ABSTRACT
This study examines the origins of the present-day French Plan comptable général, the first national accounting code in the world to be adopted under normal peacetime conditions. Its origins occurred during the Second World War when the Vichy Government appointed a commission to develop and implement a national accounting code. The intention was that the code be made obligatory for all enterprises and the commission would advise on adaptations of the code to meet the needs of particular industries. The original inspiration for the wartime project was the Goering Plan, the pre-war German national accounting code adopted in 1937 by the Nazi Government. Until now. the circumstances of the wartime French project have been largely unknown or forgotten due to the dispersal or disappearance of relevant official archives and other contemporary source documents. The object of this study is to throw light on why the Vichy Government undertook the project, and how it proceeded. From examination of records of the commission and other documents of the period, it is possible to make judgements about the relative influence of the German Occupation authorities and indigenous French priorities on the development of the Plan.
