Politics of Transport in Twentieth-Century France 9780773560970

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The Politics of Transport in Twentieth-Century France

Few aspects of economic development have had such a widespread or profound impact on the reshaping of contemporary France as transportation. As a result, transport policy has brought many of the major social forces into conflict. Monopolistic railway companies, closely aligned with the banks, combated the defenders of the regions and small towns. The fiercely independent truckers and barge-haulers, proponents of the small family firm, collided with the forces of the state. Apostles of the transatlantic gospel of free enterprise and technical progress clashed with supporters of a planned, socialist society. Joseph Jones's study focuses on the period since World War I. In these years the stability of the transport world was shaken by the effect of automobile competition upon the railways' near monopoly. A republican tradition based on fear of monopoly and protection of local facilities had emerged in the era when rail was king. In the 1930s and 1940s transport policy became a tug of war between supporters of this tradition and those who felt that a new approach was needed to cope with competition, economic depression, and war. Legislative proposals led to heated discussions as railway companies, car manufacturers, truckers, oil companies, small business, local authorities, and trade unions fought to defend their interests. Dr Jones's study of these conflicts, based upon extensive archival research, illustrates the tension between state planning and economic liberalism which has been the central issue in economic policy in twentieth-century France. Joseph Jones has studied at the University of Warwick and at Queen's University, where he obtained a doctorate in history.

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The Politics of Transport in Twentieth- Century France JOSEPH JONES

McGill-Queen's University Press Kingston and Montreal

© McGill-Queen's University Press 1984 ISBN 0-7735-0428-1 Legal deposit 2nd quarter 1984 Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec Printed in Canada This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Social Science Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Jones,Joseph, 1954The politics of transport in twentieth-century France Includes index. Bibliography: p. ISBN 0-7735-0428-1 1. Transportation - France - Political aspects. 2. Transportation and state - France - History 20th century. 3. Transportation - France - History 20th century. I. Title. HE248.J66 1984 380.5'0944 C84-098510-X

To Pam, Margot, and the baby who's on the way

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Contents

Figures viii Tables ix Preface xi Abbreviations xv 1 French Transport Policy: Raison d'etat or Esprit de clocher? 3 2 The Rise of the Automobile, 1920-1930 21 3 Transport and the Depression, 1930-1934 37 4 Ententes and Economies, 1934-1936 58 5 Carrot and Stick, 1936-1939 80 6 Transport and War: Vichy 107 7 Transport and War: The Free French 140 8 Transport and the Plan 164 9 Transport and the Postwar Boom, 1950-1973 194 Notes 215 Bibliography Index

293

283

Figures

1 The Early Growth of the Railway Network 10 2 Regional Distribution of Commercial Motor Vehicles, 1931 26 3 Average Level of State Bus Subsidies, 1929-32 27 4 The Financial Situation of the Railways, 1930-9 35 5 The Structure of the Trucking Industry in Calvados, 1934 52 6 Reactions of the Conseils Generaux to Passenger Transport Plans, 1935-8 93 7 Goods' Traffic in 1938: Selected Commodities 100 8 Automobile Production: An International Comparison, 1927-36 103 9 Monthly Fluctuations in Railway Passenger Traffic, 1940-4 131 10 Paris Traffic, 1937-48 131 11 Monthly Fluctuations in Railway Goods' Traffic, 1940-4 133 12 Railway Goods' Traffic, 1938-46: Selected Commodities 134 13 Destruction of Railway Targets, 1944 152 14 Car Ownership, 1938-46 175 15 Goods' Traffic, 1947-76 198 16 The Structure of Goods'Traffic, 1973 201

Tables

1 Waterway Traffic, 1926-35 46 2 Structure of the Trucking Industry, 1934-5 52 3 Rolling-stock Orders, 1930-8 104 4 German Confiscation of Steam Locomotives 124 5 Railway Traffic Serving German Needs 124 6 Production of Domestic Motor Fuels 129 7 Transport Facilities, 1935-42 130 8 Automobile Production, 1940-4 130 9 Vehicles in North Africa, 1940-1 145 10 U.S. Exports to North Africa, 1941 262 11 Rail Traffic: Summer Months, 1943-4 154 12 Value of Destroyed Railway Property, 1939-45 155 13 Regional Distribution of Railway Destruction 156 14 Tonnage of Food Arriving Monthly by Rail in Paris, 1938-45 161 15 Regional Railway Traffic Variations, 1938-50 171 16 Train Delays, 1938-47 172 17 Composition of the Transport Subcommission of the Monnet Plan 177 18 Traffic Targets of the Monnet Plan 177 19 Monnet Plan: Vehicle Investments, 1946-8 178 20 Railway Traffic and the Monnet Plan 185 21 Railway Productivity since World War II 196

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Preface

In Son Excellence Eugene Rougon, Emile Zola depicts a scene which no doubt occurred dozens of times in the provincial towns of nineteenth-century France.1 The local deputy, a businessman named Kahn, dreams of establishing a railway line on a route which would pass alongside his iron foundry. Thanks to influence in high places, in the shape of Eugene Rougon, second only to the emperor himself in Zola's fictionalized Second Empire, the state approves the project and Rougon deigns to open the new line at a ceremony attended by the grateful inhabitants of Niort. The speakers on this festive occasion make up a gallery of the notables, both national and local, responsible for the spread of the railways in the middle decades of the last century. The prefect, the eye of the state in the department, thanks Rougon profusely for "his gracious acceptance of the invitation which we made so bold as to address to you ... He went on in this strain for a quarter of an hour, calling to mind the dazzling manner in which M. Rougon had once stood for the departement in the Legislative Assembly. The city of Niort had inscribed his name in its annals as one of its benefactors. It was burning on every possible occasion to give him token of its gratitude." Kahn, the forgemaster-cum-deputy, spoke next. He told of his long efforts, his research, and all the official negotiations he had been obliged to maintain for nearly four years, to be able to endow his fatherland with a new railway. Now prosperity of every sort was going to rain down on this Departement. The fields would be fertilized, the factories would redouble their production, commerce would begin to throb in the heart of the humblest hamlet. Indeed, to listen to him, it appeared that the Deux-Sevres departement would be transformed ... into a veritable land of cockaigne.

xii Preface

The third speech was delivered by the state engineer, who was responsible for enforcing technical standards. For the initiated, it was a masterpiece of ambivalence, combining ostensible deference to the deputy with a thinly disguised suggestion that the project owed more to Kahn's desire to line his own pockets than to his civic conscience. He dropped the hint that he had grave reservations about the technical and financial aspects of the question, but refrained from openly criticizing the forgemaster. After all, the two men would have to get along with one another on a daily basis. Finally, Rougon blessed the enterprise by placing it under the benevolent patronage of the emperor himself. It was not merely the Departement des Deux-Sevres which was entering on an era of miraculous prosperity, but the whole of France - and all this thanks to the linking of Niort to Angers by a branch line. For ten minutes on end he enumerated the countless benefits which would shower down on France's millions. He even involved the hand of the Almighty ... With a smile on his lips, he made a rapid gesture which piled up mountains of gold. And at that point the applause was so vociferous that he had to break off.

This scene, which could just as easily have taken place in Nevers, Nancy, or Narbonne as in Niort, indicates the multifaceted nature of the train - a technique to be mastered for the engineer, a stepping-stone to personal prosperity and political power for the ambitious deputy, a form of patronage to be dangled before the eyes of the local population by the representatives of the state. The train, and after it the automobile, also caught the popular imagination as the most tangible testimonies to the power of science to revolutionize everyday life. The admiration for the techniques which transformed previous concepts of space and time extended far beyond the ranks of engineers. Peasant families, for whom the train was in more than one sense a bridge between a rural and an urban way of life,2 the commuter who fleetingly escaped the daily grind via the exploits recounted in newspapers such as l'Auto, the child at play with a model train or car,3 all succumbed to the charms of la technique. The result has been that transport questions have been too important to leave in the hands of the "expert." In the 1860s, as Zola indicates, the opening of a new railway was the culmination of the interplay of several national and local forces, each striving to attain its own goals. By the time of Zola's grandchildren, in the second quarter of this century, the number

xiii Preface

and variety of groups whose interests were bound up in the fate of transportation had grown dramatically. The trade unions and the parties of the left now had a better chance of making their voices heard, alongside those of the railway companies, the engineers, the parliamentarians, and the local dignitaries. With the invention and diffusion of the automobile, the car manufacturers, the oil and tire companies, and the road transporters - from the nationally based company to the village garagiste carrying the mail to the farm and bringing the farmers' wives to the market - entered the fray. The forces competing to shape or reshape the transport system cut across the political and social spectrum of modern France. Apostles of the transatlantic gospel of technical progress clashed with supporters of a planned, socialist society. Engineers imbued with notions of raison d'etat faced selfemployed families fighting to maintain the viability of a marginal, nomadic life on the waterways in spite of competition and technological unemployment. The background to these conflicts was an environment in which the principles upon which republican France had been built came under increasing pressure. The world depression of the 1930s, coming on top of more than a decade of inflation, sapped the confidence of the franqais moyen in his country's ability to remain an island of financial stability with a solid agricultural base in a sea of fluctuating industrial economies. The defeat of 1940 and the German occupation destroyed the myth of French superiority in arms, revealed the degree to which French industry had fallen behind that of its rivals, and set one half of the nation against the other. Postwar reconstruction posed economic tasks of unprecedented magnitude calling for a boldness of vision which ran counter to the cautious economic management of the Third Republic. Complicating these more general problems was the fact that transport technology refused to stand still. From its humble beginnings, the car industry grew rapidly and soon challenged the monopoly won by the railways back in the 1850s. The automobile took on mythical proportions as an open-sesame to all who sought independence from the constraints of the railway timetable. In its wake, however, it brought problems with which the political system was ill-equipped to cope. The making of transport policy thus serves as a useful focal point for a study of the conflicts engendered by the economic and social changes experienced by French society in the twentieth century.

xiv Preface

Since I set foot in Paris at the Gare du Nord on a warm October evening, carrying a battered suitcase and speaking broken highschool French, I have become indebted to a good many people. I was kept afloat financially in the early stages of the project by the Government of Ontario. More recently, the School of Graduate Studies and Research at Queen's University has provided financial support. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Social Science Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The research for this book was greatly facilitated by the staff of the Douglas Library at Queen's, the New York Public Library, the Bibliotheque de la SNCF, the Bibliotheque de la Chambre de Commerce de Paris, the Bibliotheque Nationale, and the departmental archives of Calvados, Gard, Herault, Hautes-Pyrenees, Rhone, and Yvelines. When working conditions became too frustrating at the Archives Nationales, there was always the cafe du Petit Berry across the street. At the SNCF, M. Moureau and his colleagues of the Statistics Department initiated me into the world of the cheminots. M. Gerard Verresen of La Vie du Rail was also most helpful in establishing railway contacts. MM. Jean Richard-Deshais and Francois Lehideux were both hospitable and informative at the Automobile Club de France. The interviews and correspondence with these and other participants in the events described in this book added a more personal dimension to my understanding of French transport history. I am also indebted to those who have guided the research and writing: to Patrick Fridenson and Francois Caron, for their advice on sources and perspectives; to Alan Green, Bob Hopwood, George Rawlyk, and Bill Irvine for reading an earlier version of the manuscript; to Gwynne Lewis, Roger Magraw, Don Akenson, and Dave Wilson, who have affected the way I think about history; and most of all to John Sherwood, who supervised the dissertation from which this book originated with the care and perceptiveness his students have come to expect from him. Pam Manders and Ross Hough drafted the figures and Charles Beer pruned many gallicisms from the text. Thanks also go to Peter Spriinken, Monique Lutic, and Anne Carder for rescuing me from a hovel on the rue du faubourg Saint-Denis and introducing me to the world outside the dusty confines of the archives. Finally, I am grateful to my family for their encouragement over the years and to Pam, who is getting used to train talk.

Abbreviations

AD AN CG CGT CGTU COTR FNTF FNTR MRP ONN PLM PO SATAIC SCETA SGTD SNCF TGV

Archives Departementales Archives Nationales Conseil General Confederation Generale du Travail Confederation Generale du Travail Unitaire Comite d'Organisation des Transports Routiers Federation Nationale des Transporters de France Federation Nationale des Transporteurs Routiers Mouvement des Republicains Populaires Office National de la Navigation Paris a Lyon et a la Mediterrannee Paris a Orleans Societe Anonyme des Transports Automobile Industriels et Commerciaux Societe de Controle et de 1'Exploitation des Transports Automobiles Societe Generale des Transports Departementaux Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer francais Train a grande vitesse

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The Politics of Transport in Twentieth-Century France

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CHAPTER ONE

French Transport Policy: Raison d'etat or Esprit de clocher?

In the century spanning the July Revolution of 1830 and the Great Depression, the face of France was revolutionized.! From a group of jealously coexisting provinces, forced under an administrative umbrella by a series of ambitious, centralizing governments, she became a modern nation, united linguistically, culturally, and economically. Central to this process was a radical transformation of the means of communication, the creation of a national rail network, and the spread of reliable roads, linking not only important centres, but also market towns, villages, hamlets, and farms. As one railroad historian has put it, "by the extension of railway communications, the French provinces became more conscious of their economic interdependence, of their solidarity, and by the convergence of lines in Paris, of their ties with the central power."2 The economic basis of this growing cohesion was the forging of a national market, based on regional specialization. Each region increasingly performed those tasks for which it was best suited, transferring surplus production of its specialities and accepting other goods in return. Railways often provided the crucial stimulus for these interregional exchanges by equalizing agricultural and industrial prices throughout France and thereby allowing consumption far from areas of production.3 One provincial notable, the marquis d'Espeuilles, realized this when he welcomed the opening of the line from Nevers to Chalon-sur-Saone in 1852 because it would provide "a magnificent outlet" for trade between Nevers and the south, so that the "wine with which they overflow and which we lack will come here in exchange for the livestock we raise."4 The Nivernais region thereafter concentrated on animal husbandry. Here, as elsewhere, the obsession

4 The Politics of Transport in France

with self-sufficiency, born out of the paucity of communications and the inward-looking mentality that resulted, became less keenly felt.5 Concomitantly, diet, housing, and clothing became more uniform, because quality products like wheat, cement and cotton supplanted inferior local materials.6 Perhaps the most profound and most intangible change in this period was the mutation of popular mentalities caused by contacts with cities and with other regions. Once the railways began to push into the countryside in the last quarter of the century, the peasant went to town and fashioned direct long-distance business relationships, "He would not have even have dreamt of this if he had only put in rare and brief appearances in town, in the few hours available between his arrival in his cart and his departure after he had eaten, had a drink and tended his horse."7 Earlier contacts between town and country were sporadic and required great personal sacrifices. The official brochure of the department of the Correze, on the southwest fringes of the Massif Central, complained in 1827 that "our communications with the neighbouring departments are virtually non-existent."8 In nearby Haute-Vienne some regional exchanges occurred, notably the transport of valued "terre gaize" to the Limoges potteries, a round trip of 140 km. But for the carters, this meant "ruining their animals, smashing up their carts, wasting an enormous amount of fodder, losing their manure or dung and the workdays of both men and animals."9 Good roads and railways could provide a window on the outside world and lessen the drudgery of agricultural toil. However, the transport revolution was not an unqualified success story. Certainly, it opened up vast tracts like the heaths and woodlands of the Landes, formerly "a vast repellent zone of isolation,"10 and brought industry to villages and towns like Bonnieres-sur-Seine which lay on main lines, in this case Paris to Rouen.11 The Midi's domination of the national table-wine market would have been inconceivable but for nineteenth-century transport innovations.12 On the other hand, less fortunate towns and regions lost out as a result of the recasting of the economic landscape. The arrival of the early railroads often diminished the importance of towns which had previously thrived as links between Paris and the provinces: Chalons-sur-Marne, Beauvais, Arras, Montbrison, Poitiers, and Clermont-Ferrand all suffered in this way before 1875.13 Some regions, like Champagne in the northeast, lost their former advantage of proximity to the huge Parisian market and became more "a transit route than a produc-

5 French Transport Policy

tive region."14 Parts of Burgundy, the importance of which had grown during the canal age, experienced a relative decline after the coming of the railways.15 Industrial and agricultural production progressively shifted to those areas endowed with raw materials, an enterprising bourgeoisie, and an ample labour force, to the detriment of geographically handicapped areas such as Brittany, the Massif Central, the Pyrenees, and the Alps. Transport often drained these areas of their active male population, condemning them to atrophy. Rural exodus was the other side of the coin to regional specialization.16 Clearly then, the stakes involved in formulating transport policy were high. Because individual and collective livelihoods were at issue, passions were excited. Transport was no purely administrative concern, but a vital political question. For this reason, local and national interest groups competed to ensure that the transport network that emerged would benefit them at the expense of their rivals. In these struggles, attitudes developed which would persist long into this century; time and again, Chambers of Commerce, railway managers, deputies, and ministerial officials echoed the views of their nineteenth-century forebears. When buffeted by the shocks of economic crisis, railway deficits and postwar reconstruction, they drew upon the stock of experience and received opinions accumulated over several generations, to the exasperation of those who sought to modernize the system. An analysis of the conflicts during the creation of the national transport system is thus an essential preliminary to an understanding of how France has gone about coordinating transport since 1930. At the dawn of the railway age, France possessed a more coherent communications network than any other country except Britain, which had improved its road and waterway systems dramatically from about 1780.17 Roads and to a lesser extent canals radiated outwards from Paris towards the major provincial towns and the frontiers. From 1815 to 1848, extensive repairs to the existing national roads - which had suffered from neglect and the passage of military convoys during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras - and the building of new routes in the mountains and to the turbulent west completed the national highway system. The credit for this achievement belongs to the Corps des Ponts et Chaussees, the state's bridges and highway department set up by Sully and Colbert and solidly organized by the reforming minister, Turgot, in the 1770s.18

6 The Politics of Transport in France

The state's motives in improving communications were almost exclusively military and administrative, rather than economic.19 The Fonts et Chaussees budget was channelled to strategic roads, enabling efficient mobilization and supply of troops and rapid sorties to foreign soil.20 Internally, the government hoped that better links with the provinces would facilitate central control, tax collection, and the curbing of unrest. Any economic benefits, such as those arising in northern France from the discovery of coal alongside Vauban's roads and canals, were an unexpected bonus.21 What is more, the road from Lyon to the industrial town of Rive-de-Gier, of no strategic importance but one of the most crucial economic links of the kingdom, remained in a "deplorable state" for most of the first half of the century.22 As a result of this activity, a conception of transport as a means of achieving administrative centralization had existed in France since the ancien regime. Comtejaubert, a member of the Chamber of Deputies, expressed this well when he stated in 1837 that "Centralization, that benefit of the Constituent Assembly, perfected by the Empire, adopted by the Restoration and liberalized by the July Revolution should be fortified more than ever: [railway construction] is a great opportunity to do just that." The creation of a nationally planned network would have the advantage, according to another advocate of this tradition, of furthering "the leading principle of French unity, which... has as its distant but constant goal the creation of equality of well-being between the different parts of the country.23 The poet-politician Lamartine endorsed this view, and added a note of suspicion of private interests. His axiom was that "for works which must last generations, it is necessary that there be some form of durable guarantee, which the state alone can provide."24Not surprisingly, the head of the Fonts et Chaussees during the July Monarchy also favoured state control of the railways and felt that the administration, guided by the corps, should broadly determine which lines should be built and where they should go, rather than following the British precedent of giving the railway companies a free hand.25 Probably because state transport policy had been dictated by national administrative imperatives, local initiative in improving communications was meagre. It was hard to whip up enthusiasm for public works when people felt that they would only serve to make the tax collector and the recruiting sergeant less remote.26 It followed that minor roads, whose upkeep fell on local authorities, were in an atrocious condition during the first half of the last

7 French Transport Policy

century and in some instances much longer.27 In 1810 the prefect of the Rhone complained to the mayor of Sourcieux, "Your roads are a swamp, capable of swallowing up man and beast in the rainy season." His complaints must have fallen on deaf ears because nine years later his successor wrote to the minister of the interior that "everywhere that the road's surface is of some value, it is invaded; each year the plough carves up the public way."28 At this time, local roads were often built only as a result of the initiative of the prefect, the local embodiment of the state. It was thanks to the energy of Prefect Badouix that from the 1830s Nievre, to the north of the Massif Central, possessed "a network of well-kept departmental roads allowing goods to circulate more easily."29 The local taste for better road and rail links was only acquired when it became clear that the economic benefits outweighed the dangers of Paris domination. Until then, reforming efforts of early nineteenth-century governments met with as little local response as their proposed educational innovations.30 When railway construction began in France in the 1820s and 1830s, the twin legacies of state initiative and provincial suspicion bore heavily on the rhythm of development and the course followed by the new lines. The state initially showed little enthusiasm for the modern technique. The Ponts et Chaussees was financially and emotionally committed to canals and roads, and was midway through an important national waterway program when the railway emerged as an alternative.31 The head of the corps, Legrand, felt that railways were a fad, a luxury that was beyond the nation's means, and resisted railway building into the 1840s.32 As the corps' approval was necessary before track could be laid, its insistence on rigorous technical standards and reluctance to allow even gentle gradients slowed down the rate of construction.33 By and large, it could not be said that localities were any more welcoming to the early railroads. The responses of local businessmen were conditioned more by a concern for maintaining existing prosperity than for fostering further economic advance. The large merchants of Lyon, for instance, feared that the railway would destroy the city's prosperity by depriving it of its traditional entrepot function. Once they realized that the railway was there to stay whether they liked it or not, they fought against the outlying towns to ensure that there would be a central Lyon station, at which all goods coming from the north would have to be unloaded before continuing the journey south by water to the Mediterranean. This would guarantee Lyon's commercial status,

8 The Politics of Transport in France

but it was hardly the most rational way to run a railway. The neighbouring towns challenged this proposal because they feared that it would subordinate them economically to the Lyon elite. The ensuing conflicts between commercial interests, themselves divided, the government, and Parisian bankers, who favoured a direct link between Paris and the Mediterranean, delayed the building of a Paris-Lyon railway until 1852.34 Similarly, Orleans trading interests insisted that the local station be built on a siding to ensure that goods from the Loire would continue to disembark in the town, instead of going straight through to Paris. The resulting bottleneck bedevilled the Paris-Orleans line for the next hundred years.35 In East Aquitaine, disagreements about where lines should run prevented any lines from being built in the southwest of France before 1848.36 Local responses to the first railways therefore tended to be defensive and reflexive, rather than creative: towns sought railways to preserve the status quo, the prevent rivals from having them, or, as in the case of several eastern towns, hedged their bets by demanding both railways and canals.37 Parliamentary debates about railways got bogged down in points of parochial concern, causing one deputy, the industrialist Legentil, to complain that "as for the deputies, there are many who will only vote under the influence of local consciousness, that petty spirit that would always lock the public interest in the paddock of the electoral riding and tie it to the village steeple."38 The banker Emile Pereire, who had great confidence in the capacity of the railways to ensure France the lion's share of European transit, feared that his plans would run aground because of provincial small-mindedness: Can one engage the deputies of the Pyrenees... to vote subsidies to ameliorate the riverside departments of the Seine, Marne, Rhone and Saone? We do not hide the fact that there is the root of the whole question, and that although we can prove easily enough that a railroad designed to unite the Mediterranean to the North Sea, to assure us the commerce of England and of Europe, ought to be considered as a work eminently useful to France, we know that the Chamber is too obsessed with local concerns to be moved by such considerations.39

But the government itself did not always set the best example when it came to ensuring that economic rationale would define the shape of the transport network. In an age when governments had to show more sensitivity to local feelings if they were to maintain credibility, it was tempting to treat transport policy as a

9 French Transport Policy

form of political patronage. This practice, often associated with the Third Republic,40 had a long pedigree. Under the July Monarchy, for example, Le Mans won the contest with Rennes to become the gateway between Paris and the west because it had influence in high places.41 The imperial government and its supporters used transport patronage systematically in the 1850s and 1860s to boost its popularity and ward off opposition. The author of an election pamphlet of 1869 urged the peasantry to vote for the emperor's candidates because "since he came to power, numerous roads ... criss-cross the countryside: it is a real blessing."42 Given this emphasis on local perspectives to which the government often pandered as a means of keeping the peace, it is not surprising that many representatives like the comte d'Argout, a member of the upper house in the July Monarchy, felt that "Parliament was right to ask for detailed plans and projects."43 His political class, a small but diverse elite of nobles and grands bourgeois, sought, by parliamentary control, to shield its provincial fiefs from excessive state interference and to avoid the social and moral turmoil which had accompanied British industrialization. French liberals accepted state interference only when it became clear that without it the French economy would lag behind the British. For example, Berryer deplored on several occasions the lack of "esprit d'association" of France's businessmen and the timidity of her farmers in comparison to the energy and initiative of British and American entrepreneurs. As a result, the help of the administration was necessary, despite the defects of the Ponts et Chaussees, which were "totally unfamiliar with economic questions."44 These early disputes involving administrators, politicians, and local economic interests affected French railway development in at least three significant ways. In the first place, they delayed France's start in railway construction, so that by the mid-century, when Belgium's network was almost complete, Britain's and America's were well advanced, and even Germany had laid over 4,500 km of track, France had only built a disappointing 3,000.45 They also led to sharp conflicts as to whether the state should build the railways according to a predetermined plan, as in Belgium, or whether the British laissez-faire approach should prevail. The controversy dragged on for a decade, until in 1842 the government, advised by the engineers of the Ponts et Chaussees, proposed a plan for six lines, radiating outward from Paris to major provincial towns. This plan fell within the ancien regime tradition whereby raison d'etat determined transport policy: all

10 The Politics of Transport in France FIGURE 1

The Early Growth of the Railway Network

roads led to Paris, and there were no provisions for links between major commercial centres such as Bordeaux and Lyon or Bordeaux and Marseilles. The grands notables of the July Monarchy had proved strong enough to block centralizing rail schemes for nine years, but they ultimately lacked any alternative overall concept of transport development.46 A third result of the discussions of the 1830s and 1840s was agreement on a compromise formula for relations between the state and the railway companies, avoiding both complete commercial independence and direct state management. In order to determine which lines should be built and to avoid speculative ventures, some state control of railway management was accepted. State financial backing was also necessary to raise the huge sums of

11 French Transport Policy

capital required by major construction projects, particularly because centres of industry were more dispersed than in England or Belgium and hence the prospects of an adequate return were less sure. But liberals such as Dufaure, the minister who presided over the commission responsible for drafting the plan, felt that commercial flexibility was only possible if the railway companies remained in private hands.47 The details of the conventions binding state and companies changed with each financial crisis or major extension of the network,48 but the underlying principle of joint partnership proved durable. Furthermore, each time political or economic necessity imposed further state control of the railways' activities, the companies received generous compensation from the public purse.49 The July Monarchy, then, was richer in projects than in accomplishments. It was left to the Second Empire to translate words into deeds, piloting the construction of the main lines from Paris to the provinces in the 1850s, and carrying out a merger of the railway companies.50 When this process was completed, six companies dominated the railway system: Nord, Est, Paris a Orleans (PO), Paris a Lyon et a la Mediterranee (PLM), Quest, and Midi. Each company enjoyed a regional monopoly and all but the Midi were linked to Paris. A growing awareness of the railways' commercial potential caused "railway mania," a burst of investment from 1852 to 1856,51 and provoked a craving throughout France for improved transport facilities that has persisted ever since. The push by provincials for more railways and their dissatisfaction with the response of the companies gave rise to deep antagonisms which continue to colour the French handling of transport problems today.52 For small businessmen and farmers, the most striking features of the grands reseaux, as the newly established railway companies were called, were their size, and their ability to control regional destinies. The Orleans Chamber of Commerce protested in 1854 that "the fate of a large number of towns and of departments lies, at this moment, at the discretion of the railways, which ... spread prosperity or ruin according to their whim."53 Hippolyte Peut, whose livelihood as a goods' transporter on the Rhone was endangered by the new Lyon-Marseilles railway, shared this point of view. "The companies," he protested, "seek to accumulate the whole mass of production at the extremities of their lines ... only to leave 54all the intermediary localities stagnant and impoverished."

12 The Politics of Transport in France

The widespread fear of the railway companies in small towns and the countryside was intensified because the companies were dominated by external banking interests. When the grands reseaux were formed, Parisian haute finance, in the shape of the Rothschilds and several Protestant banks, won control of the Nord, PO, and PLM, while the Est, Quest, and Midi were more closely aligned with the Pereire brothers' Credit Mobilier bank.55 The official historian of the PLM notes that it was controlled by "a group which comprised the most reputed entrepreneurs and financiers of the age." 56The basis for this ascendancy of the banks was the huge credit requirements of the railways;57 in return, the railway was indispensable in spreading banking facilities throughout the provinces.58 Tied to the banks, the railways also had more than a foothold in the metallurgical industry. Direct control over this diverse and predominantly small-scale industry was difficult to achieve, but the railways wielded a powerful influence through the medium of the Schneider and de Wendel empires. These two families, at the forefront of the innovative wing of the industry,59 were well represented in several railway administrations, and were prepared, in return for medium-term contracts, to offer lower prices for rails and engines than their less efficient rivals. The railways reinforced this strategy of preventing a coalition of maitres de forges from jacking up supply prices by consistently importing part of their requirements to stimulate competitive pricing among French producers.60 Such was the scale of their order book that a major fluctuation in their purchases of rails or rolling stock could plunge French metallurgy into depression, as it did in the mid18608.61 The railways represented a business organization of a new type. As in the United States, because of their scale, the dispersed nature of their operations, and the need for precise coordination of traffic movements, massive mobilization of capital and complex accounting procedures, "they moved business activity away from organizations run by entrepreneurs with the aid of personal trustees, relatives and the like to corporations with a systematized bureaucratic management."62 They formed the hub of a vast, integrated corporate elite, entrenched in the imperial political system,63 and with horizons stretching far beyond those of the mass of their customers. The interests of Paulin Talabot, the dynamic manager of the PLM, bear this out. Talabot's original base was the family coal-mine at La Grand'-Combe (Card) in the southeast. At the peak of his power, the PLM controlled vast

13 French Transport Policy

sections of the western Mediterranean railways, its French lines linking up with Talabot's Saragossa line and his networks in Lombardy and northern Italy. To exploit the minerals in his Algerian mines at Mokta el Hadid, Talabot laid down track in North Africa and ran a steam navigation company to transport his minerals to the metropolis. From Marseilles, they travelled north on the PLM and were eventually processed by the northernbased Denain-Anzin company, of which Talabot was partowner.64 Under the Second Empire, the railways used their financial power and technical superiority to win a near-monopoly of longdistance traffic. Originally conceived as adjuncts of the inland waterways, even by ardent railway promoters like the SaintSimonian Michel Chevalier,65 they soon became dangerous competitors. At first they took traffic - passengers and goods - from rivers like the Loire, which was plagued with headwinds, fogs, and shifting sands, as well as the usual handicaps of low water in the summer and freezing in winter.66 By I860 the Rhone was faring little better: traffic fell from 536,000 tons in 1856 to 273,000 tons in 1859- A representative of navigation interests complained that it was "no more than a pile of ruins for its promoters and for the public which used it."67 By this time, too, the smaller canals of the Centre and the Midi had lost most of their long-distance traffic, and were being pushed into a purely local carriers' role.68 Despite protracted rearguard actions, the railways were victorious throughout, confining their rivals to bulk transportation, mainly in the north, the east, and on the Seine. In 1857 the railways' total traffic exceeded water traffic for the first time: the monopole de fait (effective monopoly), which would persist until the 1930s was all but acquired.69 Faced with this potentially threatening transport monopoly, local businessmen and pressure groups devised a series of responses to limit the damage, either by seeking to restore free competition, by appealing to the state to impose broad social and economic obligations on the companies, or by a combination of the two. They sought to ensure that the companies would respond to regional needs, and to take measures to minimize the powerful centralizing effect of the Paris-based network set up in conformity with the plan of 1842. One method for local notables to undercut the railways' monopoly was to build new lines catering explicitly to local needs. They tried this extensively from the 1850s to the mid-1870s. The most interesting experiment involved the Grand Central com-

14 The Politics of Transport in France

pany, which attempted to correct the pro-Par is orientation of the grands reseaux by building a series of east-west " transversale" lines from Clermont-Ferrand to Montauban, Limoges to Agen, and Bordeaux to Lyon. The drive for these lines came from businessmen in Limoges and Lyon, and from state officials convinced of the existence of rich coal deposits in the Massif Central. The Pereire brothers' Credit Mobilier bank and British financial circles backed the venture, hoping thereby to broaden AngloFrench commercial relations. But the new company never really found its feet. By 1858 it was bankrupt, victim of the PC'S fears that a rival station at Bordeaux would bite into the takings of its lucrative Paris-Bordeaux line, and of the state's unwillingness to jeopardize the stability of the newly created grands reseaux by sponsoring a rival.70 The upshot of this crash was the loss of the best opportunity to break with the Paris-oriented pattern of railway development by building rapid east-west rail links. Instead the PO built small sections of track along the fringes of the Massif Central over the next twenty years, guided by no coherent plan other than financial viability.71 Subsequently, the competition of the PO and the PLM hindered the passage of goods from east to west and vice versa.72 If a southern businessman or farmer wanted to send his goods to Paris, it was a relatively straightforward matter: most provincial centres enjoyed a direct rail-link with the capital. It was not necessary to transfer his goods from one railway network to another: if he lived in the southwest, the PO would transport his goods; if he lived in the southeast, he would use the PLM. If on the other hand, he sought to send goods across country from Bordeaux to Lyon, he would run into problems. He would have to take the PO for the first half of the journey and then at the "frontier" transfer his goods to the PLM, which operated a different rate structure from that of its rival.73 In addition, the lack of cooperation between the two companies, coupled with the engineering problems involved in crossing the Massif Central, meant that the lines his goods took would be meandering branch lines, often only single-tracked, on which commercial speeds were far below those on the Paris-Lyon or Paris-Bordeaux lines. Road transporters eagerly exploited this structural weakness of the railways in the interwar period. What happened in Central France was duplicated elsewhere. Efforts to set up locally-run lines foundered on the opposition of the established companies in the Pyrenees, the Lyon region, and

15 French Transport Policy

the north. The sponsors of the petites compagnies lacked the capital and the technical knowhow to build viable lines able to withstand the fierce competition of their senior rivals. "It is a professional's business and we can only find mediocrities," complained one such promoter. By the mid-1870s the simultaneous crash of several of the most important regional networks ended this method of challenging the power of the grands reseaux.74 The failure of free enterprise attempts to curb the companies' might forced pressure groups to petition the state to mediate in the dispute. During the Second Empire, the state sought to consolidate itself by meeting at least some of the popular demands.75 In particular the railways were obliged after 1857 to run their services in conformity with a cahier des charges, which stipulated the number of trains to be run daily on each line and insisted on the railways' obligation to transport. In other words, all demands for the carriage of passengers and goods must be met, even during seasonal peaks, when rolling-stock and locomotives were stretched far beyond normal capacity.76 To ensure that the waterways were not wiped out by rail competition, the empire also funnelled moderate funds towards river and canal upkeep, and reduced the tax on inland navigation from an average of 8 centimes per ton-kilometre in 1856 to 2.9 centimes in 1861. The state took over some canals on the verge of bankruptcy.77 The theory behind this, according to Napoleon m himself, was that "fair competition" between railways and waterways would drive down rates to the benefit of agriculture and industry. As a result, the waterways held their own much better than in Great Britain, where protective legislation came too late. By 1876, the railways carried 63 per cent of national freight, compared to 15 per cent for the waterways and 22 per cent for the roads.78 A third way to limit the effects of the railway monopoly was to enforce the construction of lines in regions which lacked them, in other words to use state power to undo the results of the struggles between the petites compagnies and the grands reseaux. In addition, reformers argued, freight and passenger rates should be based primarily on social considerations, and not simply on cost criteria. Although part of this program was achieved under the empire, its chances were far better once the Third Republic emerged victorious from the political battles of the 1870s. For despite their concessions, the imperial leaders remained too closely wedded to the traditional centralizing conception of transport policy to sat-

16 The Politics of Transport in France

isfy regional aspirations.79 The young republic went much further than its predecessors by carrying out the Freycinet plan, which brought railroads to the countryside for the first time. The plan grew out of five years of provincial agitation against the grands reseaux, during which time business spokesmen showered the new regime with demands for better transport facilities in the coalfields, the west, and the Massif Central, which remained, according to one petition, "an immense clearing surrounded by a forest of railroads."80 Jules Siegfried, the president of the Le Havre Chamber of Commerce, accused the railways of discriminating against French ports and claimed that "the only action of the state appears to consist of confirming the acts of the companies and preventing any tampering with their sacrosanct monopoly."81 Charles de Freycinet, the most renowned of republican transport ministers, responded to such provincial pressures in formulating his plan, a three-pronged effort to expand the railway network, standardize the inland waterways, and improve country roads. Originally intending to build or complete 8,000 km of new lines, he enlarged the figure to 19,000 km under provincial pressure. Many of the lines built or conceived by the pefites compagnies were incorporated into the national network, which was now among the densest in Europe, with 42,000 km of lines.82 The canal and river works aimed at improving the navigability of existing routes, to allow them to take 300-ton barges, thus ensuring them an important share in the transport of cheap, bulky goods, for which they were technically best suited. Consequently, after a generation of stagnation, waterway traffic doubled between 1880 and 1900; the canals won a larger share of local carriage of construction materials and long-distance transport of coal.83 The roadworks fulfilled the July Monarchy's promise to create tolerable roads serving villages and hamlets. As a result, the backwoods of France now enjoyed access to railway stations.84 The Freycinet plan signified a shift in emphasis between national and local concerns in state transportation policy. Doubtless, raison d'etat continued to provide an important motive, for as Freycinet himself later wrote, one of the advantages of the plan was that "the central power is in better touch with the governed; it has more reliable means to make itself obeyed."85 Here, Freycinet can be seen as a centralist, using transport as an agent of administrative control, especially over the Catholic, antirepublican west. The plan formed part of a broader strategy, encompassing universal education and national military service, designed to

17 French Transport Policy

nourish a national republican consciousness in backward rural areas, thereby protecting the regime against its royalist and Bonapartist enemies.86 The novelty was in the unprecedented extent to which the formulation of republican transport policy was a two-way process, a fusion of provincial aspirations and republican raison d'etat. In fact, this contradiction between national and local concerns was largely apparent during the Third Republic, because the social and political basis of the national regime was the new, secular elite of lawyers, small businessmen, commerc^ants, and teachers thriving in each town and village. This emergent political force, Leon Gambetta's "nouvelks couches sociales" fought against the financial magnates they associated with the fallen imperial regime, and the rival elites of noble and clergy which competed for local power.87 They furnished the troops for the major republican parties, which were little more than loosely connected clubs with weak national direction, protecting the interests of the smalltown bourgeoisie and the peasantry.88 These secular provincial elites overlapped considerably with the groups that had earlier fought for a more regionally oriented transport system. Now no longer outgroups to be appeased when expedient, but bastions of the republican regime, they were much better placed to enforce their demands. Once the Freycinet plan had been carried out in the last three decades of the century, the standard-gauge railway network was basically complete. During this golden age of railway history, lasting from the 1880s to the 1920s, the Ministry of Public Works was responsible for attempting to prevent the grands reseaux from abusing their monopoly. In order to ensure that desirable social and economic goals would not be neglected in the drive for profit, all aspects of the railways' activities - rates, budgets, investments, and labour policy - passed under the ministerial microscope. The most visible area of control was over transport rates. The ministry insisted that these be set according to social and economic criteria, rather than on the basis of the cost of providing a given service. The theoretical underpinning of this method of calculating rates was la tarification ad valorem, or charging what the traffic would bear. A cheap commodity like coal, crucial to industrial growth, was carried cheaply, approximately at cost, while luxury items like oysters were subject to very high rates. But in practice, governmental intervention in rate-fixing was empirical, low rates being set when the social benefits or political

18 The Politics of Transport in France

capital to be gained from cheap transport outweighed the financial loss incurred.89 For example, the ministry instructed the companies to provide cheap workers' services to attract labour to industry, usually in cities and suburbs, but sometimes in small towns as well.90 These services were generally unprofitable, especially in the Paris region,91 but both unions and employers resisted attempts to withdraw these facilities, which they regarded as a political conquest. Other examples of "social rates" were legion. Southern winegrowers, for instance, often successfully petitioned the ministry to disallow increases in wine freight rates, which would handicap their efforts to dominate the mass northern market. Even when orthodox budgeting would have suggested hefty increases, the ministry ordered the reluctant companies to hold the line, or reduce rates.92 Similarly, the ministry and the networks spent several years after World War I unsuccessfully trying to devise a rate structure which would encourage iron and steel production in the Centre, far away from potential theatres of war, without handicapping the more important, but highly vulnerable industry of the eastern frontier, a delicate task calling for the judgment of a Solomon.93 By the 1920s a complex institutional framework existed to allow industrialists, regional authorities, and labour unions to voice demands concerning rates. Each region had its Office des Transports, run by Chambers of Commerce and Agriculture. These provided a forum for businessmen and farmers to present proposals concerning transport services to representatives of the grands reseaux, or, to put it more polemically, "to counteract the inertia of the large companies."94 Nationally, the Comite Consul tatif des Chemins de fer, grouping railway managers, road and waterway spokesmen, civil servants, and Chamber of Commerce delegates, advised the ministry on rate changes and other transport matters.95 If neither of these bodies proved effective, parliamentary representations and direct appeals to the ministry provided a last resort. Partly as a result of these measures and partly because of improved productivity, the average cost of transporting one ton-kilometre of goods by rail fell by 30 per cent between 1880 and 1914.96 The state's supervisory mechanism was complex, and of course control over rates was only part of the picture.97 However, unlike in Belgium, Germany, and Italy, it stopped short of direct ownership and management of the railways. Even the Convention of 1921, which went furthest to unify the grands reseaux and to subject them to state supervision, respected their private status. The

19 French Transport Policy

only state-owned network, apart from the newly recovered Alsatian lines, was in the agrarian, resource-poor west. Begun in 1878 as a merger of several dispersed secondary lines, it was amalgamated with the debt-ridden Reseau de 1'Ouest thirty years later. Until the 1930s, it was the poor relation of the national railway system, lacking the industrial base of the Nord and the lucrative passenger traffic of the PLM. Opponents of nationalization chided it for its deficits and its inability to follow consistent policies because of ministerial instability.98 Even its defenders emphasized its social provisions rather than its financial record." But the more fundamental reason why the Third Republic maintained a compromise between private and state ownership must be sought in the nature of French society and the republican political system. The struggle between the regionally-based petite and moyenne bourgeoisie and the grande bourgeoisie, which was ultimately decisive in defining the shape of the transport network, went far beyond transport questions. The middle-class opponents of the railway companies' monopoly generally fought for a society which would mirror their idealized conception of their own small towns. They stood for a smallholders' society, bound by loyalty to the local pays, in which economic change would not disrupt the existing social structure by throwing up tycoons or an army of wage labourers. The widespread diffusion of property would, they argued, allow citizens to enjoy social and economic independence, to control their own lives. When parts of the economy became concentrated in a few hands, this independence was destroyed and the force of gravity shifted in favour of external elites, operating on a national or international scale. Many spokesmen for the provincial bourgeoisie of nineteenth-century France argued that the railways, the banks, and large metallurgical concerns constituted a "feodalite financiere" which was antinational and undemocratic, investing abroad and holding the country to ransom. Indeed, the concept of this "'feodalite financiered or the Two Hundred Families, which used its economic muscle to wrest political control from the nation's elected representatives, was shared by both the Left and sections of the Right and profoundly affected the formulation of railway policy in the 1930s.100 In the Third Republic, the state, as Stanley Hoffmann has argued, played the role of watchdog, imposing commonly agreed social, economic, and administrative rules, "a common frame of reference, a stake, and often a scapegoat for all groups."101 State power was accepted in order to ensure a balance between contending social groups, to check the powerful, and to prevent the overthrow of the republican regime. But only a minority of the

20 The Politics of Transport in France

republican political class, notably the Socialist party and sections of the Radical-Socialist party, wanted direct control over the commanding heights of the economy; 102the majority felt that this would merely replace the "feodalite financier?" with an equally remote bureaucratic apparatus.103 Furthermore, the cost of buying out the grands reseaux was prohibitive, and the confiscation of railway assets would hurt the thousands of small rentiers who had sunk part of their funds into railway bonds.104 The compromise that was stumbled upon was to retain the existing capitalist economic structures, but to subject them to stringent parliamentary and ministerial control. As we have seen, this meant that the bulk of the railway system remained in private hands, while the state defined goals and supervised operations. This avoided the "natural" economic consequences of monopoly by buoying up inland navigation and imposing a far larger rail network than would have otherwise existed. Loubet, a future president of the republic, used this reasoning in 1883 to defend the convention between the state and the railways which was being discussed in Parliament. Having warned against the dangers of state control, he went on to paint a bleak picture of the consequences of laissez-faire: If we had allowed the railway companies complete freedom, do you know what would have happened? ... The towns or the regions which have a great deal of traffic and which can repay the cost of building and running a line would have railways. From Calais to Marseille we would have had one, two, maybe even three rival lines, which would have competed with one another by cutting their rates, then, once one of them had been ruined, the others would have combined to force up the rates.

Left to their own devices, the companies would have neglected "the unlucky, deprived, poor regions, those which even now, in 1883, do not provide enough traffic to cover running costs and the interest charges on the capital needed to build the line."105 The defenders of the republican transport system have rightly praised its social aims;106 along with a number of other factors, it allowed France to undergo the radical changes described by Eugen Weber without completely sacrificing her unique lifestyle and social structure. Nevertheless, when the automobile began to challenge the train in the 1920s, and economic depression hit France in the following decade, the clumsiness and inflexibility of the system became glaringly apparent. Unfortunately, in the transport world, as in the Third Republic as a whole, diagnosis proved easier than cure.

CHAPTER TWO

The Rise of the Automobile, 1920-1930

During the period of railway domination, from the 1850s on, the character and structure of road transport changed dramatically. Prior to that a highly organized system of stage coaches had carried passengers from Paris to the most important centres of the country. Using the outstanding network of royal roads, which was upgraded in the late eighteenth century, large companies in Paris, Lyon, and Bordeaux distributed colonial goods, foodstuffs, and luxury items. Elsewhere, semiprofessional rouliers, often peasants who needed cash to pay their taxes or supplementary work in the slack season, transported goods by road. En route to Paris from the Midi, Provencal carriers, laden with wine, fruit, oil, soap, braid, Italian pasta, and rice, picked up silks from Lyon, Saint-Etienne ironware, and fabric from Dauphine. On their return, they brought flour from the Paris region, northern textiles and crystals, Lorraine iron, and smoked or salted fish from the Low Countries.' Despite early nineteenth-century improvements in speed and efficiency, long-distance road transport was driven out of business by the railways, which revolutionized interurban transport. Thereafter, railway competition cast road traffic in a new mould: "it restrained it over long distances but inflated it in proximity to railway stations."2 Governments concentrated their credits on improving the local roads, which they envisaged as links between the hamlet or farm and the nearest station, neglecting somewhat the Routes Nationales, which the railways seemed to have rendered anachronistic.3 The road became the means whereby the peasant could escape from rural isolation by seizing the advantages offered by the train, notably by marketing his surplus produce, but also by making commercial contacts, improving his

22 The Politics of Transport in France

technical knowledge, and amusing himself.4 These types of commercial transaction caused the volume of road traffic to increase by about a third from 1876 to 1913, and the number of horsedrawn vehicles in circulation to grow steadily, slowly supplanting more primitive means of transport, such as the pack-mule.5 The prosperity of the road was clearly connected to that of the railway, for the road had only a local independent function. Early developments of motorized transport left the existing relationship between road and rail unchanged. In the belle epoque, the private car was a luxury item, the preserve of the rich or of an enterprising minority of rural professionals, and was far beyond the means of the average Frenchman.6 Until the 1930s, the department with the highest per capita car ownership was AlpesMaritimes, where the jeunesse doree of Cannes, Nice, and Monte Carlo boosted the figures. By 1914, there were only 107,000 private cars in circulation, not enough to worry the railway companies about the loss of their first-class clientele.7 Public passenger transport sought to fill the gaps in the existing transport network and to bring passengers to the railways, rather than to compete. Provincial bus services began to develop around 1908-9, notably in regions like the Pyrenees and the Alps, which were poorly served by railway lines.8 From 1910 on, the Ministry of Public Works supplied the departments with subsidies "to facilitate the creation of currents of traffic in the regions still deprived of railway lines," in line with its policy of ensuring that all parts of France were drawn into the national community.9 The early buses were uncomfortable, slow, and regularly broke down, although speed and reliability had improved considerably by 1912-13, so that in the Alps tourist coaches travelled at an average speed of 18-20 km an hour.10 Even so, they had more in common with "the buggy they replaced or competed against" than with the modern bus.n Many departments hesitated to subsidize bus services because they were not confident that an automobile service would be able "to make ends meet" and were unwilling to take a gamble, given their slender financial means.12 Early goods' transport also posed little threat to the railways. The first users of vans and trucks were the Parisian food chains and department stores, such as Felix Potin, which bought a DionBouton truck in November 1902 for deliveries in the city and the suburbs. Within a decade, Au Printemps, Bon Marche, Galeries Lafayette, Librairies Larousse, and many others had followed suit. In the case of Bon Marche, only a few trucks were used, and these, decked out in the colours of the firm, functioned partly as a

23 The Rise of the Automobile

means of advertising. The growth of urban deliveries aimed at a different clientele to that served by the railways, permitting middle-class consumers to supplement their neighborhood shopping with purchases from the new department stores. Whatever the effects it had on the small shopkeepers of the quartiers - who complained vociferously and with some effect - it left the railways unscathed.13 In fact, trucking only developed in limited sectors of the economy before 1914, notably food and drink. Special facilities, especially refrigeration, became available in about 1908.14 Even here, there was still ample scope for expansion, because the Midi wine transporters clung doggedly to the familiar horsedrawn trucks. Yves Guedon, whose Transports automobiles was at one and the same time a history and a manifesto, complained of the "esprit routinier" of the French businessman, who, unlike his British or American counterpart, was willing to buy himself a car, but not a truck. If he did eventually buy one, when it broke down "he became red with rage and heartily cursed the wretched truck, the miserable delivery van that had the nerve to have a temporary breakdown."15 The horse was still king of the road when the war broke out. Perhaps Guedon was overly harsh in his condemnation of his compatriots. Early French commercial vehicles were plagued with technical defects, not least of which was the inability of solid tires to stand up to the stress and strain of carrying heavy loads on roads designed for horses and mules. From 1905, the Lyon industrialist, Marius Berliet, began turning out a more successful two-ton truck, and by 1913 had cornered 65 per cent of the market. But as the cost of a truck chassis could vary from 15,000 to 21,000 francs ($3,000-$4,000), there was little wonder that most businessmen, merchants, and farmers continued to remain sceptical about the commercial viability of motorized road transport.l6 The activities of prewar road haulage were limited, then, to services which posed little threat to the mighty rail companies. Even those who had confidence in the potential of the new technique conceived of it in traditional terms, as a complement, rather than a competitor to the railways. An observer from Alsace predicted in 1908 that it is very possible that in the not so distant future the roads will once more be filled with winding goods' convoys. The improvement of the large motor vehicle will soon lead to the creation of road transport enterprises in regions still

24 The Politics of Transport in France lacking railways. Rapid, mechanical vehicles, carrying a relatively heavy load at a reasonable speed, will gradually transform our highways and roads into little arteries and veins that will feed the main arteries which are our railways.17

Four years later Guedon, the proselytizer of the truck, also felt that it was cut out for this task.18 Rare were those who predicted that it could upset the status quo by reversing the centralizing tendency of the French transport network and allowing the longdistance traveller to bypass Paris.19 World War I had a contradictory effect on the automobile. While it halted the expansion of production by requisitioning vehicles and ordering the conversion of factories to munitions' production, it also highlighted the untapped potential of road transport. Consequently, the number of vehicles in circulation fell from 107,000 to 93,000 and some civilian services, such as the capital's buses, had to stop operating.20 On the positive side, the war offered certain established constructors like Renault an opportunity to expand and thrust newcomers, and most spectacularly Andre Citroen, to the forefront.21 Possibly of even greater longterm importance was the tour de force accomplished by the fleet of vehicles requisitioned by the army in feeding the front lines during the early days of the war, when the railway system was overstretched and undermanned. The story of the taxis of the Marne, heroically rushing reinforcements to the famous battle which halted the German offensive of September 1914, has passed into legend, to be recounted by defenders of the automobile in times of crisis.22 Service at the front, together with the less obtrusive but equally valuable work of the municipal food services, provided superb publicity for the admirers of the internal combustion engine.23 After the war ended, the renaissance of the road was undeniable. Automobile production, while puny by North American standards, took off at a rate which gave the lie to all but the most optimistic forecasts.24 The industry was one of the major pillars of the rapidly growing economy of the 1920s, and some of its leaders abandoned the artisanal production methods of the belle epoque.2^ Men like Citroen and Renault were among the foremost propagandists of American business methods and consumerist values, which attracted a dynamic minority of the French business and administrative elite.26 The adoption of mass production methods by a minority of automobile manufacturers implied a reorientation from a bour-

25 The Rise of the Automobile

geois market to "a peasant clientele which turns more and more every day to the use of small cars and light vans."27 From around 1923, the production of industrial vehicles, retarded since 1918 by the acquisition of substantial stocks in the liberated zones and from American camps, began to pick up speed.28 For the first time that year, there was a separate salon for heavy goods vehicles, perhaps an indication of the growing status of that branch of the profession. Specialist producers launched a wider range of vehicles, aiming to tap the potential mass market.29 Improvements in speed, comfort, capacity, and durability, and more economical production methods lay behind this expansion. Constructors enhanced comfort and speed by adopting air-filled tires and improved suspension, while they increased load capacity and cut down wear and tear by lowering the centre of gravity of the cab.30 Economies of scale brought down prices to a more "democratic" level. As a result, France led Europe in the number of vehicles on the roads in the 1920s. Ownership of cars and trucks was concentrated in rural areas, rather than large towns and in the southwest as opposed to the northeast or the west.31 By the end of the decade, many small shopkeepers, village craftsmen, and travelling salesmen were using automobiles for professional purposes.32 More farmers also came to own their own vehicle: agricultural goods were increasingly collected at the farm itself and carried to the nearest train station, thereby gradually minimizing the distributive function of fairs and markets, which have subsequently undergone a gradual decline.33 The motorized truck also definitively ousted its horse-drawn rival in the delivery trade organized by large stores, breweries, and wine merchants. According to one authority, the arrival of the automobile heralded a modernization of agricultural methods in the poor rural department of Aveyron by making lime and fertilizer more readily available. A local transporter claimed that "the peasants have only begun to mass-produce since making agreements with transporters for the evacuation of their harvests."34 Defenders of the automobile thus made the connection between the arrival of the automobile and the economic prosperity of the countryside. The town of Rocquefort, boasted Prosperity the house journal of Michelin, the tire company, owed its good fortune in part to the role of the automobile in marketing its renowned cheese. "It has the biggest turnover of any town in France. It is the richest in automobiles: one car to every six inhabitants." In short, the magazine proclaimed, "the automobile transforms the countryside."35

26 The Politics of Transport in France FIGURE 2

Regional Distribution of Commercial Motor Vehicles, 1931

Source: La Revue des Agents, July 1932, AN Fl4 14974.

By 1925, the transport of goods by road stood poised on the threshold of a radically new phase, that of direct competition with the railways. Public passenger transport also grew by leaps and bounds after peace had been declared. Departments which had been sceptical about bus services before the war now hastened to apply for the state subsidies available for rural services. A journalist from the Pyrennean department of Ariege wrote in 1921: "it seems that a new craze is sweeping our area: all the communes, even the very smallest, want to have a bus."36 The state provided subsidies for almost 1,000 km of lines in 1919; the following year, over 3,000 km of new lines received grants, and this rhythm was maintained throughout the decade, so that a dense cluster of local bus services penetrated to the most remote parts of the countryside. Government aid doubled from 5 to 11 million francs per annum.37 The aim continued to be the traditional republican one of maintain-

27 The Rise of the Automobile FIGURE 3

Average Level of State Bus Subsidies, 1929-32

Source: Annual financial reports on departmental bus services, AN F14 12971-13012.

ing a balance between town and country, and of "assuring a sort of timely moral relief from isolation (desendavement) to struggle against the flight from the land."38 The services were often irregular, taking the populations of far-flung villages and farms to market once a week and bringing the mail to the farms. At first they comprised scattered lines, run as a sideline by hoteliers, garagistes, or local merchants. Only gradually did they take the form of coherent networks farmed out either to artisan transporters or to larger companies.39 As one might expect, they were more prevalent in the centre and southwest, since private, nonsubsidized operators tended to dominate passenger transport in the industrialized areas and the prosperous cereal belt around Paris. In the west, local authorities were possibly too poor or too unenterprising to finance large, unprofitable services. Along with the beginnings of electrification, these buses played a major role in modernizing the countryside in the 1920s.40

28 The Politics of Transport in France

The first parts of the rail system to be hit by this rapid upsurge in motorized transport were the most marginal, the votes ferrees d'interet local and the tramways. The "local interest" railways mostly consisted of short lines with metric track built after 1880 by communes and departments with the aid of government funds. Not important enough to be incorporated into the grands reseaux, they served purely local needs, together with the tramways, which in France were mostly rural operations carrying goods as well as people.41 Ironically, for they fulfilled those functions for which the automobile was best suited, namely short transfers of agricultural and finished manufactured goods, they grew on the eve of the automobile revolution. From 1,700 km in 1875, they expanded to 7,250 km twenty years later, and then more than tripled in length by 1914.42 Although they were more than half the length of the main-line system, the local railways carried less than a sixth of the passengers and a twelfth of the tonnage.43 Their critics argued that they were not built on commercial criteria but for political reasons, winding and twisting aimlessly through the countryside to serve as many electoral districts as possible.44 They failed to form a coherent network, were poorly connected with the main lines and suffered from a lack of uniform rolling stock and locomotives. With these handicaps, they were barely able to keep their heads above water before the war; when peace returned, the challenges of reconstruction and road competition delivered the coup de grace.45 By 1923, they were no longer breaking even, but were losing 15 million francs annually. From then on, their plight worsened considerably and three years later "only the urban tramway systems, a few rural lines in heavily populated regions, and some industrial and tourist lines remained going concerns."46 In the course of the decade, some 4,000 km were lopped off the network because many regional authorities switched to road services. Competition from independent truckers and bus companies forced other local railways to close down.47 Road competition took longer to bite into the traffic of the grands reseaux. Although wartime mobilization of the railways allowed road haulage a larger share of civilian transport, the railways rapidly regained their position after 1918.48 Spokesmen for the railway companies at first saw the automobile as "a precious auxiliary of the railroads which can create clusters of services radiating outwards from the points served by rail, for door-todoor deliveries of passengers and goods."49 With this concept in mind, the companies signed contracts with private entrepreneurs

29 The Rise of the Automobile

to run delivery services in Paris. They also provided coach services for excursions to the battle sites of the Great War and to tourist centres like Fontainebleau, as well as hilly areas such as the Ardennes, Auvergne, the Alps, the Vosges, and the Pyrenees.50 By the mid-1920s, the railways were on the defensive. As early as 1921, the managers of the Northern company were aware that road haulage outfits in Lille, Rouen, and Beauvais were seeking to turn short-distance traffic away from the railways. The Parisian department stores began sending their delivery trucks out into the provinces to Rouen, Soissons, Amiens, Orleans, Troyes, and Nancy.51 Meanwhile in the Midi, bus firms sprang up to provide services that cut across country from west to east, piercing a traditionally weak spot in the railways' armour.52 Around 1926-7, the railways' fears of competition became more persistent.53 The use of the automobile was growing at a time when the companies were seeking to absorb the effects of a massive increase in the tax on passenger fares, from 12.5 per cent to 32.5 per cent, imposed by Poincare's Union Nationale government as a means of budgetary stabilization. The revaluation of the franc, which was the object of Poincare's measures, also harmed the competitiveness of industry and caused a drop in the volume of national production in 1927. This in turn led to a decline in the tonnage carried by rail. These two factors, affecting both passenger and goods' traffic, threw into sharp relief for the first time the danger of road competition.54 The rise of a competitor exposed weaknesses in the rail system that had been less crucial when a monopoly had existed.55 Over short distances in particular, the railway proved too expensive and too cumbersome. Huge steam locomotives were technically most apt for long express runs; when they had to brake frequently or stop every few kilometers on rural, "omnibus" runs, coal consumption, maintenance, and hence general operating costs, rose alarmingly. Buses could reach a larger catchment area by providing more stops, often in more convenient locations, and at the same time undercut their rivals. It was a similar story for goods' transport. Given the respective levels of road and rail technology in the twenties, the railway remained the most economical means of transport for distances of 70 km and above. But for regional transport, it suffered from two crippling liabilities: high fixed costs and inconvenience. Its fixed costs comprised maintenance and replacement of the track and infrastructure (bridges, buildings, and signals) and depreciation of expensive locomotives and wagons. Over long distances these

30 The Politics of Transport in France

costs could be spread thinly and were not a handicap, because the railways' running costs (principally fuel and wages) were lower per ton-kilometre transported than those of the truck.56 On short runs they could price the train out of the market, because the fixed costs of road transport were negligible compared to those of the railways.57 The service provided by road was also superior: it enabled the customer to avoid the inconvenience of taking goods to and from the railway station, filling out the complex paperwork required by law, and risking having to wait days to obtain wagons in months of heavy seasonal demand for railway facilities.58 Railway management, according to many critics, was unresponsive to the needs of important commercial, industrial, and agricultural clients. The automobile provided a more flexible form of transport, able to deliver door-to-door with a minimum of red tape. As local entrepreneurs, the road haulers were more sensitive to the needs of the public.59 Road transport was superior, therefore, over short runs. In addition, it took advantage of the over-centralized structure of the railway network to capture some long-distance, interregional business, notably east-west traffic. On the Reseau de 1'Etat, for instance, coach services managed to take passengers from Evreux to Rouen in less than half the time taken by the painfully slow train.60 Certain goods' services were also vulnerable, especially ones which entailed travelling across more than one network. One forgemaster complained that the railways were legally allowed to take sixteen days to transport ten tons of crude iron the 400 km from Rumelange-Ottange in Alsace to Poissy in the west, because entire days were wasted in transferring the goods from wagon to wagon at each network's border - and the route required five such crossings! "Petite vitesse" the term applied to the bulk of the railways' goods' traffic, meant just that.61 At first, the railway companies tried to fight back in the classic liberal way by reducing rates on those runs threatened by competition. This was the method they had used three generations earlier to vanquish road and waterway competition and, given the financial power of the grands reseaux, it seemed the most logical approach to try against the new threat. If it were possible to offer low rates only on specified runs, losses could be recouped on other services where the railways still enjoyed a monopoly. Unfortunately for the railway managers, an obstacle existed in the form of the rate policy enforced by the Ministry of Public Works. As we have seen, the ministry exercized close scrutiny

31 The Rise of the Automobile

over rates, using them as a means of encouraging specified social goals, notably to influence the location of industry.62 Moreover, by 1914-18 the ministry, responding to pressure from the Chambers of Commerce, had succeeded in imposing on the railways a uniform rate system, whereby rates for a given item would be the same for everyone irrespective of geographical location or volume of business. This move sought to prevent the companies from offering prix fermes, or discount rates, to industrialists who would guarantee to supply the railways with regular, heavy business. It met the criticism of republican transport experts and small businessmen who argued correctly that in practice the only customers who could benefit from such rates were big businesses.63 Defenders of the companies opposed uniform rates on the grounds of commercial flexibility and national economic growth. Raymond Godferneaux, an energetic friend of the companies, argued that uniform rates "are poorly adapted to needs."64PaulEmile Javary, the manager of the Northern railways, gave the classic defence of differential rates: "It is anti-industrial and unbusinesslike to ask the same rate from the client who brings you by accident a ton of goods to carry to any destination in France and the client who offers you not a ton, but 10 tons, 100 tons or a train-load. To this client it should be possible to make an offer which would not be derived from an approved public freight-rate, available to everybody."65 Edmond Thery, a liberal economist, campaigned for the reintroduction of preferential rates because they stimulated cheap mass production of goods, and thereby furthered economic growth.66 In reality uniform rates were never consistently applied because the ministry was constantly under pressure from regional economic interest groups to build exceptional rates into the system to mitigate against competition. Small producers attacked preferential rates which helped big businesses, but sought discounts to protect themselves against more efficient producers.67 Provided then that they were able to avoid antagonizing important vested interests, and that the government was not too unsympathetic (the centre-right Union Nationale governments of the period fulfilled this criterion), the railways had some scope for action. In 1927, they cut rates for express deliveries of lighter, more valuable goods, to regain business lost to truckers. The use of prix fermes revived from 1927 on. The railways also became more commercially aggressive, improving their publicity, canvassing markets, and putting on agricultural exhibits.68

32 The Politics of Transport in France

By 1928, leading railway managers came to realize that these traditional measures, although not totally ineffective, were inadequate to deal with the new problem. The rise of the automobile and its spread throughout France meant that the effect of partial rate reductions was to plug the dike in one place, only to have leakages appear immediately elsewhere. The problem for the railways was that because all short-distance traffic was ultimately vulnerable to competition, "a general reduction of rates for short and middle distances would now lead to losses which we could not hope to recoup from the traffic that we could regain from the automobile."69 A more drastic remedy was necessary, and it emerged as a result of consultations between the companies and the minister of public works, Andre Tardieu, in the first half of 1928. If the railways could not withstand road competition, they should set up their own road companies to run rural bus services and carry goods short distances. In January 1928, the Northern company's specialist on road transport presented a plan of action to his Comite de Direction. He argued that now was the time for the company to move into road transport because "we must not run the risk of seeing the organization of big road transport companies with capital and powerful means of action, because once they have begun their activity and gained their traffic it would be very difficult to take it away from them." The ideal would be to liberalize the regulations which ordered the companies to confine themselves exclusively to rail transport, but this would never get through Parliament. Two alternatives were possible: either the subsidizing of existing road enterprises in return for the promise that they would not compete with the railways, or the creation of a road transport subsidiary. The latter would run the risk of incurring local hostility and falling under ministerial control, but it would be a more effective means of coordinating road and rail transport.70 On the following day, the Midi company reached a similar conclusion, citing foreign precedents, and clearly expressing monopolistic intentions: "It is a question ... of attempting to take in hand the greater part, if not the totality, of transport by road and, at the same time, those waterway transports that should be coordinated with rail transport; finally to envisage for the future an analogous action for air transport." This should be done immediately, before it was too late.71 The thinking behind the subsidiaries was clearly to bypass the restrictive regulations imposed by the ministry and to coordinate

33 The Rise of the Automobile

road and rail transport by giving free play to the superior economic power of the railways. It was indicative of a broader strategy of covert expansion through subsidiaries that was encouraged in the 1920s by liberal transport experts like Charles Colson, the most influential transport theoretician of the age.72 In a sense, the companies were trying to undo the effects of seventy years of growing state control, and to respond in the way that any private capitalist firm would have done in similar circumstances. They found a congenial partner in Andre Tardieu, the minister of public works.73 Formed like many other dynamic personalities of the decade by his wartime experiences and his visits to America,74 Tardieu sought to revitalize the French economic and political system by promoting modernization and overcoming parliamentary obstacles to efficient decision making. As minister of public works, he worked energetically to renovate the Routes Nationales - incorporating many departmental roads into the national network and tripling the budgetary allocation - and to electrify the countryside.75 He also did everything in his power to increase the commercial freedom of the railways.76 Accordingly he gave the go-ahead in February 1928 for the creation of road transport subsidiaries on the grounds that "the defensive action of the companies against increasingly active automobile competition was insufficient."77 By that summer, the new firms had been created and were beginning to function. After a year of operations, the railwaycontrolled buslines had mushroomed to 25,000 km in length, almost a fifth of the total length of all French bus lines.78 The railways had also become the second most important road passenger carriers: in 1929, their 750 buses transported 6.5 million passengers who paid nearly 40 million francs.79In making private competition more difficult, the subsidiaries had enjoyed some success.80 Nevertheless, despite this rapid expansion, they failed to live up to the high expectations of their founders. Instead of providing the necessary impulse to coordinate road and rail transport, they antagonized independent road entrepreneurs and revived old fears about the power of the railway magnates. Independents who had been in business for years claimed that the tariff-cutting policies of the new firms were driving them out of business. Road transport organizations, such as the Federation Nationale des Transporteurs de France and the Union des Vehicules Industriels, formed in the late 1920s to defend the profession against the railways and the state, angrily protested that the railways were step-

34 The Politics of Transport in France

ping out of their proper domain in running road services. "We believe," wrote the secretary of the latter body, "that... road transport ought to be left to individual initiative, and that in any case the railway companies should not get involved in it."81 Opposition to the railways' intrusion in road transport was probably the main unifying factor in the FNTF and the road lobby as a whole.82 Spokesmen for road transporters complained in particular that the subsidiaries competed unfairly with independent operators because they were heavily subsidized by the railway companies and therefore, indirectly, by the public, since the taxpayer ultimately footed the bill for railway deficits.83 In 1929, the grands reseaux ploughed 4.7 million francs into the coffers of their subsidiaries to allow loss-making lines to continue operating and to buy out competitors.84 Railway spokesmen later admitted that the effect of the subsidiaries on road-rail relations had sometimes been negative, because "instead of using their road services to improve their railway services, they often sought to establish road lines as prolongations of the railways, as connecting services, or as tourist services, which could have been just as well accomplished by road enterprises."85 In any case, the expansion of the subsidiaries was restricted by the permanent officials at the ministry, notably Cyrille Grimpret, the director of the ministry's railway section. As a Socialist supporter, Grimpret fought to ensure that the railway companies would be closely controlled by the state, and their activities restricted to rail transport.86 His vigilance in enforcing state supervision of the grands reseaux stemmed from the traditional republican belief that "the railway companies can only be inspired by their own interests, and not by the general interest, which it is the task of others to envisage."87 Consequently, Tardieu had to foist the subsidiaries upon an unwilling permanent administration, which opposed the idea as a violation of republican tradition. Once Tardieu had left the ministry, in November 1928, Grimpret threw the book at the subsidiaries, imposing tight controls over them and banning the use of public funds to subsidize unprofitable services, much to the chagrin of the railway top-brass.88 By coming down firmly on the side of the opponents of railway expansion into road services, the ministry was saying, in effect, that the solution lay elsewhere than in the unfettered operation of market forces, which might have led to the creation of a transport conglomerate dominated by the railway corporations.

FIGURE 4

The Financial Situation of the Railways, 1930-9

Sources: La France economique, 1930-8; SNCF, Statistics Department. (Because the SNCF was not responsible for interest payments on loans in the first five years of its existence, only the operating budget is shown for 1938-9.)

36 The Politics of Transport in France

Even if the administration had not done all in its power to check the expansionist tendencies of the companies, the strategy would have failed because the onset of economic depression changed the nature of the problem. No longer was it a matter of providing extra transport facilities for a booming economy that allowed road, rail, and inland navigation to expand simultaneously. From 1929-30 on, the effects of the Great Depression began to percolate through the barriers erected by successive governments to insulate France from the effects of world economic fluctuations. The collapse of market confidence in the United States, dragging down with it the hothouse German economy, the stagnant United Kingdom, and the rest of the industrial world, could not pass France by, despite hopes that her solid agricultural base could dull the impact of a purely industrial slump.89 The export industries, for example textiles, were the first to suffer because they were the most closely integrated into the world economic circuit. The rot spread to other parts of the economy in 1930, and industrial production fell 7 per cent that year, a gentle drop by international standards, but a marked contrast to the performances of the 1920s.90 As a result, the volume of goods' traffic, which had reached a peak in 1929 66 per cent above its 1913 level, fell slightly the next year and then by 10 per cent in 1930-1. Financial equilibrium, fleetingly reattained in 1928, became a thing of the past. The railway deficit swelled to gigantic proportions, from 195 million francs in 1929 to 1,781 million in 1930 and a staggering 3,131 million in 1931.91 Road-rail competition was thus becoming fiercest precisely at a time when the volume of business was contracting sharply. This conjuncture of a growing supply of the means of transport and a declining demand for both passenger and goods' transport plunged all parts of the system into a severe and prolonged crisis, the resolution of which required radical restructuring of transport policy, and economic thinking in general. It remained to be seen whether there were sufficient reserves of energy and innovation within the political and economic elites to meet this challenge.

