ABSTRACT
This chapter offers some reflections on the 'exceptionalism' of French society and culture. It focuses on the experience of working within a cross-national consortium to develop a socio-economic classification for use by academics and national statistical offices. The chapter describes the nature and aims of the project, and discusses a number of disagreements within the consortium about the approach taken and its applicability to a French context. It examines the disputes and their roots in differences of language, methodology and history. Between 2004 and 2006, a research project to deliver a prototype of a harmonized European Socio-economic Classification (ESeC) was undertaken by a consortium of several academic institutions and two National Statistical Institutes: the United Kingdom Office for National Statistics and the French National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies. The chapter explains the main principles of the ESeC and what is at stake in the measurement of class more generally.
