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OCR for page 95
RESEARCH, EDUCATION, AND THE INDUSTRIAL
ECONOMY IN MODERN FRANCE
Robert Fox
University of Oxford
Traditionally, the French educational system has been seen as the victim of the two
debilitating blights of centralization and what I shall inelegantly call functional
fragmentation.)
The meaning of centralization is obvious. It is encapsulated in the story of the Minister
of Education in Paris who had only to look at his clock to know which passage from Vergil
or which theorem of Euclid was being expounded in every school throughout the country.
By functional fragmentation I mean the principle that every institution has a narrowly
defined, often exclusive function, a function so precise as to suppress overlap and hence
competition between institutions. The consequences, according to Joseph Ben-David and other
observers, have been stultifying.2 Certainly, they have represented the antithesis of the
intrinsically competitive systems of Germany or the U.S.A.
The peculiarities of the French system of advanced education are embodied in the great
vocational schools, the so-called grandes ecoles, each of them preparing for a specific career.
This has always been a flexible system, since it has allowed a new school to be created
whenever a new technical career has emerged. Since the first of the present grandes ecoles,
the Ecole des Ponts et Chausse~es, was created in 1747, over 150 new schools have been
established in science and engineering alone (most of them in our own century), to say nothing
of more than seventy commercial and business schools and about eighty others with different
vocational specialities.3 The quality, in such a large sector of education, is necessarily
variable, but the most prestigious of the schools, such as the Ponts et Chausse'es, the Ecole des
Mines, and, most notably, the Ecole Polytechnique, enjoy an incomparable status in the eyes
of candidates and their parents.
Research, too, has traditionally been seen as the function of specialized institutions, far
fewer in number than the grandes ecoles, but including some of the glories of French
intellectual life, such as the sixteenth-century College de France (with its array of chairs
across the spectrum of the sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences), the Paris
Observatory (the creation of Louis XIV), and the Muse'um National d'Histoire Naturelle (the
post-revolutionary descendant of the Jardin du Roi).
Finally, the most unwieldy element of all, is the university system. This was a single
national administration from the time of its creation by Napoleon in 1808 until its division
into fifteen separate universities in 1896, and over its history its functions have varied.
Initially, at least, the nineteenth-century university was conceived as a means of providing
examiners for the national examinations (for the baccalaureat, the licence, the doctorate, and
the competitive agregation), though it was also seen as a vehicle for lectures (to both students
and the general public) and, secondarily, as an institution for research, complementing in a
rather unstructured way the contribution of the designated research institutions.
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Robert Fox
This f irst-order impression of the French system underlines the characteristics of
orderliness and functional tidiness. Yet, for my present purpose, it is important to note that
research, in this structure, has a distinctly uncertain place. It has always been recognized that
professors in any institution, even in the grandes ecoles with their emphasis on vocational
training, could perform research, and the reputation of the Ecole Polytechnique in its early
golden age rested in large measure on the intellectual distinction of teachers of the calibre of
Monge, Ampere, Gay-Lussac, Petit, and Thenard. But it was only when France was wafted by
the international currents of reform in the later nineteenth century that research came to be
seen as one of the primary duties of the academic profession, in particular of teachers in the
· · -
universities.
This rather late acceptance of the centrality of research could hardly have been otherwise,
since an awareness of the new German conceptions of the intellectual role of the professoriate
was forced on France (as on no other country) only after the defeat of 1870. Convinced that
the German professoriate was responsible for the debacle of Sedan, reformers in France urged
that their country should go down the German road of universities that were independent and
multi-functional, possessing a commitment to innovation as well as to teaching and examining.4
As an abundant secondary literature has shown, the French educational system responded
with alacrity, trying to graft a German model onto the centralized bureaucratic structure I
have described. Accordingly, reform began strongly. Through the 1 S8Os and 1 890s,
universities and individual faculties were encouraged to raise funds locally and to break out
of their ivory towers. The consequences, in the sciences and technology, were a host of new
courses and specialized institutes devoted to such subjects as electrical technology (at Nancy,
Lille, Grenoble, and Toulouse), industrial chemistry (at Lyon and Lille), and wine-making (at
Dijon). Vocational teaching was fostered, along with applied research, and the institutions
prospered through donations from municipal and departmental councils, chambers of
commerce, and industrialists. Before the First World War, this non-ministerial support had
grown so substantial that the old frugality of the university sector seemed a thing of the past,
and the constraints of centralized control were greatly reduced.