CHAPTER THREE

Transport and the Depression, 1930-1934

The reappearance of the railway deficit, just before the onset of the Great Depression, was not entirely unexpected. In May 1929, the Comite de Direction, the steering committee of the grands reseaux, wrote to the minister of public works warning that recent wage increases to maintain the parity of the railwaymen with state employees threatened to create a small deficit in 1929 and a much larger one the following year. To avoid a deficit, the companies urged the minister to reduce the draconian transport taxes of 1926 (32.5 per cent on passenger fares, 10 per cent on goods' tariffs) to their prewar levels (10 and 5 per cent) and to allow the railways to recoup the revenue lost to the Treasury by increasing their rates.1 By making this demand, the companies were acting according to the provisions of the Convention of 1921, the latest agreement specifying the details of the relationship between them and the state. The agreement had been designed to deal with the problems of restoring the debt-ridden, under-equipped railways in the wake of World War I. Rejecting socialist and trade union calls for the nationalization of the railways, the drafters of the agreement drew up a package which further centralized the grands reseaux, but continued to respect private ownership. The state took responsibility for the debts incurred by the railways as a result of their wartime mobilization. At the same time, the convention unified the finances of the companies into a common fund. This fund was a joint account into which each company paid its net profits or from which it loaned the amounts needed to cover its deficits. The government of 1921 hoped that after a transitional period of postwar recuperation (January 1921-December 1926), the financial performance of the more profitable companies would suffice to keep

38 The Politics of Transport in France

the account in the black. If on the other hand the fund was in the red, the railways should restore the balance by increasing their rates. The ministry had the right to refuse an increase in rates, in which case the Treasury would be responsible for making up the deficit.2 The second important feature of the convention was the attempt to bring about a greater degree of unification in the French railway system. Although the agreement left the internal administrative structures of the companies unchanged, it created a Comite de Direction or steering committee of twenty-one (three delegates from each company) with the responsibility to coordinate policy on rates, types of rolling stock, and personnel. The aim was to streamline railway operations and encourage greater inter-network harmony. The final innovation of the convention was the reinforcement of external controls on the grands reseaux. This took two forms. A new Conseil Superieur des Chemins de fer, comprising representatives of economic interests, railway personnel, civil servants, and railway administrators, was given the somewhat vague role of "guiding transport policy and informing the government and the companies of the nation's economic needs." Secondly, the minister of public works was given the right to order the railways to lower rates which he deemed were harmful to the "public interest."3 The underlying philosophy of the agreement was the notion of a social contract between the railway companies and the state. In return for increased public control over their managerial prerogatives, the companies were given financial rewards in the shape of a guaranteed rate of return on their capital. The framers of the agreement believed that they had minimized the danger of deficits by creating the common fund. However, in the prosperous 1920s the profitable companies tended to invest their surpluses in network improvements rather than allow them to disappear into the common fund to subsidize the unprofitable state network. Although the convention instituted a system of dividend bonuses for companies which succeeded in increasing their receipts beyond a certain level, these were too small to act as an effective incentive to improve efficiency. The agreement was the work of men who were afraid of etatisation, but who realized that unbridled private enterprise would neither be profitable nor socially acceptable in interwar France.4 Essentially, the convention presupposed that the grands reseaux would be able to recoup extra money by raising rates, that the

39 Transport and the Depression

user would be able and willing to pay, and that the ministry would ratify the proposed increase. After 1929, none of these conditions were met. Rate increases were liable to tilt an already sluggish economy into full-scale recession by raising an essential element of production costs, as well as causing the public to abandon the railways for the road or the waterways. Moreover, the ministry was slow to ratify an increase in rates. Parliament was unwilling to sanction an unpopular increase, especially with legislative elections on the horizon, and forced successive governments to pledge that they would not act without first consulting the nation's representatives.5 Within the cabinet, the Ministry of Public Works faced opposition to the proposed reduction in the transport tax from the finance minister, who was loath to renounce over a billion francs in a period of budgetary restraint.6 The unforeseen circumstances of economic depression and the railways' loss of their former monopoly meant, according to Grimpret, "the failure of the Convention of 28 June 1921, which had provided for the more or less automatic re-establishment of the equilibrium of the Common Fund by tariff increases."7 Although it was easy to call the convention into question, it proved difficult to find a parliamentary majority to pronounce clearly on measures to redress the situation. After the election of 1928, there had been a centre-right majority in the Chamber of Deputies, but this was by no means homogeneous, ranging from conservatives to the Radical party. The Radicals were themselves divided. Almost from the outset, they oscillated between support for the government and the opposition. As time went by, they increasingly sought to disentangle themselves from a compromising alliance with the right in time for the 1932 elections.8Transport policy was not the issue to solidify the centre-right alliance. Among the conservatives were proponents of laissez-faire who sought to give the railways greater freedom from state control, and deputies from agricultural regions whose railway policy did not go beyond low rates for farmers and opposition to favoured treatment of the Parisian suburban lines. As for the Radical party, it had helped to shape the republican transport tradition, with its emphasis on checks against the power of the railway magnates.9 The government could only maintain a majority by temporizing, and so appointed Pierre Fournier, the deputy-governor of the Bank of France, to draw up a report analysing the reasons for the financial plight of the railways and suggesting remedies.10 The report, commissioned in May 1930, appeared in February 1931, and suggested three limited measures to cut the deficit.

40 The Politics of Transport in France

The railways should carry out an economy drive, under state supervision. The transport tax should be cut, as the companies urged. Finally, rates should be raised by 24 per cent for passengers and 10 per cent for goods.11 The report only gave the government a breathing space, and avoided the contentious issue of what was to be done about the Convention of 1921. Of its proposed solutions, the economy drive required a long-term effort, the fruits of which would not be seen immediately. The two other proposals, the tax cut and the rate increase, threw the ball straight back into the government's court. But as the Socialist transport spokesman, Jules Moch, delighted to point out, no parliamentary majority could be found to accept increases in rail fares during an economic depression.12 As the passing months brought increasingly gloomy news about the railways' financial condition, the parliamentary initiative passed to the Socialist party, which had developed a clear-cut alternative to the obsolete convention. Long-standing advocates of public ownership of transportation,13 the Socialists adopted in 1918-19 the formula of"nationalisation industrialist" whereby the railways would be administered not as a part of the state machine (as in Italy), but democratically, by a tripartite council of railway workers, government officials, and consumers. Leon Blum, the future Socialist premier, won his parliamentary spurs by trying to push such a measure through Parliament in 1920.14Jules Moch, apolytechnicien who had worked on the reconstruction of the railways in the north, resumed the Socialist pressure for public ownership in the 1930s. Elected to the Chamber in 1928, he soon joined the Commission des Travaux Publics, the house committee responsible for vetting the work of the ministry and examining bills which dealt with public works and transport. Moch blasted the railway management in the Chamber, in committee and in print, arguing that the companies were dominated by the banks and heavy industry - the traditional complaint of the left - and that these interests encouraged lavish spending on rails and rolling stock, in order to feather their nests at the public expense. The assumption underlying Moch's analysis was that the railway crisis was not a technical one, caused by the challenge of new modes of transport, but a political one, caused by the administration of a public service by a plutocratic elite. In order to solve the crisis, it was necessary to reform the structure of the railway companies, wrest control from selfish private interests, and establish a democratically run public corporation. Because it was not the prisoner of the steel

41 Transport and the Depression

barons, the nationalized railway company would not overspend; because it was not tied to financial institutions, its administrators would have nothing to gain by floating loans. Two of the most important causes of the deficit would be removed automatically once private ownership was abolished.15 The more the crisis dragged on, the more insistently did the Socialists proclaim the need for public ownership of the railways.16 Finally, on 19 November 1931, Moch managed to win the support of the four Radical members of the Commission des Travaux Publics for his proposal to buy out the grands reseaux and nationalize the railways, which the commission approved by a vote of 14-13 with two abstentions.17 Effectively, this meant that an impasse had been reached: the government was unable to pass any positive legislation in the Chamber and was in a minority in the left-leaning Commission des Travaux Publics, while the Socialists were not yet able to rally a majority for nationalization in the Chamber. After two years of discussion of the railway crisis, Parliament and the government were at a standstill. The tax could not be cut, tariffs could not be raised, and economies took a long time. The state was reduced to its traditional role of enforcing the controls at its disposition without any long-term strategy and, according to one observer, "resemble[dj one of those old barbaric husbands who, once upon a time, only felt able to ensure their own peace and the virtue of their wife by forcing her to wear a chastity belt."" The railway companies responded to the growing crisis by defending the Convention of 1921, and by continuing their efforts to reform the transport system in a more liberal direction. In response to the Fournier report, they vigorously defended their management record, and welcomed the report's recommendations, which largely coincided with their own prescriptions.19 Pauljavary, the general manager of the Nord, was responsible for the formulation of a strategy designed to adapt the railways to an age of transport competition. Javary started from the premise that 'if the railway network did not already exist, it would without doubt be limited to a third or a quarter of its present size."20 He proposed that the majority of the 700 railway stations on the northern network be closed and that only seventy or eighty "central stations" be kept open. On less densely used lines, buses and trucks should replace cumbersome trains, which were economically unviable. By relaxing the old regulations which enforced

42 The Politics of Transport in France

the provision of three daily return services on each line, the company could save money and take advantage of the automobile to provide door-to-door services. The railway was quite capable of meeting the challenge of the automobile, provided it was given "the supreme good for which France has always struggled: liberty."21 Javary drew up a pilot scheme for the introduction of his streamlined organization on 123 km of track in the autumn of 1931. Predictably, however, the ministry torpedoed it on the grounds that it violated the regulations by allowing the company to tinker with tariffs without consulting the ministry, thereby undoing the protective legislation of the previous generations.22 The shelving of Javary's proposals, which were the most radical plans for the recasting of the railway network to be produced in the 1930s, forced the companies to seek changes in the structure of the transport network through other means, notably technical innovations and direct contacts with road transporters. The main technical innovations possible were electrification and the introduction of the railcar (autorail or automotrice). Some French lines had been electrified before World War I, particularly certain suburban lines and part of the Pyrennean network. In 1920 a study group advised the electrification of a further 8,000 km of lines on the Midi, the PO, and the PLM,23 but rising costs caused this figure to be slashed to 3,000 km in 1923.24 In the early 1930s, proponents of electrification, drawing inspiration from the achievements of the Swiss and Italian railways, argued that the electrification of the most intensely used lines would produce massive economies in coal consumption, better performances on gradients, and reductions in manpower.25 Opponents of the new technique pointed to the enormous installation costs and the supposedly increased vulnerability of electrified installations to enemy bombardments. In addition, the northern and eastern networks enjoyed ample supplies of coal.26 Because of the networks' lack of unanimity about the advantages of electrification and the ministry's reluctance to allow large investments during a period of budgetary restraint, electrification proceeded very slowly in the 1930s, the only trunk line electrified being the Paris-Brive section of the Paris-Toulouse line. This unwillingness to adopt electrification is one of the most important reasons why services on the granges lignes did not improve substantially in the interwar years. The autorail promised more immediate results. The autorail was a petrol-, diesel-, or electric-powered railcar usually capable of carrying 50 to 70 passengers. Its advantages over the conven-

43 Transport and the Depression

tional steam locomotive were its lightness, made possible by its pneumatic tyres, which kept a better grip on the track, its fuel economy, and its rapid acceleration and deceleration, which allowed it to make more stops without detracting from its average commercial speed - a valuable asset for "omnibus" runs.27 At first, enthusiastic promoters of the railcar, such as Raoul Dautry, the head of the Reseau de 1'Etat, had to overcome the reticence of managers on other networks, notably the PLM.28The early railcars were also little more than prototypes, and consequently spent much time in the repair shops.29 But by 1932-3, railcars were entering into service and were accounting for an increasing share of the companies' rolling-stock orders. Eighty-eight were in service in 1933 and 230 the following year.30 The spread of the railcar was largely responsible for the significant improvements in commercial speeds on mountainous and east-west lines which were achieved during this decade. These were among the lines which were the most vulnerable to road competition.31 These technical improvements undoubtedly gave the networks better means of defending themselves against competition, but they were not sufficient to provide a global solution. In particular, they failed to come to grips with the upsurge of longdistance road haulage. For this reason, the grands reseaux decided to set up a committee of road and rail transporters to try and arrive at an equitable distribution of traffic, thereby reducing competition and cutting back the railway deficit. The motive for this initiative was to act before the state could impose a solution on them. "The majority of the Presidents of the companies," acording to the minutes of the presidential meeting of 20 October 1931, "have shown a very great repugnance to seeing the government create... a transport committee under an official form. It seems inevitable to them that such a committee would become another step towards state control of the railways."32 The committee was at best a limited success. Its composition was weighted towards road transporters who depended heavily upon the railways for their business.33 In July 1932, three of the road transport delegates resigned in protest at the admission of a new member from an organization which, they claimed, was "entierement a la devotion des Compagnies des Chemins de fer."34 Among the three were representatives of the two most important road transport organizations and so thereafter, the road-rail committee lost any claim to representativeness. Nevertheless, the committee presented its findings to the ministry in August 1932. The main recommendations were for investment in containers usable either on trucks or on trains, the

44 The Politics of Transport in France

substitution of buses for trains where the latter were uneconomical, the improvement of door-to-door facilities, and voluntary agreements between the railways and the road transporters to share traffic. Short-distance traffic should go by road and longdistance by rail.35 As yet, the railways only had a vague idea of how such voluntary agreements could be reached and enforced, but the idea was taken up again to more purpose in 1934 by Raoul Dautry. In a sense, the conclusions of the committee were beside the point, for the 1932 elections had produced a centre-left majority with different views about the future of the transport system. Unfortunately, however, for those who hoped for speedy legislative action, there was still no clear parliamentary majority agreed on a definite political program. The Radicals, the big winners in the election, wanted to combine a deflationary budgetary policy with a more left-wing general orientation, designed to win Socialist support. But the Socialists strongly opposed deflationary measures, such as cuts in civil servants' pay, and so gave Radical governments only lukewarm support. An alliance between the Radicals and the moderate right was equally it not more difficult, because it was likely to split the Radical party itself. The result was ministerial instability: cabinets were made and unmade in the corridors. The deepening of the economic depression provoked no creative response from the governments of 1932-3.36 What was true in general also applied to the transport policies of the successive ministries. Edouard Daladier, who occupied the portfolio for the first seven months of the new legislature, had favoured for some time "the creation of a national transport company in which will participate, alongside the railways, all the major economic forces of the country, as well as the democratic state; here each and everybody will be able to make himself heard, and defend his interests and the general interests of the nation."37 With this traditional republican aim in mind, he invited the rail companies to submit proposals which would pave the way for a unified national company. The companies counterattacked by arguing that the national company would be a bureaucratic nightmare, and pointed to the poor financial record of the existing state networks in France and abroad to buttress their case.38 The business press and the Chambers of Commerce vociferously backed the companies.39 This opposition to far-reaching measures was shared by important members of the governing coalition. Edouard Herriot, the Radical chief, urged caution in handling the transport crisis. In

45 Transport and the Depression

negotiations with the companies, he was noticeably more conciliatory than Daladier;40 financial problems had been his downfall in 1926, and he did not wish to be burdened with a takeover that would have cost billions of francs of public money.41 For a man like Herriot, the notion of expropriating the companies was unthinkable, and so fundamental structural change was effectively ruled out. The Radicals in the Senate, a fairly conservative group led by the financial expert, Joseph Caillaux, were even more hostile to nationalization, which would further increase the size of the tentacular public sector.42 After several months of negotiations early in 1933, led diplomatically by another Radical minister of public works, Joseph Paganon, the government and the companies agreed on a much more modest amendment of the Convention of 1921, which fused only two of the networks, the Midi and the PO, and placed government delegates on the boards of the companies.43 The reform was an inglorious compromise which had little impact on the railways' financial position. The railway deficit reached 4 billion francs in 1933, despite the reduction of the transport tax, which was finally cut to its pre-1926 level in the budget of that year. The governments' specific measures to tackle road-rail competition were similarly timid, bearing the mark of a Malthusian administrative mentality, rather than a commitment to purposive economic planning. Essentially, they consisted of increased taxes on road fuel and on heavy goods' vehicles explicitly aimed at compensating for the railway deficit by punishing the automobile,44 and instructions to the prefects to curb road transport services by invoking laws dating back to the first Napoleon!45 Such were the meagre results of over three years of debates and negotiations. Meanwhile, the railway deficit was snowballing and what had been a railway crisis now became a more general crisis, also affecting inland navigation, civil aviation, and road transport. The inland waterways had lost out to the railways in the 1850s, but had not been annihilated. Parliamentary pressure ensured that the state would provide sufficient credits to keep the majority of the waterways open, without providing enough financial support to emulate the coherent network built in post-Bismarckian Germany.46 France lacked the geographical advantages of her eastern neighbour, but there were also technical and economic reasons for the waterways' backwardness. In the first place, they

46 The Politics of Transport in France TABLE 1

Waterway Traffic, 1926-35 Ordinary barges

M otorized barges

All barges

Tkm

Avge length oftrip(km)

Tkm (bill)

Avge length oftrip(km)

251 252 252

5.720 5.947 6.980 6.889 7.266 7.379 7.589 7.795 8.377 8.083

146 141 144 136 136 140 149 156 165 163

(bill)

Avge length oftrip(km)

Tkm

Year

1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935

5.405 5.579 6.382 5.961 5.965 5.564 5.274 5.497 5.412 5.007

142 137 138 126 123 122 126 135 138 136

0.315 0.368 0.597 0.848 1.301 1.814 2.315 2.298 2.965 3.076

(bill)

259 253 255 247 243 255 243

Source: "Enquete sur la production: Navigation interieure," AN F14 16551.

were not deep enough to allow the passage of large barges, and so the potential cheapness of water transport could not be fully realized.47 Droughts could further incapacitate most canals, as there were inadequate provisions for replenishing them in the summer.48 The major source of conflict on the waterways was the growing discrepancy in productivity between the old fleet of mainly wooden barges and a new fleet of motorized boats. The latter, which accounted for a mere 5.5 per cent of the traffic in 1926, had won 30.5 per cent by 1932 and were squeezing the older barges out of long-distance haulage. Despite the efforts of the ministry to modernize haulage methods by replacing horses with electrical haulage, motorized boats carried on average 50 per cent more traffic annually than their older rivals.49 This technical division was also a social one: whereas the older barges were usually owned, particularly in the North, by artisans, the motorized boats belonged to navigation companies or industrialists. The barge-haulers were one of the most marginal groups in French society. Having grown up on the water, they had often received little or no formal education. Because they had no fixed abode, most of them did not have the right to vote and so were in a poor position to have their case debated in Parliament, despite the efforts made on their behalf by a few deputies, like the Socialist Raoul Evrard from the Pas-de-Calais. They led a nomadic

47 Transport and the Depression

existence, and hence corporate organization was difficult to sustain. An engineer of the Fonts et Chaussees aptly described the problems of the mariniers as follows: "too isolated for the defence of his interests, ignoring current prices, on each voyage he suffers long delays to find freight, further long delays to pick up his goods at the loading dock and to unload it on arrival. On the other hand, the inadequacy of the organization of the traffic on the waterways slows down his journeys, because of his slow speed and the frequency of bottlenecks. The boatman therefore only makes a very limited number of trips and makes poor use of his barge." 50 In many instances, contracts between shippers and bargehaulers were made in cafes and bars. It was in cafes like the Rendez-vous des Flamands, on the Quai de la Monnaie in Paris, or in the taverns of northern ports such as Dunkirk that the boatmen picked up their mail in between jobs. Here, the cafe-owners acted as go-betweens, naturally reserving the choicest deals for their best clients. "To find work," one reporter commented indignantly, "the barge-hauler must drink."51 During the 1920s, the gradual provision of electrical haulage lightened the task of the artisans, particularly of those men, women, and children formerly condemned to a miserable existence pulling barges along manually with a harness.52 Finally, by 1928, the waterways recovered from the effects of the war, which had severely damaged the infrastructure and material of the northeast. In that year, they carried as much tonnage as in 1913, the previous record year. But at the end of the decade, a vicious tariff war broke out between the railway companies and the barge-haulers, particularly in the north. As part of their response to the reemergence of competition in the transport sector, the railways cut their tariffs to attract business. One such target was the northern coal industry, and here the railways' selective rates pushed down the share of traffic going to the waterways.53 In return, the waterways increasingly began to fight for traffic that had been regarded as the preserve of the railways: wine, cotton, and foodstuffs.54 Superficially, the traffic figures might suggest that the waterway transporters had the upper hand. From 1929-34, waterway traffic grew by over 20 per cent to a record 8.38 billion kilometric tons, while railway goods traffic fell by over 40 per cent.55 However, the price of this achievement was a sharp drop in freight rates. On the Lens-Paris run, one of the most important trend-setters for the industry, the level of remuneration per trip

48 The Politics of Transport in France

fell by more than 27 per cent between 1929 and 1932. The artisan barge-hauler in particular was forced to accept whatever he was offered in order to remain in business. Furthermore, as table 1 indicates, the motorized barges were exclusively responsible for the waterways' increase during the depression. The owners of nonmotorized barges lost one-fifth of their traffic from 1928 to 1932. The artisans found it increasingly difficult to compete with the modern barges, which were able to go much faster than their archaic competitors, often travelled at night, and had priority at the locks.56 On the Rhone, this caused few problems, as the industry was dominated by three companies,57 but in the north, where the artisans were entrenched, it led to bitter conflicts. Trouble began to brew in February 1932. In this month, there were about 400 boats idle in the north and freight rates were unusually low for the time of year (29.2 per cent lower than in February 1931 for Lens-Paris).58 The Communist-dominated Confederation Generale du Travail Unitaire (CGTU), which had about 3,000 members in its syndicatdesbateliers, led protests against barge-haulers who refused to accept a rota system for allocating transport contracts. At Dunkirk, sixty boatmen attacked the barge of a M. Devyn, who had just won an order to carry 280 tons of coal. "Thinking he was in danger, the latter fired two pistol shots into the air. At this gesture, the demonstrators riposted by hurling rocks and even paving stones onto the bridge of his barge!"59 The protest dragged on for several weeks, the CGTU demanding the rota system, the coal-owners and the shippers demanding freedom to allocate freight on the basis of efficiency and cost. Eventually, the dispute was patched up, but tempers flared up once more in August 1933, and this time the dispute spread all over the north. The complaints remained the same: the motorized boats refused to operate through the union's rota; they travelled at night and used the locks early in the morning, so that there was insufficient water when the smaller boats wanted to pass through the locks later in the day. By mid-August, over 600 boats had joined the strike, immobilizing 200,000 tons of coal and grain, and setting up barrages on the rivers and canals of the north and the Paris region to stop strike-breakers from getting through.60 Spokesmen of the motorboat owners accused the artisans of being lazy, opposed to progress, and the dupes of the Communist union, "which has succeeded in regulating all the waterway traffic of this port [Calais] according to its whims."61 Finally, the government sent in the navy to dismantle the barrages and arrest the strike leaders, but

49 Transport and the Depression

the underlying causes of tension remained. To eradicate the source of the conflict, especially on the northern waterways, it would be necessary to ensure that rail competition was not forcing the barge-haulers to operate at a loss, and to resolve the problem of the introduction of mechanization. Both implied measures to coordinate transport. The young civil aviation industry was also beleaguered by difficulties that attracted the attention of administrators. The fifteen years between the end of the war and the fusion of the five leading firms into the mixed company, Air-France, were years of trial and error. Initially, commercial aviation was slow to liberate itself from its military origins. The material was uncomfortable military equipment with minor adaptions; it attracted the adventurous few, rather than a mass bourgeois clientele.62 Performance varied widely, as standardization had not yet taken effect.63 Thus, passenger traffic only grew slowly until 1935, reaching 550,000 in that year, before almost tripling in the next three years. Goods' traffic grew even more slowly.64 The essential problem, one which was not peculiar to France, was that aeroplanes were not yet fast enough or cheap enough to pose a serious challenge to the railways on any but the longest runs.65 The consequence was chronic financial dependence on the state, expressed in annual subsidies, which grew rapidly until 1929 and were then held steady, because the state linked the level of subsidies to commercial performances.66 Most observers felt that one means of overcoming this drawback was to develop airmail services, thereby creating a new, and potentially lucrative form of traffic.67 In the mid-1950s, Georges Mandel, the minister of posts, telegraph and telephones, took the initiative in negotiating with private industry to set up the Air-Bleu company, which would be exclusively responsible for handling this line of business.68 As yet, the civil aviation industry was not capable of winning a large share of the internal transport market. Nevertheless, it had its place in any attempt to formulate a comprehensive transport policy, because of its importance in national defence and imperial integration. Moreover, ever since its origins, it had been a meeting-place for railway bosses and car manufacturers. The former, notably from the PLM company, participated financially in AirOrient, to provide an aerial link with Syria, as a prolongation of the PLM'S Calais-Marseilles line.69 They were also among the most important contributors to the Comite Fran^ais de Propa-

50 The Politics of Transport in France

gande Aeronautique (along with Michelin, Renault, Peugeot, and the banks) and the Post Office-sponsored Societe d'Etudes pour le developpement de 1'Aviation commerciale.70 The primary motives for this interest were probably two-fold: to provide a supplementary source of revenue for the shareholders, and to be in a position to quash proposals for air transport which would compete with the railways, such as express parcel deliveries.71 The motivation of automobile constructors, such as Renault, was even more directly commercial. Quite simply, Renault, by a patient policy of diversification, had become more than just a car-maker. Participation in civil aviation firms was one means of generating sales for his aero-engines.72 Although the aeroplane was still in its adolescence, and challenged the train only on the Paris-London run, 73 the need to ensure that its development would further national defence, and would not be distorted by the conflicting interests of railway administrators and automobile constructors, was sufficient cause for air transport to be included in discussions on coordination. If aeroplane competition was still largely a thing of the future and the tariff war with the waterways raged fiercest in the north, the road was an omnipresent rival. The depression may have slowed down the expansion of road transport services, but it certainly did not halt it, and they posed an ever-greater threat to the railways. The threat became more immediate because the road transporters began to attack long-distance routes, and because the structure of the industry changed, with the emergence of large firms, often controlled by the auto-manufacturers, alongside the traditional artisan transporters. By the 1930s, the introduction of diesel fuel, which was cheaper than petrol, and a series of unspectacular but steady technical advances, notably lighter chassis, had made the truck an attractive proposition for long-distance goods' transport.74 As a result, transporters began to move further afield. From the Isere, in the foothills of the Alps, they scoured the whole of the Midi for business; from Lyon, they took goods far and wide to Calais, Paris, Barcelona, Marseilles, and Strasbourg.75 The PLM noted shar competition from road-haulers on its Paris-Clermont-Ferrand line in 1931, and sought permission to set up its own road services on this run to bring its competitors to heel.76 The nature of the competition was changing markedly. Where the road-haulers had once concentrated exclusively on local traffic, they were now

51 Transport and the Depression

trying to cream off the most lucrative, long-distance traffic, leaving the railways with bulky, unremunerative business. Unfortunately, the paucity of data on road traffic makes it impossible to give a rigorous estimate of the damage caused to the railways by the rise of long-distance road haulage. The best traffic estimates for the total amount of traffic carried on the Routes Nationales are 5.865 billion tkm (kilometric tons) in 1928 and 10 billion tkm in 1934, an increase of 70.5 per cent.77 A rough estimate of the long-distance traffic for 1934, based on educated guesses about the number of trucks engaged in long-distance haulage, their average tonnage, the extent to which they were used efficiently and the distance travelled annually per truck is between 2.5-3 billion tkm, for a gross revenue of 1.25-1.5 billion francs.78 The gross revenue of the grands reseaux in 1934 was just over 13 billion francs. Two caveats are in order, however, before the reader leaps to the conclusion that the truck cost the railways over 10 per cent of their total income. First, the equation would have to be completed by a further hazardous guesstimate of the additional traffic brought to the railways by local trucking concerns. Second, given the approximate nature of the exercise, everything depends on the assumptions which underpin the calculation. By changing only one variable, for example by assuming, as Raoul Dautry did, that truckers received on average 80 centimes/tkm instead of 50, we could conclude that the truckers earned 2.33 billion francs in 1934, over 60 per cent more than our earlier estimate. Clearly, the imprecision of the data on the road sector was such as to enable participants in the transport debate to reach predetermined conclusions by choosing assumptions which reflected their particular needs. All that can be said with any degree of certainty is that automobile competition was an important cause, but by no means the only cause, of the railway deficit. The second change which affected road transport in the early years of the depression was a structural one: the growth of large companies. By and large, goods transport was still dominated by artisan operators, who were favoured by the relatively low costs of entry and the premium placed on local contacts.79 In the Norman department of Calvados, which was typical, 63.9 per cent of road haulage entrepreneurs owned either one or two vehicles. Some medium-sized firms existed- 11.5 per cent of the enterprises owned 40 per cent of the trucks - but there were no giants which dominated the industry in the department. This examination is reinforced by an examination of the geographic distribu-

52 The Politics of Transport in France TABLE 2

Structure of the Trucking Industry, 1934-5 (Figures in brackets represent the percentage of trucks owned by enterprises in the given categories; all percentages rounded off) Enterprises owning

1 truck %

2 trucks %

3-5 trucks %

6-10 f rucks %

lit- trucks % firms

Calvados Herault Seine-et-Oise Germany (long distance)

41 (14) 33 (12) 24 (6)

23 (16) 26 (18) 20 (10)

24 (30) 28 (36) 39 (38)

7 (19) 10 (25) 12 (21)

4 (21) 2.9

77 (55)

17 (24)

7 (21) 3 or more trucks

2 (9) 2.9 6125) 4.0

1.4

Sources: AD du Calvados, SI 5; AD de 1'Herault, 2S 2719; AD des Yvelines, unnumbered; Delanney, Le camion, 22.

FIGURE 5

The Structure of the Trucking Industry in Calvados, 1934

53 Transport and the Depression

tion of the trucking enterprises (fig. 5): almost 1/5 were located in Caen, the chef-lieu or administrative centre of the department, but some sixty-nine localities boasted trucking concerns, an indication of extreme dispersal. In passenger transport, the picture was affected by the existence of large and rapidly growing companies alongside the artisan firms. Again in Calvados, two bus establishments, one affiliated to Citroen, the other operating the department's subsidized network, owned 104 of the 174 buses in the departments.80 Bus firms tended to be larger because in order to run a coherent network it was necessary to lay out heavy investments in material and employ bus crews and repair personnel. Hence bigger companies, financed by banks, tire companies, and automobile manufacturers, had existed since before 1914. The greatest of these was the Societe Anonyme des Transports Industriels et Commerciaux. Formed in 1908, the company owned 210 vehicles in 1914, 250 in 1919, and 1,700 in 1931, after it had bought out the Societe Generale des Transports Departementaux. It worked closely with the PO and PLM, coexisted with the artisans, and operated bus services in thirty departments, often subsidized by the communes, departments, and the state.81 During the depression, however, there emerged two new, large, commercially aggressive companies, under the direct control of the car manufacturers, which posed a threat not only to the railways, but also the subsidized bus services and the artisan transporters. The automobile manufacturers, who had taken only a passing interest in road transport before 1931,82 started to show more concern because of the difficulties brought on by the depression. The world slump posed the question of commercial organization in an acute fashion. The export market, already adversely affected by the over-valuation of the franc in the late 1920s, shrank even further, especially outside the colonies, and so the manufacturers had to find ways of tapping the internal market more intensively, if they were to avoid the accumulation of gigantic stockpiles and large-scale redundancies.83 The big three, Renault, Citroen, and Peugeot, relaxed their credit conditions considerably, and Renault put pressure on his suppliers to use Renault trucks.84 These efforts proved insufficient. Characteristically, Citroen, traditionally the most commercially adventurous of the three, was the first to create his own transport company. Beginning in 1932 from the Place de la Concorde, he set up a network of services radiating up to 100 km out of Paris, and then began similar services around Lyon and Lille.

54 The Politics of Transport in France

By May 1934, Transports Citroen owned a fleet of over 500 buses, its subsidiaries owned a further 940, and it had carried nearly 10 million passengers the previous year.85 These services provided stiff competition for the suburban trains of the grands reseaux and for the local buses of the departments. They were rapid and comfortable and were not obliged to pursue the tortuous course from village to village imposed on the departmental bus services.86 Renault soon followed suit. The managers of the firm argued that "the abstention of Renault from all these manifestations of this sharp commercial struggle is liable to adversely affect our future sales of cars and commercial vehicles. It is therefore imperative that we rapidly take similar initiatives throughout France."87 Louis Renault rejected the idea of running services in areas without buslines, and opted instead for a policy of frontal confrontation with his rival, rejecting Citroen's proposals for an entente on the basis that as his buses were superior, he would lose less money and would outlive the manufacturer from the Quai Javel.88 The manufacturers' offensive added to the chronic surplus of competing transporters at a time when the volume of traffic was declining. On the outskirts of large cities like Paris and Lyon, services had mushroomed far beyond the limits of profitability.89 Anarchy reigned, and the fortunes of the multitude of competing forces fluctuated wildly. For example, the passenger traffic of the PLM in the Saint-Etienne region fell from 4.5 million people in 1931 to 2.6 million the following year, climbing again to 3.4 million in 1933, as a result of selective cuts in rail fares.90 The artisan transporters were thus being squeezed from all sides, competing among themselves, with the big road transport firms and with the railways. The number of bankruptcies almost doubled from 195 in 1930 to 342 in 1932, and these figures excluded termination of services not resulting from bankruptcy, sell-outs at disadvantageous prices, and indebted transporters struggling on.91 The majority of small operators had only a very slim margin of security. Many bought their vehicles on credit; their accounting methods were rudimentary and they left insufficient sums aside to cover the depreciation of their material.92 Once the railways decided to take measures to recoup lost traffic, they could make life tough for road transporters, as the SaintEtienne figures above indicate. The artisan transporter also had to be careful not to antagonize the large automobile manufacturers, on whom he often depended for credit. An observer sent from

55 Transport and the Depression

Renault to watch over Citroen's Lyon operations was told of pressure applied to artisans to switch over from Renault to Citroen buses. To study the mentality of the small-time operators, the same observer went "into the little cafes where they organize their departures and arrange their parcels; [there] I got the very strong impression that at Lyon all the small transporters expect to succumb sooner or later because of competition from Citroen."93 In 1933, the government's decision to compensate for the reduction in the tax on railway travel by increasing motor-fuel tax imposed an added burden. Before then, according to the economist Alfred Sauvy, the automobile got off quite lightly compared to the railways. The 1933 measures destroyed this advantage94 and, coming as they did on top of all the other worries, provoked a storm of protest. What particularly upset the spokesmen for the transporters was the fact that the minister of finance, Lucien Lamoureux, was the president of the Friends of the Automobile in the Chamber of Deputies! That did not stop him from attributing the railways' deficit to automobile competition and from "milking" the automobile users to the tune of 800 million francs.95 To compound the truckers' misery, Baron Petiet, the spokesmen for the manufacturers' Chambre Nationale du Commerce de 1'Automobile declared at an audience with the minister in the presence of the astonished road transporters' representatives "that the automobile industry and automobile users could, and should, play their part in the proposed measures of financial recovery."96 It seems that Petiet took the initiative in making the offer of a contribution of 500 million francs in taxes in the belief that this was the best way to show the car-makers' good will. To the transporters, it smacked of betrayal and naivety, because the minister of finance took it as a signal to demand 800 million francs, of which 376 million francs came from a tax on heavy goods vehicles. The government did not leave it at that. In the fall of 1933, further financial measures became necessary to redress a budgetary situation going from bad to worse because the economic crisis was causing a shortfall in anticipated tax yields. One of the solutions, besides tinkering with the coinage, expanding the new state lottery, and attempting to clamp down on tax evasion, was the replacement of the traditional quarterly tax on automobiles in circulation with a surtax on petrol. Such a move was favoured in principle by the auto-makers, who felt it would stimulate car purchases. Lucien Lamoureux advocated it because it would be more difficult to evade and might encourage drivers to use their

56 The Politics of Transport in France

cars all year round, hence consuming more petrol, instead of storing them in winter to save on taxes. However, instead of charging 50 centimes surtax per litre as the car manufacturers suggested, he opted for 60 centimes, in order to raise 400 million francs extra revenue.97 The truckers' leaders were livid. As they saw it, the manufacturers were sacrificing the regular users of the automobile, the professionals, for the rich weekend driver. Furthermore, the government was not scrupulous about using the authority of the automobile lobby as a shelter against parliamentary criticism of the surtax. The measure was passed by the Chamber of Deputies on 22 October with little opposition, although because the government fell on the issue of civil servants' salary cuts, it did not become law until 23 December.98 An editorialist for L'Avenir Routier, the weekly of the Federation Nationale des Transporters de France, complained that, hypnotized by the railways' deficit, the government was sacrificing the road transporters.99 Other articles bitterly attacked the recent police measures ordered by the prefects to prevent private bus services from running. 10° The car-makers, realizing they had been hoodwinked by the government, joined in the protest against the measures,101 which increased the difficulties in stimulating an already sluggish market for industrial vehicles: the production of trucks had fallen from 36,822 in 1930 to 29,652 in X933.102 Throughout December 1933 and January 1934, the road transporters, especially the FNTF, began to organize mass meetings in protest against the recent fiscal measures. Like many farmers and middle-class taxpayers, they felt that their plight was due to the ineptitude and indifference of a morally corrupt parliamentary regime. They formed part of a groundswell of lower middle-class opinion, made up of social groups that lacked the organizational experience of labour or big business in making their demands heard.103 After the Stavisky scandal broke, the political climate, worsening throughout 1933, turned very sour. The financial scandal seemed to show that the regime was too busy sheltering crooks to find solutions to serious national problems. One journalist, writing in the newspaper of the Lyon road transporters, asked rhetorically: "1 billion 200 million francs in extra taxes on the automobile in one year. And what exactly is Stavisky's cut?"104 In January and February 1934, the paramilitary right-wing leagues marched almost daily in Paris, calling for the forcible

57 Transport and the Depression

removal of the parliamentary politicians. Masses of transporters thronged to meetings in Lille and Paris under the slogan "Against the ruinous monopolies, against the crushing taxes, against corruption, against complicity and scandalous self-serving."105 The emphasis at these meetings was on unity: previously, the transporters had been scattered and disunited, an easy prey to the monopolies and the tax-man. Now, "we want to give the impression of disciplined and self-controlled force."106 At the Lille meeting, Constant Delattre-Marquet, the leader of the northern transporters' union, hammered home the same message: "United we are strong and capable of restoring in the country those cardinal virtues without which no nation can live: decency, honesty (applause) and these fundamental liberties: the right to make a living and to work... Despite the political exploiters and the parasites!"107 This defence of the "'honnetes gens" against the "penpushers" and the corrupt politicians was published two days before the riots of 6 February, when the frustrations of the previous months boiled over in violent clashes between police and demonstrators, leaving several dead, hundreds wounded, and a prime minister out of office. Since the onset of the depression, two years of Centre-Right cabinets, followed by a further two of Centre-Left ones, had produced little in the way of positive government action. When the government had acted, whether on transport questions or to prevent the overproduction of wine, it had been in the sense of a drift towards further administrative control.108 Its actions were Malthusian reflexes,109 based on a traditional conception of administrative interference with market forces, rather than creative attempts to use the economic power of the state to liberate France from the depression. Its approach was closer to that of Jules Meline, the man responsible for the protection of agriculture in the 1890s, than to that of Jean Monnet, the pioneer of postwar state economic planning. Consequently, when Daladier's cabinet resigned the day after the riots, it left behind a legacy of unsolved problems, not least of which was a transport sector in tatters, with a railway system heavily in debt, a road industry seething with discontent, strikeridden inland waterways badly in need of modernization, and a poorly organized national aviation company.

CHAPTER FOUR

Ententes and Economies, 1934-1936

The effect of the riots of 6 February 1934 was to end the political stalemate that had blocked prompt parliamentary action against the depression. The bulk of the Radical party now broke decisively with their Socialist allies of the 1932 elections and rallied to the call for a government of national unity under the former president of the republic, Gaston Doumergue. With the Socialists firmly in the opposition camp, a substantial Centre-Right majority existed to support the new government, and promptly gave it full powers to take measures to restore budgetary equilibrium. * Whether the Doumergue government would prove more successful than its predecessors depended on its willingness to take bold measures to revive the national economy, while maintaining unity between the Centre and the Right. Its main advantage was the broad basis of support, both in Parliament and in the country, for a government of national reconciliation after the bloodletting of February.2 Doumergue appeared calm and reassuring, and was widely acclaimed as a national saviour on his arrival in Paris. But if he was the right man to bind old wounds, he did not necessarily have the vision or energy to chart a new economic strategy to pull France out of the depression. According to one right-wing critic of the Third Republic, those who had summoned Doumergue wanted him, without doubt, much more for his weaknesses, for his limitations, than for his good qualities. More energetic, more adventurous, he would have scared them. Had he been younger, he would have threatened them. Had his mind been more profound or more audacious, he would have outclassed them ... His moderation, his lack of understanding of social questions, his lack of contact with the working-class crowd reassured the trusts. The fact that he was an old Radical appeased the Parliamentarians. He was chosen, he was accepted rather than a [Marshal] Lyautey [i.e., a strong man].3

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In the long run, after the fear which gripped the political establishment on 6 February had subsided,4 Doumergue's survival would depend on his ability to act as a mediator between the contending groups within the governing coalition, primarily the Radicals and the right. Given the diversity of this alliance, the least divisive course of action, once political life had returned to normal, was probably inaction. Be that as it may, the early weeks of the new government were quite busy. In contrast to previous governments, the Doumergue cabinet managed to rush the 1934 budget through Parliament by the end of February. He then introduced a series of economy decrees, cutting employment and salaries in the civil service and reducing pensions for war veterans. On 19 April, as another economy measure, he announced a decree to coordinate road and rail transport, claiming that "the reorganization of the railways and of public transport..., while realizing savings of two billion francs in running costs, will ensure a judicious collaboration of the railways and the roads to the benefit of all who use them."5 This decree of 19 April 1934 marks a key date in the history of transport policy in France. For the first time, the state had intervened to lay down the basic principles governing relations between road and rail transport, instead of leaving the matter to free competition or the initiative of the railway companies. The foundations for the decree had been laid in the summer of 1933, well before the advent of the Doumergue government. It was then that Raoul Dautry, the director of the Reseau de 1'Etat, proposed that the National Economic Council, an advisory body of management and labour delegates, should discuss how French transport should be coordinated. M.Josse, an official of the Conseil d'Etat, was entrusted with drafting a report, outlining the problem and suggesting remedies. Josse presented a first draft of his report to the National Economic Council in October 1933, and the council met again in the presence of Gaston Doumergue on 23 February 1934 to discuss the final version and present proposals to the government.6 Josse argued that the crisis in the transport world resulted from the conjunction of a massive increase in the quantity and productivity of the means of transport, caused largely by the meteoric rise of the automobile, and a decline in the mass of transportable goods and passengers as a result of the depression.7 This caused anarchical competition, leading to heavy railway deficits and driving many road transporters out of business. The main aim of an overall transport policy should be "to secure for everyone

60 The Politics of Transport in France

everywhere efficient means of transport," at as little cost to the community as possible.8 He rejected the idea that the best way to achieve this was by free competition: given the excessive number of competing transporters, this would continue to result in bankruptcies and deficits, which the taxpayer would have to subsidize. Moreover, the notion of free competition presupposed that all competitors operated under equal conditions, whereas in reality the railways were patently handicapped by the social obligations imposed on them since the 1850s. The only equitable solution, Josse insisted, was a flexible regulation of transport, to be carried out wherever possible by means of regional or departmental agreements between the railways and the road transporters.9The decree of 19 April endorsed this analysis, and set up a national road-rail coordinating committee to allow transporters to discuss the general principles of the new system, and to ratify local agreements.10 The response of the automobile world to the Josse report was near-unanimous opposition, the only exception being the subsidized bus firms subject to competition from unregulated companies like Transports Citroen. Spokesmen for the industry attacked the concept of state intervention and championed an intransigeant economic liberalism. Baron Petiet, a respected voice of the car-makers, claimed that "only free competition and natural selection will give the country the rational and coordinated means of transport that it expects." For the transporters, Rene Musnier, the president of the FNTF, also rejected state control and warned against the folly of attempting to coordinate transport by burdening the automobile industry with extra taxes. This would be the equivalent of "treating transportation like a horse-race: the handicapper adds or takes off weight according to the way in which he judges the merits of each of the competitors. Such behaviour is doubtless defendable when it is a case of sport. In the economic domain it is absurd."11 Other supporters of the automobile industry concurred in attacking the etatisme of the Josse report, and argued that the automobile should be "considered as a social benefit and not as something to be burdened with never-ending taxes."12 This united front of the automobile lobby masked continuing differences of interest between manufacturers and transporters. In general, Renault and Citroen espoused a more consistently liberal position, seeking to persuade the government of the merits of free competition in the transport world. It followed from this that the railway companies should be freed from the constraints

61 Ententes and Economies

imposed over the past eighty years. On these grounds, Citroen's Chambre Syndicale de 1'Automobile13 refused to take a stance against the road transport subsidiaries formed by the railways in 1928.14 Renault was even more reluctant to endorse the complaints of the road transporters' organizations against the "unfair competition" waged by the subsidiaries. He believed that "in those places where the railway is unprofitable, and where the automobile is clearly advantageous, the railway companies should be allowed to operate automobiles and to substitute automobile transport for rail transport everywhere it is less onerous and more rapid."15 Both men urged that the railways be given "complete independence to run their businesses rationally."16 This argument neatly combined ideology and self-interest: provided that the manufacturers could sell their products, they were indifferent as to whether the buyer was a road transporter or a railway company. Renault in particular had a vested interest in the revitalization of the railway system. After all, he was the foremost supplier of railcars to the railway networks.17 This approach proved difficult to reconcile with the insistence of road transporters that the railway companies should stick to rail transport, and that the government should force them to close down their road transport subsidiaries. It left the car-makers open to the accusation that their motives were "not the defence of the transporters or the users, but only of manufacturers eager to sell buses and lorries without caring whether their clients bring about the ruin of those enterprises to whom they have already supplied material."18 Musnier of the FNTF was quick to draw this conclusion, complaining privately to the transport expert of the Paris Chamber of Commerce that the big manufacturers were failing to come to the aid of the transporters.19 His colleague, Delattre-Marquet, was more forthright. "Transports Citroen," he charged, "looks to many transporters a little like an ogre which will swallow them whole."20 Another spokesman for the transporters claimed that "in all the questions concerning the automobile, the manufacturers have in practice taken all their decisions without caring in the least for the legitimate interest of the professional transporters."21 The attitude of most road transporters to economic liberalism was deeply ambivalent throughout the 1930s. On the one hand, the self-image of the profession was one of a young, vibrant, independent business, operating with an instrument of progress, the automobile - as opposed to the senile railway. As dynamic entrepreneurs, they were capable of providing the public with

62 The Politics of Transport in France

modern, efficient services "if they were given the freedom and the initiative to run their businesses without outside interference."22 Road transport enterprises, according to the truckers' union of Toulouse, were "the result of Progress... They satisfy everybody's needs without costing a sou to the state."23 Indeed, in the words of a resolution of the transporters of the Gard, "as a result of hard work, perseverance and careful management, the road transporter has adapted himself to the evolution of the economy."24 Yet this pride in the viability of an artisan trade in the twentieth century did not lead to a wholehearted endorsement of laissez-faire. For the car-makers and those who thought like them, liberalism was a form of social Darwinism, and the depression was nature's way of killing off the weaker elements in the economy.25 For most truckers' leaders, this approach was amoral. Complete free enterprise was really "anarchy," which would herald the triumph of monopolistic trusts, because the railways and Transports Citroen had the financial resources to operate at a loss until they had succeeded in driving the independent transporters to the wall. It was necessary to find some way of protecting the livelihood of those small firms which had won the right to survive because they had been pioneers in providing decent transport services to thousands of communities throughout the country.26 Some transporters, like James Ducellier from Roussillon, were even prepared to contemplate state intervention in defence of the right to work. The logic of his argument was perhaps not Cartesian, but he had a clear end in sight: "It is inexplicable that the state which makes the laws does not take direct action to curb the proliferation of enterprises, instead of taking indirect measures, which harm the very spirit of free enterprise. The state could, with one law, stabilize the situation of the road transporters."27 Not surprisingly, in view of this general attitude of "liberalism, but," the response of the FNTF, the largest road transporters' organization, to the Josse report and the decree of 19 April revealed serious divisions as to the best tactical reponse to make. The immediate official reaction was that the report represented "a very grave menace of state control."28 On 22 March, a meeting of Breton transporters protested that the report "open[ed] the way for a new monopoly like that of the railways, it sacrifice[d] the interests of communities and transporters to the benefit of financial feudalists, who will finish by crushing the economy of the country."29 Given this analysis, it would have seemed logical

63 Ententes and Economies

for the transporters to have opposed the decree of 19 April, which implemented the recommendations of the report. In fact the federation's response was much more guarded. Although it did not come out in acceptance of the aims of the decree, it agreed to work on the newly created road-rail coordinating committee. The main advocate of cooperation, Constant Delattre-Marquet, the FNTF chief in the north, editorialized that "the decree of 19 April 1934 ... could become the charter of the transporters in France, just as it could signal their forthcoming disappearance." The key factor in deciding the fate of the transporters would be organization. Either the national and local railways, and those powerful companies which are half-manufacturers and half-transporters, will find before them an innumerable mass of unorganized transporters, scattered like dust, or, on the contrary, they will encounter powerful, disciplined professional organizations, ready to discuss with composure, intelligence, competence, firmness and impartiality ... For that to happen, everyone must rally around his professional organization.^0

Clearly, Delattre-Marquet feared that the transporters would be isolated, and did not expect much help from firms like Transports Citroen or Cars Renault, which he characterized as "halfmanufacturers, half-transporters" and ranged among the rivals of the professional carriers. The northern leader had long preached the need for unity to foil unjust fiscal measures. He now felt that the unity of the transporters could be put to constructive purpose, to ensure that his members would have as big a say as possible in determining how the new transport policy would operate. Consequently, at the annual general meeting of the northern goods' transporters on 18 March, he managed to persuade a majority of the meeting to adopt a more cooperative policy. Two days later, unknown to his members, he met with a top official of the Reseau du Nord, whom he informed that a possibility existed to regulate road-rail coordination in a spirit of reciprocal understanding; polemics - useless and dangerous to all - could be avoided despite violent intentions in certain quarters... Serious professionals do not want any more of the present anarchical situation. They don't hesitate to recognise that the fly-by-nights [margoulins] of the road are at least as dangerous as the railway companies.^1

Delattre-Marquet's behaviour from mid-March on reflected a fear that the professional transporters were being squeezed from

64 The Politics of Transport in France

all sides, competing with the railways, large transport companies, and new transporters (the so-called margoulins). The only remedy was negotiation in the hope of achieving a greater degree of stability; otherwise bankruptcies would continue to take their toll. Musnier likewise came round to supporting cooperation with the railways, on the basis that a purely negative attitude would be disastrous. He alleged that Pierre-Etienne Flandin, the minister of public works, had more or less forced his hand, by telling him that "if you do not want to collaborate, coordination will take place without you and the railway companies will be authorized to take whatever measures they see fit to replace the unprofitable lines that we ask them to close down."32 For these reasons, despite its reservations about the Josse report and the hostility of most of the rank and file towards state intervention, the FNTF leadership decided to participate in the roadrail coordinating committee as the lesser of two evils. The representative of the railway companies on the committee and the main apostle of coordination between 1934 and 1936 was Raoul Dautry. Dautry, who was unanimously voted president of the committee at its first meeting in August 1934, had made his name by the rapid reconstruction of the war-devastated northern line.33 In 1928, Andre Tardieu appointed him director of the problem-ridden state network, an unenviable job, which prompted the comment of his former director on the Nord, Paul Javary, that he would rather sweep platforms on the Nord than manage the Reseau de 1'Etat!34 Within a short period, Dautry's energy, modern ideas, and ability to manage men had revolutionized the network and further boosted his reputation, while the accession of the "national unity" governments of 1934-5 brought him closer to the inner circles of power as a technical adviser.35 Dautry believed that a rational transport policy was more difficult to reach in France than anywhere else in Europe. Unlike Italy or Spain, the country had a dense railway network with many unprofitable local lines, while her automobile industry was much more important than that of Germany, Belgium, and Switzerland, and therefore had to be "accommodated" in any reorganization of transport: it was impossible to sacrifice the automobile industry in order to safeguard the railways.36 Moreover, the relatively liberal coordination policy adopted in Britain had only been possible because the British railways were freer from political control, and so could take over competing road enterprises.37

65 Ententes and Economies

Like Josse, Dautry rejected a laissez-faire approach to the problem, because what existed in the transport world was not free competition, but "anarchy." What was needed was to share out the traffic on the basis of economic rationality. The roads should carry predominantly short-distance traffic, for which they were technically unbeatable, being the most flexible means of transport. Long-distance traffic should be reserved for the railways, because of their advantages of speed and economy. This would involve a complex interchange of traffic, but would guarantee the livelihood of all transporters. In conclusion, it is imperative to ensure the development of the automobile by allowing it to perform those services to which it is economically best suited, instead of entrusting them to the railways. But it is necessary, in return, to guarantee the railways that share of the productive transport essential to their financial equilibrium. We must, alongside a bigger road network, have a railway network which is smaller but prosperous.38

This was a large step away from pure economic liberalism. As Dautry himself recognized, his formula for coordination was to "order, systematize, harmonize our transport system in the fairest and most economical way."39 There were two possible ways of doing this. One was to create a national transport office controlling all means of transport, as the Socialist party advocated.40 Dautry was too critical of the bureaucratization engendered by state control - especially in the Third Republic, where "political" elements dominated the decision-making bodies - to be attracted to this solution.41 As the director of the Reseau de 1'Etat, he was in a good position to appreciate the detrimental effects of daily state interference on the running of an industrial enterprise, and grew to prefer the British system of public corporations, where, although all "is done to be informed of needs, everything is also done to respect hierarchy, without leaving it vulnerable to the covetousness of interest groups or to the vague, impulsive and changeable decisions of irresponsible assemblies."42 This preference for "rule by experts," immune from the timeconsuming political interventions that were a feature of traditional republican transport policy, led him to opt for a system of agreements between the different transporters, as opposed to the broader process, encompassing transporters, the state, and representatives of transport users, recommended by the National Economic Council.43 These agreements should be framed at a regional

66 The Politics of Transport in France

level, so that they could be tailored to local needs, rather than being drawn up according to a national blueprint. The role of the national committee should be to lay down general guidelines. Dautry himself took the lead in pioneering the policy of regional ententes. He chose the department of Seine-Inferieure as the site for the pilot project, because within that region, which includes the major ports of Rouen and Le Havre, all imaginable obstacles to a rationally coordinated transport system were present. The mainline railway from Paris to Rouen faced competition from France's most important commercial waterway, the lower Seine. In addition, road transporters, spearheaded by Renault and Citroen, had sprung up in profusion.44 Negotiations took place in the spring of 1934, and by June the parties were close to agreement. The railways and the waterways agreed on a formula to share traffic based on the amounts carried by the respective transporters in 1931-3. The road transporters agreed to renounce long-distance transport, phasing out the material used for this purpose as it was amortized. In return, the Reseau de 1'Etat agreed to close fourteen local lines (517 km) and to renounce all its holdings in road transport enterprises within a year, a serious concession long demanded by the road transport lobby.45 Over three-quarters of the bus firms owning nine-tenths of the buses in the department signed the agreement; by midJune, twenty-eight goods' transporters owning 248 trucks had also signed.46 Following Dautry's initiative, other regional discussions began. The Reseau du Nord initiated discussions at Beauvais, inviting the main transporters' organizations, plus a number of local transporters. Negotiations proceeded less smoothly than at Rouen. Delattre-Marquet, invited on behalf of the FNTF, thought that the railway negotiators failed to show the same 'broadmindedness' as Dautry at Rouen. Instead, "the Reseau du Nord would like to carry the most important traffic, leaving only the crumbs to the other transporters."47 Despite such charges, and further friction arising from clashes between passenger and goods' transporters,48 the three regional agreements signed in the north provided for a total of over 700 km of railway lines to be closed to passenger traffic. In the southeast, the PLM company estimated that as a result of coordination, 566 km of railway lines could be closed completely and a further 2,281 km could be closed to passenger traffic, in other words over one quarter of the PLM network. The company

67 Ententes and Economies

could thereby save 180 million francs a year.49 The PLM'S director believed that, while coordination would prove quite straightforward in the countryside, it would be "particularly difficult to carry out near major centres like Lyon and Marseilles, because of the multitude of road transporters and also because of the insufficiency of the services we can offer them in compensation." A transporter accustomed to handsome takings on a run between Paris and Lyon would look askance at the slim pickings to be gained from a rural delivery service. There was also the problem of how to accommodate those truckers who had invested in specialized equipment for long-distance wine shipments.50 Eventually, in order to reach an equitable agreement for Lyon, Marseilles, and the winegrowing departments of Card and Herault, the PLM had to agree to back down from the general principles proposed by Dautry as the optimal technical solution to the transport problem. To ensure that truckers were not excessively penalized by accepting coordination plans, the PLM agreed to let some entrepreneurs operate long-distance services alongside the railways. Even so, the variations in the percentage of road transporters approving the regional plans on the PLM network show clearly that it was easier to reach agreement in the less lucrative rural areas. Ninety-four per cent approved the plan for the Doubs, 85 per cent for the Jura, 75 per cent for Yonne and Loiret, but only 64 per cent for Gard and Herault and 48 per cent for Bouches-du-Rhone, which includes Marseilles and its surroundings.51 Meanwhile, the national road-rail coordinating committee began work in Paris in August 1934. The committee of five was restricted to road and rail transporters. To have allowed, for example, a representative of the automobile manufacturers, would have led to demands for representation from rolling-stock constructors and other interest groups. The committee would have then become unwieldy and "the interests of the transporters would have been mixed up with those of the auto-makers, which M. Flandin sought to avoid."52 Instead, the committee decided to invite occasional guests to meetings to discuss the problems of particular interests. The members of the committee were Dautry, for the grands reseaux, Jourdain for the secondary railways, Andre Mariage of the Federation Generale des Transports Automobiles, representing subsidized passenger transport, Rene Musnier for the goods' transporters, and Jeandel, a road transport entrepreneur, for the independent passenger transporters.

68 The Politics of Transport in France

Despite the compactness of the committee, progress was anything but smooth. Dautry, Musnier, and Mariage frequently battled to decide how much business the railways should be allowed to keep. On certain issues, such as railways control of road transport subsidiaries, the director of the Reseau de 1'Etat was prepared to be flexible: if his strategy of ententes was valid, there would be no reason for the railways to insist on controlling part of the road transport industry, as its vital interests would be guaranteed by agreements.53 On fundamental issues, such as the railways' right to a monopoly of long-distance traffic, Dautry was much more obdurate. Discussion about this tricky question recurred frequently, as it represented the most lucrative business of many routiers. Finally, at the meeting of 7 March 1935, Dautry demanded "that it be accepted once and for all, before going into detailed studies, that all long-distance traffic should be carried by rail, the railway being, in his view, without a shadow of a doubt, the most suitable technique for this transport."54 Technically, perhaps, Dautry was correct, although the verdict of businessmen was often quite different: for shipments of goods like wine or fresh fruit and vegetables, trucks were usually quicker and handling costs were lower.55 Besides, experience in the southeast and elsewhere had shown the difficulty of finding adequate compensation for those transporters who were displaced from longdistance runs. If road and rail transport were to be coordinated, a compromise would be necessary on this issue. A second clash of interests occurred when Dautry sought to compensate for his inflexible stand on long-distance transport by proposing to allow almost complete free enterprise over short distances. Two difficulties arose here. The road and rail representatives disagreed on how to define "short distance." Mariage favoured a system of "central stations" 60 km apart, between which all local stations would be closed, whereas Dautry pointed out that in a densely populated region like the north, this would mean almost dismantling the existing railway system.56 The issue also drove a wedge between Dautry and Jourdain, the spokesman for the secondary railways. Jourdain's main aim throughout the course of the committee's deliberations was to liberate the archaic local railways from road competition. He was particularly aggrieved at the proposal that "the transport of small loads by vans, which adds up to an enormous amount, should remain free [from regulation}," because it was precisely such traffic that constituted the biggest threat to his constituents.57

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The most disruptive interference with the smooth functioning of the committee came from friction between the road transporters themselves. Jean Richard-Deshais, the president of the largest bus firm, the Societe Generale des Transports Departementaux, asserted that the coordination process of 1934-5 was so slow because of the quarrels of road transporters who, feeling "that their interests were not the same, according to the category to which they belonged, were unable to unite and lost precious time in vain squabbles."58 The major clash on the committee was between Musnier and Jeandel, whom the former accused of being a trojan horse of the railways, as his enterprise had close links with the road transport subsidiary of the Reseau de 1'Est. In protest against Jeandel's presence on the committee, Musnier withdrew and instructed his members to "go-slow" in negotiations for regional ententes until Jeandel was replaced.59 After almost a month's absence, Musnier won his point and returned to the committee on 6 December. Jeandel resigned under pressure and was replaced by Hinzelin. His company, Rapides de Lorraine, was independent - although Citroen held a minority share in it - and he was a leading member of the FNTF.60 Musnier's manoeuvrings seem to have been dictated more by a need to maintain the unity of his federation than by anything else. Within the ranks of the FNTF, there were rumblings of discontent at the cooperative stance being taken by the leadership. For the average transporter, the period since April 1934 had brought increasingly severe restrictions on his activity and the "mirage of [economic] stability"61 had not yet materialized. The decree of 19 April had banned the creation of new services and the acquisition of extra vehicles; the inspectors of the Fonts et Chaussees were disrupting the jealously guarded privacy of the truckers by carrying out a census of goods' vehicles; and, after July 1934, vehicles longer than ten metres (twelve metres with a trailer) and heavier than fifteen tons were no longer allowed on the road.62 The future prospects, especially for owners of heavy goods' vehicles, were less than enticing. In the north, as in the southeast, the exchange of local delivery services for long-distance runs competing with the rail ways provided insufficient cash or work to employ the existing fleet of lorries. The Reseau du Nord's coordination plans involved the suppression of 400-500 trucks of over eight tons. As Francois Caron writes, "coordination as envisaged by the railways led to Malthusian and authoritarian solutions."63

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In an atmosphere of growing pessimism about the future of the industry some argued that the FNTF was being shamefully manipulated by the grands reseaux. Albert Lefevre, the editor of L'Avenir Routier, dissociated himself from the FNTF leadership in August 1934. Criticizing the closed-door methods of the central coordinating committee, he argued that "from the beginning we should have taken the debate before the public at large and thereby freed ourselves from the intrigues of the railways."64 A week later he asked rhetorically, "for whose profit are we seeking to coordinate road and rail?"65 These concerns were reflected in the debates at the FNTF congress of October 1934, especially the one on goods' transport.66 In order to ward off criticism, Musnier took a harder line than he had done previously, now coming out firmly against the decree of 19 April, hoping that Parliament would refuse to ratify it and that "commercial freedom would regain all its rights." If this did not happen, "we will enter the regime of the controlled economy, with the return of corporatism."6? Musnier's zig-zags seem to have been partly tactical, to soothe the anxieties of his membership. By showing that he was not a puppet of the railways and that he was capable of maintaining and increasing the prestige of the FNTF, by securing a second seat for the federation on the Dautry committee, he was able to parry calls for the FNTF to withdraw completely from the coordination process. Such an intransigeant attitude would have allowed the railways to present their own plans without any opposition. It would also have divided the organization, for there was a powerful minority wing allied with Musnier which saw coordination as the means of spreading the influence of the FNTF. This wing, led by Delattre-Marquet and the northern transporters "thinks that we must do everything possible to realize an agreement between the railways and the transporters."68 Delattre-Marquet had always emphasized the need for a powerful professional organization to ensure the defence of the excessively individualistic road transporters. Gradually, however, he came to adopt what was virtually a corporatist position, favouring professional self-regulation of the economy as an alternative to both capitalism and socialism. In order to ensure an effective and fair coordination of transport, he affirmed the "necessity for a professional organization with effective sanctions at its disposition, but excluding as far as possible the intervention of the state and the railway companies." Given broader powers, the corporation should police its own membership and "unmask the trick-

71 Ententes and Economies

sters," thereby obviating the need for stifling state control of abuses.69 These ideas were still at a formative stage. The FNTF spoke for only a minority of the profession, and the ingrained individualism of many of its members, let alone the feelings of those who were isolated or belonged to one of the many rival groups, made a full-fledged corporatism an impractical option for the present.70 It began to make major progress only from 1937 on, before reaching its heyday under the Vichy regime. In 1934-5, the main impact of the corporatist option was further to limit the scope of action of the road transport delegates on the Dautry committee, forcing them to adopt according to tactical necessity "harder" and "softer" positions towards coordination, while continuing to accept the basic principle.71 The main achievement of the Dautry committee was in drawing up an agreement on the principles governing coordination of passenger transport, designed to serve as a guideline to those responsible for formulating regional transport plans. The text envisaged a basic division of labour: buses for the shorter distances, railways for longer. This would permit most of the local railway lines built under the Freycinet plan to be closed to passenger traffic. The railway companies agreed that within three years they would stop investing money from their general budget in their transport subsidiaries.72 The practical obstacle of how to allocate traffic and ensure a livelihood for all concerned prevented a similar model text from being drawn up for goods' transport.73 Having laboriously reached an agreement on principles, the policymakers now turned their attention to implementing these principles systematically at a local level. A decree of February 1935 established technical departmental committees comprised, like the national committee, solely of transporters. These completed the work begun by the regional ententes of 1934. They deliberated throughout 1935 and drew up detailed plans towards the end of the year; by May 1936, seventy-nine plans had been sent to the minister for approval.74 Simultaneously, coordination had begun between rail and water transport and the railways and commercial aviation. Because neither the waterways nor the airlines were such an important category as the road transporters, the difficulties proved much less intractable. The regulation of rail and water transport also began with the presentation of a report by a civil servant, Pierre Laroque, to the National Economic Council, followed by a decree

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on 12 May 1934, implementing the recommendations of the report. Laroque argued that the basic problem on the waterways, contributing to the unrest of 1932-3, was a surplus of boats and excessive competition with the railways, resulting in cuts in living standards and underemployment. The remedy lay in cutting back the number of boats, banning foreign boats from French waters, and encouraging ententes between the railways and waterways.75 The tariff war would then subside and the surviving barge-haulers would be better off. The major obstacle to coordination, as in the road-rail negotiations, was the disunity of the waterway community and the consequent lack of a representative body able to sell a deal to all categories of transporters. The basic divisions between artisans and companies, labourers and employers, the traditional sector and the modernized sector, crisscrossed.76 Before the waterway users could bargain meaningfully with the railways, they needed to put their own house in order. Consequently, 1934 was spent designating organizations to represent the waterways in negotiations.77 The negotiations took place on two planes. There were general regional agreements arranging the sharing out of traffic in a specified area. Where this proved too difficult, there were also more limited but very detailed agreements on how to share a given traffic on a given run, for example coal going from the north to Paris.78 A central coordinating committee existed to iron out general problems and supervise the workings of the regional and local deals. This comprised a representative each from the railways and waterways and a neutral chairman. The first general agreement was signed on the Rhone, where because the treacherous conditions required special material and experience, only three companies predominated.79 The pact specified that the size of the Rhone fleet would be frozen for the foreseeable future; that the share of traffic between rail and water would be based on the average for the previous three years (1931-3), and that the navigators would still be free to set their own tariffs, provided that they did not exceed their quota of traffic.80 Later, when it became clear that the terms of the accord were "excessively severe for the navigation of the Rhone, and threatened its vital interests," the PLM agreed to revise the agreement to provide the waterways with a larger slice of the cake.81 In other areas of France, the waterway community was divided between artisans and companies. This did not matter in the Midi, where the barge-haulers' unions were united and powerful; the

73 Ententes and Economies

waterway interests were able to negotiate on an even footing with the railways and ensure that the ensuing bargain was respected.82 On the Seine, where large companies and artisans coexisted, Dautry sought to ensure that the agreement would be kept by specifying how much business should accrue to the artisans and the companies respectively in the waterways' share of the traffic. Here again, the aim was to limit the waterways' share of the traffic to its average share for 1931-3 and to bring an end to the ruinous tariff war.83 The central committee encouraged this measure to protect the artisans, particularly in the north; a ministerial instruction of 2 October 1935 made it mandatory.84 By the end of the legislature (April 1936), the situation on the waterways seems to have been stabilized, although the long-term problems remained unsolved. There was not as yet a general agreement sharing traffic on the northern waterways, but even here some progress had been made.85 From 1934 the various agreements succeeded in stabilizing the amount of traffic going by water: after rising from 7.27 billion ton/kms in 1930 to 8.38 billion in 1934, it held steady at a little over 8 billion in 1935 and 1935 86 From 1934 to 1936, the railways' goods' traffic fell marginally from 29.7 to 29-5 billion ton/kms.87It is therefore difficult to accept the judgment of a report drawn up for the Credit Lyonnais bank which claimed that "the variations in the total volume of waterway traffic do not indicate that the traffic-sharing agreements were effective: the waterways almost entirely preserved the tonnage carried in 1930; the railways lost a third by 1938."88 In fact, almost all the railways' losses and the waterways' gains took place before the signing of the accords, the effect of which was to end, or at the very least to slow down considerably, the hemorrhage of the railways' goods' traffic. To prevent a relapse into the tariff wars of 1930-3, the inland waterways division at the Ministry of Public Works blocked railway tariff proposals that it believed were directed against the waterways.89 Coordination had its critics, notably waterway representatives who complained that it had halted the expansion of waterway traffic. The most important result, though, was that freight rates rose from the abysmally low levels of 1932-3.^ The overall picture was healthier, particularly for the artisans, whose dramatic actions had forced previously unsympathetic ministerial officials to sit up and take notice of them.91 Rail-air coordination presented little difficulty from 1934 to 1936. Although the railway companies protested against the extension of the Post Office-sponsored Air Bleu's activities to

74 The Politics of Transport in France

parcel deliveries, freight competition had not yet become significant.92 Air-France, busy rationalizing its overdiversified equipment under the watchful eye of Aviation Minister Pierre Cot, was still finding its feet.93 The main achievement in rail-air cooperation was the provision of joint tickets, allowing transfers from one service to the other. In an age when night flights were not yet practical, this allowed long-distance travellers to take the train overnight, instead of having to stay in hotels.94 By late 1935, then, coordination was under way in all domains and was on the verge of producing substantial results, except in the coordination of road and rail goods' transport, which had not advanced beyond the preliminary census-taking stage. However, opposition to coordination, especially to the formula of "professional ententes," now threatened to call into question the work thus far accomplished. The opposition came from two directions. One was industrial and commercial circles, represented especially by Chambers of Commerce. These bodies, which had played an important role in nineteenth-century France in mobilizing the regional bourgeoisie against the monopolistic intentions of the railway companies, basically stood for the maintenance of the status quo. Rejecting "bureaucratic" nationalization schemes, they also opposed moves to give transport operators more elbow-room, despite their formal espousal of the most old-fashioned kind of economic liberalism. They were aggrieved that transport users had been excluded from both the national and regional coordination committees. The Cambrai Chamber of Commerce, like many others, appealed to be admitted to the technical departmental committee to ensure "the natural and legal representation of industrialists and tradesmen, that is to say of the great majority of the clientele of the various means of transport."95 The Chambers of Commerce feared that the existing transport system would be replaced by a state bureaucracy, providing an inferior service at higher cost. Accordingly, they sought to ensure that jealously preserved transport facilities were not traded away behind closed doors.96 The other source of opposition came from the political world, both at a national and a local level. Nationally, the left, from the Radicals to the Communists, also opposed the way in which coordination was being put into practice. In the Chamber of Deputies, the Communist railwaymen's leader, Lucien Midol, lambasted the government's policy as "the consecration of accords between the different transport capitalists."97 The Communist

75 Ententes and Economies

daily L'Humanite called Dautry's solutions "those of the rail magnates who want to put a brake on the development of road transport."98 For the Socialists, Jules Moch criticized the exclusion of transport users and personnel from the coordination committees and concluded that "the deal will thus be made at the user's expense." He feared that through coordination, the railway companies - one of the bastions of "financial feudalism" - would swallow up the artisan road transporters and recapture their old monopoly." The Radical party, slower to act against the decree laws of 1934-5, eventually expressed the fear that coordination, as it was being practised, "would damage the interests of local communities ... to the profit of private interests." 10° This fear was shared by the congress of French mayors, which denounced plans for rail closures as "a criminal folly which would amount to a real economic catastrophe."101 On the left, as among the representatives of small-town communities, Dautry's concept of plans drawn up by small committees of experts aroused traditional republican suspicions of large-scale vested interests able to dictate economic conditions by evading democratic controls. This opposition spread and became effective during the discussions of the regional transport plans in 1935. After the technical departmental committees had drawn up the plans, they went to the Conseils Generaux, the departmental assemblies, for approval. Here they met with a stormy reception. Radical and Socialist councillors, like Jules Moch in the Drome, succeeded in rejecting many proposed plans.102 But it was not only the left which was hostile. Opposition was general in the countryside, notably in hilly regions like the Cevennes and the Ardennes. Local representatives from such areas feared that the loss of train services would heighten feelings of isolation and deprive countryfolk of access to those urban amenities which made village life bearable.1Q3 A senator, Paul Laffont, explained regional opposition to the plans because of the sentimental appeal of the local railway. "The inhabitant of the small town is attached to his train, because he takes it every now and then and he watches it pass every day." The provision of local train services had often been achieved only at the price of years of lobbying; it was regarded as a status symbol, and would not be relinquished lightly even though it was chronically underutilized.104 But sentiment was reinforced by weighty economic and financial considerations. In many small communities, the square in front of the railway station was the hub of village commercial and social life. Without the railway

76 The Politics of Transport in France

line they would lose what little animation and attractiveness they still possessed in an age haunted by the spectre of the deserted village. At the same time, the departments, whose financial resources were notoriously slim, feared that they would face heavier bills for local road repairs if the train departed. This would add to the difficulties of balancing the local budget.105 In the light of these local concerns, the methods adopted to coordinate transport in 1934-5 can only be described as politically naive. The formulation of views on transport policies was one of the few rights the Jacobin state had given the Conseils Generaux. And yet, certain regions were being "kicked about like a football, without being allowed to say a word, simply to facilitate the wheeling and dealing of the transporters."106 The bulk of the discussions on the departmental transport committees concerned trade-offs between road and railway companies, or denunciations by established operators of illegal usurpers. Because the Conseils Generaux were excluded, the needs of local communities were accommodated to the convenience of the transporters, instead of the reverse occurring. By April 1936, of the seventy-nine plans drawn up, only ten had been fully accepted by the Conseils Generaux. These fell into two categories. The transport plan was accepted in the Sarthe, Yonne, and Haute-Loire because of intense lobbying by influential political figures: Caillaux (president of the Senate Finance Commission), Flandin, and Laurent-Eynac (minister of public works). In the latter two cases, the rules were bent to give the Conseil General a chance to express its views.107 In the rich farming region of Normandy, the local councillors, mostly wealthy professionals with a fair sprinkling of dukes and viscounts, were swayed by national financial considerations. "The Conseil General of the Sarthe," declared its transport spokesman, "has always handled the public purse with extreme prudence; it cannot, it seems to me, oppose measures which are eminently favourable to the taxpayers."108 In the last weeks of the Laval government, Dautry wrote to the minister of public works urgently requesting him to allow the approved plans to be put into the operation to prove the apprehensions of his opponents groundless.109 Shortly after the new year, however, the Laval ministry fell, being replaced by a Radical party government, the main aim of which was to play a caretaking role until the legislative elections of that spring. This government was anxious above all to avoid measures liable to upset the electorate. Consequently, when the new minister of

77 Ententes and Economies

public works, Camille Chautemps, was questioned in the Senate about the coordination plans, he sought to allay criticism by setting up a study commission with user participation to scrutinize the transport plans before approving them.110 The commission never met and so no plan had been put into operation when the legislature ended. The balance sheet for the coordination efforts of 1934-6 must take into account sectoral variations. Thus for the waterways the results were fairly satisfactory. For passenger transport, the various parties had found common ground in principle and had managed to translate this into functioning departmental committees. For the first time, a discussion forum brought road and rail lobbies together - no mean feat! As yet, however, the unprofitable lines remained and coordination had not improved the railways' finances. The annual deficit for 1934-5 continued to hover around 4 billion francs and the companies seemed mired in financial crisis.111 The biggest disappointment was in goods' coordination. Here Caron's criticism of the restrictive, Malthusian nature of coordination seems most apt. The fundamental problem, as we have seen, was that the railways could not offer sufficient compensation in return for abolishing long-distance road services. The only tangible result of the discussions between the FNTF and the railways was a census to determine the size of the professional transporters' fleet. Even here, the results were disappointing. Only 50,000 of the 450,000 trucks and vans in France were owned by professional transporters. The rest belonged to businesses, shopkeepers, and farmers.112 The implication of this census, seized upon by professional transporters' organisations, was that goods' coordination could not work unless the owners of the remaining 400,000 vehicles were subjected to checks to ensure that they were not illicitly engaged in professional transportation as a sideline to their main occupation.113 Subsequently, by a decree of July 1935, bitterly received in business circles,114 all owners of commercial vehicles were forced to register their vehicles and were liable to spot checks to ensure that they were only transporting for their own account. The upshot of the various decrees concerning goods' coordination was that they placed an added burden upon the depressed automobile industry without cutting the railway deficit. Because of the ruling that no new transport enterprises could be set up, and because of substantial increases in road-fuel taxes, the national

78 The Politics of Transport in France

truck fleet remained steady at just over 450,000 units, showing a slight tendency to decline, while the German fleet was expanding rapidly from 219,000 in 1933 to 345,000 in 1936.11* Petrol and diesel consumption also declined in the first years of coordination.116 French production of commercial vehicles continued to slump, falling from 29,652 in 1933 to 22,057 in 1935, again in contrast to the recovery of the German auto industry.117 (See fig. 8.) This persistently disappointing performance was to some extent the result of other factors, such as sluggish demand for new vehicles, but automobile spokesman and others were quite correct in holding the coordination decrees partly responsible.118 In fact, coordination as practised from 1934-6 followed the same deflationary pattern as the general economic strategy of the national union governments in power. Dautry, who advised these governments on economic policy, shared in the common contemporary belief in the need for a stringent economy drive to balance the national budget as a means of restoring investor confidence and pulling France out of the slump.119 This implied an emphasis not on expansionary measures to stimulate growth, but on cuts in wages and prices to bring French costs down to a competitive level. Unfortunately, the result was that each package of economy measures curbed growth, thereby reducing the sum of revenues going into the national exchequer, and recreating the deficit: a vicious circle which condemned France to vegetate while the rest of the industrialized world began the long haul to economic recovery.120 The consequence of this approach in transport policy was that legislators, starting from the correct premise that there was a surplus of transporters fighting over a diminishing supply of traffic, sought to freeze the number of transporters at the level reached in January 1934, in a vain effort to cut the railway deficit, instead of seeking to increase the amount of traffic. The automobile industry was halted in its tracks and France fell from second-largest to fifth-largest world producer in the space of a few years. The most durable result of this period was the germination of a corporatist mentality in the transport world, which rejected both orthodox liberalism as outdated and state socialism as bureaucratic. As yet this movement was only beginning to gain momentum - individualism was still deeply entrenched - but towards 1935 there was a widespread search in France for a formula that could provide a defence against the ravages of excessive competition without conjuring up nightmares of the Leviathan state.121 Many in business came to favour a strengthening of professional

79 Ententes and Economies

groupings to regulate competition and limit production.122 A growing discrepancy became noticeable between the traditional liberal theory of the business community and the recourse to tariff quotas, ententes, and stronger professional organi2ation brought about by the depression.123 Gradually, theory began to take account of changing practice. Men like Delattre-Marquet in road transport, agricultural leaders and theorists like Pierre Halle of the wheatgrowers' federation and the young jurist, Louis Salleron, as well as national business leaders of the calibre of ClaudeJoseph Gignoux, became vigorous proponents of a French brand of corporatism.124 This would distinguish itself from German, Italian or Portuguese variants by its fierce hostility to the state. Gignoux, soon to become the leader of the main employers' federation, the Confederation Generale de la Production Franchise, wrote in 1935: "The national and international disciplining of production is essential: it is only a question of knowing whether it will be imposed in a clumsy and harmful way by a state which is incompetent and ... intoxicated with demagoguery, or whether it will be freely consented to by the producers themselves."125 This tendency, a product of the soul-searching induced by the depression, would continue to grow in the late 1930s, before forming an integral part of the official ideology of the Vichy regime.

