When the state becomes a banker: Breaks and continuities in the control exercised by this new shareholder at the Libération[Cuando el Estado se convierte en banquero. Rupturas y continuidades en el control ejercido, durante la Libération, por este nuevo accionista]

This article analyses the structures put in place by government at the Libération to manage its holdings in the four nationalized deposit banks. Pointing out the discrepancies between stated intentions, particularly government's capacity to manage productively, and actual achievements, this article highlights the difficulties encountered in implementing this control. These tensions were linked to the diversity of bankers' interests and were felt up to the very highest echelons of the state. They emerged as soon as the scales of analysis were compared: the macro scale of the law and its nationwide application and the micro scale of a bank (Société Générale) that had come under state control. To understand some of the reasons behind these reforms, we have placed them in their historical perspective, pointing out the continuities and breaks. It is shown that government as a new shareholder sends down its roots into the imperfections of the previous system, that of the "unobtrusive state", that lasted from the beginning of the twentieth century to the outbreak of the Second World War and then into a declared political intent to install a "state partner" from 1940 to 1945. The state settled into place, not without difficulty until the 1960s, alongside the banking industry.