¹ See, for example, the remarks on the historiography of the lower middle classes in Crossick, Geoffrey, ed., The Lower Middle Class in Britain, 1870–1914 (London: Croom Helm, 1977).Google Scholar Crossick quotes the condescending remarks of Wright Mills C.: ‘Whatever history they have had is a history without events; whatever common interests they have do not lead to unity; whatever future they have will not be of their own making.’ Ibid., 147. See also Crossick, G. and Haupt, Heinz-Gerhard, Shopkeepers and Artisans in Nineteenth-century Europe (London: Methuen, 1984); andGoogle ScholarHaupt, H.-G. and Vigier, Philippe, eds., L'atelier et la boutique: études sur la petite bourgeoisie au XXe siêcle, Le Mouvement Social, Vol. 108 (1979).Google Scholar

² Arno Mayer writes that ‘It is [the] inner core of conservatism, ultimately revealed in moments of acute social and political conflict, that is common to all segments of the lower middle class and that justifies treating them as a coherent phenomenon and as a significant historical problem’. ‘The Lower Middle Class as Historical Problem’, Journal of Modern History, Vol. 47 (1974), 436.

³ See in this regard Childers, Thomas, The Nazi Voter: The Social Foundations of Fascism in Germany, 1919–1933 (Chapel Hill: North Carolina 1983)Google Scholar; Hamilton, Richard F., Who Voted for Hitler? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kocka, Jürgen, ‘The First World War and the Mittelstand: German Artisans and White-collar Workers’, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 8 (1973), 101–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mitzman, Arthur, ‘Artisans and Ideologues in Pre-Hitler Germany’, Journal of Modem History, Vol. 48 (1974), 108–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Wolfgang Sauer, ‘National Socialism: Totalitarianism or Fascism?’, American Historical Review, Vol. 73 (1967), 404–24. A number of other works suggest the connection of the Mittelstand to the failure of German democracy and the rise of the Nazis, although they do not treat the Nazi era itself. See, for example, David Blackbourne, ‘The Mittelstand in German Society and Politics, 1871–1914’, Social History, Vol. 4 (1977), 409–33; and Gellately, Robert, The Politics of Economic Despair: Shopkeepers and German Politics, 1890–1914 (London: Sage, 1974).Google Scholar Although the classes moyennes in France do not have as much to answer for as their German counterparts, historians have also tied them to retrograde political causes. See, for example, Borne, Dominique, Petits bourgeois en révolte? Le mouvement Poujade (Paris: Flammarion, 1977)Google Scholar; Lüthy, Herbert, France Against Herself: The Past, Politics and Crises of Modem France, (New York: Meridion Books, 1957)Google Scholar; Mayer, Nonna, La boutique contre la gauche (Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1986); andGoogle ScholarNord, Philip, Paris Shopkeepers and the Politics of Resentment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986).Google Scholar For a treatment of the question across Europe between the wars see Koshar, Rudy, ed., Splintered Classes: Politics and the Lower Middle Classes in Interwar Europe (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1990).Google Scholar

⁴ For example, Peukert, Detlev J.K., Inside Nazi Germany (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987).Google Scholar

⁵ Most famously see Schoenbaum, David, Hitler's Social Revolution: Class and Status in Nazi Germany, 1933–1939 (Garden City: Doubleday, 1967)Google Scholar; also Fredrick McKitrick, ‘An Unexpected Path to Modernisation: The Case of German Artisans during the Second World War’, Contemporary European History (this issue).

⁶ See, for example, Kolboom, Ingo, La revanche des patrons: Le patronat français face au Front Populaire (Paris: Flammarion, 1986), 349–52.Google Scholar

⁷ Paxton, Robert O., Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940–1944 (New York: Knopf, 1972), 215.Google Scholar

⁸ Pétain, Philippe, Message adressé aux artisans, ouvrierts, techniciens et patrons: ler mai 1942 (Vichy: Jacques Haumont, 1942), 4, 6.Google Scholar

⁹ Coulon, Marius, L'artisanat devant I'impot (Lille: Douvriez Bataille, 1943)Google Scholar, 10. For other, more or less sponsored, paeans to the artisanat, see Charles, Jean-Jacques, L'artisanat: Sa situation. Ses besoins. (Clermont-Ferrand: F. Sorlet, 1941)Google Scholar; Chaudieu, Georges, L'artisan, cet inconnu (Paris: Paillard, 1942)Google Scholar; Demondion, Pierre, L'artisanat dans l'état moderne (Paris: F. Lovitan, 1941)Google Scholar; Jeannin, André, L'artisanat á la croisée des chemins (Paris: Institut d'Etudes Corporatives et Sociales, 1943)Google Scholar; Neret, Jean-Alexis, Pour alter à la terre. Guide pratique complet (Paris: Plon, 1941)Google Scholar; Raynal, François-Paul, Les artisans du village (Paris: Institut d'Etudes Corporatives et Sociales, 1943)Google Scholar; Théallier, H. et al. ,, Hommes et métiers (Paris: Editions ‘Je Sers’, 1941).Google Scholar

¹⁰ These are neatly summed up in Hector, Edgar, La législation actuelle de l'artisanat: Commentaire et jurisprudence (Paris: Librairie du Recueil Sirey, 1939).Google Scholar

¹¹ On the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Artisanales, see the book by the Ecole's director, Chaudieu, Georges, L'artisanat dans l'économie future (Paris: Institut d'Etudes Corporatives et Sociales, 1943), 6;Google ScholarArtisan de France (Cahors), 15 Feb. 1942 and 25 March 1943; Information Artisanale. New Ser., June 1942. A lot of the original material from the EHEA can be found at the library of the Assemblée Permanente des Chambres de Métiers in Paris.