CHAPTER FIVE

Carrot and Stick, 1936-1939

The Centre-Right coalition which had governed France from the February riots until the formation of the Radical caretaker government early in 1936 was decisively repudiated in the legislative elections of 26 April and 3 May 1936. Victory went to the Popular Front, an alliance of Socialists, Communists, and Radicals, which had sprung up after the antiparliamentary riots as an antifascist bloc, and been consolidated in 1935, partly in opposition to the deflationary policies of Laval and partly because of the endorsement of the Radical party, which was casting about for a formula which would allow it to avoid electoral defeat.l As the most successful party in the triumphant coalition, the Socialists provided for the first time a solid contingent of ministers, including Leon Blum, the head of the new government. Blum's economic strategy, formulated under the impact of the economic depression, represented, in his own words, a complete reversal of the methods which had been employed in the last legislature vis-a-vis the economic crisis. We have resolutely and systematically taken the opposite tack to deflation. The measures which we have taken and all those which we have yet to take tend to increase the sum of disposable revenues, to increase purchasing power in general and working-class purchasing power in particular ... They tend, unlike deflation which dries up the national economy, to stimulate it and to resuscitate trade and transactions on the international level.2

These reflationary measures, promised in the Popular Front program and demanded by tens of thousands of workers in the massive strike-wave of May-June 1936, were rushed through

81 Carrot and Stick

Parliament in the first three months of the Blum government.3 At a stroke, the workers won paid holidays, collective bargaining rights, substantial wage increases, and the promise of a forty-hour week without loss of pay. Through boosting purchasing power and simultaneously taking action against unemployment, Blum hoped to revive production by stimulating demand for consumer goods - a French New Deal. This was clearly a dramatic alternative to the Doumergue-Laval prescription of building business confidence by restoring a balanced budget and maintaining the value of the franc.4 As might be expected, the Socialist approach to transportation also differed. The Socialist party, through Jules Moch, had led the fight in Parliament for the nationalization of the railways, and one of the earliest political battles of Leon Blum himself had been against the power of the grands reseaux.5 However, the new government was slow to take action to reorganize transport. Its first priority was to satisfy the demands of the striking workers, of a working-class which had been in the wilderness since the days of revolutionary optimism of 1919-20, and which held great expectations that "its" government would meet its demands.6 There was a widespread recognition that this had to be done, and quickly, in order to restore social peace: even the national employers' representatives and the socially conservative Senate accepted concessions to appease the strikers in the charged atmosphere of June and July 1936.7 Transport reform was a less immediate concern. The workers' organizations passed motions in favour of the nationalization of the railways, but there was no talk of using mass pressure to enforce these demands. The railwaymen had been traumatized by two stinging defeats within living memory (the strikes of 1910 and 1920) and even during the recent strike-wave had remained on the job.8 What is more, the Socialists did not have carte blanche. Blum's conception of his role, reiterated in several major speeches, was that he was not in power to carry out the program of the Socialist party, but was merely empowered to implement the election platform of the Popular Front within the framework of the existing political system.9 In other words, the Blum cabinet was not a revolutionary government trying to create a socialist society in France, but a coalition of Socialists and Radicals, supported by the Communists, and could only survive on the basis of mutual compromise. The government's transport policy had to take into account the repugnance of the vast majority of Radicals for social-

82 The Politics of Transport in France

ization measures which would strengthen the power of the state and hurt the mass of petit-bourgeois investors who had shares in the private railway companies.10 Perhaps a man with the energy of Jules Moch, who had won over the Radicals on the Chamber's Commission of Public Works to his nationalization proposals in 1931, could have pushed through reforms quickly. But Moch was busy as Leon Blum's personal adviser. The minister of public works was another Socialist, Albert Bedouce, who, according to Moch, was "a little elderly and too weary to dominate" his ministry.11 After a year in office, Bedouce's achievements were mainly negative: poor relations with the railway companies and a feud with Dautry - suspect in Socialist eyes as a former adviser to Doumergue and Laval which ended in the latter's retirement as director of the Reseau de 1'Etat.12 On the positive side, very little was done in 1936. The minister felt that, after the local discontent of 1935-6 at the coordination plans, a breathing space was necessary. In August, he announced his intention to broaden the coordination committees at all levels to include representatives of transport users, thus continuing and going beyond the opening up of the coordination process begun by Camille Chautemps in February 1936.13 Even so, it remained unclear on what principles the committees would act: ministerial circulars referred vaguely to a transport policy in the public interest as opposed to agreements between transporters. l4 The economist Francois Perroux excoriated the Popular Front's handling of transport policy, which was marred by "uncertainty of doctrine and the insufficient formation of political personnel." The coordination of road and rail "did not move a step forward" in 1936.15 Just before Christmas, the Chamber of Deputies voted unanimously that the government should present proposals for a complete overhaul of the railways by 31 March, as the precondition for the coordination of transport.l6 Reform had become imperative because of the imminent worsening of the financial position of the transport sector. The railways, whose deficit of 4 billion francs matched that of the previous year, faced a 7 billion franc deficit in 1937, as a result of increased costs caused by inflation and the application of the new social legislation.17 The most important burden was the cost of implementing the forty-hour week, which necessitated the hiring of an extra 60,000 to 70,000 railwaymen, inflating the workforce by almost 20 per cent and negating in one fell swoop the effects of ten years of natural

83 Carrot and Stick

redundancy.18 The government, encouraged by the trade unions, which remembered the fight to ensure the defence of the eighthour day, used its powers of control over the railways to ensure that the law was applied more completely here than in any other industry.19 The introduction of paid holidays further added to the railways' costs. The automobile sector also suffered a crisis of profitability following the implementation of the Popular Front's social legislation. Initially this was masked by a substantial increase in sales of vehicles (19 per cent for cars, 2.6 per cent for commercial vehicles), mainly caused by speculative buying in the correct anticipation of a future rise in prices.20 But the social laws caused Peugeot's profits to fall from 45 to 33 million francs in 1936 and added 30-35 per cent to the costs of running a transport company by October 1936.21 This inflationary trend continued while the Popular Front was in power, so that an estimate of the evolution of the budget of a typical transport firm between 1936 and 1938 was: gasoline expenditure, up 52 per cent, tires, up 74 per cent; depreciation costs, up 70 per cent; spare parts, up 70 per cent; labour, up 75-84 per cent, according to region; general costs (insurance, administration), up 44 per cent.22 At the end of 1936, a centre-left deputy, Charles Pomaret, on behalf of the Chamber's Finance Commission, traced the alternatives open to the government in its attempts to redress the situation. His report spared nobody in its analysis of the crisis of the transport system. By 1936, he noted, the accumulated railway deficit since 1921 had reached 35 billion francs (about half the state's annual budget) and the interest on capital expenditure and loans to clear debts came to almost 4 billion francs a year. The reform efforts of the governments of the previous legislature, particularly Paganon's reforms of 1933, were "improvised," a jumble of measures connected by no coherent plan.23 The economy drives promoted by the governments of 1934-5 had saved 2,809 million francs in 1935,1,434 million as a result of government decree laws cutting wages and pensions, 1,375 million as the product of operational economies. While significant, these savings were less substantial than the companies had anticipated.24 The Popular Front's abandonment of deflation and its social reforms would add over two billions to the railways' expenses, of which the 40-hour week accounted for half.25 Because he foresaw no indication of an improvement in the railways' financial performance, Pomaret argued that far-reaching structural reforms were necessary. For legal reasons, he dis-

84 The Politics of Transport in France

counted Moch's earlier proposals for the expropriation of the companies, but he also denied the validity of the companies' case that the state should pay the enormous sum stipulated in the existing contracts to buy out the railways. Instead, Pomaret proposed negotiations, and suggested that a basis for agreement could be found if the companies would accept less compensation in return for the state's promise to service the loans which they had contracted in previous years. The railways should be subjected to greater public control, which could be achieved by one of the two following means. The first, more radical, option was to create a single railway company controlled by the state; the gradualist alternative was to merge the existing companies into four new ones with a coordinating office to ensure common policies. The latter proposal would simply involve a further step along the road to unification begun in 1921 with the creation of the Comite de Direction des Grands Reseaux, and continued in 1933 with the merger of the PO and Midi companies. In both instances, the state would have the upper hand, but could harness the expertise of the managerial personnel of the grands reseaux26 These recommendations represented a compromise between the Socialist and Radical party policies, and also between the government and company points of view. Nevertheless, negotiations proved tricky. The company negotiators rejected the government's opening position, arguing that it meant "the expropriation of the companies almost without indemnity, under shocking conditions."27 The Socialists and their trade-union allies still favoured more far-reaching nationalization procedures than were acceptable either to their coalition partners or to the grands reseaux.28 Unable and unwilling to act unilaterally, the government was forced to let talks drag on beyond the 31 March deadline set by Parliament. On 31 March, Bedouce finally indicated the principles governing the coordination of transport in a letter to Yves le Trocquer, whom he had appointed as president of the road-rail coordinating committee to replace Raoul Dautry.29The essential thrust of this letter was the abandoning of the policy of professional ententes which had provided the basis for coordination in 1934-5. Consequently, all the plans drawn up by the departmental committees should be revised, with the active cooperation at all stages of local authorities and transport users. The result was a package which continued to penalize road transporters. In particular, bus operators were no longer entitled to compensation if they were forced to close a line. To make matter worse, the ban on opening

85 Carrot and Stick

new lines, enforced since April 1934, continued to be applied. To appease the disgruntled routiers, the minister had agreed to show leniency towards those who had expanded operations in 1934-5 and, in a spirit of conciliation, ordered the grands reseaux to abandon the practice of offering special discount rates to undercut competition. Finally, the appointment of Le Trocquer, the president of the Union Routiere, an umbrella group of defenders of the road, had been meant to reassure the road transporters.30 The prospect of financial savings from Bedouce's transport policy seemed quite dim. Closures of passenger lines, the main source of economies produced by coordination, would be very difficult to put into effect, since they were only allowed "when the Conseils Generaux concerned have approved the measure."31 Bedouce failed to suggest ways of encouraging the local authorities to agree to closures, although experience had shown that they were unlikely to accept them voluntarily. Indeed, the minister seemed unconvinced, as the Socialist party had been in opposition, of the need for closures of railway lines: "I do not believe that it is possible to abandon many railway lines. I am told about the small unprofitable lines: 'we must attack the railways, we must slash the secondary network.' I believe that, on the contrary, we must be very prudent. Although a line seems useless four days a week, it may be indispensable on the fifth, on market-days, holidays, and for fairs."32 Here Bedouce was expressing the classical defence of the Freycinet plan. A means of helping to combat rural isolation, it should not be sacrificed lightly. Social considerations should not be neglected because of an obsession with financial stringency. In conclusion, the transport policy of the Blum government must be deemed a failure. Unable to persuade his Radical coalition partners of the desirability of nationalization, Bedouce had very little to fall back on. This failure was partly due to the minister's lack of dynamism, but primarily stemmed from the fact that Socialist strategy during the depression had ill prepared the party for a reformist "exercise of power" as opposed to the traditional concept of the revolutionary conquest of power. Hence, on the parliamentary Public Works' Commission, Moch and Bedouce had adopted the purely negative stance of blocking government attempts at pruning the railways' deficit (raising rates or cutting expenses) in the belief that these were only bandaid measures. As we have seen, the Socialist party believed that the deficit was essentially a result of the mismanagement of the private railway companies, rather than a consequence of the eco-

86 The Politics of Transport in France

nomic depression and competition from other modes of transport.33 There were two main consequences of blaming the crisis on a malevolent financial oligarchy, and arguing that nationalization would produce enough economies from financial and technical unification to eliminate the deficit. First, it encouraged the Socialists to oppose measures to adapt the railways to an age of renewed competition. For example, if they ran bus lines, it was entirely because of their monopolistic ambitions. Or if they introduced railcars, it was to provide lucrative orders for their friends in Michelin and Renault.34 The Socialist emphasis in opposition was on paring railway investments to a minimum to minimize the cost of buying out the railway barons, instead of differentiating between investments which were indeed superfluous and those which were necessary to rejuvenate the network. The second consequence was to allow the Socialists to evade electorally unpopular decisions. If in fact nationalization would wipe out the entire deficit, it was unnecessary to contemplate redundancies, wage cuts, fare increases, or heavier gasoline taxes.35 Such thinking was quite normal for a permanent opposition party, but it provided a poor training for those who would be responsible for managing the existing transport system until such time as structural reforms could be pushed through. It was far easier to defend nationalization in lengthy reports than to carry out a coherent transport policy in a coalition government. After the flurry of legislation in the wake of the "grandepeur" of May-June 1936, the Blum government lost momentum in all spheres. Its reflationary economic strategy succeeded briefly in stimulating production, but in the process aggravated other economic indices, driving up prices, worsening the balance of payments, and weakening the franc, which the government hastily devalued in September 1936, in such a clumsy fashion that French industry was prevented from benefiting fully from the advantages of cheaper exports.36 In February 1937, Blum declared a "pause" in reformist activity to allow the economy to digest the effects of his earlier reforms. From then on, the government was on the defensive, and when the Senate refused to ratify his demands for special decree powers to rectify the economic situation, Blum chose to resign rather than challenge the upper house, as the Communists and some left-wing Socialists urged him to do.37 Trapped in the dilemma of a Socialist seeking to govern within the constraints of capitalist legality, Blum had failed to maintain the momentum of the spring and summer of 1936, when he was

87 Carrot and Stick

swept along by a radicalized working-class. The succeeding Popular Front governments were increasingly dominated by the Radical party, whose fear of the Communist party and socialism pushed it inexorably towards an alliance with the moderate right. Blum's successor was the Radical Camille Chautemps, "a wily, adroit Parliamentarian who is not embarrassed by principles, an alert navigator ready to veer and to avoid shoals."38 His minister of public works was another Radical, Henri Queuille, a seasoned politician from the traditionally left-wing rural department of the Correze, where he had long served on the Conseil General. Most of his already considerable ministerial experience had been acquired as minister of agriculture. Social background - he was a country doctor - and political formation thus combined to give him a sure grasp of the intricacies of the Third Republic, whether at a national or a regional level The new minister immediately set about relaxing the instructions of his predecessor concerning coordination, and concluded the negotiations between the government and the grands reseaux.*9 The Senate defined the parameters of the government's negotiating position. In delegating the decree powers to Chautemps that it had refused Blum, the conservative upper house specified that these powers excluded the expropriation of the railways. On the railway side, a group of administrators led by Rene Mayer, the vice-president of the Reseau du Nord, persuaded the others that the time had come to settle definitively the future shape of the railways. Because the Senate had tied the government's hands, the threat of a punitive settlement had been temporarily lifted. Mayer believed that if the companies accepted the fusion of the railways in return for government guarantees of financial compensation, adequate representation on the board of the new company, and continued private control over the many subsidiaries of the grands reseaux, a deal would be possible. Far better to negotiate voluntarily than to face the diktat of a future Socialist government.40 The other railway managers seem to have agreed that the introduction of the forty-hour week made the prospects of restoring the railways' profitability extremely remote. Rather than continuing to accept the responsibilities of running the railways in return for the relatively small dividends allowed under the provisions of the Convention of 1921, they preferred to look for a more permanent guarantee of the shareholders' interests.41 The stage was therefore set for talks, which took place throughout July and August, the final intense phase running from 20 to

88 The Politics of Transport in France

31 August, the new deadline set by the Senate. In a series of gruelling sessions both sides fought hard to defend their vital interests, while conceding less essential points. The government insisted that the state should have financial and administrative control, but admitted that its majority on the board should comprise railway personnel and representatives of the "public interest" as well as civil servants. The companies got the government to increase its original financial offer, although the agreed sum was still far below the 10 billion francs to which they were theoretically entitled.42 The final agreement, signed in the early hours of 31 August after frantic last-minute talks, created the Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer frangais (SNCF). Strictly speaking, the SNCF was a societe mixte and not a nationalized concern. The state held 51 per cent of the shares, the grands reseaux 49 per cent. The latter shares were inalienable until 1955, the median expiry date for the concessions of the old companies; they bore 6 per cent interest for forty-five years, thereby providing the shareholders with a guaranteed compensation of almost 700 million francs. The board of directors (conseild'administration} had thirty-three members: three vice-presidents, twelve representatives each for the state and the grands reseaux', four delegates of the personnel, and two individuals with a record of service to the railways. After 1955, the companies' representation was to be halved. The government would appoint the president and managing director of the SNCF. According to the agreement, the SNCF was expected to balance its operating budget in 1938, but was allowed until 1943 to balance its general budget, which also included capital charges and the interest on the loans taken out by the grands reseaux before 31 August 1937. The old companies retained their subsidiaries, although the SNCF could lay claim to those holdings related to railway operation, for example the road transport subsidiaries.43 Public reaction to the new SNCF was generally favourable. Although some sectors of the financial and conservative press criticized the agreement as a dangerous precedent, liable to open the floodgates to further socializing measures,44 the consensus was that the measure was a compromise, and that the rights of the shareholders, from the Rothschilds to the fran^ais moyen, had been respected.45 The conservative Journal des Debats breathed an almost audible sigh of relief: the shareholders "continue to exist and their rights have not been abused. In the times in which we live that is a consideration of some value."46 Camille Chautemps,

89 Carrot and Stick

true to form, underlined the fact that he had found the middle ground, claiming that "we have avoided the two reefs of allowing private interests to dominate the public interest and of submitting the railways to a regime of state bureaucracy."47 As one provincial journalist put it, "on the grounds of ideology everyone can find something to his liking."48 Although the reform did not go as far as it would have liked, the left derived satisfaction from the fact that "the reign of the railway magnates [was] over."49 In short, if the creation of the SNCF was revolutionary, it represented a "conservative revolution"; far from being a break with the past, it represented a continuation of the spirit of Freycinet, the republican tradition, and the Convention of 1921, in its unwillingness to supplant private enterprise with total state control. In this respect, the SNCF was similar to other mixed companies formed during the 1930s, notably Air France and the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique.50 Queuille's coordination measures also bore the hallmark of his ministerial experience and his keen sense of the political realities of interwar France. His basic aims were not at all dissimilar from those of most earlier ministers of public works: to allocate longdistance traffic to the railways, bulk goods to the waterways, and short-distance traffic to the roads, thus reducing competition and allowing the railways to close part of the network to passengers. However, his method was a carrot-and-stick technique, a series of measures which provided rewards for those who cooperated and penalized the recalcitrant. The first measure Queuille introduced, within a month of taking office, was a new annual tax on licences for professional road transporters. Bus operators were liable to a tax of 125 francs per bus-seat and truck operators were assessed 500 francs per ton. He also increased the tax on diesel-oil, which had previously been far less heavily taxed than petrol. The aim of these measures was twofold: to protect the railways, which had just been allowed to raise their rates to recoup some of the increased costs caused by the Popular Front's social legislation, and to help finance Queuille's plans for coordination.51 The cornerstone of his transport policy was the decree-law of 31 August 1937, a piece of legislation which neatly illustrates Queuille's strategy of giving with one hand and taking away with the other.52 In coordinating passenger transport, the minister, following Bedouce's example, broadened the departmental committees to include users' representatives, and stipulated that the

90 The Politics of Transport in France

plan itself should be drawn up by the Conseil General of the department. To ensure that the local politicians agreed to rail closures, Queuille insisted that the prefect should chair the departmental committees, and provided financial incentives to cooperate. The prefect's function, as the departmental embodiment of the central government, was to impress upon the councillors the necessity to subordinate their attachment to the local train to hard-headed financial considerations.53 The financial incentive consisted of a payment of 150,000 francs to every department presenting a satisfactory passenger transport plan to the ministry by 1 July 1938; a further reward of 75,000 francs to every department which had replaced its local railways (votes ferrees d'interet local} with buses since April 1934, and a subsidy of 3,000 francs per kilometre of main-line railways closed to passengers under the new plans.54 In a sense, the government could afford to be generous: the funding for these hand-outs came from 25 per cent of the intake of the recent tax on bus licences. To allay the fears of departments which were worried that they would be left holding the bill if the bus lines lost money, Queuille inserted a clause in the decree concerning passenger transport stating that the SNCF would be allowed to subsidize unprofitable bus services which had been set up to replace a railway line. This marked a partial return to the principle of financial compensation admitted in 1934-5, but abandoned by Albert Bedouce.55 Just as he had sought to integrate the Conseils Generaux into the passenger coordination process, Queuille assigned professional truckers' organizations a pivotal role in goods' coordination. He was convinced that road-rail competition could be limited "if road enterprises are grouped in associations applying uniform tariffs, and on which the state and the coordinating committees can exercise control."56 To reach his objective, he decreed that all members of such associations should benefit from a reduction in the annual tax of 500 francs per ton imposed in July 1937. This provision was not as far-reaching as corporatists would have wished - the ideal was a single, obligatory professional organization for each industry - but it was a step forward from the mere exhortations to organize of previous ministers.57 Again for goods' coordination, the novel aspect of the decree lay more in the means of execution than in the principles of how the traffic should be divided between the roads and the railways. Rural and urban delivery services were to remain free from control, except for a declaration of activity to be sent to the ministry.

91 Carrot and Stick

Short-distance transport was subject to a quota system, determining how many trucks should operate in a given area. Entrepreneurs were free to choose their rates, their itineraries, and the goods they carried, as long as their service did not constitute new competition against the SNCF. Long-distance haulage, besides being limited in scope by the quota system, was to be coordinated with rail transport by the departmental committees. Rates would be standardized and controlled by a professional organization of long-distance truckers. The aim of coordination was to discourage long-distance haulage by suggesting alternative itineraries for firms which competed with the SNCF. Should a firm refuse to accept the alternative offered, it would be denied permission to renew its equipment and the service would be terminated after a certain unspecified date. All in all, the decree promised to make life even more difficult for truckers who valued their independence. Part ii of the decree, devoted to the coordination of rail and water transport, followed the existing legislation quite closely. Its most important clauses were the formalized guarantee to artisan barge haulers of a fixed share of waterway traffic, and the provision that the contracts between the artisans and their clients should be drafted through the medium of freight offices, which existed to ensure that all artisans had a fair share of the available traffic. The final section of the decree consolidated the existing national coordination committees and the Conseil Superieur des Chemins de fer, the organization set up under the Convention of 1921 to allow railway managers, personnel, and clients to discuss matters of common concern. The marriage produced the Conseil Superieur des Transports, responsible for discussing questions related to coordination, tariffs, and investment proposals. The new body had eighty-one members, divided equally between the government, transporters and transport users. Most of the detailed work was delegated to subcommittees, for example, a roadrail committee, a rail-waterway committee, and so on.58 After the promulgation of this basic decree, the coordination of passenger transport finally resumed. By July 1938, the Conseil Superieur des Transports had approved twenty departmental plans and sent them off to the minister. Seven months later, only three departments had failed to present passenger transport plans. Of the eighty-six plans presented, thirty-six had been fully and a further thirteen partially applied. The Conseil Superieur

92 The Politics of Transport in France

judged that only twelve plans were inadequate.59 The earliest plans to be applied were in the Norman departments of Calvados, Mayenne, Orne, and Sarthe, the latter three of which had been among the ten departments whose local authorities had accepted rail closures in 1935. As a result of interdepartmental cooperation, the ministry was able to implement a regional transport plan, which would provide "a complete network of public transport responding well to the needs of the populations concerned."60 The plans closed over 1,300 km of lines, saving an estimated 6 million francs annually.61 These closures were only the beginning. By February 1939, 5,851 km of lines had been totally closed to passengers and 2,922 km had been partially closed, out of target figures of 9,500 and 5,000 km respectively. When the operation was over, that part of the passenger network offering full services would be reduced to 26,000 km, less than two-thirds of its former size.62 Most of the closures took place in Normandy, the northwest, the north, the east, the Yonne-Nievre region south of Paris, the area around Chalon-sur-Saone in the centre-east, and in part of the southwest. The Alps, Brittany, and the Massif Central, with fewer secondary lines, got off lightly. In general, the mountainous regions were less affected than the plains.63 The estimated savings of the operation were 285 million francs per year (about $7 million).64 The contrast between passenger coordination in 1935 and 1938 was therefore quite striking. Whereas in 1935 massive local opposition had prevented the closure of any lines to passenger traffic, the government had now managed to totally close almost one-quarter of the network to passengers. In light of this, two major questions have to be asked. Why was the government successful in overcoming opposition this time round? And was the operation worth all the fuss for such meagre savings, which amounted to about 4 per cent of the annual railway deficit? Clearly, the government did not get its way for lack of opposition. The railwaymen, of whatever union or political persuasion, remained adamantly opposed to closures, on the grounds that the railways provided a better public service than did buses and because of a legitimate fear that rail closures would lead to redundancies.65 Pierre Semard, one of the personnel representatives on the board of the SNCF, attacked the railway management for setting a target of 8,000 km of lines to be closed in 1938, before the Conseil Superieur des Transports had even met.66 Other critics argued that the SNCF should continue to seek improvements in the operations of the secondary lines, through railcars or special

FIGURE 6

Reactions of the Conseils Generaux to Passenger Transport Plans, 1935-8

Sources: H. Bissonet, Les grands reseaux depuis la guerre; LeRail, 15 September 1938.

94 The Politics of Transport in France

tariffs, before deciding to abandon them altogether.67 "Coordination," according to one critic, "takes us back to the distant time of the stagecoach, and I think that our ancestors, who emptied their woollen stockings to construct the railway network, must be turning in their graves."68 However, unlike in 1935, there was no common front of opposition. The railwaymen's press complained that they had been let down by the local politicians, who had succumbed to the pressure exerted by the prefects and the SNCF to agree to closures.69 The Conseils Generaux, "subtle and sticklers for procedure," had disguised the truncation of the railway network as "partial closures, semi-partial closures, seasonal closures, etc." to make them more palatable.70 If the councils agreed to railway closures, it was not because they were convinced of the superiority of the bus over the train. One parliamentarian, who also sat on the Conseil General of Deux-Sevres catalogued as follows the deficiencies of the bus when compared with the train: "Excessive fares, the abolition of return tickets on a certain number of lines, a lesser degree of security, comfort and regularity, insufficient capacity of buses during fairs or on market days, many communes not served."71 Leaving aside the last complaint, which applied even more to rail than to road transport, these criticisms of the rural bus of the 1930s were quite valid. The editor of France-Transports, a journal which cannot be suspected of parti-pris against road transport, agreed that the standards of buses varied enormously: "We have come across luxurious coaches, but how many which are still on the road suffer from a chassis which vibrates, seats which are lumpy or full of holes, windows which are cracked or broken - buses which are, all in all, disgustingly filthy, with a poor old spluttering, wheezing motor which, at top speed, gives the occupants of the bus the painful impression of being incurably afflicted with St Vitus dance."72 If local authorities had welcomed the bus, it was because it represented an advance on horse-drawn transport. For these men, the bus was an auxiliary to the train, not a replacement. The councils gave in for several reasons. First, because this time, instead of ignoring the local assemblies, the central authorities did all they could to ensure acquiescence. The Ministry of Public Works briefed the prefects on the advantages the departments could expect from a rationally planned transport system.73 In turn, the prefects used their position as chairman of the departmental committee to pressure reluctant local politicians to endorse closures. Once a plan had been accepted, it was

95 Carrot and Stick

applied as quickly as possible to prevent the Conseils Generaux from having second thoughts.74 If a council refused to ratify a plan, the government made good its threat to enforce it by decree.75 Frossard, who was minister of public works during part of 1938, admitted that "if the government had not applied certain pressures on the Conseils Generaux, no plan could have been adopted."76 But at the same time there were positive motives for compliance. Those departments which cooperated with the government were handsomely rewarded, Seine-Inferieure, for example, receiving 1,096,767 francs for agreeing to a plan whereby 232 km of lines were closed to passengers.77 By interesting the departments in the financial aspects of the operation, the ministry was better able to induce local politicians to look at the problem of the SNCF deficit more seriously. M. Daunis, responsible for reporting to the Conseil General of Herault on transport questions, noted that the SNCF proposed to close the line MontpellierSommieres to passenger traffic. This service had been losing 550,000 francs per annum since 1934. Once the Popular Front's social legislation was taken into account, the annual loss would grow to 840,000 francs. "We have formally protested," he observed, "but we knew that in view of the size of the deficit, the company wouldn't hesitate to close the line."78 In some instances, Radical councillors who had led the campaign against the plans of 1935 because of the lack of consultation, threw their influence behind acceptance of the new plans, on the ground that it was desirable to spare the taxpayer from future sacrifices.79 Finally, the councillors were able to moderate the SNCF'S appetite for rail closures. Generally, the proposed closures were less extensive than in 1935. Where Dautry had envisaged that 14,000 km - about one-third of the network - would be closed to passengers, the measures of 1938-9 closed less than one-quarter of the network. All in all, the operation can be described without exaggeration as a brilliant political success. By its tactics of divide-andrule, the government successfully prevented an alliance of users and railwaymen from mounting an effective campaign against the closures. The degree of united opposition between the Conseils Generaux and the Chambers of Commerce, also represented on the technical departmental committees, was also less than in 1934-5. By drawing the latter into the coordination process, the government was better able to get across its message about the need to make economies in railway operations.80

96 The Politics of Transport in France

The second question: why did the government go to such lengths for (relatively) meagre savings, was one which critics of coordination were not slow to ask at the time. One of the questions Senator Thoumyre asked Camille Chautemps in the session of the upper house which buried the coordination process of 1934-5 was how much money coordination would actually save. The answer, he speculated, was very little.81 The Conseil General of Vienne, justifying its refusal to accept the departmental transport plan of 1938, argued that "the regional economy and the general interest demand rapid, frequent and reliable communications, which are not subordinated to the realization of a few economies which are more apparent than real, and which are relatively minimal in relation to the total deficit of the railways T*2 Clearly, the authors of this resolution felt that the reward for abandoning the Freycinet plan was totally inadequate. During the debate in the Chamber on the public works budget for 1939, a deputy from another department which had refused to go along with coordination argued that the closures were not far-reaching enough to be financially worthwhile: "Our railway lines have been closed to passenger transport, but they have been kept open for goods' traffic, and so ... the track must be repaired, the personnel both for the stations and the rolling-stock must be retained, including the good old signalsman at the level-crossings. Savings? Don't you realize that the increased traffic on the main and communal roads is going to damage the surface, thus costing you on the road budget what you have saved on the railway one?"83 This was a criticism to which the ministry and the SNCF never found an adequate response. The probable reasons for the decision to begin by closing lines to passenger traffic were threefold. In the first place, the closure of local lines was necessary to offer long-distance bus operators a form of compensation and ensure the SNCF a monopoly on the more lucrative intercity runs. The alternatives to the closure of local lines were continued competition on the long-distance runs or the closure of certain road transport enterprises, causing unemployment, alienating the road lobby even more, and further harming the automobile industry.84 Secondly, as we have seen, agreement between goods' transporters was more difficult to achieve. A definitive agreement which would eventually allow the closure of minor railway stations and the provision of joint road-rail haulage services might take years to reach. Instead of waiting for such an agreement, and risk losing the momentum which had been painstakingly built

97 Carrot and Stick

up, it was better to go ahead and make a start on passenger transport.85 The most important reason, however, seems to have been government obsession with the drive for savings, no matter how small, which blinded ministers to the social drawbacks these entailed. In replying to his parliamentary critics, Anatole de Monzie, Frossard's successor as minister of public works, avoided the issues of the effectiveness of coordinating passenger transport in isolation, or the repercussions that this might have on road expenditure. He restricted himself to a demonstration that the running expenses of buses were significantly less than those of railcars and trains. His estimates of the average savings of replacing railcars or trains with buses were 30,000 and 38,000 francs/ km respectively. Had he stopped to calculate the global saving, which was what interested the critics, he would have come up with a figure ranging between 300 and 400 million francs before deductions for the cost of extra road works.86 As in 1934-5, goods' coordination proved much more difficult to accomplish, because it was hard to find an easily enforceable formula to divide long-distance traffic to the satisfaction of both road and rail transporters. Any proposal which was weighted too heavily in favour of the SNCF - for instance a railway monopoly of long-distance freight - would probably prove ineffective, because it would encourage businesses which had previously entrusted transport to professional carriers to begin carrying goods on their own account. The only means of countering this was by draconian and politically unacceptable controls on ownaccount haulage.87 Besides, such a measure would alienate the truckers' organizations, whose goodwill was necessary to ensure that the artisans obeyed the rules. Extreme tact was imperative because the FNTF was under constant pressure from its members to withdraw from the coordination process. Rank-and-file anger at the growing burden of taxation periodically erupted in antigovernment strikes, as in December 1937, or in FNTF resignations from official transport committees, often timed to deflate opposition at national congresses.88 Increasingly committed faute de mieux to a corporatist approach to coordination, governments were generally willing to make concessions: to end the strike of December 1937 and entice the FNTF delegates back to the Conseil Superieur des Transports, the government acted quickly to pour oil on troubled waters, taking specific action to appease the truckers.89

98 The Politics of Transport in France

The ministry's penchant for corporatist solutions took the form of legislation to increase the attractiveness of professional organizations, such as reductions in taxation for members of associations. For a while, the ministry toyed with the idea of setting up "a single organization in a given region, ensuring the execution of all forms of transport and collecting directly from the clients the bills for these transport services." Such a body, a corporation of all transporters, road and rail, would have had vastly extended powers, reducing the role of the transporter to one of merely carrying the freight which he was assigned.90 Frossard, the minister who floated the idea, resigned soon after and his successor, Anatole de Monzie, adopted a less radical scheme to share out longdistance traffic, whereby truckers' rates should be ratified by the ministry and set at a level no lower than those of the SNCF. The roads and railways would be free to compete in terms of quality of service. Finally, the ministry encouraged the formation of a professional organization of long-distance truckers in each department, distinct from the FNTF, which also included other categories of transporters. These new bodies were to ensure that the ratified rates were respected. This formula, which guided roadrail coordination until the outbreak of war, was a further step towards corporatism, but still allowed inveterate individualists to opt out.91 The final pillar of a rationalized transport system was railwaterway coordination. In this sector, the regional agreements of 1934-5 remained in force, even after the inclusion of users in the various committees. The regulation of competition, achieved by limiting the barge fleet and eliminating rate wars, continued until the war. The main bone of contention was the effectiveness of the freight offices, long demanded by the artisans and given official status by Albert Bedouce, in sharing freight equitably among artisan transporters. The rationale behind the offices was to prevent competition, which allowed the fortunate, or the enterprising, to prosper at the expense of the rest. The institution was unpopular with the business community, which felt that it artificially bolstered rates and worsened the quality of service; in other words, it distorted the operation of market forces. Many artisans, on the other hand, felt that it was a half-measure, which needed to be completed by becoming obligatory for all transporters, artisans, and companies alike. Rather than a market economy, liable to drive the weakest to the wall, they advocated a sort of "moral economy" - to use E.P. Thompson's expression in which all could make a living through self-employment.92

99 Carrot and Stick

These contradictory complaints notwithstanding, the freight offices continued to operate on the same basis until the war began. Goods' coordination was therefore far from complete by 1939, particularly for road and rail transport. Its primary effect had been to freeze the size of the long-distance truck fleet at around 15,00093 and to limit the corrosive impact of road competition on railway freight. Bulky goods continued to go by rail and water, and the truckers' share of the traffic was greatest for the delivery of lighter goods, as the estimates in fig. 7 indicate. The results of 1937-9 were more substantial, on paper at least, than those of either the "national unity" or the Blum governments. The Ministry of Public Works, under Queuille, Frossard, and de Monzie, all three wily politicians with vast experience of the politics of the Cafe de Commerce and the village market, had learnt from the failure to involve the local authorities and the Chambers of Commerce in the coordination process in 1934-5. It attempted, not altogether successfully, to silence accusations that coordination was simply an attempt to share out profits at the public expense.94 Moreover, as governments moved increasingly to the right, they were less troubled by the scruples of Albert Bedouce, who along with Socialists, Communists, and the railwaymen's unions, sought to preserve the secondary lines of the 1880s as part of the republican heritage. Under the impact of the threat from Nazi Germany, the government's economic policy subordinated all other considerations to the need for rearmament. The Freycinet lines were one of the casualties of the drive to free national resources to fuel the defence industry. Paul Reynaud, the finance minister responsible for this economy drive, compared the economy to a three-tier structure, made up of the productive apparatus at the base, public works and services at the second tier, and defence at the summit. His aim was to expand the productive apparatus by liberating it from bureaucratic controls, and to cut back the second tier to enable the economy to support the rapid growth of the munitions' industry, a policy of choosing "cannons over village fountains."95 In this climate it was possible to push through the massive rail closures which had been agreed in principle in 1938 and to cut the SNCF payroll by returning to a 48-hour week. The surplus cheminots were mostly transferred to munitions' factories.96 In spite of these contrasts, two common threads ran through French transport policy from 1934 to 1939: a fairly constant pat-

100 The Politics of Transport in France FIGURE 7

Goods' Traffic in 1938: Selected Commodities

tern of penalizing the automobile and a trend towards economic Malthusianism. In the course of the decade, automobile users were subjected to a growing array of increasingly heavy taxes, so that by 1935 over 5 billion francs out of a state budget of 45 billion francs came from various petrol taxes and duties.97 On a number of occasions, the motive given for increasing the fiscal burden of the road sector was to "equalize" competition, in other words to provide relief for the railways. Given the economic muscle of certain of the road interests (tire and petrol companies, automobile manufacturers) and the number of those who "lived from the road," why

101 Carrot and Stick

was the political effectiveness of the "road lobby" so limited, when much smaller groups, like the sugar-beet producers, were adept at winning favourable legislation? Rather than isolating a single explanatory factor, it is more reasonable to point to several internal weaknesses of the lobby as well as broader social and political reasons for the failure. The major weakness of the lobby was its fragmentation. Because of personal rivalries between the major manufacturers, the mistrust of transporters towards constructors and the divisions among the transporters themselves, it was never possible to create the Confederation Generale de 1'Automobile dreamt of by some as the panacea to the problem of lack of influence. Consequently, when spokesmen for various road interests lobbied the government, they presented a spectacle of disharmony: "nobody knew what his neighbour was going to say," according to Rene Musnier.98 Efforts to rectify the problem foundered on personality clashes and mutual suspicion. This is a necessary but insufficient explanation of the lobby's weakness. Equally important was the lack of leverage exercised by friends of the automobile on the administration and on Parliament. Administrators, weaned on the notion that transport should serve the "general interest," tended to be suspicious of the motives of private entrepreneurs in running transport services. The chief engineer of the Fonts et Chaussees of the department of Aisne was expressing a generally held view when he recommended that "the establishment of parasitical services due to the egotistical initiative of an industrialist who cannot sell his vehicles (Citroen) should not be tolerated by the Administration."99 As far as parliamentary influence was concerned, the Automobile Group accounted for about half of the deputies and was particularly well represented among centrist and rightist deputies. 10° However, this group was little more than a paper tiger. There was, as advertisements sponsored by the carmakers pointed out, one automobile for every five electors, and so it made political sense for a deputy to proclaim himself a friend of the automobile. On the other hand, automobile owners were spread throughout France, and so deputies were not under pressure to vote for measures favouring the automobile to the same extent that Southern deputies had to vote for the grape or Norman deputies for the apple.101 In addition, political friends of the automobile usually suffered from conflicting loyalties. Rightist and centrist deputies felt a greater sense of commitment to balancing the budget than to protecting the automobile. And given the obstacles to raising

102 The Politics of Transport in France

direct taxation, notably the fear of damaging investor confidence and the near impossibility of taxing the peasantry, it was tempting to put higher duties on petrol, in the belief that such a tax was relatively hard to evade and politically less damaging than most alternatives.102 Essentially, then, the road lobby was unable to win more than a platonic commitment from parliamentarians and lacked a countervailing foothold in the administration. The other feature of the decade was the Malthusian nature of the transport policy of successive governments. Because the depression and the rise of the automobile had created an excess of means of transport fighting over a shrinking volume of traffic, the emphasis was on cutting the number of vehicles in circulation to limit competition. Given this analysis, coordination became a one-sided measure of sharing the existing traffic, not a comprehensive program of synchronized investments to produce the appropriate mix of vehicles.103 Choosing 1934 as the base year, legislators thereafter almost completely banned the creation of new transport services, seeking instead to reallocate the existing vehicles to the tasks for which they were best suited. The consequence of this static procedure was chronic disinvestment in all spheres of transport. From 1931 until the war, the automobile industry stagnated, barge-building declined and the rolling-stock industry was starved of orders, except for railcars.104 By 1938, only one in four of French trucks was under five years old, compared to 60 per cent in Germany: French transporters kept old vehicles in circulation long after they should have been replaced. French vehicles and capital installations were ageing, putting in jeopardy the future of transportation and of the economy as a whole.105 To some extent, the problem was world-wide. In the "Ballade von Sackeschmeissern" the German singer Ernst Busch criticized a system which threw coffee into the ocean and burnt potatoes at a time of mass unemployment.106 Throughout the world, many businessmen and governments tended to perceive the Great Depression as a crisis of overproduction, a result of the unchaining of the productive forces after 1918 at a rate which far outstripped the growth of demand, The remedy was to call a halt to this technology-fuelled expansion until the warehouses had been emptied. Malthusianism, then, was not confined to France.107 What was peculiar to France was her slowness in taking effective action against the depression. When the French economic barometer was at its lowest in 1935, the rest of the industrial world was already well on its way to recovery. This sluggishness in taking remedial action was also noticeable in transport policy.

103 Carrot and Stick FIGURE 8

Automobile Production: An International Comparison, 1927-36

104 The Politics of Transport in France TABLE 3

Rolling Stock Orders: 1930-8

1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1938

Steam locos

Passenger cars

Wagons

404 103 60 25 14 8 20 1

709 244 321

12,525 2,354 3,326

272 126 225 237 75

2,345

380 165 0 140

Electric locos & railcars

Gasoline & diesel railcars

7 25 109 13 79 45 43 0

10 10 60 110 165 153 31 43

Sources: Lajournee Industrielle, 14-15 July 1937; SNCF: Annual Report, 1938, 79.

Belgium, Britain, Italy, and Germany all took measures to respond to "anarchical" road competition in the late 1920s.108 In Britain, where the railway companies did not provoke as much suspicion as in France, the government permitted the four major companies to invest in bus and trucking enterprises and so to exercise an influence on the subsequent development of road transport. In addition, by appointing regional transport commissioners to issue licences to the various categories of transporters, the state was able to watch out for problems and propose timely solutions. In contrast to France, the number of commercial vehicles in circulation rose every year between 1929 and 1938 from 305,744 to 494,866.109 This approach reflected the tenacity of liberalism in Britain. The British recovery from the depression owed less to state action than to increased activity in the private sector, notably the new light industries and housing.110 The German response was dramatically opposed to the British, but the ultimate effect was similar. In Germany, there was a longstanding tradition of state control. The Prussian railways had long been state-owned and after 1918 a nationalized railway company, the Reichsbahn, was set up on a national basis. State control and monopoly were the hallmarks of German coordination. The Reichsbahn's authorization was necessary to run a road transport service and when Hitler built the autobahns, the Reichsbahn operated the long-distance coach and haulage services which used

105 Carrot and Stick

them. Consequently, after a few years during which road transport was almost stifled, the number of trucks and busses increased rapidly, although the state, through the Reichsbahn and a compulsory truckers' corporation formed in 1934, exercised microscopic scrutiny over operations. Tax incentives to purchasers of vehicles also stimulated demand from about 1934 on.111 The most consistent proponent of state direction was the USSR. Here, officially, "unlike in capitalist countries, where the different transport companies engage in sharp struggles among themselves for goods and passengers, all means of transport in the Soviet Union act as parts of a unified whole and work according to a single general plan."112 The investments allotted to each type of transport were specified in the national plan, and there was no Great Depression to contend with, although the industrialization of this vast landmass posed problems that were unheard of in the compact countries of central and western Europe. Nevertheless, despite the vogue for planning which swept certain circles in the western world its effectiveness depended on the correctness of the underlying assumptions and on the availability of capital, which determined how resources were to be allocated. In the USSR, the main mistakes in coordination were to downplay the role of the automobile as a feeder of the main-line railways and to sink enormous funds in prestigious, expensive waterways. As a result of this imbalance, the government built too many branch lines, when it should have been earmarking funds to improve the track of the main lines, the Achilles' heel of the Soviet transport system.113 France was slower to act than other countries because there was no clear consensus in favour either of liberalism or state control. A fear of drastic change, through the introduction of radical state planning or a return to a genuine free market economy, meant that most governments of the 1930s drifted, controlled by events, not controlling events. The traditional transport system, just like the republican system as a whole, had been a compromise designed to shelter the consumer, the voter, from the excesses of both liberalism and state control. The republican political class had constructed an elaborate system designed to block change, rather than promote it. ll4 Fittingly, it was the Senate - elected by the members of the Conseils Generaux, and therefore the voice of la F ranee profonde, the peasantry and the bourgeoisie of the sleepy provincial towns - which interred the coordination measures of 1935. Again it was the Senate which demanded a debate on the recent rail closures

106 The Politics of Transport in France

in February 1939.115 Once more senators bitterly criticized measures which had offended local pride. Complaints about insensitive bureaucrats talking down to provincials and about the subsidies which Parisian commuter transport extorted from the provinces revealed a conflict between a modern, cosmopolitan, class society and a largely rural society, where time was measured in decades. This stalemate between the two types of society blocked economic and social reform in the France of the 1930s, except during emergencies, such as May-June 1936. It was only in the shadow of war that the Senate, allowing its consciousness of external danger to overrule all other considerations, voted confidence in the government's transport policy and sadly bade farewell to the village train.

CHAPTER SIX

Transport and War: Vichy

While they were closing down the secondary lines, the governments of 1937-9 belatedly speeded up preparations for organizing the railways for war. After the signing of the Armistice of 1918, it had been decided to equip the railways of AlsaceLorraine to enable them to handle the extra traffic of the mobilization period. The track of several lines leading towards the frontier was doubled or quadrupled and extra platforms were built to facilitate the rapid disembarkation of men and materials.l As was the case with other aspects of military preparation, progress was halting and sporadic during most of the interwar period. Contacts between railway administrators and representatives of the General Staff occurred periodically and the military had the right to veto projects which they felt would jeopardize the conduct of war. Military objections prevented the electrification of railways in areas near the frontier and limited the number of lines closed to passenger traffic in the east.2 It took the shock of the German invasion of the Rhineland for the realization of the inadequacy of French preparations to organize the railways. Even then, two years passed before a major updating of military railway preparations got underway: in this, as in so many other instances, the delay between prise de conscience and action was considerable. Finally, a decree issued in the dying months of the Popular Front ordered the construction of new lines in Burgundy parallel to the frontier to ease communications between different sectors of the front and to help prevent congestion during mobilization. Simultaneously, the newly formed SNCF carried out an inventory of its locomotives and rolling-stock to determine the amount of material to be reserved for military use. Six thousand steam locomotives (out of 17,000), 60,000 ordinary wagons (out of 450,000), 1,500 passenger cars (to be

108 The Politics of Transport in France

used by the military health service), and about 500 special wagons capable of carrying twenty-five- and thirty-ton tanks were to be put at the army's disposal.3 In the event of mobilization, the railways were to be requisitioned. For administrative purposes the national network was to be split in two. In the "zone of concentration," essentially the departments near the frontier, they would be jointly administered by the transport bureau of the Army General Staff and by the Direction Generale des Transports at the Ministry of Public Works. The chief permanent official at the ministry should be responsible for "the carrying out of works on the army's railway lines, for the construction, repair and destruction of railway lines, for personnel matters, for the military section of the army railways. He guides the general management of the SNCF and the railway troops."4 The ink was barely dry on these decrees before the plans had to be put into effect. Less than a year after Munich, German troops began massing along the Polish frontier. The Allies, reeling from the announcement by Berlin radio on the night of 21-22 August that a Nazi-Soviet nonagression pact was imminent, nevertheless issued an ultimatum declaring that they would not stand aside if Poland were attacked. On 1 September Hitler ordered the invasion to go ahead; two days later Britain and France declared war and the precarious peace of 1918 had been broken, From the moment news of the German foreign minister's flight to Moscow came through, the railways began the first phase of military transportation, gathering soldiers from their places of residence by means of normal passenger services, with supplementary services laid on as the need arose. The second phase, begun on 23 August, involved the transportation by troop trains of soldiers and supplies to the northeastern and southeastern fronts. From the end of August to the middle of September, the Gare de 1'Est was a hive of activity, the embarkation point for thousands of soldiers leaving Paris for Alsace-Lorraine.5 Finally, at the beginning of September, the SNCF began ferrying women, children, and older people away from the frontier towards the safety of the interior. The bulk of the Strasbourg population reached the haven of the Dordogne in southwest France. The government also prudently evacuated over 16,000 Parisian schoolchildren to Dreux, Blois, Orleans, and Nantes, the towns chosen as reception centres in the contingency plans.6 Anatole de Monzie, the minister responsible for supervising the operation, proudly claimed that the SNCF worked like a well-

109 Transport and War: Vichy

oiled machine: even though it provided 20,000 military trains in the last four months of the year, it reestablished normal services much more rapidly than in 1914.7 The SNCF restored many of its express services by mid-September, even the Simplon express near the Italian border.8 Its goods' services, which lost 40-60 per cent of the normal business in September, regained momentum later in the autumn. The railways achieved these results despite the reduction of the workforce by the transfer of 92,000 men - a fifth of those on the payroll - to the armed forces.9 Road transport played an important ancillary role in the mobilization, accounting for between a quarter and a third of the troop movements. The army requisitioned half the trucks used for professional transport and 40 per cent of the rest.10 Many firms, including some of the most important, joined the army lock, stock, and barrel from management to mechanics. For example, the Societe Anonyme des Transports Automobiles Industriels et Commerciaux lost all but one of its 43 Paris vehicles and 1,580 out of its 2,231 vehicles based in the provinces. Many smaller concerns were forced to close down completely.11 The mobilization of 1939 differed from that of 1914 in that the zone of concentration was larger and the construction of the new lines in the interwar years permitted the rapid resumption of commercial traffic. Twenty-five years earlier, the buildup of forces had centred on ten railway lines and commercial traffic had ceased in the northeast until the military presence had been secured. The administrators of 1939 had used the experience of the previous war to improve the planning and execution of mobilization. In addition, they were not forced to contend with a rapid German offensive in the first weeks of the war, as in August 1914. An ominous sign, however, was that as a result of the prevalent doctrine of defensive warfare, the mobilization and evacuation plans almost exclusively concerned the frontier lines. There was no contingency plan for an orderly, in-depth retreat in the eventuality of a rapid German advance. For the generation of Verdun, the war of position had become an idee fixe.12 By simultaneously displacing personnel and vehicles and posing extra demands on the transport system, mobilization created a dramatically new problem. Whereas the crisis of the 1930s had been basically one of insufficient demand to employ fully the available means of transport, the difficulty now was a serious shortage of vehicles and rolling-stock, and people to man them. The inland waterways of the north, overmanned during the de-

110 The Politics of Transport in France

pression, could not find enough barge-haulers to carry coal to Paris.13 The producers and merchants of cattlefeed, chicory, and flowers were among those who petitioned the ministry of agriculture to lobby de Monzie to ensure higher priority for movement of their products. The railways, assailed by competition for ten years, now had to work overtime with a reduced staff and insufficient rolling-stock to avoid being swamped by a flood of orders.l4 This new state of affairs implied the need for a fresh approach to coordination. Previously the ministry had envisaged coordination as a means of restricting competition and reducing the deficit of the railways; now, given the shortage of vehicles and personnel, competition was even more of a luxury. The needs of the public and the army could only be met by maximizing productivity, avoiding waste, and husbanding fuel. Consequently, de Monzie acted midway through September 1939 to modify the existing legislation. The decree of 19 September banned all competition on a given run. The railways now had a monopoly of long-distance traffic, but were excluded from short-distance runs. In addition, "own-account" transporters - farmers or businessmen - could now accept freight for hire and reward on return trips to avoid driving an empty vehicle. Finally, the decree streamlined the technical departmental committees, which now consisted of a railway delegate, a road transporter, and the departmental chief engineer of the Ponts et Chaussees. This reversed the approach of Bedouce and Queuille who had sought to involve the local authorities on the committees. It represented a more authoritarian approach than that of the prewar decrees. The war, in France as in Britain, enabled the state to tread more boldly through the tangled field of interest-group politics.15 The response to these measures was generally unfavourable. Business interests complained that they were inflexible, ostracizing the road and condemning the railways to an impossible task.l6 The societe des Etudes pour le developpement de 1'automobile, Renault's brainchild, produced a highly critical report on the administration's transport policy in November 1939. The report alleged, correctly, that the army's requisition orders had taken the best automobiles, leaving only old vehicles for the professional transporters. Since the outbreak of the war, government's coordination policy had aimed to "enfeoff' the road to the railway. As a result, transport enterprises experienced difficulties and the civilian population was inadequately fed. In future Renault's group resolved "to extract systematically everything

Ill Transport and War: Vichy

which deals with the inadequacies, the abuses, the nit-picking, the bureaucratic methods of the railways each time that it shows up in our enquiries. To pick out examples where the road clearly beats the railway. To look at what we lose today with the railway." 17 The Association Nationale des Transports, claiming to speak for small transporters, complained that the decree threatened the trucker with ruin. The army had paid a pittance for the new vehicles it had requisitioned, preventing the artisans from contributing to the war effort. "For the moment," the organization concluded, "the SNCF has achieved its goal of mastery over the traffic. Hang the truckers so long as the SNCF ... may live." The effect of the government's transport policy, declared the spokesman for a rival group, was to "mummify" road transport.18 This stridency was indicative of a certain mentality prevalent in France during the winter of 1939-40. In contrast to 1914, few greeted the start of hostilities with enthusiasm. Instead the atmosphere was one of resignation. The war was not one of revanche to win back lost territory, but was being fought "in Poland, that is to say nowhere."19 The memory of the butchery of the previous generation and the false hope of Munich was too fresh to allow any massive outburst of popular nationalism. This sense of resignation was reinforced because once mobilization was over, there was virtually no action on the Western front. The French camped behind the Maginot line, while the Germans had business on hand further east. It was a "phoney war," a drole de guerre, in which there was no fighting. The urgency of September soon gave way to torpor. The political truce failed to last beyond the recall of Parliament in November, and many civilians protested against the restrictions imposed by the state.20 The prevailing mood gradually returned to that of the 1930s, one of conflict between left and right, and between government and business. The tone of the Argus de I'Automobile, a sensitive barometer of the views of the car manufacturers, changed comparatively quickly from pride in the effectiveness of French mobilization to concern, and later anger, at the constraints the war economy necessitated. Berliet, one of the main truck producers, refused to produce cannon for the Ministry of Armaments, protesting that his factory was better equipped to turn out automobiles and tanks. Private industry was generally unenthusiastic about accepting orders for munitions' production because the government placed a 4 per cent ceiling on profits.21 A partly censored broadside in the liberal Reveil Economique complained that

112 The Politics of Transport in France it does not seem that the state has much favoured the success of industrial mobilization. It has bound industry hand and foot, piling up obstacles in its path and subjecting it to all sorts of complicated regulations, notably concerning imports and exports; it has forced proprietors to hold onto raw materials and certain manufactured goods since the mobilization, thus preventing them from disposing of them freely; and it has carried out, on the other hand, excessive requisitions, which have only been paid for after considerable delays.

The author attributed this catalogue of errors to "the misdeeds of the bureaucracy which obscures, overcharges and slows down everything."22 As the winter dragged on, the general mood became increasingly sour. During the exceptionally cold months of December and January, the transport system was strained to the limit to keep the population heated and fed. The burden fell primarily on the SNCF, which carried almost 50 per cent more goods' traffic these two months than it had done a year earlier. Despite its efforts, transport constituted a serious bottleneck: on its own, the SNCF lacked the wagons to bring sufficient northern coal to the consumer.23 The cold weather put the waterways out of commission and so in the first week of February, the SNCF had to transport 524,000 tons of coal southwards to Paris, an all-time record and 28 per cent more than in the corresponding week of 1939- It also carried 200,000 tons from the southeast, 60 per cent up on 1939.24 Even so, many households went cold that winter: lacking British imports and the trucks which normally distributed fuel to the consumer, many Frenchmen had to steal wood to eke out their meagre rations.25 There were no quick and easy solutions. In efforts to find longterm remedies, the SNCF strove to cut down the turn-around time of its wagons and ordered 20,000 new wagons, the biggest single investment for a decade.26 But in the short run, better results in transporting coal had to be achieved at the price of cutting back elsewhere. Robert Le Besnerais, the managing director of the SNCF, reasoned that military needs made it "imperative to envisage measures to limit traffic. However, it is not desirable that these limitations should affect goods' traffic in a permanent way, because this traffic is indispensable to the economy of the country and to national defence. It is thus on the passenger services that these restrictions should fall."27 The ministry also brought together representatives of the roads and the railways to discuss possible improvements in the wartime

113 Transport and War: Vichy

coordination legislation. As a result of negotiations in March, de Monzie relaxed certain provisions in order to allow both the SNCF and the road transporters to loosen the straitjacket imposed in September. Road delivery services in particular were now permitted to travel longer distances because their efforts generally complemented those of the train.28 Before these measures had time to take effect, the war changed character. The German war-machine, after quickly knocking out Norway, turned on France. On 10 May, the Wehrmacht broke through at the Meuse, using its elite motorized divisions to drive through the Ardennes and pierce the French defences at their weakest point. The French, expecting a rerun of 1914, were caught unawares. Rushing forward to prevent the anticipated attack on Belgium, they allowed the enemy to break through at Sedan. The defensive war expected by the generation of military planners steeped in the lessons of 1914-18 had given way to a war of movement, applying the technical improvements of the automobile and aviation industries.29 The most immediate task of the SNCF, acting under the orders of the 4th Bureau of the Army General Staff and the Ministry of Public Works, was to assemble reinforcements and transport them to the battlefront in an attempt to block the German advance. From the outset, the railways operated under the most difficult of circumstances. Enemy aerial bombardments of the stations and lines of northeastern France began on the day of the offensive. For the first two weeks, the SNCF was able to adhere fairly closely to the instructions provided by the army and ministry, but as the Germans continued to thrust forward and their bombers penetrated deeper into the interior of the country, its task became increasingly tricky. The destruction of sections of lines forced troop trains to make time-consuming deviations, while German raids on water-towers, sorting yards, and depots also slowed train movements considerably. The speed of the offensive forced the General Staff and the Ministry of Public Works to revise transport plans incessantly according to which lines were still passable. The war of movement put a premium on improvisation rather than the centralized planning envisaged by the French before May 1940.3° The problems of military regrouping were compounded by those of evacuating the civilian population of the invaded areas. Here again, the blitzkrieg invalidated the republic's modest contingency plans. In the expectation of a second trench war along

114 The Politics of Transport in France

the Franco-German border, the planners had drawn up instructions for the clearing of only thirteen frontier departments. In the first week of the campaign, the evacuation of the remaining inhabitants of the sparsely peopled departments of the hilly northeast proceeded quite smoothly, under the circumstances. But the mass flight of refugees from Belgium and the heavily industrialized Nord and Pas-de Calais around 17 May was a different story. It posed the cruellest of dilemmas for the SNCF and the ministry: to put the railways' resources at the disposal of the refugees as humanitarian instincts suggested; or to bow to the military necessity of using all available locomotives and lines to reinforce the French defences. A further factor was the fear that the spectacle of thousands of refugees straggling through the capital might provoke panic among Parisians. Initially, the ministry decided to reserve all railway resources for military purposes and leave the refugees to their own devices. At the same time, it appointed a traffic regulator to attempt to coordinate transport movements in the rear as smoothly as possible.31 These were little more than holding measures. In early June, the situation took a further turn for the worse. The Germans drew closer to Paris, starting to launch air-raids on 3 June. Rumours that the government was about to abandon the city caused confusion and disarray. On 7 June, 2 million Parisians hastily gathered together such possessions as they could carry and left their homes. Two days later, the government and the SNCF headquarters withdrew.32 In Paris and on the roads of northern France, pandemonium reigned. The SNCF did its best to handle an abnormal situation, organizing the departure from Paris between 8 and 13 June of 198 passenger trains, 37 baggage trains, and 87 military and goods' trains to take some of the refugees to safety. But the railways were incapable of both providing trains for the front and transporting all those who wished to flee. For every thousand who escaped by train, there were literally ten thousand forced to camp for long hours in overcrowded railway stations, waiting to besiege the departing trains, a dense mass of human misery needing food and drink.33 Once the SNCF leadership had left Paris for various provincial destinations, the last semblance of organization broke down completely. Ever since the drawing up of the railway plan of 1842, Paris had been destined to act as the central nervous system of the national network. In the words of Jean Berthelot, de Monzie's chef de cabinet, "our transport network can only be run from Paris."34

115 Transport and War: Vichy

From the provisional SNCF HQ at the village of Lamotte-Beuvron in the Sologne, it was impossible to maintain telephone contact either with the ministry or the army. Military-civilian relations broke down almost completely; trains of military reinforcements got snarled up in the human avalanche fleeing south. The railwaymen were on their own, the last to desert the invaded towns, bravely sticking to their posts in the face of aerial bombardments and artillery attacks.35 The mass of the population sought to flee by road - by car, bicycle, or on foot. Along the main roads out of Paris, the evacuation proceeded "at the speed of a funeral march."36 Soon vehicles broke down and food ran low. On the main roads, traffic jams stretched interminably, a helpless prey to enemy aircraft; at the same time, traffic on the back roads was light, attesting to the unplanned nature of the evacuation.37 It is impossible to estimate how many fled. The population of Lille shrank from 200,000 to 20,000 during May. Only 172 were left in the Norman town of Evreux out of a normal population of 19,300. Anywhere from 6 to 10 million spent the last days of the Third Republic far from home, on the road or sheltered wherever they could find a roof above their heads.38 On 17 June the French government sued for peace. A few days later, the Armistice was declared. France had fallen in six weeks. After the defeat, the Germans occupied a zone comprising the northern half of France, the more industrialized regions with most of the coal, iron ore, and manufacturing centres which are the lifeblood of an industrial power. The French government, "provisionally" stationed at the spa town of Vichy, controlled only the south, and even then was committed by the Armistice to adopt a position of benevolent neutrality towards the occupying power. The problems were enormous. Unemployment had rocketed as a result of the dispersal of the population. Insofar as there had been any order in the exodus of May-June 1940, the refugees had been grouped according to where they lived, not where they worked. The flight scattered the employees of many factories all over the unoccupied zone, giving rise to advertisements in the press by entrepreneurs seeking to reassemble their old workforce.3? This regrouping depended primarily on the availability of transportation. Overall, the picture was far from rosy. The German offensive had wreaked widespread havoc, destroying 348

116 The Politics of Transport in France

railway bridges and tunnels, mostly north of a line going from Brittany to the Drome. During the German advance, many road bridges were also destroyed - in total, about 2,500, of which over 600 were major bridges (over forty metres long). Much of the northern waterway network was clogged with debris and sunken boats. The damage was not as great as that of 1914-18, but on the other hand, it was spread over sixty departments instead often.40 To make matters worse, as the defeated power, France was subject to German demands for transport material to help the Axis war effort. Under the terms of the Armistice, the railways were to be put at the disposal of the occupying forces. By August 1940, the Germans held almost 80,000 of the SNCF'S 450,000 wagons. The same month, the Germans demanded that the French delegation at the Armistice Commission hand over 1,000 locomotives and a further 35,000 wagons, ostensibly to restore the balance between the railway equipment of the occupied and unoccupied zones which had existed before the spring campaign.41 In addition to these shortages in material, the railways lacked fuel, because production in the northern coalfields ground to a halt when the miners joined the exodus. After the Armistice, the Germans diverted an increasing amount of French coal eastwards, depleting the quantities available for the SNCF in the fall of 1940.42 The responsibility for coping with the transport crisis belonged to Jean Berthelot, the chef de cabinet in the Ministry of Public Works since 1938, who was appointed secretary of state for communications in September 1940. Berthelot, aged forty-two, was an outstanding representative of the generation of young administrators which rose to the higher echelons of the public service during the twilight years of the Third Republic. The son of a village schoolmaster from the Marne, he signed up for military service in 1916, ending the war as a captain. Despite his relatively modest social origins, he successfully applied to the prestigious Ecole Polytechnique, where he was the best student in his year. He performed with equal distinction at the Ecole des Mines, the most favoured ecole d'application for students pursuing an engineering career in industry or the public sector.43 After graduating, he joined the Compagnie des Chemins de fer du Midi and had become operations' manager when he was still in his mid-thirties, before being appointed deputy general director of the SNCF. While working in the Lot, he became acquainted with the local political chieftain Anatole de Monzie, who remembered the young engineer when he became minister of Public

117 Transport and War: Vichy

Works in 1938.44 Those who came into contact with him were struck by his energy, his ability to make sense out of the most complex of dossiers, and his inability to suffer fools gladly. A brief biographic article in France-Transports provided a fair assessment of his strengths and weaknesses: "Very intelligent, energetic, with an outstanding temperament, impetuous, but sometimes a bit abrasive. M. Berthelot should bring to his work the vigour and boldness of youth, while M. de Monzie will have the maturity to know when to apply the brakes."45 This substantially is what happened during the partnership which lasted from de Monzie's arrival at the ministry in September 1938 and his departure following the last cabinet reshuffle of the Third Republic on 5 June 1940. Together the two men completed the closure of secondary lines begun by Henri Queuille and pushed through the wartime legislation of September-October 1939. Berthelot respected the aristocratic de Monzie for his intelligence and his independence: he was a member of the group of independent deputies and despite his considerable ministerial experience, had never held a front-line government position.46 Both his education, with its emphasis on scientific reason (Polytechnique), practical achievement (Ecole des Mines), and state service, and his impulsive temperament alienated Berthelot from the elaborate friendship networks and patronage systems which greased the wheels of the Third Republic. In temperament, experience, and educational background he was light years away from somebody like Henri Queuille, the country doctor who had used his intimate knowledge of the workings of the "Republique des Camarades" to begin closing down the secondary lines. Consequently, when Marshal Petain summoned him to become secretary of state for communications he accepted the challenge, rejoicing that the new regime had broken with the parliamentary habits of its predecessor, thereby seemingly opening the way to the rule of administrative reason. "I am not one," he told a reporter, "who merely tolerates the new direction of the economy or who pays lip service to it while dreaming of a return to the easy-going ways of the prewar period; that complacency led us to such a point that everything cracked up at the first blow."4? Berthelot would have agreed with Henri Chardon, perhaps the most articulate critic of the relationship between the administration and politics in the Third Republic, on the need for a centralized "think-tank" to "guide the activity of the masses." Writing in 1921, on the basis of immense experience acquired within the

118 The Politics of Transport in France

administration, Chardon was anxious to delineate the respective spheres of the executive and the legislature. His ideal was a system in which a meritocratic bureaucracy governed and the role of elected politicians was restricted to that of control.48 Berthelot, the product of a later generation which had risen to maturity during the interwar years of political instability and economic mismanagement, shared Chardon's Napoleonic vision of a powerful administrative elite, but was harsher in his judgment of politicians. Under the Third Republic, Berthelot argued, expertise constantly had to yield to political expediency. Public works programs were not designed to channel funds into the most useful projects, but were dissipated on projects of doubtful worth to reward political friends and avoid alienating the electorate. The speedy execution of ministerial policy was impossible because of the elaborate system of committees, which functioned as miniature parliaments of interest groups, each haggling over its own narrow concerns and neglecting the "general interest."49 Berthelot's main aim as secretary of state was therefore to eradicate the barriers to rational administration by reducing the influence of political forces on the formulation and implementation of transport policy. He believed that this would permit the "general interest" to triumph over the multitude of interest groups which had thrived before 1940. With this in mind, he began to prune the bureaucracy which had grown up under the republic to ensure that the public was protected from the power of the grands reseaux. Among the offices and committees he did away with completely were the Service du Controle des Chemins de fer and the Comite Consultatif des Chemins de fer. The former, which checked the budget and investment proposals of the railways, was no longer necessary now that the SNCF had superseded the private companies. The latter, one of the forums where businessmen and local representatives made known their desiderata concerning rates, were "more harmful than useful."50 The Conseil Superieur des Transports, formed in 1937 to act, in effect, as the parliament of the transport world, was cut back from eighty-one to twenty-seven members; henceforth, its powers were purely consultative. Berthelot also streamlined the structure of the SNCF by doing away with the management committee and pruning the board of directors, which now consisted of six delegates of the state, five from the grands reseaux, and one for the personnel. The board now had far greater entrepreneurial prerogatives, taking over the functions of the managing committee. Whereas the original structures of the SNCF had provided for an

119 Transport and War: Vichy

inner circle of managers and an outer circle of "interests" (personnel, shareholders, and ministries), Berthelot's reform went further than any other in freeing the railway experts from external pressures. In particular, the last vestiges of shareholder influence, on the wane since the Convention of 1921, now disappeared. Finally, the Office National de la Navigation was also streamlined, and its director was given a freer hand to determine policy.51 At a local level, the main instrument for carrying out ministerial policy was the departmental engineer of the Fonts et Chaussees. The corps had played an important role under the ancien regime and the July Monarchy in constructing the communications which constituted the main arteries of the French body politic. However, for the past century, Berthelot complained, "the politicking of the Conseils Generaux and certain provincial parliamentarians, more powerful than anybody in their departments, had gradually made them the servants of the elected representatives on the spot."52 The secretary of state promised to liberate the Fonts et Chaussees from these restraints and restore the primacy of raison d'etat over parish-pump politics. The principle which guided him was "the centralization of conception and leadership, the decentralization of execution." This would, he hoped, give "to everybody, from the top to the bottom of the hierarchy, a sense of action, a taste for initiative, under the banner of the public interest."53 Guided by these principles, the most immediate tasks of reconstruction, repatriation, and the assuring of vital supplies began at once. Using the vast army of unemployed, the government opened twelve workyards on 20 July and a hundred by the end of August, enabling most of the damaged rail installations and the most important road bridges to be temporarily repaired by the end of the year.54 Reconstruction took place more rapidly than after World War I so that by July 1941 two-thirds of the damaged and destroyed railway installations had been permanently repaired and all but 200 km of the 5,200 km of waterways closed to traffic had been reopened.55 As the roads and railways became passable, the resettling of the refugees began. A million passengers arrived in Paris between late July and mid-August from the south; in the same period, Evreux, like most other small towns, recovered the bulk of its population. Nevertheless, the return home took far longer than the flight and in October 1940 Paris, with a population of 1.9 million, had lost more than a million inhabitants since 1936.56

120 The Politics of Transport in France

Berthelot was not satisfied with merely restoring the transport network to its prewar state. He believed that reconstruction presented an opportunity to modernize, to equip France with motorways and electrified railways. In late 1940 and early 1941, the ministry began to formulate plans, sending out directives to the SNCF to draw up a list of priorities. As the secretary of state was keen to point out, the public works program of the Etat fran^ais would be vastly different from the Freycinet plan of the 1880s. Had he been a minister under the Third Republic, he "would have had to disperse my efforts in a host of small projects which in toto would not have altered the physiognomy of our road network a great deal. Besides, I would have had enormous difficulty in building bypasses, which would have run up against the unanimous opposition of the bistrotsT His aim was "to concentrate our effort in those areas in which it will be most useful for the economy, without taking into consideration pressure-group interests."57 This principle is clearly illustrated by the breakdown of the budget for the ten-year plan of national reequipment drawn up by the Communications' Secretariat as part of Vichy's attempt to combat unemployment and plan for the future. I II m IV v VI vii vm

Improvement of major roads Autoroute du Nord Road improvements: industrial areas Road improvements: tourist areas Cycle paths Rebuilding old bridges Closure of level crossings Reserve for other projects Total

4,000m.fr 2,900m.fr 3,550m.fr 920m.fr 300m.fr 950m.fr 300m.fr 380m.fr 13,300m.fr

This amounted to ten years' spending on the Routes Nationales between the wars. Berthelot justified the scale of the budget by arguing that higher spending was beyond the nation's means, but to spend a smaller sum would have meant sacrificing the unity and coherence of the program. In any case, the program was only the first step towards creating a model road network which would require decades to complete.58 The main tasks allotted to the railways in the program were the electrification of the Paris-Lyon, Bordeaux-Montauban, and Nimes-Sete lines and the modernization of equipment. In contrast to the 1930s, when the railways were subjected to severe

121 Transport and War: Vichy

budgetary constraints, financial considerations were subordinated to technical improvements. Berthelot criticized the SNCF'S investment proposals because they spread the planned expenditure too thinly over an excessive number of projects. He instructed them to cut the proposed order of 650 steam locomotives to 400 and to place greater emphasis on investments which would modernize and rationalize the network - bigger sorting yards, the quadrupling of track from Paris-Nord to Creil and from Lyon to Marseille, better telephone equipment.59 The SNCF should not worry if the expenditure ceiling of 10 billion francs for five years was broken. The traditional roles in the annual budgetary negotiations seemed to have been reversed: the minister emphasized technical necessity, while Fournier, the president of the SNCF and former governor of the Bank of France, worried about the financial implications! For Berthelot, imbued with neo-Saint-Simonian ideals of grandeur like many polytechnitiew, capitalist financial orthodoxy should not be allowed to stand in the way of Progress.60 The reequipment plan represented Berthelot's dream for the future. The ensuring of supplies was a more immediate problem, requiring the limitation of German seizures of transport materials and a solution of the energy shortage caused by the shutting off of oil imports and the German control of the coal industry. In truth, Vichy had very few cards to play. The French delegation to the Armistice Commission at Wiesbaden repeatedly protested against German demands for more rolling-stock, but the Germans either referred the matter to higher authorities (Berlin or the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht in Brussels) or refused to budge.61 Open opposition was inconceivable once the regime had rejected the option of continuing the war from North Africa, because the Armistice stated categorically that German transport needs had to be met first. Railway experts from the Wehrmacht and the Reichsbahn supervised the work of SNCF officials to ensure that they complied. All the French could do was to apply the tactics of the underdog: to play for time, by consulting Vichy before making any decision, or raise other issues which would, in the words of Admiral Darlan, "give the Germans a bone to chew on."62 To play for time, the SNCF dragged its heels in shipping locomotives and wagons to the occupied zone, attempting to reserve the best material for the unoccupied zone. The strategy, according to Le Besnerais, the general manager of the SNCF, was "to obey the letter of the law, in the strict limit of the inevitable."63

122 The Politics of Transport in France

Among the issues raised by Berthelot to encourage the Germans to reduce their demands was the possibility of interesting them in a European transport network. In May 1941, he wrote to his superior, Yves Bouthillier, the finance minister, proposing "in the framework of the policy of collaboration" discussions with the Germans on improved communications between France and the Reich. Specifically, his suggestions were to build three canals connecting the French and German inland water systems: the Rhone-Rhine, the Seine-Rhine, and the Paris-Belgium canals. He also intended to upgrade road communications between Paris and Strasbourg, Calais and Vitry-le Francois, Paris and Compiegne, and on the Belfort-Dijon-Chagny route. Essentially, the suggestion was a revival of the old Saint-Simonian ideal of a European communications' network, which had appealed to French railway engineers for generations.64 Robert Hemmen, the German economic delegate on the Armistice Commission, expressed interest in this proposal to draw France into the new "European order," but the lack of cement and other materials deferred any practical accomplishments.65 Berthelot's other major attempt to placate the Germans without having to yield further transport resources involved public warnings to the railwaymen against participating in Resistance activity. He broadcast the most notorious of these warnings on the radio the day after the first assassination of a German officer in the metro station of Barbes-Rochechouart (21 August 1941). The speech urged the railwaymen to ignore the propaganda of those who had promised that "the English and their Gaullist mercenaries would come to deliver France" and who now placed their hopes in the Red Army. "This lying propaganda forgets to tell you that it is the Popular Front, that monstrous alliance of a falsely national communism, masonic Radicalism and Jewish finance which has precipitated France into an ideological war, after having weakened it." He expressed his confidence that the railwaymen would turn a deaf ear to communist appeals to attack Germans, because they knew that sabotage of the transport network would hurt civilian supplies rather than the Nazi war effort. He informed his listeners that he had sacked a few ringleaders and concluded by reiterating his warning about them being misled by "bad shepherds."66 The aim of the speech and the underlying tactic, Berthelot later claimed, had been to prove to the Germans that he was in firm control of the SNCF and that there was no justification in using the pretext of the assassination to execute railwaymen in

123 Transport and War: Vichy

retaliation or to ship them off to work in Germany. In a sense, the speech was meant as a guarantee of his dependability. After the war, members of the Resistance - notably Communists and Socialists - replied that the speech was part of a consistent policy of repression directed against patriotic railwaymen.67 The truth is probably that Berthelot's obsession with maintaining the transportation network intact, an attitude of lla technique d'abord" derived from his educational background and reinforced by his experiences in the 1930s, disastrously clouded his political judgment, causing him to produce a discourse with distinct "ultra" overtones as a means of keeping control of the railways. Certainly, he was playing a very dangerous game. Arguments which differentiated between good and bad Frenchmen could be - and were - used to justify all sorts of perversions of justice. An extreme example was the setting up of special courts for "dissidents" who were condemned and sometimes executed under retroactive legislation. Above all, the incident revealed the naivety of Berthelot's hope that he could carry out an administrative function divorced from "politics," while most of France was under enemy occupation. The tactic also failed in its avowed purpose of halting the German drive to take over the transport network. Although it is true that the exodus of railwaymen to Germany only began in 1943, after the total occupation of France and Berthelot's departure from the Communications Secretariat, other indices of German control told a depressing story. French protests to the Armistice Commission that because of the confiscation of wagons, "the French economy is... increasingly threatened with paralysis" were of no avail.68 Nearly 80,000 French wagons were circulating on the Deutsches Reichsbahn in August 1940; by December 1940, the figure had more than doubled to 182,692 and edged up gradually to 200,532 by March 1942, Berthelot's last month as secretary of state.69 The German appetite for steam locomotives also grew steadily (see Table 4). It is difficult to assess the proportion of railway traffic which served German needs: much depends on a question of definition and therefore estimates have varied. The official French postwar account of interference with the railways gives the figures shown in Table 5.70 Other estimates have been even higher.71 What is not in dispute is that the Germans used the French transport network to play a growing role in the Axis war effort. After the blitzkrieg strategy ran into trouble, first in the Battle of Britain and later in the vast,

124 The Politics of Transport in France TABLE 4 German Confiscation of Steam Locomotives Phases 1-3 Phase 4 Phase 5 Phase 6

15.8.1940 30.11.1941 15.2.1942 1.11.1942

-

31.3.1941 24.2.1942 20.4.1942 3.11.1942

2,499

408 407 1,100 4,414

Total

Source: Commission Consultative des Dommages et des Reparations, Ingerences allemandes dans les transports et les communications, Monographic T.C.I: Voies ferrees d'interet general, 21.

