单项选择题
More attention was paid to the quality of production in France at the time of Rene Coty. Charles Deschanel was then the financial minister.
French industrial and agricultural production was still not able to meet the immediate needs of the people. Essential imports had stretched the national credit to the breaking point. Rents were tightly controlled, but the extreme inflation affected general population most seriously through the cost of food. Food costs took as much as 80 percent of the workers’ income. Wages, it is true, had risen. Extensive family allowances and benefits were paid by the state, and there was full-time and overtime employment. These factors enabled the working class to exist but allowed them no sense of security. In this precarious (不稳定的) and discouraging situation, workmen were willing to work overseas for higher wages.
The government was reluctant to let workers leave the country. It was feared this migration of workers would reduce the labor force. The lack of qualified workers might hold back the improvement in the quality of industrial products produced. Qualified workers employed abroad would only increase the quantity of quality goods produced in foreign countries. Also the quantity of quality goods produced in France would not be able to increase as part of its strong labor force moved to other countries.
A. were extremely high
B. were tightly controlled
C. took as much as 80 percent of the workers’ income
D. had doubled in two years