ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how Occupational Exposure Limits (OELs) were adopted in France with difficulty and opposition, due to the country's specific approach to occupational health policies. The state's minimal involvement in determining OELs reflects the typical approach to policymaking on occupational health in France: lack of publicity, soft regulation, pragmatism and reliance on the social partners. By redefining the setting of OELs as a scientific issue, the French Ministry of Labour hoped to strengthen its control over the process. OELs, used in many countries to manage certain occupational risks, highlight the contradictions running through all occupational health policies, for while they are supposed to protect workers from risks of exposure to certain toxins, they also have to avoid subjecting industry to excessive constraints. For the government administration, the separation between identifying scientific risks and managing them was a way of breaking away from industrial actors, primarily by acquiring its own sources of expertise.