TABLE 5 Railway Traffic Serving German Needs Passenger

1940 (5 months)

1941 1942 1943 1944 (6 months)

traffic

Goods traffic

Total traffic

26.7% 22.3 21.3 25.9 31.7

11.9% 24.5 33.2 42.8 50.6

15.8% 24.0 30.7 39.0 46.6

wintry expanses of Soviet Russia, the Nazi leaders intensified their efforts to integrate France economically into the Axis camp.72 They did not view her as a junior partner in a new European order, as Berthelot and other Vichy leaders had optimistically hoped, but simply as a source of tribute for the German war economy. Given the near impossibility of warding off German depradations of rolling-stock, vehicles, and fuel, Berthelot fell back on a disciplined coordination strategy to marshal France's scarce economic resources as effectively as possible. The key coordination decree of 15 October 1940 basically maintained the division of labour between the roads and the railways established in de Monzie's wartime legislation. The provisions concerning passenger transport, notably the ban on intercity coach services, remained in effect. (In return, the secretary of state closed further secondary railway lines to passenger traffic.)73

125 Transport and War: Vichy

In goods' transport, long-distance road haulage was banned unless the railway was unable to fulfil an order. In this case, long-distance permits would only be granted to members of authorized transport groups. Membership of such bodies, to be established in every department, was to be obligatory, unlike in 1938-9-74 To complete this legislation, Berthelot created the Comite d'Organisation des Transports Routiers as the corporation of the profession; the COTR would work in the technical departmental committees alongside the SNCF and the engineers of the Fonts et Chaussees, and would also help to establish yet another new institution, the Bureaux de Repartition du Fret (Freight Allocation Offices), designed to provide a link between businessmen and road transporters.75 This official recognition of the importance of professional organizations was not unique to transport. Under Vichy, corporatism was one of the cornerstones of economic policy. Its proponents claimed it was a means of avoiding the consequences of excessive competition by the professional regulation of the economy; they also believed that by associating all members of a trade, they could make class conflict redundant. Consequently, the law of 16 August 1940 stipulated that each profession should organize itself corporatively in the form of a Comite d'Organisation, with responsibility for gathering information, helping the government acquire and distribute the raw materials necessary for production, controlling access to the profession, and channelling funds to individual enterprises.76 These were fairly general attributes, and it remained to be seen how representative and powerful the Organization Committees would be in practice. Already in the summer of 1940, the Communications' Secretariat had consulted engineers and transporters for their views on the role of professional organizations in the running of the transport system. Not surprisingly, the SNCF and the state engineers tended to ascribe to them an auxiliary role, that of keeping the routiers in line, while representatives of the state wielded the real power. One engineer argued that government commissioners should allocate freight to the various transporters, and that the professional organization should play a purely advisory role. M. Boyaux of the SNCF agreed. He favoured a compulsory organization of road transporters capable of engaging in meaningful negotiations with the railways. But the corporation "should function according to precise rules approved by the Secretary of State and under his close surveillance." Robert Simon of the FNTF, while acknowledging the need for state control during wartime, assigned the corporation a bigger role, using

126 The Politics of Transport in France

arguments developed by the FNTF during the depression: "The most effective control is that carried out by the profession itself, the corporative organisms being naturally placed themselves... under the control of the public authorities." The Organization Committee should be responsible for distributing parts and fuel to its members; it should ensure the optimum productivity of road transport and act as a transmission belt passing information and views back and forward between its members and the state.77 The few sources available on the views of the truckers during the Vichy period suggest that there was hope among some artisan transporters that the corporatist order would lead to improved working conditions, job security, better labour relations, and a chance for truckers to achieve the status of an economically independent artisanate.78 From the start, however, the contest between the corporatists and the public officials was one-sided. The secretary of state appointed the COTR national committee, while the Fonts et Chaussees supervised the creation of the departmental transporters' groups. An elected bureau led each group, the president of which was chosen by the national president of the COTR, in conformity with Berthelot's principles of strict hierarchy.79 In theory, the COTR'S prerogatives were broad, including the datacollection, distributive, and organizational functions common to all Organization Committees, as well as matters relating specifically to road transport: undertaking a census of vehicles, allocating transport orders, and representing road transporters on the departmental committees.80 In practice, it was little more than a consultative body, because Berthelot preferred to vest real power in the hands of the Fonts et Chaussees engineers, the servants of the state. "As of now," he wrote in August 1941, "[the departmental chief engineer of the Fonts et Chaussees] is in charge of organizing professional road transport; he gives his opinion on the issuing of gazogene purchasing licences; he issues long-distance road haulage permits; he is the master of public passenger transport in the department; finally, he carries out a coordinating role between the railways, inland navigation and road transport."81 Under these conditions, corporatism became a cover for increased state control instead of being a means of preventing it. Hence Robert Simon inveighed against the excessive powers of the state engineers, which, he felt, ran contrary to the Vichy spirit: "We are seeing in short a conflict between two administrative regimes, the administrative regime which results from the

127 Transport and War: Vichy

prewar tendencies, more particularly the laws on coordination, and the administrative regime which should flow from the law of 16 August 1940 on professional organization."82 The COTR'S ambitions to control the profession were simultaneously jeopardized by the SNCF'S growing incursions into road transport. Despite occasional threats of a government ban, the railways had never renounced their holdings in the road transport subsidiaries set up with Tardieu's permission in 1928. Now that the problem of ensuring the liaison of the roads and the railways was even more urgent, the SNCF took steps to upgrade its subsidiaries, consolidating them to form the Societe de Controle et de 1'Exploitation des Transports Automobiles (scETA).83 Berthelot's office responded coolly, arguing that while the subsidiary had a place in the Third Republic, "unless we are to despair of the future of the French state, there will be no more disorderly competition" and therefore no need for the SNCF to involve itself directly in road transport.84The SNCF went ahead anyway, claiming that this was one way to guarantee convenient interchange services between road and rail, and held out an olive branch to the COTR by inviting two of its more prominent members to sit on SCETA'S board.85 Ultimately, the SNCF wanted its subsidiary to be "the general entrepreneur of the SNCF for all road transport concerning the railways," although the existing contracts with other transporters for bus and delivery services meant that this was a long-term aim.86 An indication of SCETA'S immediate potential was its ability, backed by the financial resources of the SNCF, to increase its traffic substantially from 1941-3, when other firms like the Societe Generale des Transports Automobiles were losing business because they lacked the vehicles and fuel.87 The SNCF also drew up contracts with road transporters whereby "transport would be carried out in its name and under its commercial responsibility by means of trucks belonging to these road enterprises, which would maintain responsibility for driving and maintenance. The prices and the tariff conditions would be fixed by the SNCF, the road transporter being remunerated contractually according to the distance travelled, whatever the merchandise."88 Such a relationship of dependency would have aroused fierce opposition in the 1930s, but in the austerity conditions prevailing during the occupation, the SNCF found a good many takers for its offer in both zones of France.89 Another SNCF initiative to help cooperative transport enterprises was direct financial aid, for example a loan of 5 million francs to allow one large firm to convert its 170 vehicles to sub-

128 The Politics of Transport in France

stitute fuel.90 During a period of restrictions and shortages, road enterprises had a strong incentive to sacrifice a certain amount of independence to gain the friendship of the SNCF, which was better placed to obtain fuel and spare parts. Despite these two qualifications - Berthelot's predilection for rule by experts and the SNCF'S influence over part of the road transport community - the COTR played an important part in executing Vichy's transport policy even if it had little say in determining it. It was particularly useful in persuading and financially helping transporters to convert their vehicles from gasoline or diesel to substitute fuels, notably gazogene and city gas. The COTR took the responsibility of carrying out the paperwork needed to obtain government credits for fuel modifications and then allocated them to individual transporters.91 Experiments to equip automobiles with gazogene and other nationally produced fuels had begun in the 1920s, as a means of reducing French dependence on foreign gasoline in case of war.92 After the defeat, the problem became more and more pressing, because in the absence of gasoline from Iraq and elsewhere, the amount of motor fuel available dropped sharply by the month, especially as the Germans reserved a significant amount for themselves. In the course of only a year, from January 1941 to January 1942, the supply of liquid automobile fuel (including alcohol) available for distribution to road transporters fell from 26,000 to 15,000 cubic metres. The quota available for agriculture shrank proportionately.93 The technical difficulties of conversion to gazogene were considerable and the interest of the car-makers sporadic, so that by 1939 only 1 per cent of the national trucking fleet ran on gazogene. The campaign was pushed more vigorously in 1941-3, until by the latter date the number of converted vehicles was 109,237 for gazogene, 15,974 for city gas, and 4,732 for electricity.94 The production of domestic motor fuels progressed as shown in Table 6 (expressed in terms of annual tonnages of petrol-equivalent).95 Given the diminished size of the trucking fleet and the difficulties in obtaining more wood, these were not bad results, although to put them in perspective it should be noted that French vehicles consumed almost 3 million tons of gasoline and diesel-oil in 1938. Certainly, gazogene, obtained from burning wood chips or charcoal, was far from ideal. The trucker in Rene' Pallet's Banlieue Sud-Est who cursed his gazogene truck and nostalgically remembered his prewar rig was doubtless not alone in his frustration at the dirtiness and lack of power of the substitute

129 Transport and War: Vichy TABLE 6

Production of Domestic Motor Fuels 1942

1943

1944

20,000 215,000

12,000 31,000 324,000

16,000 52,000 375,000

20,000 61,000 492,000

104,000

125,000

132,000

138,400

339,000

492,000

575,000

711,400

1941 Electricity Gas Solid fuel (gazogene etc.) Liquid fuel (alcohol etc.) Total

_

fuel. But given the economic blockade, improvisation like this was the only way to get food and essentials to the towns and villages.96 As a result of the efforts of the truckers and the SNCF - not only in delivering food but also in providing transport for citydwellers to smuggle parcels of food from relatives on the farms the population remained more or less supplied with its admittedly meagre rations of food, drink, and fuel, as a result of the efforts of the Fonts et Chaussees engineers and the freight allocation bureaus.97 For the transport of wine, particularly important for the maintenance of popular morale, the government created a special committee of civil servants and transporters to draw up a monthly plan in order to "regulate each month the transport of wine according to the needs specified by the Ministry of Supplies and to distribute the traffic in a rational way between the different means of transport: rail, road and water."98 The basic problem was that although the amount of wine coming onto the market from national production and North African imports fell steeply from 80 million hectolitres in 1939 to 4? million in 1942, the amount of transport material equipped to carry wine dropped even more precipitously. To continue to supply the thirsty urban consumers, it was imperative to ensure that the transporters were deployed where they were most needed. Each month the committee sent entire trains of tanker-cars to the regions where the demand was greatest. The wine transport legislation, enforcing compulsory adherence to a plan drawn up by a small committee of experts, is a good example of the central direction of communications under Vichy.99

130 The Politics of Transport in France TABLE 7

Transport Facilities, 1935-42 Trucks t Vans

1935 1938 1940 (Apr.) 1942 (Apr.)

Barges

Buses

Public

Private

12,370 -

_

-

-

20,000 -

65,000 58,000

435,000

9,566 8,640

10,000

-

312,000

TABLE 8

Automobile Production, 1940-4 Commerdt #/ vehicles

1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 Total

Cars

For French

For Germans

French

Germans

Total

2,157 11,202

7,165 33,927 35,621 17,281 7,431 101,785

115 815 163 30 55 1,178

2,584 9,741 3,336 176 28 15,595

12,831 55,415 43,006 18,995 8,109 138,356

3,886 1,508 595 19,708

These measures, no matter how effective, were merely so many palliatives that could delay but not prevent the slide towards economic debacle and social hardship. In the first place, there was simply insufficient transport to satisfy the needs of both the Germans and the French. War damage, German looting, and the exhaustion of old material all took a heavy toll. Censuses of industrial vehicles carried out in the fall of 1940 revealed that most of the trucks still on the road were ancient. Less than onesixth of those in the neighborhood of Ales (Gard) were under four years old.100 What little production there was of automobiles or rolling-stock went primarily to the Germans; the French had to make do with the scraps.101

131 Transport and War: Vichy FIGURE 9

Monthly Fluctuations in Railway Passenger Traffic, 1940-4

Source: SNCF, Direction des Etudes, Renseignements statistiques, 1941-4.

FIGURE 10

Paris Traffic, 1937-48

Source: AN F14 13671.

The fall in the number of buses and trucks put an added strain on those which remained in service. The mayor of Montpellier complained in vain to the prefect of the Herault that "the passengers continue to cram themselves into the buses, to hang onto the doors and to climb onto the roof." Drivers who sought to restore order were threatened by angry housewives who needed to visit the countryside to supplement the inadequate official rations.102

132 The Politics of Transport in France

Under the circumstances, the railways bore a heavy burden, particularly as they themselves were suffering from heavy losses of rolling-stock to the Germans. The SNCF responded to the challenge, achieving the tour de force of carrying more passengers in 1943 than in any year since 1932 at the price of increased red tape, overcrowded trains, and long delays.103 The switch from road to rail also occurred in the cities, as local authorities reopened tramway services to supplant buses.104 In Paris, the number of people taking the bus decreased sharply in 1939-40 because of the requisitioning of buses by the army, and more gently in 1943-4 as petrol became scarce. The able-bodied used bicycles to get to work or to pedal out to the countryside in search of food.105 Those who could pay took bicycle-taxis. One of the most characteristic sights of occupied Paris was the velo-taxi plying the almost emply Champs Elysees or the grands boulevards. People of all classes flocked to the Metro in unprecedented numbers. The amount of traffic doubled between 1940 and 1943; the stations and subway trains threatened to burst at the seams, and the smell was dreadful.106 A significant shift from road to rail also occurred in goods' transport. Inadequate documentation on road haulage prevents an exact assessment of the extent of the shift, but one authoritative observer concluded that the SNCF'S global share of goods' traffic rose from 60 to 75 per cent between 1938 and 1947.107 The fact that in the early years of the war the railways actually carried increased amounts of goods which normally went by road provides corroboration of this appraisal: foodstuffs, wine, express food deliveries, and live animals all fall into this category. The near-doubling of mineral tonnage going by rail (1940-3) probably owed more to the high priority the Germans put on extracting large quantities of iron ore, bauxite, and other materials from France to stoke the Nazi armaments' industry.108 In addition to heavy German demands and the decline in the number of vehicles, fuel shortages threatened to asphyxiate the transport network. Although as we have seen they affected the automobile most dramatically, they did not spare the railways. Coal-dependent steam locomotives still predominated on most of the SNCF lines. Unfortunately, much less coal was available than before 1939, because of the unavailability of British imports and the voracious appetite of the occupying forces. The SNCF was allocated 616,000 tons per month in 1942 and 689,000 tons in 1943, compared to 813,000 tons in 1938, itself a year of abnormally low economic activity. The railways only got this much because the householder was squeezed, receiving far less than half his prewar

FIGURE 11

Monthly Fluctuations in Railway Goods' Traffic, 1940-4

Source: SNCF, Reweigmments statistiques, 1941-4.

134 The Politics of Transport in France FIGURE 12

Railway Goods' Traffic, 1938-46: Selected Commodities

Source: SNCF, Direction Generate, Resultats statistiques, 1939-47.

quota by 1943-109 These measures ensured that the cities were fed through the winter months, but the underheated population was less resistant to influenza and hyperthermia. The SNCF restricted its passenger services to put all its resources behind the transport of food and fuel each winter.110 Finally, by the winter and spring of 1944, the Vichy transport system verged on collapse. The Germans - hardpressed on the eastern front as the war turned against them - intensified their efforts to commandeer as many vehicles as they could get their hands on. Patrols seized vehicles parked in the street and raided garages in the hope of finding tires, batteries, and spare parts in working order. 111 To supplement brute force, they used the lure of substantial gain to elicit help from a minority of French garagistes. The Berlin company Intercommerciale set up a Paris branch which recruited intermediaries to find good trucks in the two- to six-ton range, bid for them, and resell them to Intercommerciale. Owners who were unwilling to part with their vehicle

135 Transport and War: Vichy

"received a visit from the Germans."112 A dense network of collaborators flourished in the Limoges region, some operating from hotel rooms, some of them regular garagistes, others opportunists whose fortunes had been made by selling vehicles abandoned by the roadside in 1940.113 When no motorized vehicles were available, the Germans confiscated bicycles.114 French transportation now showed clear signs of the wear-andtear imposed by four years of overuse, without the labour, lubricating oil, or spare parts to keep vehicles in working order. By 1944 the shortage of tires became chronic, keeping many trucks off the road altogether.115 The railwaymen, forced to work sixtyhour weeks to coax the last ounce of productivity from their flagging, coal-starved machines, were becoming exhausted and now had to contend with the beginnings of the Resistance movement's sabotage of the communications' network, especially in the hilly areas.116 Moreover, as the German stranglehold over the country tightened and the more violent collaborationist elements gradually took over policing, many of the engineers who had flocked to Vichy in 1940, partly out of a sense of duty, partly because they welcomed its sense of hierarchy, began to withdraw.117 Berthelot left when Pierre Laval returned to power in April 1942; his successor Gibrat resigned when the Germans occupied the whole of France in November of the same year. During the last months of the occupation, France, traditionally so centralized, split into self-contained regional entities, almost physically cut off from one another. Transport difficulties, labour shortages, and the lack of fuel and fertilizer hindered food production and distribution. As in the days of the ancien regime, grain-producing regions resisted pleas to send cereals to the hungry cities or the wineproducing Midi. The result was that "although there has been and still is wheat in the departments of large-scale production, many regions have temporarily lacked bread and each day sees their difficulties becoming sharper and more insurmountable."118 The authorities were literally deluged with desperate pleas for food from mayors who were at their wits' end. Remote communities in the mountainous Cevennes had some milk, chestnuts, and more wine than they knew what to do with, but lacked vehicles to bring cereals or pasta from regions which were better endowed. The authorities even listed handcarts when drawing up inventories of vehicles which could be used in emergency relief plans. In Marseilles and Provence, the price of milk was three times higher than anywhere else in France.119

136 The Politics of Transport in France

Conditions such as this were reminiscent of the economic ancien regime, which had been conquered by the railway revolution. The highly centralized state of the experts proclaimed by men like Berthelot had given way to a violent, anarchical country, fragmented into fearful and suspicious regions, in which everybody sought to cope as best he could. It was aptly described in a Gaullist intelligence report as the return of the "economy of the extended manor" 12° - except that since the 1840s, many regions had adopted monoculture and hence were doubly vulnerable when the transport infrastructure collapsed. On the face of it - and this was the accepted wisdom for the postwar generation - Vichy was a nightmare best forgotten, a sordid tale of collaboration and fratricide. Economically, it was disintegrating by the time the Allies landed on the mainland in June 1944. The transport system was falling apart and badly needed a massive injection of capital to prevent it from slowing down postwar recuperation. What could be learnt from a regime which ended in such disarray? Such a judgment is oversimplified. Given France's strategic position, invaded by Germany and blockaded by Britain, the scope for action for transport organizers was extremely circumscribed. To some extent, the war dictated a greater reliance on state intervention and control of the economy, regardless of the ideology of those running the country. Rationing and restriction were the order of the day in liberal Britain as well as in authoritarian Vichy France.121 The Vichy transport administrators, much more than their predecessors, were also planning far beyond the immediate future. Men like Berthelot and Francois Lehideux consciously sought to break with the Malthusian economic practices of the Third Republic and formulated massive investment programs, aimed at radically transforming France by concentrating on a select number of national priorities instead of throwing scraps to everyone. Berthelot's arrival at the Secretariat of Communications heralded a dramatic break with the attitudes of the 1930s. For the first time, instead of wielding the axe, a minister chided the railways for the timidity of their investment plans and told them that financial equilibrium was no longer a cardinal virtue. The ten-year plan formulated by Berthelot in 1941-2 provided the guideline for the postwar electrification of the railway. In addition his concept of an integrated European transport network, politically foolhardy when France was under German occupation, has made more sense since 1945.122

137 Transport and War: Vichy

A second area of innovation was in professional organization. Vichy went to new lengths to use this as an instrument of economic policy, going beyond the steps taken in the 1930s by creating Organization Committees in most branches of the economy. These improved the information base available to the economic ministries to help formulate policies; they also gave an added impulse to the collective sense of poorly organized groups like farmers and truckers.123 The Vichy corporatist system had its drawbacks though. The relationship between the professional groups and the state was unclear. Given their education, stressing as it did service to the state and distrust of interest groups, leading engineers like Berthelot and his successors, Gibrat and Bichelonne, sought to maintain strong central direction. Neglecting the spirit of the law of 16 August 1940 setting up the Organization Committees, they preferred to see the corporations as useful adjuncts to the state, but nothing more. The occupation with its critical shortages and restraints did not seem the time to give an untried institution a free hand.124 The corporatists were also inconsistent in their ideas about the purpose of the Organization Committees. For nostalgic monarchists they represented a vindication of an institution of the ancien regime and the return to a harmonious, preindustrial society. Others were more prosaic. "For some," wrote one critic, the aim of professional organization ... is to balance production and consumption. For certain people it means the lowering of prices by the reduction of costs. For others it means, on the contrary, the increase of prices to allow substantial profits. Finally, for most people professional organization is either a means put at the disposal of the bosses to permit them to enrich themselves without any effort or, on the contrary, a means for "breaking in the bosses" by a special corps of civil servants set up with this in mind - lots of diplomas but incompetent.125

Within a year of establishment of the Organization Committees, Marshal Petain had already denounced the attempts of the "trusts" to take them over.126 The COTR like many other groups was little more than an extension of the prewar employers' body, the FNTF, with some of the biggest firms at the helm.127 It was on the waterways that the ambivalence of Vichy-style corporatism was greatest, because although the barge-haulers represented an ideal social force for many Vichyite ideologues,128 they were too weak and disunited to organize their own corporation. The inland waterways' organization committee, unlike any

138 The Politics of Transport in France

other, was led by a civil servant, the director of the Office National de la Navigation, because the transporters could not agree on anyone else. A second peculiarity of this committee was that there was a special category for the artisans, distinct from the employers, because of the vast differences in economic and social position between the two.129 The Organization Committee performed a number of useful functions. It made credit available under special conditions for the replacement of barges destroyed in 1940; it fought the Ministry of Finance for a more favourable tax deal for artisan bargehaulers, and it began to examine the means whereby the children could be given a basic education. On the other hand, the waterways' Organization Committee was no more than a cover for the administration. The powers of the Office National de la Navigation continued to grow and it was difficult to persuade artisans to take an interest in the corporation.130 The committee, then, was a tool whereby administrators could begin implementing reforms first conceived in the 1930s, but it failed to contribute to the self-organization of the bateliers. The final and basic flaw of Vichy's transport policy was the belief that French economic woes were all due to the weaknesses of a regime whose morality had been undermined by corrupt electoral politics. The corollary that experts acting in the "general interest" could rectify all these problems proved unfounded. The difficulty was that the experts, for all their undeniable technical brilliance, found it impossible to agree on what constituted the general interest. The periodic meetings of the various economic ministries, which should theoretically have provided a distillation of pure reason, were horse-trading sessions in which each minister defended the claims of his particular clientele. The agriculture minister demanded better food prices while the labour minister warned of the damage this would do to working-class morale, and called for wage increases. The minister of industrial production told them they were both wrong: the prime consideration was to lower costs to improve the competitiveness of French industry. He also chided Communications for its niggardliness in supplying industry with wagons, brushing aside the railways' requests for higher freight-rates.131 Each department had its own set of priorities and its own set of institutions designed to achieve them. The result was that instead of simplifying the working of the old republican state, Vichy complicated it. A trucker faced a daunting array of Organization Committees, Freight Allocation Bureaus, Fonts et

139 Transport and War: Vichy

Chaussees engineers, departmental coordinating committees and commodity transport planning boards (wine, coal, etc.) because the Communications' Secretariat and the Ministry of Industrial Production failed to agree on which institutions should be vested with supreme powers.132 Many transporters "spent their time running from one office to another searching for fuel here, lubricants there, tires elsewhere."133 In the economy as in many other spheres, exceptional circumstances and the pluralistic nature of the Vichy dictatorship134 prevented the reconciliation of theory and practice.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Transport and War: The Free French

Like most other wars in the age of mass ideologies opened by the French Revolution, World War n represented a conflict not only between nations but also within them. Especially after 1941, when Germany invaded the USSR and the United States entered the war on the Allied side, it became increasingly an ideological clash, a crusade against Bolshevism for the Axis and a defence of democracy against fascism for the Allies. To a greater or lesser extent, each country had its proponents of a New European Order sponsored by Nazi Germany or at least contingent upon German success in arms. As the war turned against the Axis, these forces were increasingly overshadowed by resistance movements, whose opposition to German domination-usually went hand in hand with projects for far-reaching political and social reform, aimed at destroying the domestic roots of fascism and authoritarianism. France was no exception. In June 1940, stunned by the rapidity and comprehensiveness of the national collapse, the majority of the nation rallied behind Marshal Petain. Sceptical of the Allied prospects and seeking a protector who would shield them from the invader, they entrusted themselves to the paternal care of the hero of Verdun, who preached national reconciliation and a return to the soil and traditional values. Only a few "dissidents," in the terminology of 1940, refused to follow suit and, like de Gaulle, continued to resist the Nazi war effort. From 1940 to 1942, the Resistance was a tiny minority of isolated individuals and embryonic networks, united only by opposition to the Axis. In the early years, resisters often remained loyal to Petain, believing or hoping against hope that the old man was playing a crafty double-game, publicly proclaiming French neu-

141 Transport and War: The Free French

trality, but secretly awaiting the right moment to rejoin the fight against the Third Reich. Gradually, the ranks of the Resistance swelled. The German attack on Soviet Russia in June 1941 brought the Communists wholeheartedly into Resistance activity. The conservatism of the "National Revolution" and its dismantling of the trade unions alienated labour from Vichy. The comeback of the avowed collaborator Pierre Laval in April 1942 persuaded many that continued support for Vichy and patriotism were incompatible. At the same time, the parachuting of de Gaulle's trusted agent Jean Moulin into France brought about a certain regrouping of the various resistance formations into a more effective force. Even so, by the autumn of 1942 the French Resistance had barely reached adolescence. Internally, most resistance to Vichy and the occupation forces took the form of withdrawal from public life. More tangible resistance, such as participation in underground cells, let alone acts of sabotage, were still comparatively rare. The immediate task of preserving Resistance networks intact took precedence over planning for the future. In London, the exiles grouped around de Gaulle had until 1943 only the faintest glimmering of what conditions were like inside France.l The external Resistance also suffered from disunity and personal jealousies. Its major activities were appeals and radio broadcasts. There was not yet a full-fledged government-in-exile waiting in the wings to administer France at the hour of her liberation. Nor had the Resistance built up a shadow transport ministry capable of restoring the damaged communications' system and formulating a postwar transport policy.2 The conditions under which the Free French devised and executed transport policy differed fundamentally from those of both Vichy and the Third Republic. In the republic, as we have seen, transport policy was derived from the public and private interaction of a multitude of competing interests, all of which enjoyed greater or lesser access to the sources of political power. Under this system, financial power was checked by a cluster of consultative committees designed to provide a forum for industrial, commercial, agricultural, and, to a lesser extent, labour interests. In addition, the contest for power occurred within Parliament, on the floor of the house and in the Public Works Commission, between the legislature and the executive, and within the executive itself. For example, the Ministry of Finance, intent on balancing the national budget, prevented the transport tax from being re-

142 The Politics of Transport in France

duced between 1926 and 193 3.3 Within the Ministry of Public Works, the Inland Waterways' division acted as protector of the barge-haulers against the railway companies. The fact that these conflicts occurred simultaneously on several levels explains some of the paradoxes of the 1930s, notably the continued obsession with the danger of the "feodalites fmancieres " which were supposedly able to get what they wanted by pulling strings, despite the institutional mechanisms designed to contain them. It also explains why change came so slowly in that decade: in order for change to occur, it had to be accepted by those in key positions at all levels of the system. Under Vichy, conflict continued, despite Berthelot's vision of a "rational" transport policy framed by experts and simply executed by the agents of the economy. The effect of his dismantling of the formalized interest-group structures was not to make conflict go away, but to displace it to a less public level. Some public dissent still occurred, expressed for instance in the automobile newspapers, but the most important issues were fought over inside the Vichy bureaucracy, between the COTR and the Fonts et Chaussees or between ministries speaking for their respective clienteles. For the anti-Vichy forces, the situation was different again. Whereas under Vichy the conflicting forces were displaced from the public to the private sphere, here they were totally dispersed. There was, in effect, a provisional government-in-exile in North Africa, formed in the spring of 1943.4 But it was, by definition, cut off from metropolitan France, isolated from those forces with which it would have to interact in order to formulate and direct transport policy once France was liberated: the SNCF, the various components of the "automobile lobby," the waterway interests, local politicians, etc. Representatives of the political parties, who might have been expected to contribute to the debate about the future direction of transport policy, were either still in France or had other commitments. A further unknown but critical factor was the attitude of the maquis, the armed Resistance groups, which were becoming particularly strong in Central and Southern France. Finally, the Free French transport experts lacked reliable data about the economic conjoncture on the mainland, although the quantity and quality of Free French intelligence improved markedly as time went by. All these factors hindered reflection on transport policy in 1943-4. Until the Free French landed, contacted transport people who had been engaged in preparing for the future within France,

143 Transport and War: The Free French

saw for themselves the state of the transport system, and assessed the political climate, it was hard to look far beyond the immediate future. To complicate matters, the Free French had their hands tied because of military imperatives in 1942-3. Theirs was the daunting task of easing the plight of the civilian population of French North Africa in the wake of the Allied landings of 8 November 1942. The aim of Operation Torch, as the Allied landings in North Africa were called, was to link up with the British in Egypt and drive the Axis forces out of the continent. To accomplish his mission successfully, General Eisenhower, the commander of the operation, needed the support of a civilian administration capable of maintaining order among a population which, having remained loyal to Vichy for two years, was "not burning with enthusiasm to start a war with the Axis."5 He also needed civilian cooperation in ensuring the smooth functioning of the transport system because, as he cabled Churchill, transport problems were one of the main factors slowing down the allied advance. He was "woefully short in motor transport and other auxiliaries normally making up the 'tail' of an army. Although we worked the railroad to a maximum, we finally came to a situation where all sidings were blocked and distribution impossible because of lack of transport and service troops."6 Initially Eisenhower, thinking primarily in military terms, relied on the traditional administrative and political elites, which had remained loyal to Vichy, to govern North Africa. Anxious to avoid the defection of the French navy, he sponsored Admiral Darlan, formerly Petain's chosen successor, as the main spokesman for French North Africa in November and December 1942. Following Darlan's assassination on Christmas Eve, he preferred to deal with General Henri Honore Giraud, a traditional-minded soldier with little political aptitude, who combined support for the Allied cause with dogged loyalty to Petain. Giraud's conservatism and lack of political astuteness caused him to enlist the aid of Vichyites like Marcel Peyrouton, a former minister of the interior. Only gradually, because of public unease in the United States about the maintenance of Vichy officials and legislation, and Churchill's insistence on the importance of de Gaulle's Free French movement, did Eisenhower agree to encourage negotiations between Giraud and de Gaulle. The talks between the two generals were often acrimonious and marred by personal jealousies, but eventually agreement was

144 The Politics of Transport in France

reached to fuse the French pro-Allied forces. As a result, the Comite Frangais de la Liberation Nationale was born on 3 June 1943 under the joint presidency of Giraud and de Gaulle. The CFLN consisted of commissariats, roughly corresponding to government ministries, and assumed the functions of a governmentin-exile (despite lack of official Allied recognition), as well as controlling the civil administration of North Africa.7 Among the commissariats, there was one for Communications, whose creation predated that of the CFLN. Set up by an ordinance of Giraud on 26 March 1943, its purpose was to ensure, in concert with the military and naval authorities, "the coordination of the various means of transport between the different countries of North Africa, to ensure in the best possible conditions military and civilian transport and the optimum utilization of the seaports."8 Its chief was Rene Mayer, whose early background, like that of Berthelot's, was in administration rather than politics. After an early career as an auditor of the Conseil d'Etat, Mayer transferred to the private sector, accumulating over thirty directorships and becoming vice-president of the Reseau du Nord. A pragmatic liberal, Mayer had risen to national prominence as a result of his important role in the formation of the SNCF in 1937, when he had managed to persuade the grands reseaux to accept the merger, and had fought hard to defend shareholders' rights.9 The top permanent official was Robert Levi, a forty-seven-yearold Parisian, the son of the Grand Rabbi of France. His transport background was also on the railways as the chief engineer in charge of the track under Raoul Dautry on the Reseau de 1'Etat and later on the SNCF. To the commissariat fell the unenviable task of squeezing the optimal performance out of the North African transport network to meet both civilian and military demands. Even before the war began, this network was glaringly inadequate by European standards. In Algeria, for example, the density of the road and rail networks was about one-third and one-sixth that of France.10The main railway line linking Casablanca in the west to Tunis in the east was built primarily for administrative reasons, to facilitate the pacification of the area. Although it connected the main ports, it did not provide the basis for a unified North African market. The main economic ties ran from north to south, drawing the mineral resources of the interior towards the mere-patrie, but north-south railway communications were rudimentary, consisting of a few, often narrow-gauge lines probing inland from the ports. Unlike in Europe, the iron horse "remained a stepchild of the economy. Instead of opening new areas, the railroad

145 Transport and War: The Free French TABLE 9 Vehicles in North Africa, 1940-1 German requisitions

As of 25 June 1940 Tunisia Trucks / vans 5,628 450 Trailers Motorbikes 1,513 Buses 145

Algeria

Morocco

Total

May 1941

2,345

1,523

9,136

1,100

83 563 100

51 320 23

2,396

584 268

? 300 30

Source: A. Truche, L'armistice de 1940 et I'Afrique du Nord (Paris 1965), 285,404.

served mostly as a carrier between already existing settlements and villages."11 Between the wars, road transport developed rapidly, partially making up for the inadequacy of the railways. However, in the mid-1930s coordination legislation designed to provide solutions for the very different problems of metropolitan France was mechanically applied to North Africa. Thereafter, the capacity of the road transport sector was frozen at its 1934 level.12 After the war broke out, the railways were used primarily for military purposes. By shortening the turn-around time for wagons, it was possible to improve productivity, but the decreased availability of coal and the deteriorating condition of locomotives jeopardized the prospects of sustained progress. The primitive highway network had to cope with the task of feeding the civilian population and supplying businesses with a trucking fleet which was declining both quantitatively and qualitatively. Quantitatively, because of German requisitions. Qualitatively, because the use of substitute fuels and the lack of lubricating oil was resulting in the rapid wearing out of equipment. By September 1943, barely half of the prewar commercial fleet was still available for civilian purposes in Algeria and Morocco.13 Beyond the railhead, in the desert 300 km south of Algiers, where automobile traffic had been important before the war, the "camel and the burro now provided the only means of transport," the American consul-general at Algiers reported. In his opinion, "the economic structure was on the verge of going to pieces like the proverbial one-horse shay," largely because of the breakdown of transportation.14

146 The Politics of Transport in France

Throughout 1941 and 1942, prominent Vichyite officials in French North Africa had pleaded with the United States government to send gasoline, diesel fuel, oil, spare parts, and industrial machinery to save the economy from collapsing. Despite the backing of powerful men such as Admiral Leahy, the American ambassador to Vichy, aid arrived only in dribs and drabs.15 The British and the United States Board of Economic Warfare feared that supplies would only fall into enemy hands. Spokesmen for the BEW also believed that "the lack of petroleum would tend to make the population welcome the occupying force, bringing with them the goods necessary for the maintenance of the economy."16 From November 1942, the picture became gloomier still: the new Allied military requirements added to existing civilian needs proved beyond the means of the overstrained transport sector. Robert Levi estimated that as a result of the growing military demands, the amount of commercial goods' traffic carried on the Algerian railways would decline from 675 million ton-kms in 1942 to 375 million in 1943.17In March 1943, General Poupinel, the head of the communications' section of the French army, testified to the frictions caused by the appetite of the Allied armies, but saw little prospect of relief for the civilians. The levies of civilian material have given rise to disappointments. The requisitions have been carried out in poor conditions. Most of the trucks have been delivered in very bad condition as a result of efforts to camouflage them. The vehicles have become rapidly unusable so that the military road vehicle supply is now reduced to negligible proportions ... It does not seem, given this state of affairs, that the civilian economy can expect in the foreseeable future any alleviation of the pressure exerted upon it by the military authorities.18

Meanwhile, entrepreneurs complained that they were being driven out of business because of the lack of transportation, which prevented them from obtaining raw materials or supplying their customers.19 In large part, the commissariat's efforts depended on the imports of fuel, vehicles, and railway parts which began flowing from the American war economy early in 1943. Hastily mustered convoys shipped across 4,500 trucks by Christmas 1942, plus further shipments of 5,300 and 5,400 in January and March 1943.20 Levi pressed the military officialdom to release some of these imports for civilian use, but with scant success because the Allied armies

14? Transport and War: The Free French

were themselves short of transport and needed the imports for their offensive in Tunisia in the spring of 1943.21 Still, the arrival of American trucks reduced the pressure on the local trucks which had played such an important role in clearing the ports in the first weeks of Operation Torch.22 Like its counterpart in Vichy, the commissariat also sought to tighten up transport organization to make the maximum use of the limited resources available. Vichy's transport policy, in North Africa as elsewhere, had been a watered-down form of corporatism, freight being allocated by the road transporters' groups under the control of the departmental Fonts et Chaussees engineer. Mayer's commissariat basically retained the Vichy approach, but eliminated the verbal emphasis on corporatism which had been part of the window-dressing of the "National Revolution." Under the new system, the Fonts et Chaussees engineer determined "the allocation of freight, the transport groups having only a consultative role; and the transporters are obliged for all goods' shipments to obey the orders they receive from the transport commissioner, attached to the chief engineer of the Fonts et Chaussees."23 While recognizing the desirability of associating professional groups with economic policy, the commissariat made the primacy of the state crystal clear. The need to channel an inadequate supply of means of transport to the most productive ends made central direction imperative, regardless of the personal ideology of those responsible for formulating and administering policy. The same emphasis on close state control was evident in the commissariat's plans for the organization of transport in liberated France. The decree of 3 June 194424 laid down the institutional framework. In each department there was to be a director of road transport with almost dictatorial powers: he was entitled to requisition vehicles, he handed out permits to drivers, ensured the allocation of spare parts, tires, and road fuel, authorized the sale of second-hand trucks and determined the order of priority of goods awaiting transit. There were also to be eighteen state-appointed transport allocators, who "should have an admirable grasp of questions of rail transport as well as of road transport." Their function was to ensure that within each region the scarce supplies of goods, particularly food, were marshalled as effectively and as equitably as possible. They were also designed to put an end to anomalies such as one reported from Brittany, where peasant families were combating the lack of household lighting materials by burning

148 The Politics of Transport in France

shoelaces dipped in butter.25 To achieve these goals, they were empowered to instruct departments to put some of their vehicles at the disposal of less well-endowed departments. The transport allocators were attached to the regional commissioners of the republic, who were responsible for maintaining a semblance of national unity and republican legality despite the severing of communications between Paris and the provinces.26 The decree proposed a compromise solution to the question of the ownership of vehicles. Formally speaking, private ownership remained, but the decree set up in each department a Road Transport Service, run by the chief engineer of the Fonts et Chaussees, with competence over all vehicles operating out of the department. Any businessman or farmer seeking transport facilities applied to the service, which acted as the middleman between the client and the transporter. The state set the rates, after consultation with the service. The role of the trucker was reduced to driving and drawing up bills, but the service could not be held responsible if the client failed to pay. As for professional organization, such a controversial topic under Vichy, the decree provided for regional road transport groups, whose executives were appointed by the commissioners of-the republic on the recommendation of the road transporters' association. The minister appointed the president of these groups after consulting the commissioners. The role of the transport groups was purely advisory.27 Like the legislation devised by Berthelot, these projects emphasized strong central direction, ensured by the reliance on state engineers to enforce transport policy at a local level. The professional organizations also had a role to play, but they were even more under the control of the state than at Vichy. As for the individual trucker, he retained ownership of his rig, but all important entrepreneurial prerogatives were firmly in the hands of the state and its agents. The aims of Algiers' transport policy were to restore national unity by combating the trend towards regional autarky and to forestall an American inclination to impose an Allied military government (AMGOT) on liberated France. The commissioners of the republic and the transport allocators should immediately take over the running of the liberated areas before rival officials from the Allied armies or the local resistance forces could seize the initiative.28 As for the railways, in Robert Levi's words, "the technical resources of the railroads are to be put to work to ensure that military transport gets top priority."29In practice, this meant that

149 Transport and War: The Free French

railway operations in the vicinity of the battle would be controlled not by the SNCF, but by the railway section of the Allied armies, to ensure the absolute priority of military transport. Only when the front moved towards Germany would the SNCF gradually regain control of the railways.30 These directives were designed to cope with the immediate problems of avoiding mass starvation and restoring central direction to a country on the verge of disintegration and civil war. They left unanswered the question of the shape of the transport system of the future, notably who should own it and how it should be run. The opening shot in this debate was fired by Rene Courtin, an economics professor of the University of Montpellier. Courtin drafted a report on the postwar economy for the Comite General d'Etudes, a high level study group approved by de Gaulle and based in occupied France.31 In common with representatives of the various Resistance trends, Courtin started out from the premise that the fall of France and the behaviour of Vichy demonstrated that "the old ruling class had failed to carry out its mission."32 Not only was the old social order bankrupt, but the economic system stood condemned because of its failure "to employ all the productive means at its disposal and to use all the wealth it created." His general prescription was to put an end to the power of "economic and financial feudalism" by nationalizing those monopolies which were vital to the running of the economy and by forging a new elite out of elements of the working-class and "the remnants of the old bourgeois elite." The general thrust of the document was on the need to revitalize the economy by reequipping it and to do this in a democratic way by associating the working-class in the process of renewal. Like other Resistance colleagues, Courtin felt that it was necessary to have a plan to ensure that these goals were met. On the respective roles of the state and the private sector, the document was circumspect. In light of existing conditions, "authoritative leadership" was necessary for the present. However, Courtin did not hide his belief that a return to the free market was necessary once reconstruction was complete if the modernization of the economy was to be sustained. His suggestions for transport policy also involved a two-phase process. Initially, dirigisme would be essential to ensure that scarce trucks and buses were not wasted by being deployed in competition with the railways. Some railway services on secondary lines would have to be restored during this phase. He was less certain about what should happen in the second phase. As a liberal, his

150 The Politics of Transport in France

main intention was to avoid the growth of an SNCF-dominated monopoly. Hence, once the economy had reached its prewar level, "the system should be relaxed. Without a doubt, it is better to do without any coordination than to return to the pre-war regime, which gave the SNCF exorbitant privileges which were harmful not only to other transporters but to the community as a whole." It was Courtin's belief that as a result of the revived importance of the railways caused by the war, the SNCF increasingly constitutes a state within a state and should be brought back to reason. On the one hand, not only is the state no longer capable of imposing its views, but it has even lost the authority necessary to obtain indispensable information, such as the salary of top officials. On the other hand, the SNCF has profited from its independence to slip out of its normal role. It now seeks control of all maritime, river and road transport. It even extends its activities beyond the sphere of transportation by setting up subsidiaries in which it has a majority holding ... It is unacceptable that new trusts should develop by sheltering within the public sector. As a result, it will be essential to force the SNCF to abandon all its industrial and commercial holdings.

For the same reason, Courtin was hostile to the idea of a publicly owned road transport corporation.] This would force up costs and either end up causing a price war with the SNCF or, worse still, fall under SNCF domination.33 This critique contains most of the themes of the Radical and Socialist attacks on the grands reseaux - the trust dictating to the state, the hydra controlling every aspect of economic life. In this case, however, the trust was not a financial oligarchy but a public corporation. The Courtin Report was the most important document dealing with transport policy to be produced by the Free French. In its rejection of the practices of the 1930s, it was on safe ground. This was the one leitmotiv which ran through virtually everything written on the subject after 1940. More contentious was the condemnation of the SNCF and the commitment to economic liberalism. These were bound to cause controversy once the struggle for control of the economy resumed in metropolitan France. While the Communications' Secretariat was preparing for the post-D-day transport organization and Courtin's report was being published in Algiers, the internal Resistance stepped up its attacks on the communications' networks. Isolated acts of sabo-

151 Transport and War: The Free French

tage had taken place from the moment the Armistice was signed. As the Resistance grew, establishing contacts among the railwaymen and forming small groups of franc- tireurs, they became more frequent and more audacious. During 1943 anti-Axis sabotage gradually picked up momentum. Methods varied. The most spectacular incidents were assaults on German trains by bands of franc-tireurs in the mountains; other techniques were arson committed against German-bound wagons, the cutting of railway tracks, and the emptying or destruction of water-towers to immobilize steam locomotives.34 For the railwaymen, resistance was a difficult psychological choice, forcing them to choose between their renowned love for their machines and their patriotism. It was also dangerous, because attacks on trains often killed or injured them as well as the enemy, and because of the daily supervision of officials from the Reichsbahn and the railway section of the Wehrmacht. Nonetheless, they were able to put their technical expertise to good effect to create the maximum of material damage with a minimum loss of life. They caused derailments by loosening rails, but in such a way as to minimize the liability of serious injury to the engine driver or the stoker; they tampered with locomotives to cause them to break down frequently; they broke all records for slowness on night convoys; they concealed material, often with the acquiescence of top SNCF officials like Louis Armand. While certain claims about the scale of these actions have been exaggerated, there is little doubt that they had significant nuisance value, slowing down the transfer of goods to Germany, immobilizing railway material, tying down enemy personnel in supervisory jobs, and harming German morale.35 In the spring of 1944, Allied preparations for D-day were in full swing. To prevent the Germans from moving up troops and ammunition to counter the landings, the Allies struck hard at the communications network, particularly the railways, in the early months of 1944. Eisenhower persuaded Churchill and Koenig, the commander of the French armed forces, to endorse a strategy of blanket bombing of strategic lines, depots, repair shops, and sorting-yards, despite the heavy civilian losses these entailed. Eisenhower and the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force overcame the reticence of Bomber Command, which argued that the Allies should continue to direct their fire against German factories and cities, and dismissed the objections of Resistance groups that bombing sorting-yards hurt civilians more than it hurt the Germans since the latter shipped goods

152 The Politics of Transport in France FIGURE 13

Destruction of Railway Targets, 1944

exclusively by the train-load.36 The bombing attacks grew in intensity so that by the beginning of May, German rail communications were severely hampered along a 100-mile-wide belt stretching from Cologne to the Bay of Biscay. Simultaneously, the railwaymen's organization, Resistance-Fer, along with other Resistance groups, put into effect the Green Plan to step up the sabotage of the national railway system. Attacks on German communications reached their peak in late May and early June in most parts of the country and were particularly effective in slowing down German movements in Brittany.37 The joint actions of the Resistance and the Allied air forces were indispensable to the success of the landings of 6 June. German troop trains, unable to use the main arteries, were often compelled to go by road or to take circuitous routes along secondary lines, forcing critical delays in bringing in reinforcements. One German regiment had to be routed via Alsace to reach Normandy from Belgium. According to Professor Solly Zuckermann,

153 Transport and War: The Free French

one of the brains behind the bombing strategy, "the implication was not that it was physically impossible to move trains, but that the capacity of the railways was so reduced and their state of disorganization so grave that even the highest priority military traffic could not be moved properly."38 In the second week of June, the SNCF board of directors heard the following assessment of the state of railway communications: links with the west have been completely cut. No trains are leaving Saint Lazare or Montparnasse stations. Train services to the southwest are equally paralysed. Only one train left yesterday evening for Toulouse. Other trains have had to turn back after having come under machine-gun fire. In the southeast, no trains can pass between Lyon and Valence, as a result of attacks. Communications with Italy are also cut... In practice, Paris is only supplied by the southeast and to a lesser extent by the east.39

Finally, in mid-August, the railwaymen of the Paris region went on strike, completing the paralysis of vital services.40 In June and July, the Allied advance was slow. The fighting in Normandy was heavy and it was only towards the end of July that the front began to move rapidly southeastwards towards Paris. The plight of the Parisians was becoming increasingly desperate. Allied bombings and Resistance sabotage had increasingly cut off the city from the south after April. By mid-May, one observer noted "the great disarray that has taken hold of the people's state of mind. The Parisian population is greatly affected by the incidents that happen one after another: repeated bombings, multiple alerts, inadequate supplies, shortages of gas and electricity; the Parisian sleeps poorly, no longer eats his fill; he is anxious and nervous."41 The Allied landings worsened the city's plight. Henceforth, Paris was isolated from the prosperous farming area of Normandy, which supplied it butter, cheese, and milk. Already the links with the vineyards of Languedoc had been severed, and now the bakeries were seriously short of fuel. Both the Vichy and the provisional governments drew up plans to feed Paris by road in the absence of rail traffic, but as Jean Levy, a leading official in Mayer's commissariat, was aware, there were few grounds for optimism: "It is a question of putting at our disposal 1,000 % ton vans with as many one-ton trailers to transport to Paris the Allied victuals we are receiving at Cherbourg. A simple calculation shows that we are wide of the mark. We must: find drivers (by requisition); organize the roads; requisition the vehicles (in what

154 The Politics of Transport in France TABLE 11 Rail Traffic: Summer Months, 1943-4

Passengers (excluding) Paris region) Goods

May

June

July

Aug.

Sept.

29.5 20.7

31.3 12.6

33.6

35.3

1944

7.3

3.7

31.7 million 5.6 million

1943 1944

8.7 3.2

8.3 2.1

8.0 2.3

7.5 1.3

6.8 m. tons 0.9 m. tons

1943

Source: SNCF, Reweignements statistiques, 1944-5.

kind of state? and for a difficult convoy). And I am not certain of finding someone capable of taking the matter in hand."42 On 25 August after several days of fighting, Paris shook off the German yoke. The soldiers of Leclerc's army mingled with the population, a large part of which had manned the barricades during the days of street combat preceding the arrival of the 2nd Army. In the euphoria generated by the departure of the occupying forces, it seemed to many that prosperity was just around the corner. Now that the German exactions had been stopped, the population could be fed, clothed, and housed. An article in the Socialist party daily, Le Populaire, entitled "Parisians, rest assured: wheat is arriving," promised that "when railway communications have been reestablished, we will soon lose the memory of the restrictions ... The situation has lost its critical aspect, everything will improve quickly and before long Parisians will have a well-garnished table."43 The other newspapers played the same tune in their anxiety to tell the public what it longed to hear, and at least one Resistance group had contributed to the false optimism by calling for an immediate and substantial increase in rations at the Liberation.44 Such optimism was understandable for a population anxious to put behind it five years of privation and enjoy a decent standard of human comfort, but given the state of France at the Liberation it was badly misplaced. The destruction caused by the Allied bombardments and the fighting of 1944 was far more serious than that of 1940, and left the transport system in ruins. The destruction was also qualitatively different from that caused by World War L In 1914-18, the bulk of the damage had been random destruction; the northeast had been almost razed to the

155 Transport and War: The Free French TABLE 12

Value of Destroyed Railway Property (million fr. 1939) Track, bridges, tunnels 1939-40 campaign Allied bombings Resistance sabotage Liberation campaign Retreating Germans Total

Buildings

164

Total

1,070 6,378

7,749

1,234 14,487

512 311

97 430

609 741

3,662 12,293

1,135 9,575

4,797 21,868

ground, but there had been little direct damage elsewhere. The destruction of 1944 was not random, but aimed at specific strategic sites. The Allied bombers picked bridges over major rivers, important railway repair centres, and the sorting yards on the Grande Ceinture line surrounding Paris (Villeneuve-Saint Georges, Noisy, Juvisy, and Acheres). In 1944 the damage was spread throughout the country, because even in areas where there had been no pitched battles, the Resistance had been active in sabotaging both the rail and road networks, and the retreating Germans had systematically destroyed important bridgeheads and rail installations.45 Table 13 indicates the pattern of destruction in the five regions of the SNCF. Fifteen of the nineteen main sorting-yards were destroyed and forty-two machine-depots out of ninety-two were ruined or badly damaged. The sorting-yard of Vaires, on which 2,000 tons of bombs were dropped, was described by one journalist as "a heap of scrapiron, of twisted rails, of wagons piled on top of one another, of uprooted pylons and collapsed buildings, a landscape of death and desolation." Only 18,000 km of the SNCF network (less than half) were in service in September 1944, because of the destruction of the bridgeheads across the main rivers.46 The SNCF'S rolling-stock, already deteriorating because of overuse and lack of repairs during the Occupation, was further depleted during the Liberation, so that by September 1944, the company had only a fraction of the vehicles at its disposal in 1939. Only 3,000 out of 17,000 steam locomotives were usable that month; the figure for wagons was 172,000 out of a prewar

156 The Politics of Transport in France TABLE 13 Regional Distribution of Railway Destruction

East North West Southwest Southeast Total

Bridges, tunnels

Track (km)

Buildings (1000 m2)

911 290 478 398 608

1,756 1,033

1,236

880 415 786

940 490 842

2,685

4,870

4,350

842

Power stations

Block (km)

117 201 89

2,580 2,088 2,486 2,054 2,411 11,619

63 218 688

Source: SNCF, Printipaux resultats statistiques mewuels, 1946-7.

fleet of over 400,000; for railcars 95 out of 610; and for passenger cars less than half of the prewar figure of 28,000.47 For comparison 1939 is not a good date because by that year the SNCF badly needed a transfusion of capital to modernize its equipment, which was ageing and insufficiently specialized. The SNCF had inherited from the grands reseaux 220 different types of steam locomotive with an average age of twenty-eight years. Its wagons were equally old and the average passenger car had been in service for a quarter of a century.48 Road transport was in an even worse state. Massive road repairs were imperative, and at least a tenth of the main roads needed to be completely rebuilt. The fighting of 1944 had completed the damage done by the years of neglect during the Occupation; the roads were particularly bad near the sites of the major battles, in Normandy, Eastern France, and the Rhone.49 Only 310,000 vehicles out of the 2.3 million in circulation in 1939 were in working order: the rest had either died of old age, or were garaged for want of tires or more or less major repairs. Private cars, starved of fuel and spare parts, were the prime victims. But at least 12,000 out of 20,000 buses and 160,000 out of 430,000 trucks had also been lost.50 In the fighting for Paris, up to 2,000 vehicles had been abandoned by the side of the road, many of them serving as barricades in the street fighting. The Ponts et Chaussees engineers sought, not altogether successfully, to salvage as many as possible from looters, who stripped them of their tires, wheels, and accessories to sell them on the lucrative black

157 Transport and War: The Free French

market. The remaining vehicles, three-quarters of which were scrap, were fought over by the Ministry of Industrial Production, the French army, and the American army, which claimed abandoned German vehicles as war booty.51 After the Liberation, 8,200 out of the 9,000 km of commercial waterways were unusable, because of the destruction of locks or because they were blocked with sunken barges and other obstructions. Resistance groups had put many canals out of commission in the North and the Midi to prevent the enemy from using them to supplement the railways; the departing Germans had done the rest. The national barge fleet was 36 per cent smaller as a result of the war. Half of the tug-boats had also been destroyed. As the artisans who operated on the coal routes lacked the funds for reconstruction, little help could be expected from this sector in the near future.52 Jean Monnet, originally a businessman from Cognac who had acquired a vast experience of dealing with the Allies in both world wars, had been diligently lobbying Roosevelt's top advisers since September 1943 to secure American supplies so as to "avoid a breakdown in French life" in the six months following Liberation.53 Manoeuvring adroitly through the minefield of the American political system, he managed to secure a commitment to stockpile food, industrial supplies, transport equipment, and clothing to be ready for shipment once France was liberated. Transport equipment played an increasingly important part in Monnet's scheme of things as he came to realize the extent of the breakdown in communications within France. By May 1944, he was requesting 100,000 trucks with an average pay load of four tons, a request considered reasonable by American civilian officials.54 However, even Monnet was unprepared for what awaited him when he set foot in Paris in September 1944 after four years' absence. His original estimates of France's short-term aid requirements, made in the New Year of 1944, had been based on assumptions of "a German collapse in the near future, of France being thus fully liberated and of no greater destruction or looting by the Germans than exists today."55 All of these assumptions proved in retrospect unduly optimistic. The one bright spot was that formal American recognition of the provisional government facilitated aid negotiations. But with a fifth winter of war looming up, such aid would have to compete for space on Allied shipping vessels with high priority military items.

158 The Politics of Transport in France

In the months after the Liberation, the personnel of the SNCF, the Fonts et Chaussees, and the armed forces worked frantically to get the transport system moving again. In its broken-down state of late 1944 it was a major obstacle to the successful prosecution of the war effort and national economic reconstruction: coal could not be hauled from the northern collieries for want of rail and barge facilities and vital food and raw material imports often remained warehoused for a long time in the ports.56 Moreover, until Paris reestablished contact with the provinces, the provisional government would be unable to control the political situation to ensure that maverick resistance groups, particularly in the south, kept within the framework of "republican legality" and abstained from revolutionary adventures. A herculean effort on the part of tired and undernourished repair workers, often working voluntarily on Sundays or holidays to erect temporary bridges, lay down track, and patch up immobilized locomotives, enabled economic life to resume, albeit at a much reduced level. By late September, the SNCF had organized special trains to collect food from Le Mans, Rennes, Chartres, and Montargis to supply Paris, although the amounts were by no means sufficient to meet the needs of the population.57 In October, the reconnection of Paris and the Nord-Pas-de-Calais allowed the coal trains to begin rolling again, even if the shortage of engines limited the tonnage carried. Repairs in the vicinity of the ports permitted the SNCF to begin clearing the backlog of imported goods. For passenger services, the government set more limited priorities. Given the need to husband scarce resources, there could be no question of the restoration of normal services. Instead the SNCF concentrated on reopening its suburban Parisian facilities to help workers to get back to work, and provided railcar facilities for important officials entrusted with transmitting government directives to the provinces.58 By Christmas, almost half of the destroyed railway bridges had been repaired, most of them temporarily, and 1,200 km of track had been relaid. Consequently, the main lines between Paris and the provinces were again in service, for goods' trains at least. The number of steam locomotives in working order was now 5,200 instead of 3,000.59 Despite this energetic activity, the picture was still far from rosy in the winter of 1944-5. One of the coldest winters in living memory led, according to a report commissioned by the Ministry of Industrial Production, to "an even worse transport situation:

159 Transport and War: The Free French

frozen canals, followed by swollen rivers, black ice on the roads ... There is no factor which allows us to count on an imminent upturn in the transport outlook, which conditions... the entire economic perspective, except a certain increase in the quota of liquid motor fuels. This could only produce its full effect if it were accomplished by an improvement in the state of vehicles and of their tires." Throughout the country there was a similar story: government inspectors in Saint-Quentin, Orleans, Bordeaux, Lyon, Clermont-Ferrand, and Limoges blamed transport shortages for a slowdown in economic activity during the winter months.60 The causes of this crisis were multiple. One basic problem was that the Allied war effort led to heavy military demands for rail transport. French sources estimated that the army was using 40 per cent of locomotives, 50-55 per cent of wagons, 25 per cent of passenger cars, and 50 per cent of railway coal. Important railway lines such as Paris-Marseilles were reserved almost exclusively for military purposes, thereby perpetuating the isolation of the south from the north.61 The principle adopted by the Allied headquarters, to the dismay of Free French economic ministries and American civilian aid experts alike, was the "disease and unrest" formula. That is to say, because of shipping shortages and port damage, the Allies promised only to provide sufficient aid to ward off mass starvation and avert civilian disturbances. As the American General Somerwell put it bluntly: "Provision of resources for liberated areas will not be at the expense of current and projected operations to press the war to its earliest possible conclusion."62 Meanwhile, the percentage of immobilized material was increasing dramatically. Many more locomotives were needing repair because in the absence of depots they were left exposed to the elements. Despite the efforts of all concerned, the rate of repairs was slowing down because many of the repair shops were still without cover and it was impossible to ask underclothed and undernourished men to work in sub-zero temperatures. In addition, as Rene Mayer pointed out, after three months of rapid reconstruction the SNCF had "almost reached the limit of those track repairs, almost exhausted our material means of patching up those locomotives and wagons capable of being repaired easily without having to be completely rebuilt."63 Many of the early repairs of locomotives had been accomplished, for example, by stripping pieces from engines which were fit only for the scrapheap.

160 The Politics of Transport in France

The other forms of transport were unable to plug the gap. Amid much fanfare, the first convoys of coal-barges began arriving in Paris in mid-November, but the inland waterways were virtually unusable for most of the winter. The locks froze up and during the thaw there was considerable flooding.64 The bad weather also affected road transport. Allied aid in the form of gasoline captured from the retreating Germans helped only marginally, according to a report from Poitiers in the southwest, "since the majority of vehicles are powered by charcoal and the shortage of tires is still as severe as ever," a complaint echoed in Bordeaux and Lyon.65 Commercial vehicles began rolling off the conveyor belt at Renault, but many were stockpiled at Boulogne-Billan court for lack of tires.66 Truck convoys run by the French army had performed a useful stopgap function, but the shifts of eighteen to twenty-one hours were beginning to take a heavy toll of both drivers and vehicles.67 The consequence of these difficulties was that the population spent another miserable winter of want and suffering, the worst of the whole war. The supply of foodstuffs coming into Paris by rail fluctuated at a level far below that necessary to provide adequate nutrition. Of the 12,000-15,000 wagons needed daily to supply the nation's food requirements, never more than 8,000 had been available; in January and February 1945, the figure dipped to less than 6,000.68 Under these conditions, one authority estimated that the daily calorific intake of a Parisian adult dropped to between 1,050 and 1,320 in the winter of 1944-5, far below the daily minimum requirement of 2,000-2,400 calories.69 The problem was equally serious in the grain-deficient south. The military monopoly of the Paris-Marseilles line prevented sufficient supplies from reaching the Midi. Housewives demonstrated in several southern towns and a cinema showing of The Private Life of Henry VIII was cancelled in Nice for fear that the sight of the royal feasting would provoke riots.70 The difficulties in supplying Paris and the major cities brought to the surface serious divisions within the Resistance concerning the future orientation of the transport sector and of the economy as a whole. For the left, which dominated the Comite Parisien de Liberation, the supply problems were not simply the result of "objective" difficulties, such as the lack of tires and vehicles. They also indicated sabotage on the part of those who regretted the passing of Vichy and the "New Order."71 Andre Toilet, the Communist president of the Paris committee, alleged that

161 Transport and War: The Free French TABLE 14

Tonnage of Food Arriving Monthly by Rail in Paris, 1938-45

Meat Eggs Butter Cheese

1938

(by road)

3,607 666 637 1,123

(2,034) (306) (84) (261)

Dec. 1944

Jan. 1945

3,303

2,809

437 116 395

608 241 427

Feb. 1945 2,867

490 196 739

Sources: Durand, La SNCF, 255; Le Monde, 15 February and 18-19 March 1945.

the harm comes above all from the men of Vichy who have held onto their positions just about everywhere, in the offices of the Ministry of Supply as in those of Public Works and Transports.

