[T]here was a fashion in France but also I think elsewhere to say that industry was finished and now it was services…I’ve always been against it, I was so angry…If there is no more industry, there is no more research. It’s clear. And if there is no more research, its the end. So industry is not simply smoky factories. The industry of the future is robotics, its fab labs [fabrication laboratories]…I have always pushed for research that had industrial applications.
Édith Cresson, Historical Archives of the European Union, interview, 6 May 2006, INT989, pp. 28-29
Édith Cresson served as Socialist Prime Minister of France (1991-1992); & later as European Commissioner for Science (1995-1999). As far as I am aware, Cresson pursued high-tech industrial policy as Prime Minister, notably, the attempted merger of Thomson & CEA-I. She also seems to have taken a pragmatic interest in privatization; and, indeed, later articulated libéralisme de gauche (c.f. UK’s Blairism) in relation to science and industry.
One should take note in this regard of her 1998 book with an austere name, Innover ou Subir; and her involvement in a now long-forgotten EU report, La Société, Ultime Frontière, or Society, The endless frontier (official English title obviously evoking the American report of 1945, Science, the endless frontier).
As such, I have a feeling Cresson stands across shifts in the way science and industry were seen in relation to the state in Europe through the 1990s, and indeed, may well be a crucial figure in these shifts. Astonishing levels of misogyny were directed against her & have thus far prevented objective appraisal of her record. These must be peeled away.
Born 1934 as Édith Campion, in the Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt, Cresson graduated from HEC (business school) with a PhD entitled La vie des femmes d’agriculteurs et d’ouvriers dans le canton rural de Guémené-Penfao (Loire-Atlantique). Joining the Socialist Party in 1971, she was elected to public office for the first time in 1977; later, she successfully held many senior government positions including prime minister (I greatly profited from a biographical article: Morazzani, 2019, Women Leaders in European Foreign Policy: Édith Cresson).
In France, we are so convinced that we are better than the others, that if we have a very fine product or a very good idea, the others must accept it. [But] we don’t think that the other person might have something else in their head. Napoléon said: “What does the enemy want?”…the French never concern themselves enough with that. They believe it is enough to have a good idea, a fine product, a sound concept and everyone will find it marvelous and applaud. Things don’t happen like that.
Édith Cresson, Historical Archives of the European Union, interview, 6 May 2006, INT989, p. 11
My aim here is to gather my notes on Cresson’s agenda in relation to science & industry *from 1991 onwards*. This is just stuff I have gathered over the years, not a systematic analysis, or anything that can be taken too seriously. Basically, just trying to work out things like what was her vision? What can we learn from it today?
Industrial policy as French Prime Minister (1991-1992)
Today we don’t even know what we want to do in nuclear power or electronics. We also don’t know what we expect of the public enterprises; we concern ourselves with them every three years at the time of the appointment of the CEO. No control. No directives….This is not a question of nitpicking interventionism [dirigisime tatillon], but rather of assuming one’s responsibilities as shareholder, just like any shareholder [which means] not only to pay, but to get involved, to understand the strategy, to discuss this strategy, and to come up with conclusions.’
Cresson, cited in Schmidt, 1996, From State to Market?: the Transformation of French Business and Government, p. 185
The above some very sensible sentiments, addressing as far as I can understand the age-old question of what state-owned firms ought to stand for in an otherwise capitalist society. While serving as French Prime Minister, Cresson seems to have searched for answers to this and related questions, as she pursued a high-tech industrial policy focused on electronics.
Her rhetoric, reflecting as it did policy and business consensus in France, was that industrial policy had to be pursued at a European (rather than national) level, i.e., that the continent ‘dared not depend on other countries to supply products essential to its technological future or defense’ (Schmidt, op. cit., p. 172).