¹² On the trajectory of public opinion, see Munholland, Kim, ‘Wartime France: Remembering Vichy’, French Historical Studies, Vol. 18, no. 3 (1994), 817,CrossRefGoogle Scholar citing the work of Pierre Laborie, ‘Vichy et ses représentations clans l'imaginaire social’, in Azéma, Jean-Pierre and Bédarida, François, eds, Le régime de Vichy et les français (Paris: Fayard, 1992), 493–505; andGoogle ScholarL'opinion française sous Vichy (Paris, 1990). See also Veillon, Dominique, Vivre et survivre en France, 1939–1947 (Paris: Payot, 1995).Google Scholar

¹³ Zdatny, Steven, ‘The Corporate Word and the Modernizing Deed’, European History Quarterly, Vol. 16 (1986); andGoogle Scholaridem, The Politics of Survival: Artisans in Twentieth-century France (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), esp. ch. 6Google Scholar, ‘Vichy: The Broken Promise’, 128–53.

¹⁴ Coiffure de Paris, Oct 1940.

¹⁵ I have taken the following statistics out of the French national censuses from 1896 to 1936. See also the survey undertaken by the Bureau Artisanaux des Métiers in 1942, ‘Recensement général par département (mars-avril 1942)’, in Archives Nationales, Paris (hereafter cited as AN) F¹² 11980; and Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques, Mouvement économique en France de 1944 à 1957 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1958), 39–42.

¹⁶ On the conditions in Coiffure at the turn of the century, see the archives of the Fédération Nationale de la Coiffure, de l'Esthétique et de la Parfumérie – Force Ouvrière (hereafter cited as FNCEP), carton ‘Histoire Coiffure, 1894–1934’. I wish to thank Michel Bourlon, the Federation's president, for allowing me to see this material. Also, see Coffignon, A., Les coulisses de la mode (Paris: Librairie Illustrée, 1888)Google Scholar; Confédération Générale du Travail, La Confédération Générale du Travail et le mouvement syndical (Paris: Presses de la Fédération Syndicale Internationale, 1925), section on ‘coiffeurs’; archives of the Institut d'histoire sociale at the CGT (hereafter cited as CGT), collection Coiffure, ‘Compte-Rendu complet des travaux du ler Congrès National des Syndicats Ouvriers des Coiffeurs de France’, Lyon, 3–5 Sept 1894; and Fédération Nationale des Syndicats des Ouvriers Coiffeurs, ‘Compte-Rendu du Ve Congrès National’, Orléans, 1–3 Sept. 1903. I wish to thank Henri Sinno for enabling me to consult this material.

¹⁷ On the conflict between the UF and the CPC, see Zdatny, Politics, 116–21.

¹⁸ Assemblée des présidents des Chambres de Métiers de France (hereafter cited as APCMF), procès-verbal of the meeting of 22 March 1941, 22, 43; also see the remarks of the Artisan de France (Paris), 15 Jan. 1941. The records of the APCMF are available in manuscript at the library of what is now known as the Assemblée Permanente des Chambres de Métiers, Paris.

¹⁹ The literature on the organisation committees is vast. See in Robert Aron, particular, The Vichy Regime, 1940–1944 (New York: MacMillan, 1958), 178;Google ScholarBelin, René, Du Secrétariat de la C.G.T. au gouvemement de Vichy (Mémoires, 1933–1942) (Paris: Editions Albatross, 1978), 148–55Google Scholar; Bouchard, Philippe, Les technocrats et le pouvoir: X-Crise, Synarchie, C.G.T., Clubs (Paris: Artaud, 1966), 123;Google ScholarBouthillier, Yves, Le drame de Vichy, II: Finances sous le contraint (Paris: Dunod, 1968), 173–8Google Scholar; Gruson, Gruson, Origine et espoirs de la planification française (Paris: Dunod0, 1968)Google Scholar; Kuisel, Richard, Capitalism and the State in Modem France: Renovation and Economic Management in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 130;Google ScholarLiet-Veaux, G., ‘L'organisation professionalle, 1939–1946’, Revue d'Economie Politique, Vol. XX (1947), 1,278–86Google Scholar; Mérigot, Jean-Guy, Essai sur les comités d'organisation professionnelle (Paris: Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence, 1943), 85–100Google Scholar; Rousso, Henri, ‘L'organisation industrielle de Vichy’, Revue d'histoire de la deuxiéme guerre mondiale, Vol. 29 (1970), 27; andGoogle ScholarVinen, Richard, The Politics of French Business, 1930–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. ch. 10, ‘Who Controlled Vichy Industrial Organization?’.

