The National institute of the statistics and the economic studies is since 1946, the organization of French State in charge of the national statistics. But, INSEE was preceded by several organizations by production by public Statistiques.

Genesis of the French statistics

Alexandre Moreau of Jones is regarded as the father of the French statistics. Starting from 1828, it is affected with the ministry for the Trade, where it deals with the statistics, and it is charged starting from 1833, by Adolphe Thiers to compile, within the ministry for the Interior, the whole of the French statistics, under the denomination of general Statistique of the kingdom.

During these years, he was the initiator of the Statistique of the agriculture of France, the general Statistique of France and of the Statistique of the industry of France.

General Statistics of France

Starting from 1840, its service becomes the Office of the general Statistique of France (SGF) until in 1940. Attached to the ministry for Agriculture and the Trade and Alexandre Moreau of Jones until in 1851 will be the director. Its services produce during its administration a monumental publication in 13 volumes and its action contributes to develop in France statistical work and their uses.

Under the impulse of Lucien March, director of 1896 with 1920, the SGF diversifies his activity: first investigation of consumption in 1907, beginning of the periodic investigations into the retail prices in 1911, quinquennial demographic census into classi-meters developped at the point by Lucien March. A contest of elevated level is founded for the recruitment of the SGF, that Alfred Sauvy succeeds in 1920.

In 1937, the SGF still has few means, it employs 126 people, regional delegations included/understood, which is weak especially if one compares it with in Germany, the statistical Office of Reich which employs more than 2.400 collaborators. The SGF has a library of 60  000 works but does not have a Bibliothécaire by lack of means financial. Alfred Sauvy evokes then a handicraft establishment (...) a curious mixture of archaism and high productivity . This year there, the statisticians establish the various indices of the economic situation, write three publications (weekly magazine, monthly and quarterly) and a statistical directory.

Cost of living index

The SGF measures the index of the “expensive life”, term popularized by the newspapers of time whereas the prices more than had doubled Durand the Great War. This term was taken again in 1936 in the program of the Popular front of which one of its objectives is to fight against this “expensive life”. This index of price, rather rudimentary, related on 13 articles of 1916 to 1930 and to 34 articles afterwards. It is calculated according to the budget of a working-class family of four people: the food accounted for 60% of its consumption then, clothing 15%, the heating 5%, the expenditure of leisures and health 10% including 2% for only the Savon. However, the statements made by the employees of the SGF relate to only Paris, whereas for the cities of more than ten thousand inhabitants, in fact the municipalities are charged to make the statements of price and to communicate them to the SGF.

In 1920, the government decides to the installation of an about sixty commissions local of the “cost of living”, made up representatives of employers, the deputy trade-union ones and civils servant in charge of the calculation of this cost of living. Each commission is free in the organization of its work: composition and weighting of its index and recovery of the data. In 1930, noting a certain level of imagination in the indices, central Commission of the cost of living which chapeaute all the other local commissions decides that each local commission will have from now on to respect a standard budget, whose weighting is that used for the calculation of the national index composed of the 34 articles. In the Years 1930, the SGF sets up two new complementary indices:

• the index of the retail prices of the manufactured objects - from now on are followed 27 articles of households and 17 articles for clothing and the linen room;
• and, the price index from those raised in the catalog of the Manufacture of the weapons and cycles of Saint-Etienne.

Index of the incomes

Starting from 1924, the SGF deals each year with the question of the incomes. Previously, existed a decennial investigation but the quick change of the prices imposes a more constant rate/rhythm. In front of the vastness of the task, the SGF calculates only one “index of the working wages evaluated roughly starting from the rate most frequently applied in each profession”. The data are collected near the town halls, of the courts of arbitration and the Ministry of Labor. About fifty profession is followed in the index, among them: cartwright, lacemaker, blacksmith, giletière, ironer, tailor of clothes…

In January 1939, the Re-examined political economy written: One does not have indices of the purchasing power of the whole of the population. (...) They are indices (of the 13 and 34 articles) that it would seem natural to bring closer to the amount of the incomes, but the question of knowing up to what point they can be wide with all the social classes is delicate to solve . The review then refers to the incomes of the shareholders, carrying transferable securities and owners of real goods, and with that of the liberal professions, whereas the cost of living index is only confronted with that of the working wages.

National service of the statistics

Rene Carmille, pioneer of the use of the calculators, obtains in 1940, the creation of the “Service of the demography”, which, under cover of a fastening to the ministry for Finances, replaced the offices of military recruitment prohibited by the Armistice. To perfect the camouflage, the Service of Demography absorbed on October 11th, 1941, the SGF and the unit took the name of National service of the statistics (SNS).

Six new workshops were created in Northern zone, thus setting up future Regional managements of INSEE. Rene Carmille created a school of application of the SNS (ancestor of current ENSAE), where the members of two bodies lately created are trained: attaches and the administrators.

The National institute of the statistics and the economic studies

In 1946, it is replaced by the National institute of the statistics and the economic studies. It is the finance law of the April 27th 1946 which creates the National institute of the statistics and the economic studies for the metropolis and France of overseas .

The first director is Francis-Louis Closon (1910-1998). Among its other directors:

• Claude Gruson 1961 - 1967
• Jean Ripert 1967 - 1974
• Edmond Malinvaud 1974 - 1987
• Jean-Claude Milleron 1987 - 1992
• Paul Champsaur 1992 - 2003
• Jean-Michel Charpin 2003

INSEE quickly will square the French economy with great reinforcement of investigations near the households and the companies, of censuses and creation of indices of economic situation. It will become a major actor of the policy of the country, at the point to institute a true capacity of the “magistrature of the figure” and to cause from now on in the politicians and controlling them, a mysticity of its various indices, so much so that temptation will be from now on always present to follow a policy of the indices rather than a true economic policy. It was the case in 1956 and 1963, when the policies of tax reduction and subsidy, had of another goal only cause a drop in an index considered to be then too high.

In 1986, the price index is composed of 295 stations recovering 1  000 articles: the food did not represent any more that 25,1% of the expenditure, the heating, lighting and clothing are found among the manufactured goods which account for 45% of consumption. Purchases of services, whose health expenditure and rent, account for 29,4%.