Cresson’s industrial policy apparently centered on the merger of the high-tech firms Thomson & CEA Industrie (CEA-I), with the goal of creating a kind of ‘Toshiba français’. (She also undertook partial privatizations of some French firms, notably in the oil and gas industry – Elf & Total.) The high-tech merger would, according to Pomian (1992), lead in subsequent steps to the restructuring of France’s electronics, IT, and telecommunications sectors, e.g., Bull, France Telecom, etc. – in Pomian’s terms, the ‘sea serpent’ of French industrial policy. As is of course well known, policy execution was cut short by Cresson’s firing from the Matignon after the regional elections.
[Cresson’s] operation to merge Thomson-CEA-I had, at least in the speeches of its promoters, the appearances of un grand projet, although journalists did not hesitate to speak, from the start, of an industrial ‘Meccano set’…[But electronic] components remain much more abstract than an airplane or a telephone. The airplane lets one dream, and everyone needs a telephone. It is very difficult to explain to the general public why France must have its own [electronic] component industry when the French have become accustomed to buying Japanese electronics, considered to be the most reliable and the best.
Pomian, 1992, La dernière éclipse du volontarisme industriel: la fusion Thomson-CEA Industrie, in: Quaderni
Actions as European Commissioner for Science (1995-1999)
In the European Commission’s famous Growth, competitiveness, employment White Paper [1993]…it diagnosed ‘comparatively limited capacity to transform scientific breakthroughs and technological achievements into industrial and commercial successes’, and proposed to remedy this by building a ‘European research and technological development space’ on the foundations of the internal market. This project took shape under the aegis of Commissioner Édith Cresson…in a context where the ‘knowledge economy’ paradigm made ever stronger links between scientific, educational and industrial policies. The aim was to encourage national governments to stimulate knowledge production through research, its dissemination through education, as well as its economic impact through innovation. Henceforth, research, education and innovation inseparably defined the ‘knowledge triangle’.
Bruno, 2013, Éditorial: Ne cherchez plus, innovez! in: Revue Française de Socio-Économie
Cresson’s oversight as European Commissioner stretched across Science, Research and Development (DG XII), the Joint Research Centre, and Human Resources, Education, Training and Youth (DG XXII). The above quotation from Bruno supplies an overall strategic rationale for Cresson’s actions in Brussels; noting in particular the key guiding influence of the white paper published two years before Cresson entered the Commission.
All this being said synoptically, I feel it would be useful to know more of the detail on Cresson’s intellectual approach across what was a substantial portfolio. Regrettably, quick searches in French & English of Google Books, Google Scholar, & the relevant online archive databases (EUI, University of Pittsburgh) turned up little *online* material (see table below for what I found). I live in hope there is wonderful resource already out there that I have not seen (or will be soon).
Cresson’s apparent interest in intelligence économique (IE), and its connection to the activities described below (some of which all fall within that category), is of unknown significance. For example, the Green Paper cited in the table beneath makes explicit reference to IE (and related topics). It also references the European Commission’s Institute for Prospective Technological Studies in Seville, giving it a remit to support decision-making on new technology and its potential impact on employment (p. 22).
The corollary of the overall approach to innovation adopted throughout this Green Paper is “economic intelligence” as a strategic tool for decision-making against a background of globalized trade and the emergence of the information society. Economic intelligence can be defined as the coordinated research, processing and distribution for exploitation purposes of information useful to economic operators…Japan has quite deliberately made information management one of its strategic advantages. The United States is working on coordinating the exploitation and protection of their information potential via joint government/industry initiatives… Europe as a whole is still a long way behind its main rivals.
