Great Depression in France

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The Great Depression affected France from around 1931 onwards. As in the United Kingdom, France was recovering from World War I, trying without much success to recover the reparations from Germany. Unlike Britain, though, France had a more self-suffiecient economy. This led to the occupation of the Ruhr at the beginning of the 1920s, the failure of which led to the implementation of the Dawes Plan in August 1924 and the Young Plan in 1929. However, the depression had drastic effects on the local economy, partly explaining the February 6, 1934 riots and even more the formation of the Popular Front, led by SFIO socialist leader Léon Blum, who won the election in 1936.