Word: schuman
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...clampdown on meat prices was another move in Premier Robert Schuman's efforts to combat French inflation and revive French industry. First, he had tried a partial return to a free economy, with franc devaluation, open trading in gold and dollars, lifting of many price controls. But when, on Socialist insistence, Schuman had called in 5,000-franc notes, many Frenchmen (especially farmers) had lost confidence in their currency. Prices continued to shoot upward. In a month the cost of onions and potatoes went up 50%, mutton 20%, carrots...
...What's the Use?" Now Schuman was trying to stop price increases by a partial return to dirigisme (state control). One housewife last week voiced a typical complaint: "I'd rather pay five francs more a pound for my meat than pay taxes for the wages of these government snoopers. They won't stop prices rising, anyway-they will simply drive the meat off the market...
...Mayer last week. "We had to smash the window with a single blow." Mayer chiefly meant that, without devaluation of the franc (TIME, Feb. 2), French recovery would have been stifled through inability to sell goods abroad. But for a few days last week, Rene Mayer and Premier Robert Schuman had French Socialists at their throats. As advocates of dirigisme (directed economy), Socialists did not like the breeze of free enterprise that threatened to blow through the smashed window...
...Socialists blasted the proposed law to set up a free market in gold. To Premier Schuman and Finance Minister Mayer, the free gold market was the lodestone that would draw hoarded gold and hidden assets from buried iron pots and foreign banks. This in turn would stimulate production and provide a stabilizing base for currency and foreign trade. To the Socialists, the 25% fine to be levied against hoarders was inadequate punishment for unpatriotic speculators...
...Bitter Pill. Less than ten hours later, the weary legislators returned to vote on the gold proposal. Premier Schuman staked his government's survival on the measure, gave the Socialists a clear choice. With the Communists and the Gaullists eagerly waiting for the coalition government to prove its incompetence to rule, the Socialists decided to stick with Schuman. Schuman's margin: a comfortable 98 votes...