The political economy of French social democratic economic policy autonomy, 1997–2002

Political constitutionalism in Europe revisited

“…68 It was not only that this marked the end of a dirigiste approach 'in favour of an "ordo-liberal", antiinflationary and market-conforming solution', but that once the 'appropriate' path was conceived in these terms, it set the path for future development, even though in France the wider framework of corporatist institutions on which German ordoliberalism was predicated did not exist. 69 Mitterrand's U-turn anticipated the turn of the French liberal left to a politics of Europeanism, under the promise, represented by Jacques Delors, of building a European social policy on top of the single market. However, in reality, the capture of the integration process by neoliberal forces and their harnessing of the 'big market' project had closed any openings that may have existed for the development of a different kind of union.…”