The government was not finding sufficient trucks and tires because it was using the wrong methods to ferret them out. To send a policeman shod in hobnail boots on the lookout for trucks is not the best way. We must rather use the tip-offs supplied by the local inhabitants and by the personnel of the transport firms. Only they are aware of the tricks used by those unpatriotic transporters whose lack of a sense of civic duty causes them to hold onto trucks and tires and put them into service when the material of their competitors is worn out.72

Toilet and Monmousseau, another Communist and a veteran of the CGT railwaymen's union, called for a more far-reachin purge of the SNCF, the public sector, and the road-transporters' organizations to weed out those suspected of wartime collaboration. Their call for reliance on popular mobilization, demonstrated by the Communist formation of housewives' action groups to protest against the food shortages, revealed a more radical approach to politics, with echoes of the sans-culottes of 1793-4, than was acceptable to the nonsocialist wing of the Resistance, which sought to avoid popular upheaval and relied more on "experts" to carry out postwar reconstruction.73 It was also an effective way of diverting urban anger at the shortages away from the peasantry, which the party was eager to cultivate.74 The Left (Communists, Socialists, and Christian trade-unions) further demanded an extension of public ownership in the new France. Both Tournemaine, the Communist railwaymen's leader, the Paillieux, his Christian counterpart, used the reconstituted

162 The Politics of Transport in France

board of directors of the SNCF as a forum to demand the nationalization of road haulage. Paillieux argued that given the destruction of roads and the lack of vehicles and petrol, the problem of the coordination of transports needed to be reviewed: "As far as possible, road transport, at least long-distance road transport, should ... be integrated into the overall organization of transport, of which the SNCF should be, as it were, the kernel and the driving-force."75 In order to cope with the breakdown of the Paris supply system, Roger Deniau, the member of the Paris Liberation Committee responsible for food supply, argued that it was necessary to carry out a full-scale requisition of road transport. The mobilized vehicles should be put at the disposal of the Ministry of Supplies. To increase the size of the trucking fleet, he advocated requisitioning broken-down vehicles and setting the unemployed to work on repairing them. Tires should be taken off cars and put on vans. He also urged that the owners of heavy goods' vehicles that were off the road because they allegedly lacked tires should be thrown in jail. If repressive measures were taken, the "missing" tires would soon show up. The mobilized vehicles should be organized into convoys to scour the countryside for food.76 Deniau, Toilet, and the left were articulating the frustrations of the inhabitants of cities like Paris and Marseilles. Exasperated by the prospect of yet another winter of dearth, the urban workingclass - less likely than the bourgeoisie to have country relatives sending food packages and less able to pay black market prices77 - was infuriated by the thought that many of the men responsible for bringing them victuals had served the Ministry of Supply under Vichy and the Occupation. If the Liberation was to satisfy popular aspirations, to lead towards "les lendemains qui chantent," a purge of collaborators and far-reaching structural reform would be necessary. Rene Mayer and his advisers saw matters from a different perspective. Mayer operated from the assumption that "the controlled economy is a misfortune with which we must live and to which we must accommodate ourselves."78 For this reason, he was compelled to apply dirigiste methods, although at heart he was, and would remain, a liberal. The measures Mayer introduced in North Africa and in liberated France represented a compromise between those of Vichy and the Third Republic. As at Vichy, the Ponts et Chaussees played a pivotal role, ensuring effective state control throughout the country. Alongside them, the permanent officials of the ministry argued, it was necessary to retain the professional groups sponsored by Vichy, while modify-

163 Transport and War: The Free French

ing the personnel. In a memorandum on the Organization Committee for public works' enterprises, which set out ministerial thinking on professional organization in general, Robert Levi justified this choice as follows: "The Comite d'Organization du Batiment et des Travaux Publics exists and contains elements capable of rendering sterling service. It is therefore necessary to put the great majority of the personnel and documentation which these services possess to good use, while eliminating the suspect elements." The committees should be modified in such a way as to abandon central control and revert to market forces as soon as possible.79 Instead of relying on popular mobilization, the ministry preferred to retain the existing administrative framework, using the Organization Committees, or their equivalent, as a source of information about economic activity and as a means of transmitting ministerial directives. The delicacy of the economic situation prevented the direct abolition of all Vichy institutions demanded by the internal resistance movements. Consequently, Mayer's response to the Left's accusations of "the government's shirking of its responsibilities" was to increase the sanctions against individuals found guilty of trafficking on the black market: those guilty were liable to heavier fines and the confiscation of their vehicles. Local authorities were authorized to set up municipal or departmental transport services to maximize the use of vehicles and ensure supplies.80 Mayer also negotiated a deal whereby Britain would provide France with 30,000 tires and 1,000 reconditioned army trucks.81 However, he rejected the call for a full-scale call-up of transport, arguing that the government already had sufficient powers to force transporters to use their vehicles for specified priorities. It was illusory to suggest that the crisis could be resolved by establishing homogeneous convoys of the type demanded by the Left: the trucks available in Paris were a rag-bag assortment, some running on diesel, others on gazogene, and therefore had widely differing performances, which would hamper convoy organization. The difficulty which had to be faced squarely was the lack of tires and the priority of military needs. Despite an overwhelming vote in the Assembly (151 to 16) and mass demonstrations organized by the Paris Liberation Committee, he refused to budge, and as de Gaulle chose to ignore the parliamentary vote, the matter rested there. With the coming of spring, the pressure on the population began to ease. The warmer weather cut down the demand for energy, the canals and roads were once more negotiable, and on 8 May the Allies finally achieved victory in arms against Germany.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Transport and the Plan

In the summer and fall of 1945, the omens for a socialist reorientation of transport and of French society as a whole seemed very favourable. There was a general consensus in favour of radical change, a feeling that "classical capitalism has collapsed and there is no chance of it being replaced by something similar."1 This consensus was reflected in the elections of October 1945 for the Constituent Assembly. The Communist and Socialist parties won a majority of the seats for the first time in French history. The Right, associated in the public mind with Vichy, was decimated. Most of its former supporters rallied to the new Christian Democratic party, the Mouvement des Republicans Populaires (MRP), whose leaders had endorsed the program of the National Resistance Council, which called for "the return of the nation of all the large-scale monopolies of production, the fruits of common labour, energy sources, underground wealth, the insurance companies and the banks."2 With regard to transport, the SNCF enjoyed enormous prestige at the end of the war, because of the part the railwaymen had played in the preparations for the Liberation and the reconstruction efforts of the winter and spring of 1945. As a result of the war, the cheminots had almost recaptured their old transport monopoly and with it their self-confidence, much to the chagrin of the "automobile lobby." Symptomatic of the SNCF'S faith in the future was an exhibition it mounted in 1942 at Lyon-Perrache station, depicting the railways as the only mode of transport not dependent on a foreign energy source, the only one capable of meeting the challenges of war.3 The arrival in November 1945 of Jules Moch at the new Ministry of Public Works, Transport and Tourism - at Moch's

165 Transport and the Plan

request, the ministry had been expanded to encompass civil aviation, previously the responsibility of the Ministry of Air - also augured well for the proponents of a socialist transport policy. Over two decades, he had evolved a transport strategy based on a nationalized railway network, alongside which would coexist two road transport sectors: "the large capitalist firms, to be nationalized in conjunction with the railways, and the mass of artisan transporters to be grouped in regional unions and contractually bound to the railway administration."4 However, within the space of four years, these hopes had all been reversed. The pro-socialist consensus dissolved. The Communist party passed from the mainstream of political life into the ghetto. The Socialists remained in government, but as the prisoners of their coalition partners, not as the hub of a reformist alliance. The Radicals, now thoroughly tamed, had a modest revival, and the conservative Christian Democratic rank-and-file caused the MRP to drop its socialisant tendencies of 1945. The SNCF increasingly became one of the main targets of discontent with the performance of the public sector. In 1949, it was dubbed the Societe Nationale du Cafouillis [mess] Frangais by the satirical Canard Enchame and was subject to frequent attacks in Parliament and the press.5 As for M. Moch, he was no longer in charge of transport, but as minister of the interior was premier flic de France. His most publicized activity was the crushing of Communist-led strikes in the Nord and Marseilles. To explain this turn of events, let us begin by briefly looking again at the ideological climate in liberated France. "Socialism" and "liberty" are the two words which recur time after time in the political discourse of 1944-5. The program of the National Resistance Council, which is as good an expression as any of these aspirations, was a common reference point for the three major parties, while de Gaulle himself had castigated capitalism in his speech at Lille in October 1944.6 However, the Resistance program was very general and glossed over ideological differences such as those apparent between liberals like Rene Mayer and the Left during the debate about the supplying of Paris. Phrases like "return to the nation" were chosen instead of more precise terms like nationalization - let alone socialization - to maintain the unity of the Resistance. As Jules Moch saw it, the program was "clearly inspired by socialism," but its terms "could be and perhaps have been interpreted differently by signatories as diverse as the delegates of the right

166 The Politics of Transport in France

wing Federation Republicaine and the Alliance Democratique on the one hand and the Socialists and Communists on the other."? For the Socialists, nationalization was a necessary step in transition from capitalism to socialism, for the Communists a way of punishing those suspected of economic collaboration with the Germans.8 For others, like Pierre Lefaucheux, the managing director of the newly nationalized Renault car company, the aims of public ownership were to improve economic efficiency by freeing management from the pressure to produce annual dividends for the shareholders and so allowing them to plan ahead; to eliminate wasteful competition; to improve industrial statistics, and to draw professional organizations into the running of the economy. The alternative to traditional capitalism was the managerial revolution, not socialism. Men like Lefaucheux belonged to the democratic wing of the intellectual tradition which had produced Vichyite technocrats like Jean Berthelot.9 At the same time there remained a considerable latent opposition to state intervention on the part of the business community, the peasantry, and the shopkeepers. Among the conservative minority which opposed Vichy, perhaps the most important unifying element was opposition to dirigisme. The Parisian deputy, Joseph Denais, and the automobile spokesman, Maurice Goudard, denied the claim of both Vichy and the majority of the Resistance that bourgeois liberalism was largely to blame for the debacle of 1940.10 But for the moment, the initiative was with the Left, and the employers' associations and conservative political parties were slow to regroup, tainted as they were with the accusation of wartime collaboration.l1 When it came to deciding on policies for specific sectors of the economy, the ideological differences were even more readily apparent and were reinforced by deeply held corporate loyalities. The National Resistance Council and the provisional government at Algiers had made no official statements about the policy to be followed in various sectors of the economy, partly because they were preoccupied with immediate problems and partly because de Gaulle felt it was necessary to "rendre la parole aux Fran$ais" instead of imposing policy from above.12 Courtin's report, analysed in chapter 7, expressed only the viewpoint of its author and was never formally adopted by either the provisional government or the Assemblee Constituante Provisoire.13 In the aftermath of the war there was no Resistance consensus on what transport policy should be followed. It was easy enough to agree that the first priority should be reconstruction, and that the rail-

167 Transport and the Plan

ways should bear the brunt of this task. Beyond that, the only point of agreement was that it was necessary to avoid a return to the coordination policies of the 1930s. Roger Guibert of the SNCF defied anybody to defend the prewar approach. The Cercle des Transports, a group of influential transport experts and economists which had begun meeting in occupied France to discuss the future shape of transportation, criticized it for being exclusively concerned with financial equilibrium, instead of with finding ways to provide the optimum service at the lowest cost. The prewar system, it was generally agreed, had been a protectionist device framed in response to the depression. It had no future relevance.14 It was one thing to agree on a critique of past mistakes. The policy of the future was a different matter. Some, notably the railway unions, favoured a nationalized transport system built around the SNCF. The SNCF should be allowed to carry road traffic directly instead of farming it out to subsidiaries like SCETA, which were suspected of being capitalist enclaves in the public sector.15 The SNCF management objected to this proposal on the grounds that a road-rail monopoly would be unwieldy and bureaucratic. Even so, it too wanted control over long-distance transport, by means of a freight office which would distribute traffic to the road or the railways in such a way as to avoid cut-throat competition. The call for free competition was Utopian and would lead to wasteful duplication of services.l6 The suggestions of the Cercle des Transports represented a compromise between the dirigisme of the SNCF and the liberalism of the road lobby. The Cercle agreed with the SNCF that it was desirable to set up a freight office "outside the SNCF but closely dependent on it." At the same time, it proposed a number of safeguards to prevent the emergence of a stifling monopoly. Clients should be free to choose whether they wished to send their goods by road or by rail. A free sector should exist alongside the sector controlled by the freight office. The size of the free sector should be controlled to prevent excessive competition, but this control should be in the form of a limit on the global capacity of the long-distance fleet, rather than the prewar approach of setting up a monopoly on each run. Finally, the government should relax some of the SNCF'S traditional "public service" obligations to give it greater flexibility. The result would be a mixed economy in the transport sector.17 Liberalism still had its advocates at the end of the war. As we have seen, Rene Courtin was most anxious to guard against the growth of an SNCF "trust," fed by public funds and swallowing up

168 The Politics of Transport in France

the entire transport sector. This was also the approach of the automobile lobby. While some differences between car-makers and transporters persisted, the most impressive aspect of their publications at the end of the war was the unaimity with which they denounced the twin dangers of an SNCF monopoly and of the maintenance of wartime controls. Pierre Boulanger, Citroen's managing director, used the 1945 annual general meeting of his firm as a tribune to call for the dismantling of controls and the abandonment of the "pro-railway" policies of the 1930s. Before a crowd of 400 truckers, A. Magnaval, the vice-president of the Parisian road transporters' association, deplored "the number of demarches^ formalities and red tape the transporters are put through, at a time when trucks are sitting idle in carparks" (a reference both to the trucks recuperated after the Liberation and to those imported from Britain early in 1945). The official responsible for coordinating road transport in the Card summarized the feelings of the road haulers of Languedoc as follows: "In general, the trucker is a gentleman who likes to get his hands dirty and whose main concern is to make sure his gazogene engine is working. To my mind, the bureaucrats would do well to bear this in mind."18 Even the small Communist transport workers' union, which had denounced the road transport employers as fascists in the 1930s, spoke out against controls and called for the profession to band together against the imperialistic SNCF, in sharp contrast to the line pushed by the railwaymen's unions.19 Hence when Moch took over at the Boulevard Saint-Germain in November 1945, he was confronted with a serious dilemma. There was an urgent necessity to revitalize and modernize the transport sector, which in its existing shape constituted a major obstacle to economic reconstruction. Ideally, the best way to go about this was to arrive at a transport policy specifying the roles of the various modes of transport and draw up a coordinated investment program in the light of that. The lack of agreement within the transport world meant that in all probability the framing of a consensual policy would take time - and time was in short supply, given the wretched state of the economy and the depths to which living standards had fallen. Nor was a quick political solution likely. Parliament already had a busy agenda ahead of it debating the constitution of the new Fourth Republic and discussing the nationalizing of coal, gas, electricity, and credit. The prospects of fitting in a debate on transport policy were dim indeed. As a result, Moch's response to his dilemma was to avoid discussion of the transport policy of the future until there was suffi-

169 Transport and the Plan

cient time to debate it properly in Parliament.20In the meantime, he used the existing decrees rationing gasoline and restricting road transport activity to ensure that the railways retained their central role in French transportation. He also fought within the government to increase the SNCF'S quota of raw materials, notably ferrous metals, at the expense of the automobile industry, claiming that for every unit of metal consumed the railways could transport more goods and passengers than the road.21 The upshot was that the discussion of postwar transport policy was deferred once more, and early reconstruction took place in the context of a legislative mosaic, comprising pieces from the 1930s, Vichy, and Algiers. For the first two years after the end of the war, the transport sector worked full tilt to get the country back on its feet. At first, because of the enormity of the task and the enfeebled condition of road transport and inland navigation, the railways carried the main burden, a burden they were ill-equipped to bear. By 1945 the SNCF desperately needed an infusion of investment in new engines, rolling-stock, track, and workshop material. Even back in 1943, Mayer had estimated that after the war France would require 1,000 steam engines, 40,000 deep-sided wagons, 20,000 flat wagons, 40,000 covered wagons, and 1,000 tankers. Since then, the unexpected scale of the destruction of 1944 had added to the SNCF'S needs.22 Given the derelict state of domestic industry, the SNCF'S capital needs had to be met by imports. Following Franco-American negotiations led by Jean Monnet early in 1945 the railways ordered 1,340 steam engines, 75 diesels, and 38,250 wagons. This material took time to arrive, because the American railway construction industry had a full order book until the end of 1945. In any case the ending of the Lend-Lease scheme prevented this from being more than a short-term solution. The crippling shortage of foreign currency posed an obstacle to future overseas' orders.23 A further difficulty was the continued coal shortage, which had severe repercussions on the SNCF. In 1945 the amount of coal available in France was only 3.4 million tons per month compared to 5.8 million tons monthly in 1938, because of decreased production and the lack of coal available on the world market. This cut the SNCF'S monthly quota from 743,000 tons in 1938 to 560,000 tons in 1945. The quality of coal was also inadequate: high-grade "Cardiff was in short supply and the coal from the Nord contained an abnormal amount of cinders and stones.24

170 The Politics of Transport in France

The lack of coal also slowed down the recovery of the steel industry, and hence the amount of metal available to the construction industry. This retarded the replacement of temporary bridges with permanent ones. As a result, train speeds had to be limited, driving up fuel consumption, because of the relative lack of solidity of many installations. The rail-producing industry suffered particularly badly from the coal shortage. As a result, the SNCF was only gradually able to replace track removed by the Germans. The rate of rail renewal fell even further behind schedule.25 Again, this pushed up fuel consumption and costs: "Many installations are still single-tracked," explained Rene Mayer, "and this necessitates detours or slower speeds; the locomotive travels less than normal, so that the expenses per kilometre are higher."26 Coal consumption per train-kilometre rose from 21.3 kilograms in 1938 to 29 in 1945. There was thus a vicious circle: more coal was needed to fuel the reconstruction and rail-producing industries, in order to overcome the inefficient use of energy on the railways.27 Despite these handicaps, the railways managed to play an indispensable role in postwar economic reconstruction. In 1945 and 1946 they carried 596 and 696 million passengers compared to 540 million in 1938 and 765 million in 1929.28 For goods' traffic, the achievement was less spectacular: 68.9 million tons in 1945 and 126 million tons in 1946 compared to 132 million tons in 1938 and 223 million tons in 1929. When measured in passenger- and ton-kilometres, the 1946 figures were well above those of 1938. This was not an unqualified blessing because one of the main reasons for the increased length of the average haul was that the damaged state of the network and the postwar economic imbalances often imposed the necessity for an economically irrational rerouting of trains.29 The speed of the railways' recovery varied tremendously from region to region. The more badly damaged eastern and northern regions, comprising France's industrial heartland, were slower to recover than the other three. The first region to recover was the southwest, where many of the lines were electrified.30 These results were not primarily the result of heavy capital investments, because it was only during the course of 1946 that the imported engines and rolling-stock began to be put into service. Instead, the most important factor was increased labour inputs. The workforce increased from 419,000 in 1944 to 467,000 in 1945 and almost 495,000 in 1946; this was still over 20,000 short of the 1938 total, but the average working week was now

171 Transport and the Plan TABLE 15 Regional Railway Traffic Variations, 1938-50 Passenger traffic a

East North West Southwest Southeast^

1938

1945

1946

1947

1948

1949

1950

100 100 100 100 100

104 129 163 102

71

98 122 148 164 120

97 111 137 142 115

92 114 137 133 119

86 106 126 119 113

98 118 107 99

118 91 169 113 142

135 97 143 93 136

129 97 118 94 124

77

Goods' traffic c East North West Southwest Southeast k

100 100 100 100 100

27 51 73 84 78

74 83 131 120 125

93 83 162 122 128

Source: SNCF, Principaux resultats statistiques mensuels, 1938,1945-50. a approximation based on June-December. b includes Mediterranean region after 1947. c approximation based on September-December.

forty-eight hours compared to forty.31 In addition, the railwaymen's unions exhorted their members to work hard for the restoration of the national economy: this was the period of Communist participation in the government, when party and union leaders like Thorez and Frachon toured the length and breadth of the country praising production as the highest form of class consciousness.32 By October 1945, as a result of the railwaymen's efforts, almost the entire network was back in operation. In a year, the number of steam locomotives in running order had increased from 3,000 to 8,000 (over 15,000 in 1938); the number of wagons was up from less than 200,000 to 270,000 although this was only three-fifths of the 1938 figure.33 In the drive for results, the quality of service suffered. Passenger trains and wagons were loaded to capacity - and even beyond! The average occupancy of passenger trains declined slowly from its peak of 596 in November 1944 to 401 in October

172 The Politics of Transport in France TABLE 16

Train Delays, 1938-47 (%) Passengers

1938

1945

1946

1947

Express (15 minutes /more) Others (15 minutes/more) Leave trains (15 minutes/more) Commuter (5 minutes /more)

5.9 1.9 -

21.4 11.4a 51.4b

14.0

0.9

6.2

12.2 4.9 29.5 2.9

5.9 8.2 -

41. 3a 25.8a 58.4 a 4l.5a

19.8 10.1 34.4 21.4

7.2 30.4

2.3

Goods

Parcel trains (1/2 hour) (1 hour) Goods' trains (1/2 hour) (1 hour)

18.6

9.3 28.8 16.9

Source: SNCF, Principaux multats statistiques mensuels, 1938, 1945-7. a approximation based on June-December. b approximation based on September-December.

1945 and 272 in March 1946, as services on the less busy secondary lines resumed, but trains remained far more crowded than they had been in 1938 (average occupancy: 78). The average load per wagon increased from nine tons in 1938 to twelve in 1945-6; in the same year, the SNCF managed to improve its turnaround time for wagons from the prewar average of twelve days to eight.34 But these achievements, conjured out of old material and overworked, underfed personnel, were accomplished only at the cost of an increased number of accidents and delays. At the same time the SNCF began to take measures to improve its productivity and competivity. The arrival of the locomotives ordered from the United States in 1946 heralded a revolution in work organization which made possible dramatic gains in labour productivity. Traditionally, because of their shortage of quality coal, the French railways had concentrated their efforts on developing Compound locomotives which were highly economical in their consumption of coal as opposed to the more robust engines of Germany or the United States, which devoured coal by comparison. The main drawback of the French engines was their extreme complexity and sensitivity; they required careful handling which could only be guaranteed by entrusting each engine to one crew. The shortening of the working day between the wars

173 Transport and the Plan

meant that French locomotives might only be in service for six or seven hours daily, once the time necessary for preparation and minor repairs carried out by the engine crew was taken into account. The railways sought to overcome these drawbacks by training specialized repair groups and by assigning two teams to some engines. But these were only half-measures, and the doublecrew system complicated the drawing up of work-rotas. The SNCF therefore used the opportunity of the massive postwar investment program to design the 141-R, a robust, all-purpose American engine, and to make a rapid transition to banalisation, whereby any team could drive any engine. The 141-R goods' engine travelled an average of 185 km per day compared to 70 km for the prewar models, and so more than compensated for its extra coal consumption by reducing the amount of manpower and the number of steam locomotives required by the railways.35 The arrival of the 141-R was significant because the SNCF was able to take advantage of the temporary improvement in industrial relations in 1945-6 to introduce more flexible labour practices, which were extended throughout the railway industry. It also provided a golden opportunity to standardize the disparate material of the old companies. In 1946, the SNCF also took measures to improve its commercial organization by reforming its antiquated tariff structure, moving away from the ad valorem principle, which based the tariff on the value of goods carried, towards a rate structure based on the actual cost of carrying goods. This reform was designed to put the SNCF on a more businesslike footing, enabling it to compete with the truckers for the carriage of more lucrative items which had borne the top rates under the ad valorem system.36 A second aim of the reform was to differentiate rates according to the cost of transport on any given line. The existing rate structure, designed to foster the economic development of all regions of the country, made no distinction between the rates on a busy line like ParisLyon and those on a poorly used branch line, although unit costs could vary by over 1:10 from line to line. On the busiest lines, the SNCF was liable to be undercut by truckers because its rate structure was such that it was often charging at far more than cost.37 These changes could be introduced only very slowly because the viability of entire regions like Brittany and the Massif Central depended in large part on artificially cheap railway rates. The SNCF, in agreement with the ministry, accordingly planned a gradual transition to the new cost-based system. An earlier step had been the simplification of the rate structure in 1937, incor-

174 The Politics of Transport in France

porating the introduction of a ceiling on rates for wagon-loads to encourage the use of this more economically rational form of shipment. In 1946-7, the railways took a second, more radical step, basing their rates not on the value of the goods "but on their density, which determines the weight which one can load on a standard wagon." Rates could vary within two limits, an upper limit, the price at which competitors could carry the same goods and a lower one, that of the marginal cost of transporting the goods concerned. The SNCF also abolished the old schema whereby customers could decide whether to send goods by slow or fast trains; henceforth the SNCF would decide according to the type of goods involved. This simplified traffic organization, but led to complaints from customers because of the lack of choice.38 Finally, the SNCF introduced more attractive rates for clients using their own branch lines and wagons, or shipping by trainload or container, to give them an incentive to ship goods by the cheapest methods. The effect of these measures was often to cut rates on those items subject to competition by the waterways or the roads, and these interests naturally complained that the SNCF was trying to kill them off.39 The roads and waterways played only a minor role in the immediate postwar years. Automobile production picked up slowly, with the early emphasis falling on commercial vehicles. By October 1945, more trucks and vans were being turned out monthly than in 1938, although car production had not even reached one-tenth of the prewar level. The lack of steel imposed strict limits on the speed of the take-off of this sector.40 As yet production was inadequate to provide a road fleet large enough to challenge the SNCF, the more so because a substantial proportion of total output was destined for the export market to win vitally needed foreign currency. The level of vehicle ownership was quickest to recover in the south and southwest, where war damage had been less severe.41 The revival of the waterways was even more sluggish. Here again, the north and the east were slower to recover than the less important waterways of the Midi and the west. A lack of credits, an imperative need because of the artisan structure of much of the industry, slowed down the construction of a modern boatfleet and the long-overdue modernization of the river and canal fleet to bring it up to the standards of its neighbours.42 Alongside reconstruction, the other crucial economic issue of 1945-6 was modernization. In response to the demands of both

175 Transport and the Plan FIGURE 14

Car Ownership, 1938-46

Source: L'Argus de I Automobile, 25 April 1946.

the Vichy and Liberation governments, the SNCF had revised the ten-year plan of 1940-1 to take into account the changes in conditions since 1941. It had also drafted a list of minimum investment requirements in January 1944 for the first two years after the end of hostilities. These plans were extremely sketchy and tentative as they were made in a vacuum, based on purely theoretical assumptions about postwar costs, the availability of men, materials, and capital and the level of postwar economic activity - until 1946, the SNCF was working under the assumption that traffic would peak at its level of 1938.43 At the beginning of 1946, Jean Monnet was commissioned to draw up a Plan de Modernisation et d'Equipement, aimed at providing the sense of direction which had hitherto been lacking. Monnet believed that if the government hoped to mobilize people to cooperate in reconstruction it must capture their imagination by setting out bold projects for the future and involve men and women from all walks of life in the formulation of the plan.

176 The Politics of Transport in France

Consequently, the Monnet plan specified a small number of goals to be achieved over five years, as a means of ensuring coherence and purpose in national economic policy and showing the United States that the Fourth Republic would not fritter away American credits. Its basic premise was that "to arrive at an improvement in the living standards of the French people, it is essential, if one wants this to be a lasting achievement... to attack the very root of the evil and to undertake the modernization of the French economy."44 In practice the first step was the overhauling of the basic industries - energy, transport, machine-tools, iron and steel and, a later addition, agricultural machinery - in order to overcome the accumulated structural defects impeding national economic growth. Only after this indispensable preliminary stage was successfully completed could the manufacturing and consumer goods' industries receive a larger share of national investments.45 In its insistence on France's need for reequipment as a means of achieving national grandeur, the Monnet Plan was a successor to the plans drawn up under Vichy. In practice, there were considerable differences. Monnet's plan was far more "open." Although he deliberately limited the size of the Planning Commissariat responsible for producing the overall project, he created large subcommissions for each branch of the economy and invited the participation of the trade unions, which had been excluded by Vichy.46 The transport subcommission therefore comprised the ministerial specialists, management delegates, engineers, and trade unionists for each form of transport.47 The way in which the plan was drawn up also differed. In 1940-1, Berthelot had not drafted targets for the amount of traffic to be carried over a specified period. To have done so would have been unrealistic given the economic chaos of the Occupation. Instead the emphasis was largely on target projects, for example the electrification of certain railways or the construction of major highways. The Vichy plan was the work of a technician, not an economist: the projects tended to become ends in themselves, rather than the instrument to achieve set economic goals. In part this was a result of Berthelot's engineering background, but the plan of 1940-1 was also conceived as a public works' program to prevent the unemployed being sent to work in Germany.48 The transport commission of 1946 started off with a set of target figures for the amount of traffic it would be necessary to carry to achieve the overall aims of the plan. The plan aimed to reach

177 Transport and the Plan TABLE 17 Composition of the Transport Subcommission of the Monnet Plan State Rail Road Waterways Air Others Total

1 1 2 2 3 8

Management 5 3 2b 1

Engineers

Workers

2a

2 2 1 2

1 3

11

Others

8 8 5 5 4 30

lc 1

7

a One Fonts et Chaussees, one private sector, b One company delegate, one artisan, c The editor of La Vie des Transports.

TABLE 18

Traffic Targets of the Monnet Plan

Rail Water Road

7929

1938

1946

1947

1948

1949

1950

168 111 -

100 100 100

98 50 81

120 62 96

142 90 111

165 120 121

180 130 133

Source: Commissariat General du Plan, Premier rapport de la commission de modernisation des transports interieurs, September 1946, 9.

the 1938 level of production by the end of 1946, catch up with the predepression level in 1948, and reach a level 25 per cent beyond that by the end of 1950. The commission then predicted the respective shares of the railways, waterways, and roads for each year up to 1950, putting the emphasis on the railways for the early years and gradually anticipating a more balanced growth in the later years. These were global estimates: the commission anticipated that carriage of coal, steel, petrol, building materials, and fertilizers would expand more rapidly than the norm because of the plan's emphasis on the basic industries.49 On the basis of predictions, the commission drew up a list of investment needs in terms of vehicles and infrastructural improvements for each form of transport. Given postwar auster-

178 The Politics of Transport in France TABLE 19

Monnet Plan: Vehicle Investments, 1946-8a Equipment needed to reach target

SNCF

Water

Road

Locomotives steam: 14,000 electric: 990 Coaches: 22,500 Wagons: 41 5,000 Railcars: 750 Yard-engines Road-rail trailers 3 million tons carrying capacity

260,000 commercial vehicles of 2 tons or more, at least 14 years old 15,000 buses

Domesticorders

130 1,500 35,180

Import needs"

1,340 100 diesel

85,250

350 1,250 900 barges 521 motor barges 100 700ton barges 600 iron barges 300 motor barges0 174,000 2-ton- + trucks

50 gasoline barges +

a number of boats = to 25% of total capacity

26,000 new trucks 12,000 surplus

Source: Premier rapport..., 10.

a Table excludes targets for secondary railways and urban transit, b All but 40,000 wagons had already been ordered, c To replace 1,000 wooden barges.

ity and France's lack of foreign currency, the plan emphasized material for goods' transport, particularly bulk goods. The bus industry and the SNCF'S passenger service received only limited attention.

179 Transport and the Plan

As far as investment in infrastructure was concerned, the intention was to profit from the opportunity of reconstruction to improve the capacity of the transport network and equip it to meet the needs of a rapidly expanding economy. For this reason, the plan included some of the projects promoted by Jean Berthelot, notably the electrification of Paris-Lyon; the creation of larger sorting-yards to accelerate goods' transport; the building of motorways to decongest the approaches to Paris, plus a motorway from Paris to Belgium; the deepening of the major waterways to allow large barges to circulate. This program was not as grandiose as that of 1940-1. The electrification program had been cut back and the trans-European road and canal links had been eliminated. Nevertheless, given France's limited means, even when supplemented by American aid, it was a more realistic program.50 Its major weaknesses were twofold. For one thing, funding was not guaranteed. Because the major source of funds was the Treasury, which channelled Marshall Aid, the achievement of the investment program depended on the political influence of the spokesmen for the various branches of the economy. In this respect, the coal industry proved more successful than the transport sector.51 The other flaw stemmed from the decision to formulate an investment plan in the absence of guidelines on how transport was to be coordinated. As a result, the members of the commission were almost "completely in the dark"52 about the respective place of the various modes of transport in the economy of the future, and so tended to fight for the expansion of their own sector to the detriment of its competitors. The most important example concerned the role of long-distance heavy goods' vehicles. The majority of the commission decided that as these had higher productivity than small trucks, the automobile industry should put more emphasis on them than it had done before the war. The SNCF representatives objected that increased production of heavy goods' vehicles would lead to "a growth of longdistance road transport, running parallel to the best-equipped railway lines, that is to say a waste of resources." 53This problem of the lack of a government transport policy led to a delay in the formulation of the transport chapter in later versions of the plan.54 From the middle of 1947, the atmosphere in the transport world began to change. The lustre of the SNCF, hitherto acclaimed as an artisan of national reconstruction, began to fade and a road lobby emerged to demand that postwar coordination be more liberal than that of the 1930s.

180 The Politics of Transport in France

To some extent, this shift was the result of the collapse of the tripartite coalition of Communists, Socialists, and Christian Democrats which had governed France from November 1945 until May 1947 and had been responsible for nationalizing coal, gas, electricity, and the major banks. The international drift towards cold war and internal strains between the various components of the coalition came to a head in the spring of 1947, and on 4 May, the Communist ministers left the government over a disagreement on how to handle a major strike which had broken out at Renault. Although it was by no means clear at first that the coalition was dead, the unwillingness of the Christian Democrats to govern alongside the Communists and the increasingly hard line adopted by the international Communist movement in the summer of 1947 made the end of "tripartism" inevitable.55 A second development in the first half of 1947 was the explosion of popular discontent with dirigisme. As the months ticked by after the end of the war, and successive governments failed to take measures to restore prewar living standards, there developed a malaise, bordering on contempt, at the mixture of austerity and disorder which characterized the Fourth Republic: the black market, which put a premium on ingenuity and dishonesty; rampant inflation, the scourge of the economically defenceless; constant power-cuts; trials of Resistance heroes for alleged speculation or treason; the continuing disparities between the hungry cities and regions like the Pays de la Loire, described by the president of the republic as a land of cockaigne where "you can eat and drink to your heart's content" (on mange et on boit tout son saoul").*6 In that same month of May when the Communists left the government, a crowd of 6,000 attacked and ransacked the Prefecture at Nevers on hearing a (false) rumour that two wagons of wheat were sitting in the local station waiting to be exported. Other incidents took place in the Aveyron, the Cote d'Or, in Limoges, and around Lyon to protest against food shortages. Three years after the Liberation, bread rations had reached an all-time low.57 The end of tripartism and the revolt against dirigisme brought to a halt the structural reforms carried out in the name of the Resistance program from 1944 to 1946. The Socialist party was caught in the crossfire between the centre, which refused to support any further steps towards dirigisme and the Communists, who from September 1947 denounced nationalization under capitalism as reformist tinkering. The governing coalition exhausted its energies for the next three years in trying to ensure the survival of the parliamentary republic against its

181 Transport and the Plan

Communist and Gaullist enemies. Within the coalition the Socialist party was constantly forced back onto the defensive, having to sacrifice its reformist ambitions to appease its partners.58 In October 1947, Andre Philip, the most dmgiste minister of the most dirigiste party, resigned as minister of economic affairs. In that month, an official from his ministry complained that "in the present circumstances a controlled economy cannot be brought back because public opinion is unanimous in rejecting constraints, and no political party wishes to impose them. At the same time, the principal instruments necessary for a state-directed economic policy have been dismantled since 1944."59 Henceforth, the republic's economic ministers were all liberals who were less concerned with extending the public sector than with improving its efficiency. Symptomatic of this change in emphasis was the majority vote when the statutes of Air France, which had been nationalized by decree in 1945, were debated in Parliament, that it should become a "mixed" company in order to attract private capital and entrepreneurial expertise.60 The SNCF escaped some of the earlier criticism of the public sector, partly because of its role in the Resistance and postwar reconstruction, partly because the main antinationalization broadsides were directed against Communist efforts to pack the boards of the coal and electricity concerns.61 The picture began to change in June 1947, when the railways were paralysed by the first national strike since the Liberation. This strike was the first of three within eighteen months fuelled by discontent at the failure of real wages to keep up with the cost of living. The second and third strikes were marked by violent incidents such as the harassment of nonstrikers, the cutting of lines, the blocking of signals, and the obstruction of locomotives, encouraged by teams of flying pickets organized by the Communist-controlled CGT. The strikes damaged the post-resistance internal unity of the SNCF and dented the public image of the industry.62 The strikes also brought the other means of transport back into the public eye. They represented, in the words of a prominent automobile engineer, "the end of the railways' dictatorship."63 In June 1947, Jules Moch hastily organized additional road and air services to prevent the strike from crippling essential services. The minister who had previously subordinated the recovery of road transport to the needs of the SNCF now appealed to bus operators and truckers to put on extra services. He also brought in army vehicles and drivers to help run intercity services from the

182 The Politics of Transport in France

improvised bus station set up at the Invalides. These substitute services by no means provided a complete replacement for the railways, either quantitatively or qualitatively. Passengers must have been desperate to travel before they would agree to pay 1,500 francs to sit on a bench in the back of a truck going from Paris to Nice! Nevertheless, this was good publicity for friends of the automobile, who were not slow to exploit the opportunity to demand a shift in government policy.64 Conditions for a policy which leaned more towards the automobile were more favourable than they had been before the war. In the Third Republic, as we have seen, disagreements between manufacturers and transporters, and splits within each group (for example, Renault versus Citroen or corporatists against individualists) hindered the ability of the supporters of the automobile to mount an effective lobby, presenting common arguments and uniting its forces.65 After the war, some of these traditional sources of tension remained: within the car industry, each company had its own interests to pursue; among road transporters, the tradition of independence at all costs was still very much alive. Despite these qualifications, there was a greater degree of harmony than in the 1930s. Among the car-makers, the two protagonists, Louis Renault and Andre Citroen, were both dead. Citroen was now in the hands of the Michelin tire company, whose methods were more cautious and less abrasive than those of its founder.66 As a national corporation, Renault still maintained some of the commercial independence prized by the wily Renault, but it now also acted as a model firm for the industry, setting standards and sharing its research and marketing facilities.67 Its director, Pierre Lefaucheux, used his position of influence to urge the government to attach as much importance to the automobile as other governments did. Like his colleagues in the private sector, he denounced the continuation of controls and the emphasis on export production at a time when the domestic consumers were crying out for new cars.68 On an institutional level, the Monnet Plan did much to unify the industry. In the 1930s not even the depression had induced the major firms to harmonize their efforts. Now the plan specified the models the industry was to produce, and even though Lefaucheux successfully insisted that Renault should go ahead with its project for a popular car regardless of the plan, the industry adhered quite closely to Monnet's guidelines, turning out a limited number of models instead of the excessively wide range produced before the war.69

183 Transport and the Plan

The transporters also emerged from the war a more cohesive body, and again this was partly the result of the wartime trend towards dirigisme. The prewar FNTF essentially acted defensively, and corporatists who sought to carve out a place for the organized profession in a managed economy waged an uphill battle. During the war the FNTF became the Comite d'Organisation des Transports Routiers, and reemerged after the Liberation as the Federation Nationale des Transporters Routiers, its present title. Although the nomenclature changed with almost bewildering rapidity, the personnel remained basically the same. In addition, the functions of the COTR/FNTR as a distributor of rationed materials and an auxiliary in allocating licences and permits stayed intact after the war - without the accompanying ideological label of corporatism.70 It became more representative. Whereas the prewar body had grouped only about 5,000 out of 30,000 road enterprises, by 1948 it had become a full-fledged employers' association with 36,500 members out of a possible total of 40,00071 The greater unity of the automobile lobby was expressed through the activities of the Union Routiere. This was an umbrella group of twenty-eight associations of road users, financed mainly by the oil companies and led with flair by Georges Gallienne, the former manager of Renault's commercial vehicles' division. Gallienne was an indefatigable conference-giver and, under his direction, the Union Routiere published a number of pungent, well-produced critiques of government policy.72 Another essential part of the lobbying machinery was the parliamentary automobile group reconstituted in the spring of 1947. Although the number of parliamentary interest groups was less than in the 1930s, the automobile group claimed an unprecedented 444 members out of 618 deputies in June 1947. The voting behaviour of members of the group was monitored by the automobile press, which urged its readers to remind the deputies through letters and telegrams that electoral support was conditional upon their zeal in defending the automobile. When Parliament debated questions related to gasoline rationing, readers of the Argus de VAutomobile packed the galleries to encourage the politicians to vote the right way.73 Such machinery might have proved ineffective had not the lobby found an issue which united its heterogeneous clientele: opposition to dirigisme. Gallienne and other prominent spokesmen hammered away at successive governments for their slowness in freeing gasoline, tires, and components from controls.

184 The Politics of Transport in France

They pointed out that French consumption of petrol lagged behind its prewar level long after it had been surpassed in every other major industrial country. They made the case for petrol consumption as a barometer of economic dynamism and found France wanting. They advocated mass production of cars to cut costs and thereby enhance the ability of the French to compete overseas and to tap a wider domestic market.74 These were the kind of issues calculated to win support from a broad spectrum of car users and potential car users, and thus allow the petrol and automobile companies to project their campaign as a defence of les petits: of the country doctors who struck to protest their insufficient tire allocations; of the Chambers of Commerce, which complained that cars were being exported, instead of being sold to the public;75 of the truckers who blocked the streets of Lille and satirized dirigisme in their newspapers;76 of the local engineers of the Fonts et Chaussees who urged the government to end controls, because the corps was spending its time arbitrating disputes instead of mending roads.77 In the 1930s, the liberalism of the road lobby had seemed anachronistic. Now, when expressed in the form of opposition to dirigisme, it fitted in very well with the preoccupations of the vast majority of the population: how to get by in a decade of austerity. A change of minister also helped tilt the balance away from the SNCF. In November 1947, Jules Moch was promoted to the rank of minister of the interior. Christian Pineau, the newcomer, was also a Socialist, but whereas Moch had spent his public career struggling to achieve the traditional socialist aim of a nationalized transport sector with the railways at the core, Pineau was fresh to the field. His rise to prominence began as one of the organizers of the Resistance movement in the northern zone. His subsequent experience was as minister of supplies and member of the Finance Committee of the National Assembly. As a result he had fewer preconceptions about transport policy than his predecessor and was more open to the arguments of the road lobby. As minister of supplies, he had shown that he was not above dismantling the wartime apparatus of controls as a means of gaining popularity: on the eve of the October 1945 election he had derationed bread, only to be forced to reintroduce rationing two months later because the increased bread consumption had caused a wheat shortage.78 The SNCF was all the more vulnerable to attack because in 1948-9 it went through a harrowing period, when its performance failed to match up to expectations. From 1947 onwards, the

185 Transport and the Plan TABLE 20 Railway Traffic and the Monnet Plan

Plan Performance

7938

1946

1947

1948

1949

1950

100 100

98 95

120 107

142 120

165 122

180 115

indices of rail traffic fell further and further behind the targets set by the Monnet Plan. Instead of continuing to expand vigorously, traffic stagnated from 1948 to 1951.79 Its financial performance, necessarily affected in the immediate postwar years by the burden of reconstruction, failed to sustain the improvements of 1946, when the deficit accounted for only 3 per cent of total receipts. In 1948-9, as the level of traffic tapered off, the deficit began to grow once more.80 The simplest explanation of the deficit was that revenues failed to keep up with inflated costs. By May 1949, the fares and tariffs charged by the SNCF had increased only twelvefold from their prewar level, whereas the cost of materials had multiplied by twenty and coal cost twenty-two times more than in 1938.81 Another cause of the deficit was the resumption of competition, although the lack of statistics prevents us from ascertaining the importance of this factor. By 1948, there were about 600,000 commercial vehicles on the road compared to 450,000 in 1938, but only half of these were postwar trucks and many were not heavy goods' vehicles. Road traffic had probably risen to only about three-quarters of its 1938 level, according to Charles Boyaux, the director of the SNCF'S commercial operations, but truckers were beginning to cream off some of the railways' more lucrative traffic, such as parcels, and fruit and vegetables.82 More fundamental, however, was the failure of the SNCF'S founders to address the problem of the commercial operation of a predominantly public enterprise in a capitalist economy. The SNCF was expected to balance its budget, like any private firm, but was saddled with costly social obligations. Among these may be enumerated the generous fringe benefits enjoyed by the railwaymen (notably retirement at fifty-five), free transport for soldiers and other state employees, cheap fares for large families and other social groups, the obligation to carry passengers and goods to any point on the network at a standard cost, which bore no

186 The Politics of Transport in France

relationship to the real cost of transportation.83 Until 1914, the railways had been able to cope with most of their obligations and still make a profit, because they enjoyed a monopoly and could charge higher rates for the more profitable services. In the interwar years, this was decreasingly true. However, the need to rethink railway management was obscured by the coming of the depression and the debate over nationalization. The depression was not the cause of the crisis in railway profitability, but merely a short-term cause, superimposed, as it were, upon a long-term one: the increasing cost of the railways' social obligations in an age of renewed competition. Similarly, the replacement of the old companies with the SNCF was irrelevant to this long-term problem, except insofar as it diminished the influence of the Rothschilds and the financiers, who had been campaigning for the relaxing of public controls over the management of the railways. For the first decade of its existence, the SNCF was not directly confronted with the problem of the relationship between its social obligations and its management methods. In 1938-9, its financial situation was artificial because the deal of August 1937 had temporarily relieved it of its heavy debt-service charges, which accounted for almost the entire deficit. Once the war broke out, any reference to normal conditions became virtually impossible. Competition decreased, the government temporarily eased some of the regulations concerning the obligation to carry and, above all, labour costs, which normally account for about 55 per cent of the SNCF'S total operating costs, fell sharply, because of the smaller workforce, the longer workweek, and the failure of wages to keep pace with inflation. Financially, 1943 was the SNCF'S most successful year ever, but few lessons could be drawn from it because conditions were so abnormal. After the Liberation, financial matters were almost totally subordinated to the "battle for production." For the SNCF, this meant carrying as much as possible regardless of the cost. Similarly, when involved in negotiations for orders, the SNCF was instructed to buy French material whenever possible so as to stimulate the recovery of domestic industry, even if cheaper material was available abroad.84 Under pressure from rural communities and from the railwaymen's unions, the SNCF produced a light railcar for branch lines when buses would have been more suitable - had they been available!85 Successive governments also tended to defer financially necessary fare increases in the interest of fighting inflation. These measures were defensible given the economic circumstances of the immediate postwar years, but as the eco-

187 Transport and the Plan

nomic indices began to turn upwards and inter modal competition revived, the SNCF'S dream of budgetary equilibrium became more remote precisely at the time when the political and economic worlds began to value sound financial management more highly. In 1949, matters came to a head: the revival of discussions between the SNCF and the road transporters raised the question of whether France was to choose dirigisme or liberalism; the growth of the railway deficit poisoned relations between the SNCF and the ministry; and the need to take action to establish a coherent transport policy starkly revealed the incapacity of the National Assembly to play a creative role in policy formulation. Discussions about transport policy took place in the revived Conseil Superieur des Transports from September 1947 on as a preliminary to the formulation of a new transport policy. The debates were long and heated. As Christian Pineau put it, the railwaymen viewed the road transporters as "the representatives of sordid interests," while the latter thought of the SNCF as "a very old lady at death's door" and prescribed euthanasia in preference to more expensive treatment.86 As in the 1930s, the main controversy was over the lucrative goods' sector. The basic intent of spokesmen for the road industry was to prevent a return to the straitjacket of the 1930s, which, by putting a physical ceiling on the commercial vehicles' sector, could hamper the expansion of automobile production, targeted to reach 500,000 units per annum by 1952, and postpone the application of the latest techniques in truck construction. The transporters urged that the SNCF be forced to balance its books, if necessary by further amputating its network, and that its encroachments into road transport, either through its subsidiary SCETA or its use of piggy-back material, should be curtailed. Thereafter road and rail should compete for business, which would naturally opt for the technique providing the best package of services at the lowest cost. This was a liberal strategy, although the protectionist measures envisaged against the SNCF showed that the routiers put self-interest above doctrinal consistency.87 The SNCF'S counter-proposals represented a last-ditch effort to retain a measure of dirigisme, without which it would be condemned to perpetual deficits because of the extent of its public service obligations. Its original proposal was to allow road haulage to operate freely for distances up to 60-80 km. Long-distance traffic should be organized by a national freight agency, comprising the SNCF and the FNTR, responsible for allocating long-dis-

188 The Politics of Transport in France

tance carriage. Both road and rail would be subject to similar public service obligations (published timetable, minimum comfort standards, security, stricter accounting). The corollary was "to apply to long-distance road transporters a standardized, obligatory, uniform rate system, and secondly to coordinate this system with that of the railways."88 This agency should set up a fund from the receipts from long-distance haulage to compensate truckers for the added costs entailed by public service obligations. This scheme was clearly designed to protect the SNCF from competition, by preventing a tariff war which the railways could ill afford.89 These two schemes differed from the prewar coordination policy based on the concept of carving up the traffic by creating monopolies on every run ("avoiding duplication of services" in the contemporary jargon). Again, neither scheme sought to freeze the public transport fleet at its existing level, because it was clear that the untapped potential of the automobile was still considerable. Despite these qualifications, the gap between the two sides was virtually unabridgeable: the SNCF wanted to control the growth of road transport, and particularly to halt the trend towards fifteen- and twenty-ton trucks, the "mastodons of the road"; the routiers stood for competition and wanted the industry to be given a free hand to maximize its productivity by massproducing heavy vehicles.90 The ministry, through its representatives on the Conseil Superieur, almost inevitably came up with a compromise, but whereas prewar governments had leaned towards the railways, this time they went much further towards accommodating the road lobby. They refused to accept the central feature of the SNCF proposal, the long-distance freight agency. They accepted that both road and rail transporters be obliged to publish tariff schedules, but each entrepreneur should be free to set his own rates within these limits. The short-distance zone was pushed to 100-150 km compared to 50 km before the war to reflect the increased potential of the postwar truck.91 These proposals were on the table when the relations between the SNCF and the ministry, deteriorating ever since Pineau replaced Moch, took a drastic turn for the worse. For some time, the divergences between the SNCF management, notably Lemaire, the managing director, and Flouret, the president, and the ministerial representatives on the board of directors had been growing. Dorges, the government watchdog, had consistently sought to curb the management appetite for further investment in rolling-

189 Transport and the Plan

stock, had opposed measures which he regarded as liable to provoke competition with the road transporters, and had urged the SNCF to moderate its stance on coordination.92 Relations worsened when Pineau refused to allow the SNCF to cut its tariff ceilings by 10 per cent on goods subject to competition on the grounds that this was a discriminatory measure aimed against the truckers and should be discussed by the Conseil Superieur des Transports.93 In March 1949, the minister was put on the spot in the National Assembly over a request for additional funds for the SNCF'S modernization program, which had fallen well behind the rhythm anticipated by the Monnet Plan. These were to be met by auctioning off 500 steam locomotives, because the SNCF now had 1,400 surplus engines. On hearing this, one deputy castigated "a lack of foresight in the SNCF'S planning," since the railways had been importing locomotives until 1948. The minister, pushed into a corner, admitted that the reason for the surplus was the excellent performance of the American I4l-Rs, which did more than twice the work of the traditional French engines. Because these had permitted a rapid switchover to banalisation (as noted above), the SNCF needed a smaller stock of steam locomotives than anticipated. The deputies were not convinced, accusing the railways of lack of patriotism in favouring imports over French machines and asking why they wanted to sell off locomotives when they still owned fewer engines than before the war - a striking testimony to the economic illiteracy of some parliamentarians, who did not seem to have heard of "productivity." The upshot of the debate was to give added ammunition to those who accused the SNCF of living beyond its means.94 Finally, in May 1949, on hearing that the SNCF'S financial prospects for 1949 were gloomier than expected, Pineau sacked Flouret and Lemaire, claiming that the team which had rebuilt the railways was not necessarily the right one to keep at the helm now that the primary concern was sound financial management. This was not the first change at the top since the Liberation there were four general managers and three presidents between August 1944 and the end of 1949 - but this changeover left a particularly bitter taste and was opposed by the majority of the SNCF board.95 Following the sacking, there were three days of debates in the National Assembly on the performance of the SNCF and the question of the derationing of gasoline. Ideally, this should have given the deputies a chance to hammer out a new transport policy; in

190 The Politics of Transport in France

fact this debate contained all the flaws which had marred the parliamentary handling of economic issues throughout the Third and Fourth Republics. The debate on the sacking of Lemaire and Flouret turned into a clash between the pro- and antinationalization forces, such as Paul Reynaud, who criticized the elaborate social welfare provisions of the SNCF as an unwarranted luxury in an age of austerity. The Right, recognizing that a return to private ownership was out of the question, called for the government to allow the SNCF to operate as if it were a private company; Pineau sought to reinforce the accountability of the railways to the state. The debate was doomed to sterility: to retain the support of the Socialists, the government could not afford to annul what the Left regarded as the social gains of nationalization; at the same time, it needed to appear committed rooting out waste in the public sector if it was to retain the support of antidirigiste liberals.96 The sacking of Lemaire and Flouret seems to have been a publicity stunt carried out to persuade Parliament to vote the government's request for subsidies to tide the SNCF over until the end of the year. By making changes at the top, Pineau hoped to convince the deputies that the subsidy would be a temporary expedient and would not set a precedent for further requests for funds. In this sense it was a cosmetic operation, because beyond promising to introduce coordination decrees, the government had very little to offer.97 The gasoline debate also illustrated parliamentary irresponsibility and government inertia. The controversial point here was a request to recoup some of the SNCF'S losses by increasing the tax on road fuel. As a means of transition from rationing to a free market, the government argued that there should be a temporary dual market, with a rationed sector selling gasoline at the existing rate and a free sector with significantly higher prices.98 Apart from pointing out the impossibility of preventing black marketeers from selling rationed gasoline at free market prices, the opponents of this measure resented the fact that road-users were being asked to bail out the railways.99 Ideally they were in favour of the immediate derationing of gasoline, but failing that they wanted the transition to complete derationing to be as short as possible. The debate on this issue raised the question of the influence of interest groups on parliamentary politics. Henri Queuille, the Radical country doctor whose government had surpassed everybody's expectations by managing to survive for eight months,100 perceived the hand of shadowy pressure groups behind the par-

191 Transport and the Plan

liamentary objections to the tax increase and appealed to deputies to reflect on the consequences of bowing to such pressure.101 Presumably he was referring to the derationing campaigns of the Union Routiere and Le Figaro, which had vigorously canvassed support from deputies of all parties as well as running a referendum on the issue. His complaints fell on deaf ears, because much of the debate was taken up by deputies seeking assurances that the quota allotted to a particular interest (fishing, agriculture, country doctors) would not be reduced as a result of the new policy. Eventually, after the spokesmen for these interests had let off steam in a spectacle worthy of Clochemerle, the government had its way and the double sector was duly voted.l02 By the time these two questions had been thoroughly aired, the debate had lasted three and a half days and the Assembly was forced to sit through the night in order to have time to discuss the coordination of transport before the closure. It was not until five o'clock on the morning of 1 June that the lower house began its first major discussion of the issue. By this time, the hardy few who had stayed in the house all night were exhausted, and several requests had been unsuccessfully made to adjourn the session until later that morning. The debate lasted barely ten minutes, time only for a few cursory remarks by Pierre Beauquier of the Assembly's communications' commission, and brief speeches by Communist deputies warning of the consequences of rail closures. Transport Minister Pineau closed the proceedings by persuading the Assembly to grant the government powers to pass decrees to settle the question.103 The coordination "debate" of 1 June was very revealing of the way transport policy was conducted in France during the 1930s and 1940s. The lower house had waited four years to debate the question only to abdicate its powers immediately to the government: as in 1934,1938,1940, and 1944, policy would be decided by decree. The justification Pineau had used to persuade Parliament to give the government powers to legislate was also significant. Any law voted by Parliament, according to the minister, would either consist of very broad principles to satisfy a heterogeneous majority, or would give rise to interminable discussions in order to accommodate the many different interests involved.104 Unlike in Britain, there was not a simple choice between two parties proposing alternative methods of running the economy (even if both parties accepted the mixed market economy and believed in the effectiveness of Keynesian economic instruments). In Britain, the

192 The Politics of Transport in France

two-party system functioned in such a way that it was relatively easy to muster a majority for a given transport policy, placing more or less emphasis on the public sector according to whether or not Labour was in power.105 Such majorities were more elusive across the Channel, because of the need to satisfy the various components of a multiparty alliance. A strong majority on one issue might very well dissolve when asked to agree on another issue. In order to secure majorities, governments could not rely on the party whips who played such a central role in Westminster. Deputies were therefore in a much stronger position to barter their votes in return for concessions to placate their geographical or occupational constituencies. To retain their legitimacy, they were almost forced to do this: the deputy had always been regarded as the counterweight to the centralizing bureaucracy, the guardian of local interests. Over issues such as agricultural protection, the defence of the winegrowers, or Parisian transportation, the main divisions were horizontal, cutting across party lines, rather than vertical. This was because ties between deputies and their constituencies were closer in France than in countries like Britain or Italy. Few deputies were parachuted into a constituency by their party. The normal avenue to Parliament was local politics, and many deputies were simultaneously mayors or local councillors. To prevent the parliamentary process from getting bogged down in parish-pump politics, it was therefore tempting to grant the government emergency powers - a practice which had the added benefit of deflecting the blame for unpopular decisions onto the government or the mandarins when the day of reckoning came.106 In this instance, the government used its powers to implement the broad recommendations of the Conseil Superieur des Transports in its decree of 14 November 1949. This decree was a general declaration of principles, like that of April 1934, to be complemented by further legislation dotting the i's and crossing the t's. In line with the general tenor of discussions earlier in the year, it sought to subject the road transporters to certain public service obligations, such as compulsory insurance, proper accounting, and the keeping of log books. It was also designed to make the SNCF more commercially-minded.107 By and large, it was received unenthusiastically by all concerned. The road transporters were upset at the imposition of a new tax of 10,000 francs per ton on heavy goods' vehicles to help equalize operating conditions between road and rail.108 This smacked of the restrictive practices of the 1930s: those with initiative were being shackled to protect the inefficient. All things

193 Transport and the Plan

considered, however, the FNTF'S opposition seemed to be a ritual exercise to prevent it from being outflanked by rival organizations. It did not threaten to boycott the coordination committees as it had done previously.109 The SNCF'S reaction was much sharper. Pierre Tessier, the new president appointed by Pineau in the aftermath of the sackings, took the unusual step of publicly criticizing the new decree a few days before its publication. The Conseil Superieur des Transports had failed to reform transport on a public service basis. Instead, "it insists on discounting the only logical formula which would be to create a single public organization with the duty of managing all road and rail transports." The alternative formula, the commercialization of transport, would result in severe social and economic consequences, such as the withdrawal of unprofitable but necessary services, like commuter trains and railway lines in deprived regions.110 Essentially, Tessier, who had been Jules Moch's chefde cabinet at the ministry, was defending the old republican concept of transportation. The fact that he felt compelled to make his criticism public, thereby incurring Pineau's displeasure,111 was indicative of the prevailing pessimism in the SNCF at this time. Having overcome the challenges of the Occupation and reconstruction, the SNCF found that its commercial viability and competivity were being called dramatically into question in the postwar economy. In addition, the government and Parliament had failed to set consistent goals for the SNCF to meet. On the one hand, claiming to speak for the taxpayer, the deputies insisted that the railways balance their books. But at the same time, they insisted on measures which prevented the SNCF from doing just that, demanding the retention or improvement of services on the unprofitable secondary lines and pegging rates below the price index. It was small wonder that Tessier, in his New Year's message of 1950, faced the future with such apprehension. "The SNCF," he warned, is going through the most difficult period of its existence. The general decline in the traffic, the growth of road competition, the burden of reconstruction that is still far from finished, the gap between the tariffs and the price index, have destroyed its financial equilibrium. The attacks which have been aimed at it have caused a feeling of uncertainty among the railwaymen which could affect their morale. The political agitation of an organization which takes outside orders has seriously interfered with its running.112

The question implicit in this gloomy assessment was: did the railways have a future in the second half of the twentieth century?

CHAPTER NINE

Transport and the Postwar Boom, 1950-1973

The pessimism expressed by the SNCF leaders in 1949-50 about the future was not an isolated phenomenon. As early as 1945 some observers had argued that France was engaged in a psychological battle against time, attempting to harness national energies to lay the basis of a modernized economy before the physically and morally detrimental effects of austerity and bureaucratization could take their toll.1 While some apostles of progress such as Jean Fourastie, the author of numerous works on technology and growth, remained guardedly optimistic, the general atmosphere was more restrained, if not gloomy.2 The early 1950s was a prime time for works illustrating, diagnosing, or denouncing the apparent French incapacity to emulate the achievements of other industrial countries.3 As it turned out, the fears of a relapse into the morass of the 1930s were misplaced. France, whose recovery from the war was slower than that of any major western power except perhaps Italy, enjoyed an unprecedented period of sustained growth from 1950 to 1973. While this boom lasted, French expansion outstripped that of Britain and the United States and matched that of Italy and West Germany.4 In many respects, French society experienced as much change in this generation as in the century between the arrival of the railways and World War n - a massive increase in national wealth and personal living standards; the acceleration of urbanization and a shift in manpower from agriculture to the tertiary sector; a transformation of family consumption patterns, notably a decline in the share of the budget spent on food and greater expenditure on items such as leisure, household appliances, and transport.5 The number of cars on the road increased from 1.6 million in 1951 to 15.9 million in 1976, by which date three households in five possessed a car.6

195 Transport and the Postwar Boom

This social transformation has opened up new opportunities, but also required major adjustments for the transport sector. By the 1970s, transport technology had undergone fundamental changes and the managerial structures inherited from the interwar period were being increasingly called into question. For the sake of clarity, let us briefly outline the major innovations before going on to consider the evolution of transport policy, although clearly the two are closely related. The recurrence of the SNCF'S financial problems and the clashes between the company and the state in the late 1940s obscured to contemporaries the progress which the railways had made since the end of the war. From 1937-8 to 1951 the annual growth in labour and energy productivity was 2.8 per cent and 3.85 per cent, record achievements which were all the more remarkable because the first half of that period was one of war and occupation.7 Under its new managing director, Louis Armand, who combined the qualities of Resistance hero and scientist with an insatiable curiosity and optimism, the SNCF began to reap the benefits of the innovations envisaged in the Monnet Plan and made financially feasible by Marshall Aid. The most visible change has been the extension of electrification to all the major axes of the network. Work on the Paris-Lyon line, briefly halted for lack of credits in 1949, was completed in 1952, and this main artery was thereafter electrified to Marseilles, saving a million tons of coal annually. The SNCF also electrified the trunk lines in the north and east in the mid-1950s and is in the process of electrifying the main lines between Paris and the west. In executing these projects, the SNCF has benefited from experiments carried out in the late 1940s by Louis Armand, who resolved the technical difficulties involved in applying industrial current to railway electrification. This cut installation costs considerably by doing away with the need for substations; the railways could use the main electrical grid. As a result, the role of steam traction contracted at a faster rate than had been anticipated by the SNCF when it drew up its first postwar plans between 1941 and 1946. The SNCF now relies upon electrical locomotives on the most important lines, accounting for over 80 per cent of the traffic, diesels on the secondary lines and railcars for flexible, semi-express passenger services.8 The result of this modernization of traction has been to revolutionize the productivity of the SNCF. Energy consumption has fallen dramatically since the war because of the greater efficiency of electrical engines. From 1938 to 1963, the average daily distance travelled by locomotives almost tripled, largely because of the

196 The Politics of Transport in France TABLE 21

Railway Productivity since World War II Energy Consumed in Rail Traction

Units of oj'Trafficy'Man-Hour (Pkm f Tkm f Baggage Tkm)

Tons of coal equivalent 1938 9.42 1954 6.87 I960 5.88 1964 5.63 1967 4.10

1938 50.0 1947 63.4 1951 79.6 1959 110.4 1967 147.1 1975 230.9

Sources: SNCF, Activite, 13; Saint-Prix, "Trentenaire"; SNCF,Statistiques retrospectives, table 5.

transition from steam to electricity, but also because of improvements in the performances of electric locomotives.9 Labour productivity, measured by the units of traffic carried per man-hour, has also risen substantially, allowing the SNCF to cut its payroll from 446,000 in 1950 to 281,000 in 1975 despite the increased volume of business. In both these areas, the growthrate has been the fastest in French railway history.10 The most recent and spectacular innovation in passenger services has been the construction of the new passenger-only ParisLyon line, on which the electric TGV (train a grande vitesse) operates at commercial speeds of 270 km per hour. The opening of the entire line in 1983 cut the travelling time between the two cities in half. As in Japan, the country which pioneered such services with its Shinkansen, the railways are now able to compete effectively with the airlines for traffic within an 800 km radius.11 Electrification was merely the most visible of a whole range of changes on the railways, designed to improve the quality of services. Other noteworthy developments have been the experiment with turbo-trains to improve the quality of service on certain nonelectrified lines, the modernization of passenger equipment, and the integration of the railway and subway networks to create the Regional Express System in the Ile-de-France.12 For goods' traffic, where intermodal competition is particularly severe, the SNCF'S strategy has been to upgrade its services to industry by building branch lines to important industrial

197 Transport and the Postwar Boom

enterprises, offering better rates to clients who maintain their own fleet of wagons and encouraging the carriage of goods by train-load whenever possible. Simultaneously, it has pursued the rationalization of its marshalling yards to speed up shipments of smaller lots. It has also reorganized its parcel services, which faced severe competition from private haulers and the post office, by creating a subsidiary, SERNAM, to specialize in this business. An indication of the improved productivity of the SNCF'S goods' services is the tripling of the average wagonload from 9 tons in 1938 to 297 tons in 1976.13 Accompanying these technical changes and also motivated by the need for increased competitiveness, have been changes in the organization of the SNCF. The traditional organizational structure of the French railways dated from the 1850s, when the main concern was competent technical administration rather than commercial aggressiveness. The traditional branches, Operations, Material, and Track and Buildings, have been split into seven: Finance and Accounts, Direction Commercial Voyageurs, Direction Commercial Marchandises, Transport, Equipment, Material, and Personnel.14 Since 1968, the two commercial divisions have carried out extensive market research to ascertain the measures necessary for the SNCF to maintain and extend its share of the various transport markets. The same concern to shed the old image of the "administration," of bureaucratic indifference to the travelling public, has been evident in the remodelling of stations, notably the attempt to create an atmosphere in which the client is solicited, encouraged, counselled, instead of being separated from a clerk by a wicket.15 Such innovations have been necessary to give the SNCF the capability of maintaining its position in face of its rivals during a period in which the economy has been shedding some of the heavy industries, notably coal and steel, which were traditionally the staple of the railway and shifting towards more flexible energy sources suitable for carriage by other modes of transport, and towards the service sector. Coal production, for instance, has fallen by almost two-thirds from a peak of 59 million tons in 1959. While the SNCF is not as dependent on coal traffic as other networks, for example British Rail, the decline in production and imports has hit traffic figures, particularly in the north.16 In fact, its efforts have not prevented the roads from taking an increasing share of both passenger and goods traffic. The mass diffusion of the automobile and the fall in world oil prices in the 1950s and 1960s created an extremely competitive passenger

198 The Politics of Transport in France FIGURE 15

Goods' Traffic, 1947-76

Source: SNCF, Statistiques retrospectives.

transport market. Rural train and bus services have particularly suffered, since their captive market has shrunk so that it now comprises mainly schoolchildren and old people.17 In this period too, the number, size, and efficiency of trucks has risen considerably, enhancing the productivity of the trucking industry.18 The construction of autoroutes from the beginning of the 1960s allowed France to start building the kind of network favoured by certain ministerial officials during the war and which had been deferred because of cost and the prevalent complacent attitude about the quality of the roads of the hexagon.19 As a result, the relative costs of road and rail haulage over distances of up to 250 km steadily shifted in favour of the former from 1950 on.

199 Transport and the Postwar Boom

Because the initial investment needed to set up as a trucker has remained relatively modest, there has been a steady inflow of new enterprises, so that the industry has retained its artisan physiognomy: four out of five transport firms employ fewer than ten workers. At the same time, a minority of larger firms have come to dominate the profession. In goods transport, 2 per cent of the firms account for 35 per cent of the turnover.20 The basis for this domination is the poor commercial organization of the artisans. In order to acquire freight, they are forced to rely on commissioners, who are usually attached to the larger companies. These act as middlemen between the shipper and the transporter, and take a percentage for themselves. Hence, entry into the profession remains a possibility for a driver, because he can dispense with a commercial department. On the other hand, he is little more than a subcontractor, responsible for shipping goods from A to B and is extremely vulnerable to pressure from the commissioners. The larger firms have developed more elaborate commercial structures since the 1950s. The firm of Paul Gouverneur in Rennes is a typical example.21 Gouverneur set up on his own in 1946 and within ten years was employing eight workers and six vehicles. Initially, he was a jack-of-all-trades: driver, mechanic, accountant, and grain merchant. On getting married in 1948, he handed over the paperwork to his wife, a common practice among the truckers. At the end of the 1950s, he stopped driving to concentrate on the commercial side of the business, which specialized in tanker shipments of regional produce. The year 1963 was a turning point. In that year, Gouverneur became aware that he was no longer exercising effective control over his business. He took a management training course and went on a study trip to the United States.22 On his return, he transformed the firm into a limited company with a tripartite managerial structure. An operations' manager took care of administrative tasks, managing the drivers and optimizing vehicle productivity; a workshop manager ran the repairs; an accountant was responsible for rapid billing and the drawing up and periodic revision of a planning budget. Gouverneur, assisted by an outsider, Rossignol, was general manager. The larger firms have adopted this more impersonal, functional approach. To meet the demand for more systematic managerial methods, courses are offered in certain institutes of higher education. It is no longer enough to be a "marchand de kilometres"; particularly since the onset of the energy crisis, there is

200 The Politics of Transport in France

an increasing preoccupation with productivity, management of material, and scientific prospecting of clientele. The trucking manager is more likely these days to carry an attache case than a snack and a litre of rouged The larger firms dominate the expanding rental market and have an important share of long-distance traffic. Their larger vehicles and better organization have stood them in good stead against smaller outfits and own-account transporters, who have been steadily pushed into local carriage. As the accompanying chart shows, the traffic carried by road is extremely diversified. No longer are the routiers confined to fruit and vegetables. The other major forms of transportation were also far from inactive. The waterways, which had been permitted to languish between the wars and in the postwar decade of reconstruction, have undergone a modest revival. Continued motorization of barges and the introduction of "push-boats," capable of propelling four of five pilotless barges, on the Seine and the Rhine, have cut haulage costs dramatically. The steps towards European integration have facilitated the partial implementation of the waterway improvement schemes advocated by the spokesmen of the vote d'eau in the 1940s, notably the completion of the Canal du Nord (sixty years after the project was first mooted!), the linking of the Seine with the Moselle, and the building of the Rhone-Rhine canal.24 These achievements should not blind one to the problems which continue to bedevil water transportation. Much remains to be done to solve the long-standing social problems associated with life on the water: economic insecurity, isolation, and the dearth of social and educational opportunity.25 The artisans face an uphill fight if their business is to remain viable. In an age of sharp competition, shippers have shown increasing frustration at the commercial restraints imposed by the rota system. As a result of the decline of heavy industry, waterway traffic has been declining since the early 1970s, particularly on the shallower routes, where the artisans are most concentrated.26 Internal commercial aviation has also made strides in recent years. After an abortive effort in 1954, Air-Inter began operations in I960, providing links between Paris and the provinces, particularly those provinces whose rail-links with the capital leave room for improvement (notably Brittany).27 Traffic, predominantly composed of male businessmen from large firms, has increased steadily, but the railway is still a serious competitor for internal passenger transport, especially in view of the development of the TGV. Air-Inter's ability to compete also suffers be-

201 Transport and the Postwar Boom FIGURE 16

The Structure of Goods' Traffic, 1973

Source: Annuaire statistique des transports, 1974.

