Résumé
The Source Perrier, the leading company of the French mineral water industry, is a company created at the beginning of the century with British capital. The firm kept always very discreet about the time of the Second World War. On the whole, between 1941 and 1944, sales to the German army represented 40% of the turnover. What was the real impact of the state-controlled economic apparatus of the Vichy regime? What were the results of the German supervision of French administration? What were the dimensions of the ruptures generated by the war as well in the economic field as in that of the working conditions and the social relations? The war isolated the firm from its traditional markets (British dominions, USA, French colonial Empire). The system of the state-controlled economy did not put a strong pressure on Perrier, but the scarcity for all the supplies (bottles, electrical energy, transports etc.) was dramatic. The offers made by the Kriegsmarie allowed to solve a lot of these problems and to insure the surviving of the firm, whose capital was transferred to the United States at the beginning of the conflict in order to disguise its British origin. The history of commercial and industrial strategies cannot be disassociated from the working community. The management of the factory took care of the workers in a completely new form, within the framework of the Charte du Travail of the regime of Vichy. The attribution of many benefit schemes facilitate largely the life of the factory workers. The very limited profits realized during the conflict, the caring attitude of the management towards the staff, and the status as an English-American company limited the impact of the economic purge after the Libération. Abstract printed by permission of the publisher