²⁰ The CNR-Coiffure was attached to the CNR des Matières grasses et de produits industriels at the Production Ministry. See Eclaireur des Coiffeurs, 12 May 1941. The decree creating the CO-Coiffure was issued on 31 Dec. 1942 (Journal Officiel, 14 Jan. 1943). On the lobbying efforts that produced this ‘victory’ see AN F¹² 11993, ‘Comité d'Organisation des Coiffeurs’.

²¹ On Bagnaud, see especially two dossiers in the archives of the Paris Chamber of Commerce: I 2.15, ‘Marcel Bagnaud, décédé le 21 avril 1964’; and I 2.61, ‘Protestation de la Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie de Paris contre un article paru dans l'Hebdo-Coiffure (1938)’. See also Artisan Coiffeur, Feb. 1939; Coiffeur Confédéré, March 1934; Coiffeur-Parfumeur, 11 March 1938; and obituaries in Coiffeur de France, May 1964, and Eclaireurs des Coiffeurs, 4 May 1964.

²² See, for example, Paxton, , Vichy France, 355.Google Scholar

²³ Coiffure de Paris, Dec. 1940; for the proverb (‘A well-lathered beard is already half shaved.’), see Bailly, Georges, Guide pratique pour bien se raser (Paris: G. Bailly, 1933).Google Scholar Also on the shortages see La Coiffure Française Illustrée, 5 June 1940.

²⁴ Bagnaud warned of a ninety-five per cent (!) reduction of materials for the salons: see AN F¹² 11993, procès-verbal of the organisation committee meeting of 1 Feb. 1943; also AN F¹² 10250², Homologation des Prix, 1945–6, ‘Rapport sur la présentation à la Commission régionale d'homologation des prix d'un tarif applicable par les coiffeurs de la région de Rouen, 22 juillet 1943’.

²⁵ Camus, Jean, ‘Les coiffeurs pendant la guerre’, in Coiffures 46, (Paris: Imprimerie Curial-Archereau, 1945), 55.Google Scholar

²⁶ Cahiers de la Coiffure, March 1946.

²⁷ Votre Beauté, Nov. 1940. Thereon hangs a tale. Both the magazine and the soap were owned by L'Oréal, which was in turn owned by Eugène Schueller, who was a substantial contributor to far right-wing causes and a friend of Deloncle, chef of the Cagoulards. After the war, Schueller found himself in deep trouble, not for his political activities per se, but for having had copious economic dealings with the Germans, in particular for having sold them mountains of Monsavon. Schueller was acquitted on the charge of economic collaboration – perhaps he sold the Wehrmacht only ‘30 Percent’ Monsavon and was therefore able to present himself as a résistant.

²⁸ On hairstyles under the Occupation, see René Rambaud, Les fugitives. Précis anécdotique et historique des coiffures féminines à travers les âges, des Egyptiens à 1945 (Paris: René Rambaud, 1947), 297–8; and Veillon, Dominique, La mode sous l'Occupation: Débrouillardise et coquetterie dans la France en guerre (1939–1945) (Paris: Editions Payot, 1990), 114–16.Google Scholar

²⁹ On the decline in real wages, see Fridenson, Patrick and Robert, Jean-Louis, ‘Les ouvriers dans la France de la Seconde Guerre mondiale’, in Le Mouvement Social, Vol. 158 (1992)Google Scholar; Robert, , Syndicalismes sous Vichy, 129–32; alsoGoogle ScholarKuisel, , Capitalism, 142; andGoogle ScholarPaxton, , Vichy France, 376;Google ScholarSweets, John, Choices in Vichy France: The French Under Nazi Occupation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 17–20.Google Scholar See also the report to the US Office of Strategic Services in the US National Archives, USNA, Record Group 226, OSS Entry 92, Box 213, folder 31. (I would like to thank Wayne Bowen of Northwestern University for bringing this document to my attention). Richard Vinen adds the observation that under wartime conditions rations were more important than wages, Politics, 118.

³⁰ The best survey of conditions within the salons from the end of the last century to the early 1920s is Charles Desplanques, Barbiers, Perruquiers, Coiffeurs (Paris: Libraire Octave Doin, 1927), see esp. the appendix, ‘Conditions in some Provincial Cities’, 264–5. For the 1930s, see Catherine Lebas and Annie Jacques, La Coiffure en France du Moyen Age à nos jours (Paris: Delmas International, 1979), 60–1. See also AN F¹² 10250², ‘Notice sur les prix bas dans la coiffure’, a report written 12 May 1943.

³¹ On the écoles privées, see Artisan Coiffeur, Sept. 1935; Coiffeur Confédéré, Oct. 1928; Coiffeur Parfumeur, 15 Oct. 1935; Ouvrier Coiffeur, July 1939; and Semaine de la Coiffure, 24 June 1936.

