ABSTRACT
The use of export promotion instruments reveals its foreign policy dimension most clearly in relations with developing countries, in respect of which France has always explicitly stressed the political and security aspects of its foreign economic policy. Government and business interests would thus appear to be in broad agreement again, meaning that France provides perhaps the best example of how microeconomic instruments of export promotion can be used to combine perceived political and economic interests. In near accordance with the organisation of the internal political system, the orientation and main features of the export support system in France are comparatively highly centralised. The guiding principle of the French system of export promotion has often been described as liberalisme organise, reflecting the conviction among decision-makers that there is a definite need to closely organise the expansion of trade and, more generally, that interventionist economic policies are legitimate.
