Threat of a Capital Levy, Expected Devaluation and Interest Rates in France during the Interwar Period

This paper tries to improve the understanding of the French interwar monetary situation by using thoroughly one indicator: long-term interest rates. As such, it could be attacked from a methodological point of view as relying excessively on that indicator and on a small number of hypothesis (although we have empirical arguments for each of these). We do consider that if each one of our hypothesis (and then our measures) may be discussed, the global picture we draw is the only one which puts all the available data in a consistent order. This picture is different from the prevailing one in some aspects concerning the Poincaré stabilization, and reinforces one of the interpretations of the 1930s.