Sources

Almost every work on the history of French business begins with a lament about the paucity of sources and the unwillingness of French industrialists to open their archives. It is true that the archives of many major companies are unavailable. It is also true that the archives of some of the most important industrial associations of the 1930s, the UIMM, and the Comité des Forges, remain closed. The archives of the main employers' association, the CGPF, have recently been opened, but they are sparse and have obviously been thoroughly ‘weeded’. It is claimed that the archives of most of the Comites d'Organisation that were established under Vichy have been irreparably damaged. However, none of these facts presents an insuperable barrier to research. Many business archives are open; furthermore, a recent wave of glasnost in the Archives Nationales has opened many official sources concerning the Vichy period. Business organization was hardly a private matter. No organization could make a major decision without consulting half a dozen companies, and no company could make a decision without consulting half a dozen managers. For this reason almost nothing could be done without leaving some trace in an archive accessible to historians.

Sometimes the need to approach the subject by devious archival routes is a positive advantage. Many agreements within the French industrial organizations were fixed up outside official meetings with a telephone conversation or a hasty meeting in a corridor. The frigidly formal official minutes leave no trace of such chicanery. But when business leaders reported back to their boards of directors or to their managers in the provinces they also gave an account of current rumours.