECSC. 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_8

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