ABSTRACT
Signs of an impending crisis in France were identified by William Clayton, the American secretary of state for economic affairs, as early as March 1947.1 At that time it was feared that France faced two major problems. One was a potential shortage of coal caused by a drastic cutback in exports from Britain and from the British occupation zone in Germany, which it was anticipated would lead to a sharp drop in industrial production. The second was an imminent shortage of wheat both in France and on the world market which looked like being as bad as at any time during the war. The coal problem threatened to be all the more severe in view of the optimistic forecasts of German coal exports made in Washington during the Blum-Byrnes negotiations. Quite unforeseen was the crisis in the British coal industry which resulted in no coal at all being exported to France in December 1946. A special visit by Blum, who was then the prime minister of an allsocialist interim government, produced a mere 100 tons of coal in January 1947 compared with 122,100 tons in January 1946.