Green Paper on Innovation COM (95) 688, p. 19
IE, while of course meaning literally what it says, seems to have meant more in the French policy discourse (& the European Green Paper), i.e., that France (& Europe) lacked it, as compared to alleged competitors. According to Monino & Sedkaoui (2016; p. 97), Cresson was the leading figure in French politics to call for IE to be applied in France and, during her tenure as prime minister, commissioned a report on it (rapport Martre; 1994).
| Intervention | Details | Source |
| Projet MEGA | Launched 1995; completed 1997; work leading to publication of Innover ou Subir (1998). Goal was to underline importance of ‘all-round innovation in a rapidly changing world’. For Cresson, solutions lay with her concept of ‘left-wing liberalism’ | No further details available online, as far as I can tell, except this brief description: FL.03-06.02 |
| Society, The endless frontier | Subtitled ‘a European vision of research and innovation policies for the 21st century’. Apparently written at Cresson’s request by Commission economists; argued that research policies had passed through a political (1950-1975), economic (1975-1995), and now ‘socioeconomic’ (post-1995) phase. Having not read the full report, I have no idea how this periodization had been arrived at. | Introductory pages only available online |
| Innover ou Subir | In this book, published 1998, Cresson argued that the world was in flux and therefore Europe must innovate at all costs. She made various proposals she believed would ensure no one was left behind in this ‘new planetary big bang.’ I have yet to buy (and read) the book. | Contents page only available online; second-hand copies of the book available to buy at modest price |
| Research-Industry Task Forces (1995) | Task Forces, working in conjunction with Commissioner Bangemann, ‘to develop projects of common industrial interest’. Topics: (1) multimedia educational software; (2) the car of the future; (3) the new generation of aeroplanes; (4) vaccines and virus-based diseases; (5) the train of the future; (6) transport intermodality. Other task forces were apparently due to be established on ‘topics such as clean technologies and the applications of the information society’. It seems like these were all prescient topics but I do not know what became of them. | CORDIS; Press Release, 10 March 1995 |
| Green Paper on Innovation COM (95) 688 | Makes argument that innovation is in ‘a straight jacket’ & that research has to be oriented to innovation. ‘Traditional Europe is suspicious and its enterprises tend to shy away from risk. Innovators are seen as a nuisance…The main handicaps and obstacles are those affecting the coordination of efforts, human resources, private or public financing and the legal and regulatory environment.’ (p. 24) | Report online in full – click link in left column |
| White Paper on Teaching & Learning | Various proposals to prepare the public for the proposed knowledge society: (1) acquisition of new skills; (2) bring schools and business sector ‘closer together’; (3) combat exclusion, e.g. ‘second-chance schools’; (4) encourage proficiency in 3 European languages; (5) equal treatment for material investment and investment in training. | Report online in full – click link in left column |
Career after resigning from the European Commission
I have not followed Cresson’s career subsequent to the Commission, but I found out she launched the Écoles de la 2e chance (E2C) initiative (noting the identical terminology in the 1995 Green Paper cited above).
An innovative system: the 2nd Chance Schools. My vision is that the 2nd Chance Schools give young people who have left the education system with neither diploma nor qualification the skills necessary for social inclusion, stable employment, & engaged citizenship [intégration sociale, professionnelle et citoyenne]
Cresson, undated, Le mot de la présidente
Conclusion
How to appraise Cresson’s record in terms of science & industrial policy? I simply lack the knowledge and understanding to draw conclusions, but at this juncture the following struck me as interesting lines of inquiry (the latter three relate, I think, to how her agenda impacts the wider picture of change)
- Misogyny
The first, and most obvious strand, is the extraordinary misogyny directed at Cresson. It is therefore fair to say that astonishing misogyny clouded appraisal of Cresson’s record (having myself read a good number of both French & English language articles about her – the salient feature is the misogyny). Even the infantilizing language about Meccano sets, cited above, seems suspect in this regard – & as Cresson herself noted, misogynists (les machos) could not tolerate an intelligent woman, let alone one in charge.
2. Relationship of policies to long-standing struggle with high-tech industrial policy, at the nexus of IT, electronics, and telecom.
I wonder if it is relevant here to note previous French (and, indeed, European) concerns about ‘falling behind’ in electronics & IT? These had led to R&D-focused investments such as Esprit (European Communities), Minitel (FR), and Alvey (UK) in the 1980s; not to mention France’s famous Cyclades scheme in the 1970s (co-developed with the American Arpanet). We could even go back to Plan Calcul (1966-1975); or the UK’s creation of International Computers Ltd (ICL) in 1968 as a national champion, under Tony Benn.
