Prisoners of Want. The Experience and Protest of the Unemployed in France, 1921-1945

Abstract

Historians have devoted less attention to the issue of unemployment in interwar France than in other contemporary industrial states, notably Britain and Germany, where rates were far higher. Yet, as Matt Perry stresses in this convincing study, joblessness posed a serious problem for many French households. Levels of unemployment are also likely to be significantly higher than previously assumed, given the peculiarities of the French labour force which included large numbers of self-employed, seasonal and casual workers, as well as widespread chomage partiel. These factors, combined with the significant small firm and rural industry, meant that unemployment was partially obscured. Unemployment statistics further this impression, as both labour exchanges and the benefit claimant count under-recorded the problem, as some unemployed workers failed to register with a labour exchange in the first case and as the latter discriminated against women and foreign workers who were often ineligible to receive benefit and, as a result, remained unrecorded. These are problems that Perry tackles in a well-conceived study that traces the movement from post-First World War dislocation to the end of the Second World War. The issues raised hold striking contemporary resonance, given recent increases in unemployment in France.