L’Écho d’Alger
- Council of Ministers
- THE STABILIZATION OF THE FRANC
- A Camelot du Roi in the Criminal Court
L'Écho d'Alger of 27 October 1926 carried a Paris report on the cabinet meeting held that morning under Raymond Poincaré. Painlevé secured the arrangements for discharging the conscript class early so the men could help with the sowing from 29 October, the navy followed suit, and Queuille outlined measures banning food exports. A commentary on Belgium's currency explained why its first attempt to stabilise the franc at 106 to the pound had failed: the rate was over-ambitious, the plan leaked while it was being prepared, and short-term foreign debts fell due at the worst moment. The paper expected the new stabilisation by the financier Émile Francqui to do better. From Marseille came a brief court report: a Camelot du Roi who had kicked a police inspector during a scuffle outside a church was given a suspended fifteen-day prison sentence.
Translation
Council of Ministers
Paris, October 26. – The ministers met this morning in Cabinet Council at the Ministry of Finance, under the chairmanship of M. Poincaré, President of the Council. The Council, which lasted from 9:30 a.m. to noon, was devoted to the dispatch of current business. M. Painlevé obtained approval for the arrangements for carrying out the decision taken by the last Council of Ministers concerning the early discharge of the class due for release. This release, carried out in order to help with the sowing, will begin on the 29th of this month. The same decision was taken with regard to the Ministry of the Navy. BAN ON THE EXPORT OF FOODSTUFFS M. Queuille gave an account of the measures taken to prohibit the export of foodstuffs.
THE STABILIZATION OF THE FRANC
Our neighbours, in a first attempt at stabilization, had fixed the rate at 106 Belgian francs to the pound. Many experts had, moreover, warned the Belgian Government that this rate was too ambitious and that the stabilized Belgian franc would not be stable. That is what happened, and the Belgians were unable to hold their currency at the point where they had wanted to stop it. This failure of stabilization was also caused by a lack of sufficient secrecy during the preparatory period. Finally, our neighbours, having foreign credits at too short a term, had to meet heavy and pressing maturities at the very moment when their Treasury ought to have had every possible resource at its disposal. There is reason to think that the stabilization carried out this time by M. Francqui, a great financier who came into the Government solely to bring about financial recovery, will meet a better fate.
A Camelot du Roi in the Criminal Court
Marseille, October 26. – The Camelot du Roi Marius Reynier, who on Sunday, during a minor scuffle in front of the Église des Réformés, kicked Sûreté inspector Antonini, appeared this afternoon before the criminal court. He expressed regret for his act; the court sentenced him, for violence against an officer, to fifteen days in prison, suspended.
Context
Why Belgium's first stabilisation attempt of 1926 collapsed
The article gives three reasons for the failure: a rate of 106 Belgian francs to the pound that was too ambitious, leaks while the operation was being prepared, and short-term foreign credits that fell due at the worst moment. These are the paper's own diagnosis, and the figure of 106 comes from the paper itself. Independent records show a currency in steep decline. A Dutch chronicle of the century notes that the Belgian government had to repay no less than 8 billion francs of treasury bonds before 1 January 1927, and that the franc sank to a low of 217 to the pound on 13 July 1926. That load of maturing short-term debt fits the paper's point about pressing payment dates, although the chronicle speaks of treasury bonds rather than foreign credits. The crisis brought down the Poullet-Vandervelde government. A historian quoted in Francqui's biography describes Belgium's eventual success in 1926 as coming only after a few failed attempts.
What Francqui's plan of October 1926 actually did
The paper went to press just as the operation it praised was completed. Under a Brussels dateline of 26 October 1926, the same chronicle reports that the Belgian franc had been stabilised at 175 to the pound, ending a monetary crisis that had lasted for years. That rate was far weaker than the 106 the article says the first attempt had aimed for, which bears out the paper's view that the earlier target was unrealistic. The new course was political as well as technical. With the spectre of German inflation in mind, the Belgian parliament granted the government full powers to carry out the recovery plan of Finance Minister Émile Francqui. The core of the plan was to consolidate much of the floating debt by obliging holders of treasury certificates to convert 4 billion francs of their paper into 6 per cent preference shares of the newly founded national railway company. The article's warning about short-term debt therefore matches the problem the plan addressed most directly.
