National defence and the chemicals industry have a number of characteristics in common. Both are an integral part of the ‘social contract’, even if neither one can claim to be popular, because they both demand a constant effort, taking risks and planning ahead. In today’s consumer-oriented society, with the focus on short-term gains and welfare services in various forms, these values are no longer in fashion. However, the benefits they bring–peace and easy access to essential products–are so obvious that no one stops to think any more where they come from, while everyone rushes to criticise the inherent constraints.

The State has therefore assumed a pivotal role in the promotion and management of the chemicals industry in France. It is not by chance that the history of the chemicals industry in our country is largely intertwined with that of explosives and a monopoly on their production, obviously reserved for the Sovereign. Virtually all of the great chemists in French history have been military engineers or ‘powder-makers’, from Lavoisier to Berthelot, and including Chaptal, Monge, Dupont de Nemours and Gay-Lussac, plus more recently Paul Vieille and Paul Sabatier. This, in a nutshell, is why SNPE (originally Société Nationale des Poudres et Explosifs, now formally known as Groupe SNPE), the direct descendent of the state monopoly on gunpowder, can trace its lineage back to 1336, when Philippe VI de Valois first created the official monopoly.

Until the nineteenth century, the primary mission of the French chemicals industry was to develop and produce substances that could store energy and instantaneously release it as part of weapon systems that were the exclusive domain of the Sovereign. Given the state monopoly, this so-called ‘strategic chemicals industry’ was both the expression of sovereignty and its instrument, starting with the monarchy and then continuing with the nation and the republic. This state monopoly, exercised through the ‘Service des Poudres’ (gunpowder department) of the Ministry of War and its associated arsenals, underwent almost no organisational changes all the way up to the Fifth Republic. It was only with the new rules and regulations on open competition imposed by the Treaty of Rome that Michel Debré [Prime Minister under De Gaulle] converted the Service des Poudres into a state-owned company. He also called into question the State’s exclusive grip on explosives, at least partially, by limiting the monopoly to military products. At the same time, however, a move was also under way to foster the convergence of two far-reaching projects: the construction of Europe, including the ambitious aim of making the Old Continent a major player in space exploration; and giving France an independent nuclear deterrent capability. These objectives were at the heart of the scientific and technical success of SNPE, founded in 1971 as the worthy successor to the Service des Poudres and its state monopoly.