³² These figures were taken from the following sources: AN F⁷ 13693, dossiers ‘Coiffeurs, 1905–1924’, ‘Coiffeurs, 1914–1924: Grèves’, and ‘Coiffeurs, 1919’; An F¹² 10250², dossiers ‘Groupement artisanal professionnel – Coiffure de l'Orne, “Etude sur une homologation des tarifs dans le cadre régional”, Alençon, 15 avril 1943’, and ‘Comité d'Organisation – Coiffure, “Calcul en pourcentage des hausses par rapport à 1939”’; AN F²² 1689, ‘Conventions collectives, 1936–1938’; Archives du département des Yvelines, Versailles, carton 11M47; FNCEP-FO, carton V, ‘Syndicats’, dossier 61–70, ‘Clermont-Ferrand’; Le Rappel, 16 mars 1900, in Archives de la Préfecture de Police, Paris, dossier, B^a 1419 2000–278. For the price index I used Le mouvement des prix de 1913 à 1950. Recueil des cours et indices des rincipaux produits industriels du coût de la vie et des salaires, mis à jour au 1er mai 1950 (Paris: L'Usine Nouvelle, 1950), 38; R. Rivet, ‘L'évolution des prix depuis la guerre’, Revue d'Economie Politique XX (1947), 865–94 and passim; and Sauvy, Alfred, Histoire économique de la France entre les deux guerres, vol. II: de Pierre Laval á Paul Reynaud (Paris: Fayard, 1967), 506.Google Scholar

³³ I have compiled these numbers from a variety of sources. On the general price index, see Le mouvement des prix de 1913 á 1950, 1, 37 and 38; and Rivet, ‘L'évolution des prix’. For the hourly wages of the other trades, see Présidence du Conseil, Direction de la Statistique Générale et de la Documentation, Annuaire Statistique, 1936 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1937), ‘Tableau I – Salaires horaires moyens de certains catégories d'ouvriers dans la région parisienne’, 168; and ‘Tableau II – Salaires moyens de certains catégories d'ouvriers dans les chefs-lieux des départmenets (sauf Paris) et les villes ou siégent les conseils de Prud'hommes’, 169. For the wages of ouvriers coiffeurs see AN F¹² 10250², arrêté from the Intendance des Affaires Economiques, Région de Rouen, 13 Jan. 1942; ‘Homologations des tarifs des salons de coiffure – Caen, 1937’; Archives du département des Yvelines, 16 M 69, collective contracts in Coiffure signed for Paris, 12 June 1936, and for Versailles, 13 July 1936; FNCEP, dossiers ‘Syndicats’; Le Capilartiste, July 1936; Desplanques, Barbiers, Perruquiers, Coiffeurs, 264–5; and Coiffure de Paris, June 1942. For a much larger survey of wages in 1936, see AN F²² 1689 and 1690, ‘Coiffure: Conventions Collectives, 1936–38’. For a general survey of Vichy wage policy, see Jacques Lehoulier, ‘L’évolution des salaires depuis 1936 (jusqu'en juin 1946)’, Revue d'Economie Politique, Vol. XX (1947), 1 529–55.

³⁴ On prices see AN F¹² 10250², ‘Homologation des prix, 1945–1946’, which is filled with price information for the occupation years; AN F¹² 11999, report by Abrial on the request of Parisian patrons-coiffeurs to the Contrôle National de Surveillance des Prix for a price rise, 20 Nov. 1941, and the accompanying letter from Henri Culmann, of the Commerce Ministry; Coiffure de Paris, Feb. 1942, reported the Prefectoral Arrêté of 31 Dec. 1941 setting new maximum prices for Coiffure – a rise of 30 per cent in coiffure-hommes and 25 per cent in coiffure-dames; and Eclaireur des Coiffeurs, 5–20 May 1944, which reported the prefectoral arrêté of 4 April 1944 raising once again maximum prices for the salons.

³⁵ Coiffeurs rejected not only the operation but the rationale of the market. A person's living was not just about economics. Work and skill had a transcendental value quite apart from their market value: ‘Skill’, said a report by the ouvrier, Paul Petit, ‘is the essence of being human.’ Roger Perrot went further, adding his sense of the moral economy to a labour theory of value: Because of their long years of training, they ‘ought to have … relatively high wages, whatever their productivity’. Petit's report is in F¹² 1956, ‘Famille Professionnelle,’ 13 May 1944; Perrot's comment can be found in CGT, collection Coiffure, Carton 4, ‘Circulaires fédérales,’ from a mimeographed edition of Ouvrier Coiffeur, March 1948.

³⁶ The quote is from Coiffeur de France, March 1946; also Coiffure de Paris, May 1939. It apparently took the Senate only ninety seconds to reject the bill. No one asked to speak to the bill and the Senate decided not even to discuss it: ‘Le pays a d'autres occupations’, commented Senator Louis Linyer. Needless to say, coiffeurs were incensed at this cavalier treatment. See Hebdo-Coiffure, 1 April 1939; also Capilartiste, May 1939; L'Ouvrier Coiffeur (Marseilles), April 1939; and L'Union des Syndicats de Coiffeurs, Feb. and Aug. 1939.

