ABSTRACT
Major state initiatives in the 1960s reshaped the expectations of key French social groups, like the farmers and shopkeepers, which allowed the roll out of productivist reforms such as land consolidation and a retail value-added tax. Further, savings were redirected away from financing deficits towards financing investment. The employers’ association was lured away from reactionary politics and towards support of modernisation through consolidation, international trade, loose state coordination, and active management of social security programmes. Militant trade unions were brought into an unacknowledged agreement with the state: they supported industrial restructuration since increases in productivity generated pay rises while jobs were seldom cut. (This was exemplified by the modernisation of the Paris metro.) State commitment to technological excellence – symbolised by breakthroughs in nuclear, aerospace, telecoms, and railway industries – helped the burgeoning economic narrative coalesce. ‘Depoliticising’ key issues, on behalf of technical committees and European law, helped generate support for new policies. All sectors (i.e., beyond manufacturing) were pressured to make productive adjustments by economy-wide measures that included a national training programme, adoption of accelerated banking, and, from 1968, the high, GDP-indexed minimum wage.
