SNCAN

The company had been formed as one of six state-owned Société Nationales in the 1936 reorganization of military industries, and was created by the nationalization of several aircraft factories in the north of France.

This led to the formation of six nationalized aircraft manufacturing companies, organized regionally: SNCAN (in the north), SNCAO (west), SNCAM (Le Midi), SNCAC (centre), SNCASO (the south-west), and SNCASE (south-east).

[1] SNCAN was a merger of the Potez factory at Méaulte in Picardy, CAMS in Sartrouville, ANF Les Mureaux in the Ile-de-France, Amiot/SECM Caudebec-en-Caux, and Breguet Le Havre in Normandy.

[2] In the run-up to the Second World War, SNCAN continued to build aircraft to established designs of the original makers.

In 1949 the SNCAC group was dissolved and several of its assets were absorbed by SNCAN; however a further period of rationalization saw SNCAN merge with SFECMAS, the recently-privatized French government Air Arsenal, and renamed “Nord Aviation”, Later, in 1970, Nord merged with Sud Aviation to form Aerospatiale, the French government's primary aircraft manufacturer.