³⁷ Unfortunately, from the coiffeurs' perspective, the price commissions were set up to defeat and not to encourage higher prices: see Capilartiste, June 1939; L'Union des Syndicats des Coiffeurs, Aug. 1939. On the law of 9 Sept. 1939, see Coiffure de Paris, Oct. 1940; and for an example of its operation in Coiffure, see AN F¹² 1964, ‘Syndicats Uniques des Maîtres-Artisans Coiffeurs: Correspondances’, Seineet-Oise.

³⁸ The new regime dissolved the CGT, the CGPF and a whole collection of such interprofessional organisations in Nov. 1940. However, the law of 10 Aug. had expressly recognised the rights of trade unions to operate, and the law of 9 Nov. did not alter this. See Aron, , The Vichy Regime, 179; andGoogle ScholarKedward, H.R., Resistance in Vichy France: A Study of Ideas and Motivation in the Southern Zone, 1940–1942 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 108–9.Google Scholar

³⁹ See Capilartiste, Jan. 1939. The saga of the collective conventions was reported continuously in the pages of Semaine de la Coiffure: see especially Aug. and Sept. 1937 and 22 July 1938.

⁴⁰ Reveil des Coiffeurs, 9 June 1938.

⁴¹ AN F¹² 10250, ‘Notes sur les prix bas dans la coiffure’, 12 May 1943.

⁴² The official 200 francs per month wage ‘adjustment’ of May 1941 was applied to artisans (that is, to ouvriers coiffeurs) by a decree of 25 Oct. 1941: see Eclaireur des Coiffeurs, 28 July 1941, and 17 Nov. 1941. On the matter of patronsr calls for higher prices see Eclaireur des Coiffeurs, 8 Sept. 1941; AN F¹² 10250², Groupement Artisanal Professionel des Coiffeurs de l'Ome, ‘Etude sur une homologation des tarifs dans le cadre régional’, 15 April 1943; AN F¹² 11999, ‘Organisation des Matières primaires. Coiffure’, letter from the Chambre syndicale des maîtres-artisans coiffeurs de Paris, the Confédération patronale des coiffeurs, and the Comité National de Repartition (Coiffure) to the Contrôle National de Surveillance des Prix, 20 Nov. 1941.

⁴³ Coiffure de Paris, Feb. 1942.

⁴⁴ Eclaireur des Coiffeurs, 2 March 1942; Archives FNCEP-FO, ‘Textes officiels, conventions collectives nationales – coiffure’, 11 novembre 1938 (étendue le 24 avril 1942).

⁴⁵ An F²² 1963, ‘Syndicats uniques des maîtres-artisans coiffeurs. Correspondance’, Seine; see also FNCEP, ‘Congrès fédéraux’, circular from Arthur Roger to his ‘comrades’ in the workers’ federation, the FNSOC, 21 Nov. 1945; and FNCEP, ‘Textes officielles, conventions collectives nationales – Coiffure’, arrêté of 23 April 1942 (Journal Officiel, 19 May 1942).

⁴⁶ Fridenson and Robert, ‘Les ouvriers’, 132–4g67.

⁴⁷ Henri Bertholi, ‘La législation sociale’, Revue d‘Economie Politique XX (1947), 1594–1630, draws a picture of a regime that was a hothouse for social legislation, some of it with ulterior political motives but much of it without. In other words, Vichy, in social legislation as in so much else, marked not a parenthesis but a continuity.

⁴⁸ Coiffure de Paris, June 1942.

⁴⁹ On subsequent hikes in prices and wages in Coiffure, see AN F¹² 10250², ‘Homologation des prix, 1945–1946’, AN F²² 1955, ‘Famille Professionnelle – Hygiène [Coiffure]’, meeting of the Commission provisoire d'organisation, 30 March 1944; Edaireur des Coiffeurs, 5–20 May 1944; Lebas et Jacques, La Coiffure en France, 62.

⁵⁰ Paillard, Jean, 1940–1944; La révolution corporative spontanée (Annonay: Editions du Vivarais, 1979), 13, 16. Paillard was an old Pétainist, who served as the head of Vichy's Bureau des Corporations, with the job of bringing the corporatist dream to life. He resigned in Feb. 1942, defeated by ‘les synarchs’. On the reforming instinct, see alsoGoogle ScholarHellman, John, The Knight-Monks of Vichy France: Uriage, 1940–1945 (Montréal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1993).Google Scholar

⁵¹ Seeg202 Belin, , Mémoires, for his career history.Google Scholar

⁵² For assessments of the Labour Charter, see AN F²² 2029, report, ‘La Charte du Travail’, 14 Feb. 1944; Aron, , The Vichy Regime, 294Google Scholar; Bouthillier, , Le drame de Vichy, 282–3Google Scholar; Farmer, Paul, Vichy: Political dilemma (New York: Columbia University Press, 1955), 233–4Google Scholar; Institution, Hoover, France during the Occupation, 1940–1944, Vol. 1 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1957), 176–89Google Scholar, for Belin's own analysis of his work; Jacques Julliard, ‘La Charte du Travail’, in Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, Le gouvernement de Vichy, 1940–1942 (Paris: Colin, 1972); Kuisel, , Capitalism, 145–6Google Scholar; Jean-Pierre Le Crom, ‘Le syndicalisme ouvrier et la Charte du Travail’, in Azéma and Bédarida, La Régime de Vichy, 435; Paxton, , Vichy France, 217; andGoogle ScholarRobert, , Syndicalismes sous Vichy, passim.Google Scholar

⁵³ APCMF, procès-verbal of the meeting of Nov. 1941, St. Etienne, 39.

