ABSTRACT

The position and role of French finance in the Balkans from the late nineteenth century to the Second World War remained relatively modest, even though it experienced a surge in the early twentieth century this was interrupted by the war. At the beginning of the twentieth century French finance, mostly represented in the Balkan states by the old banks, was tenacious. The disengagement of French finance in Greece in the 1920s clearly shows the state of the international financial situation at that time. Isolated, French finance in the wake of the First World War was powerless to impose itself in the new political and economic context of the Balkans. The withdrawal of French financial interests from the Balkans was part of a general French retreat from its empire, to the benefit of the North African colonies. In total, in 1932 20 per cent of loans contracted through the French financial market abroad were concentrated in Petite Entente countries.