ABSTRACT
It should now be clear that during the post-war period the role of the state in France has been fundamental in regulating the market economy through the direct participation of the public sector in production activities, income distribution, control of monetary and financial flows, and so on. The typical model of French interventionism, somewhat grandly dubbed modèle d’économie mixte during the 1960s, was largely the result of various coalitions of post-war politicians -including right-wing leaders such as de Gaulle - with a considerable input from ‘technocrats’ and civil servants who had used the war period to define the broad lines of a new economic framework which would avoid a repetition of past crises and problems. However, this model was far from being a consensual one. After all, the various factions in the Resistance movement ranged from the Communists to the nationalist right, but the two years 1945-6 saw coalition governments create a new structure In which the state had a central role.