⁵⁴ Historians have generally dismissed the Charter as a disingenuous attempt to lure workers into collaboration while in effect destroying the independent labour movement: See, for example, Femand Braudel and Ernest Labrousse, eds, Histoire Economique et Sociale de la France, IV: L'ère industrielle et la société d'aujourd'hui, Vol. 2: Le temps des guerres mondiales et la grande crise (1914-ver 1950) (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1980), 665. My own opinion of the Charter is a little different. While it certainly did aim to turn the labour movement from confrontation to collaboration, and while it was undoubtedly an unworkable scheme, it was not so sinister as it is often portrayed. Belin, and his successor as Labour Minister, Hubert Lagardelle, did not intend the Charter to serve the patronat for the repression of the workers.

⁵⁵ On the CGT rejection of the Charter, see Jean-Louis Robert, ‘La modification du syndicalism français au creuset de la guerre’, in Robert, Syndicalismes sous Vichy, 15; and Gérard Dehove, ‘Le mouvement ouvrier et la politique syndicale, Revue d'Economie Politique, Vol. XX (1947), 1578. For a taste of the corporatist opposition, see an article by Albert Beugras, ‘La charte devançant les révolutionnaires nationaux’, in Je suis partout, cited in AN AJ72 1856, ‘Diverse législation du travail, 1941–1943’; and Déat, Marcel, Mémoires politiques (Paris: Denoël, 1989), 817.Google Scholar On the other hand, the small, enthusiastically Pétainist movement of Compagnonnage thought the Charter a splendid document. Le Compagnonnage, Journal Mutualiste, Professional, Philosophique et Littéraire, Jan. 1943.

⁵⁶ On the creation of the UNS, see Eclaireur des Coiffeurs, 25 April 1943; and AN F²², 1955, meeting of the Commission provisoire d'organisation (CPO) for Coiffure, 10 Nov. 1942.

⁵⁷ Le Trait-d'Union des Coiffeurs, Sept. 1942.

⁵⁸ Paillard, , La révolution corporative, 89.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ For the Union Fédérale's response, see Coiffure de Paris, May 1942. For Magnien's response, see AN F²² 1961, Famille Professionnelle – Hygiène, dossier Seine-Inférieure; also FNCEP, ‘Histoire Coiffure, 1935–1942’, dossier 1941; and Eclaireur des Coiffeurs, 24 Nov. 1941.

⁶⁰ On the personnel of the CPO, see AN F²² 1955, ‘Famille Professionnelle – Hygiène’, members of ‘Commission 77’, Journal Officiel, 25 juillet 1942.

⁶¹ There are no formal biographies of either man. Their life stories are scattered through the documents of the history of their profession. However, information about the two of them can be found throughout Lebas and Jacques, La Coiffure; and Rambaud says a little bit about himself in Les fugitives, his survey of the history of Coiffure. There are capsule biographies of68 Rambaud, and in, Magnien, Maitron, Jean, ed., Dictionnaire biographique de mouvement ouvrier français (Paris: Editions Ouvrières, 1964-), Vols. 35 and 39.Google Scholar And the Cercle des Arts et Techniques, which Rambaud and Magnien founded together just before the war, produced a video tribute to Magnien after his death in 1988, and this video contains some information on his career: Jacques de Closet, dir., II s'appelait François Magnien.

⁶² By the Liberation, the CPO had succeeded in putting together some 200–300 such local syndicates of employers. Information about the formation of syndicats uniques, comités sociaux and the rest of the apparatus of the famille professionnelle can be found throughout the collection of documents pertaining to the application of the Labour Charter to Coiffure: AN F²² 1955–1967.

⁶³ AN F²² 1955, minutes of the meeting of the CPO, 31 May 1943. On the general question of workers’ recruitment to the syndicate uniques, see F²² 1958, ‘Personnel des syndicats locaux’; and F²² 1961, ‘Recrutement des syndicats uniques-ouvriers’.

⁶⁴ A report on the personnel of the comités sociaux locaux counted 1,549 coiffeurs in the spring of 1944, of whom only 105 (0.7 per cent) were women–mostly, but not entirely, on the workers’ side: AN F²² 1956.

⁶⁵ See, for example, Bagnaud's comments in Coiffure de Paris, Oct. 1942; and Eclaireur des Coiffeurs, 10 Dec. 1942.