None of the above investments had created a European champion in electronics but perhaps reflect a long-running fixation on national (& European) champions. While these various projects are still in need of proper appraisal, they might possibly have reinforced the age-old saw that Europe was OK at state-backed R&D but not good at cashing in on it because it seemed to lack the big, market-dominating, firm to do so.
Accordingly, merger, or lack thereof, of companies such as Thomson, Bull, and the like, had been a French government bugbear since the 1970s. France, and perhaps Europe, had been in a continuous search for an industrial policy in this high-tech field for decades (& the rhetoric remains remarkably similar today).
3. Economic intelligence and relationship to rational action by the state.
Cresson seems to have had an interest in intelligence economique as a means to inform state action. This is reflected in the comments made by Monino & Sedkaoui regarding her commissioning of the rapport Martre while prime minister; and the later references to the idea in the European Commission’s 1995 Green Paper. I think this story would benefit from knowledge of how the French government related to information; I look for a French version of Thomas’ 2015 book Rational Action (which covers the American and British cases).
4. Role in intellectual agenda of that intriguing and influential group on the French left, which also included Delors, Lamy, Strauss-Kahn (?), etc., associated with the first (early 1980s) Mitterrand government. Subsequent to the failure of the national approaches taken in that government, quest for European solutions.
DSK served under Cresson as a minister; The 1993 European Commission White Paper noted above prepared under the Delors Commission and later implemented when Cresson took over as Commissioner. Various other connections. It seems, therefore, to understand what happened, one would really need to understand the intellectual history of this group (I lack that understanding and am never likely to gain it).
My current very limited understanding of this period in general is that different states sought different solutions to the problem of science and industrial policy in a globalized economy (i.e., where national investments could not, even in principle, accrue to the nation that made the investment). One solution (of a kind) was the science policy, pursued notably by UK from the 1980s (whereby one de-emphasizes application-oriented activities in favor of abstract R&D, often conducted in universities). A second solution was the kind of nationalist industrial policy proposed in the early 1980s Mitterrand government; this collided with the force of international capital. A third was the European knowledge economy rhetoric we noted above, which strongly emerged in the mid-1990s through Cresson, Bangemann, and others in the European Commission. Yet, at the point that Cresson was Prime Minister (early 1990s), it seems like the course was perhaps not fully resolved in any of these directions, at least in terms of French policy.
Was there, indeed, a sincere attempt under the Cresson government to reposition the state in what were (and indeed still are) seen as industries of the future? Schmidt concludes Cresson had little room for maneuver; the state no longer had the tools, either in principle, or practice, to achieve the goals set. But of course, that was not actually tested. It is therefore, in my view, regrettable that Cresson was not given a chance to evolve her policy through the 1990s, in that it seemed to have elements of both national, and European, & therefore might have presented an interesting alternative.
Whether or not Cresson’s agenda represented a new beginning in the search (still incomplete) to define an industrial policy in a globalized world, well, I cannot say. But developing an industrial policy in the conditions we face is difficult, and I am not sure anyone has yet produced a good answer.
Overall – having read about her record I am left with considerable admiration for her intellectual and political agenda. She grappled with the key questions that remain as pertinent today, as they were when she was at the height of her political power. But I simply do not know enough to draw solid conclusions about the exact policy settings she chose; it seems to me, though, that Cresson’s work needs detailed and objective reappraisal, based on archives and other documents.
If we are to be objective, I suspect we might find that Cresson was a pivotal figure in the evolution of French and, indeed European, science and industrial policy.
