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Protecting the Credit of the State - Speculation, Trust, and Sovereignty in Interwar France*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 August 2017

Nicolas Delalande
Nicolas Delalande*
Affiliation:
Sciences Po, Centre d'histoire de Sciences Po (CHSP)
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Abstract

This article investigates the creation, in 1924, of a new offence in French law, aimed at punishing anyone found guilty of “breaching the credit of the state”—that is, of discourses or practices likely to damage the financial reputation of the French state. In the midst of a destabilizing budgetary and monetary crisis, surrounded by fierce political disputes, “the credit of the state” was legally defined as an essential attribute of sovereignty, to be defended against internal and external threats. However, the intellectual history of public credit and the analysis of archival material relating to this new offence show how difficult it was for courts to draw a line between the freedom of the market and the protection of public order. More broadly, this research emphasizes the interconnected role of material and immaterial elements in promoting public trust in the value of the papers (bonds and currency) issued by the state.

Type
Credit and Sovereignty
Information
Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales - English Edition , Volume 71 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 119 - 150
Copyright
Copyright © Les Éditions de l'EHESS 2017 

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Footnotes

This article was translated from the French by Darla Gervais and edited by Nicolas Barreyre and Chloe Morgan.

*

I would like to thank Quentin Deluermoz, Marc Flandreau, Paul-André Rosental, Rebecca Spang, Stéphane Van Damme, and the Annales peer-reviewers for their advice and comments on earlier versions of this article.

References

† The rente was a life annuity paid by the state to the rentier, the annuitant, in exchange for a loan at a given interest rate.—Trans.

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69. AN, BB18 6860, file 104BL86, October 1933.

70. AN, BB18 6860, file 104BL95, sentence pronounced by the Paris court of appeals, January 18, 1935.

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72. AN, F7 14682, file 1139, August 1936.

73. AN, F7 14682, file 1139, letter addressed to the public by the receivers general of the Ministry of Finance, August 1936.

74. AN, F7 14875, radio speech reproduced in Le Temps, March 17, 1937.

75. AN, F7 14875, internal memorandum on the success of the loan, March 15, 1937.

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84. AN, F7 14681, file 693, February 1924.

85. AN, BB18 6859, file 86BL707, letter from the finance minister to the justice minister, October 19, 1928.

86. AN, BB18 6724, report by the prosecutor general of Limoges, 1926.

87. AN, F7 14681, file 804, narrative reported by the tax-collector of Vallouise, June 14, 1926.

88. AN, BB18 6725, file 86BL470/37, letter from the prosecutor general of Montpellier, May 9, 1924.

89. AN, BB18 6860, file 104BL75, Orléans, 1932.

90. AN, BB18 6859, file 104BL66, Besançon, 1931.

91. AN, BB18 6724, memorandum, April 16, 1926. The Cour de cassation is the final court of appeal for civil and criminal justice in France. It judges on points of law and procedure only, and its interpretations thereof are authoritative.—Annales.

92. Tarde, Psychologie économique, vol. 1, chap. 6, “La monnaie,” 329.

93. AN, BB18 6863, bill to repress breaches of the credit of the nation, August 1936.

94. Aydalot, Le délit d'atteinte au crédit de l’État, 39.

95. AN, BB18 6863, bill to repress breaches of the credit of the nation, August 1936.

96. AN, F7 14682, memorandum from the finance minister to the préfets, September 2, 1936; BB18 6863, file 104BL129, letter from the finance minister to the justice minister, August 28, 1936.

97. AN, BB18 6724, 86BL470/24, letter from the prosecutor general of the Paris court of appeal to the justice minister, June 11, 1924.

98. AN, BB18 6724, “Les conspirations contre le franc” [1922].

99. AN, BB18 6724, Poitiers chamber of commerce, minutes of the January 11, 1924, meeting.

100. AN, BB18 6725, file 86BL470/32, April and May 1925.

101. AN, F7 14707, press release, March 1935.

102. AN, BB18 6725, file 86BL470/75, legal proceedings for financial defeatism, 1925.

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