Can we now discern more clearly how government and society functioned in France, something that mystified contemporaries? The key to an understanding of this question is that the majority of French people wished to deny their governments and parliaments the opportunities to govern boldly, to introduce new policies and change the course of French life. France was deeply conservative. What most of the French wanted was that nothing should be done that would radically alter the existing state of affairs in town and country or touch their property and savings. Thus the Republic became the symbol of order, the best guarantee of the status quo against those demanding great changes. The monarchist right were now the ‘revolutionaries’, something they had in common with the extreme left. One explanation for this innate conservatism is that France did not experience the impact of rapid population growth and rapid industrialisation. For close on half a century from 1866 to 1906 the occupations of the majority of the working population altered only gradually. Whereas in 1866 half the working population was engaged in agriculture, fisheries and forestry, by 1906 it was still nearly 43 per cent. Employment in industry during the same years scarcely changed at all, from 29 per cent to 30.6 percent. The tariff protected what was in the main a society of small producers and sellers. In industry small workshops employing less than five people predominated, as did the old, established industrial enterprises of clothing and textiles. But this is not the whole picture. Productivity on the land and in industry rose. New industries such as electricity, chemicals and motor cars developed with considerable success. France possessed large iron reserves in French Lorraine which enabled it to become not only an exporter in iron but also a steel producer. Large works were built at Longwy on the Luxembourg frontier, and the Le Creusot works rivalled Krupps as armament manufacturers. Coal mining in the Pas de Calais developed rapidly in response, but France remained heavily dependent on Britain and Germany for coal imports to cover all its needs. Production figures show that France, with a fairly stable population, was overtaken dramatically as an industrial nation by Germany, whose population increased. For this reason France’s success in maintaining its position in exports and production, judged per head of population, can easily be overlooked.
France at the Turn of Century: Divided and Impotent