202 The Politics of Transport in France

cause of the as yet unresolved problem of access to the airports from inner-city areas.28 The institutional framework within which this rapid growth has taken place has been the coordination par vote tartfaire (tariff coordination) introduced in principle by the decree of 14 November 1949. The transition from the prewar system of "physical coordination," based on limitation of number of vehicles in operation and monopolies for most services, to the more flexible, liberal system has been slow and incomplete. The various decrees required to implement the new policy took years to introduce.29 Ideally, according to advocates of a liberal policy, fair competition between the various modes of transportation should be introduced: by phasing out the railways' "public service" obligations, which lost their justification when the railways' monopoly disappeared; ending physical limitations on transport capacity, notably by allowing the road haulage fleet to expand within the limits permitted by market conditions; giving the railways commercial independence from the state, including the right to determine their own investment priorities; basing tariffs on costs, rather than on social or political considerations. If such principles were applied, consumer choice and the laws of the market would determine the allocation of business between the various modes.30 Since 1950 there has been considerable progress towards introducing these criteria, stimulated by the general swing towards neoliberalism,31 the realization that the existing policy had not worked, and, to some extent, by the encouragement of liberal transport policies by the Common Market. From the early 1950s, the SNCF has changed its tack in dealing with the government, putting the emphasis increasingly on its need to be given a fair chance to compete with its rivals, by being given more commercial freedom and receiving compensation for the cost of the social services it performs. In 1959, a special committee set up by the prime minister to look into obstacles to economic expansion endorsed the SNCF'S analysis, not surprisingly as its cochairman was none other than Louis Armand.32 A drop in rail traffic in the mid-1960s further demonstrated the need for reform. The Nora report (1968), which argued that the nationalized industries would not function effectively until they were freed from close state supervision, simply reproduced the SNCF'S arguments. In 1969, the minister of transport agreed to a new deal for the railways.33 Since then the state has shouldered some

203 Transport and the Postwar Boom

of the costs previously borne by the company itself: 60 per cent of the costs of the infrastructure (track, etc.), compensation for the cost of the Parisian commuter service and part of the railwaymen's pension fund. It has also given the SNCF greater commercial freedom by relaxing the obligation to transport, allowing it greater freedom in setting rates, and relinquishing ministerial control over collective bargaining.34 The limitations on the size of the national truck fleet were not ended at once, the government preferring instead to wait until the new cost-based tariff system had^been brought in. In the meantime, the ministry periodically adjusted the ceiling on the capacity of this sector as the economy expanded and in 1963 and the early 1970s passed legislation to dismantle most of the barriers to entry into the profession. Consequently, the capacity of the long-distance truck fleet rose extremely quickly after 1959: the annual growth rate in the 1960s was in the order of 10 per cent.35 As for changes in the rate structure, the SNCF received approval to follow up on the phasing out of the ad valorem system with the abolition of the standard charge per kilometre, which failed to take into account cost differences between trunk and secondary lines. The SNCF began to adjust its kilometric rates to costs in 1962, although in order to minimize opposition, it only applied this reform to freight rates, and even then, only partially. At the same time, a national road-transporters' committee came up with a cost-based structure for haulage rates. Under this scheme, the committee proposes a range within which rates may fluctuate. These are then submitted to the Ministry of Transport for approval.36 None of these changes went as far as liberals would have liked. To take the rate changes - the cornerstone of a liberal transport policy - the introduction of cost-based charges has been extremely difficult to achieve for technical, economic, and political reasons. The road committee took over a decade to formulate proposals for new road-haulage rates, because of the industry's continued fragmentation and rudimentary accounting. Moreover, the structure embodied in the final scheme reflected not so much costs, which were extremely difficult to calculate given the diversity of the industry, as the existing degree of competition in internal transportation, so that lower rates were encouraged on those routes where road carriers competed with the railways.37 The SNCF, faced by widespread regional opposition even to its limited tariff-reform plans, was forced to backpedal. The intro-

204 The Politics of Transport in France

duction of differentiated kilometric rates meant that in the calculation of tariffs, Lyon was considered to be nearer to Paris and Breton towns further from Paris than they really were. According to Breton regionalists, the "technocrats" of the SNCF and the Ministry of Transport were arbitrarily remodelling the face of France at the expense of the outlying regions, which were already suffering from the displacement of the centre of European economic gravity towards the east as a result of the formation of the Common Market. The result was the second bataille du rail: in Morlaix, Plouaret, and Guingamp, groups of farmers, commer$ants, artisans, workers, and teachers, supported by the local political and business elites, blocked the tracks with trucks and trailers, delaying the passage of the Paris-Brest express and other trains on the morning of 27 September 1962. Mass protest meetings demanded that the system be scrapped and that the government increase investment in the region. In the Massif Central, critics of the reform argued that it would "accentuate the economic disparities from which the Auvergne [region] suffers."38 Possibly worried about the recrudescence of rural discontent weeks before an important referendum (Brittany had been the scene of agricultural riots in 1961), the government backed down. It exempted Brittany, the Auvergne, and the department of Hautes-Alpes from the scheme; it also promised to increase spending on transport and telecommunications projects to help Brittany overcome its isolation.39The issue revealed the continued vitality of nineteenth-century provincial fears that a railway system whose hub is Paris could be an instrument of colonisation instead of a means to regional development. In a more general sense, the veritedes tarifs cherished by liberals has not been fully introduced in transportation. Whatever their theoretical commitments to a cost-based system, governments have often delayed authorization of rate increases, thereby pegging the index for SNCF goods' tariffs below the wholesale price index. They have never resolved the contradiction between advocating that the public sector should be run like private enterprise and the temptation to use public tariffs and investments as instruments of macro-economic policy, in the struggle against inflation or unemployment.40 In the generally competitive postwar transport market, it must be said that rate increases often lead to a loss of business, and that by and large market forces have exercised a downward pressure on rates, particularly in road haulage.41 Nevertheless, the political

205 Transport and the Postwar Boom

pressure for special rates for certain categories of producers, which was a feature of the traditional republican transport system, is still very much alive. And ever since its origins the governments of the Fifth Republic have faced the problem of trying to carry out their liberal, modernizing aims without alienating that part of their electorate which would lose out in the process.42 In order to assess French transport policy, it is useful to compare it with policy in other countries. By so doing one can gauge the relative importance of geographical, technological and political factors in shaping French policy. At the same time, it should be made clear that it is not possible in the framework of this study to give an exhaustive survey of developments elsewhere. This section confines itself to a number of general remarks designed to put French transport policy in a broader perspective. The history of transport policy in western Europe since the rise of the railways can be divided roughly into three stages: a period of railway monopoly marked by government attempts to control tariffs and to determine the location of railway lines in the public interest; an interwar phase in which the conjunction of the development of the automobile and the depression led to fierce competition in a contracting economic environment, and finally an expansionary postwar period marked by the rapid growth of productivity in all modes of transport.43 An examination of this working hypothesis in relation to France's neighbours should make it possible to ascertain the extent to which French transport policy has been shaped by the republican transport tradition outlined in chapter 1 and the importance of specific geographical conditions or general technological factors. The model fits Britain, Italy, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands in a broad sense, but in each country there have been significant variations caused by geographical and historical factors. For example, during the initial phase of railway monopoly and government interventionism to ensure that the railways provided certain essential services, the degree of monopoly and intervention varied from country to country. In the Netherlands, the preexistence of major waterways acting as the main feeder between Dutch sea-trade and its hinterland limited the impact of the railways. The latter were also handicapped by the high cost of railway installations in this waterlogged country. Consequently, the railways never captured the near-monopoly of goods' traffic they enjoyed elsewhere. The

206 The Politics of Transport in France

Dutch state, therefore, did not find it necessary to impose many of the "public service" obligations to which most railways were subject at this time.44 In Britain and Germany, various factors contributed to lessen the railways' monopoly, although not to such a degree as in the Netherlands. In Britain, although the railways quickly eclipsed the rival waterways, competition between the many railway companies diluted the effect of the railway monopoly. The intervention of the state and the consolidation of the competing companies into a small number of railway monopolies occurred much later than in France, and consequently the public service tradition was less securely anchored and less resistant when policy changes became necessary between the wars.45 The German railways were fragmented because of small-state jealousies in the formative years preceding national unification, and even until 1918. The political elites of southern and western Germany initially resisted the construction of interregional lines, fearing that they would ultimately lead to the loss of political sovereignty. Southern opposition prevented Bismarck from creating a national Reichsbahn in the 1880s, and it was not until 1918 that a truly national network was formed by merging the existing systems. Even then, Bavarian officials fought tooth and nail to prevent their railway from being swallowed whole by the Prussian-dominated Reichsbahn.46 The construction of the railway network was slower in Italy than in France. By 1895, when the Freycinet plan had already brought the train to the French countryside, the Italians had only 13,000 km of railways, compared to 33,000 in Britain, 36,500 in France, and 43,000 km in the German Reich.47 As in Germany, small-state jealousies prevented the early development of a national network. Subsequently, the economic problems in the decades after the Risorgimento; the geographical barriers to communications, notably the Apennines; the competition of maritime transport, and the imbalance in trade between the industrializing north and the backward Mezzogiorno limited the growth of the railways.48 In the "railway age" then, the monopoly position of the railways of most European countries was qualified either by political factors - notably the lack of a unified nation-state - by geographic obstacles to railway construction, or by competition between railway companies. In one country, the Netherlands, it is impossible to speak of a railway monopoly at all: while the rail-

207 Transport and the Postwar Boom

ways carried most intercity passenger traffic, they were unable to supplant the waterways for goods' carriage. In the interwar period, all of the western industrial economies experienced the early effects of automobile competition with the railways, whose tariff structures and commercial methods had been shaped in the phase of railway monopoly. In almost all European countries, the policies adopted during the depression to cope with road-rail competition failed to involve a reconsideration of the railways' rate structure or public service obligations. Instead there was usually a two-stage reaction. Initially the railways sought to withstand competition by engaging in tariffcutting wars with the road carriers. When this policy only succeeded in driving the entire transport sector towards bankruptcy, governments intervened to protect the railways. This protection took a number of forms according to the political complexion and ideological traditions of the country involved. In several countries, including Germany, the government fixed transport rates so that road carriers were unable to undercut the railways.49 The authoritarian, corporatist solutions pioneered by Italy and adopted by Nazi Germany also found adepts throughout Europe. By forcing artisan transporters into obligatory corporations, it was hoped that it would prove possible to limit entry into the profession, curb competition, and allow the existing transporters to carve up the traffic in such a way as to provide a livelihood for all concerned. An alternative method of guaranteeing the railways against the roads was to allow them to operate road-transport services themselves and to obtain financial holdings in road-transport enterprises. The British government allowed the "Big Four" railway companies to carry out this more liberal strategy of coordination through commercial expansion instead of seeking to follow continental corporatist schemes. Even here, however, a complex licencing system existed to prevent competition from getting out of hand.50 Whatever the method, the dominant concern of almost all European states was not to overhaul the management methods of the railways or to create more traffic by fostering economic growth, but to find ways of sharing out the existing business. Again, the Netherlands provides a partial exception to this rule. The Dutch government abstained from attempts to curb the growth of road or waterway transport by imposing ceilings on the barge or lorry fleet to shore up the railways. Instead, in line with its traditional conception of transportation as a creator of wealth,

208 The Politics of Transport in France

it allowed the Dutch railways to close down unprofitable lines, baulking only when closures caused strong regional protests.51 With this exception, the policy of the governments of the 1930s bore "the hallmark of modern cartel behaviour: the exclusion of price competition (general compulsory rates), the introduction of important restraints on investments (quotas of truck licenses) and various elements of a geographical division of the market (through barge-haulers' unions, transport zones and concessionary lines).52 Since the end of World War u, the transport policy of the various European states has entered a third, more liberal phase. The basic components of this approach have been the emphasis on competition within the framework of the "mixed economy." This has entailed the gradual abandoning of the ad valorem rate system, the closure of some unprofitable parts of the railway network, and the phasing-out of physical controls over the size of the road fleet. These, it must be reemphasized, are trends and the degree and speed at which they have been realized varies from country to country: tradition, as Marx once wrote, can often press like a nightmare on the brains of the living. The heritage of deeprooted national ideas about the function of transport is evident in each of the countries of western Europe. Traditional conflicts within nations also continue to affect developments. Regional antagonisms and the fear of absorption by the central state have pitted the Lander, with a more service-oriented view of the railways, against the Budesbahn and the federal government of West Germany; outlying regions in Britain, Italy, and the Netherlands have campaigned to keep their railway facilities.53 The variations in national transport policies and the determination of countries to defend their perceived interests have been most visible in the twenty-five year history of the attempt to create a unified transport policy within the EEC. This effort is a logical consequence of the postwar liberal approach to transport: the attempts to eliminate "irrational" features of the transport market cannot, according to good Europeans, be confined to the nation-state.54 The harmonization of the transport networks of the member states is a fundamental prerequisite of the realization of the pledge in the Treaty of Rome to forge a unified supranational market. Common investment priorities and commercial practices further the free circulation of goods and people and allow resources to be allocated to the most urgent projects, in-

209 Transport and the Postwar Boom

stead of being spent on schemes which owe more to national pride than to economic viability.55 Progress towards achieving these goals has been slow. The obstacles to the formulation of a national transportation policy have been multiplied at an international level. Different historical traditions and the preexistence of mature transport networks in each of the EEC countries, predicated on international rivalry rather than cooperation, have not eased the task. Discussions in preexisting international forums, such as the Union Internationale des Chemins de fer, have resulted in measures of technical unification, the creation of a common pool of railway wagons, and the extension of international travel services by the establishment of the Trans-Europe Express and Europabus systems.56 Within the EEC per se, the Permanent Commission at Brussels has had to tread warily in its efforts to eliminate state subsidies and discrimination against nationals of other Common Market countries and thereby create a free community transport market. So far, progress towards this aim has been piecemeal. International road-haulage regulations have been liberalized by the introduction of a (limited) quota of licences permitting trucks to circulate freely throughout the EEC. A common policy on transport taxation and railway-state relations has been hammered out. Nevertheless, in recent years, attempts to reach agreements on maximum vehicle dimensions and tonnage have foundered because of disagreement between the original Six, and the newcomers - Britain, Ireland, and Denmark.57 Clearly, a good deal of work remains to be done. From the above section it can be seen that the extent to which the three-phase model fits the west European countries varies considerably. The main exception is the Netherlands, where the degree of continuity has been much greater than that suggested by the model. Here, exceptional geographical advantages, coupled with a long tradition of regarding transport as a creator of wealth, rather than as a mere part of the tertiary sector, have enabled the Dutch to avoid the monopoly stage and prepare the groundwork for a modernized transport system earlier than its neighbours. How does France fit into this international comparison? During the first phase, geographical and political factors combined to ensure that the railway monopoly was more effective in France than almost anywhere else and that the public service obligations designed to counteract it were more far-reaching.

210 The Politics of Transport in France

Geographic factors affected transport in two ways which were peculiar to France. Her waterways lacked the depth of those in Holland or Germany. Only the Seine was naturally capable of competing with the railways; in the North, where the canals were shallow, the state introduced protective measures to shore up the waterways. In the rest of the country, the railways had little trouble in obtaining a monopoly. A second geographic handicap was the dispersion of the population. France's population density was, and still is, lower than that of most European nations and was spread more thinly throughout the country in small towns and villages rather than large provincial conurbations.58 This meant that the costs of the secondary network built in the 1880s were disproportionately high, far higher than in a densely populated country like Belgium. These lines were maintained not for financial, but for social and economic considerations. These geographic factors were compounded by political ones. When the lines were built, France was already a well-established nation state, unlike Germany or Italy, with a strong tradition of administrative centralization. Because of this, the railway system did not suffer from the small-state particularism which hindered the consolidation of coherent national networks in these two countries. The disadvantage was that the administrative elite imposed Paris-based companies enjoying regional monopolies upon the provinces. These companies played an undoubted role in furthering the creation of a national economic market, but this was achieved almost exclusively through trade between the provinces and the capital at the expense of interregional commerce. The Plan of 1842, which created a national network with spokes radiating from Paris to the frontiers, epitomized the administrative, centralizing thrust underlying French railway building, with the irrational result that to get from Reims to Marseilles, for example, it was quicker to take a detour via Paris than to take the direct route. (This legacy of excessive centralization has proved hard to shake off. The motorway network built in the 1960s also favours Paris at the expense of the provinces.)59 In order to curb the power of the railway monopolies which geographical circumstances and administrative reflexes had combined to create, the state found itself under pressure from provincial business interests from the 1850s onward to begin imposing controls. The national emergence in the 1880s of a provincial republican elite which had experienced the power of the companies at first hand reinforced this trend. During the halcyon days

211 Transport and the Postwar Boom

of the Third Republic, successive governments forced the companies to take the train into all but the most remote regions of France, and imposed stringent controls over the rate structure, operating conditions, and investment decisions. Political pressure, based on fear of monopoly, was therefore responsible for creating a denser transport network than would have resulted from the unfettered activity of private enterprise in French geographic conditions. During the interwar period, three factors coalesced to shake the existing synthesis of private ownership of transportation and close state control. The rise of the automobile, a flexible vehicle capable of reaching the farm gate and the factory warehouse far more easily than the train, began to provide unprecedented competition, exposing hitherto disregarded weaknesses of the bureaucratized railway companies. The railways were slow to respond effectively, because of the inherent rigidity of complex organizations and because the vigilance of the Ministry of Public Works prevented the dismantling of elaborate rules to protect the public. The effects of the technological progress of the 1920s were compounded by the depression which spread to France in 1930-1. By cutting production, the depression threw the critical nature of the railways' predicament into sharper relief. Railway deficits, the bankruptcy of many road carriers and sharply declining real income for the barge-haulers were the most dramatic symptoms of the crisis. A political factor contributed to the prolonging of the crisis: because of political deadlock, no party was strong enough to impose its policies on Parliament. The Socialist party, gaining in popularity between the wars, dominated the Chamber's public works' committee, where it kept a watchful eye over the activities of the railway companies, defended the existing measures of state control and sought to extend them, notably by nationalizing the transport sector. The Left was rarely in a strong enough position to execute policy, but it was ideally placed to block conservative schemes to dismantle the traditional republican transport system, as it did in the winter of 1935-6. In its first months of office in 1936 - when the massive strike-wave of May-June briefly broke the stalemate of the 1930s - the Popular Front had more pressing priorities than transport reform. When it turned to transport issues in 1937, it had run out of steam. The only tangible result of its efforts was the formation of the SNCF, a mixed company in which the state had 51 per cent of the shares. The

212 The Politics of Transport in France

creation of the SNCF was not a new departure, but a culmination of earlier agreements between the state and the railway companies. French coordination in the 1930s was as Malthusian and restrictive as that of other European countries. The government froze the road and waterway sectors at their 1934 level to protect the railways. At the same time, it sponsored transport plans, which carved up the traffic among the existing transporters. Typically, these were based on the department, an adminstrative unit, rather than natural economic regions. When the centreright returned to power in 1938-9, it allowed the SNCF to close down about 10,000 km of its network to passengers, but the savings expected from this move were nothing like enough to solve the railways' financial problems. The main instrument for carrying out coordination was the departmental committee comprised of representatives of the various transport sectors. In this context, professional groups had an important role to play, but the fragmentation of the road and waterway sectors, and the resistance of the political class in the departments prevented a full-fledged corporatism from seeing the light of day. French transport policy was therefore less authoritarian than that of countries such as Germany and Italy, where membership of corporate organizations was compulsory. In France no prewar government crossed the line separating voluntary membership of professional groups and state-controlled corporatism, although the governments of 1938-9 introduced tax benefits for truckers who joined. The French were also slower to act than their neighbours, because of the particular strength of the republican transport tradition and the lack of consensus for a new policy. By the time war broke out, over five years of legislation had elapsed with few tangible results. The republican institutions, which had been designed primarily to act as a barrier against antirepublican forces and to soften the social tensions caused by industrialization, proved incapable of responding satisfactorily to the challenge of the depression. During the 1930s, a younger generation of engineers and managers had chafed at the restrictiveness of the economic policies of the Third Republic. Railway schemes for electrification and the streamlining of the network, the appeals of proponents of the automobile for the modernization of the French roads, and calls for the rebuilding of the waterways, were all casualties of the cost-cutting mentality of the depression decade. The fall of

213 Transport and the Postwar Boom

France caused a fundamental split among these innovators: many chose Vichy, at least until 1942; others backed the Free French. Still, there was broad agreement that the timid economic methods of the Third Republic bore a good deal of the responsibility for the fatal weakness of the regime in 1940. On both sides of the divide, there was a conviction that the economy must be overhauled. This basic consensus allowed the postwar Ministry of Transport to dust off the projects conceived by Vichy and put them into practice, modifying them only to the extent that it was necessary and desirable to tone down the authoritarian strain of the original blueprints. Berthelot's "techno-corporatism" gave way to the economic concertee^ but both were predicated on the view that state officials must encourage modernization and draw on strong professional groups to ensure that its plans did not founder on the indifference or hostility of business. The fulfilment of the reconstruction program had to wait until the country had been restored to normality after the end of hostilities. This enormous task dominated the energies of the French, as of all Europeans, until 1948-9- In this initial period, the priority was survival, and the consequent tunnel-vision and financial hardship which dominated these years jeopardized the realization of the long-term aims of the wartime planners. The energy of Jean Monnet succeeded in impressing upon the government the need to remember the importance of the modernization aspect of reconstruction, but in the years before Marshall Aid began to flow, the tyranny of the present over the future continued. At one stage in the electrification of Paris-Lyon the government witheld funds for the project to punish the SNCF for its alleged financial mismanagement;60 at the same time the practical aspects of waterway modernization and highway building had not yet even been discussed let alone put into effect. It was only the financial lifeline of Marshall Aid and the economic prosperity of the 1950s which permitted modernization to go ahead on a large scale. Since 1950, the republican transportation tradition, which was so powerful in shaping French responses to the transport problems of the interwar period, has declined in strength for a number of reasons. The decline in what may be called social protectionism is part of a general trend towards neoliberalism in contemporary France: the reduction of tariff barriers; the concern of public servants for economic growth as a means of preserving France's position in the world; the subordination of the legislature to the executive. But there are also factors which are specific to trans-

214 The Politics of Transport in France

port. Once the Left had achieved its aim of evicting the feodalite financiere from control of the railways, it was thrown on the defensive. The creation of the SNCF did not, as Moch and others had hoped, transform the plight of the railways, because the Left's diagnosis of the causes of the transport crisis of the 1930s was flawed. The problem was not primarily a structural one, the domination of a public service by private capital, but an economic one, the rise of a more flexible competitor in the context of a depressed economic climate. The Left was too afraid of alienating the lower middle class and the peasantry to advocate the structural reform which might have had some effect: the nationalization of the predominantly artisan road transporters. This failure has left the initiative in the hands of the liberals. Unable to force through changes in the management of the railways while they were in private hands because of the strength of fears of the power of the grands reseaux, they have had more success since the war, because they have been able to make the case that this is the only way to improve the disastrous financial record of the SNCF. In view of the competitive transport environment, there has been a growing consensus, which the present (Communist) minister of transport seems to share, that the SNCF can only be kept afloat if state controls are relaxed. Demographic changes, notably rural depopulation, have also weakened the political constituency for a public service-orientated transport policy. At the same time, as a result of the consumer revolution, the private car has replaced the train or the bus, which was never more than second-best, for all but the old and the schoolchildren in the countryside.61 And whereas the train was one of the focal points of community solidarity until World War n, with a cultural significance that went far beyond purely commercial considerations, the automobile stands as a metaphor for a more individualistic society, a means of escape from community, even in the traffic jams of the Boulevard Peripherique on a Friday evening. According to one of the major railway unions, the car "shapes individuals who move further and further away from a certain sense of solidarity."62 It remains to be seen whether the possible shift back towards collective transport caused by the energy crisis will help bring about a corresponding revival of the social concepts which played such an important role in shaping the developments analysed in this study.

Notes

PREFACE 1 Emile Zola, His Excellency, translated by Alec Brown (London 1958), 264-7. For a thorough examination of the influence of the train in Zola's writings, see Marc Baroli, Le train dans la litterature fran^aise (Paris 1963). 2 Not only did the train link town and country, but employment on the railway became a popular alternative to agricultural work for many farmers' sons. 3 A banal point, perhaps, but one of which promoters of the automobile were well aware. In 1947, one prominent automobile engineer wrote, "The car and the truck have become an integral part of the child's world. Toy cars and trucks have taken over from lead soldiers. The young of all ages feel and know that the automobile represents the future, their future, while the old think only of defending the errors and habits of their youth: for example, the rail as opposed to the road." Pierre Prevost, "Vous avez perdu," L'Action Automobile, n.d., quoted in LesRoutiers,June 1947. CHAPTER ONE 1 The first part of this chapter relies heavily on Eugen J. Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914', Pierre Sorlin, La societe fran$aise, vol. 1, 1848-1914 (Paris 1969); Roger Thabault, Education and Social Change in a Village Community: Mazieres-en-Gatine (London 1971); L.-M. Jouffroy, "La revolution des transports en France de 1831 a 1931" (Paper presented at conference at the Ecole Polytechnique, 4 November 1967); Roger Price, The Economic Modernisation of France, 1730-1880, and Pierre Leon, "La conquete de 1'espace national," in Histoire economique et sociale de la France, vol. 3, pt. 1, L'avenement de I'ere industrielle (1789-annees 1880), ed. F. Braudel and C.E. Labrousse (Paris 1976).

216 Notes to pages 3-5 2 Andre Lefevre, Sous le Second Empire: Chemins de fer et politique, 411. 3 Georges Lecourtois, "Les problemes economiques que pose le transport des denrees agricoles par chemin de fer" (These pour le doctorat en droit, Universite de Paris, 1949), 1-3; Price, Economic Modernisation, 71-4; A. Perpillou, Geographic de la circulation: Les routes (Paris 1953), 21; Alfred de Foville, La transformation des moyens de transport etses consequences economiques etsociales (Paris 1880), 63-71, remains the most convincing demonstration of this. 4 Andre Thuillier, Economie et societe nivernaises au debut du XIXe siecle, 89. 5 Ibid, chap. 2; see also Maurice Agulhon, "L'agriculture et la societe rurale du Var dans la premiere moitie du XIXe siecle," in Etudes d'histoire proven^ale (Paris 1971), 149-55. Better communications integrated the Var into the Mediterranean economy and helped break the traditional pattern of periodic subsistence crises. 6 Marcel Blanchard, Geographie des chemins defer, 57; Weber, Peasants, 130-45, 155-62. 7 M. Considere, "Utilite des chemins de fer d'interet local," Annales desponts et chaussees, 1894, no. 1: 84. 8 Alain Corbin, Archai'sme et modernite en Limousin au XIXe siecle, 1: 120; see also Marcel Gautier, Chemins et vehicules de nos campagnes, 61-71. 9 Corbin, Limousin 1: 128. 10 Blanchard, Geographie, 53. 11 E.B. Ackermann, "Alternatives to Rural Exodus: The Development of the Commune of Bonnieres-sur-Seine in the Nineteenth Century," French Historical Studies 10, no. 1 (1977): 129-31. 12 Leo A. Loubere, Radicalism in Mediterranean France: Its Rise and Decline, 1848-1914 (Albany, N.Y. 1974), 85; J. Harvey Smith, "Work Routine and Social Structure in a French Village: Cruzy in the Nineteenth Century," Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 5, no. 3 (1975): 357-63- Wine produced around Cruzy (Herault) had previously been shipped by canal to Beziers and Narbonne, whence it was transported by sea to other southern ports. After the railway reached Cruzy, local wine was marketed nationally and the region adopted monocultural agriculture. No longer was Languedoc forced to distil massive quantities of eau-de-vie in order to overcome transport bottlenecks. Andre Cellier, La viticulture fran$aise et les projets d'Offtce National du Vin (Montpellier 1938). 13 Sorlin, Societe franc,aise 1: 79-80; for more information on the decline of Clermont-Ferrand, see Henri Cavailles, La route fran^aise, 283. 14 Iron and steel production moved eastwards to the Briey basin, while southern competition killed the local table-wine industry in the aftermath of the phylloxera epidemic of the 1870s. Michel Hau, La croissance economique de la Champagne de 1810 a 1969 (Paris n.d.), 7-12. 15 Jean-Pierre Jobard, Les disparites regionales de croissance: Analyse economique des departements situes dans le centre-est de la France, 1801-1962 (Paris 1971), 145-57.

217 Notes to pages 5-7 16 Hugh Clout, The Massif Central (London 1973), passim; Pierre Barral, Le departement de I'lsere sous la Troisieme Republique, 1870-1940, 60-75; see the burgeoning regionalist literature from Brittany, especially M. Phlipponneau, Leprobleme breton etleprogrammed'action regionale (Paris 1957), and his more recent Debout Bretagne!. 17 Louis Girard, "Transport," in The Cambridge Economic History of Europe vol. 6, ed. HJ. Habakkuk and M.M. Postan (Cambridge 1966), 216-18, 222; Pierre Leon, "La conquete," 247-8. 18 Cavailles, La route, pt. 1; Jouffroy, "Revolution," 9. For background on the corps, see James M. Ollivier HI, "The Corps des Fonts et Chaussees, 18301848," (PHD thesis, University of Missouri, 1968). 19 Cavailles, La route, 119. 20 Gilbert Garrier, Paysans du Beaujolais et du Lyonnais, 1800-1970 1: 216. 21 Rene Gendarme, La region du Nord: Essai d'analyse economique (Paris 1954), 41-3. 22 Reports by the Inspecteur-general des Ponts-et-Chaussees of the Rhone for 1816,1817,1831, AD du Rhone, IS, liasse 2. 23 Ernest Charles, Les chemins de fer en France pendant le regne de Louis-Philippe (Paris 1896), 52, 57, 72-83; see also Jean-Paul Adam, Instauration de lapolitique des chemins defer en France, 29. 24 Francis de Laur, De I'accaparement (Paris 1905), 3: 11. 25 G. Lefranc, "Les chemins de fer devant le Parlement," Revue d'Histoire Moderne 5 (1930): 340-2; Adam, Instauration, 91; on Britain, see the early chapters in Harold Perkin, The Age of the Railway (London 1970). 26 See Weber, Peasants, pt. 1, for the traditional isolationist mentality. 27 Cavailles, La route, 119-20; Histoire de la France rurale, vol. 3, Apogee et crise de la civilisation paysanne, 1789-1914 (Paris 1976), 183-5, 310; L.-M. Jouffroy, L'ere du rail, 36-41. 28 Garrier, Beaujolais, 216, 219. 29 Thuillier, Economic etsociete nivernaises, 63; see also chap. 4 of the same book, devoted to a study of the prefect's career. Prefect Chazal was primarily responsible for the restoration of the roads of the Hautes-Pyrenees after the French Revolution. J.-F. Soulet, Les premiers prefets des Hautes-Pyrenees (18001814) (Paris 1965), 115-21. In 1822, the prefect of the Rhone urged the Conseil General, the elected assembly of the department, to help the government's public works policy, "for it is not enough to be able to communicate easily between the capital and the principal towns of the Kingdom, it is also necessary that all areas between these main roads, which have reciprocal needs or binding relations, should be connected, so that agriculture and industry will have easy access to markets." AD du Rhone, I S, liasse 2. 30 Thabault, Mazieres-en-Gatine, chap. 4; Douglas Johnson, Guizot: Aspects of French History, 1787-1874 (London 1963), 134-7. 31 Louis Girard, La politique des travaux publics du Second Empire, 4. 32 Ollivier, "Ponts et Chaussees," 155-70.

218 Notes to pages 7-9 33 Lefranc, "Parlement," 346-7; Jean Bastie, La croissance de la banlteue parisienne, 109- Standards were far less rigorous across the Channel and on the other side of the Atlantic. "Grades and curves which would not have been tolerated in Europe were regarded as a matter of course in New England. Here heavier and more powerful engines were saluted as a substitute for the embankments, cuttings, viaducts and tunnels required for a level road, and the desire to avoid grades of over 30 feet to the mile was regarded as oldfashioned." Edward C. Kirkland, Men, Cities and Transportation: A Study of New England History, 1820-1900 (Cambridge, Mass. 1948) 1: 296. 34 Marcel Blanchard, "Quelques points de 1'histoire des chemins de fer autour de Lyon (1830-1853)," Revue de Geographic Alpine 20 (1932): 199-236; Robert B. Carlisle, "The Saint-Simonians and the Foundation of the ParisLyon railroad, 1832-1852," (PHD thesis, Cornell University, 1957), 155-78. 35 Marc Bieloff, "Des lignes de chemin de fer entre Paris et Tours," (Memoire de geographic des transports, Universite de Paris x, 1975), 12. 36 Andre Armengaud, Les populations de I'Est Aquitaine au debut de I'epoque contemporaine, 214. 37 Lefranc, "Parlement," 344; Bastie, Banlieue, 109; L.-M. Jouffroy, La ligne de Paris a la frontiere de I'Allemagne (1825-1852) 1:151-3. 38 Adam, Instauration, 44. 39 Carlisle, "Paris-Lyon," 48. 40 For example, by reforming ministers in Vichy or post-Liberation governments. See chaps. 6-8 of this book. 41 Jean Gouhier, Naissance d'une grande cite: Le Mans au milieu du XXe siecle (Paris 1953), 16. 42 Les manieres de voir de Mathurin Blanchet, cultivateur a Pommeraux (Calvados) a propos des elections (Paris 1869), AN, Archives Mackau, 156AP191. Mackau's papers contain many examples of the importance of roads and railways as election issues in the department of Orne. See also Armengaud, Est Aquitaine, 223; Theodore Zeldin, The Political System of Napoleon III (New York paperback ed., 1971), 79-83. 43 Adam, Instauration, 91. 44 Dossier on economic questions in Berryer's papers. AN 223AP 22. See also, Dennis M. Sherman, "Governmental Attitudes towards Economic Modernization in France during the July Monarchy, 1830-1848" (PHD thesis, University of Michigan, 1970), 109-25, and conclusion. Sherman's arguments fit my understanding of French railway history better than those of Christopher H. Johnson, who possibly exaggerates the dynamism of Orleanist economic policy in "The Revolution of 1830 in French Economic History," in 1830 in France, ed. J.M. Merriman (New York 1975). 45 J.H. Clapham, Economic Development of France and Germany, 1815-1914 (Cambridge reprint, 1968), 139-56. On Belgium, see Girard, "Transport," 234-6, and Jouffroy, L'ere du rail, 66-8.

219 Notes to pages 10-12 46 The local studies cited earlier substantiate this contention. See in particular, Corbin, Limousin 1: 142: Bieloff, "Paris et Tours," 10-2. 47 Adam, Instauration, 58. 48 For details of these changes, see Kimon A. Doukas, The French Railroads and the State. 49 Yasuo Gonjo, "Le 'plan Freycinet', 1878-1882: Un aspect de la 'grande depression' economique en France," Revue historique 248 (1972): 49-86; Sanford Elwitt, The Making of the Third Republic, chap. 4, esp. p. 146; Doukas, Railroads and the State, 44. 50 Girard, Travaux publics, 88-97. 51 Francois Caron, Histoire de Sexploitation d'un grand reseau: La Compagnie du chemin defer du Nord, 1846-1937, 73-80. 52 Of course, this was not unique to France: clashes of interest between industrialists seeking cheap transport facilities and profit-conscious railway entrepreneurs occurred in most industrialized countries. See, for example, Bruce T. Ritz, "Rhenish-Westphalian heavy industrialists and the formulation of railway policy in Germany, 1871-1883" (PHD thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1973); Gabriel Kolko, Railroads and Regulation, 1877-1916 (Princeton 1965); Paul W. MacAvoy, The Economic Effects of Regulation: The Trunk-line Railroad Cartels and the Interstate Commerce Commission before 1900 (Cambridge, Mass. 1965); Perkin, Railway Age, esp. chap. 7. 53 Blanchard, Geographie, 184. For further protests by the Orleans Chamber of Commerce, see Sorlin, Societe fran^aise 1: 79. 54 Girard, Travaux publics, 211. 55 Bertrand Gille, La banque en France au XIXe siecle (Geneva 1970), 148-51. 56 G. Goy, Hommes et chases du PLM (Paris 1911), 66. 57 Gille, La banque, 156. 58 "La carte 1'indique assez: Le Credit Lyonnais comme la Societe Generale egrenera ses agences le long des lignes P.L.M." Jean Bouvier, Le Credit Lyonnais de 1863 a 1882: Les annees deformation d'une banque de depots (Paris 1961), 1: 312. Part 2 of the book deals with the expansion of the Credit Lyonnais. 59 David S. Landes, The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present (Cambridge 1969), 258-60. Zeldin, Political System, 57-8, has a thumbnail sketch of the Schneider dynasty under the Second Empire. 60 B. Gille, in La siderurgie fran^aise au XIXe siecle, 226-7, documents the railways' support for free trade in the 1850s as a means of forcing down iron and steel prices; for their tactics intended to outwit the suppliers during the belle epoque, see M J. Rust, "Business and Politics in the Third Republic: The Comite des Forges and the French Steel Industry), 1896-1914" (PHD thesis, Princeton University, 1973, 186-202. The railway companies' tactics in dealing with the locomotive manufacturers are dealt with thoroughly in Francois Crouzet, "Essor, declin et renaissance de 1'industrie franchise des

220 Notes to pages 12-14

61 62

63

64 65

66

67

68

69 70

71 72 73

locomotives, 1838-1914," Revue d'Histoire Economique etSociale, 1977, nos. 1 and 2: 112-210. As late as 1930, they refused to commit themselves to buy only French rolling stock. Conference of the directors of the grands reseaux, 6 January 1930, AN 307 AP 27. Gille, La siderurgie, 247-9Alfred D. Chandler and Stephen Salsbury, "The Railroads: Innovators in Modern Business Administration," in The Railroad and the Space Program: An Exploration in Historical Analogy, ed. Bruce Mazlish (Cambridge, Mass. 1965), 128. This analysis is developed and related to the evolution of managerial capitalism in Alfred D. Chandler, The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business. See Robert R. Locke, "A Method of Identifying French Corporate Businessmen (The Second Empire)," French Historical Studies 10, no. 2 (1977): 261-92; Sherman, "Governmental Attitudes," 207-16. Gille, La banque, 202-4; E.D. Brant, Railways of North Africa (Newton Abbot 1971), 19. Michel Chevalier, Des intents materiels en France (Paris reprint, 1941), 354. In 1833, one deputy made the following prediction: "One could perhaps fear that the railways would constitute a harmful form of competition to our canals and would diminish their traffic; but this objection falls, once it is seen that of all means of transport, the waterway is the least costly. Generally speaking, the railways will serve principally as a form of passenger transport." Laur, De I'accaparement 3:5. Georges Dupeux, Aspects de I'histoire sociale etpolitique du Loir-et-Cher, 18481914 (Paris 1962), 215-16; Maurice Wolkowitsch, L'Economie regionale des transports dans le centre et centre-ouest de la France, 33-5. The river Allier was only open to navigation for 165-185 days a year. Clement Reyre, "Copie d'un memoire adresse a M. le Senateur charge de 1'administration du departement du Rhone," 22 August 1858, AD du Rhone, IS, liasse 2; Barral, here, 61-3; Price, Economic Modernisation, 19. J.J. Hannaway, "The Canal of Burgundy, 1720-1853: A Study of a Mixed Enterprise" (PHD thesis, Johns Hopkins University, 1971, 257-62); J. Harvey Smith, "Cruzy," 359For the freight-rate wars, see Girard, Travauxpublics, 209-17. Ibid., 125-32, 172-86; Wolkowitsch, Centre et centre-ouest, 46-50; see Carrier, Beaujolais, 336-7, for another example of temporary cooperation between local notables and banks. Corbin, Limousin 1:139-42. R. Caralp-Landon, Les chemins de fer dans le Massif Central: Etude des votes ferrees regionales, 150-1. Report by M. Bouteilloux on "relations transversales" to Limoges Chamber of Commerce, 3 October 1934, Bulletin de la Chambre de Commerce de

221 Notes to pages 15-17

74

75

76 77

78

79 80 81 82

83

84

85 86

87

Limoges, July-December 1934, 4232-7. On inter-network rivalries, see Louis Armand, Propos ferroviaires, 20-1. L. Donon to Baron Mackau, 2 August 1874, AN 156AP I 271. See also Armengaud, Est Aquitaine, 215-18; Bouvier, Credit Lyonnais, 114; Caron, Chemin de fer du Nord, 197-215; Gendarme, La region du Nord, 45. Zeldin quotes Napoleon III as saying, "When one bears our name, and when one is at the head of the government, there are two things one must do: satisfy the interests of the most numerous classes and attach to oneself the upper classes." Political System, 10. Cf. Marx's analysis of this dual strategy in his Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, in Marx and Engels, Selected Works (London 1968), esp. 168-79Doukas, Railroads and the State, 13; Giraud, Travauxpublics, 213-14. Napoleon III to Minister of State Foulds, 5 January I860, AN 156AP1139; G. Bertrand, Le rail et la route (Paris 1931), iv-v; Girard, Travaux publics, 300; Hannaway, "Canal of Burgundy," 267. Dominique Renouard, Les transports de marchandises par fer, route et eau depuis 1850, 39; C. Hadfield, British Canals (Newton Abbot 1966), 218-41; Perkin, Age of the Railway, 283. Lefevre, Sous le Second Empire, 32; Weber, Peasants, 220. Elwitt, Making of the Third Republic, 148; Gonjo, "Le 'plan Freycinet'," 54. Elwitt, Making of the Third Republic, 119Gonjo, "Le 'plan Freycinet'," passim. For Freycinet's career, see Lyte M. Fozard, "Charles-Louis Saules de Freycinet: The Railways and the Expansion of the French Empire in North and West Africa" (PHD thesis, Boston University, 1975), chap. 1. Michele Merger, "L'etat et les canaux, 1870-1914" (Lecture delivered at the Universite de Paris X, 20 December 1980). Another way of measuring the relative effectiveness of the Freycinet waterway program is to note that whereas the annual growth in national waterway capacity had been about 1 per cent in 1870-85, it reached 4 per cent p.a. in 1885-1900. M. Wolkowitsch, "Le decadence de la notion de service public pour les transports de voyageurs en milieu rural," Transports, February 1976; Weber, Peasants, 220. Charles de Freycinet, Souvenirs, 1878-1893 (New York reprint, 1973), 85. Thabault, Mazieres-en-Gatine, later chapters; Weber, Peasants, pt. 2. For a local example of the conflict between republican notables and traditional elites, see Barnett Singer, "The Teacher as Notable in Brittany, 1880-1914," French Historical Studies 9, no. 4 (1976), 635-59. For a detailed analysis of such a struggle under the Second Empire, see Roger Magraw, "Popular Anticlericalism in the Isere (1852-1870)," in Conflicts in French Society, ed. Theodore Zeldin (London 1970); this is one of the main themes in Zeldin, France, vol. 1.

222 Notes to pages 17-19 88 See the analysis of the relationship between Radicalism and the political culture of these groups in Gil C. Alroy, "Radicalism and Modernization: The French Problem" (PHD thesis, Princeton University, 1962). 89 Caron argues that tariffs were set "en fonction de 1'influence des differentes groupes de pression, agissant aupres du Comite consultatif," Chemin de fer du Nord, 389- He argues that this led to the retention of archaic modes of production by subsidizing "lame ducks." 90 See the material on workers' season tickets in AN Fl4 12276. 91 J. Nadal, "Le prix de revient des transports par chemin de fer," Annales des Mines, November 1930, 229. 92 Minutes of the meetings of directors of the grands reseaux, 1930-1. See also Loubere, Radicalism, 85. Charles Warner neglects this aspect of the winegrowers' activity in The Winegrowers of France and the Government since 1875 (New York 1966). 93 Minutes of the Comite de Direction des Grands Reseaux, 22 September 1926, AN F 14 12264. 94 Chambre de Commerce de Gueret, Comptes rendus, 8 February 1908. 95 For deputies' lobbying of the Ministry of Commerce in favour of candidates for the committee, see AN F12 8771. The material in this dossier bears out Robert de Jouvenel's satirical remarks about lobbying procedures in his Republique des Camarades (Paris 1914), pt. 1. Jouvenel wrote that whether a deputy "speaks in the name of democracy (order and progress) or in the name of the Tartempia company (wines and spirits), the important thing is to have a clientele, and one's duty is to let it down as little as possible." 96 J.-C. Toutain, "Les transports en France de 1830-1965," Economies etSocietes 1 (September-Cotober 1967): 166. 97 For an exhaustive discussion, see Doukas, Railroads and the State. 98 Raoul Dautry, Metier d'homme (Paris 1937), 109-21; John M. Sherwood, "Raoul Dautry and Les Chemins de fer de 1'Etat: Railway Workers and Rationalization in France, 1928-1937," Journal of Contemporary History 15 (1980): 443-74; Henri Chardon, "Etude sur la situation et 1'avenir du Reseau de 1'Etat," 10 July 1921, ANF14 12482; Paul Theodore-Vibert, Les crimes de I'etatisme: Le rachat de I'Ouest (Paris 1909), a polemic in which the author, a deputy loosely affiliated with the Radical party, makes an analogy between the decadence caused by etatisme and the causes of the decline of the Roman Empire. 99 Edgar Milhaud, Lesfermiers generaux du rail. 100 Stanley Hoffmann, "Paradoxes of the French Political Community," In Search of France (Cambridge, Mass. 1963); Alroy, "Radicalism and Modernization"; P. Larmour, The French Radical Party in the 1930s, chap. 2; Dr R.F. Hopwood's approach to German small-town elites has also influenced the analysis in this paragraph. One writer, Eugene de Tailleur, claimed that Henri Germain, the long-serving president of the Credit

223 Notes to pages 19-21

101 102 103

104

105

106

Lyonnais, "has exercised a veritable economic dictatorship over France for twenty years." Eugene de Tailleur, Centre I'oligarchie financiere en France (Paris 1908), 163. On the extent of the consensus about the feodalite financiere, see Pierre Birnbaum, Le peuple et les gros: Histoire d'un mythe (Paris, 1979), and Malcolm Anderson, "The Myth of the 'Two Hundred Families'," Political Studies 13, no. 2 (1965): 163-78. Stanley Hoffmann, "The State: For What Society?", in France since the 1930s: Decline or Renewal? (New York 1974), 444. Albert Thomas, L 'etat et les chemins de fer. Serge Benoit, "La politique ferroviaire du Parti Republicain Radical et Radical-Socialiste sous la Troisieme Republique" (Memoire de maitrise, Universite de Paris I, 1972), argues that the Radicals were "hostile [aux Compagnies ferroviaires] moins parce qu'elles sont capitalistes que parce qu'elles sont grandes," 254. See also Armand Charpentier, Le Parti radical et radical-socialiste a traversses congres (1901-1911) (Paris 1913), 326-44. The usual Radical criticism of the grands reseaux was political. According to Masson, a former deputy of the Rhone, "the ownership and management of the railways is almost exclusively in the hands of declared adversaries of democratic ideas." The reactions of the rentier and republican press to the formation of the SNCF were very revealing of the priorities of the petite-bourgeoisie. The provincial press generally praised the convention establishing the SNCF because shareholders' rights were respected. See the dossier of press clippings in AN 48AQ 3614. Laur, De I'accaparement 3: 89. The contrast between the French and American experiences is striking. At the time when the French state was pushing through its projects for the creation of a rural railway network, the American companies were attempting to consolidate their systems by fighting for access to major railroad centres such as New York and Chicago. Loubet probably had this example of "anarchic competition" in mind when he addressed the Chamber. See Chandler, Visible Hand, pt. 2. A good discussion of the relationship between private and public interests in American transport is Carter Goodrich, Government Promotion of American Canals and Railroads, 1800-1900 (New York I960). For example, Joseph Hours, "L'histoire des chemins de fer frangais et ses enseignements geographiques," Etudes Rbodaniennes, April -June 1949:135. As a general rule, geographers have praised the social aims of the republican transport policy, while economists have condemned them. CHAPTER TWO

1 Guy Arbellot, "Les routes de France au XVHie siecle," Annales: Economies, Societes, Civilisations 28 (1973): 765-91; Andre Meynier, A travers le Massif

224 Notes to pages 21-3

2 3

4 5 6

7

8

9

10

Central: Segalas, Levezou, Chataignerie (Aurillac 1931), 138; Cavailles, La route franfaise, 243-8. Carrier, Beaujolais, 335; Caralp-Landon, Les chemins defer dans le Massif Central, 147-8. Weber, Peasants, 195-206; Histoire de la France rurale 3: 183-5. State expenditure on the Routes Nationales, however, increased from 41 million francs in 1914 to 847,800,000 francs in 1930, a fourfold increase in real terms. "Une legende a detruire," Lajourneelndustrielle, 28 October 1931. Gautier, Chemins et vehicules, 15; see also chap. 1 above. Jouffroy, "La revolution des transports," 13-4. By far the most important category comprised doctors, dentists, pharmacists, and veterinarians. But in 1904, less than one in thirteen of doctors outside the department of the Seine owned an automobile. In Paris itself, only 25 doctors out of 1,934 drove cars. See Commission Extraparlementaire de la circulation des automobiles, Rapport de M. Hennequin sur Devolution automobiliste en France de 1899 a 1905 (Paris 1905). "Rapport presente par M. Schwartz, Ingenieur en Chef des Fonts et Chaussees, sur 1'Industrie Automobile," 1936, 33, AN Fl2 8798; Patrick Fridenson, "L'industrie automobile en France jusqu'en 1914," Revue d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine 19 (1972): 558-78. M. Chevalier, La vie humaine dans les Pyrenees ariegeoises, 980; the pattern was similar in Britain, according to John Hibbs, The History of British Bus Services (Newton Abbot 1966), 47-9. Ministerial memorandum of 27 December 1918. A later memo (1925) added that the subsidized services were intended to bind the peasant to the land. AN Fl4 13013. Charles Colson, "Revue des questions de transports," Revue Politique etParlementaire, November 1913, 328-9.

11 M. Wolkowitsch, Centre et centre-ouest, 115.

12 A report written in 1910 by an engineer of the Fonts et Chaussees for the department of Herault objected to the high running costs of early buses in comparison to local railways and horse-drawn buggies. The latter managed to survive because "capital costs and operating expenses are reduced to a bare minimum, a few worn-out nags of little value, cheaply built coaches often used to the limit, one driver per vehicle and few overheads." AD Herault, 2s 2679. See also similar assessments in AD Hautes-Pyrenees, S Auto 25: report of November 1915, and in the dossier on buses contained in the Mackau papers, AN 156AP1140. 13 Yves Guedon, Les transports automobiles, esp. chaps. 5, 7, and 8. One reason for the caution of the Bon Marche management was the heavy investment the firm already had in horse-drawn equipment. In 1895, its stable boasted 150 horses and 80 delivery vans. Michael B. Miller, "The Department Store and Social Change in Modern France: The Case of the Bon Marche, 18691920" (PHD thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1976), 48.

225 Notes to pages 23-5 14 See the dossiers on new road transport enterprises in AN 65AQQ. 15 Guedon, Transports automobiles, 43-4, 37. Another person who sought to make the advantages of the truck known to industry was Pierre Souvestre, who used his editorials in Le Poids Lourd to educate businessmen in the selection and maintenance of commercial vehicles. 16 James M. Laux, In First Gear: The French Automobile Industry to 1914,110-11, 117-19; Michel Laferrere, Lyon: Ville industrielle (Paris I960), 371; Gerard Declas, "Recherches sur les Usines Berliet (1914-1949)" (Memoire de Maitrise, Universite de Paris 1,1977), 2-3. 17 Charles Clevenot, "La question des assurances contre les risques de transport par terre et par eau," Bulletin de la Societe Industrielle de Mulhouse, AprilJune 1908,148. 18 Guedon, Transports automobiles, 35. 19 P. Banet, "L'automobilisme sur route," Revue desDeuxMondes, 15 February 1905, 337. At the annual Salon of the Automobile in 1906, M. Berthelot, senator and savant, predicted that one day railway equipment would be regarded as "vulgar scrap metal." M.M., "Le Salon de 1'Automobile," La Petite Gironde, 1 January 1907. 20 Schwarz, "Rapport," 27, AN Fl2 8798; Henri Sellier, A. Bruggeman, and Marcel Poete, Paris pendant la guerre (Paris 1926), 44. 21 Patrick Fridenson, Histoire des usines Renault, vol. 1, Naissance de la grande entreprise, 1898-1939, 96-119; and J.-P. Bardou, J.-J. Chanaron, P. Fridenson, and J.M. Laux, La revolution automobile (Paris 1977), pt. 2. 22 The stories of the Battle of the Marne and of the role of truck convoys in supplying the French front lines at Verdun were frequently used in the 1930s to justify the argument that the growth of the automobile industry was necessary for national defence. After the success of the German motorized divisions in the campaign of May-June 1940, the defenders of the automobile felt vindicated. Alaistair Home, The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916 (London 1964), 161; Louis Caro, Les routiers (Paris 1957), 45. 23 "Transports automobiles," L'Usine, 3 June 1920; "Note sur le developpement de la circulation automobile en France," 6 December 1921, AN 48AQ3623; P. Masson, Marseille pendant la guerre (Paris 1926), 19; Claude-J. Gignoux, Bourgespendant la guerre (Paris 1926), 28. 24 The predictions of the journalists of L 'Usine and Lajournee Industrielle at the annual Salon de 1'Automobile invariably fell short of the mark. 25 Michele Flageolet-Lardenois, "Une firme pionniere: Panhard et Levallois jusqu'en 1918," Le Mouvement Social 81 (October-December 1972): 49. 26 Patrick Fridenson, "L'ideologie des grands constructeurs dans 1'entredeux-guerres," ibid., 51-68; Charles S. Maier, "Between Taylorism and Technocracy " Journal of Contemporary History 5, no. 2 (1970): 27-61; Richard F. Kuisel, Capitalism and the State in Modern France, 76-7, 88, 90. 27 "La situation de 1'industrie automobile," L'Usine, 10 November 1923; Bardou et al., La revolution automobile, 142.

226 Notes to pages 25-7 28 In 1919, the army still had 16,000 vehicles (buses and trucks) at its disposal. Journal Officiel: Documents parlementaires, 9 July 1919- Doc. 6772: reply to a question raised by Col. Josse. Another cause of the postwar sluggishness of the commercial vehicles' sector was the financial disaster which set back Berliet. Declas, "Les Usines Berliet," early chapters. 29 See the Renault and Peugeot advertisements in Lajournee Industrielle, 10, 22-23, and 27 April 1923. 30 LJ. Lambert and A.G. Ferret, "Products of the Industry: Tyres," in History of the Rubber Industry, ed. P. Schidrowitz and T.R. Dawson (Cambridge 1952), 219-20; "Un coup d'oeil sur le salon de 1'automobile," L'Usine, 20 November 1926. 31 Janine Morice, La demande d'automobiles en France. She finds interesting correlations between car ownership and propensity to divorce, and negative correlations between car ownership and large families, heavy expenditure on domestic comforts, etc. Her tentative conclusion is that before 1930 ownership of a car was indicative of a more open, adventurous mentality. 32 Caution is called for here, because of the paucity of statistics available concerning this and many other aspects of road transport. The first survey concerning the professional distribution of automobile ownership for the interwar period was carried out in 1944 by the Organization Committees of the various branches of shopkeeping. Their main findings were that "in 1939, 63% of the grocers, 77% of the restaurateurs and 82% of the bankers and doctors had their own cars." Georges Gallienne, "La circulation routiere: Ce qu'elle est, ce qu'elle devrait etre," in Problemes d'actualite: L'Industrie automobile en France, les carburants, la circulation routiere (Paris 1948), 19. Because, as we shall see, the growth of automobile circulation slowed considerably during the 1930s, the assessment made in the text is justifiable. 33 Gautier, Chemins et vehicules, 22. 34 Prosperite, April-June 1934, 9-11,13. The issue summarizes the findings in Andre Meynier, A travers le Massif Central. These assertions are supported by Y. Pomerade, "L'essor d'un petit centre regional: Rodez," Revue Geographique des Pyrenees et du Sud-Ouest 25 (1954): 243-59. 35 Prosperity July-September 1934,17,18. 36 Chevalier, Pyrenees ariegeoises, 981. 37 See the dossiers of documents on these services in AN Fl4 13013, Fl4 13588 and 48 AQ 3623. 38 Report of the Ponts et Chaussees engineer for Loir-et-Cher, 1935, AN Fl4 12992. 39 In the Ariege, a network was only formed in 1925, Eureet-Loir 1929, Aube and Manche 1932. Chevalier, Pyrenees ariegeoises, 981-82; AN Fl4 12988, 12976, and 12997 respectively. For a sampling of the professional origins of the early bus transporters, see AD du Card, 2s 822. 40 Richard F. Kuisel, Ernest Mercier, French Technocrat (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1967): 10-11; the percentage of communes receiving electricity

227 Notes to pages 28-9

41

42

43 44 45 46

47

48

49

50

51 52 53

rose from 20 per cent in 1919 (58 per cent of the population) to 47.9 per cent in 1927 (76.3 per cent) and 83.4 per cent (94 per cent) in 1932. Georges Marty, "Caracteristiques actuelles de la distribution d'energie electrique," Rail et Route et son supplement L'Equipement Rural, March-April 1932. On tramways, see John P. McKay, Tramways and Trolleys: The Rise of Urban Mass Transit in Europe (Princeton 1976). Unfortunately, he has relatively little on the demise of the trams. C. Colson, "Revue des questions de transport," Revue Politique et Parlementaire, November 1912, 359; speech by Pierre Jourdain, the president of the Union Technique des chemins de fer d'interet local et des tramways de France, in Les Chemins defer et les Tramways, March 1937. R. Godfernaux, Aper^u de Devolution des chemins de ferfran$ais de 1878 a 1928, 133-4. Dupeux, Loir-et-Cher, 217; C. Colson, "Revue des questions de transport," Revue Politique etParlementaire, November 1912, 362-3. Marcel Peschaud, Politique et fonctionnement des transports par chemin de fer pendant la guerre; Doukas, Railroads and the State, 112. Ministerial enquiry into the financial position of the votes ferrees d'interet local, 1923, AN Fl4 13586; E. Joyant, "Les contrats des voies ferrees d'interet local et la theorie de 1'imprevision," Annales des Fonts et Chaussees, JanuaryFebruary 1926,92. Jourdain speech, Les Chemins defer etles Tramways, March 1937; Pierre Jourdain, "La coordination des transports ferroviaires et routiers," Les Chemins de fer et les Tramways, August-September 1938: 108; E. Crevaux, "Les autobus en Thierache," Democrate de I'Aisne, 19 November 1923De Waru, "Note pour le Comite de Direction du Reseau du Nord: La concurrence faite au Reseau du Nord par les transports automobiles," 13 December 1921, AN 48AQ 3623. De Lalande, "Utilisation de la traction automobile dans les services annexes des chemins de fer," Revue Generale des Chemins de fer, December 1924, 417-25. Ibid.; "Chemins de fer de Paris a Lyon et a la Mediterrannee," Le Reveil Economique, 23 November 1913; Caralp-Landon, Les chemins de fer dans le Massif Central, 160; Compagnie des Chemins de fer du Midi, Assemblies generates extraordinaires et ordinaires des actionnaires du 1 avril 1922, 12, AN 78AQ11. De Waru, "Note pour le Comite ...," AN 48AQ 3623. Cavailles, La route franqaise, 347-8. Comite de Direction des Grands Reseaux to the minister, 25 February 1926, AN F 14 12510; C[amille] D[idier], "Notre trafic par voie ferree" and "Autour de la question des transports par fer," L'Usine, 17 September and 1 October 1927; Comite de Direction des Grands Reseaux, meeting of 28 March 1928, AN F14 12264.

228 Notes to pages 29-32 54 For the industrial crisis of 1927, see J.R. Cahill, Report on Economic Conditions in France in 1928 (London 1928); A. Sauvy, Histoire economique de la France entre les deuxguerres, vol. 1, chap. 4; G.C. Schmid, "The Politics of Financial Instability: France, 1924-1926" (PHD thesis, Columbia University, 1968), later chapters. 55 This paragraph relies heavily on the Fournier report on the railways (1930), AN Fl4 12502. See also Histoire de la locomotion terrestre: Le chemin deferr (Paris 1935). 56 It is very difficult to provide a reliable estimate of average transport costs, as variations in the material used, the conditions of the track or the road, the distance travelled and many other factors have to be taken into account. C. Bonnier, "Prix de revient des entreprises de transports," Le Populaire, 24 June 1930. 57 "Rapport Fournier," 119-28, AN Fl4 12502; J. Nadal, "Le prix de revient des transports par chemin de fer," Annales des Mines, November 1930. 58 "Les voitures utilitaires," Bulletin Citroen, October 1926, 389; C[amille] D[idier], "La question du materiel roulant," L'Usine, 29 September 1923; "La crise du materiel roulant," L'Usine, 15 November 1924. 59 Cavailles, La route fran^aise, 347; interview with M.Jacques Lucius, Raoul Dautry's son-in-law, 10 March 1978. 60 Conseil du Reseau de 1'Etat, meeting of 11 January 1929, AN 307 AP 30. 61 "La lenteur des transports en petite vitesse," L 'Usine, 6 November 1926. See also de Foville, Transformation, 21-3, for an example of such a criticism during the age of railway ascendancy. 62 See chap. 1 above. 63 Albert Thomas, L'etat et les chemins de fer, 137-57; Edgard Milhaud, Les fermiers generaux du rail, chap. 12. "It is inadmissible and contrary to the very meaning of justice and equity," said one member of Toulon Chamber of Commerce in 1911, "that on the railway lines of one company, some merchants should have to pay more than their competitors to send identical goods; especially when this difference is imposed by a public service which should offer equal treatment for all and favour nobody." ANF14 11234. 64 Godfernaux, Aperfu, 108. 65 "Dans le maquis de la ratification," France-Transports, February 1932. 66 Edmond Thery, Consequences economiques de la guerre pour la France (Paris 1922): 41. 67 Several other requests were discussed at the meeting of the Comite de Direction des Grands Reseaux on 6 October 1926. ANF14 12264. 68 Godfernaux, Aperfu, 124; PLM shareholders' meeting of 1930, AN 77AQ 245; Chemins de fer du Midi, shareholders' meeting of 1928, AN 78AQ11; Resume de I'activite du Reseau du Nord de 1925 a 7935, 1936, 9-10; Chemins de fer de 1'Etat, Comptes d'administration, 1928,12, AN 307AP 34. 69 PLM shareholders' meeting of 1930, Report on the financial year ending 1929, 58, AN 77AQ 245.

229 Notes to pages 32-4 70 De Waru, "Note au sujet de la question des transports automobiles," 25 January 1928, AN 48AQ 3624. 71 "Note de la Compagnie des Chemins de fer du Midi au sujet des filiales d'automobiles," 26 January 1928, ANF14 1250972 F. Caron, La Compagnie du Chemin de fer du Nord, 454-5. 73 Rudolph Binion, Defeated Leaders: The Political Fate ofCaillaux,Jouveneland Tardieu (New York I960), pt. 3, "Andre Tardieu and His Case against the Republic." 74 In 1908, Tardieu published his Notes on the USA, in praise of American industrial and intellectual life. For examples of other businessmen influenced by their wartime experience see Kuisel, Merrier, chap. 1; see also his Capitalism and the State, chap. 2. 75 Tardieu's papers contain numerous speeches made to business groups criticizing the inertia of Parliament, and calling for the strengthening of the authority of the state. AN 324AP 59 and 60. 76 Ministerial memoranda, AN Fl4 12511. 77 President of Transports PLM to A. de Monzie, Minister of Public Works, 7 March 1938, AN Fl4 12509. 78 F. Perroux, "Les chemins de fer et autres modes de transport," La France economique en 1930 (Paris 1931), 521; R. de Nercy, "Les transports automobiles," Congres International des Transports Automobiles, Rapports (Berlin 1933). 79 "Les services automobiles des chemins de fer frangais," Les Transports Automobiles, October 1933-March 1934, 129. The largest bus company, the SGTD, carried 11.78 million people in 1930. Unfortunately, lack of data prevents comparison with the traffic of either private bus companies or subsidized carriers. 80 "STARN: Rapport du 17 aout 1931," AN 48AQ6030. 81 Letter in Le Bulletin des Halles, 7 March 1931. On the formation of the Union des Vehicules Industriels, see the editorial by F. Cardot in Le Vehicule Industriel, 20 January 1927. 82 G. Loubat, "Les compagnies de chemins de fer et les transports sur route," Le Poids Lourd, 15 March 1932; "Importante manifestation des transporteurs routiers a Lille," "Un document capital," and report on the congress of the FNTF, in L'AvenirRoutier, 3 and 17 April, 12 June 1932. 83 Conference des Transports par automobile, L'egalite devant I'impot (Paris [1932?]). 84 Ibid. See material in AN 48AQ6030 (Nord), 13AQ 397 (Est) and 77AQ 219 (PLM). 85 M. Dubost, Directeur de 1'Exploitation de la Region Ouest de la SNCF, to R. Dautry, 5 June 1946, and enclosed note, AN 307AP 36. 86 Interview with J. Lucius, 10 March 1978; L-O. Frossard, "La nouvelle convention," L'Homme Libre, 2 September 1937. Frossard, who became minister of public works in 1938, claimed that Grimpret was the Socialists' nominee to be first president of the SNCF.

230 Notes to pages 34-9 87 Minutes of the Comite Consultatif des Chemins de fer, 4 November 1929, AN F14 13581. 88 See correspondence between Grimpret, successive ministers, and top railway managers in AN Fl4 12510; M. Margot, President of the Comite de Direction des Grands Reseaux to the Minister, 28 December 1931, AN 48 AQ 6030. 89 T. Kemp, The French Economy, 1913-1939 (London 1967), 99-114; Sauvy, Histoire economique I, chap. 6. 90 Sauvy, Histoire economique 1:118, 264; for a chronology of the industries hit by the crisis, Pierre Jeramec, "La production industrielle," La France economique en 1930 (Paris 1931): 228-36. 91 SNCF, Direction des Etudes Generates et de la Recherche, Statistiques retrospectives (Paris 1976), table C2; Henri Roy, Rapport de Devolution des grands reseaux de chemin defer en 1934 (Paris 1935), 262. CHAPTER THREE 1 F. Perroux, "Les chemins de fer et autres moyens de transport," La France economique en 1930 (Paris 1931), 510-11; Comite de Direction des Grands Reseaux, meeting of 1 May 1929, ANF14 12502. 2 For details of the convention, Doukas, Railroads and the State; Caron, Chemin de fer du Nord, 443-8. 3 Peschaud, Politique et fonctionnement, passim. 4 The criticism of the fonds commun is made effectively in the Rapport Fournier, 358-87. AN Fl4 12502. Additional evidence is provided by Caron, Chemin defer du Nord, 462-5. 5 Journal Officiel. Chambre, Debats, 1 March 1931; F. Perroux, in La France economique en 1931 (Paris 1932), 340. 6 Minister of Finance to the Comite de Direction, 10 September and 3 December 1930, ANF14 12502. 7 Intervention at the meeting of the Comite de Direction des Grands Reseaux, 21 May 1930, ibid. 8 Edouard Bonnefous, Histoire politique de la Troisieme Republique 4: 1-124; Larmour, French Radical Party, 103-12. 9 The Convention had few vocal defenders in the Chamber in the 1930s. Opponents of the companies enjoyed a near-monopoly of the annual debates on the railway budgets. For defences of the companies, see the speeches of Louis Delsol and Pierre de Haut, Journal Officiel. Chambre. Debats, 2 March 1931,1442, and 7 March 1932,1155-710 Fournier later recalled his summons by the Tardieu government. He was called upon to draw up the report despite his lack of qualifications to allow the government to play for time and "pour eviter d'offrir aux fleches acieres des hommes de 1'art un enfant trop fragile." Meeting of the Board of Directors of the SNCF, 18 September 1941, AN 133 AQ 3.

231 Notes to pages 40-3 11 Rapport Fournier, AN Fl4 12502. 12 Journal Offtciel. Chambre. Debats,LMztch 1931, 1394. 13 Albert Thomas, L 'etat et les chemins defer, Dufour, "Les nationalisations dans 1'histoire du mouvement ouvrier fiangais" (Memoire, Universite de Paris, 1969). 14 Caron, Chemin de fer du Nord, 443-4. On the concept of "nationalisation industrialist " see Georges Lefranc, "Les origines de 1'idee de nationalisation industrialist en France (1919-1920)," Essaissur les problemes socialistes et syndicalistes (Paris 1970). 15 Jules Moch, Le rail et la nation (Paris 1931) and Capitalisms et transports. 16 LePopulaire, 24 January and 10 June 1932. 17 F. Perroux, in La France economique en 1931, 540-4. 18 Henri Truchy, "La question des chemins de fer," ^Information Financiere, 27 February 1932. 19 "Reponse des reseaux de chemins de fer au rapport de M. Fournier," September 1931. AN Fl4 12502; Ce qu'il faut savoir sur la question des chemins de fer (Paris [1931]), a glossy brochure put out by the companies. 20 Caron, Chemin defer du Nord, 538. 21 Paul Javary, Conference faite au Congres de Genie Civil (Paris 1931), 29. 22 The Comite de Direction had feared that radical proposals would meet with this fate. Memorandum to the Conseil Superieur des Chemins de fer, 5 June 1931, AN Fl 4 12504. On the pilot project, see the bulky dossier in AN 48AQ3376. 23 On the setting up of the study group, A. Maudit, "L'electrification des chemins de fer," Bulletin de I'Association Internationale des Chemins de fer, October-December 1919, 240-7; on its findings, Conseil Superieur des Travaux Publics, "Electrification des chemins de fer d'interet general," 1920, AN Fl4 14421. 24 Ministere des Travaux Publics, Controle et surveillance des chemins de fer, "Rapport de 1'Ingenieur en chef," 17 February 1923, AN Fl4 14421. See also the engineer's report of 15 January 1925, AN Fl4 14422. 25 Jean Pupier, "Le grand probleme des transports," Lajournee Industrielle, 16 January-5 February 1932. 26 "Quelques reflexions sur un developpement de 1'electrification des chemins de fer franc.ais," ibid., 26 and 27 April 1932. The president of the PLM raised financial objections at the shareholders' meeting of 1933. AN 77 AQ 245. Marcel Haouy and Andre Guilmard, "La region nord de la SNCF," LeMoniteur des Travaux Publics et du Batiment, 2 May 1970. 27 Jules Antonini, Le rail, la route etl'eau, chap. 2. 28 At the meeting of the Conference des Directeurs on 21 July 1930, M. Margot, the representative of the PLM, was hostile to the idea of railcars, arguing that steam locomotives were still the better form of traction. AN 307 AP 27. In contrast, the Reseau de 1'Etat operated a dense network of railcars by 1934. Chemins de fer de 1'etat, Comptes d'administration: Exercise 1934,47. AN

232 Notes to pages 43-5

29 30 31 32 33 34 35

36 37 38

39 40 41

42

43

44

307AP 34. Dautry's role in encouraging the use of railcars was appreciated by G. Baldenweck, the man in charge of railcar production at Renault, Note to M. Huge, 17 August 1933, AN 91 AQ 56. G. Baldenweck, "L'effort des Usines Renault en matiere des automotrices," January 1936, AN 91 AQ 56; Fridenson, Renault, 292. Henri Roy, Rapport sur Devolution des grands reseaux de chemins defer en 1934 (Paris 1935), 187. Wolkowitsch, Centre et centre-ouest, 363-6. AN48AQ3378. For the composition of the committee, see " Vers la coordination des transports," Lajournee Industrielle, 4-5 December 1932. "Un coup de force des reseaux entraine la rupture des pourparlers," L'AvenirRoutier, 3 July 1932. Comite de Direction des Grands Reseaux to the Minister of Public Works, 1 August 1932; Archives de la Chambre de Commerce de Paris, IV 8-2, carton 1. Larmour, French Radical Party, 105-39; Bonnefous, Histoire politique 5: 143-82. Journal Officiel. Chambre. Debats, 1 March 1931. Note of the Comite de Direction des Grands Reseaux, 10 November 1932, AN Fl4 12505; the negotiations are discussed by F. Perroux, in La France economique en 1932 (Paris 1933), 531-45. Seethe various Chamber of Commerce resolutions in ANFl4 12505 ;L'Usine, 7 October 1932. Caron, Chemin defer du Nord, 530; Perroux, in La France economique en 1931, 544-5. On Herriot's experience in 1926, see Schmid, "Politics of Financial Instability," and J.-N. Jeanneney, Francois de Wendel en Republique: L 'argent et le pouvoir, 1914-1940 (Paris 1976), pt. 3. Defending his transport policy against left-wing critics at the Radical party congress of 1934, Herriot caustically remarked, "The railways? A fine adventure to go and nationalize the railways at the moment when they still have a deficit of between 4 and 4.5 billion francs a year." Parti Republicain Radical et Radical-Socialiste, Congres Extraordinaire, Clermont-Ferrand, 11-13.v.1934, 189Benoit, "La politique ferroviaire," 189; reports of the Senate debates of 23 March 1933 in L'Usine, 24 March 1933;J. Caillaux, "De 1'inconvenient des tirelires reels ou imaginaires," Le Capital, 11 February 1933Paganon was the only politician to win praise from the business journalist Claude Gignoux in his editorial at the end of the parliamentary session in Lajournee Industrielle, 9-10 July 1933; on the reform, see the material in AN F14 12506. Roger Nathan, "L'industrie automobile," La France economique en 1933 (Paris 1934).

233 Notes to pages 45-9 45 Pierre Laroque (Conseil d'Etat), note to the Minister giving the juridical grounds for mayoral and prefectural intervention against road transporters, AN Fl4 12510. 46 Jouffroy, "La revolution des transports," 38; Milhaud, Les fermiers generaux, 50-92.

47 "Rapport de la Commission des Voies Navigables: amelioration et extension du reseau de navigation interieure en France," 1908, ANF14 14496. 48 "Note sur les difficultes resultant pour la navigation de 1'insuffisance des ressources alimentaires des canaux," 1905, ibid. 49 "Enquete sur la Production. Navigation Interieure. Rapport du Representant des Employeurs de la Navigation Interieure au Conseil National Economique," AN Fl4 16551. According to this report, the average nonmotorized barge carried 455,000 kilometric tons (tkm) in 1931 and 470,246 tkm in 1935. In the same years the figures for motorized barges were 614,914 and 800,534 tkm. Hence in four years the gap widened from 35.1 to 70.2 per cent. 50 G. Renaud, "Transports par eau et par rail," Revue Politique et Parlementaire, April 1913, 28-9. 51 A. Habaru, "Cimetieres de bateaux," Le Batelier, 1 March 1933. 52 Weil, "La traction mecanique sur les canaux du Nord de la France," Bulletin de I Association Internationale Permanente des Congres de Navigation, January 1926,60. 53 Caron, Chemin defer du Nord, 478-9,480. 54 Ibid., 479. 55 Direction des Voies Navigables, "Notes sur les statistiques de voies navigables," [1931 ?], AN Fl4 15376; Ministere des Travaux Publics, Statistique de la navigation interieure (Paris 1930-5); SNCF, Direction des Etudes Generates et de la Recherche, Statistiques retrospectives (Paris 1976), table c2. 56 J.-C. Toutain, "Les transports en France," 138; "Enquete sur la production," AN Fl4 16551. 57 Minutes, PLM Board of Directors, 4 June 1934, AN 77AQ 223. 58 Toutain, "Les transports en France," 138. 59 "De nouveaux incidents dans la batellerie a Dunkerque," Le Nouvelliste du Nord, 12 February 1932. 60 "Lagreve de la batellerie," LeJournal, 19 August 1933; L'Ami du Peuple, 21 August 1933. 61 "Le conflit de la batellerie," Le Petit Calaisien, 22 August 1933- These complaints were common currency among heavy industrial magnates. See the report presented in July 1926 to the National Economic Council by Pierre Richemond, the president of the Union des Industries Metallurgiques et Minieres. AN Fl2 8798. 62 R. Dautry, "Rapport sur 1'aviation marchande francaise," 1928,44, AN Fl2 8798.

