ABSTRACT
The account of indicative planning in France given in this chapter has deliberately been kept brief, and concentrates on the most important developments in the techniques and practices of planning which have been introduced in the Fourth and Fifth Plans. The First Plan illustrates the very pragmatic origins of French planning. The objectives of the Second Plan followed fairly logically from the strategy adopted in the First. The Third Plan was the first attempt at a thoroughly integrated and coherent national programme. The Fourth Plan occurred against a background of resurgent interest in planning, and introduced several important innovations in the methods of preparation and implementation of the Plan. The Fifth Plan was a broadly similar exercise to the Fourth Plan, but there were important changes. In August 1962 the Government asked the Commissariat du Plan to prepare a preliminary report on the general orientation of the economy on the basis of an esquisse centrale.
