French Consumer Credit Policy in the 1950s and 1960s: From Opposition to Control

Abstract

France presented almost the opposite pattern of the United States for consumer credit use after World War II, as Gunnar Trumbull emphasizes in the previous chapter. Whereas consumer credit was widely available in the United States, credit access was tightly restricted in France.1 This article aims to show that this situation was largely the result of French monetary policy. The main problem that dominated French debates over consumer credit from the end of the war to the liberalization of the banking system in 1966 was the question of legitimacy. This issue was illustrated by Pierre Besse, secretary of the National Credit Council, who in 1955 characterized consumer credit as “a necessary disease, which must be restricted as much as possible.”2 This phrase pointed to a paradox in postwar French consumer credit policy: regulatory authorities saw consumer credit as both indispensable and condemnable.