This article traces the enduring influence of the dirigiste traditions on contemporary French macroeconomic policymaking, arguing that French policy both within and towards the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) is consistent with long-standing French dirigiste preferences and policy traditions. Specifically it explores how, within the SGP, French governments have created and defended significant fiscal policy space, and how the scope for discretionary policy-making has in fact been enhanced by the credibility accrued through European rule-based governance. Furthermore, it analyses how, in their policies towards the SGP, French governments have successfully influenced the reshaping of the fiscal policy architecture, introducing a more dirigiste interventionism in the interpretation and implementation of the SGP, loosening constraints in accordance with dirigiste preferences. French policymakers have thus played a 'long-run game' with European economic governance -initially accepting ordo-liberal orthodoxy, only to subsequently 'move the goalposts' in a more dirigiste direction. protector of the public sector, and as a strategic actor (Dyson 1980, 95-7; Schmidt 1996, 73-93; Schmidt 1997, 229). What flowed from this model was a presumption on the part The New Political Economy of Dirigisme After setting out French dirigiste preferences with regard to SGP reform, this article briefly assesses enduring volontarisme in French fiscal policy-making, interpreted here as evidence of enduring dirigiste interventionist preferences and capabilities amongst policymakers. It then explores intentional re-engineering of the supra-national fiscal policy framework of the euro in order both to expand domestic room to manoeuvre, but also as an attempt to re-articulate dirigiste policy approaches at the supra-national level.