In 1945, France was in ruins. Reconstructing the country posed a major logistical challenge, a situation compounded by elevated inflation and a public debt that reached 170% of gross domestic product. A formal framework was established for the country’s reconstruction through the creation on January 3, 1946, of the General Planning Commission. It defined a four-year plan aimed at modernizing the country and increasing its production capacity and productivity. The plan was funded above all by the Marshall Plan. France received 20% of the total. As the 1946 Monnet Plan was consistent with the objectives of the Marshall Plan, the entire envelope earmarked for France was used: 22% of the total went to Electricity of France, 13% to Coal Mining of France, and 11% to the national railway company SNCF. The aim of France’s four-year plan was to invent and build the France of tomorrow, not to rebuild the France of yesterday, destroyed by the war. At the end of the war, the French colonial empire was more than seven times the size of France and spanned five continents. The end of the Second World War marked the start of decolonization.