The Mellon-Berenger Agreement (or Mellon-BÃÆ' Â © renger Accord ) (29 April 1926) is an agreement on the amount and rate of French debt repayment to the United States. arising out of loans and payments in forms made during World War I (1914-1918), both before and after the ceasefire with Germany. The agreement greatly reduces the amount to be paid by France, provided that payment is relatively easy. However, it is very unpopular in France, whose people feel that the United States should rule out debt considering the enormous loss of life and material damage suffered by France, or at least payment of links to reparations from Germany. Ratification by the French parliament was delayed until July 1929. The Great Depression began immediately. In the end, little of the debt was repaid.
Video Mellon-Berenger Agreement
Initial agreement
The Dawes Plan of 1924 set a realistic timetable for German reparations to the World War I allies. By building trust, it was possible for Germany to borrow from the United States at a reasonable price, and to use this money to pay Great Britain and France. They in turn use reparations to pay their debts to the United States, in what John Maynard Keynes has to say as a huge "cash flow".
The United States began secretly preventing private or public borrowing to France as long as the issue of debt repayment remained unstable, creating pressure on the franc. Financiers and government experts on finance in France accept that a clear deal is needed. In agreements made with the UK, payments are attributed to the payment of reparations to France by Germany. France wants a similar clause that links payments to the United States with reparations, but the US will not accept this relationship. The April 1926 Agreement was the most profitable to negotiate. French Ambassador Henry BÃ © Å © renger signed an agreement ratified by the French parliament.
The American Debt Commission said it "believes that the settlement represents substantially France's capacity to pay." President Coolidge in his message to Congress said, "I believe that the settlement... is fair and just for both Governments and recommends its approval." The reaction was less positive in France, where twenty thousand war veterans marched in Paris against the treaty. The English are also critical. Most French people feel the United States should rule out its claims for war debt, and governments repeatedly delay ratification. The related issue is that the US ban has hurt French exports, and the tariffs imposed on other French goods have created a serious trade imbalance between the two countries.
Maps Mellon-Berenger Agreement
Negotiation
In mid-1928 President Calvin Coolidge pressed France to ratify the treaty. At the same time, there was increasing nationalist pressure in Germany to negotiate changes to the Dawes Plan and to obtain the evacuation of French troops occupying the Rhineland. On September 16, 1928 Aristide Briand of France and German Chancellor Gustav Stresemann agreed to link negotiations on reparation payments and troop withdrawals. A committee met in Paris on 9 February 1929 to record the number and timetable of payment of Germany. Owen D. Young, an American banker, led the group. Under pressure from America, a revised settlement is defined in which German debt is reduced and terms of payment are made easier.
The French Premier, Raymond Poincarà © ©, hopes to be able to fight the Young Plans at the planned conference at The Hague in August 1929. His position will be much stronger if the Mellon-Berenger Treaty has been ratified, and he throws all his efforts to get the bill passed by parliament. Another motive for ratification is that France's $ 400 million debt to the United States for ammunition gained after the ceasefire will mature on August 1, 1929. Although France can pay by withdrawing gold deposits from London, such a massive displacement would disrupt.
PoincarÃÆ' © seems to have used secret funds to bribe the press to support the agreement. All major newspapers, who until then oppose ratification, turned to provide their support in mid-July. Poincarà ©  ©, who was in poor health condition, gave a case for ratification to the Chamber of Deputies on July 16, 1926. The next day he was confined in bed on doctor's orders so that he could recover his strength for prostate surgery.
Ratification
French Chamber of Deputies narrowly ratified the 1926 treaty on 21 July 1929 after an overnight session, with a vote of 300 to 292. The room of the ratification of the Caillaux-Churchill treaty on French war debt to Britain. PoincarÃÆ' Â © can not attend the debate because of his health problems. The French Senate agreed on July 26, 1929.
In a statement on July 28, 1929, President Hoover spelled out the terms of the agreement, in which France would make a payment of $ 35 million in fiscal year 1930, with the amount to be paid over the next eleven years up to a maximum of $ 125 million per year. The current payment value is $ 1,680 million. This payment will be considered as the total write-off of the debt, which is approximately $ 4,230 million as of June 15, 1925. The US has refused to accept any relationship between payment and payment of French reparations payments. The US House of Representatives approved the agreement on 12 December 1929 and the Senate passed it on December 16, 1929. President Herbert Hoover signed the agreement on December 18, 1929.
In 1931 the French began to feel the effects of the Great Depression. In 1932, France was in serious financial trouble, and was forced to consider not paying off its due on December 15, 1932. In the end, most of the debt was never repaid.
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