Caso de estudio: “Gran Hotel” de Camagüey

Unlike the UK’s liberal market economy, France has been historically characterised as possessing a distinctly statist or dirigiste40 _{political economic model (see Shonfield 1969;}

Hayward 1983; Zysman 1983; Hall 1986; Levy 1994). This model relied upon three key interconnected economic levers, the use of which went beyond what was commonly found elsewhere in Western Europe at the time: significant controls over prices and finance for industry; a network of supervision and close connections between public officials and industry leaders; and, a programme of active economic and industrial planning and interventionism (see Clift 2008: 391; Hall 2006: 5).41

Mitterrand came to power in May 1981 as the first Socialist President of the Fifth Republic on ‘a pledge to take dirigisme to new heights’ (Levy 2008: 421), after famously calling for a ‘rupture … with capitalist society’ at the PS’s 1971 Congrès d'Épinay.42 _His

Programme commun consisted of greater redistribution, boosting social benefits, pensions and wages, as well as a large nationalisation programme, which by 1982 had led to 13 of the largest 20 French corporations being under state control (see Lordon 1998: 96-7; Sassoon

40_{Dirigisme is rooted, as Clift (2008: 391) notes, in ‘state traditions and policy practices of directive}

interventionism in the economy’ that can be traced back to the policies of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, minister under Louis XIV between 1661 and 1683, and the post-Revolution Jacobin and Republican ideal of France’s ‘one and indivisible Republic’. The étatiste politicaltradition in France posits the state as a cohesive unit largely separate from society, with not only a strong ability to act and implement policy but to do so according to a volonté générale, or public interest (Hall 1986: 164-65).

41 _{Whilst each of these aspects are found across a range of other developed economies in the post-War era, the}

French dirigiste state was marked out by the high degree of their utilisation and the nature of state-led

coordination of such activities. These capacities were, moreover, complimented by the institutions of the École nationale d'administration (ENA), an elite civil service school, and a national planning system for industrial renewal (Le Commissariat général du Plan, or CGP), which ‘imbued French bureaucrats with the willingness to use those capacities’ (Hall 1986: 140).

53

1996: 536-7; Bell and Criddle 1988: Chapter 8). In the absence of an upturn in global growth, however, the French government experienced a significant balance of payments crisis and growing pressure on the franc, rendering the Mitterrand programme incompatible with continued membership of the European Monetary System (EMS).

Leaving the EMS would have been ‘a symbolic repudiation of European integration’ (Hall 2006: 6). Mitterrand, a committed European, took the decision to remain and thus ‘reorient French economic policy in order to strengthen the franc by fighting inflation’ (Hancké 2001: 315). Mitterrand’s U-turn in 1983 saw unemployment and inequality replaced as the government’s chief goals with ‘monetary stabilization, the diminution of the budget deficit, and productivity growth rather than wage rises’ (Sassoon 1996: 561). This involved the pursuit of ‘competitive disinflation’, that is stabilisation of the franc through wage restraint (via inflation targets on wage negotiations), emulation of a German-style hard currency environment, and public deficit reduction (see Lordon 1998 for an overview; Bell and Criddle 1988: 160-2).43 _{This policy programme was followed up with a series of}

privatisations and other liberalising measures which contributed to the transformation of the French model over the course of the following three decades, including France’s own financial market ‘mini Big Bang’ in 1986 (Cerny 1989). From this point on, Mitterrand, and indeed subsequent Socialist party leaders and administrations, looked to the nascent union forming in Europe as a ‘vehicle for affirming French national interests’ and a new arena in which to recreate the Keynesian social democratic economic activism that had seemingly been displaced at the domestic level (Ross 1996: 40; Clift 2003: 174-75; see also Clift 2005a: 135).

Manifestly, the French state does not operate with anything like the control over the economy it once used to and Mitterrand’s U-turn reflects, to some extent, the constraints under which all social democratic governments operate today (see Hall 1986: 225; Lordon 1998: 101). The U-turn was, and remains, a symbolic moment in the political economy of France and also European social democracy in this regard. Yet, it remains important to recognise the political aspects of the U-turn; as Clift (2003: 173) notes, it must be seen in the context of an emerging neoliberal ‘deconstructive project’ which ‘sought to explain problems

43 _{Mitterrand’s attempts to ‘import’ both Germany’s anti-inflationary credibility and its ordo-liberal norms of}

sound money, wage restraint and budget discipline presented ‘a fundamental departure from the traditional French model’ (Clift 2003: 182; Clift 2004: 94).

54

facing the French model in terms of a neoliberal analytical and prescriptive framework whose a priori superiority was asserted over both Keynesian and dirigiste paradigms.’ Levy (2008: 422) further reminds us both that ‘Mitterrand was not compelled to remain within the EMS; he chose to do so’, and that his austerity policies through the 1980s went well beyond what was necessary to defend the franc and maintain good standing within the EMS (Levy 2008: 422). Mitterrand’s adaptation to the neoliberal paradigm must also be understood in relation to his desire to promote European integration, which ‘rapidly appeared as a guideline for a new global political project to be substituted for the Programme commun of 1981’ (Lordon 1998: 101; see Clift 2005a: 126).

The nature of the change within France’s political economy has also somewhat divided the literature. Aspects of the ‘varieties of capitalism’ (VoC) literature argue that ‘French exceptionalism’ has all but eroded (see Hall 2006; Culpepper 2006), whilst others designate France a ‘mixed market economy’ (MME) between the two ‘pure’ LME/CME models (Hall and Soskice 2001; Hancké et al. 2008; Molina and Rhodes 2008). For some, France is still better characterised as possessing a third kind of ‘state capitalism’ (Schmidt 2003), whilst others apply the concept of ‘post-dirigisme’ to best explain the contemporary nature of France’s political economy (see Levy 1999; 2017; Clift 2012; 2016; Schmidt 2003; McDaniel and Clift 2018). Whilst recognising the constraining influence of economic globalisation and European integration, the concept of post-dirigisme highlights the continued relevance of some dirigiste norms and institutions in shaping French capitalism. For instance, even today French state actors continue to be ‘less focused on the level playing field’ and ‘more open to state intervention to promote such market dominance’ than their British and Germans neighbours (Schmidt 2016: 623). As we shall see, this post-dirigiste legacy continues to play an influence in shaping the ambitions (or at least the public discourse) of French Socialist Party actors.

Post-dirigisme also stresses the influence of French conceptions of the market and the state being embedded ‘within a social context characterised by the interpenetration of public and private elitist networks … which remains substantially intact’ (Clift 2012: 565). France’s system of grandes écoles and the École nationale d'administration (ENA), in particular, has served since 1945 to supply the French state with a well-trained, yet rather homogenous, set of technocratic administrators equipped ‘with the skills and attitudes appropriate to the task

55

of directing the French economy’ (Hall 1986: 140; see Cole 2017: 113).44 _{ENA’s graduates,}

les énarques, have historically played a central role in shaping the Fifth Republic and their influence continues to be profound within the top echelons of the French state, including within Hollande’s Socialist administration (see Elgie and Grossman 2016: 186; Cole 2017: 116). The ideational and institutional legacies of dirigisme and étatisme, therefore, continue to play a role in shaping the behaviour of political actors such as the PS in the post-crisis era.