FRENCH INDUSTRY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 309, 30 December 1944, Page 7

FRENCH INDUSTRY

AVOIDED NAZI YOKE

HOW IT WAS ACCOMPLISHED WASHINGTON. Before going into the question of how Frertch economy was defended against the German financial offensive, it is important to recall briefly just what was the position of French industry, both internally and internationally. . When the war began, French industry was its own master at home. You could count on the fingers of one hand important foreign firms installed on French soil. The only ones which perhaps are worthy of mention are certain big American or British firms such as. Ford, Dunlop and Goodrich, and the big oil companies. Aoroad, as a result of the victory in 1918, French capital had spread widely throughout Europe, backed by the diplomatic support of the Quai d'Orsay, with the result that by 1939 France had built up very important economic interests in Poland, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia and elsewhere. When Germans occupied France in June, 1940, they were clever enough hot to include a single economic clause among the armistice terms. . Their attempt to seize control of French economy was leiss direct but no less dangerous. It was nothing less than a comprehensive Nazi plot to purchase a controlling interest in French industry under the guise of collaboration. As early as July, 1940 —that is to say, only a few weeks after signature of the armistice—a numJKfcOf German industrialists got into nfuch with the heads of numerous French firms. Nazi business men 'invited French industrialists to build up their businesses within the framework of the German "new Europe." They proposed that the French should sell to German capitalists a substantial share in their concerns, in exchange for which French industry, they said, would itself share in the technical progress made by German industry, and would also profit by the new markets which a German victory was to open up in Nazidominated Europe. It must be admitted that the official policy of the Vichy Government favoured this German scheme. Resistance Measures Already plans were being laid for a meeting at Montoire of Marshal Petain and Adolf Hitler at which Germany obtained promises •of economic collaboration going far beyond anything that had been foreseen at the time of the armistice. In accordance with this Vichy policy of so-called economic collaboration between France and Germany, certain Nazi proposals to buy outright or participate in some French business firms were at once backed up by Marshal Petain and his Government. ... , , The three biggest business deals of this sort which Pierre Laval put through under German pressure were: The Bor mines (La Societe Des Mines de Bor), copper mines which had been prospected by French engineers in Yugoslavia and of which capital was entirely in the hands of French banks and private investors; second, the French dyestuffs industry which had developed into a serious rival of the German dye.industry and which was . accordingly jealously coveted by I. G. Farbemndustrie; ancL finally, the French Havas agency in which the- German Government was allowed by M. Laval to buy a controlling interest. .-.-.■ Fortunately tne business- deals handled' by Vichy were, not- very numerous. Most of the time German industrialists made their propositions , directly to French business men themselves. . ' ■ c iUn Resistance to these efforts of the Germans to buy their way into ■ control of French economy proved, on the whole, very effective. For if the Government at Vichy wasn't opposed to economic collaboration, the French Administration was.- .■-.•■. _- -j-:. , That is to say most of- the officials in the various Ministries concerned were firmly resolved to defend French capital against these German inroads. : ■ - . . ~v . A-special service was setup at the Ministry of Finance which, with the co-operation of the Ministries of Production, Communications and Agriculture, took on the job ot obstructing in every possible way to German financial proposals. Fragile But Effective It was this service known simply as the "Service of Foreign Interests in France," Which interviewed all French industrialists who had received business proposals from the Germans and which in every case ordered them to resist to the last any Nazi effort to get hold of a controlling interest in their affairs. In order to strengthen this resistance on the-part of French business men, .the French had recourse to a legal technicality/which was really rather: fragile, but which in practice proved very effective. - - -. This was the decree, under foreign exchange regulations which- prohibited any Frenchman from selling any shares of stock in his business to any foreigners without authorisation of the Ministry of Finance. The Ministry of Finance, m practice the "Service of Foreign Interests," refused this permission m every case where German participation in a French firm would have meant impoverishment of Frencn economy. ,' . ' In other words permission was refused wherever a German industrialist who sought to buy a share of French business was unable to offer any contribution of real value to French industry. ... . As in a great majority of cases German proposals were "all to tne advantage of Germany and by no means genuinely mutual, the Ministry of Finance almost invariably refused its consent and che German proposals fell through. a Minimising Foreign Losses This phase of "French resistance went on without interruption from the autumn of 1940 until the spring of 1944. It was almost entirely successful where safeguarding French enterprises inside France was concerned. Unhappily it wasnt, so sue-, cessful in' defence.of French interests abroad, notably in the countries of Central Europe occupied by tne uerIn 'these countries, French firms and factories had, of course, been placed under seal or actually taken over by the Germans, and the pressure which German industrialists were thereby enabled to bring to bear upon French owners of these firms was very great. , Furthermore, it must be admitted that to most Frenchmen at that time there seemed little hope that France would ever recover its economic position In Central Europe. . \ In the face of this defeatism the French Administration could do little more than limit losses. What it dm do was to support these Frenchi industrialists who tried to defend their position abroad. . It should bf. mentioned that not a single important business firm m Alsace and Lorraine was sold to Germans, despite the fact that ihe Nazis annexed this territory.—Christian Science Monitor.