coal production fell. Prices doubled. Workers
whose real wages were rapidly diminishing came
out on strike, needing little encouragement from
the communist-controlled CGT. The Communist
Party found itself in the spring of 1947 faced with
a choice between remaining in the three-party
government (with the MRP and the socialists)
which opposed the strikes, or supporting the
workers in their strike demands. Moreover,
France’s harsh policy of re-establishing its author-
ity over the colonies, and the developing Cold
War, made it increasingly difficult for the com-
munists to collaborate with their coalition part-
ners. The socialist prime minister solved the
problem for them by dismissing the communist
ministers. Despite their hold over the trade
unions and their support among the electors, the
communists could henceforth play only an oppo-
sitional role in French politics and society. They
were not to regain a share of power in govern-
ment for thirty-four years.
The stability of the Republic was also threat-
ened from the right. Admirers of de Gaulle were
secretly plotting to found a party as a vehicle for
the general’s early return. De Gaulle himself was
thinking along the same lines and began recruiting
supporters in the autumn of 1946 to set up a
national movement drawing support from all the
French to ‘save France’. In April 1947, boosted by
the wave of strikes, he went public in a speech in
Strasbourg. He denounced the communists and
proclaimed his new movement, a kind of anti-
party party, calling for the ‘Rally of the French
People’ under the banner of his leadership, the
Rassemblement du Peuple Français (RPF).
The question remained: if it was not a party,
how would de Gaulle regain power under the con-
stitution? The answer was far from clear, except
that de Gaulle had no dictatorial intentions and
would accept the presidency only if offered it con-
stitutionally. But the movement still looked dan-
gerously authoritarian, certainly unparliamentary,
given de Gaulle’s contempt for ‘rigid parties’ and
his call for an ‘orderly, concentrated state’. He
promised that the movement would act within the
framework of the law, but ‘over and above differ-
ences of opinion’, so that ‘the great effort of com-
mon salvation and the profound reform of the
state may be successfully undertaken’. It looked
for a time as if de Gaulle would succeed, as mil-
lions of the French were ready to support him dur-
ing that difficult year. In the local elections in
October 40 per cent of the electorate gave their
vote to candidates of the RPF. But just four years
later, in the elections for the new National
Assembly in 1951, de Gaulle’s support had nearly
halved. The ‘Gaullists’ had become just another,
albeit strong, parliamentary group. The game was
up for the time being and two years later de Gaulle
withdrew to the village of Colombey-les-Deux-
Églises.
The economy of the Fourth Republic was
recovering. A landmark in that recovery was the
adoption in January 1947 by the National Assem-
bly of what became known as the Monnet Plan. De
Gaulle had appointed Jean Monnet after the
Liberation to head a committee to prepare a plan
for the reconstruction and modernisation of the
French economy. Monnet’s roots were deeply
embedded in traditional France: he was born in
1888 in Cognac into a family of brandy distillers.
But he learnt to combine his understanding of
conservative France with the international expe-
rience he gained as a salesman for the cognac
concern. In particular he was able to observe at
first hand the drive, flexibility and efficiency of
twentieth-century America. His international per-
ceptions and idealistic belief in the betterment of
society through cooperation were heightened by
service for the League of Nations and the French
government before the outbreak of war in 1939.
Monnet joined the Free French and came to
Britain after the debacle of 1940; it was he who
suggested to Churchill the idea of an Anglo-
French union. In 1943 he became a member of the
French Committee of National Liberation, for
which he organised a group of experts. The work
of his committee bore fruit in the plan he proposed
in 1947. Monnet was to exert a lasting influence,
not only on French economic planning, but on
the coordination of the West European economies
and the establishment of the Common Market.
Drawing on his practical experience he passionately
believed that collective action, nationally and inter-
nationally, was necessary to solve the problems
confronting France and Europe.