L'entente et le marché : le cartel des peigneurs de laine de Roubaix-Tourcoing (1881-1914)

Since Albert Aftalion's works, it is widely thought that in the French textile industry, family-owned companies'individualism and the wide range of productions have hindered the emergence of combines. The latter are said to have been, at most, loosely organised as short-lived, powerless cartels, whose aim was to preserve conditions of competition. These statements overlook the constant tendencies of the North's family groups to cooperate. They are proved wrong with the example of the Wool Combers'Union. Recreated in 1881 as a "mutual help association" between the wool combers of the North of France, it turned into a joint-venture company in 1895 that concerned only Roubaix-Croix-Tourcoing. Inflation and the growing complexity of its rules, its increasing versatility, are evidence of the increasing quest for solidarity between its members. It claimed to aim at restoring "good competition" and at protecting competitors, to legitimate itself, but these ideas were nothing but an alibi of its function of concentration of the wool combing industry. First, because it organized the destruction of mills, and even made disappear some of its members. And also because it was nothing but a fool's game that mostly benefited its most powerful members.