ABSTRACT
If the idea of reconstructing the French economy according to a national investment plan commanded widespread support within de Gaulle’s provisional government the question of where the resources for that plan would come from did not. Since the level of official reserves was clearly inadequate to cover the costs of reconstruction there were three other potential sources. One was Germany, although the lack of support outside France for de Gaulle’s policy towards Germany made that seem an unlikely option. The second was to raise the resources from within the French economy itself by depressing consumption, as the Vichy plan advocated, and the third was to borrow from the world’s leading creditor, the United States.
