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This article shorn that the French State, contrary to Great Britain and the US, has not interferred with the cost accounting methods used by private companies till 1936. As a matter of fact, the State started to get involved in these questions during the Front populaire with a view to controlling— though unseccesfully — the prices increases that firms implemented to offset the raising of salaries they had to grant through the Accords Matignon. The Vichy governement then developped and imposed cost accounting methods to private companies in order for them to justify their prices. Pechiney, belonging to a consortium and producer of a strategic metal, is a privileged spot from where to observe, between 1936 and 1945, the evolution of the States influence over cost accounting.