⁶⁶ In April 1943 Magnien was arrested by the Gestapo and Rambaud prosecuted for supposed black market dealings. The fascist press then loosed a series of broadsides at the ‘Jews and Freemasons’ at the head of the CPO. There is every reason to think – Magnien Rambaud and their friends were certain of it – that Bagnaud was mixed up in this, along with two of his allies, Pierre Loyer, Chef du Service de l'Artisanat, and Jean Bichelonne, the Minister of Production. See AN F¹² 11999, letter from Bichelonne to Hubert Lagardelle, Minister of Labour, 28 June 1943; also F²² 1955, minutes of the CPO meeting of 19 July 1943; F²² 1957, letter from Magnien to Torquebiau, 19 May 1943, recounting the story of his arrest; FNCEP, ‘Histoire de la Coiffure, 1943–1946’, dossier 1944, resolution by the commission administrative of the FNSOC, 1 Dec. 1944; and Je Suis Partout, 2 July 1943.

⁶⁷ See Launay, Jacques de, ed., Le dossier de Vichy (Paris: Julliard, 1967): discussion of the National Revolution, 263–79.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ AN F¹² 11999, circular from François Magnien to ‘tous les syndicats fédérés’, 25 Nov. 1943 (the same circular can be found in FNCEP, ‘Histoire Coiffure, 1943–1946’), discusses Lagardelle's resignation and Bichelonne's campaign against the CPO. See also AN F²² 2029, ‘Charte du travail – Comité français de la libération nationale’.

⁶⁹ On the creation of the Artisanal Service, see AN F¹² 10135, ‘Artisanat’; M. Grundler, ‘Le Service de l'Artisanat’, in Institut d'Etudes Corporatives et Sociales. Ecole des Hautes Etudes Artisanales, Cours, 1941–1942, ii, 43; Rapagnol, André, ‘Situation et organisation du métier artisanal’, (University of Toulouse thesis, 1941).Google Scholar For the personnel of the Service, see Information Artisanale, May 1944.

⁷⁰ On Loyer's pre-war politics, see Revue Internationale des sociétés secrètes. Bulletin mensuel de la Ligue anti-judéo-maçonnique: ‘Le Franc-Catholique’; and Henri Coston, Partis, joumaux et hommes politiques d'hier et d'aujourd'hui. Lecture Française, numéro spécial, Dec. 1960. For Loyer's own words, see Pierre Loyer, 'Vue d'ensemble sur la politique intérieure’, Conférence faite le 23 novembre 1935 à la réunion des membres de l'Union Croix de Feu-Centraux; idem, ‘Les affinités françaises’. La maison des producteurs. Réunion octobre 1936; andGoogle Scholaridem, Les dessous maçonniques du radicalisme (Paris: Société Française d'Editions et de Propagande, 1936).Google Scholar

⁷¹ An F¹² 10135, Service de l'Artisanat.

⁷² On Loyer's political dossiers, see AN F¹² 11999, appropos of his comments on proposed members of the conseils d'administration de la famille professionnelle, 11 Feb. 1943.

⁷³ Loyer was able to disband the fractious Assemblée des Présidents des Chambres de Métiers, to purge the unreliable Chamber of Trades of the Seine department, and increase his influence on the Groupements Artisanaux Professionnels and the Bureaux Artisanaux des Matières, also operated through the chambers of trades. See APCMF, procès-verbal, meeting of 5 June 1942, 189–217, for the showdown between the chamber presidents and Loyer; see also Information Artisanale, Feb. 1943. On the Comité consultatif of artisans that replaced the APCMF, see AN F¹² 10135, ‘Procès-verbal des délibérations du comité consultatif de l'artisanat, 1–2 déc. 1942’. Loyer never did succeed in gaining parallel influence over the syndicats artisanaux.

⁷⁴ The phrase is from Georges Ribeill, ‘Les chantiers de la collaboration sociale des Fédérations légales des cheminots (1939–1944)’, in Robert, , Syndicalismes sous Vichy, 104–5.Google Scholar Ribeill means to distinguish this version from the corporatisme syndicale envisaged in the Labour Charter. On coiffeurs’ critique of this ‘corporatisme moyennageux’, see AN F¹² 11999, letter from Artisanal Service agent, Benzenger, to Loyer; the declaration of the FNSOC administrative council in Eclaireur des Coiffeurs, Dec. 1943; and FNCEP, ‘Histoire Coiffure, 1943–1946’, Magnien's circular of 24 November 1943 to all syndicats fédérés.

⁷⁵ On the Statute of the Artisanat, see Bichelonne, Jean, Le Statut de l'Artisanat: extrait du Journal Officiel du 25 août 1943 (Clermont-Ferrand: Imprimeries Paul Vallier, 1943)Google Scholar; Loyer, Pierre, Les incidences sociales du Statut de l'Artisanat: Conférence (Vichy: Editions du Centre d'Information et de Documention artisanales, 1945); andGoogle ScholarLoyer, , Le Statut de l'Artisanat (Paris: Dunod, 1944).Google Scholar For commentary on the Statute see Demondion, Pierre, Le Nouveau stat de l'Artisanat (Paris: F. Lovitan, 1943)Google Scholar; and Jeannin, L'artisanat, 70. For a more critical, if largely erroneous, interpretation of the Statute, see Faure, Christian, Le project culturel de Vichy: Folklore et révolution nationale, 1940–1944 (Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 1989), 115.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ For the hostility of other trades to the Statute, see AN F¹² 11999, correspondence between Loyer and Bichelonne; Artisan Français, July 1944; Information Artisanale, Feb. 1944 and May 1944. Only a few of the most rural trades – wheelwrights, for example – agreed to go along with the Statute.

