ABSTRACT
The initial interest of the French government in Marshall Aid was to secure the dollars to finance imports for the entire duration of the Monnet Plan. It showed as little enthusiasm for the American condition that European governments should cooperate with each other in presenting a common aid programme as the British government displayed. Jean Monnet declined to become head of the Committee for European Economic Cooperation (CEEC), which was formed in Paris in July 1947 to work out Europe’s dollar requirements, on the grounds that this would conflict with his main task of defending French interests within the European Recovery Programme. However, the French position was to change quite dramatically in August 1947 as it came to terms with two major shocks. The first was the severe dollar payments crisis which erupted in August, causing the government to suspend all imports, apart from food and fuel, from the Dollar Area in the second half of 1947 and threatening the implementation of the Monnet Plan. The second, which also undermined the Monnet Plan, consisted of the trade and production figures which the Bizonal authorities submitted to the CEEC in August 1947 covering the four years of the Marshall Plan.
