Introduction

After the liberation of France it was widely alleged that the attitudes of French businessmen had contributed to the defeat. Dautry's testimony to the parliamentary enquiry into events between 1933 and 1945 exemplified these allegations: ‘ with regard to war production, not everyone reacted with the vigour and spirit of 1914’. Not surprisingly the claim that industry had undermined the war effort was often linked with the claim that it had enjoyed illicitly close relations with the Vichy government. For those who made such allegations believed that industry had been hostile to the Republican government. Under these circumstances it might be expected to have greeted the regime that replaced the Republic after the defeat with enthusiasm. In this chapter it will be suggested that industry was often hostile to economic mobilization, but that the assumption that there were always sinister political motives behind this hostility is naive. Furthermore, attitudes to the war exposed splits in the patronat – indeed the very fact that the patronat was now so divided is highly revealing. Those who did see the war as a political threat were often the very men who had risen in the employers’ movement after 1936, but these men were now isolated. The heavy industrialists, who had always been the real power brokers in the business movement, benefited most from mobilization and had most reason to support it.

Le refus de guerre

Sauvy describes the French economy in 1939 and 1940 as ‘un refus de guerre’.