ABSTRACT
The French industrial export product was characteristically standard, medium-level technology. Before the 1960s its markets were found in less-developed countries. The French economy at the beginning of 1981 was clearly in trouble, with unemployment running at 1.7 million. The decision made in March 1983 was more important even than the decision for rigueur in 1982 because it was a final recognition by Francois Mitterrand that socialism in one Common Market country was impossible. One of the goals of the Right's privatization in 1986 was the creation of "peoples capitalism", explicitly copied from Margaret Thatcher's Britain, with the idea that a nation of shareholders would be a nation supporting business, not socialism. One of the surprises in Socialist economic management was modernization of French financial institutions. In 1983 a second stock market for new companies appeared, and in 1985 a financial futures market, innovations one might have expected from conservatives.
