France: A Case of Eurosclerosis?

In the aftermath of the Second World War until the late 1950s, France was perceived as politically unstable and economically fragile. This perception changed sharply in the early 1960s, however, when the effects of rapid economic growth on living standards became apparent and President de Gaulle consolidated the political structures introduced by the Fifth Republic. By the 1990s, France could justifiably claim to be the second most important economy in Western Europe: according to the OECD (Economic Survey of France 1995), only Germany had a bigger GDP and, in purchasing power parity terms, French citizens were the third most affluent in the European Union (see Maddison 1995, Table D-1a).1