It is regrettable how little the British know about the economy of a neighbouring country in which so many chose to have a second home, retire or simply visit before the United Kingdom left the European Union. A common assumption is that the French economy is based on agriculture and industry, unlike the more modern, service-based British economy. With high taxation and an inflexible labour market, it seemed understandable that many young, educated French people should escape the high unemployment in their country to work in Britain, and in London in particular.

In 2014, when the Socialist government of François Hollande was in power, a leading British economist wrote that what he found to be the most interesting question about France was not why it was doing so badly but rather why it was doing so well in spite of operating “some extremely destructive policies”. In fact, before the Covid-19 pandemic struck, the service economy in France made the same contribution to value added as in Britain (about 80 per cent). The two countries also had about the same size of population (around 66 million), and similar levels of GDP and per capita income. Where they differed was that the service sector in France employed about 75 per cent of the active labour force whereas on some counts it employed 85 per cent in the UK. Unemployment in France was for many years much higher than in the UK, but levels of labour productivity were also higher in France. One of the biggest differences between the two countries, however, is that, since the 1980s, the government in France has consistently raised much more in taxation than Britain, in order to redistribute the gains made from closer integration into the European Union to those who did not benefit to the same extent. As a result, France, while not without its problems, has a more equal society than the UK.

When in 2018 I was invited by Agenda Publishing to write a history of the French economy since the Second World War, I happily accepted the challenge. Unlike my previous archive-based work, this book was to be based on published sources.