Biographer of the politician (Pierre Mendès France. For a modern Republic, Armand Colin, 2015) and professor at the Sciences Po history center, Alain Chatriot unearthed a fascinating document published on October 3 under the title Finance the reconstruction of France* : the political economy course that Pierre Mendès France taught, in 1950, to the ENA Europe class. Sequenced in 19 lessons, it covers all the issues facing post-war France. With a nagging question – how to fight inflation? – which gives it a particular echo in the France of 2023.
L’Express: This course at ENA is one of the rare still unpublished texts by Pierre Mendès France. How did you discover it?
Alain Chatriot: The family of Pierre Mendès France kept in its archives the typescript of this course, which was known but imprecisely and had never been published. It was given to one of the very first classes of ENA students, in 1950, and corresponds to a relatively little-known moment in the life of Mendès France: he was, of course, already part of the second Blum government, in 1938, and the government of General de Gaulle at the Liberation, but he has not yet left his mark on French political life, which he did through his exercise of power as President of the Council, between June 1954 and February 1955, then as a moral figure of the French left.
This course entitled “Financing the reconstruction of France” is however quite exceptional and deserved to be published: both because Mendès France presents the economic situation of the country at the end of the Second World War, but also because it engages in dialogue with students to defend their beliefs and their vision of the policy to be pursued. It is also interesting to recall that, among the ENA students in the Europe class – there were a little less than 40 – included Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and the future vice-president of the Council of State Marceau Long and first president of the Court of Auditors André Chandernagor – there was only one woman in the promotion, Jeanne Moevus. We know from the testimonies of several students that this course had an impact on them.
Pierre Mendès France was not an economist by training. Why was he given this course, in which his preference for a Keynesian approach to public action clearly shines through?
Mendès France was a doctor of law, although his thesis focused on the financial policy of the Poincaré government in the mid-1920s, and a lawyer. From his beginnings as a deputy – he was elected at just 25 years old, in 1932 – he was interested in economic and financial questions. After his participation in the air forces of Free France, he was appointed by General de Gaulle as Finance Commissioner of the French Committee of National Liberation, in November 1943. He subsequently became Minister of the National Economy of the provisional government of the Republic. French, until his resignation in April 1945. His departure came from the fact that the policy he advocated was not followed by General de Gaulle. During these months, he represented France at the Bretton Woods conference, where the new world financial order was organized, in July 1944, and where he met the economist John Maynard Keynes.
In his own way, he participated in the introduction of Keynes’ theses in France by emphasizing the issues linked to public investment and the questions posed by economic planning. As early as 1950, he insisted on the fact that “the Plan is the choice, and the conscious choice by a responsible public authority”. He subsequently remained known for the shocking phrase “To govern is to choose”, which he used in a speech in the spring of 1954.
“Inflation is the triumph of immorality and social inequity,” he said in one of his lessons at the ENA. What did he recommend, at the time, to fight against this phenomenon which is making news today in France?
Inflation was a concern throughout his life. At the time of the Liberation, he was in favor of a strict policy to combat rising prices, but General de Gaulle chose not to follow him – hence his resignation after a conflict between him and the Minister of Finance of then, René Pleven. In his Memoirs, de Gaulle also writes on this subject: “As is natural, Pierre Mendès France leaves the government, at his request, in April. He does so with dignity. I therefore maintain my esteem for this collaborator of an exceptional value. Moreover, if I do not adopt the policy that he recommends, I in no way exclude making it my own one day, circumstances having changed. But so that Mendès France is, eventually, able to do so. “to apply, he must know how to remain faithful to his doctrine. It is in this sense that, for a minister, departure can be a service rendered to the State.”
Mendès France considers that inflation is primarily linked to the culpable absence of political choices. His demonstration is based on two observations. Since the end of the war, the demand for consumer goods and capital goods has been very strong, because the French are seeking to improve their living conditions. On the other hand, the means of production are limited and are at maximum capacity, because there is almost no unemployment. “In a full employment economy, an increase in demand exceeding production possibilities can only cause an increase in prices,” he notes.
The answer to stopping the rise in prices necessarily involves public investments. But these investments, by their nature, will not be immediately productive. “There is only one way to allow the development of investments,” he adds, “and that is to limit consumption, since investments are equal to savings and savings represent the part of income national which has not been consumed.” Consequently, public authorities have no other option, believes Mendès France, than “to limit investments, and therefore to choose among those which are desirable [et] to limit consumption, and therefore, here again, to choose among the consumptions that are desired by the population.
In doing so, they must assume that they go against a “superficial” and “false view”, widespread in the country, according to which “it is money that is lacking”. And expose yourself to the unpopularity of certain trade-offs, between “useful” and “secondary”, or even “sumptuary” expenses.
In 1945, in the resignation letter he sent to de Gaulle, Mendès France already hammered home the credo of rigor and truth due to the French: “Distribute money to everyone without taking it from anyone, it’s maintaining a mirage.”
Pierre Mendès France speaks relatively little about the colonial empire in this lecture course. Three years later, however, he gave an interview to the first issue of a new newspaper, L’Express, in which he explained that France’s economic recovery necessarily involves abandoning “unproductive burdens such as rearmament and war of Indochina.
The course at the ENA takes place just before his first speeches in the Chamber of Deputies on the Indochina War, where he insists on the impasse of this conflict and on the way in which the cost of it undermines any possibility of invest in the reconstruction of France. But it was actually through L’Express, launched by Jean-Jacques Servan Schreiber and Françoise Giroud, that he truly popularized his views. From its first issue, on May 16, 1953, the newspaper offered him a long column, titled “France can bear the truth”, in the form of an indictment against the functioning of the regime.
To explain the failures of the Fourth Republic, Mendès France draws up a copious list of grievances: “Men are responsible, but also the political, institutional or moral structures in which they agreed to work. The poor sharing of tasks between the executive and legislative, the absence of responsibility (whether political, administrative or military), the defective organization of government work, the weakening of the State in the face of economic and political forces, the absence of a surge of a national and parliamentary opinion systematically kept away from essential choices, blocked the workings of the system.”
He failed to be elected President of the Council in June 1953, but he succeeded the following year, thanks to strong support from the newspaper. L’Express was still at his side in his desire to renew partisan life in the mid-1950s. The break between Mendès France and part of the weekly’s team occurred in 1958, with the advent of the Fifth Republic. , to which he will oppose.
* Finance the reconstruction of France. Economic and financial problems posed by the investment and reconstruction policy in France, by Pierre Mendès France, presented by Alain Chatriot. Ed. IGPDE, 472 p., €31.
A conference on this book will be held in Bercy on Wednesday October 4, from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Registration: https://www.economie.gouv.fr/igpde-seminaires-conferences/financer-la-reconstruction-de-la-france