Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 March 2020
The comparison of events in Britain with the experience of other major industrial countries can make an important contribution to debate about policy alternatives. Within Western Europe such comparisons are especially apt since a number of countries of similar size, at broadly the same level of economic development, face many of the same problems and opportunities. The main purpose of the study reported here is to draw lessons for Britain from the experience of France, and to see to what extent the lessons one might be tempted to draw are the right ones bearing in mind the differences between the two countries as well as their similarities.