Abstract
At the end of September 1944, six weeks after the Allied landings in the North, at Avranches, and in the South, where Toulon and Marseilles proved the hardest nuts to crack,2 France was almost entirely freed of the German invader. The German Army was expelled with extraordinary rapidity, in less time than it had taken to occupy the country four years previously. Although the war dragged on until May 1945, for many French people the Liberation signified the end of the war.
I regarded the state […] as […] an institution of decision, action and ambition, expressing and serving the national interest alone.
Charles de Gaulle
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Liberation, Modernisation and the Fourth Republic
De Gaulle, C., Salvation, 1944–1946, translated by R. Howard, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1960, p. 100.
Ehrmann, H.W., Organized Business in France, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1957, p. 79.
Vinen, R., Bourgeois Politics in France 1945–1951, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995, p. 267.
Weber, H., Le Parti des patrons: le CNPF (1946–1986), Paris, Seuil, 1986, p. 68.
Pickles, D.M., France Between the Republics, London, 1946. Synchronic to the events concerned, it provides a perceptive analysis of the legacy of the Vichy regime.
Clout, H., The Geography of Post-war France, a Social and Economic Approach, Pergamon, 1972
cited in Hough, J.R., The French Economy, Croom Helm, London, 1982, p. 110.
Cassis, Y., ‘Financial Elites in Three European Centres: London, Paris, Berlin’, in Jones, G., ed., Banks and Money: International and Comparative Finance in History, London, Cass, 1991, pp. 53–71.
Barsoux, J.-L. and Lawrence, P., Management in France, London, Cassell, 1990, pp. 118–19; Ehrmann, H., Organized Business in France, p. 210.
Bloch-Lainé, F., Profession: fonctionnaire, Paris, Seuil, 1976. It was not until the late 1980s that the image of French businessmen became more positive.
See Servan-Schreiber, J.-L., Le Métier de patron, Paris, Fayard, 1990.
Jeanneney, J.N., François de Wendel en République: l’argent et le pouvoir, Paris, 1975.
Kolboom, I., La Revanche des patrons: le patronat français face au front populaire, Paris, 1986
cited in Vinen, R., The Politics of French Business 1936–1945, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991, p. 98.
Aron, R., Histoire de l’épuration, 1. Le Monde des affaires, 1944–1953, Paris, Fayard, 1974; Weber, H., Le Parti des patrons: le CNPF (1946–1986), p. 68.
See in this regard Turkle, S.R., ‘Symbol and Festival in the French Student Uprising (May June 1968)’, in Falk Moore, S. and Myerhoff, B., eds, Symbol and Politics in Communal Ideology, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1975. I am grateful to Dr Margaret Taylor for drawing my attention to this.
De Gaulle, C., Salvation, 1944–1946, p. 109. If spontaneous, ‘popular’ tribunals are included in the reckoning, as many as 10,000 may have been executed. See Goubert, P., The Course of French History, translated by M. Utlee, London, Routledge, 1991, p. 300.
Cited in Bizaguet, A., Le Secteur public et les privatisations, Paris, PUF, 1988, p. 22.
Choinel, A. and Rouyer, G., Le Système bancaire français, 5th ed., Paris, PUF, 1996, p. 8. The same act classified French banks as three types: deposit banks, banques d’affaires, and banques de crédit à long et moyen terme, medium or long-term credit banks. Restrictions were imposed on what each type could or could not do.
study by Korn Ferry International. See Basini, B., ‘Patronat: les parrains ne sont plus ce qu’ils étaient’, Le Nouvel Economiste, 11 December 1998, p. 49.
Malraux, A., Les Chênes qu’on abat, Paris, Gallimard, 1971, p. 29. This interview with de Gaulle was conducted in December 1969. It is especially penetrating, partly because Malraux was a long-standing friend and ally of the general’s, and partly because, released from the burdens of office, and in the twilight of his life, de Gaulle was able to look back on his achievements with lucidity and objectivity.
De Gaulle, C., Mémoirs d’Espoir, Vol. 1, Le Renouveau, Paris, Plon, 1980,cited in Fysh, P., ‘Gaullism and Liberalism’, in Flood, C. and Bell, L., eds, Political ideologies in Contemporary France, London, Pinter, 1997.
De Gaulle, C., The Call to Honour 1940–1942, translated by J. Griffin, Collins, London, 1955, p. 9.
Berstein, S., The Republic of de Gaulle 1958–1969, translated by P. Morris, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press/Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l‘Homme, 1993, p. 102.
Eck, J.-F., Histoire de l’économie française depuis 1945, 2nd edition, Paris, Armand Colin, 1988, p. 21.
Cohen, E., ‘France: National Champions in Search of a Mission’, in Hayward, J., ed., Industrial Enterprise and European Integration: from National to International Champions in Western Europe, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995, pp. 26–7.
Clough, S.B. et al., eds, Economic History of Europe: Twentieth Century, New York and London, Harper, 1968, p. 328.
Lieberman, S., The Growth of European Mixed Economies 1945–1970, New York, Wiley, 1977, p. 7.
Lynch, F., France and the International Economy from Vichy to the Treaty of Rome, London, Routledge, 1997, p. 55.
Under the Marshall Plan, the US government provided finance for increased imports on the condition that bilateral trade agreements were abolished. The Organisation for European Economic Cooperation was then established, with rules and targets for the gradual freeing of international trade from quotas and similar discriminatory impediments. See Postan, M.M., An Economic History of Western Europe 1945–1964, London, Methuen, 1967, p. 98.
Monnet, J., Mémoires, Paris, Fayard, 1976, pp. 275–6.
Henri Guillaume, cited in Cinquante ans de planification à la française, Paris, Commissariat Général du Plan, 1998, p. 7.
Maddison, A., The World Economy: a Millennial Perspective, Paris, OECD, 2001, p. 276.
Djelic, M.-L., Exporting the American Model: the Postwar Transformation of European Business, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 137.
Caron, F., An Economic History of Modern France, translated by B. Bray, London, Methuen, 1979, p. 223.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2002 Mairi Maclean
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Maclean, M. (2002). Liberation, Modernisation and the Fourth Republic. In: Economic Management and French Business. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230503991_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230503991_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-41435-2
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-50399-1
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)