World War I had important effects on the economy and society of France. We can see changes along three dimensions: social and economic structures, institutions and policies, and ideology and mentality. In this paper, we examine the changes along these dimensions, paying particular attention to state intervention in the economy and society, and focusing on economic modernization and the construction of the welfare state. First, we examine the economic and social characteristics of France before World War I, to understand the changes which occurred due to the Great War, as well as examine the immediate effects caused by the economic mobilization during the War. Next, we call attention to the various plans for economic modernization to overcome the relative economic backwardness, the change of attitude of the labor movement towards the state (the renouncement of "anti-etatisme"), the diminution of resistance to state intervention, and the development of "social reform". Third, we examine later consequences of the changes caused by the Great War. We argue that structural reforms in the economy and society after the World War II, i.e., the nationalization of industries, economic planning, and the social security system, were consequences of the changes that came about due to the Great War. One characteristic of postwar reform in France was that economic modernization was given priority over social reform.

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The French war economy is characterized by the fact that the country was not independent but occupied by Germany. In this article, the author tries to identify some characteristics of the occupation economy during the war. In the first section, two aspects of the occupation economy are analysed and described. First, the way in which German military and civil organizatiorls worked to exploit the French economy. Second, the fact that, according to the statistical data (indices of industrial production, prices, wages, profits and so on), during the occupation the activities of the French economy were reduced by half. In the second section, the legislative and institutional aspects of the occupied economy become the focus of study. The first half of this section analyses the five major laws passed to organize the war economy in the industrial sector. Then the organization of the agricultural, banking and handicraft industries is studied using contemporary publications. In the latter half of the section the author describes the establishment of the Delegation Generale a l'EquiPement National. He concludes that there is a discontinuity between this and the post-liberation Monet Plan. Comites d'Organizations were important in the organisation of French industries during the war, so the third section is devoted to them. After verifying their structure and management, the author studies three specific cases (C.O.A., C.O.B.T.P, C.O.M.A.). It is concluded that these Comites d'Organizations were mainly tools to enable the Geman occupiers to exploit French industrial capacity. In the last chapter, the organisation of workers is studied, through an analysis of the charte de travail. Finally, the author concludes that the French war economy did not build the foundations of the rapid economic growth after the liberation.

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