Postwar France’s economy stagnated dramatically compared with Germany and Britain
Evidence
In 1951 (so Edgar Faure, premier for just two months, told the Assembly), France’s cost of living rose thirty-nine per cent, compared with only twelve per cent in Britain, while spiralling prices and an overvalued currency had dragged exports down twenty per cent and pushed imports up thirty-six per cent; and there was only three days’ worth of reserves left in the coffers. By 1953 prices stood at twenty-three times their pre-war levels, and while, on a basis of comparison with 1929, United States industrial production had doubled, Britain’s had risen by fifty-four per cent, and war-shattered Germany’s by fifty-three per cent, France’s had expanded by a mere eight per cent. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 192
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the bias-of-communication literature on weakened states; also directly sets up why France’s grip on Algeria was fragile. — connects to: French reliance on German reparations forced interest-driven deficits and inflation. — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 546
Related
- Algerian independence coincided with the start of France’s economic miracle. (similarity 0.79)
- Defeat in Algeria paradoxically produced a stronger France (similarity 0.78)
- Severing Algeria proved a net economic gain for France (similarity 0.78)