234 Notes to pages 49-51 63 Air France shareholders' meeting, 1934, AN 91AQ 81; Paul Perrin, "Le materiel d'Air France," L'Aviation Fran^aise, 14 June 1934; X. Baudelet de Livois, "La concurrence air-fer: Analyse historique et perspectives d'avenir" (These de doctoral, Universite de Paris 1,1972), 126-8. 64 General Bouscat, "Etude sommaire sur 1'aviation marchande franchise" (Algiers 1942), 8, ANF14 13648; Laurent-Eynac, "Aviation commerciale et aviation postale," Journaldu Commerce, 4 June 1935. 65 Dautry, "Rapport," 4; HJ. Dyos and D.H. Aldcroft, British Transport: An Economic Survey from the Seventeenth Century to the Twentieth (Leicester 1969); "Ou en est 1'aviation commerciale?", LeRedressementFran*» 7936 (Paris 1950); G. Lefranc, "Problematique des greves franchises de mai-juin 1936," in Essais, 127-47; E. Shorter and C. Tilly, Strikes in France, 1830-1968 (New York 1974), 127-37. 4 On Blum's economic strategy, see the debate between Jean-Marcel Jeanenney and Pierre Mendes-France in Leon Blum, chef du gouvernement, 1936- 1937 (Paris 1967), 207-32; also Jean Bouvier, "Un debat toujours ouvert: La politique economique du front populaire," Le MouvementSocial 54 ganuary-March 1966): 175-81. 5 Caron, Chemin de fer du Nord, 444; L'oeuvre de Leon Blum, vol. 3, pt. 1 (1914-1928) (Paris 1972), 52-68. 6 For this psychological factor, see Mendes-France in Leon Blum, 237. 7 Ehrmann, Organized Business, 3-6; G. Lefranc, Les organisations patronales en France (Paris 1976), 104-7. 8 F. Caron, "Essai d'analyse d'une psychologic du travail: Les mecaniciens et chauffeurs du Reseau du Nord de 1850 a 1910," Le Mouvement Social 50 (January-March 1965), esp. 30-9; Annie Kriegel, Aux origines du communisme fran^ais, 1914-1920 (Paris 1964). 9 L'oeuvre de Leon Blum 281-2,449,458-910 Some left-wing Radicals, like Jean Zay from Orleans, defy this generalization. One of the main bases of Zay's electorate was the railwaymen. Jean Goueffon, "La premiere election de Jean Zay," Revue d'Histoire Moderns et Contemporaine 22 (1975): 642, 652. 11 Moch, Une si longue vie, 119. 12 M. Peschaud (PO company secretary), "La situation des Grands Reseaux depuis le ler mai 1936," November 1936, AN 48AQ 3431; for the clash between Dautry and Bedouce, see documents in AN 307AP 33 and Fl4 12484. The main bones of contention concerned the speed with which the

245 Notes to pages 82-4

13 14 15

16 17

18 19

20

21

22 23

24 25 26 27 28

Reseau de 1'Etat should introduce the forty-hour week and the ministry's blocking of funds for Dautry's projects for workers' housing. The final straw for Dautry, according to contemporary rumour, was the appointment of Cyrille Grimpret, the arch-enemy of the grands reseaux, as president of the Council of the Reseau de 1'Etat. "La succession de M. Dautry parait laborieuse," LeRail, 15 June 1937. Bedouce, circular of 12 August 1936 to the prefects, AN 307 AP 36. Ibid. F. Perroux, "Les chemins de fer et autres modes de transport," Revue d'economic politique 52 (1938): 891; Les grandes compagnies de chemins de fer fran$ais en 1936 (supplement to Le Bulletin Quotidien) (Paris 1937), 13. Caron, Chemin defer du Nord, 544; "Le budget de 1937 devant la Chambre," Le Temps, 17 December 1936. "Propositions de la commission speciale," January 1937. This was a subcommittee of railway managers set up by the grands reseaux to examine means of reducing the deficit. AN 307AP 29. Expenses on the AlsaceLorraine network, for instance grew by 40 per cent in 1936-7. Chemins de fer d'Alsace et de Lorraine, Rapport sur les operations de I'exercise 1936 (Strasbourg 1937) 3-4, AN 86AQ1. On the application of the forty-hour week, see AN 307 AP 29 and Fl4 12484. This issue made the front page of La Tribune des Cheminots in every issue between 15 August 1936 and 15 January 1937; see also Jean-Charles Asselin, "La semaine de 40 heures, le chomage et 1'emploi," Le Mouvement Social 54 (January-March 1966): 183-204. H[enri] T[inard], "L'automobile: une reprise sans lendemain," Lajournee Industrielle, 21 April 1937. The smaller figure for trucks probably reflects the restrictive effects of the coordination decrees of 1934-5. C[amille] D[idier], "Une demonstration des premiers effets des lois sociales," L'Usine, 20 May 1937; Rene Musnier, quoted in Lajournee Industrielle, 24 October 1936. Richard-Deshais, Transport routier, 43-6. C. Pomaret, Rapport fait au nom de la Commission des Finances charges d'examiner le pro jet de loi portant fixation du Budget General de I'Exercise 1937 (Chemins defer) (Paris 1936), 21. Ibid, 47-8. Ibid, 49-55. Ibid, 81-126. Caron, Chemin defer du Nord, 544. A series of articles by Jarrigion, one of the two national secretaries of the CGT railwaymen's union, reiterated the union's traditional demand for "nationalisation industrialist": La Tribune des Cheminots, 1 and 27 February, 24 April 1937; see also his articles on "La reorganisation des chemins de fer," in La Populaire, 28 and 29 July 1937.

246 Notes to pages 84-8 29 Reprinted in full in Le Rail, 21 and 28 March 1937 and in Le Poids lourd, 15 April 1937. 30 Editorial condemning coordination in Le Poids Lourd, June 1937; articles on road transporters' reactions in France-Transports, 1 May and 15 June 1937. Turning towards M. Grimpret at a banquet organized by the FNTF, Bedouce warned that "if the railways do not understand that coordination has ruled out the spirit of competition, we will have to make them understand, won't we, my dear Director?" France-Transports, 15 October 1936. 31 LeRail, 21 March 1937. 32 Interview in France-Transports, 1 April 1937, also quoted in Le Rail, 11 April 1937; for a similar argument by the railwaymen's union, see Semard and Jarrigion, Pour une veritable reorganisation des transports (Paris 1937), 35. 33 See chap. 3 above. 34 Moch, Capttalisme et transports, 153. 35 Ibid., 154; L. Blum, "La nationalisation des chemins de fer," Le Populaire, 10 June 1932. Moch suggested to the Finance Commission in February 1933 that transport firms with two vehicles or less should be exempt from the proposed gasoline tax increase. This is indicative of his belief that "les gros" were solely responsible for the transport crisis. Le Populaire, 9 February 1933. 36 Jeanenney in Leon Blum, 219-21; Sauvy, Histoire economique 2: 239ff. 37 Jacques Duclos, Memoires, vol. 2, Aux jours ensoleilles du frontpopulaire (Paris 1969), 215-8; Daniel Guerin, Front populaire, revolution manquee (Paris 1970), 161-6. 38 Aux ecoutes, 19 September 1936, quoted in Larmour, French Radical Party, 9; see also Maxence, Histoire de dix ans, 239-40; according to Duclos, the new premier was "as slippery as an eel." Memoires 2: 218. 39 For a very thorough analysis of the negotiations between Queuille and the main railway negotiator, Rene Mayer, see Caron, Chemin de fer du Nord, 543-55. Caron's account is based on Mayer's personal papers, to which I was denied access. 40 Ibid., 545-6. 41 L.R. Jacquot, "Autour d'une conference (de R. Dautry)," France-Transports, 1 March 1938. 42 Caron, Chemin defer du Nord, 549-55; C. Pomaret, Rapport... Exercise 1938 (Paris 1937), 16-21. 43 Caron, Chemin de fer du Nord, 550-4; Pomaret, Rapport... Exercise 1938, 22-48. 44 P. Rossillon, "L'escamatoge des chemins de fer," La Nation, 11 September 1937; "La Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer," L'lndependent de Cambrai, 12 September 1937; P. de Pressac, "La 'nationalisation' des chemins de fer," L'ExpressduMidi, 12 September 1937.

247 Notes to pages 88-92 45 Gaston Jeze, "Nationalisation des chemins de fer," Le Moniteur de Paris, 12 September 1937; R. Thevenez, "La reorganisation des chemins de fer," Le Messager Economique et Financier, 12 September 1937; R. Tocanne, "Qu'estce que la Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer?" La Revue de la Famille, 1 September 1937; F. Trassy, "Chemins de fer," La Phare de Calais, 31 August 1937; "La reorganisation des chemins de fa" Journal des Finances, 3 September 1937; G. Chaumont, "La reorganisation des chemins de fer franc.ais," Le Moniteur des Tirages Financiers, 12 September 1937; Bulletin de la Chambre de Commerce de Nancy, May-December 1937; R.T., "La Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer franc,ais," LeReveil Economique, 22 September 1937. 46 19 September 1937. 47 "M. Chautemps et son gouvernement," L'Ere Nouvelle, 1 September 1937. 48 R.C., "La vraie coordination," La Petite Gironde, 5 September 1937. 49 "Et maintenant voici: La Societe Nationale des Chemins de Fer Franc.ais (SNCFF)," La Tribune des Cheminots, 13 September 1937; J. Duclos, "Le ler Janvier 1938: Societe Nationale des Chemins de Fer," L'Humanite, 1 September 1937. The Socialist daily Le Populaire admitted that the deal did not go far enough for its liking. The companies had taken advantage of the Senate's well-known opposition to nationalization to drive a hard bargain. "Nevertheless, as it stands, this agreement - let's be quite frank about it - is satisfactory and can be accepted with relief by the working-class as a whole. The reign of the magnates of the railway is over." Le Populaire, 1 September 1937. 50 Bernard Chenot, Les entreprises nationalises (Paris 1956). 51 Lajournee Industrielle, 9 and 31 July 1937. 52 The decree was reproduced in full in Le Rail, 1 October 1937. 53 The ministerial circular of 18 November 1937 reiterated this point to the prefects. Archives de la Chambre de Commerce de Paris, rv 8-2. 54 Jacques Chevalier, La coordination du rail et de la route, 1934-1938: L'experience en Haute Normandie, 140-1. 55 See above, 104-6. 56 Quoted in Raymond Benolt, "La coordination du rail et de la route en France" (These pour le doctorat, Universite de Montpellier, 1939), 60. 57 Bouvier-Ajam, La doctrine corporative, 224-8; Guibert, Le nouveau statut, chap. 10. 58 AN Fl4 12512. This carton contains copies of the decrees pertaining to the Conseil Superieur des Transports and incomplete minutes of several of its subcommittees. 59 Suzanne Lapierre, La SNCF et la politique fran^aise de coordination du rail et de la route (Paris 1940), 160; statement by Anatole de Monzie, the minister of public works, in the Senate debate of February 1939 in coordination. Journal Officiel. Debats. Senat, 1939, 217.

248 Notes to pages 92-5 60 "Les premieres applications de la coordination dans la region de 1'Ouest," Revue Generate des Chemins de fer, April 1938, 243. 61 Ibid., 242-7. 62 Report on coordination by Robert Le Besnerais, the general manager of the SNCF, to the board meeting of 1 March 1939, AN 133AQ 2. 63 M. Borel, "La coordination des transports des voyageurs," Revue generate des chemins defer, December 1938,268-9; M. Bienfait, "Les chemins de fer dans la region toulousaine," Revue Geographique des Pyrenees et du Sud-Ouest 25 (1964): 339-40; R. Caralp-Landon, "L'evolution de 1'exploitation ferroviaire en France," Annales de Geographic 60 (1951): 323. 64 Compared to a railway deficit for 1937 of 5,933 million francs ($148 million). 65 See Le Cheminot de France (Christian), 1 and 15 June, 1 August 1939; La Tribune des Cheminots, 11 October 1937,14 March 1938; Le Cheminot Unifie (Alsace-Lorraine), 1 June 1938; Le Rail, almost every issue in 1938. 66 Minutes, Board of Directors, 10 November 1937, AN 133AQ1. 67 Andre Paillieux, "La coordination des transports: un decret de plus," Le Cheminot de France, 1 June 1938; "Une memoire des delegues du personnel," Le Cheminot Unifie, 1 June 1938; B., "Chemins de fer et transports routiers en France," Le Rail, 1 March 1938. 68 Noly, "Les bienfaits de la coordination," Le Rail, 15 March 1939. 69 "La coordination," Le Rail, 15 November 1938; Demay, "Les fermetures de lignes et des reseaux," La Tribune des Cheminots, 26 December 1938. 70 Andre Paillieux, "La coordination des transports: Alerte," Le Cheminot de France, 1 March 1938. 71 Andre Albert, quoted in Journal Officiel. Debats. Chambre, 20 December 1938. The department of Deux-Sevres refused to accept the coordination plan. 72 Leon-G. Buis, "La coordination des transports voyageurs," France-Transports, 15 February 1938; for similar criticism, see letter entitled "A propos de la coordination voyageurs," ibid., 1 January 1936; speech of Senator Guerin (Manche), quoted in Journal Officiel. Debats. Senat, 28 February 1939, 209-12. 73 The Ministry of the Interior advised the prefects that coordination would lead to "une desserte plus rationnelle et plus satisfaisante des usagers," and added, "L'importance de ce dernier point de vue, etant donnee la situation financiere actuelle des departements ne saurait vous echapper." Circular of 9 March 1938, AD des Yvelines, unnumbered carton. See Wolkowitsch, Centre-ouest, 189-94, for examples of prefectoral pressure. 74 This happened, among other places, in the Sarthe, where local councillors echoed the complaints of their constituents about the infrequency, discomfort, and lack of security of the bus services which had replaced the train. M. Alexandre Bougereau, veterinarian and deputy mayor of Vibray, alleged

249 Notes to pages 95-7

75

76 77 78

79

80

81 82 83 84 85

that "la circulation des cars... sur des routes defectueuses et mal amenagees, constitue un veritable danger public, non seulement pour les voyageurs transportes, mais aussi pour les autres usagers de la route." This happened in the Manche, where the local authorities accepted some closures but unsuccessfully sought to persuade the SNCF to abandon others. Speech by Senator Guerin in the Senate, 28 February \9?>9,JournalOfftciel. Debats. Senat, 1939, 210. At a speech before the Conseil General of the Haute-Saone, quoted in La Journeelndustrielle, 28 June 1938, and LeRail, 15 July 1938. Chevalier, Haute Normandie, 140-1. AD de 1'Herault. But the subsidy tactic did backfire on occasion. The Conseil General des Vosges rejected the plan mainly because the councillors were upset at the rather insensitive way the prefect dangled the reward in front of them. The usually terse minutes of the council are quite eloquent on this point. M. CHAMPY [spokesman of the council's public works commission, who had initially recommended acceptance of the plan]: We have been promised money, a time limit has been fixed, and that has rubbed us up the wrong way. That has turned us against coordination. This way of going about things has a name which I would not dare pronounce here.... M. 1'Abbe ROBERT [councillor of Saint-Die]: It's blackmail! M. CHAMPY: Yes, and this procedure is disagreeable. We have been left so little freedom that it really wasn't worthwhile asking for our point of view. At this point the prefect had been effectively rendered hors de combat, nobody came forward to defend the plan, and it was soundly defeated. CG des Vosges, Session extraordinaire du 9 juin 1938 (Saint-Die 1938). This was the case in the Eure-et-Loir. Maurice Viollette, the senator and mayor of Dreux, and the most influential politician of the department, turned the debate of 1935 into a violent denunciation of the policies of the central government. In 1938 he pleaded successfully for the council to accept the plan. Bulletin de la Chambre de Commerce de Besan^on et du Doubs, June 1937, 5; Bulletin de la Chambre de Commerce de Limoges, January -June 1938, 925. In the latter case, the Chamber of Commerce chastised the Conseil General of Vienne for its reluctance to accept the need for certain closures. Journal Officiel. Debats. Senat, 28 February 1936,147. Quoted in Jean Pressigny, "La coordination," Le Rail, 1 August 1938. Journal Officiel. Debats. Chambre, 20 December 1938,1983-4. E[mmanuel] P[aul], "La coordination des transports," Politique 11 (1935): 956-60. This argument applied just as much in 1938 as in 1935. Ibid.; this argument is quite similar to that of Raoul Dautry, who was confident that the speedy implementation of passenger transport plans would

250 Notes to pages 97-101

86 87

88

89

90 91 92

93 94

95

96 97 98 99

allay the suspicions of those hostile to the principle of coordination. See above, chap. 4. Journal Officiel. Debuts. Chambre, 20 December 1938, 2001 ff. Approximately nine-tenths of the 450,000 commercial vehicles were used for own-account transport. The decrees of 1935 which sought to prevent the fraudulent use of these vehicles for professional transport had caused a howl of protest in the business world. No subsequent French government has dared to go any further. The strike of December 1937 was strongest in the southwest. "La greve de protestation dans les transports routiers," L'Usine, 6 January 1938; "Les transporters routiers de France," Lajournee Industrielle, 15 October 1938, analyses one such walk-out over alleged lack of consultation by the ministry. "Les entreprises de transport routiers suspendent leurs protestations," La Journee Industrielle, 22 December 1937; article of 15 October 1938 in La Journee Industrielle cited above. The FNTF also had to worry about competition from other organizations, such as the Association Nationale des Transporteurs, which periodically denounced its leaders as "lackeys of the railways." The ANT appealed primarily to artisan truckers and was allied with the Syndicat Autonome des Chauffeurs Routiers. See "Ici... Monzie," Les Routiers, January 1939. "La coordination des transports," Lajournee Industrielle, 21 May 1938; minutes, Conseil Superieur des Transports, 20 May 1938, AN Fl4 12512. R. Guibert, "Le probleme rail-route et 1'organisation corporative des transports," Revue Generals des Chemins defer, May-June 1941,177-9. AN Fl4 16559 contains a large dossier on the freight offices; on Thompson's use of the term, see "The Moral Economy of the English Crowd," Past Present, February 1971. Cercle des Transports, Etudes sur les transports terrestres, 134. This criticism has been made especially by left-wing critics, for example M. Wolkowitsch, "La bourgeoisie franchise devant 1'evolution des techniques de transport," La Pensee, November-December 1951. P. Reynaud, Memoires, vol. 2, Envers et contre tous, 1936-1940 (Paris 1963), 237-8; see also Alfred Sauvy's contribution to Edouard Daladier, chef du gouvernement, avril 1938-septembre 1939 (Paris 1977), 87-98; Albert Carl Gay,Jr, "The Daladier Administration, 1938-1940" (PHD thesis, University of North Carolina, 1970). Elizabeth du Reau, "L'amenagement de la loi instituant la semaine de guarante heures," Edouard Daladier, 129-49"L'industrie du petrole," La France economtque en 1935, 379R. Musnier, "Les nouveau impots," Les Transports Automobiles, March 1933"Mesures a prendre en raison de 1'influence des services parasitaires d'autobus sur les concessions de transport" (1933), AD du Calvados, S 16.

251 Notes to pages 101-2 100 I was able to find only one complete list of the Automobile Group, and that an embarrassingly early one, from the legislature of 1924-8. The political composition, moving from extreme right to extreme left, was as follows. The figures in brackets are the percentage of party deputies belonging to the group. Droite monarchiste 3 (17%) Entente republicaine 27 (23%) Republicans de gauche et gauche democratique 23 (18%) Republicans socialistes 6 (17%) Radicaux et Radicaux socialistes 17 (12%) Socialistes 3 (3%) Communistes 0 (0%) Source: Bulletin Offtdel de la Chambre Syndicate de I'Automobile, FebruaryApril 1928,12-14. 101 Joseph Barthelemy, Essai sur le travail parlementaire et les commissions (Paris 1934), 86; Jean Meynaud, Les groupes depression en France (Paris 1958). 102 A study carried out in the mid-1950s demonstrated what political observers had long known intuitively: that direct taxes were more unpopular in France than indirect ones, since they entailed what was considered to be a violation of privacy, a declaration subject to verification by tax inspectors. Jean Duberge, La psychologie sociale de I'impot dans la France d'aujourd'hui (Paris 1961), 127-46. On interwar taxation policy, see the following works by Germain-Martin, a defender of fiscal orthodoxy and minister of finance: Les finances publiques de la France et la fortune privee (1914-1925) (Paris 1925); Problemes financiers du moment actuel: Sommesnous sur la bonne route? (Paris 1934); Le probleme financier, 1930-1936 (Paris 1936). Germain-Martin became increasingly hostile to the idea of increasing direct taxation after the onset of the depression. See also Louis Trotabas, Les finances publiques et les impots de la France (Paris 1937). There is no satisfactory monograph on the history of taxation for this period, but the following is an insightful essay on the parameters of fiscal policy in the interwar years: J. Wolff, "Fiscalite et developpement en France," in Deux siecles de fiscalite fran^aise: XlX-XXe siecle: Histoire, economic, politique ed. Jean Bouvier and Jacques Wolff (Paris and The Hague 1973). 103 See the criticism by the Cercle des transports, Etudes, 136. 104 After 1934-5, Patrick Fridenson suggests, the auto-makers "ended by succumbing to the Malthusian temptation." "L'ideologie des grands constructeurs," 62. Renault's notes for 1938-9 indicate pessimism about the immediate future of the French automobile industry as a result of the government's alleged pro-rail bias. 105 Societe des etudes pour le developpement de 1'automobile, "Etude SEPDA guerre," 29 November 1939, AN 91AQ78; F. Lehideux, conference of 11 November 1943, AN Fl4 13664. By the end of the decade, the automobile

252 Notes to pages 102-9

106

107 108

109

110 111

112 113

114 115

press was becoming obsessed by the contrast between the French and German car industries, and between the enthusiasm shown by Hitler and the apparent indifference of French political leaders. See almost any issue of L'Argus de I'Automobile or Automobilia-Transports in 1938-9For a similar indictment by Maurice Thorez, the general secretary of the Communist party, see "La France du Front Populaire et sa mission dans le monde," in his Oeuvres choisies en trots volumes (Paris 1967), 1: 368-9. Landes, Unbound Prometheus, 360-485. General comparative studies of coordination are: Chambre de Commerce Internationale, La route et le rail dans 40 pays (Tours 1934); Marcel Peschaud, "La question du rail et de la route en France et dans les principaux pays etrangers," Revue generate de chemins de fer, September 1933. Gilbert J. Walker, R oad and Rail: A n Enquiry into the Economics of Competition and State Control (London 1942); the statistics for motor vehicles are on pp. 422-3. Landes, The Unbound Prometheus, 394-7. Henning, "Kraftfahrzeugindustrie"; R J. Overy, "Transportation and Rearmament in the Third Reich," Historical Journal 16, no. 2 (1973); 389-409. N.I. Lialikov, Ekonomicheskaia Geografia SSSR (Moscow I960), 71. R.E.H. Mellor, "The Soviet Concept of a Unified Transport System and the Contemporary Role of the Railways," in Russian Transport: An Historical and Geographical Survey, ed. L. Symons and C. White (London 1975), 75-105; J.N. Woodward, A History of Russian Railways (London 1964), 281-301. Stanley Hoffmann, "Paradoxes of the French Political Community," in Hoffmann et al., In Search of France, 1-117. Journal Officid Debats. Senat, 1939,198-238 CHAPTER SIX

1 P. Durand, La SNCF pendant la guerre: Sa resistance a I'occupant, 11-2; Presidence du Conseil, Organisation generate de la nation pour le temps de guerre (Paris 1939). 2 Durand, La SNCF, 12-13. 3 Ibid, 12. 4 Ibid, 15. 5 Ibid, 19-22; Anatole de Monzie, Ci-devant, 168-9. 6 Henri Amouroux, La grande histoire desfranc,ais sous I'occupation, vol. 1, Le peuple du desastre, 1939-1940, 161-9; Jean Vidalenc, L'exode de mai-juin 1940 (Paris 1957), 16-26, 34-6. 7 De Monzie, Ci-devant, 142; SNCF, Rapport du Directeur General au Conseil d'administration sur le fonctionnement des services au cours de I'exercise 1939; Journal officiel. Debats. Chambre, 14 March 1940, 533-

253 Notes to pages 109-12 8 De Monzie was an Italianophile and probably wanted to demonstrate his good intentions towards Italy. 9 Le Besnerais, report to the SNCF Board of Directors, 20 September 1939. AN 133AQ 2; SNCF, Rapport... exercise 1939;Journal Offtdel. Debats. Chambre, 14 March 1940, 533. 10 Cavailles, La route, 370; de Monzie, Ci-devant, 184. 11 Memorandum from Renault's archives, 27 January 1940, AN 91AQ52. 12 Durand, La SNCF, 22-8; on 1914, see Peschaud, Politique etfonctionnement. 13 "Difficulte de la navigation," L'Usine, 28 December 1939; R. Barre, "La penurie de materiel de transport," L'Usine, 15 February 1940; R. Marcerou, "Le regime de guerre de la navigation interieure," Lajournee Industrielle, 25-27 March 1940. Businessmen had begun to complain before the war about delays caused by shortages of barges. See the dossier of complaints in AN F14 16559. 14 AN FlO 2188: 1'agriculture et les transports en 1940; R. Marcerou, "Le probleme des transports a change d'aspect," Lajournee Industrielle 14 February 1940; minutes, SNCF Board of Directors, 17 January 1940, AN 133 AQ 3. 15 On the decree, see R. Laplaine, "La reglementation de guerre," France- Transports, 1 and 15 October 1939; "La situation actuelle des transports ferroviaires," L'Usine, 28 September 1939; Cavailles, La route, 370-1; Walker, Road and Rail, 197-205. 16 R. Barre, "Le probleme des transports par route," L'Usine, 1 February 1940: R. Marcerou, "Le probleme des transports ferroviaires," Lajournee Industrielle, 21 February 1940. 17 "Etude SEPDA guerre," 29 November 1939, AN 91AQ78. 18 ANT, "Au sujet des nouveaux decrets," Les Routiers, October-November 1939; "Sommes-nous menaces d'un monopole des transports?" L'Offtdel des Transports, 31 January 1940. 19 The playwright Alfred Jarry, quoted in Guy Rossi-Landi, La drole de guerre (Paris 1971), 172. 20 Amouroux, La grande histoire desfran^ais 1:180-92; Rossi-Landi, La drole de guerre, 168-87. 21 Declas, "Les Usines Berliet," 46; Paul de Villelume, Journal d'une defaite (aout 1939-juin 1940) (Paris 1976), 176-7. Villelume was the chief military councillor at the French Foreign Office, responsible for liaison with the Army General Staff; from May 1940, he was Paul Reynaud's cabinet director at the Ministry of National Defence. 22 "Bureaucratic et mandarinat," Le ReveilEconomique, 21 January 1940. The deputy Paul Elbel made similar complaints in the debate on the reorganization of the Ministry of Commerce. Journal Offtdel. Debats. Chambre, 4 April 1940,641-4. 23 Minutes, SNCF Board of Directors, 17 January 1940, AN 133AQ 3. 24 Ibid., 14 February 1940.

254 Notes to pages 112-16 25 Journal Offtciel. Debats. Chambre, 4 April 1940, 648-50. Jean Berthelot, de Monzie's cabinet director, blames British reluctance to export coal for the shortages. Stir les rails dupouvoir, 41-2. 26 Minutes, railway subcommittee of the Conseil Superieur des Transports, 18 December 1939, 1 February 1940, AN Fl4 12512; minutes, SNCF Board of Directors, 17 January 1940, AN 133AQ3. 27 Minutes, SNCF Board of Directors, 17 January 1940, AN 133AQ 3; R. Marcerou, "Le probleme des transports ferroviaires," Lajourneelndustrielle, 21 February 1940; M. Verdier, "Les desirs des voyageurs," Le Rail, 1 April 1940. 28 De Monzie, Ci-devant, 202; Le ReveilEconomique, 22 May 1940. 29 C.R. Kutz, War on Wheels: The Evolution of an Idea (London 1941), 268-75; Paul-Marie de la Gorce, The French Army: A Military-Political History (London 1963) 263-4,270-92, 296-8. 30 Durand, La SNCF, 35-49; Berthelot, Sur les rails, 50-7. 31 Vidalenc, L'exode, 100-1; Durand, La SNCF, 37-8; Berthelot, Sur les rails, 50-3. 32 Berthelot, Sur les rails, 50-3; Robert de Saint-Jean, Democratic, beurre et canons (journal de guerre d'un fran^ais moyen) (New York 1941), 287-323. 33 Vidalenc, L'exode, 263; Jean de la Hire, La crime des evacuations: Les horreurs que nous avons vues (Paris 1940), 27-32. 34 Berthelot, Sur les rails, 52. 35 Ibid., 60-3; Durand, La SNCF, 58-85. 36 R. de Saint-Jean, Democratic, 341. 37 De la Hire, La crime, 35-42; Berthelot, Sur les rails, 59; Vidalenc, L'exode, 378-9. 38 Vidalenc, L'exode, 100; Marcel Boudot, L'opinion publique som I'occupation: L'exemple d'un departement fran^ais (1939-1945) (Paris, I960), 12; Amouroux, La grande histoire des fran^ais 1: 436-7. 39 On unemployment, see the statement by F. Lehideux, the official responsible for combating it in 1940-1. France under the German Occupation (19401944) (Stanford 1957); 1: 35-8; Amouroux, La grande histoire des fran$ais sous I'occupation, vol. 2, Quarante millions de petainistes, juin 1940-juin 1941, 157. 40 Berthelot, Sur les rails, 86; Eugene Cattin, "La reconstruction des chemins de fer frangais" (These de doctorat, Universite de Paris, 1949), 10-11; "France Rebuilds Her Railways, Canals," New York Times, 7 February 1942; C. Gide and W. Oalid, Le bilan de la guerre pour la France, 169-94. 41 Armistice Commission meetings of 17-20 August, 14-17 September 1940, La delegation fran$aise aupres de la Commission allemande d'Armistice: Recueilde documents publie par le gouvernement fran$ais (Paris 1947), 1:129-37,294-301. 42 Alan S. Milward, The New Order and the French Economy (London 1970), chap. 7; Etienne Dejonghe, "Penurie charbonniere et repartition en France

255 Notes to pages 116-21

43 44 45 46 47

48

49

50 51 52 53 54

55 56 57 58

59

60

61 62

(1940-1944)," Revue d'Histoire de la Deuxieme Guerre Mondiale 102 (April 1976): 21-5. Charles Vergely, "'Technicien politique'," Le Monde, 11 July 1946; Pierre Seize, "La Haute Cour jugejean Berthelot," Le Figaro, 10 July 1946. Berthelot, Sur les rath, 16. France-Transports, 1 September 1938. Berthelot, Sur les rails, 16-7. Press interview of 19 February 1941, AN Fl4 13623; for an analysis of the conflict in values between deputies and administrators, see Robert O. Paxton, Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944, 259-63Henri Chardon, L'organisation d'une democratic: Les deux forces: le nombre; I'elite (Paris 1921), 12; Ezra N. Suleiman, Politics, Power and Bureaucracy in France: The Administrative Elite (Princeton 1974), chap. 11. Text of press interview concerning highways, n.d., AN Fl4 13623; Secretariat d'Etat aux Communications, "Rapport a Monsieur le Marechal de France, Chef de 1'Etat," August 1941, ANF14 13629. "Rapport a M. le Marechal," AN F14 13629. Ibid.; "Conseil General des Transports," La Vie Industrielle, 28 January 1941; minutes, SNCF Board of Directors, 6 November 1940, AN 133AQ3. "Rapport a M. le Marechal." AN Fl4 13623. Ibid. Yves Bouthillier, Le drame de Vichy, vol. 2, Finances sous la contrainte (Paris 1951), 341; Cattin, "La reconstruction," 12; Robert Aron, Histoire de Vichy (Paris 1954), 219-20. Cattin, "La reconstruction," 12-7; dossier on reconstruction, AN Fl4 13623; "Rapport a M. le Marechal," AN Fl4 13629. Amouroux, La grande histoire 2: 161-2; Baudot, L 'opinion publique, 14. Text of press interview concerning highways, n.d., AN Fl4 13623; note on "Equipement - idees generates," n.d., ibid. From folder on the "Plan decenniel d'equipement national"; see also R.F. Kuisel, "Vichy et les origines de la planification economique (19401946)," Le MouvementSocial 98 (January-March 1977): 77-101. "Travaux d'electrification: Note justificative sommaire," 21 September 1940, and correspondence between the Secretariat and the SNCF, autumn 1940, AN Fl4 13637; minutes, SNCF Board of Directors, 2 October 1940, 3 and 24 September, 8 October 1941, AN 133AQ 3 and 4. Interview concerning highways, AN Fl4 13623; see also Carlisle, "Saint Simonians," passim, and L.-M. Jouffroy, Les lignes de chemin defer de Paris a la frontiere de I'Allemagne, 95-103Delegation fran^aise aupres de la Commission allemande 1: 129, 294-301; Berthelot, Sur les rails, 76-9,157-8,174. E. Cattin, Trains en detresse (Paris 1954), for closeness of German supervision; on Darlan's strategy, see Paxton, Vichy France, 109-21.

256 Notes to pages 121-5 63 64 65 66 67 68 69

70 71

72

73

74 75

76

Dutand,LaSNCF, 117. Berthelot to Bouthillier, 8 May 1941, AN Fl4 13623. AN Fl4 13623; see also the dossier on public works projects in AN Fl413637. "Un appel de M. Berthelot aux cheminots," La Croix, 23 August 1941. Berthelot, Sur les rails, 183-4; Charles Vergely, "'Technicien politique'," Le Monde, 11 July 1946; L'Hum'anite, 10 and 11 July 1946. Minutes of the Armistice Commission for the week of 8-14 December 1940. Delegation franc^aise aupres de la Commission allemande 3: 221. Commission consultative des Dommages et des Reparations, Ingerences allemandes dans les transports et les communications, Monographie T.C.I: Voiesferrees d'interet general (Paris 1947), 21. Ibid, 10. F. Boudot suggests, without citing his sources, that the percentage of German traffic increased from 19 per cent of the total in 1940 to 30 in 1941,38 in 1942, 48 in 1943, and 57 per cent in 1944. "Aspects economiques de 1'occupation allemande en France," Revue d'Histoire de la Deuxieme Guerre Mondiale 54 (April 1964): 57. A German report of 1944 calculated traffic in the German interest by adding Wehrmacht transport and priority goods' shipments (including food and certain industrial materials). As a result of this broader definition, the report claimed that the share of traffic carried in the German interest fluctuated as follows (figures in brackets represent the Wehrmacht's share of the total traffic): December 1941-66 per cent (16 per cent); December 1942-83 per cent (25 per cent); July 1943-68 per cent (29 per cent); January 1944-85 per cent (33 per cent). Militarverwaltung des Militarbefehlshabers in Frankreich, "Der Beitrag des franzosischen Raiimes zur Kriegswirtschaft," Paris, August 1944, Imperial War Museum, London, Speer Collection, FD 301/46. For a contemporary account, see E.V. Francis, The Battle for Supplies (London 1972), 57-60, 64-9; see also Milward, The New Order, 76, where he points out that the French share in the total of German exports rose from 4.6 per cent in 1940 to 17.1 per cent in 1943. "Coordination des transports ferroviaires et routiers," Revue Generate des Chemins de fer, September-October 1940, 274-5; "La coordination des transports en France," Archives du Credit Lyonnais, no. 55417; "Les trains omnibus sont supprimes," La Croix, 24 February 1941. See above, chap. 5. Roger Guibert, "Le probleme rail-route et 1'organisation corporative des transports," Revue Generate des Chemins de fer, May-June 1941,180-1; dossiers on transport and coordination in AN Fl4 13638. Andre Gorques, "Les grandes reformes administratives du regime de Vichy" These de doctorat, Universite de Poitiers, 1969), 255-70; V.L. Chaigneau, Histoire de I'organisation professionelle en France (Paris 1945), 33-4; Ehrmann, Organized Business, 77.

257 Notes to pages 126-8 77 M. Dauvergne (chief engineer of mines), note of 27 August 1940; M. Boyaux, note of 23 September 1940; R. Simon, note of 17 August 1940, AN Fl4 13638. 78 "Hier ... demain," Les Routiers, December 1940; F. de Saulieu, "L'artisanat dans les transports," ibid., January-February 1941. 79 R. Guibert, "Le probleme rail-route," 180-1; Berthelot to M. Robert, ministerial director of road transports, 12 August 1941, ANF14 13638. 80 P.L., "Transports," La Vie Industrielle, 24 December 1940. 81 Berthelot to M. Moroni, a member of his cabinet, 7 August 1941, AN Fl4 13638. 82 Robert Simon, conference of 11 November 1943 on "Les transports routiers de France," AN Fl4 13664. 83 Minutes, SNCF Board of Directors, 12 February and 14 May 1941, AN 133 AQ 4; SNCF, Assemblee generale des actionnaires du mardi, 30 juin 1942. 84 Berthelot's office, note of 22 October 1941 to M. Claudon, the government commissioner on the SNCF board, AN Fl4 13637. 85 These were M. Labouchere, the president of the Seine transporters' group and J. Richard-Deshais, a member of the national committee of the COTR and president of the largest prewar bus firm in the country. SCETA, minutes of the annual general meeting, 28 June 1943, Archives of the Credit Lyonnais. 86 Minutes, SNCF board, 18 February 1942, AN 133AQ 5. 87 See the dossiers on the two firms in the archives of the Credit Lyonnais. 88 Minutes, SNCF board, 2 April 1941, AN 133AQ 4. 89 Ibid., 10 September 1941, 21 January 1942, AN 133AQ 4 and 5; minutes, Paris Chamber of Commerce, 15 April 1944. 90 Minutes, SNCF board, 18 February 1942, AN 133AQ 5. 91 Andre Gorgues, "Les grandes reformes administratives," 270n. 92 "Le concours des camions au gazogene," Lajournee Industrielle, 1 October 1925; Warner, The Winegrowers, 126-32. 93 "Evolution des contingents de carburants et de fuel domestique," AN Fl4 13645. The figures include both zones, but exclude the Nord-Pas-de-Calais and presumably Alsace-Lorraine. A good monograph on the evolution of prewar petroleum policy is Edgard Faure, La politique frangaise du petrole (Paris 1938). 94 De Monzie, Ci-devant, 191, 211-12; Philippe Reine, La question des autoroutes, 21, estimated that there were 7,200 gazogene-equipped trucks in 1938, but even this was barely 1.5 per cent of the total fleet; F. Lehideux, conference of 11 November 1943 on the French automobile industry, AN Fl4 13664; supplement on road transporters in La Vie Industrielle, 22 January 1943. 95 Table drawn up by E. Zedet, head of the Organization Committee for gazogene production, in the Chambrun Collection, Hoover Institution

258 Notes to pages 129-34

96

97 98 99

100 101 102 103

104 105

Archives, container 32, outcard 288; see also Commission Consultative ..., Ingerences allemandes dans I'activite industrielle. Monographic A.I. 8: Gazogenes (Paris 1947). Rene Pallet, Banlieue Sud-Est (Paris reprint, 1966), 25. Pallet's contemporary novel of adolescent life under the Occupation contains an equally humorous description of a weekend outing in a battered old gazogene van. Baudot, L'opinion publique, 231-2; Jacques Lenepveu, "L'organisation professionnelle des transports," La Vie Industrielle, 4 July 1944. Note of 28 November 1941 on wine transport, Archives de la Chambre de Commerce de Paris, IV. 8-1. Warner, The Winegrowers, 158-62; Ministere de la Production Industrielle et des Communications, "Comite de coordination des transports de vin: Compte rendu annuel, annee 1942," AN Fl4 13638. AD du Card, 2S 940. Milward, The New Order, 132; Ingerences allemandes... Monographic A.1.3: Automobiles et cycles (Paris 1948), 18. AD de 1'Herault, 2s 2717. Andre Lesage, "La reconstitution des chemins du fer franc.ais" These de doctoral, Universite de Paris, 1946), 30; the average occupancy of passenger trains rose from 78 in 1938 to 378 in the first half of 1943, because of the reduction of branch-line services. R. Levi to M. Ardoin, Algiers, n.d., AN Fl4 13696. Arrivetz, Transports a Lyon, 50. The number of bicycle licences purchased in France was as follows (1000s): 1930-8 (avge) 7,435.1

1939 1940 1941 1942

106

107 108 109 110

8,495.0 7,430.5 10,049.2 10,711.8

Source: L'Argus de I'Automobile, 22-29 July 1943. These figures understate the number of bicycles in circulation, because some people certainly avoided buying the obligatory licence. Manuscript history of the Metro, AN Fl4 13671; Jean Dutourd's Au Bon Beurre, a novel filled with Balzacian social observations, has a graphic description of the Metro at the height of the Occupation. M. Lemaire (managing director of the SNCF), L'evolution des chemins de fer franc,ais (Paris 1946), 7. Milward, New Order, chaps. 7-9. Ibid., 186-8,194-5; the SNCF'S share of coal went up from 16.7 per cent in 1938 to 23.6 per cent in 1943. Dejonghe, "Penurie charbonniere," 53. Minutes, SNCF board, 10 December 1941, 28 January 1942, AN 133AQ 4 and 5; "Une nouvelle diminution du trafic ferroviaire," La Vie Industrielle, 21 January 1941.

259 Notes to pages 134-6 111 "For the past three months, the region of Lisieux has been occupied by German units which are completely without means of transport. [German] seizures of vehicles have thus been very important." Chief Engineer of the Fonts et Chaussees to the Prefect of Calvados, 17 February 1944, AD du Calvados, S 22. 112 Report of 22 March 1944 from Cannes, AN Fla 3770. 113 Dossier in AN Fl2 9623. 114 See the dossier on German requisitioning of bicycles, AN Fl4 13642. 115 C. Daniel, "Problemes routiers actuels et futurs," La Vie Industrielle, 29 January 1943; material in AN Fl4 13642; report of Evreux Chamber of Commerce in Baudot, L'opinionpublique, 250-2. 116 Liaud, the personnel representative on the SNCF Board of Directors, intervened on several occasions to protest that the railwaymen were overworked and lacked sufficient rations. AN 133AQ 6 and 7. Vichy intelligence reports, intercepted by the Free French, noted that "the discontent of the railwaymen still has to do with wages" and with the fear of being sent to Germany. AN F14 13656. 117 Paxton, Vichy France, 266-7. 118 "L'estimation des ressources et des stocks de ble et de cereales en France," 23 June 1944, from Free French intelligence reports, AN Fl4 13696. Vichy reports of January-March 1944 in AN Fl4 13656 say much the same thing. The economist H. Laufenburger had already noted this tendency late in 1942. "La conjoncture economique en France," Les documents recueillispar le Service des Publications de la France combattante 31,1 December 1942. 119 AD du Gard, 26wlO; Michel Cepede, Agriculture et alimentation en France durant la He guerre mondiale (Paris 1961), 327-99. The Marseilles region imported, from other regions or from abroad, six-sevenths of its wheat, almost 100 per cent of its red meat, and four-fifths of its fish. Jean-Paul Beauquier, "Problemes du ravitaillement dans la region marseillaise (1940-1944)," Revue d'Histoire de la Deuxieme Guerre Mondiale 113 (January 1979): 6. 120 This phrase comes from a report on "La vie economique en France au debut de 1944" by de Gaulle's Information Secretariat, AN Fl4 13656. 121 Walker, Road and Rail, 197-205; the best study on British social and economic life in World War II is Angus Calder, The People's War, 1939-1945 (London 1969). 122 On the connections between Vichy and postwar planning, see R.F. Kuisel, "Vichy et les origines de la planification." European transport schemes were in vogue among Vichyite economists. See Georges Hersent, Rhone, Rhin, Danube (Paris 1941); it was also a major theme of La Vielndustrielle, a major business paper from 1940-4. For post-1945, see Hersent, Les hydrostrades de I'avenir; P. Bouffard, "La cooperation europeenne en matiere ferroviaire depuis 1945" (These de doctoral, Universite de Paris, 1954).

260 Notes to pages 137-41 123 Wright, Rural Revolution, 86; Isabel Boussard, Vichy et la corporation paysanne (Paris 1980). 124 Jacques Billy, Les techniciens etlepouvoir (Paris 1963), 29-31; C.-J. Gignoux, La crise du capitalisme au XXe siecle (Paris 1941), 276-8. 125 Eugene Schueller, La revolution de I'economic (Paris 1941), 107. 126 Chaigneau, Organisation professionnelle, 35. 127 For example, the Societe Generate des Transports Departementaux, the nation's largest bus firm. M. Jean Richard Deshais, in an interview of 3 July 1978, confirmed that the larger firms predominated in the COTR. Simon, the president of the FNTF in 1937-9, was head of the COTR. On the Organization Committees - and the place of big business within them see Bernard Brizay, Le patronat: Histoire, structure, strategic du CNPF (Paris 1975), 53-6; Chaigneau, Organisation professionnelle, 16; Ehrmann, Organized Business, 80-1; Gorgues, Lesgrandes reformes, 277; H. Rousso, "L'organisation industrielle de Vichy (perspectives et recherches)," Revue d'Histoire de la Deuxieme Guerre Mondiale 116 (October 1979): 27-44. Rousso is working on a thesis on the committees. 128 "Le marinier artisan est une force vive de la nation: c'est par le travail et 1'epargne qu'il a pu acquerir son bateau; il a souvent une nombreuse famille et on a maintes fois rendu justice a son sens de 1'equite et de 1'honneur." C. Berard, "Situation actuelle des Mariniers Artisans," 12 February 1942, AN Fl4 13624. 129 L. Morice, L'office national de la navigation, 251-5. 130 Dossier on professional organization, AN Fl4 16551. 131 Berthelot, Sur les rails, 232-5. The minutes of the Comite Economique Interministeriel, AN Fl4 13645-6, back up Berthelot and suggest that Yves Bouthillier was looking through rose-tinted spectacles in his Finances sous la contrainte, 262. 132 Berthelot admitted that there was a need for streamlining in a letter of 7 August 1941 to Moroni, a member of his cabinet. AN Fl4 13638; for a more general criticism of Vichy bureaucracy, see "Situation du Commerce," Reveil Economique, 30 November 1941. 133 P.-L.R., "L'organisation rationnelle des transports routiers," La Vie Industrielle, 4 February 1942. 134 A fruitful concept developed by Stanley Hoffmann in "The Vichy Circle of French Conservatives," Decline, 3-25. CHAPTER SEVEN 1 Christian Pineau was the first major Resistance leader to visit de Gaulle's headquarters at Carlton Gardens, London, in the spring of 1942. Col. Passy, the head of the Gaullist intelligence service, informed him that the French at the BBC possessed "hardly any information on life in France." On

261 Notes to pages 141-6

2

3 4

5

6 7

8 9 10 11

12 13 14

15

his second visit, in the New Year of 1943, Pineau noticed a perceptible improvement. See C. Pineau, La simple verite (Paris I960), 161, 278-9; JMoch, Rencontres avec de Gaulle (Paris 1971), 29-33; David Schoenbrun, Soldiers of the Night: The Story of the French Resistance (New York 1980). Paxton, Vichy; Henri Michel, Les courants depensee de la Resistance; H.R. Kedward, Resistance in Vichy France: A Study of Ideas and Motivation in the Southern Zone, 1940-1942 (Oxford 1978), 237-48; Diane de Bellescize, Les neufssages de la Resistance: Le Comite general des etudes dans la clandestinite (Paris 1979), 15-74. Andre Tardieu, minister of public works in the late 1920s, accepted the principle of reducing the transport tax as early as 1928. The provisional government did not gain full recognition as such by the United States until October 1944. On the question of relations between the Free French and the Allies, see Dorothy S. White, Seeds of Discord: De Gaulle, Free France and the Allies (Syracuse, 1964); A.L. Funk, Charles de Gaulle: The Crucial Years, 1943-1944 (Norman, Okla.), 1959; James J. Dougherty, "American Economic Assistance to France and French Northwest Africa" (PHD thesis, University of Maryland, 1973). Eisenhower to his chief of staff, Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, 18 November 1942, The Papers ofDwightD. Eisenhower, vol. 2, The War Years, ed. Alfred D. Chandler (Baltimore and London 1970), 734. Cable of 5 December 1942, ibid., 801. The preceding paragraphs rely on Yves M. Danan, La viepolitique a Alger de 1940 a 1944 (Paris 1963), 189-99; H. Michel, The Second World War (London 1975), 493-9; Marcel Peyrouton, Du service public a la prison commune (Paris 1950); Marcel Vigneras, United States Army in World War II: Rearming the French (Washington 1957), 21-59. Journal Officiel du Commandement en Cheffran$ais, 1 April 1943See above, chap. 5. Rene Gendarme, L 'economic de I'Algerie: Sous-developpement etpolitique de croissance (Paris 1959), 103,107. J.C. Pawera, Algeria's Infrastructure: An Economic Survey of Transportation, Communication and Energy Resources (New York 1964), 29; E.D. Brant, Railways of North Africa, 15-19. Gendarme, Algerie, 107; "De la coordination des transports en Afrique du Nord de 1933 a 1936," ANF14 13647. Robert Levi to M. Gandelbau, 23 September 1943, ibid.; see also material in AN F14 13648. Cole, American consul-general in Algiers, to Admiral Leahy, ambassador to Vichy, 1 April 1942; Cole to Cordell Hull (secretary of state), 12 January 1942, in U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers. 1942 (Washington 1962), 2: 276, 236. Of particular interest to transportation are the following figures:

262 Notes to pages 146-8 TABLE 10

U.S. Exports to French North Africa, 1941

Gasoline for automobiles

Oil Gas Oil Fuel Oil Lubricating Oils Total

Minimum needs of North Africa for 9 months (tons)

Exports actually made in 9 months (tons)

84,000 39,000 69,000 45,000 12,000 249,000

10,535 11,235 12,427 8,491

813 43,501

Source: JamesJ. Dougherty, "American Economic Assistance to France and French Northwest Africa" (PHD thesis, University of Maryland, 1973), 54.

16 17 18 19

Ibid, 66. AN Fl4 13647. Minutes, Transport Council of North Africa, 30 March 1943, ibid. Dossier of complaints, especially from food processors, salt-works, and paperworks, AN Fl4 13695. 20 Richard M. Leighton and Robert W. Coakley, U.S. Army in World War II: The War Department: Global Logistics and Strategy, 1940-1943 (Washington 1955), 475. 21 Vigneras, Rearming the French, 189-90. An American critic of the Allied aid program to North Africa reiterated the urgent need for motor vehicles to revitalize the civilian supply system: "Exports to date have consisted of large quantities of wheat, flour, sugar, tea and soap, with some cotton cloth and varied industrial materials included. The requirements for the area, it now appears, would have been much more satisfactorily met had the exports consisted of industrial items in large quantities and cotton cloth and spare parts of automotive equipment to reestablish the internal transportation which is the most vital problem now facing the civilian population." Memorandum of the chief of the Civil Supply Branch for the director of the International Division, Army Service Forces, 24 April 1943, quoted in Harry L. Coles and Albert K. Weinberg, U.S. Army in World War II: Civil Affairs: Soldiers Become Governors (Washington 1964), 5922 J. Bykofsky and H. Larson, U.S. Army in World War II: The Technical Services: The Transportation Corps: Operations Overseas (Washington 1957), 162-6. 23 Minutes of Transport Council, 30 March 1943, AN Fl4 13647. 24 Journal Offtciel. Lois et decrets, 13 July 1944. 25 M. Jean Levy, London delegate of the Commissariat of Communications and the Merchant Navy, to the Regional Commissioners of the Republic,

263 Notes to pages 148-52

26

27

28 29 30 31

32

33 34

35 36

11 August 1944, AN Fl4 13693; the butter anecdote comes from a report in F12 9978. Charles-Louis Foulon, La republique en province (Paris 1975); Stephen P. Kramer, "The Provisional Republic, the Collapse of the Resistance Front and the Origins of Post-War Politics, 1944-1946" (PHD thesis, Princeton University, 1971). Journal Officiel. Lois et decrets, 13 July 1944; Levy's memorandum cited above, AN Fl4 13693. To make matters even more complicated, the Comite d'Organisation des Transports Routiers continued to exist. On the clash between de Gaulle and the Americans concerning the issue of AMGOT, see Funk, Charles de Gaulle, 226-62. R- Levi to M. Lecoanet, Deputy-Director of the Algerian Railways, 23 August 1944, ANF14 13693. Bykofsky and Larson, The Transportation Corps, 341; Durand, La SNCF, 637-41. Rene Courtin, Rapport sur I'economie, Algiers, 1944. For a more extended analysis of the report, see Kuisel, Capitalism and the State. The best study of the Comite General d'Etudes is de Bellescize, Les neufs sages de la Resistance. Cf. the following criticism of the bourgeoisie in the Resistance newspaper, Le Franc-Tireur (20 January 1943): "It has failed in its mission as a ruling class; it has been unable to create a mystique of liberty," quoted in Michel, Courants de pensee. A similar critique occurs in Marc Bloch, Strange Defeat, Leon Blum, A I'echelle humaine, and Jacques Maritain, A travers le desastre, to mention only three of the most famous works of soul-searching written after the fall of France. Courtin, Rapport, 76-7. "Francs-Tireurs et Partisans Frangais," Les documents recueillispar le Service des Publications de la France combattante, no. 39,1 April 1943; Durand, La SNCF, 325-425. Durand, La SNCF, 325-425; L. Armand, Proposferroviaires, 48-62; E. Cattin, Trains en detresse. France Air, "Resultats de bombardements," AN Fla 3864. Rather than massive bombing attacks, the authors of this Resistance document advocated cutting the rails every 800-1,000 metres over a distance of 4-5 km on the main arteries of the railway network. "Ces destructions demandent du temps et du materiel pour retablir la continuite du rail. Renouvelees periodiquement elles sont bien plus 'payantes' que la destruction d'un triage. Elles ont au surplus 1'avantage d'eviter les trop nombreuses victimes et d'etre effectuees avec un minimum de risque pour 1'assaillant qui a la latitude de bombarder a basse altitude sans etre gene de son cote par les tirs de la D.C. A. dont les pieces sont generalement installees aux abords des gros noeuds ferroviaires.

264 Notes to pages 152-7

37

38 39 40 41 42 43 44

45

46

47 48 49 50 51

"Que Ton essaye de mettre en pratique cette methode; les resultats en seront vite apprecies et la mentalite franchise qui s'emeut et commence a critiquer ces raids meurtriers et inoperants reprendrait vite confiance en 1'esprit d'initiative des allies." Durand, La SNCF, 425-39; "Railway Chaos on the Continent," The Times, 4 May 1944; "Nazi Rail lines in Chaos," New York Times, 4 May 1944; Robert Aron, De Gaulle before Paris: The Liberation of France, June-August 1944 (London 1962), 44-5, 202-10, 300-1; Joseph Jacquet, Les cheminots dans I'histoire socials de la France, 178-94. Solly Zuckermann, From Apes to Warlords (New York 1978), 289.1 owe this reference to Dr J.S. Pritchard. "Informations donnees au Conseil SNCF (du 16 mai au 12 juin," AN Fla 3771. Jacquet, Les cheminots, 190-4. Pierre Nicolle, Cinquante mois d1 armistice (Paris 1947) 2: 420. Handwritten memorandum of 11 August 1944, AN Fl4 13656. 30 August 1944. L'Aube, 23 and 28 August 1944; "Encore quelques jours de patience," Le Figaro, 28 August 1944; "Des centaines de camions charges de vivres" and "Les allies disent leur joie de ravitailler la capitale: "Bocoo mangaiy Paris'," Liberation, 23 and 29 August 1944; Defense de la France, "La politique economique d'apres guerre," AN Fla 3791. Armand, Propos ferroviaires, 85-7; on 1914-18, see Gide and Oualid, Le bilan de la guerre, 169-80. In 1914-18, the amount of damage to transport installations was as follows: 2,404 km of main-line railways destroyed; 48 major railway installations destroyed, 517 damaged, and 998 bridges in a state of deterioration. To give some idea of the intensity of war damage in World War I, almost half of the 120,000 km of roads in the ten worst affected departments were destroyed. Francois Billoux, Quandnous etions ministres (Paris 1972), 98; Charles Bettelheim, Bilan de I'economie fran$aise, 1919-1946 (Paris 1947), 265; Durand, La SNCF, 603-10; M.-P. Hamelet, "La rude besogne de nos cheminots," Le Figaro, 1-2 October 1944. Bettelheim, Bilan, 267; Cattin, La reconstruction, 27-41. Tondeur-Scheffler, "Notre redressement national et la SNCF," Revue Politique etParlementaire,Ja.n\ia.ry 1947. Bettelheim, Bilan, 268; "Deux ans de travaux au Ministere des Travaux Publics et des Transports," 1947, AN Fl4 13705. Billoux, Quand nous etions ministres, 98; "Deux ans ...," AN Fl4 13705; "Reconstruction in France," The Times, 7 February 1945. See the files "Recuperation: Automobiles" and "Ferraillage et recuperation d'automobiles," AN 68AJ 513 and 553 respectively. Because of the slowness of the Ponts et Chaussees to organize the removal of the abandoned vehicles

265 Notes to pages 157-60

52 53 54 55 56

57 58 59 60 61 62

63

64 65

in the Paris region, its enumeration listed only 901. By 4 October 1944,714 of these had been towed away to special lots, 72 remained to be towed, and 115 had been lost. An official note of 4 January 1945 on the lot at the Pare de Vincennes stated: "Given the nature of the lot, it is impossible to stop accessories from disappearing. To remove vehicles from the park takes a long time and because the owners of the vehicles are not accompanied by guards, there is nothing to prevent them from taking the accessories they need from other vehicles." The nightwatchmen also reported strangers lurking in the park under cover of dark. By winter, many of the vehicles were sinking slowly into the mud. "Deux ans ...," AN Fl4 13705. "French Program of Supplies," 19 January 1944, AN Fl2 9970; Jean Monnet, Memoires, 248-66. "Addition to the collapse estimates for France," 5 May 1944, AN Fl2 9972; Dougherty, "American Economic Assistance," 252-6. "French Program of Supplies," AN Fl2 9970; Monnet, Memoires, 264-5. To make matters worse, as most of the major Atlantic ports were still in German hands, Allied imports had to be directed to inadequately equipped minor ports. In the south, the damage to the port of Marseilles posed the biggest problem; apart from that, the amount of damage was less than had been anticipated, because the German flight had been so rapid that they had little time for deliberate destruction. R.W. Coakley and R.M. Leighton, Global Logistics and Strategy, 1943-1945 (Washington 1968), 779-80; see also the material on coal transport in AN Fl4 13668-9. SNCF, Service Central du Mouvement, report of 18 September 1944, AN Fl4 13668. J. Goudard, "La reprise du trafic voyageurs sur la SNCF depuis la Liberation," Revue Generate des Chemins de fer, January-February 1946. Pierre A. Salarnier, "L'effort des chemins de fer franc.ais," Le Monde, 22 December 1944. Folder in AN Fl4 13663. Ibid.; "Hungry People of Europe," The Times, 8 March 1945. Quoted in Coles and Weinberg, Soldiers Become Governors, 892; see also Dougherty, "American Economic Assistance," 247-91, for the conflicts within the United States civil and military administration concerning the "disease and unrest" formula. Debate on the 1945 budget of the Ministry of Public Works and Transport. Journal Officiel. Debats parlementaires. Assemblee consultative provisoire, 15 February 1945, 88; "Une declaration de M. Parodi 'Mayer's deputy— sur la situation des transports," Le Monde, 23 January 1945. Michel P. Hamelet, "La 'peniche' etait au rendez-vous," Le Figaro, 19-20 November 1944; R. Cobb, A Second Identity (London 1966), 30. Folders in AN Fl2 9978-83 and Fl4 13663; the inefficiency of gazogene

266 Notes to pages 160-2

66 67 68 69 70 71

72 73

74 75 76 77

compared to gasoline restricted the role played by motor transport in civilian supplies. In the south there were sometimes food supplies available, but Nice went hungry because its gazogene-powered trucks were only capable of doing half the work diesel-powered trucks could have done. Report of the Civil Affairs Liaison Officer of the American armed forces, 5 October 1944, quoted in Coles and Weinberg, Soldiers Become Governors, 775-89. Marc Carriche, "Des camions, des camions!" Le Populaire, 4 January 1945. Neveu, Historique des TMAPC: Transports militaires automobiles pour les populations, n.p., n.d. "Une declaration de M. Parodi sur la situation des transports," Le Monde, 23 January 1945; Le Monde, 2 March 1945. XXX, "Le ravitaillement general du pays," Revue Politique et Parlementaire, 10 July 1945. "French Aid Lags," Business Week, 10 February 1945; "Hungry Residents of Nice," New York Times, 1 February 1945. Henri Denis, Le Comite parisien de la Liberation (Paris 1963), 146-7, 234-6; see also Cepede, Agriculture et alimentation; S.P. Kramer, "La crise economique de la Liberation,' Revue d'Histoire de la Deuxieme Guerre Mondiale 111 (July 1978): 25-44. Journal Officiel. Debats parlementaires. Assemblee consultative provisoire, 16 February 1945,100. For this emphasis on popular mobilization as the key to ensuring food supplies, see Benoit Frachon, "(^a ne tourne pas ronde," L'Humanite, 26 September 1944; Georges Cogniot, "Un peu d'energie, un peu d'initiative," L'Humanite, 17 January 1945; "Les difficultes de Paris," L'Humanite, 18 January 1945. Kramer, "La crise economique"; see also Wright, Rural Revolution. Minutes, SNCF board, 10 January 1945, AN 133AQ 8. Journal Officiel. Debats parlementaires, Assemblee consultative provisoire, 15 February 1945, 82-6; Denis, Le Comite parisien, 146-7, 234-6. The evidence is conflicting on this point. Jean Guehenno, the Left Bank intellectual and pacifist, confessed in his diary entry for 21 February 1941: "One is a little ashamed to eat. The poor people of the neighbourhood have no more bread. They have already used up all their bread coupons for February. If we are still able to eat at home, it is because we are bourgeois and because we are able to have packages sent from Brittany at great expense." J. Guehenno, Journal des annees noires (1940-1944) (Paris 1947), 83. In the diary of another Parisian bourgeois, J. Galtier-Boissiere, we read that, "From year to year, supplies were organized. This winter, on every floor, from the concierge's lodge to the attic, everyone receives his care-package from the provinces. We are being supplied by Mayenne, Brittany, Puy-deDome, at almost normal prices." Quoted in J. Debu-Bridel, Histoire du marche noir (1939-1947) (Paris 1947), 55. Even if this second account were

267 Notes to pages 162-5

78 79

80 81

not laced with a liberal dose of wishful thinking, it would be true only until the beginning of 1944, i.e., when passenger and parcel services to and from the provinces were still running normally. But there is reason to believe that conditions for most Parisians were worse than Galtier-Boissiere would have us believe. An official report based on visits to 2,600 Parisian homes in June-July 1943, that is, before conditions had reached their worst, found that on average 71 per cent of the family income was spent on food, 25 per cent of families failed to balance their budget, and 95 per cent of families were underfed. See "Les conditions d'existence des salaries de la region parisienne," Le genie civil, 15 June 1944. Marcel Gabilly, "La restauration de nos transports," Le Figaro, 15 December 1944. "Rapport general du commissaire aux communications et a la marine marchande sur les textes a publier en vue de la Liberation du territoire metropolitain," n.d., ANF14 13696. "Une ordonnance sur le renforcement du controle des transports routiers," Le Monde, 6 February 1945. Journal Officiel. Debats parlementaires. Assemblee consultative provisoire, 16 February 1945; dossier on truck imports, AN Fl4 13669CHAPTER EIGHT

1 Editorial of 15 June 1945 in Politique, a review close to the Christian Democrats. 2 Quoted by H. Michel, Courants depensee, 395, 398. For the political context of this period, see Paul-Marie de la Gorce, L'apres-guerre, 1944-1952: Naissance de la France moderne (Paris 1978): 75-123; Gregoire Madjarian, Conflits, pouvoirs et societe a la Liberation (Paris 1980); B.D.Graham, The French Socialists and Tripartism, 1944-1947; J. Duclos, Memoires, vol. 4, Sur la breche, 1945-1952 (Paris 1971). 3 "Le catechisme ferroviaire de Lyon-Perrache," L'Argus de I'Automobile, 1 and 8 January 1942. The moral of this exhibition, the Argus declared, was that "the policy of the railways, which we have been denouncing here for over ten years, a policy of establishing a transport monopoly, is clearly exposed, with a good deal of ingenuity." See also the following issues of the Argus: 5,12, 26 February, 5 March, 6 June 1942; Les Routiers, July 1941. 4 J. Moch, "La necessaire reorganisation des transports," Le Populaire, 25 August 1937. 5 1 1 May 1949. The first two verses, to the tune of 'Elle est laide, laide, laide," went as follows: S'il est une Compagnie Qui se trouve, au premier chef Dans un' sombre penurie,

268 Notes to pages 165-6

6 7 8

9

10

Cut bien la SNCF. Visiblement elle croule Et si, par miracle, encor', A fond de train, ses trains roulent, (^a n'est sur'mentpas sur I'or. Refrain Elle est raide, raide, raide, Elle est raide, elle n'a plus I' sou Plus de vingt milliards de dettes! Vousparlez d'unfameux trou Elle est raide, raide, raide; Elle enprendmeme un telcoup Que bientot a tout's ses machines On pourra dire: coucou! C'est temps qu'on s'debrouille Sinon, faute depognon, Sur ses rails, converts de rouille, llpouss'ra des champignons. Elle est raide, raide, raide, Au point que, tout sens d'ssus d'ssous, Pineau* lui-meme deraille On n' I'appell' plus qu' Pineau-le-Fou! * Minister of transport, 1947-50. Kuisel, Capitalism and the State, 187-218. J. Moch, Le parti socialiste aupeuple de France, 43. The Socialists were more consistently committed to nationalization than the Communists. Traditionally the latter had suspected that nationalization might turn out to be no more than a device to reinforce capitalism, by having the state sector provide private industry with subsidized goods and services. See Jacques Amoyal, "Les origines socialistes et syndicalistes de la planification en France," Le Mouvement Social 87 (April-June 1974): 13769; Graham, The French Socialists, 46-9; Maurice Thorez, Oeuvres choisies 2: 320-38; Madjarian, Conflits, pouvoirs etsociete, 233-52. Arthur Calmette, L'"O.C.M.": Organisation civile et militaire (Paris 1961), 60-2; H. Michel and B. Mirkine-Guetzevitch, Les idees politiques etsocialesde la Resistance (Paris 1954), 366-70; Jean Bouvier, "Sur la politique economique en 1944-1946," in Comite d'histoire de la 2e guerre mondiale, La Liberation de France, 852-4. J. Denais, "Risques et concurrence sont necessaires," Le ReveilEconomique, 31 May 1944; in articles written in 1942, Denais had admitted that war perhaps justified a certain degree of dirigisme, but denied the state's competence to do a good job in this sphere; M. Goudard, La defense du liberalisme

269 Notes to pages 166-9 (Paris 1944); Emmanuel Gardey [Jean de Haas], La vote de I'avenir (Paris 1945), contains a blistering liberal critique of dirigisme. Despite his disillusionment with the elite, Rene Courtin also favoured the rapid return to a basically liberal economy. Interview in L'Aube, 24 August 1944. Resistance liberals had to choose between punishing the elite or returning to the economic system they preferred. 11 Bernard Brizay, Lepatronat, 65-9. 12 de Bellescize, Les neufs sages, 260. 13 Kuisel, Capitalism and the State, 172-3; Commissariat a 1'Interieur, "Critique du rapport sur la politique economique d'apres-guerre presente par le Comite National d'etudes de la Resistance," AN Fla 3791. 14 Roger Guibert, "Le neuf et le raisonnable," La Vie des Transports, 30 November 1945; Cercle des Transports, Etudes sur les transports terrestres, 98-103; "A propos de la coordination des transports," L'Economie, 16 August 1945; Federation des Travaux Publics, "Problemes des transports," typescript dated 15 March 1946, ANF14 13713. 15 See above, chap. 7. 16 Minutes, SNCF board, 10 January 1945, AN 133AQ8; Guibert, "Le neuf." 17 Cercle des Transports, Etudes, 130-40. 18 "Reunion de ceux de la route," L'Argusdel'Automobile, 26 April 1945; letter from the departmental road transport allocator (Card) to his counterpart in the Ministry of Supply, 15 March 1945, AD du Card, 26 W 301. See also Goudard, La defense, 271-7; Jean-Claude, "Fonctionnarisme civil et militaire," Le Figaro, 3 July 1945; Paul Lambard, "Incoherences," La Vie des Transports, 28 December 1945; dossier on wine transports in AN Fl4 13714. 19 For the prewar attitudes of the union, see the articles by Charles Garcia in Le Travailleur des Transports, March and June 1937. The latter editorial denounced the FNTF'S protests against the Popular Front's transport policies as "an example of fascist blackmail." For the postwar period, see the assurances of Lucien Midol, one of the major Communist transport spokesmen, in La Vie des Transports, 26 April 1946; "Du bon travail a la SCETA," Le Reveildes Transports, 15 December 1946; "II nous faut de 1'essence," ibid., 15 October 1947, and "II faut defendre notre industrie," ibid., 1 March 1948. 20 Journal Officiel. Debats. Assemblee Nationals, 30 December 1945, 27 April 1946, 20 June 1947; "Deux ans," ANF14 13705. 21 Minutes, Interministerial Economic Committee, 18 March 1946, AN Fl4 13720. Moch fought hard for the SNCF's interests at this meeting, but despite his efforts the SNCF had to divert part of its quota to repairs instead of construction in 1946. AN Fl4 13714. 22 Letter of 17 July 1943 to the Armaments' Commissioner, AN Fl4 13684; Monnet, Memoires, 267. 23 Ibid., 267-8; "French Aid Lags," Business Week, 10 February 1945; minutes, SNCF board, 6 June 1945, AN 133AQ8; Dougherty, "American Economic Assistance," 257-90.

270 Notes to pages 169-74 24 Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques, Mouvement economique en France de 1938 a 1948 (Paris 1949); "Inventaire economique de 1'Europe," Etudes et Conjonctures, October-December 1947. 25 Minutes, SNCF board, 6 February 1946, AN 133 AQ9; Moch to Andre Philip, Minister of National Economy, 18 February 1946, AN Fl4 13720; Cattin, "Reconstruction," 64-5; even as late as 1949, France lagged further behind schedule in its replacement of track than any other industrial country except West Germany. Annual Bulletin of Transport Statistics, 1949 (Geneva 1950), 19. 26 Journal Officiel. Debuts. Assemblee consultative provisoire, 27 June 1945,1216. 27 Report by Louis Armand on the SNCF's fuel consumption, 15 May 1946, AN 133AQ9; Ministry of Transport note on "Approvisionnement de la SNCF en charbon de traction," 4 January 1946, AN Fl4 13720. 28 SNCF, Retrospectif, table C2. 29 Mayer's speech of 26 June 1945, reported in the Journal Officiel, 27 June 1945,1216; Armand's report of May 1946, AN 133AQ 9. 30 Report of M. Goursat, General Manager, SNCF board meeting, 6 February 1946; because of the coal shortage, the share of electric traction in the total traffic rose from 14 per cent in 1939 to 20 per cent in 1943- Durand, La SNCF, 654. 31 SNCF, Retrospectif, table C3. 32 Jacquet, Les cheminots, 204; Thorez, Oeuvres 2: 387-403,430-1; Benoit Frachon, Au rythme des jours (Paris 1967), 1: 60-70, 96-114, 117-22. 33 P.-A. S[alarnier], "La reconstitution des communications en France," Le Monde, 14 August 1945; "Le pare de la SNCF," Le Monde, 10 November 1945; Jacques Raymondi, "Labataille du rail continue," LePopulaire, 12-13 May 1946; Bettelheim, Bilan, 267. 34 "Deux ans," AN Fl4 13705; SNCF, Activite et productivite de la SNCF, 19381962, 27. 35 L. Armand, "A la recherche de la meilleure utilisation des locomotives a vapeur en France," L'AnneeFerroviaire, 1948,97-116; Armand, Proposferroviaires, 122-3; on the railwaymen's attachment to the older system, see Etienne Cattin, Ceux du rail. 36 J. Moch, press conference, 21 April 1947, AN Fl4 13705; Paul Marois, "Les chemins de fer et 1'economie franchise," in Histoire des chemins de fer en France, 107-18; "La tarification des chemins de fer," L'Economie, 19 July 1945. 37 Roger Guibert, "Le transport ferroviaire: Problemes actuels et promesses d'avenir," in Pour unepolitique economique des transports, 61-3. 38 See dossier of complaints by Chambers of Commerce in AN Fl4 17504. 39 Louis Lacoste, "La politique tarifaire de la SNCF," Cahiers de I'lnstitut de Science Economique Appliquee, October 1962,84-90; for complaints, see "La voie d'eau et la concurrence du rail," La Navigation du Rhin, November 1947;

271 Notes to pages 174-80

40 41

42

43

44 45

46 47 48 49 50 51

52 53 54

55

Pierre Prevost, "La fin de la dictature du rail" and "La conjoncture et 1'avenir de la route," La Vie des Transports, 14 June 1947 and 10 January 1948. L'Economie, 23 January 1947. "Les perspectives de 1'industrie automobile," L'Economie, 13 December 1945; "La repartition des vehicules automobiles," L'Economie, 12June 1947. For a comparison of car ownership in 1939 and 1946, see L'Argus de I'Automobile, 25 April 1946. At this time, 315,285 cars were covered by a permit; 592,812 were not, and therefore could not be driven legally. M. Beau, "Situation et perspectives de la navigation interieure franchise," La Navigation du Rhin, June 1946; "Inventaire economique de 1'Europe," 353. See minutes, SNCF board, 21 July 1943, 5 January 1944, 5 December 1945, AN 133AQ 6, 7, and 8. Unfortunately, the memoranda which formed the basis for the SNCF'S planning are not contained in the minutes. Jean Monnet, "Memorandum sur le plan de modernisation et d'equipement," 13 December 1945, ANF14 13720; Monnet, Memoires, 271-85. Michel Biays, Formation du capital et reconstruction fran^aise (Paris 1951); Claude Evesque, "Le Plan Monnet" (These du doctorat, Universite de Paris, 1947); John J. Sheahan, Promotion and Control of Industry in Post-War France (Cambridge, Mass. 1963); Andrew Shonfield, Modern Capitalism (1965; London reprint, 1974), 121-236. On Vichy, see Kuisel, "Vichy et les origines de planification"; P. Bauchard, Les technocrates et lepouvoir (Paris 1966), 198-206. Commissariat General du Plan, Premier rapport de la commission de modernisation de transports interieurs (Paris 1946). See dossiers in AN Fl4 13639,13641, and above, chap. 6. Premier rapport... transports interieurs. Ibid., 24, 33,81. Over the course of the plan, Charbonnages de France spent 29 per cent more than had been anticipated; Electricite de France and the SNCF spent only 57 per cent and 60 per cent of the projected amount. Maurice Bye, "Nationalization in France," in Nationalization in France and Italy, ed. M. Einaudi, M. Bye, and E. Rossi, 138-9; see also "A 1'Assemblee nationale," L'Offtciel des Transporters, 15 January 1951; A. Lagnier, "Les transports en 1951" and "L'evolution des transports," Revue d'EconomiePolitique 62 (1952): 531-3 and (1953): 724-6. SNCF, Assemblee generale des actionnaires du vendredi 30juin 1950, 3. Premier rapport... transports interieurs, 44-5. Commissariat General du Plan, Rapport du Commissaire General sur leplan de modernisation et d'equipement de I'Union franqaise: Realisations 1947-1949 et objectifs 1950-1952 (Paris 1949), 99-100. Roger Queuillot, La SFIO et I'exercise du pouvoir, 1944-1958 (Paris 1972),

272 Notes to pages 180-2

56 57

58 59

60 61

62

63 64 65

214-27; Georgette Elgey, La republique des illusions, 1945-1951, ou la vie secrete de la IVe Republique (Paris 1965), 246-93; Philippe Roberieux, Maurice Thorez: Vie secrete et vie publique (Paris 1975), 341-55. On the Renault strike and its implications, see Philippe Fallachon, "Les greves de la Regie Renault en 1947," Le Mouvement Social 81 (October-December 1972), 111-42. Essentially the Communists threw in their lot with the strikers to prevent themselves from being cut off from their working-class base. Vincent Amiol, Journal du septennat, 1947-1954 (Paris 1970), 1:442; DebuBridel, Le marche noir, 181-2. L'anneepolitique: 1947 (Paris 1948), 96-7,103-4; Bernard E. Brown, "Pressure Politics in France," Journal of Politics 18, no. 4 (November 1956): 705; dossier on "le probleme du pain," AD de 1'Herault, 171 W 37. The quality of bread also left a lot to be desired in those years. A journalist, G. Bertheloite, wrote: "At last we have the famous corn bread: the one and only, the inedible. Until now, our bread was increasingly straw-coloured. But now it is much prettier, and in both its colour and weight resembles a precious metal. But it can only be used as construction material. With my ration, I have made a fine paper-weight bearing the date 1947, three years after the Liberation, as testimony to the competence of our wonderful leaders." Auriol Journal du septennat 1: 103,430,433; Queuillot, La SFIO, 244-52. Ministere des Affaires Economiques, "Note sur la politique des prix," 24 October 1947, AN Fl4 13714; for further evidence of this change of climate, see Pierre Doueil, Ladministration locale a I'epreuve de la guerre (1939-1949) (Paris 1950). Christian Pineau, La SNCF et les transports franqais (Paris 1950), 49; J.-G. Marais and F. Simi, L'aviation commercials (Paris 1970), 93-7. For early criticism of nationalization, see Edmond Giscard-d'Estaing, "Nationalisations," and Louis Baudin, "Qu'est-ce qu'une nationalisation?" in Comite d'action economique et douaniere, Nationalisations (Paris 1945); Marcel Ventenat, a respected business journalist, exempted the SNCF from his criticism of the public sector on the grounds that its statutes protected the rights of the shareholders and that care had been taken to designate the state's representatives on its board on the basis of expertise, not political affiliation. M. Ventenat, L'experience des nationalisations (Paris 1947), 101-7. The most serious incident, which the strikers claimed was the work of agents provocateurs, was the unbolting of the rails to cause the derailment of the Paris-Lille express on the night of 2-3 December 1947. Sixteen people died. Auriol, Journal du septennat 1:610-11; L'Humanite, 4 December 1947; Jacquet, Les cheminots, 217-21. Pierre Prevost in La Vie des Transports, 14 June 1947. Moch, Une si longue vie, 273-89; Auriol, Journal du septennat 1: 256-63; Le Populaire, 8-13 June 1947. See above, chaps. 4 and 5.

273 Notes to pages 182-4 66 Rene Miquel, Dynastie Michelin (Paris 1962), 387-91, 394. 67 P. Donnatau, "La regie Renault devant la concurrence et les tentatives de planification," Economie etHumanisme, September-October 1953; Sheahan, Promotion and Control, 103-26. 68 Regie nationale des usines Renault, "Rapport annuel de gestion du President Directeur-General pour 1'exercise 1946," 21, AN 65 AQ 77-1; "Un cri d'alarme," Les Routiers, July 1946; see also the report on the Peugeot shareholders' meeting late in 1945 in L'Argus de I'Automobile, 6 December 1945. 69 Sheahan, Promotion and Control, chaps. 7 and 10; Donnatau, "La Regie Renault"; "L'avenir de 1'industrie franchise de 1'automobile," L'Economie, 30 August 1945. 70 J. Artaud, "Note sur la structure et les attributions respectives du COTR, de 1'OPTR et des SDTR," 3 January 1946, AN Fl4 13712; "A la FNTR," La Vie des Transports, 22 June 1946. 71 "La route est 1'egale du fer," La Vie des Transports, 29 May 1948; Gilbert Heurley, La coordination des transports vue par les transporters routiers (Paris 1948). 72 Alfred Sauvy, Lesfaits et les opinions (Paris 1954-5), 334-57; Jean Meynaud, Lesgroupes depression, 90-1; M. Francois Lehideux confirmed that the Union Routiere was financed primarily by the oil companies: interview of 28 June 1978; for reports on its conferences, see L'Economie, 15 May 1947, 26January 1949; La Vie des Transports, 6 March 1948. 73 On the foundation of the group, see L 'Argus de I'Automobile, 8 May, 26 June, 14 August 1947; Meynaud, Les groupes de pression, 152; Philip Williams, Politics in Post-War France: Parties and the Constitution in the Fourth Republic (London 1954), 327-41, has a useful chapter on pressure groups. 74 P. Girardet, Ceux que j'ai connus (Paris 1952), 150-4; "La politique des transports et la route," L'Economie, 3 January 1946; "200,000 vehicules," L'Economie, 26 January 1949; R. Andre, "Les carburants en France," and "Aurons-nous de 1'essence?" Le ReveilEconomique, 15 December 1947 and 15 March 1948. 75 Dossier 1-D 500: "Transports," AN Fla 3362. 76 "Gravite d'un avertissement," Nord-Transports, February-March 1947. In the same issue, the paper published a satirical article on "The Gospel According to Saint Paul-Marcel" (Marcel Paul, minister of industrial production), a parody of the parable of the two loaves and five fishes, which in Nord-Transports became a handful of ration coupons and three cans of oil. 77 Letter of 14 December 1945 to the minister, quoted in "La reorganisation des services des transports routiers," Bulletin du PCM, January 1946; see also "Conseil General des Ponts et Chaussees, Assemblee pleniere, seance du 25 juillet 1945" and Conseil General des Ponts et Chaussees, "Rapport annuel de 1'Inspecteur General: annee 1946," in AN Fl4 13710. Perhaps the engineers were upset that the arduous and unpopular tasks of enforcing the

274 Notes to pages 184-8

78 79 80

81 82

83

84 85

86 87

88 89 90 91

regulations imposed by Paris were hindering good relations with the local authorities, with whom, much to Berthelot's dismay, they had traditionally tended to identify. On this point, see Jean-Claude Thoenig, L 'ere des technocrates: Le cas des Fonts et Chaussees, 21-35. Thoenig cites one engineer as saying, "I represent my mayors in dealings with the administration ... I have spoken on their behalf from time to time at the prefecture ... That's only normal: I am their engineer." Based on a pen portrait in Le Monde, 1 June 1945. Commissariat General du Plan, Premier rapport, 9; SNCF, Retrospect!/, table C2. "Deux ans," AN Fl4 13705; SNCF, Resultats statistiques, 1945-50. The deficits were: 1947-10.3 billion francs; 1948-29.3 billion; 1949-55.1 billion; 195086.7 billion. Speech by L. Bout, Journal Offidel. Debuts. Assemblee, 24 May 1949, 2830-2. The lack of reliable statistics makes a precise estimate difficult. The figures for 1949 vary from 625,000 in "Activite routiere en 1949," La Vie des Transports, 11 February 1950, to 750,000 in SNCF, Ou en est le chemin defer (Paris 1950). Boyaux's traffic estimate comes from a report given to the SNCF board meeting of 30 June 1948, AN 133AQ11; by 1949, according to later official estimate road traffic had risen to 8.4 billion ton-kilometres compared to 5.4 billion in 1938 (both figures exclude urban deliveries which complement the railways' activity). INSEE, Mouvement economique en France de 1944 a 1957 (Paris 1958), 181. The best analyses of this problem are: L. Rais, "L'e volution du chemin de fer du capitalisme au secteur public," Economic et Humanisme, SeptemberOctober 1953; David H. Pinkney, "The French Experiment in Nationalization, 1944-1950," in Modern France: Problems of the Third and Fourth Republic, ed. Edward M. Earle (New York 1965), 354-67. Minutes, SNCF board, 21 March 1945, AN 133AQ8. See the dossier of local demands for railcar services in AN Fl4 13711; also Y. Machefert-Tassin, "L'autorail et la locomotive diesel," in Histoire des chemins defer, 247-88. Pineau, La SNCF, 37. "Deux theories," "Contraction du rail," and "Bilan de la commission railroute," La Vie des Transports, 20 November and 25 December 1948, 29 January 1949; G. Gallienne, "La concurrence du rail et de la route," Le Monde, 14 May 1949. Report of C. Boyaux to the SNCF board, 16 March 1949, AN 133AQ12; P. Marois, "La concurrence du rail et de la route," Le Monde, 7 May 1949. Minutes, SNCF board, 28 May and 15 June 1949, AN 133AQ12. This difference had already arisen within the transport planning commission in 1946. Minutes, SNCF board, 15 June 1949, AN 13 3 AQ12.

275 Notes to pages 189-92 92 Ibid., 28 February, 24 March, 30 June 1948, and 30 March 1949, AN 133AQ11 and 12. 93 Ibid., 2 February and 30 March 194994 Ibid., 1148. The reason why so many 141 -R's had been ordered, according to L. Armand, was that the new practice of assigning any engine team to any locomotive could only be effective if it was introduced at one fell swoop. The maintenance of the new and the old systems side by side would have resulted in an organizational nightmare. Armand, "Locomotives a vapeur." 95 Lemaire refused to resign and asked Pineau to take him before the Conseil d'Etat, the supreme court of the republic, if the minister felt he was guilty of professional misconduct. Le Figaro, 11 May 1949. Flouret was appointed governor of the Bank of Algeria, an irony which was not lost on the Canard Enchame (25 May 1949). 96 Journal Officiel. Debate. Assemblee, 25 May and 1 June 1949, 2817-44, 295294. 97 See the speeches by Louis Bour and Rene Capitant, ibid., 2952-4, 2955-7; "Les difficultes de la SNCF," L'Economie, 26 May 1949; R. Dautry, "Un probleme mal pose: Le probleme des transports," Le Figaro, 12 August 1949. 98 Journal Officiel. Debats. Assemblee, 26 May 1949, 2887. 99 Rene Albert, "Une histoire de fous," Les Routiers, 25 May 1949. 100 Herbert Luethy, France against Herself (New York 1955), 165-71. 101 Journal Offtciel. Debats. Assemblee, 25 May 1949, 2870-1. 102 Ibid., 2901-2; Michel-P. Hamelet, "Le scandale des essences," Le Figaro, March-May 1949. The campaign started in the first week of March, when Hamelet wrote an expose on the anomaly of continuing to ration gasoline at a time when stocks were accumulating at the refineries. His request for readers' letters was answered by all categories of people dependent on the road, including garagistes, hoteliers, doctors, travelling salesmen, and truckers. The next step was to solicit support from all interest groups large and small connected with the road. Finally, after other newspapers like L'Aurore and Le Reveil Economique had jumped on the bandwagon, Le Figaro attempted to put pressure on Parliament to deration gasoline, directly by canvassing deputies, indirectly by appealing to readers to petition their deputies and by organizing a referendum in which an overwhelming majority favoured an immediate end to rationing. 103 Journal Officiel. Debats. Assemblee, 1 June 1949, 2995-8; La Vie des Transports, 1 June 1949. 104 Journal Officiel. Debats. Assemblee, 1 June 1949,2998; see also Nathan Leites, The Game of Politics in France (Stanford 1959) for some useful and witty insights into the intricacies of the Fourth Republic. 105 Hillman, Road-Rail, passim.

276 Notes to pages 192-4 106 On the function of deputies, see Mattei Dogan, "Political Ascent in a Class Society: French Deputies, 1870-1958," in Political Decision-Makers, ed. D. Marvick (Glencoe, 111. 1961), 57-90. 107 "Le decret coordonnant le rail et la route," Le Figaro, 16 November 1949. 108 The National Transport Association, claiming to speak for the artisans, screamed blue murder. Germain Loubat, "Un crime envers la nation," Les Routiers, 25 November 1949. 109 La Vie des Transports, 19 November 1949; "Les nouvelles modalites de la coordination des transports," L'Economie, 23 November 1949; Georges Litalien, "Le probleme des transports routiers," Revue Politique et Parlementaire, February 1951. 110 Pierre Tessier, "Le chemin de fer doit-il disparaitre?" Le Figaro, 10 November 1949111 Pineau called the article "inappropriate and discourteous" in a letter to the SNCF board, AN 133 AQ12. 112 Minutes, SNCF board, 18 January 1950, AN 133 AQ 13. CHAPTER NINE 1 See for example two articles by the political geographer Andre Siegfried, "La France vue de dehors" and "Ressaisissons-nous," Le Figaro, 3 July and 7 August 1945. One journalist wrote, "We are now taking part in a race against the clock. On the one hand, the gradual recovery of transportation and of production tend to lessen the sufferings of the population and to revive the economy; on the other hand, the very sufferings of the population and the malfunctioning of the economy provoke psychological and political reactions which threaten to jeopardize the recovery." Andre Latel, "La politique economique de la France," Le Monde, 3 July 1945. 2 See Jean Fourastie, "II est possible a la fois d'eviter le chaos economique et de relever notre niveau de vie," L'Aube, 5 April 1949. This was part of a series in the Christian Democratic newspaper entitled "Demain: prosperite et bonheur ou crise et misere?", the contributors to which included Pierre Mendes-France, Maurice Allais, a prominent economist, and Jean Pupier, a former editor of the business paper, Lajournee Industrielle. Most of the contributors felt that France stood on the banks of the Rubicon. If she radically modernized her economic policies she could advance to prosperity; if she failed to change her ways, she would relapse into the misery of the Third Republic. 3 Among which were Lucien Laurat and Marcelle Pommera, La drame economique et monetaire fran^ais depuis la Liberation (Paris 1953), a socialist critique of dirigisme and a plea for a shift in emphasis towards the consumer-goods sector; Herbert Luethy, France against Herself (New York

277 Notes to pages 194-6

4

5

6 7

8

9 10 11

12

1955), a pungent and witty dissection of French shortcomings by a Swiss observer. This preoccupation with French economic weaknesses was reflected in contemporary examinations of French economic history, for example, David S. Landes, "French Entrepreneurship and Industrial Growth in the 19th Century," Journal of'Economic History 9 (May 1949): 45-61; Jesse Pitts, "The Bourgeois Family and French Economic Retardation" (PHD thesis, Harvard University, 1957). Derek H. Aldcroft, The European Economy, 1914-1970 (London 1978), 149-50; Andrew Shonfield, Modern Capitalism: The Changing Balance of Public and Private Power (London 1965); V. Barou, M. Dolle, C. Gaber, and E. Wartenberg, Les performances comparees de I'economie en France, en RFA et au Royaume-Uni (Paris 1979). Between 1950 and 1965, the portion of the family budget spent on food fell from 42.8 to 32.3 per cent; for health and hygiene, it rose from 6.5 to 10.2 per cent; for transport and communications from 6.3 to 9.6 per cent; for culture and leisure from 7 to 8.5 per cent. G. Gazes and A. Reynaud, Les mutations recentes de I'economie franc^aise: De la croissance a I'amenagement (Paris 1973), 106; for a lively assessment of the extent of social change in France, see John Ardagh, The New France: A Society in Transition, 1945-1977 (London reprint, 1977). Caron, Economic History of Modern France, 115. J. Dessirier, "Chemins de fer et progres technique," L'Annee Ferroviaire, 1952, 56; see also Roger Guibert and Rene Pares, "Productivite globale et comptes de surplus de la SNCF," Revue Generate des Chemins de fer, January 1974,1-11. SNCF, L 'electrification de Paris-Lyon; Roger Hutter, "La SNCF a 25 ans: Ses realisations, ses problemes," Societe des Ingenieurs Civils de France, October 1963; "L'effort d'equipement de la SNCF," L'Economie, 28 November and 5 December 1963; Marcel Haouy and Andre Guilmard, "La region Nord de la SNCF," and Paul Nicolas and Robert Touchot, "La region Est de la SNCF," Le Moniteur des travaux publics et du batiment, 2 May 1970 and 31 July 1971; Armand, Propos ferroviaires, 147-56. Saint-Prix, "Trentenaire sur rails," Energie, 8 December 1967; SNCF, Activite et productivity de la SNCF, 1938-1962, 14. 1938 figure, SNCF, Activite, 13; for other figures, Saint-Prix, "Trentenaire." J.Jones, High Speed Trains in France: Paris-SudEst (Kingston, Ont., 1981); La Vie du Rail, 24 September 1981 (special issue); The Shinkansen High Speed Rail Network, of Japan, ed. A. Straszak and R. Tuch (Oxford 1980); Jacqueline Petit, "Le train a grande vitesse et les liaisons aeriennes Air Inter entre Paris et Lyon" (Memoire pour le DEA d'Economie d'Entreprises et de Branches, Universite de Paris I, 1979). M. Chauvineau and M. de Montplanet, "Les liaisons ferroviaires Nantes-

278 Notes to pages 197-9

13

14 15

16

17

18

19 20

Lyon et Strasbourg: Un exemple d'action marketing a la SNCF," Transports, July 1975; "Optimism Reflects New Popularity," International Railway Journal, April 1980. Roger Guibert, "Le transport ferroviaire," in Pour une politique e'conomique, 48-52, 79ff; Pierre Sabatier, "Aspects de la politique degestion de laSNCF," (Memoire de DBS de Sciences Economiques, Universite de Lyon II, 1973). Denis Broussolle, Le rail et la route: La convergence des secteurs public et prive (Paris 1981), 47. On the growing recognition of the need for marketing, see TJ. Hooper and RE. Johnson, "Marketing High Speed Ground Transport," High Speed Ground Transportation Journal 8 (Fall 1974): 275-82; R. Hutter, "Reflexions sur le marketing," Rail International, February-March 1976. The results of SNCF research into the profile of its passenger clientele is summarized in J. Chauvineau, "La recherche commerciale voyageurs a la SNCF," Revue Generate des Chemins de fer, September 1977, and J. Chauvineau and J. Mireux, "Les franc.ais et les voyages," ibid., March 1980. A practical outcome of this research was a detailed brochure produced by the passenger marketing department for SNCF sales personnel advising them of the main questions or misconceptions likely to arise concerning the new Paris-Sud Est high speed train and suggesting ways of winning clients for the service. On the postwar decline of the coal industry, see Paul Novel, Le charbon et I'energie en France (Paris 1970). The share of coal in French energy consumption declined from 36 per cent in 1962 to just under 10 per cent in 1975; in the same period the share of petroleum products went up from 31 to 53 per cent and that of electricity from 19 to 23 per cent. Ministere de 1'Industrie et de la Recherche, Annuaire de statistique industrielle, 1975, 21. On British Rail's dependence on the coal industry, see D.L. Munby and A.H. Watson, Inland Transport Statistics: Great Britain, 1900-1970 1: 83-7On the decline of rural bus services, see M. Wolkowitsch, "La decadence de la notion de service public en milieu rural," Transports, February 1976. From 1962 to 1971, the length of regular bus services declined from 436,500 km to 398,680 km, while the length of special school services jumped from 116,900 km to 511,000 km. L'Officiel des Transporters, 28 February, 1973. The largest trucks have a payload of 38 tons and generate 330 horsepower. Even so, the average size of French commercial vehicles remains comparatively small, possibly because French industry is less concentrated and more artisanal than that of most western countries. D.G. Rhys, The Motor Industry: An Economic Survey (London 1972), 143Antonia Jardin and Philippe Fleury, La revolution de I'auto-route (Paris 1973). Broussolle, Le rail et la route, 13; Philippe Gazier, "Les problemes du transport routier," Le Nouvel economiste, 24 October 1977; SNCF, Statistiques

279 Notes to pages 199-202

21 22

23 24

25

26 27 28

29 30

31

32

retrospectives, tables 2:2 and 9:2; E. Huret, "Les entreprises de transports routiers de marchandises, 1962-1967," Economie et Statistique 12 (May 1970): 17-26 and P. Darrot, "La concurrence dans les transports routiers de marchandises," Economie et Statistique 40/41 (December 1972-January 1973): 3-14. Interview in La Vie des Transports, 30 June 1973The FNTR has organized periodic study trips to the United States since the war in order to learn from the managerial techniques employed there. A measure of the progress realized by the French road transporters has been a change in attitude, from wide-eyed admiration for American methods and material in 1951 to criticism of the dirtiness and discomfort of American trucks and buses in 1973. Transports routiers: Mission franc^aise aux Etats-Unis de mai-juin 1951 Paris, 1952; "Les transports routiers 'a la decouverte de 1'Amerique'," La Vie des Transports, 12 May 1973. Interview with the manager of a middle-sized firm, La Vie des Transports, 16 April 1977. See also Andre Lagnier's annual chronicle of transport developments in the Revue d'Economie Politique 61-3 (1951-3); Ritter, Geographie des transports (Paris 1971), 22-3; Jean Bernheim, "Le transport par voie d'eau," Pour une politique economique, 252-4. G. Gazes and A. Reynaud, Les mutations recentes, 70; "La crise de la batellerie artisanale en France" and "L'artisanat batelier aujourd'hui sur la defensive," Revue de la Navigation Fluviale Europeenne, 25 March 1975, and 25 October 1976. Debate in La Vie des Transports, 25 September and 16 October 1976. Paul Marchand, "Le transport aerien interieur," Pour une politique, 200-39; Marais and Simi, L 'aviation commercial, 82. In 1983, the TGV was expected to cause Air Inter to lose 65-67 per cent of its traffic on its Paris-Lyon run. At present, Paris-Lyon accounts for 25 per cent of Air Inter's turnover and allows cross-subsidization of unprofitable runs.J. Petit, "Le train agrande vitesse," 88-93Andre Segalat, "Un renouveau du chemin de fer dans un monde economique en mouvement," Revue General des Chemins de fer, April 1972. R. Guibert, Service public etproductivite, 135-7; Nigel S. Despicht, Policies for Transport in the Common Market (London 1964), 68-70; for an extreme liberal perspective, see H.M. Kolsen, The Economics and Control of Road-Rail Competition: A Critical Study of Theory and Practice in the United States of America, Great Britain and Australia (Sydney 1968). JJ. Carre, P. Dubois, and E. Malinvaud, French Economic Growth (Stanford 1975), 449; while admitting the resurgence of liberalism, F. Caron emphasizes the "structural rigidities" which remain in the French economy. Economic History, 309-62. Rapport sur les obstacles a I expansion economique presente par le comite instituepar le

280 Notes to pages 202-5

33

34

35 36 37

38

39 40

41

42 43

decret No. 59-1284 du 13 novembre 1959 (Paris I960). The report recommended the eradication of corporatist barriers to free competition. An early indication of the change is Guibert's Service public et productivite, written in 1954; for the Nora philosophy, see Ministere des Transports, Ou va la politique des transports?, which contains the section of the report pertaining to the SNCF; see also J. Bonnaud, "L'evolution des nationalisations: Le cas de la SNCF," in G. Drouot and J. Bonnaud, Deux entreprises devant leur avenir: Air-France et SNCF (Paris 1973); for a critical account of what he considers to be the "privatization" of the nationalized industries, see Pierre Dubois, Mort de I'etat-patron. A. Lagnier, "Evolution des transports," Revue d'Economie Politique 63 (1953): 722-4; R. Guibert, "La reforme de la SNCF," Bulletin de Documentation de la SCETA, February 1971; the April 1972 issue of the Revue General des Chemins defer was devoted to an examination of these modifications. Despicht, Common Market, 80. Guibert, "Le transport ferroviaire," 61-3; P. Marois, "Les chemins de fer," Histoire des chemins defer, 116-17. Despicht, Common Market, 80. On the continued fragmentation and efforts to overcome it, see Edmond Renaud, "Le transport routier," in Pour unepolitique, 146-7. Ninety-one per cent of goods' transport enterprises still have less than ten vehicles; 46 per cent have only one. J.-P. Page, Profit economique de la France: Structures et tendances (Paris 1975), 147. Michel Phlipponeau, Debout Bretagne! (Saint-Brieuc 1970), 409-411; Comite Economique et Social de Bretagne, La politique ferroviaire en Bretagne: Livre blanc (Rennes 1977); reports in Le Monde, 26 and 28 September 1962. Pierre Drouin, "Les organisations bretonnes," and Alain Vernholes, "L'agitation bretonne," Le Monde, 30 September-1 October 1962. See complaints in Guibert, Service public et productivite, 205-6. The secretary of state for transport, Cavailles, admitted as much in an interview early in 1975. La Vie des Transports, 15 March 1975. Those responsible for setting the truckers' rates admitted that half of the contracts were set at rates at or below the legal minimum. La Vie des Transports, 26 October 1974. Serge Mallet, "La lutte de classes a la campagne," France-Observateur, 13 September 1962. This follows the division suggested by H. Jurgensen and D. Aldrup, Verkehrspolitik im europai'schen Integrationsraum (Baden-Baden 1968). The authors write of an age of railway monopoly and a period of "the building of national internal transport cartels," followed by the contemporary liberal phase, which seeks "the economical division of labour in internal transport on the basis of dynamic competition," 42. The periodization of American transport policy differs in that there was an initial phase of federal government support for the railways, during which land-grants were lavished on

281 Notes to pages 206-9

44 45 46

47 48

49

50 51 52 53

54

55 56

57

the railway companies. By the late nineteenth century, the federal government began to impose controls on the railways to try to prevent them from forming cartels. Paradoxically, perhaps, the government's main intention in intervening seems to have been to restore free competition. Herman Mertins, Jr, National Transportation Policy in Perspective (Lexington, D.C. 1972), 4-18. Aime Perpillou, Les chemins de fer fran^ais et hur place dans le reseau ferroviaire de I'Europe nord-occidentale, 8-9; Despicht, Common Market, 62-3On state control over British railway operations, see Henry Parris, Government and the Railways in 19th Century Britain (London and Toronto 1965). Donald S. Hoffman, "Railways and Railway Politics in South Germany: Defensive Particularism at the State Level, 1835-1870" (PHD thesis, University of Delaware, 1969); Perpillou, Les chemins de fer, 6-7.1 owe this last point to Tom Wien. David Thomson, Europe since Napoleon (New York reprint, 1976), 349. R. Dautry, "Le rail, la route et 1'eau," Revue des Deux Mondes, 1 May 1935; see the early chapters of P.M. Kalla-Bishop, Italian Railways (Newton Abbot 1971), 11-66. Le Chambre de Commerce International, Le transport dans 40 pays (Paris 1934); Marcel Peschaud, "La question du rail et de la route en France et dans les principaux pays etrangers," Revue general des chemins defer, September 1933,171-231; Gerard Braunthal, The West German Legislative Process: A Case Study of Two Transportation Bills (Ithaca, N.Y. 1972), 11-13Gilbert Walker, Road-Rail, passim; Hillmann, Road-Rail, 14-45. Despicht, Common Market, 169Jurgensen and Aldrup, Verkehrspolitik, 52. H.M. Oeftering, "La politique des transports du gouvernement federal allemand et le chemin de fer allemand," Transports, October 1969, 297-301; Kalla-Bishop, Italian Railways, 66, 180. See the later writings of R. Dautry, an enthusiastic European, for example his preface to Georges Hersent, Les hydrocarbures, his articles of 1949 in The Times and Le Figaro, and the posthumously published "Probleme des transports europeens," Revue d'Economie Politique 61 (1951): 881-98. This conviction also underpins Nigel Despicht's writings on transport in the EEC Despicht, Common Market, 37-54; Stuart de la Mahotiere, Towards One Europe (London 1970), 207-11. Pierre Bouffard, "La cooperation europeenne en matiere ferroviaire depuis 1945" (These du doctorat, Universite de Paris, 1954); Pierre Michelet, Les transports au sol et ['organisation de I'Europe (Paris 1962). A.E. Walsh and John Paxton, The Structure and Development of the Common Market (London 1968), 133-4; W. Stabenow, "Evolution of Transport Policy in the European Economic Community," in Issues in Canadian Transport Policy, ed. K.W. Studnicki-Gizbert (Toronto, 1974), 83-119. On the post-

282 Notes to pages 210-14

58 59 60 61

62

war policies of the Dutch, who have been the main force pressing for more liberal policies, see R.C. Riley and GJ. Ashworth, Benelux: An Economic Geography of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg (London 1975), 15366. Pierre Perrod, "Les transports en 1972-1973," Revue d'Economie Politique 58 (September-October 1973): 867. Pierre George, France: A Geographical Study (New York 1974), 26-8. G. Gazes and A. Reynaud, Les mutations recentes, 74. Ministere des Transports, Image de marque des transports collectifs ferroviaires et routiers (Paris 1979); Groupe inter-ministeriel de reflexion sur 1'avenir de 1'automobile, L'avenir de I'automobile (Paris 1976). Quoted in Dubois, Mart de I'etat-patron, 185.

Bibliography

The bibliography consists of five sections: unpublished sources; published documents and reports; newspapers and periodicals; a list of transport personalities interviewed or corresponded with, and a selected list of books, articles, and theses frequently cited in the notes.

UNPUBLISHED SOURCES Archives Nationals, Paris 156 API Papers of the Baron Mackau 223 AP Papers of Odillon Barrot 307 AP Papers of Raoul Dautry 324AP Papers of Andre Tardieu 13AQ Papers of the Eastern Railway Company 48AQ Papers of the Northern Railway Company 65AQ Miscellaneous documentation on industrial enterprises 77AQ Papers of the Paris-Lyon-Mediterranean Railway Company 78AQ Papers of the Midi Railway Company 86AQ Papers of the Alsace-Lorraine Railway Company 9lAQ Papers of the Renault Company 133AQ Papers of the Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer frangais Fla Archives of the Ministry of the Interior Fl 2 Archives of the Ministry of Commerce Fl4 Archives of the Ministry of Public Works

A rchives Departementales Series S (Public Works) in the following departmental archives (asterisk indicates series W -post-1940 papers-was also consulted): Ardennes, Calvados, Card,* Herault,* Haute-Loire, Rhone, and Yvelines.

284 Bibliography

Archives of Paris Chamber of Commerce Minutes of Chamber of Commerce meetings, 1933-50, and papers on various aspects of transport policy.

Archives of the Credit Lyonnais bank, Paris Reports on various aspects of transport policy and annual reports of several transport companies.

A rchives of the Hoover Institute, Stanford, California Chambrun Collection E. Zedet: report on synthetic fuel production in Vichy France: container 32, outcard 288.

Archives of the Imperial War Museum, London Speer Collection "Der Beitrag des franzosischen Raumes zur Kriegswirtschaft," Paris, August 1944: FD 301/46. PUBLISHED DOCUMENTS AND OFFICIAL REPORTS Coles, Harry L, and Albert K. Weinberg. U.S. Army in World War II. Civil Affairs: Soldiers Become Governors. Washington 1964. Commissariat General du Plan. Premier Rapport de la commission de modernisation des transports interieurs, September 1946, n.p., n.d. - Rapport du commissaire general sur le plan de modernisation et d'equipement de /'Union Franfaise: Realisations 1947-1949 et objectifs 1950-1952. Paris 1949. Commission Consultative des Dommages et des Reparations. Ingerences allemandes dans les transports et les communications. Paris 1947-8. - Ingerences allemandes dans I'activite industrielle. Paris 1947-8. Delegation frangaise aupres de la Commission allemande d'Armistice. Recueilde documents publie par le gouvernementfran(:ais. 5 vols. Paris 1947-58. France under the German Occupation, 1940-1944. 3 vols. Stanford 1957. Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques. Mouvement economique en France de 1938 a 1948. Paris 1950. - Mouvement economique en France de 1944 a 1957. Paris 1958. Journal Officiel. Debats parlementaires. Chambre des Deputes, 1925-40.

285 Bibliography Journal Offtciel. Debats parlementaires, Senat. 1934-40. Journal Officiel. Debats parlementaires. Assemblee consultative provisoire, 1944-5. Journal Officiel. Debats parlementaires. Assemblee nationale, 1945-9. Ministere des Travaux Publics, Direction des Voies Navigables et des Ports Maritimes. Statistique de la navigation interieure, 1920-39Ministere des Travaux Publics, des Transports et du Tourisme. Statistique des transports, 1948-50. Ministere des Travaux Publics. Statistiques des chemins deferfran^ais, 1906-39. Papers of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Vol. 2. The War Years, edited by Alfred D. Chandler. Baltimore 1970. Proces-verbaux of the meetings of the Conseils Generaux of Ardennes, Calvados, Eure-et-Loir, Orne, Sarthe, Vosges, Yonne 1934-9. Rapport sur les obstacles a /'expansion economique presents par k Comite institue par le decretNo. 59-1284 du 13 novembre 7959. Paris I960. SNCF, Direction des Etudes Generates et de la Recherche. Statistiques retrospectifs. Paris 1976. - Direction Generale (Statistique). Resultats Statistiques. 1938-54. - Direction Generale (Statistique). Memento de Statistiques. 1955-75. - Direction Generale (Statistique). Principaux resultats Statistiques mensuels, 1938-55. - Rapport du Directeur General au Cornell d'Administration, 1938-50. Statistical Office of the European Communities. Statistical Yearbook: Transport, Communications, Tourism, 1976. Luxembourg 1978. NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS (dates indicate years consulted, not years of publication) Annales des Ponts-et-Chaussees Annual Bulletin of Transport Statistics, 1949-53 L'Argus de I'Automobile, 1928-50 L'Aube, 1944-9 Auto-Magazine, 1933-6 Automobilia-Transports, 1932-9 L 'A venir Routier, 1932-6 Bulletin Citroen, 1923-8 Bulletin de /'Union des Vehicules de Transport Prive, 1949-50 Bulletin de la Chambre de Commerce de Besan^on et du Doubs Bulletin de la Chambre de Commerce de Cambrai Bulletin de la Chambre de Commerce de Limoges Bulletin de la Chambre de Commerce de Marseille Bulletin de la Chambre de Commerce de Nancy Bulletin de la Chambre de Commerce de Saint-Etienne

286 Bibliography Bulletin de la Chambre Syndicate des Constructeurs d'Automobile, 1929-38 Bulletin de la Societe Industrielle de Mulhouse, 1908-34 Bulletin Mensuelle de Statistique Industrielle, 1945-6 Bulletin Offtciel de la Chambre Syndicate de I Automobile, 1927-30 Bulletin du P. CM., 1946-7 Le Cheminot de France, 1934-9 Le Cheminot Rouge, 1932-4 Le Cheminot Unifie, 1935-40 Les Chemins defer et les Tramways, 1937-8 L'Economie, 1945-50 Le Figaro, 1944-9 France-Transports, 1929-40 L 'Humanite L'lnformation Routiere, 1946 La Journee Industrielle, 1923-39 Liberation, 1944-5 Le Monde, 1944-9 La Navigation du Rhin, 1946-50 Nord-Transports, 1934-6, 1945-50 L'Officieldes Transporters, 1931-9, 1951-2,1973-8 Le Poids Lourd, 1909-38 Politique, 1934-9,1945-8 Le Populaire Prosper ite, 1928-39 Le Rail, 1926-44 Rail et Route, 1932-4 Le Redressement Franc,ais, 1926-35 Le Reveil des Transports, 1944-50 Le ReveilEconomique Le Reveil Fluviale, 1934-5 Revue d'Economie Politique Revue de la Navigation Fluviale Europeenne, 1975-6 Revue des Deux Mondes Revue General des Chemins de fer Revue Politique et Parlementaire Les Routiers, 1936-42, 1946-50 Le Transporteur, 1933-4 Le Transporter Breton, 1936-7 Le Transporteur du Sud-Est, 1937 Le Transporteur Libre, 1949-50 Les Transports Automobiles, 1932-8 Les Transports de I'Ouest, 1936-8 Le Travailleur des Transports, 1934-9

287 Bibliography La Tribune des Cheminots, 1917-40 La Tribune des Cheminots (CGTu), 1925-34 L'Usine, 1920-40 La Vehicule Industriel, 1927 La Vie des Transports, 1945-50, 1973-80 La Vie Industrielle, 1940-4 La Voix des Cheminots, 1934-5 INTERVIEWS AND/OR CORRESPONDENCE (conducted between March 1978 and September 1980) Roger Guibert Francois Lehideux Robert Levi Helene and Jacques Lucius Jean Richard-Deshais BOOKS AND ARTICLES (for items used only once or twice, see notes for full bibliographical reference) Adam, Jean-Paul. Instauration de la politique des chemins de fer en France. Paris 1972. Alroy, Gil C. "Radicalism and Modernization: The French Problem." PHD thesis, Princeton University, 1962. Amouroux, Henri, La grande histoire des franc^ais sous I'occupation. Vols. 1 and 2. Paris 1976-7. Antonini, Jules. Le rail, la route et I'eau. Paris 1935. Armand, Louis. Proposferroviaires. Paris 1970. Armengaud, Andre. Les populations de I'Est-Aquitain au debut de I'epoque contemporaine. Paris 1961. Bardou, J.-P., J.-J. Chanaron, P. Fridenson, and J.M. Laux, eds. La revolution automobile. Paris 1977. Barral, Pierre. Le Departement de I'lsere sous la Troisieme Republique, 1870-1940. Paris 1962. - Les agrariens franc.ais de Meline a Pisani. Paris 1968. Bastie, Jean. La croissance de la banlieueparisienne. Paris 1964. Baudelet de Livois, Xavier. "La concurrence air-fer: Analyse historique et perspectives de 1'avenir." These du doctorat, Universite de Paris, 1972. Benoit, Serge. "La politique ferroviaire du parti republicain radical et radicalsocialiste sous la Troisieme Republique." Memoire de maitrise, Universite de Paris 1,1972. Berthelot, Jean. Sur les rails dupouvoir. Paris 1968.

288 Bibliography Biays, Michel. Formation du capital et reconstruction fran^aise. Paris 1952. Blanchard, Marcel. Geographic des chemins defer. Paris 1942. - "Quelques points de 1'histoire des chemins de fer autour de Lyon (18301853)." Revue de Geographic Alpine, 1932, 199-236. Blum, Leon. L'oeuvre de Leon Blum. Vol. 4, pt. 1. 1934-1937. Paris 1964. Bonnefous, Edouard. Histoire politique de la Troisieme Republique. Vol. 5. 79307936. Paris 1962. Bouvier-Ajam, Maurice. La doctrine corporative. Paris 1943. Brant, E.D. Railways of North Africa: The Railway System of the Maghreb. Newton Abbot, Devon 1971. Bye, Maurice. "Nationalization in France." In Nationalization in France and Italy, edited by M. Einaudi, M. Bye, and E. Rossi, 63-188. Ithaca, N.Y. 1955. Caralp-Landon, R. Les chemins de fer dans le Massif Central: Etudes des voies ferrees regionales. Paris 1959. Carlisle, Robert B. "The Saint-Simonians and the Foundation of the Paris-Lyon Railroad, 1832-1852." PHD thesis, Cornell University, 1957. Caron, Frangois. An Economic History of Modern France. New York 1979- Histoire de Sexploitation d'un grand reseau: La Compagnie du Chemin de fer du Nord. Paris 1973Cattin, Etienne. "La reconstruction des chemins de fer frangais." These du doctorat, Universite de Paris, 1949Cavailles, Henri. La route fran^aise: Son histoire, safonction. Paris 1946. Gazes, G., and A. Reynaud. Les mutations recentes de I'economie fran^aise: De la croissance a I'amenagement. Paris 1973Cepede, Michel. Agriculture et alimentation en France durant la lie guerre mondiale. Paris 1961. Ce qu'il faut savoir de la question des chemins de fer. n.p., n.d. Cercle des Transports. Etude sur les transports publics routiers de voyageurs. Mesnil, Eure 1948. - Etudes sur les transports terrestres. Paris 1947. Chandler, Alfred D. The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business. Cambridge, Mass. 1977. Chevalier, Jacques. La coordination du rail et de la route, 1934-1938: L'experience en Haute Normandie. Rouen 1938. Chevalier, Michel. La vie humaine dans les Pyrenees ariegeoises. Paris 1956. Comite d'Histoire de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale. La Liberation de la France. Paris 1976. Conference des Transports par Automobile. L'egalite devant I'impot. Paris n.d. [1932?]. Congres International des Transports Routiers. Rapports. Berlin 1933. Conseil National Economique. Le problems des transports. 2 vols. Paris 1934. Corbin, Alain. Archaisms et modernite en Limousin au XIXe siecie. 2 vols. Paris

1975.

289 Bibliography Courtin, Rene. Rapport sur la politique economique d'apres-guerre. Algiers 1944. Darrot, P. "La concurrence dans les transports routiers de marchandises." Economic et Statistique 40/41 (December 1972-January 1973). Declas, Gerard. "Recherches sur les Usines Berliet (1914-1949)." Memoire de Maitrise, Universite de Paris 1,1977. Delanney, Louis. Le camion au service de I'economie. Tours 1942. Despicht, Nigel S. Policies for Transport in the Common Market. London 1964. Doukas, Kimon A. The French Railroads and the State. 1945. Reprint. New York 1976. Dubois, Pierre. Mort de I'etat-patron. Paris 1974. Durand, Paul. La SNCF pendant la guerre: Sa resistance a I occupant. Paris 1968. Ehrmann, Henry W. Organized Business in France. Princeton 1957. Elwitt, Sanford. The Making of the Third Republic: Class and Politics in France, 1868-1884. Baton Rouge, La. 1975. Federation Nationale des Transporteurs de France. Le deficit des reseaux et la coordination: Congres extraordinaire du 2 avril 1936. Paris 1936. Fridenson, Patrick. Histoire des usines Renault. Vol. 1. Naissance de la grande entreprise, 1898-1939. Paris 1972. - "L'ideologie des grands constructeurs dans 1'entre-deux-guerres." Le Mouvement Social 81 (October-December 1972): 51-68. - "L'industrie automobile en France jusqu'en 1914," Revue d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine 19 (October-December 1972): 558-78. Carrier, Gilbert. Paysans du Beaujolais et du Lyonnais, 1800-1970. 2 vols. Grenoble 1973. Gautier, Marcel. Chemins et vehicules de nos campagnes. Saint-Brieuc 1971. Gide, Charles, and William Oualid. Le bilan de la guerre pour la France. Paris 1931. Gille, Bertrand. La siderurgie fran$aise au XIXe siecle. Geneva 1968. Girard, Louis. La politique des travaux publiques du Second Empire. Paris 1951. - "Transport." In The Cambridge Economic History of Europe. Vol. 6, edited by HJ. Habakkuk and M. Postan, 212-73. Cambridge 1966. Godfernaux, R. Aperc^u de ['evolution des chemins de fer franc^ais de 1878 a 1928. Paris 1928. Gonjo, Yasuo. "Le 'plan Freycinet', 1878-1882: Un aspect de la 'grande depression' economique en France." Revue Historique 248 (1972): 49-86. Graham, B.D. The French Socialists and Tripartism, 1944-1947, London 1965. Gravier,J.-F. Paris et le desert fran^ais. Paris 1947. Guedon, Yves. Les transports automobiles. Paris 1912. Guibert, Roger. Le nouveau statut des transports routiers. Paris 1939. - Service public et productivite. Paris 1956. Hannaway, John J. "The Canal of Burgundy, 1720-1853: A Study of a Mixed Enterprise." PHD thesis, Johns Hopkins University, 1971. Hersent, Georges. Les hydrostrades de I'avenir. Paris 1950.

290 Bibliography Hillmann, JJ. The Parliamentary Structuring of British Road-Rail Freight Coordination, The Transportation Centre, Northwestern University 1973. Histoire des chemins de fer en France. Paris 1963. Hours, Joseph. "L'histoire des chemins de fer franc,ais et ses enseignements geographiques." Etudes Rhodaniennes, April-June 1949,127-37. Huret, Eric. "Les entreprises de transports routiers de marchandises 19621967." Economic et Statistique 12 (May 1970). Hutter, Roger. "La SNCF a 25 ans: Ses realisations. Ses problemes." Societe des Ingenieurs Civils de France, October 1963, 39-50. "Inventaire economique de 1'Europe." Etudes et Conjonctures, October-December 1947. Jacquet, Joseph. Les cheminots dans I'histoire socials de la frame. Paris 1967. Jouffroy, Louis-Maurice. L'ere du rail. Paris 1953- La ligne de Paris a lafrontiere d'Allemagne (1825-1852). 2 vols. Paris 1932. - "La revolution des transports en France de 1831 a 1931." Paper presented at conference at 1'Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, 4 November 1967. Jurgensen, H., and D. Aldrup. Verkehrspolitik in europatschen Integrationsraum. Baden-Baden 1968. Kalla-Bishop, P.M. Italian Railways. Newton Abbot 1971. Kuisel, Richard F. Capitalism and the State in Modern France. New York 1981. - "Technocrats and Public Economic Policy: From the Third to the Fourth Republic." Journal of European Economic History 2, no. 1 (1973): 53-99. - "Vichy et les origines de la planification economique, 1940-1946." Le Mouvement Social 98 (January-March 1977): 77-101. Lacoste, Louis. "La politique tarifaire de la SNCF," Cahiers de I'lnstitut de Science Economique Appliquee, October 1962, 73-109. Larmour, Peter. The French Radical Party in the 1930's. Stanford 1964. Laux, James M. In First Gear: The French Automobile Industry to 1914. Montreal 1976. Lefevre, Andre. Sous le Second Empire: Chemins defer et politique. Paris 1951. Lefranc, G. "Les chemins de fer devant le Parlement." Revue d'Histoire Moderne 5 (1930): 337-64. Maxence, J.-P. Histoire de dix am, 1927-1937. Paris 1939. Meynaud, Jean. Lesgroupes depression en France. Paris 1958, Michel, Henri. Les courants depensee de la Resistance. Paris 1962. Milhaud, Edgard. Les fermiers generaux du rail. Paris 1920. Milward, Alan S. The New Order and the French Economy. London 1970. Ministere des Transports. Etude d'un reseau ferroviaire simplifte. Paris 1970. - Ou va la politique des transports?. Paris 1968. Moch, Jules. Capitalisme et transports. Paris 1932. - Le Parti socialiste au peuple de France. Paris 1945. - Une si longue vie. Paris 1976. Monnet, Jean. Memoires. Paris 1976.

291 Bibliography Monzie, Anatole de. Ci-devant. Paris 1941. Morice, Janine. La demande d'automobiles en France. Paris 1957. Morice, Lucien. "L'Office National de la Navigation et 1'exploitation reglementee des voies navigables." These pour le doctoral, Universite de Paris, 1945. Olliver, James M., III. "The Corps des Ponts et Chaussees, 1830-1848." PHD thesis, University of Missouri, 1968. Paxton, Robert O. Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order. 1972. Reprint. New York 1975. Perpillou, Aime. Les chemins de fer francais et leur place dans le reseau ferroviaire de I'EuropeNord-Occidentale. Paris 1964. Peschaud, Marcel. Politique et fonctionnement des transports par chemin defer pendant la guerre. Paris 1926. Phlipponneau, Michel. Debout Bretagne!. Saint-Brieuc 1970. Pineau, Christian. La SNCF et les transports francais. Paris 1950. Pour unepolitique economique des transports. Paris 1972. Price, Roger. The Economic Modernisation of France, 1730-1880. London 1975. Renouard, Dominique. Les transports de marchandises par fer, route et eau depuis 1850. Paris I960. Richard-Deshais,Jean. Le nouveau statut des transports automobiles. Paris 1938. Rossi-Landi, Guy. La drole de guerre. Paris 1971. SNCF. Activite etproductivite de la SNCF, 1938-1962. Paris 1963. - L'electrification de Paris-Lyon. Paris 1952. - Ou en est le chemin de fer?. Paris 1950. Sauvy, Alfred. Histoire economique de la France entre les deux guerres, 4 vols. Paris 1965-7. Semard, P., and J. Jarrigion. Pour une veritable reorganisation des transports. Paris 1937. Sherwood, John M. "Rationalization and Railway Workers in France: Raoul Dautry and Les Chemins de Fer de 1'Etat." Journal of 'Contemporary History 15 (1980): 443-74. Thoenig, Jean-Claude. L 'ere des technocrates: Le cas des Ponts et Chaussees. Paris 1973. Thomas, Albert. L'etat et les chemins defer. Paris 1914. Thuillier, Andre. Economie et societe nivernaises au debut du XIXe siecle. Paris 1974. Toutain, J.-C. "Les transports en France de 1830 a 1965." Economies et societes 1 (September-October 1967): 5-304. Weber, Eugen J. Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914. Stanford 1976. Weil, Georges. "Les nouveaux aspects de la navigation interieure franchise." Memoires de la Societe des Ingenieurs Civils de France, January-February 1937, 20-30.

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Index

Air France, 49, 74, 89, 181 Algeria, 144, 145 Alps, 5, 22, 29, 50, 93 Alsace-Lorraine, 107, 152 Alsace-Lorraine Railway Company, 19 Armand, Louis, 151, 195, 202 Armistice of 1940, 1-15, 116 Armistice Commission, 121, 123 Army, 24, 157; and transport policy, 146, 148, 149, 158, 159 Artisans, 54, 73, 250n89 Automobile Group, 55, 183, 251nlOO Automobile industry: early history, 24; in other countries, 25, 77-8; in 1930s, 45, 102; and road transporters, 53; reactions tojosse report, 60-1; and Popular Front legislation, 83; postwar development, 174, 182, 187 Automobile lobby, 142, 275nl02; andjosse report, 60-1; ineffectiveness of, 100-1; behaviour in 193940, 110; after World War II, 164, 168; and railway strikes, 182; reasons for postwar successes, 182-4 Automobiles: popular image of, xiii, 215n3; rise of, 21; and modernization, 25; shortages in 1944-5, 156-7; "democratization" of, 194, 214; impact on transport policy, 211; role at Verdun, 225n22; characteristics of early owners, 226n31 Auvergne, 29, 204 Aviation, 49, 73, 200, 279n28 Barge-haulers, 46-7, 72, 98, 138, 200, 260nl28 Barges, 46, 233n49 Bedouce, Albert, 82, 84, 85, 89,90, 98 Belgium, 9,11,18, 64,113,152 Berliet, Marius, 23, 111

294 Index Berthelotjean, 114, 136, 166, 213, 274n77; summary of career, 116; his transport policies, 120, 126, 127, 142, 148, 176; political ideas, 117-18; dealings with Germans, 122; resigns, 135 Bichelonne, Jean, 137 Bicycles, 132, 135, 258nl05 Black market, 156-7, 163, 180, 190-1 Blum, Leon, 41, 80, 81, 86, 99 Bordeaux, 10, 14, 21, 120, 159, 160 Bourgeoisie, 19, 162, 263n32 Bouthillier, Yves, 122 Britain, 124, 136, 163, 194, 209; transport policy in, 6, 9, 11, 15, 64, 104, 206; political system, 191-2 Brittany, 5, 93, 116, 147, 173, 200, 204 Buses: early services, 22, 24; 26-7; railway-operated services, 32, 33; services in 1930s, 53-4, 235n86; and Queuille's measures, 89; complaints concerning, 94, 224n, 248n74; in World War II, 132 Businessmen: lack of dynamism, 9; attitude to railways, 13, 219n; criticize barge-haulers, 233n6l Caillaux, Joseph, 45, 76 Calais, 20,48, 50, 122 Calvados, 51,92 Canals. See Waterways Car manufacturers: relations with road transporters, 53; excluded from road-rail committee, 67; and wartime mobilization, 111 Cercle des Transports, 167 Chalon-sur-Saone, 3, 93 Chamber of Deputies, 8, 39, 74; and automobile taxes, 55-6; and Popular Front, 82; and transport policy, 96, 230n9 Chambers of Commerce, 99; and railways, 5, 11; and transport policy, 16, 18, 31, 61, 95; oppose state intervention, 44, 74; and postwar economic policy, 184 Chautemps, Camille, 77, 82, 87, 88-9, 96 Churchill, Winston, 143, 151 Citroen, Andre, 24, 53, 69, 101, 182, 237nl3; and road transport, 53-4; on transport crisis, 60-1 Clermont-Ferrand, 4, 14, 50, 159 Coal, 14, 42, 159, 24ln84; wartime transport difficulties, 110, 112, 131, 158; shortages in North Africa, 145; postwar shortages, 169-70, 270n30; industry declines, 197, 278nl6 Comite de Direction des Grands Reseaux, 37, 38, 84 Comite d'Organisation des Transports Routiers, 125, 137, 183; responsibilities, 126-7, 142; relations with SNCF, 127 Comite Franc.ais de Liberation Nationale, 144 Comite General d'Etudes, 149

295 Index Comite Parisien de Liberation, 160, 162, 163 Commission des Travaux Publics, 41, 82, 85, 141 Communications Commissariat (Algiers), 144, 150 Communist party, 80, 87, 122, 164, 171, 180; and transport policy, 48, 74-5, 191; and food supply crisis, 161; and nationalization, 165-6, 268n8 Competition: in nineteenth century, 13, 14, 15; roadrail, 28-30, 207; grows during depression, 36; car manufacturers' attitudes to, 60, 61; postwar revival of, 185, 198 Conseil Superieur des Chemins de fer, 38, 90 Conseil Superieur des Transports, 91, 93, 118, 187, 188, 192, 193 Conseils Generaux, 75, 85, 94, 95, 106, 119 Convention of 1921, 18, 37, 41, 45, 91, 119, 230n9 Coordination of transport, 49, 50, 73, 78, 124, 248n73; decree of April 1934, 60; Dautry's analysis, 65; debate in National Assembly, 191 Corporatism, 212; truckers and, 63, 71; growth of, 78-9, 207; under Vichy, 127, 137, 138; and Free French, 147; after Liberation, 163 Correze, 4, 87 Courtin, Rene, 149-50, 166, 167-8, 268nlO Credit Mobilier bank, 12, 14 Daladier, Edouard, 44, 45, 57 Darlan, Admiral Francois, 143 Dautry, Raoul, 51, 66, 76, 84, 95, 144, 24ln90, 249n85; biography, 44; analysis of transport crisis, 59, 64, 77; and road-rail committee, 67; and waterways, 73; relations with Left, 75, 82 de Gaulle, Gen. Charles, 140, 141, 143, 149, 163, 165, 166 Delattre-Marquet, Constant, 57, 66, 79, 238n31; attitude to car manufacturers, 62; corporatism of, 62-3, 70 de Monzie, Anatole, 97, 99, 108, 110, 114, 116, 124; and corporatism, 98; and wartime transport policy, 113 Depression of 1930s, 36, 41-65 passim, 186, 211 Dirigisme, 180,182-4, 187 Doumergue, Gaston, 58, 59, 81, 82 Drome, 75, 116 Ecole Polytechnique, 41, 116, 121 Eisenhower, Gen. Dwight, 143, 151 Electrification of railways, 42, 120, 179, 195 Est Railway Company, 11, 12, 69 European Economic Community, 202, 204, 208 Evacuations, 108, 114 Evreux, 30,115,119

296 Index Federation Nationale des Transporteurs de France, 77, 125, 126, 137, 183, 269nl9; formation, 33; and tax measures of 1933, 56; and Josse report, 60, 61, 62-4; divisions within, 69-71; tactics, 97; membership, 240n70; and rival groups, 250n89 Federation Nationale des Transporteurs Routiers, 183, 187,192-3, 279n22 feodalite financier, 19, 75, 142, 214, 235n81 Flandin, Pierre-Etienne, 64, 67, 76 Flouret, 188, 189,190 Food supplies: difficulties, 152, 160, 180, 272n57 France: and German occupation, xiii, 115; impact of railway on, 3, 7; and transport policy, 5, 209-14; communications network of, 5, 24, 45, 64; and centralization, 6; economic comparisons with other countries, 102, 205-14; fall of, 113-15; and modernization, 120; breakdown of communications in 1944, 135, 154; postwar problems of, 194, 276nnl, 2 Free French, 140, 147 Freight rates, 17-18, 47, 222n89, 228n63; ad valorem system, 31; influences on, 38; postwar reforms, 173-4, 187-8, 203-4, 208 Freycinet, Charles de, 16 Freycinet plan, 16-17, 71, 85, 89, 96, 120, 206, 221n83 Frossard, L-O., 95, 97, 98, 99 Gallienne, Georges, 183 Card, 62, 67, 168 Gasoline: shortages, 146, 275nl02; derationing, 190 Gazogene, 128-9, 257n94 Germany, xiii, 45, 64, 140, 145, 152, 163, 191; transport policy in, 9, 18, 104, 206; automobile industry, 78, 102; and Occupation, 115, 116, 121, 129, 256n71 Giraud, Gen. Henri Honore, 143 Goods transport: growth of competition, 29, 49; difficulties of coordination, 77, 97-8, 187; problems in World War II, 132; in North Africa, 146; postwar developments, 196-7 Grand Central Railway Company, 13 Grimpret, Cyrille, 34, 39, 229n86, 244nl2 Guedon, Yves, 23, 24 Guibert, Roger, 166 Herault, 67,95, 131 Herriot, Edouard, 44, 45, 232n4l Hitler, Adolf, 104, 107 Iron and steel industry, 12, 18, 2l6nl4, 219n60 Italy, 13,18,194, 210; railways, 42, 64; transport policy in, 206

297 Index Javary, Paul-Emile, 31, 41-2, 64 Josse report, 59, 60-2, 64 July Monarchy, 9, 10, 16, 119 July Revolution, 3, 6 Lamoureux, Lucien, 56 Laval, Pierre, 76, 80, 82, 135, 141 Le Besnerais, Robert, 112, 121 Lefaucheux, Pierre, 166, 182 Left, 214; and food supply crisis, 160-1, 163 Le Havre, 16, 66 Lehideux, Francois, 136 Lemaire, Maurice, 188, 190, 275n95 Le Trocquer, Yves, 84 Levi, Robert, 144, 146,148, 163 Liberalism, 105, 206; and economic policy, 9, 268nlO; and transport policy, 31, 41-2, 202, 208, 214; automobile interests and, 61-2; hostile to wartime controls, 111; after World War II, 167, 181, 184 Liberation, 154, 162 Lille, 29, 57, 115, 165 Lobbies, 100-1, 190-1, 222n95 Locomotives: poor quality in North Africa, 145; postwar shortages, 159, 171; and banalisation, 172-3, 189, 275n94; and electrification, 195-6 Loire, 8, 13 Lyon, 6, 10, 14, 21, 50, 54, 67, 152, 159, 160, 180, 204 Malthusianism, 45, 57, 69, 212; and transport policy, 77, 102; postwar critique of, 167; defined, 236nl09 Marseilles, 10, 13, 20, 50, 67, 135, 159, 198, 210, 259nll9, 265n56 Marshall Plan, 179, 195, 213 Massif Central, 4, 5, 7, 14, 16, 93, 173, 204 Mayer, Rene, 153, 165; biography, 144; and reconstruction, 159, 170; and food shortages, 162, 163 Michelin, 25, 50, 86, 182

Midi, 4, 13,50,72-3, 135

Midi Railway Company, 11, 12, 29, 32, 42, 45, 84, 116 Ministry of Finance, 39, 56, 138, 141 Ministry of Industrial Production, 138, 157, 158 Ministry of Public Works, 161; and railways, 17, 18, 30, 31, 34, 37; encourages bus services, 22; faces regional pressures, 31; under Tardieu, 33; and railway rates, 38; relations with Ministry of Finance, 39; opposes investment during 1930s, 42; and competition, 44; and waterways, 73; and policies of 1930s, 92, 96, 97, 211; and war plans, 107-8, 109; and wartime transport policies, 112-15; role under Third Republic, 142; postwar role, 165; poor relations with SNCF, 187-9; and postwar transport policy, 188

298 Index Ministry of Supply, 129, 161, 162 Ministry of Transport, 203 Moch, Jules, 40, 41, 184, 193, 269n21; and transport policy in 1930s, 75, 76, 81, 82, 85; postwar career, 164-5; on the Resistance, 165-6; as minister of public works, 168-9; and strikes of 1947-8, 181-2; assessment of, 214 Monnetjean, 57, 157, 169, 175, 213 Monnet Plan, 182, 185, 189, 195 Mouvement des Republicans Populaires, 165, 180 Musnier, Rene, 67, 101; reaction tojosse report, 60, 64; and car manufacturers, 61; tactics, 70, 71 Napoleon III, 15, 221n75 National Assembly, 187, 189-90 National Economic Council, 59, 64, 71 Nationalization, 202-3; Socialists and, 40-1, 268n8; debate of 1930s, 44, 232n4l; after World War II, 161, 165, 166, 180-1; attacked in late 1940s, 190 National Resistance Council, 165, 166 Netherlands, 205-6, 207-8, 209 Nevers, 3, 180 Nice, 22, 160

Nord, 114, 158,210

Nord Railway Company, 11, 12, 19, 29, 31, 63, 66, 69, 144 Normandy, 92, 152 North Africa, 13, 121, 142, 143, 144 Occupation, 116, 162; and war economy, 121; economic problems caused by, 132, 134, 256n71 Office National de la Navigation, 119, 138 Organization Committees, 125, 137, 163 Orleans, 8, 11,29, 108, 159 Quest Railway Company, 11, 12, 19 Paganon, Joseph, 45, 83, 232n43 Paris, 27, 50, 67, 122, 154, 204, 210; relations with provinces, 3, 4; and communications network, 5, 7, 8, 11, 210; and centralization, 7,13, 24; and railway services, 18; and road transport, 21, 54; and riots of February 1934, 57; and fall of France, 114; during the Occupation, 119, 132; isolated in 1944, 153, 158; suffers food shortages, 160 Paris a Lyon et la Mediterrannee Railway Company, 11, 12,14,19,42,43,49,50,53,72 Paris a Orleans Railway Company, 11, 12, 14, 42, 45, 53,84 Paris-Lyon line, 8, 120, 195, 196, 214 Parliament: and transport policy, 32, 41, 191, 211; Tardieu's critique of, 33; and railway rates, 39,

299 Index 222n89; and waterways, 45; Dautry's critique of, 65; role under Third Republic, 141; and automobile lobby, 251nlOO Pas-de-Calais, 46, 114, 158 Peasantry, 3-4, 9, 21, 22, 24-5 Pereire, Emile, 8, 11, 14 Petain, Philippe, 117, 137, 140, 143 Petiet, Baron, 56, 61 Peugeot, 50, 82 Pineau, Christian, 184, 187, 188, 189, 190,193, 260nl Ponts et Chaussees, 69, 264n51; role in building communications network, 5, 6; hostility to early railways, 6, 7; lack of economic training, 9; and plan of 1842, 9-10; and waterways, 47; hostility to automobile lobby, 101; role in wartime, 110, 119, 129; under Vichy, 125, 126, 142; in North Africa, 147; role after Liberation, 156-7, 158, 162-3, 184, 273n77 Popular Front, 80, 86, 95, 122, 211, 244nl2, 269nl9 Prefects: and transport policy, 6-7, 90, 94, 217n29; restrict road transport, 56 Professional organization, 125, 148 Provinces: attitudes to transport, 11, 13, 19, 210; and air network, 200 Pyrenees, 5, 8, 14, 22, 29 Queuille, Henri, 87, 99, 117, 190-1 Radical party, 20, 80, 122, 165; strategy, 1928-32, 39, 44; and Socialists, 41; and transport policy, 45, 74, 76, 95, 232n4l; and riots of February 1934, 58; and formation of SNCF, 84 Railcars, 42-3, 186, 231n28 Railway companies, 13, 156, 214; relations with state, 10, 13, 19, 210-11; popular attitudes towards, 11; and banks, 12; and competition, 14-15, 28, 29, 30, 31-2, 54; and Ministry of Public Works, 17; and Left, 20, 41, 81; Tardieu and, 33; develop road subsidiaries, 34; response to depression, 37, 41, 43, 245nl7; and formation of SNCF, 84, 118, 144 Railwaymen, 135, 164, 186; and Popular Front, 81; oppose rail closures, 93; and Resistance, 122, 151, 259nll6; and nationalization, 161, 167 Railways, 3-20 passim; economic impact of 3-5; early history of, 7-12; competition with waterways, 13; and road competition, 21, 127, 186, 199-200; disadvantages of, 29-30; financial situation in 1930s, 36, 46, 83, 85-6; technical developments in 1930s, 42-3; Dautry and, 64-5; and regional transport policies, 67; and Popular Front, 82, 83; closures, 92, 94-6, 243nlll; and war plans, 107-8; in campaign of 1940, 110; Berthelot's policies towards, 117; German

300 Index interference with, 123, 132; in North Africa, 143, 144-5, 146; Mayer's policies towards, 148; at Liberation, 151, 155-6; strikes of 1947-8, 181; developments since 1950, 195-7; historical synopsis, 205-8, 210, 280n43; in U.S., 218n33, 223nl05 Rationing, 136, 180, 184, 190, 275nl02 Reconstruction: after 1940, 119; after 1944-5, 169, 213 Renault, Louis, 24, 86, 182, 237nl3, 251nl04; and aeronautical industry, 50, 234n72; and road transport, 53, 63, 66; analysis of transport crisis, 60, 61; strategy in 1939-40,110-11 Renault (automobile company), 160, 166, 180, 182 Resistance, 122, 140-1, 152; and transport policy, 142-3; sabotaging of communications network, 150, 151, 155, 263n36; divisions within, 160-1, 165-6 Reynaud, Paul, 99, 190 Rhone (department), 7, 8 Rhone (river), 11, 13, 48, 72, 200 Right, 39, 190 Roads: network in nineteenth century, 5; local attitudes to, 7; and Freycinet plan, 16; Tardieu and, 33; conditions in 1944-5, 160; and Monnet Plan, 179; building program of 1960s, 198; spending on, 224n3 Road transport: before the automobile, 21; before 1914, 23; in 1920s, 26; competes with railways, 28, 29, 50; advantages, 29-30; operated by railway companies, 32-4; structure of the industry, 51-3, 199-200; growth in 1930s, 50, 51, 234n78; and Popular Front legislation, 83; in World War II, 109,129-30, 132; Vichy policy on, 124-5; in North Africa, 143, 145; conditions in 1944-5, 156-7; postwar role, 174; and strikes of 1947-8, 181-2; postwar revival, 186; development since 1950, 197-8, 199-200, 209; "own account" sector, 250n87 Road transporters: relations with railway companies, 33, 43; strategy in 1930s, 51; and car manufacturers, 56, 62; and antiparliamentarianism, 57; and Josse report, 60-1; and liberalism, 61-2; Dautry and, 64-5, 66; and regional transport policy, 67; and road-rail committee of 1934-5, 68-9; and legislation of 1936-8, 84-5, 90-1,97; under Vichy, 126-7,137,138-9; after Liberation, 148, 165, 168, 183; and formulation of postwar policy, 187,192-3; in Germany, 207 Rothschilds, 12, 88, 186 Rouen, 29, 66 Saint-Etienne, 21, 54 Saint-Simonians, 121, 122 Sarthe, 76, 92, 248n74 Second Empire, 9, 11,13,15 Seine, 13,66,73, 200, 210

301 Index Senate, 45, 77, 81, 86, 87,106 Simon, Robert, 125, 127, 260n Socialist party, 20, 81, 164, 229n; and transport policy in 1930s, 37, 40, 41, 75, 81, 85, 211; and formation of SNCF, 84, 247n49; and food shortages, 154; after 1947, 180; and nationalization, 268n8 Societe de Controle et d'Exploitation des Transports Automobiles, 127, 167, 187 Societe Generate des Transports Departementaux, 53, 69, 229n, 260nl27 Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer franc.ais, 93, 97, 111, 142, 144, 161, 191, 211, 212, 214; formation of, 84, 223nl04, 247n49; constitutional structure, 88, 118-19; and Queuille's measures, 90; and rail closures, 96; and war plans, 107-9; wartime problems, 112; and fall of France, problems caused by Occupation, 116, 121, 129-30, 132; wartime investment plans, 121; and road transport, 125, 127; and Free French, 148-50; at Liberation, 153, 161-2, 164; postwar reconstruction, 158, 169, 170, 171, 269n21; debate about its postwar role, 167, 267n5; reforms rate structure, 173, 174; and Monnet Plan, 175-9; loses prestige, 179-80, 184-6; poor relations with ministry, 187-9; and postwar transport policy, 187, 193; attacked in National Assembly, 189, 190; poor morale, 193; performance since 1950, 195-6, 197, 202-4 State, 74; debate on its role (1830s), 5-6, 9; relations with railways, 10, 19; promotes competition, 15; in Third Republic, 19-20; supports bus services, 26, 27; and transport policy, 37-41, 44, 45, 49, 204, 210-11; truckers' attitudes to, 62; Dautry, 65; corporatists and, 79; impact of war on, 110; Berthelot's attitude to, 118; under Vichy, 127; Free French and, 147, 149; after Liberation, 148, 162-3 State Railway Company, 30, 38, 43, 59, 64, 66, 82, 144 Strasbourg, 50, 108, 122 Tardieu, Andre, 32, 33, 34, 64, 127, 230n, 26ln3 Taxation: of railways, 37, 40, 141; of road fuel, 45; of automobile users, 55-6, 99, 236n98 Third Republic, xiii, 9, 15, 20, 190, 212; political structure, 16, 17, 19; Vichy criticism of, 116 Toilet, Andre, 160,161 Toulouse, 62, 152 Transport policy: in the nineteenth century, 3-19; Doumergue and, 59; at regional level, 66-7, 71, 90; Dautry and, 68-71; in other European countries, 104-5, 205-14; in wartime, 111, 113; under Vichy, 120-39; Free French and, 149-50 Transports Citroen, 54, 61, 62, 63, 66

302 Index Trucks: early developments, 23; deterioration in World War II, 130; U.S. exports to North Africa, 146; shortages of, 163; postwar developments, 198, 203, 279n22 Union Routiere, 85, 183, 191, 273n72 United States, 12, 143, 169, 194, 199; French attitudes to, 9, 24, 33, 279n22; transport policy of, 9, 223nl05; aid policy towards France, 146, 157; exports to North Africa, 146, 262n21 USSR, 105,124,146 Vichy regime, 79, 107, 116-39, 141, 143, 160, 161; assessment of its transport policies, 136-9; compared with Free French, 141, 147, 162, 175, 213 Waterways, 13, 205, 206, 210; network, 5; and the state, 15, 20; and Freycinet plan, 16, 221n83; in 1930s, 45-9, 66; and coordination, 71, 77, 91, 98; in World War II, 109-10, 112, 122, 137-8; after Liberation, 157; postwar evolution, 174, 200 Wine industry, 4, 67, 129, 132, 2l6nl2 World War I, 18, 24, 37, 47, 154, 155, 264n45 World War II, 214; French preparation for, 107-9; popular attitudes to, 111; effects on transport network, 115-16, 140 Yonne, 67, 76, 93 Zola, Emile, xi-xii