Poincaré had always had an interest in sound public finance. His reputation before the Great War was largely based on financial rigour, and now in the post-war period financial policy was coming to dominate all other. The need for harmony between finance and diplomacy was becoming as evident to him after the war as had been the need for close co-ordination between military operations and diplomacy in July 1914. This strategic view of French finances in the post-war period was particularly apparent over reparations. Certainly financial threats were more immediate than security threats, as Poincaré explained to the Conseil supérieur de défense nationale on 22 October 1922: ‘If for ten or so years we are safe from military adventures, on the other hand for five or six years we are at the mercy of a financial incident.’ The potential use of international speculation against the franc as a diplomatic weapon had been made all too clear to Poincaré in early 1924. The outcome of the Ruhr occupation demonstrated the extent to which finance could dictate French diplomacy; it would soon be dictating French domestic politics.

Nor did Poincaré underestimate, the political and social importance of sound finances for what he, and others, considered to be the backbone of the Third Republic – the middle classes. A recent study of material conditions in the Great War concludes that the middle classes were worse affected than the working classes.