Popular Front Economic Policy and the Matignon Negotiations
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8957403 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Adrian Rossiter (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1987 |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 663-684 |
| Publication date | 1987-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Historical Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0018-246X • E-ISSN: 1469-5103 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0018246x00020938 |
| OpenAlex | W2126830016 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 3 |
Léon Blum's reply to interpellations on 6 June 1936 sums up the entire problem of interpreting the economic policy of the Popular Front. In terms of popular sovereignty, that policy ought to have been – in the light of parliamentary practicalities, it could only be – an implementation of the programme commun , as published at the beginning of 1936, after lengthy negotiations between the main elements in the Popular Front alliance. And yet it was not to be so. On the credit side, the 1936–7 government is remembered for instituting paid holidays and orderly collective bargaining; in the no man's land where academic debate is fought out, lie the famous 40 hours law to restrict the working week, and an ineffectual set of price controls; on the debit side, at any rate in its implementation, is the devaluation of September 1936, with the attendant failure to institute any exchange control. None of these key measures featured in the joint manifesto . They were all decided in the first four months of the legislature, after which the government remained continually on the defensive in economic and financial policy. This has led Georges Lefranc, one of the best-known historians of the Popular Front, to describe the period from October 1936 to February 1937 as ‘la pause implicite’, even though it was only on 24 January 1937 at the earliest, or more explicitly in the third week of February, that Blum acknowledged the reality which had been impending for the last five months – the necessity for ‘a pause’
Alliance · Devaluation · Economic history · Economics · Exchange rate · Front (military · Geography · Government (linguistics · Manifesto · Negotiation · Political science · European Political History Analysis · European Socioeconomic and Political Studies · Finance · French Historical and Cultural Studies · History · Law
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,11 |
| Citation span | 1991 - 2024 (34) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |