| Titre | Une Banque publique ? 1936 ou la mutation initiée de la Banque de France | |
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| Auteur | Vincent Duchaussoy | |
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Revue | Revue historique |
| Numéro | no 681, 2017/1 | |
| Page | 55-72 | |
| Résumé |
Cet article revient sur la loi du 24 juillet 1936 sur la Banque de France, votée par le gouvernement du Front populaire mené par Léon Blum, et sur les transformations durables qu'elle apporta à l'institut d'émission. En modifiant la composition du Conseil général, organe délibératif de la Banque, pour y remplacer les actionnaires les plus influents par des membres nommés par le gouvernement, la loi de 1936 engagea le cycle de la nationalisation de la banque centrale, achevée à la Libération par la prise de propriété du capital par l'État. Si cette transformation répondait à des préoccupations politiques et à la volonté du gouvernement de se prémunir de l'hostilité des puissants actionnaires de la Banque, la croissance de l'influence de l'État dans la gouvernance de l'institution modifia sensiblement les missions de la Banque de France. Celle-ci incarnait désormais un service public de la monnaie qui ne pouvait plus être uniquement déterminé par l'exigence de rentabilité financière et donnait à la Banque un magistère moral sur l'ensemble du système bancaire. De même, la gouvernance interne de la Banque de France, notamment à travers la gestion de son personnel dont le statut sera modifié l'année suivante, se trouva profondément transformée par cette séquence législative, qui renforça notamment la démocratie sociale interne et donna au personnel un statut hybride, à mi-chemin entre la fonction publique et le salariat bancaire. Source : Éditeur (via Cairn.info) |
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| Résumé anglais |
A public bank? 1936 or the uncomplete mutation of the Bank of France
This article shows how the 1936 law led to some decisive transformations on the Bank of France. This law, promoted by the government of the Popular Front led by the socialist Léon Blum, consisted in particular in a modification of the composition of the General Council of the Bank. The most powerful shareholders – whose family sat in for some of them on the General Council since the creation of the Bank in 1800 – have been evicted in favour of new members, nominated directly by the government. This intrusion of the government in the governance of the Bank of France was the signal of a deeper shift in the organization of this institution. It represents the starting point of a nationalisation process that has been achieved a decade later, when the government took the control of the Bank's capital, becoming its unique shareholder. This law has both endogenous and exogenous factors. If it corresponds to the political program of the Popular Front, which even promised to nationalize the Bank of France in order to subtract it from private interests, it was also contemporary to a parallel evolution of the other central banks in the industrialized world. But this evolution also had a strong impact on the activities of the Bank of France. The institute of issuing was understood as a public service of money, which could not only be driven by considerations of financial profitability. The inclusion of the Bank of France in the public sphere led, for instance, to a reducing of its banking activities. As the Bank became to be “the bank of banks” with its duties of banking and financial supervision, it can no longer compete with the commercial banks the central bank had to control. Moreover, this transformation reveals the important links existing between the internal and external governance of the financial institution. For instance, the growing influence of the government in the administration of the Bank of France had several consequences for the employees of the Bank. Their status has been modified in 1937, in order to follow the legislative transformation of the preceding year and to adapt it to the new era opened by this public revolution (Singleton, 2011). This new status reinforces the social democracy inside the Bank, recognising the existence of several trade unions, and represented an equilibrium between the status of civil servants and the banking profession. Source : Éditeur (via Cairn.info) |
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| Article en ligne | http://www.cairn.info/article.php?ID_ARTICLE=RHIS_171_0055 |
