France's Post-Crisis Model of Capitalism: Austerity, Industrial Renewal and the Financial Network Economy

This paper adds a comparative case to the emerging literature on the post-crisis, post-Brexit British model of capitalism by exploring French capitalist restructuring under President Hollande. Hollande was elected in 2012 on a pledge to guide France out of the Eurozone crisis and set it, and indeed the European Union, on a new progressive economic trajectory, including through a more active industrial policy and by delimiting the power of financial capitalism. This paper situates an in-depth evaluation of the political economy of the Hollande era (2012-17) in the context of debates about ‘post-crisis economic model’ models, considering to what extent the policies and reforms of the Hollande era resonate with the concept of post-dirigisme or show adaptation to a liberal market economy. In order to carry out the analysis, we trace the relative shift in focus from a recovery based around industrial revival to a finance-led growth model at the heart of Hollande’s economic programme in the context of the Brexit vote, wherein his Socialist administration sought to bolster Paris’ position as a European financial centre. The paper concludes by demonstrating how the post-dirigiste framework remains useful for understanding French capitalism post-crisis. Whilst Hollande came to power promising a new industrial age, in reality we have seen this strategy whither and, in its place, an enhanced role for financial capitalism in generating growth. It remains difficult, however, to see how French efforts to attract new financial activity from the City post-Brexit will cohere into a new phase of French capitalism.