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This article provides the most rigorous international history to date of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's 1983 peace initiative, one of Canada's major foreign policy ventures of the Cold War, examin...

This chapter demonstrates how the Commonwealth impinged on British relations with France during the Second World War. Luc-Andre Brunet explores how Jan Smuts interceded with the Vichy state for dual strategic purposes: to foster reconciliation at a dangerous time for the Allies in Europe and also with a view to maintaining French imperial designs in Africa as part of the greater European ‘civilising mission’. When the French fleet was controversially sunk by Britain at Mers el-Kebir, in 1940—with the shocking loss of more than 1000 French sailors—Smuts exerted influence on Churchill and the French Minister in Pretoria, to continue diplomatic connections with Vichy, reasoning that this was vital for the maintenance of Commonwealth and empire.

This chapter examines the actions of the Organisation Committee for Steel (CORSID) and particularly its response to Vichy policies such as the Labour Charter, the deportation of French workers to Germany, and the Speer–Bichelonne agreement that envisaged French factories contributing to the German war economy. Based on previously unexploited archival sources, this chapter shows that CORSID went to great lengths to undermine any attempts to remove workers from French factories, while it welcomed initiatives that would allow factories to increase production for the Reich. It concludes that the industrialists running CORSID were guided primarily by business interests and that their actions must be seen as neither resistance nor collaboration.

This chapter examines the reorganisation of French industry immediately following the Fall of France. The Vichy regime created new institutions, called Organisation Committees, to oversee production and which were inspired by the analogous institutions that existed in Nazi Germany. While some have argued that the creation of these institutions was a defiant act that angered the German authorities, in reality Nazi officials approved nearly every element of Vichy’s New Industrial Order before the Committees were officially created. Moreover, the new bodies were intended to contribute to the New Economic Order in Europe outlined by the Nazi Economics Minister, Walther Funk, in July 1940.

This chapter examines plans within the French Resistance for the industrial organisation of post-war France. Until 1943, it was presumed that Vichy’s Organisation Committees would be abolished; following the Allied landings in North Africa in November 1942, the Committees there were accordingly dissolved. In 1943, however, the question of whether the Committees should be maintained became highly contested, as figures ranging from Jean Monnet to former Vichy minister Pierre Pucheu argued that the bodies should be retained for their pragmatic value. This debate was ultimately settled by Charles de Gaulle in early 1944, although his decision was motivated by political rather than economic considerations. Consequently, Vichy’s Committees were maintained following the Liberation of France.

This chapter examines the decision to abolish the Organisation Committees and the creation of the Monnet Plan. The dissolution of the Committees, although initiated by a Communist minister, paradoxically ended up weakening trade unions and handing greater powers to employers’ associations. Meanwhile, Jean Monnet created new institutions, called Modernisation Commissions, which largely replicated the reformed Committees, and made them the keystones of the Monnet Plan. These new Commissions retained many of the functions as well as much of the staff and structure of the Committees. As such, this chapter reveals significant continuities from Vichy’s Organisation Committees to the institutions of the Monnet Plan.

This chapter considers the individuals chosen to run Vichy’s powerful Organisation Committees. These bodies were originally meant to be tripartite and to include worker representation, but in reality they were run exclusively by employers. The selection of industrialists to run the Committees marked a significant change, as dominant pre-war owner-presidents like Francois de Wendel were replaced by managerial technicians from the industry. The dissolution of pre-war employers’ associations and the creation of the Organisation Committees was thus a turning point in French industrial reorganisation with far-reaching consequences.

This chapter provides the most thorough study of the reform of Vichy’s Organisation Committees under the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF, 1944–1946). Although the maintenance of Vichy’s bodies was conditional of their reform, nearly all the changes implemented under the GPRF were consistent with the Vichy law that created the Committees in 1940. The industrialists who ran the Committees were not subjected to the epuration (i.e., the purges of Vichy figures) and maintained influential positions within their industry. Moreover, labour representation was included in the bodies, as the Vichy law had originally foreseen. Ultimately, many provisions of the Vichy law were better implemented under de Gaulle than they had been under Petain.

This chapter examines the disagreements between the successors of Vichy’s Organisation Committee for Steel (CORSID): the employers’ association for steel (CSSF) and the Modernisation Commission for Steel, which was part of the Monnet Plan. While they managed to find common ground concerning the modernisation of the French steel industry under the Monnet Plan, the Schuman Plan to pool French and German coal and steel provoked a protracted clash. Jean Monnet and his collaborators succeeded in overcoming the resistance of steel industrialists by resorting to unscrupulous methods. This chapter also reveals that nearly all French industrialists associated with the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) had deep ties to the Vichy regime.