Politics of Transport in Twentieth-Century France.

Few aspects of economic development have had such a widespread or profound impact on the reshaping of contemporary France as transportation. As a result, transport policy has brought many of the major social forces into conflict. Monopolistic railway companies, closely aligned with the banks, combated the defenders of the regions and small towns. The fiercely independent truckers and barge-haulers, proponents of the small family firm, collided with the forces of the state. Apostles of the transatlantic gospel of free enterprise and technical progress clashed with supporters of a planned, socialist society.