even though there were many who disapproved of
his highhandedness and regarded his treatment of
governments and parliament and his political
monopolisation of radio and television as a threat
to democracy. But there seemed no other choice,
no man of equal stature, who could provide the
political stability France so badly needed. De
Gaulle had become both intolerable and indis-
pensable.
The economic transformation of France, both
industrial and agricultural, had been rapid since
1949 and accelerated further during de Gaulle’s
eleven years from 1958 to 1969. This progress
was achieved by a mixed economy, with state
intervention, planning incentives and government
encouragement. Key sectors of French industry
were modernised. De Gaulle adhered to the
Treaty of Rome and the economic competition it
opened up among the Six signatories. There was
no turning back to France’s traditional protec-
tionist policies, and the free circulation of goods
in the EEC was achieved on 1 July 1968 after the
agreed ten transitional years allowed to France: its
trade now had to reorientate towards the new
European markets, which were expanding fast.
France excelled in many branches of the new
high-technology industries – chemicals, aeronau-
tics, oil, precision engineering and automobiles –
while cheap power, based first on oil and then,
increasingly, on nuclear energy, helped to make
it more competitive. Between 1949 and 1969
French economic growth increased by an annual
average of 4.6 per cent in the 1950s and 5.8 per
cent in the 1960s, so that, having lagged behind
its West European neighbours, France overtook
Britain in the 1960s. Its industrial production
index moved as follows:
1937 100
1949 112
1959 193
1969 341French agriculture was also rapidly mod-
ernised. The number of farms decreased by a third
between 1955 and 1970, with the numbers of
farmers and farm wage-earners declining still
more steeply, while output increased. Agriculture,
which has declined in importance within the
French economy, by the close of the 1960s
employed only 16 per cent of the working pop-
ulation, as against more than a quarter just after
the war.
The most obvious negative feature of France’s
economic growth was inflation, which had been
rapid during the Fourth Republic. On coming to
power, de Gaulle and Antoine Pinay, the finance
minister, made a determined effort to create a
stable currency. First, the franc was devalued,
then a new franc was introduced. Confidence in
the currency soon returned, and inflation was
reduced. Strikes in 1963 were followed by
another austerity package by the new finance min-
ister, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. Economic expan-
sion was aided by the sudden increase in the
labour force when nearly a million pieds noirs
from Algeria emigrated to metropolitan France;
further cheap labour was attracted, especially
from Italy, North Africa and Spain. In the 1960s
the West European consumer market for cars,
refrigerators and television sets seemed to be insa-
tiable, and French industry grasped the opportu-
nities provided by this enlarged market. Full
employment was maintained until 1968–9, and
even then, with less than 1 million unemployed
(though the figure alarmed contemporaries),
unemployment amounted to no more than 4 per
cent of the working population.
As old traditional structures were adapted to
modern conditions, there were many French who
deplored and resisted these painful changes. The
French peasantry repeatedly and sometimes vio-
lently gave vent to their grievances. Artisans and
small shopkeepers protested, while frequent strikes
expressed the frustration of industrial workers. The
increased national wealth, moreover, was unevenly
distributed. The industrial wage-earners did better
than the non-industrial; skill was rewarded; and
management considerably improved its standards
of living. But a society as stratified as France’s was
exposed to growing tensions that were suddenly to
boil over in May 1968.De Gaulle did not share the enthusiasm for a
united Europe displayed by Monnet and his fol-
lowers and had been critical of the establishment530 THE RECOVERY OF WESTERN EUROPE IN THE 1950s AND 1960s