This nationalization is a vital necessity

(2) Reasons: the only nation capable of...

"The essential purpose of this Act is to return to the nation, which is only able to give compelling required by our needs, development equipment present in the country with electricity and gas, of (the) bring to the level required by the general economic development and bridge the delays which have been the consequence both of the Malthusian policy practised in the years preceding the war that difficulties that followed.". There is in no way spoliation, and carriers who expected no credentials a speculative profit will instead their revenue consolidated at an advantageous rate.

Robert Kalis (3): "A huge pyramid tending to trust of State".

"(According to) Mr. rapporteur," the sovereignty of the people is more absolute when essential services in the country are in the hands of the powers of money and that pressure can be exercised on the meetings."" He must destroy this wall of money which came to face between the two wars the democratic Governments. "The Fourth Republic must know this intrusion of capitalism in political life." In plain language this means that the electricity and gas are in the hands of the trusts, or if you prefer to 200 families, and that it is urgent, put it in the hands of the State. The argument does not withstand scrutiny. The electrical industry in France includes 1,800 companies (and) approximately 1.5 million shares of gas and electricity companies, for the most modest people who were placed in these titles the fruit of their work and their savings.

Worse still for the future, business gas and electricity have needs considerable money for the equipment of the country. (We are told that) can no longer rely on private industry to finance the huge necessary economic rehabilitation programme (national). Only the State (in) capable is. Such an assertion is free. The electrification program has 200 to 250 billion expenditure to cover a period of six to ten years. This funding could be easily provided by the credit of the business. It is unlikely that the public establishment is to investors the same placement opportunities that all private companies.

Nationalization, you say, is more the profit the company. The worker, instead of being an employee of a private company, will become the servant of the public interest. I would be tempted to say: agreed. But what will actually happen A huge pyramid to the trust of State will organize, with a multiplicity of intermediate wheels that slow given orders and themselves to become transmission bodies devoid of flexibility.

The particularly difficult circumstances that we are the major source of national wealth must be at the service of the reconstruction of the country. It is essential that the production, transport and distribution of electricity and gas industries are mobilized to contribute to our recovery. But this Bill is an ownership which may disrupt our industries to reduce performance. It will be no escape from the so-called tyranny of 200 families to fall under the trust State. The nationalization proposed risk ruining definitely already strongly shaken confidence and a spirit of initiative already seriously reached.

Gabriel Roucaute (4): "A victory over financial groups".

"This Bill is a victory over the trusts and financial groups of electricity, (who have) sabotaged our national equipment.". (He) will satisfy millions of French and French who voted for that to be delivered into the hands of the nation these essential sources of energy are the electricity and gas. (He) will stimulate willingness and initiative (those who), cessant to be employees of a private interest to become the servants of the public interest, will bring all their competition success and the prestige of the nationalization. Moreover, it pamper person. Compensation will be carried out with the concern to reduce in any way the means of existence of savers.

This nationalization is a vital necessity. It gives the France of the new ways out of the morass in which it plunged the men of the trusts of the defeat of the occupation. We give the country the means to have a policy of national equipment and control the production and distribution of electricity, at the same time that we can have a fair policy for the electrification of our campaigns.

After the vote on the nationalization of the credit, the constituent National Assembly by voting the nationalization of electricity, has responded to the expectation of the Republican country.

Jacques Chastellain (5): Responsive private sector

"In the current state of public finances, it is not reasonable to believe that 200 billion may be spent within a short time, to the development of the electrical equipment of the country." Funding for this case would have been more easily done if it had maintained this industry in the private sector, by imposing necessary control, coordination, and compression.

Eugène Petit, said Claudius

(6): "Building (one) fraternal society."

"(Watch these) countries where electrical equipment was at the same base of the new development of certain regions.". When we see how jealous carefully Soviet Socialist Republics are hairpin any realization of power plant and a dam, where we see the global reach of this huge, grandiose, whole experience at base of electric dams, called VAT (7) (and) who, in 15 years, was fully revived a country at the third two grand as the Franceas well for its grass and trees for the greatest wealth of all its inhabitants and the spiritual influence of all United States, we hope that service nationalized the electricity of France will not merely a thing past operating. On the contrary, we hope that it will enable the real equipment in the country to build the new society we want brotherly.

Marcel Poimboeuf

(8): For a new human order

"This project, however flawed it, represents considerable progress (and) a step in the healthy reform path and intelligently revolutionary." The nationalizations (must) tend to rationalize, the word is not heard in capitalist sense, but in its meaning accurately and beautifully human.

200 Families not relevant to any degree. What interests us is the future of this country, the harmony among the citizens, is the integration of the working class in a full and final order. We consider (that this reform) should occur for new progress is achieved, so that a human order could be.

Paul Béchard (9): "free the France of the economic powers".

"This nationalization is a work of liberation because the nation will resume one of the important levers of control of economic activity." It is a work of liberation also because we can develop the production of our country, and a country frees itself when working and produced, and thus began the slope in the economic field, the only one where we can reach the national full-scale.

(With) the nationalization Bill, we were not afraid to boldly enter in new ways (and), despite the current difficulties, to keep the promises made in the clandestine resistance. Today, all those who were United yesterday to fight the common enemy, what were the doctrinal differences that can sometimes separate them, found this same cohesion at a time when it comes to release the France of the economic powers and many serve.

Folder designed and directed by Marie-Christine Corbier and Olivier Schneid (pp. 4-12)

1. The draft law on the nationalisation of the electricity and gas was adopted on 28 March 1946 by the constituent National Assembly. 490 deputies voted for, 60 voted against.

2 The reasons for the Bill presented at the meeting of the constituent National Assembly on January 18, 1946.

3 Republican Party of liberty. A vote against.

4 Communist Party. A vote for.

5 Independent Republicans. A vote against.

6 Democratic and Socialist resistance. A vote for.

7 Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The VAT Act, signed by the President of the United States Franklin Roosevelt in May 1933, was, under its policy of New Deal in the wake of the great depression, to revive economic activity in this region and the country, through including the construction of hydroelectric power stations.

8 Popular Republican movement. A vote for.

9 Socialist Party. A vote for.