The Economic Legacy of the French Mandate in Lebanon

The paper examines public budgets (tax revenues and expenditure patterns) in Lebanon and the four Syrian states that were created during the French Mandate (1920-1943). To do so, we reconstruct fiscal accounts through the annual reports to the Permanent Mandates Commission that the French authorities were required to publish. We then focus on the educational policies and achievement of the French Mandate in Lebanon. Our empirical work reveals clearly (i) how the French authorities used funds raised through local taxes to finance the French military and its security apparatus rather than infrastructure and social services; (ii) that education and health were made the prerogatives of private and missionary endeavors; and (iii) that a consequence of this laissez-faire policy was a private educational system tilted towards the education of Christians with a startlingly underserved Muslim population. We also compare these budgets with other French colonies in Africa and Asia. This sheds additional light on the rudimentary developmental effort that characterized French rule. What transpires is that compared to the North African colonies, the Mandate's economy in Lebanon was over-taxed, but that a smaller part of these revenues was spent on development. It is precisely this lack of strong public foundations of the state that put Lebanon on a path of privatization of essential social services.