Concept
This article deals with the 1946–50 plan of the immediate post-war period. For the Monnet plan of 1950, see European Coal and Steel Community. Faced with the challenge of reconstruction after World War II, France implemented the Modernization and Re-equipment Plan, which was designed to spur economic recovery. This plan is commonly known as the “Monnet Plan” after Jean Monnet, the chief advocate and first head of the General Planning Commission (Le Commissariat général du Plan). The Monnet Plan emphasized expansion, modernization, efficiency, and modern management practice. It set investment targets, and allocated investment funds. The plan’s process – focusing, prioritizing, and pointing the way – has been called “indicative planning” to differentiate it from highly directive and rigid Soviet style planning. France emerged from WWII severely weakened economically. It had been in a period of economic stagnation even when the war broke out and by 1945, national income, in real terms, was little more than half of what it had been in 1929. Further, worker productivity was just one third of the U.S. level, chiefly due to low investment. For example, in France there was one tractor for every 200 people on the land, while in the U.S., there was one for every 43. The Monnet Plan aimed to increase investment and modernize the French economy. Part of the drive to modernization was to change ways of thinking. For example, in agriculture the plan targeted machinery because “a farmer driving a tractor will no longer think like a farmer following a horse.” The General Planning Commission was established on 3 January 1946 by the Chairman of the French Provisional Government, Charles de Gaulle. The formal aims of the Plan were: (1) to develop national production and foreign trade, particularly in those fields where France is most favourably placed; (2) to increase productivity; (3) to ensure the full employment of manpower; (4) to raise the standard of living and to improve the environment and the conditions of national life.
