The Transformation of French Industrial Relations: Glorification of the Enterprise and Disaffection on the Streets

Abstract

This article examines the key debates and intellectual currents in French industrial relations in the past decade. The focus of attention has shifted from working conditions, relations between social groups, macro-social processes and conflict to the labour market, the company and social and technological innovation. Both economists and industrial sociologists now see the firm as the central object of their research, a change of focus which has required innovations in theory and in methodology. But dramatic events since 1995 show that the national level retains its importance.