Who was Émile Francqui, the 'great financier'?
The paper calls Francqui a great financier who joined the government solely to restore its finances, and his career supports that description. After returning to Belgium in 1902 he worked in finance, and ten years later he became a director of the Société Générale de Belgique. During the First World War he presided over the Comité National de Secours et d'Alimentation, a body supported from abroad by the Commission for Relief in Belgium that Herbert Hoover set up in the United States. In April 1924 he took part in drawing up the Dawes Plan for German reparations. A banker with this international standing, and with close knowledge of reparations and foreign credit, was the kind of outsider whose arrival could reassure markets. That helps explain why the French paper had more confidence in this second attempt.
Did the paper's confidence in the second stabilisation prove justified?
The paper only predicted a 'better fate', but later accounts show that the prediction was right. The stabilisation programme belonged to the new Jaspar government of 1926. One part of it was a new unit of account, the belga, worth five Belgian francs, which was used for exchange transactions to set Belgian money clearly apart from other currencies, above all the French franc. A numismatic history of the belga concludes that the plan succeeded and stabilised the Belgian currency. The historian quoted in Francqui's biography adds that Belgium, thanks to the firmness of the banker-minister, restored the gold standard in 1926. For readers of an Algerian paper whose front page also reported Poincaré's cabinet at work, the Belgian case offered a nearby example of what a successful stabilisation might look like.
The Camelots du Roi and their clashes with the police
Marius Reynier belonged to the Camelots du Roi, the youth organisation of the royalist Action Française, active from 1908 to 1936 and best known for taking part in many right-wing demonstrations in the 1920s and 1930s. The scuffle outside a church fits the group's origins. Its first members were recruited partly from a Paris royalist group organised to sell newspapers at church doors. Arrests for insulting and assaulting officers were frequent in its early campaigns. During the Thalamas affair of 1908–09 its leader Maxime Real del Sarte was sentenced to fifteen days in prison for insulting officers, and Camelots were willing to be arrested so that they could appear in a public trial and gain press attention. Reynier's fifteen-day sentence matches that earlier pattern, but his sentence was suspended after he expressed regret.
Original
Conseil des Ministres
Paris, 26 octobre. - Les ministres se sont réunis, ce matin, en Conseil de Cabinet, au Ministère des Finances, sous la présidence de M. Poincaré, président du Conseil. Le Conseil, qui a duré de 9 h. 30 à midi, a été consacré à l'expédition des affaires courantes. M. Painlevé a fait approuver les modalités d'exécution de la décision prise par le dernier Conseil des Ministres en ce qui touche le renvoi anticipé de la classe libérable. Cette libération, effectuée dans le but de favoriser les semailles, commencera le 29 courant. La même décision a été prise concernant le Ministère de la Marine. INTERDICTION D'EXPORTATION DES PRODUITS ALIMENTAIRES M. Queuille a fait un exposé des mesures prises pour interdire l'exportation des produits alimentaires.
LA STABILISATION DU FRANC
Nos voisins avaient, lors d'une première tentative de stabilisation, fixé le taux de 106 francs belges par livre. De nombreux techniciens avaient d'ailleurs averti le Gouvernement belge que ce taux était trop ambitieux, et que le franc belge stabilisé ne serait pas stable. C'est ce qui se produisit et les belges ne purent maintenir leur monnaie au point où ils voulaient l'arrêter. D'autre part cet échec de stabilisation fut détermin. aussi par le manque de secret suffisant dans la période de préparation. Enfin, nos voisins disposant de crédits étrangers à trop court terme, durent payer des échéances lourdes et pressantes au moment même où leur Trésorerie aurait dû disposer de toutes les ressources possibles. Il y a lieu de penser que la stabilisation réalisée cette fois-ci par M. Francqui, grand financier, venu au Gouvernement uniquement pour réaliser le relèvement financier, aura un meilleur sort.
Camelot du roi en Corre tionnelle
Marseille, 26 octobre. - Le camelot du roi Marius Reynier, qui, dimanche, au cours d'une petite échauffourée devant l'église des Réformés, frappait à coups de pied l'inspecteur de la Sûreté Antonini, a comparu cet après-midi devant le tribunal correctionnel. Il a exprimé des regrets de son acte; le tribunal l'a condamné pour violences à agent à quinze jours de prison avec sursis.