journal of european integration history revue d'histoire de l ...

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Lise Rye Svartvatn
31 st 1955 and would as a consequence favour even more French trade. The French Foreign
Ministry was well aware that these advantages had allowed French exports to expand.
Exports had expanded more rapidly than imports, and exports toward the OEEC
countries had expanded faster than exports to the rest of the world. 40 To give up a privileged
position within the OEEC while simultaneously having to face increased competition
within a European common market, can not have been a tempting prospect.
Finally, the system of export-aid and import-taxes enabled French governments
to avoid undertaking the otherwise necessary, but from a political point of view undesirable,
devaluation of the French franc. 41 The overvaluation was estimated in
November 1955 to reach approximately 12%. Within the Faure administration it
was considered the sole guarantee for continued economic and hence political cohesion
of the Franc Area. 42 It was regarded as the means that allowed the transformation
of the French political union into the Franc Area as an economic unit constituted
by a customs union. The internal price level corresponding to the
overvaluation was considered advantageous in several respects. It allowed the industrialization
of technically underdeveloped areas and made otherwise marginal
agricultural areas profitable. A common level of prices restricted possible markets
to the Franc Area only and led to a common level of protection against the rest of
the world. The overvaluation also obliged the under-developed areas to renounce
customs toward France. It obliged all territories in the Area to constitute a customs
union and to engage in a common policy and a common investment-program ensuring
a very advanced degree of political cohesion. The fear was that devaluation
quickly would lead to an economic and political break-up of the French union. The
exchange rate was considered a necessary, perhaps also sufficient, condition for the
continued existence of the Franc Area. Thus, an artificial maintenance of an overvalued
currency appeared as an economic and political imperative.
In January 1956, as a result of legislative elections, a new government took office
with Guy Mollet, the leader of the Section Française de l’Internationale
Ouvrière (SFIO), as head of government. With the exception of a small number of
Mendès-France radicals, Mollet’s centre-left coalition, the Republican Front, has
been described as more pro-European than the Faure government. The composition
of the new National Assembly has been interpreted somewhat differently. While
some argue that it indicated an increased opposition, others claim the opposite. 43
40. MAE, PW, Vol.80. Avantages que la France a tirés de sa participation à l’OECE dans le domaine
des échanges et des paiements, 17.01.56.
41. DDF 1956, I, no.265, Note de la Direction générale des Affaires économiques et financières,
21.04.1956.
42. MAE, PW, Vol.77, Note pour Monsieur Clappier, 28.11.55.
43. Frances Lynch shows that on balance the number of deputies strongly opposed to European integration
increased. Chapsal and Lancelot claim that the elections made away with a good number
of representatives opposed to European integration. F. M. B. LYNCH, France and the International
Economy …, op.cit., p.173. J. CHAPSAL and A. LANCELOT, La vie politique en France depuis
1940, PUF, Paris, 1979, (5 th edition), p.296. I believe the disagreement is due to the fact that
Chapsal and Lancelot only seem to take account of the decline of the Gaullists, ignoring changes
in the number of communists and the emergence of the Poujadists.