The Politics of French Business 1936-1945

A re-examination of French industry's relations with the Popular Front government and its Vichy successor.

It has long been assumed that large-scale industry was one of the pillars of support for the Vichy regime which ruled France - under the German aegis - from 1940 to 1944. In particular it has been assumed that business used Vichy to reverse the advantages that labour had secured after the election of the Popular Front government in 1936. Richard Vinen argues that this assumption is false. He suggests that large-scale industry, mostly based in northern France, was geographically and psychologically isolated from the preoccupations of a government which was based in the south. Furthermore, business soon became aware of the probability of an allied victory and was consequently eager to distance itself from a government that it saw as doomed. Most important of all, the Popular Front legislation of 1936 had already been undermined by the rearmament programme that preceded the fall of France in 1940.