ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the conditions which led to the evolution of the technocratic and administrative elites which retain considerable influence over the direction of the French economy and exercise a direct decision-making control over large sectors of French industry. For much of the postwar period, the over-riding political concern in France has been to ensure its independence in the modern world and so, according to some observers, to establish French power and prestige abroad. When Charles de Gaulle became president for the second time in 1958, he embarked on a programme of correcting the political and economic weaknesses which had dogged the Fourth Republic, established after the liberation of France at the end of the Second World War. The Industrial Environmental Service is ultimately responsible for administering the system of industrial licensing. The relationships between industry, policy-makers and regulators are complex, but they provide the key to understanding the scope of French environmental policy and the role of innovation.