⁷⁷ Burrin, Philippe, La France á l'heure allemande, 1940–1944 (Paris: Seuil, 1995), 454–64.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ AN F²² 1957, ‘Famille Professionnelle – Coiffure’, dossier ‘Courrier reçu depuis la dissolution’.

⁷⁹ Edaireur des Coiffeurs, Liberation edition no. 2 (n.d.); Dehove, ‘Le mouvement ouvrier’, 1,579.

⁸⁰ On the CGT condemnation of the Labour Charter, see Dehove, ‘Le mouvement ouvrier’, 1,578; Jean-Louis Robert, ‘La modification du syndicalisme français au creuset de la guerre’, in Robert, Syndicalismes sous Vichy, 15. On the purges within the labour movement see Aron, Robert, Histoire de l'épuration. II: Le monde de la presse, des arts, des lettres … 1944–1953 (Paris: Fayard, 1975), 315–16Google Scholar; Crom, Le, ‘Le syndicalism ouvrier’, 438–9Google Scholar; Novick, Peter, The Resistance Versus Vichy: The Purge of Collaborators in Liberated France (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), 134–5.Google Scholar On Magnien's fate, see esp. CGT, Collection Coiffure, carton 14: ‘Correspondance relative à l'affaire Magnien’. It is important to note that while the communist elements within the CGT despised Magnien, largely because he had heartily condemned his own party in 1939, after the Nazi-Soviet pact, he continued to receive the support of hairdressers in the FNSOC. The Federation unanimously re-elected Magnien its general secretary in Dec. 1944, after the Commission de reconstitution des organisations syndicales had expelled him.

⁸¹ Bagnaud, who had been president of the CO-Coiffure and a genuine Pétainist, had some trouble at the Liberation, although I have been unable to discover exactly what kind. That no doubt explains why he accepted a relatively low-profile position in the UF. On the wartime increase in the Union Fédérale's membership see Coiffeur de France, 25 March and June 1946; Coiffure de Paris, Feb. 1945, which also carries a story on the UF's twenty-first congress, at which unity was achieved; and Eclaireurdes Coiffeurs, Jan. 1946.

⁸² Le mouvement des prix de 1913 à 1950, 38; Rivet, , ‘L'évolution des prix’, 865–94Google Scholar, and passim.

⁸³ On the decree of 3 Nov. 1945 and coiffeurs‘ reactions, see AN F¹² 10147, ‘Comité d'Organisation, Généralités, 1945’; AN F¹² 10250, ‘Homologation des prix, 1945–1946’. Also Cahiers de la Coiffure, 25 Dec. 1945; Eclaireur des Coiffeurs, 10 Feb. 1946; FNCEP-FO, ‘Textes officielles, conventions collectives nationales – coiffure’.

⁸⁴ AN F¹² 10250², ‘Calcul en pourcentage des hausses par rapport à 1939’; and Cahiers de la Coiffure, Sept. 1946. The price index is from Rivet, ‘L'évolution des prix’. Compare these prices with those pertaining before the war and it becomes apparent that prices in 1945 did not even begin to keep pace with the price index. At the bottom end of the profession (Category D) prices appear to have been catastrophically low. By Sept. 1946 the administration had allowed prices to rise substantially. They none the less remained far behind the increase in the price index.

⁸⁵ On artisans’ fiscal and social security obligations, see Jean Caro ‘Le régime des artisans en matière d'impôts directs’, thèse de droit (Université de Rennes, 1953), 88–105 and passim; Chambre de Métier du Loiret, ‘Les charges fiscales et sociales de l'artisan et les avantages auxquels il peut prétendre’, 1954 (pamphlet available at the APCM, Paris); Editions ouvrages commerciaux, économiques et fiscaux, L'indicateur fiscal de l'artisanat (Paris: Emile Dessus, 1947); Drancourt, Michel, ed., L'Artisanat français (Lille: Entreprise Moderne d'Edition, 1978), 23; and Jean-Jacques Stefanelly, ‘L'artisanat, a-t-il sa chance dans le monde modeme?’, unpublished pamphlet (1955), 21.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ This phrase appears in an article by Arvet-Thouvet in Coiffure de Paris, Jan. 1946, and in another by ‘Saint-Hilaire’ in Cahiers de la Coiffure, March 1946. See also Coiffure de France, 25 March 1946, April 1948 and Aug.–Sept. 1948; and Edaireur des Coiffeurs, 25 March 1946, 25 Oct. 1946 and 25 June 1947.