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Economic Troubles
Though victorious, 1.5 million French soldiers were killed in World War I and 3.5 million more were wounded. France never fully recovered during the interwar period: the death rate was up, the birth rate was down, and the workforce accordingly declined. Steel production, a good indication of the status of heavy industry, was more than cut in half, and agriculture fell into serious decline after the war. The value of the franc fell by about 50 percent during 1919, the first year of peace. To pay off bondholders, France was forced to borrow at extremely high short-term rates.
The French government took little action to rectify the economic situation, relying on laissez-faire economics instead. Socialists protested government inaction during the early years of the interwar period, but the threat from the left was quickly quashed by the Bloc National, a coalition of rightist forces determined not to bow to the needs of the lower classes. Under the leadership of this conservative coalition, the French government committed to the belief that Germany should be not only be punished for its actions during the war, but also be made to foot the bill for France’s war debt.
German Reparations
Under Raymond Poincare as prime minister between 1922 and 1924, the French Chamber of Deputies demanded full payment of Germany reparations. When the Germans asked for a moratorium and subsequently defaulted on their payment, Poincare sent 40,000 troops to occupy the Ruhr in Germany. Instead of forcing the Germans to pay, this led to the drafting of the Dawes Plan, under which annual payments of reparations were decreased.
Due largely to this failure, the Bloc National was replaced by the Cartel des Gauches, a moderate socialistic coalition elected on May 11, 1924. However, the socialists proved themselves disorganized, disunited, and generally unfit for government. They could not agree on how to approach the problem of Germany or make headway on economic issues. Thus in 1926, Poincare was asked to return to the position of prime minister and granted extreme powers. In 1928, Poincare decreed that the franc was to be devalued, a bold move which paid off brilliantly in the short run.
Political Instability
In July 1929, Poincare resigned from political life, and France was thrown into disarray for a number of years, without stability or a clear ideology. After the onset of the depression in the early 1930s, support for both fascism and communism grew, climaxing in February 1934 with a series of deadly riots and police confrontations in Paris. In the elections of the spring of 1936, the radical leftist Popular Front emerged victorious, and the Jewish Leon Blum became prime minister. Many believed that the Popular Front government would put an end to the chaotic era of the depression, but the government proved unable to control the domestic economy. Blum's favorable treatment of workers earned him popular support, but also earned him even more enemies on the right. When Blum proved unable to fix the rapidly depreciating economy amid further strikes and riots, the Popular Front government fell apart.
The rightist government that followed restored a degree of economic stability with a program that included an increase of armaments manufactures. However, France was still politically and psychologically unprepared when it declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939.