The opening of the French economy to the world economy and the advancement of European integration weakened the ability of the State to intervene [unilaterally]. A policy made ‘against someone’, in this case, against the Brussels Commission, is not good policy; and it becomes difficult to justify in a period of hymns to the glory of European unity and the Maastricht Treaty. Especially since the EU is supposed to help share the increasingly high R&D costs for new technologies. The Thomson-CEA merger shows that when European industrial unity breaks down, States have great difficulty in inventing an adequate industrial policy.
Pomian, op. cit.
Note on sources
Weizmann Institute President Appointed Special Advisor to Madame Edith Cresson (1997)
Research for Industry: Task Forces Established, in: Innovation & Technology Transfer, July 1995, p. 3
Cresson, 1999, Europe needs research, research needs Europe: main speeches on community research 1995-1999
Croché, 2006, Qui pilote le processus de Bologne? in: Éducation et sociétés
Morazzani, 2019, Women Leaders in European Foreign Policy: Édith Cresson).
Bruno, 2013, Éditorial: Ne cherchez plus, innovez!, in: Revue Française de Socio-Économie: ’30 years ago, British liberal weekly The Economist was already saying: ‘Invented in Europe, patented in the United States, made in Japan’. Under this dramatic headline, it summarized the then widespread discourse on ‘eurosclerosis’; the Old Continent’s inability to escape the decline to which the 1973 crisis had condemned it, for lack of entrepreneurial daring, risk appetite and inventiveness. It was not enough to have ideas about how to make up for the lack of [cheap] oil, one had to convert them into useful innovations. This is the ‘European paradox’ which the Delors Commission wanted to tackle in 1993. In its famous Growth, competitiveness, employment white paper, imbued with ‘Schmidt’s theorem’ [idea attributed to German Chancellor Schmidt that ‘today’s profits are tomorrow’s investments, and jobs the day after’], it diagnosed ‘comparatively limited capacity to transform scientific breakthroughs and technological achievements into industrial and commercial successes’, and proposed to remedy this by building a ‘European research and technological development space’ on the foundations of the internal market. This project took shape under the aegis of Commissioner Édith Cresson, then Philippe Busquin, in a context where the knowledge economy paradigm made every stronger links between scientific, educational and industrial policies. The aim was to encourage national governments to stimulate knowledge production through research, its dissemination through education, as well as its economic impact through innovation. Henceforth, research, education and innovation inseparably defined the ‘knowledge triangle’.
Schmidt, From State to Market?: The Transformation of French Business and Government, p. 186
Jean-Michel Quatrepoint, Jacques Jublin, & Danielle Arnaud, 1976, French ordinateurs: de l’affaire Bull à l’assassinat du plan Calcul
Cohen, 1992, Le Colbertisme high-tech: Économie des Télécom et du grand projet
Lelarge, 1992 EDITH AU PAYS DES HAUTES TECHNOLOGIES, l’Humanité, 21 Janvier 1992
Cresson, 2006, Histoires françaises
Schemla, 1993, EDITH CRESSON. La femme piégée. Noting Cresson objected to Schemla’s characterization of her as ‘the trapped woman’.
Loder, 1999, Providing support and a voice for Europe’s young researchers: ‘…in 1996, Edith Cresson, then European commissioner for research, announced that research fellowships of the European Union would be called Marie Curie fellowships.’
Oui aux fonds de pension à la française: Le libéralisme de gauche vu par Edith Cresson
Commission creates Task Forces to reinforce European competitiveness
Williams, 1998, EU Moves to Decrease the Gender Gap: ‘Edith Cresson, head of research at the European Commission, announced plans for a new unit to gather statistics on the position of women in science throughout Europe and create a new network for women in science. The new unit will also advise the commission on policies to improve the status of women in European science.’
Le Monde diplomatique, 24 June 1997: ‘le libéralisme de gauche, bref, le « blairisme ».’
Facts on France: Edith Cresson
Archives Nationales; search: Edith Cresson
Historical Archives of the European Union: FL.03-06.02 Groupe ‘Mega’
Gershenfeld, 2005, Fab: the coming revolution on your desktop – from personal computers to personal fabrication
Science Think Tank 