ABSTRACT
French interlocking directorates have not received much attention until recently, and few studies exist that put them into a historical perspective. The prolific school of French business history has produced excellent monographs, but few syntheses, and of these, few based on quantitative evidence. However, French capitalism has been thoroughly discussed in the business history and varieties of capitalism literatures. More generally, as in political history, it is often presented as the archetype of statism—beginning either with Louis XIV, Napoleon or the post-World War II governments. This focus on the role of the state in the economy often leads to the exclusion of France from other typologies of capitalism, especially in studies contrasting Anglo-Saxon and Rhineland varieties (Hall and Soskice 2001). French capitalism, revolving as it does around the state and family-led business groups (groupes), and perhaps lacking real big business in most sectors or real entrepreneurs (Landes 1949), is presumed not to have structures of its own. Its shape is seen solely as the product of external forces, those of politics and/or relationships between elite families.