At last, university science had a role, but I would argue that, if anything, the response to
immediate economic demand between the l88Os and 1914 was too keen. To please local
sponsors, the buildings that the new patronage bought had to be of an appropriate grandeur
with little thought for their versatility, for example. Moreover, the teaching had to be of a
precise, immediately applicable nature, with consequences that encouraged a rather
unimaginative approach to instruction and helped to reinforce a conception of research
oriented heavily to the testing and routine measurement which industrialists demanded.
So it was that the French scientific community came to the First World War in a state of
relative detachment from anything resembling a national plan and with governmental attitudes
that bordered on benign indifference, as far as the research function was concerned. The
favoured "stars" were supported well enough; Marie Curie's Institut du Radium, founded in
1909, was a showpiece. But a major electrical congress in London in 1908 laid ruthlessly bare
the weaknesses at more modest levels. In an international plan to promote the standardization
of units and standards, Germany could offer her Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt' the
U.S.A. had the National Bureau of Standards, and Britain proffered the National Physical
Laboratory. France, predictably, had only a handful of individuals working in the modestly
96
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France
equipped and privately funded Laboratoire Central d'Electricite and some other small testing
laboratories; and it was only an intense last-minute protest which ensured that she was
represented at all in the international network of national laboratories.6
All too soon afterwards, the consequences were to be seen once again. From 1 914,
individual scientists made an impressive response to the challenge of warfare but they did
so in conditions that rendered a well-financed, coordinated effort impossible. As L. F. Haber
has argued, French scientific achievements in response to Germany's use of gas, though
considerable, make both sides of this point plainly enough.7
The tendency for the activity of science to be seen overwhelmingly as a matter of teaching
and the passing on of a cultural tradition, or of applied contract research, rather than a valued
quest for novelty, persisted after the First World War. Now, local patrons and national
governments alike appeared unable or unwilling to meet the mounting cost of research, and
French laboratories entered a period of neglect that aroused concern even in non-scientific
circles. Quickly, however, scruffiness came to be seen as part and parcel of the scientific
enterprise. Between the wars, the quintessential savant, in the public's and most governments'
eyes, was Edouard Branly, the contemporary and rival of Marconi, and the inventor of the
coherer (an essential component in early wireless communication). By the time Branly
acquired a serious working laboratory in 1932, he was 88. And even in his new premises,
which came to him as a private donation (stimulated as much by his association with the cause
of Catholic higher education as by his scientific reputation), he continued to work, as he
always had done, with just one assistant.8 It seems that the desirability of establishing a team
or a school was never seriously countenanced. Branly would complain about the conditions
in which he worked, but he did so with a limited view to improving facilities for his own
research. Despite the availability of a few alternative role models, most notably at the
handsomely endowed Institut Pasteur, where team research was encouraged, the man of science
was cast firmly as a solitary searcher for truth who throve on hardship.
Any explanation of these dominant attitudes to scientific research and of ministerial
indifference to the conditions that prevailed in French laboratories between 1918 and 1939
must take account of elusive cultural prejudices. These prejudices fostered individualism and
made it appear normal, even desirable, that research should be conducted in a large number
of small laboratories in which dilapidation was a price willingly paid for independence and
a strong hold over such matters as the choice of problems and the all-important matter of the
succession when a Director died or retired.
But an even more potent influence was the industrial economy of France, which in giving
little reward to the independent introduction of new processes and products had taken a path
very different from those of Germany or the U.S.A. The history of the new science-based
industries of the later nineteenth century artificial dyestuffs and electrical equipment, in
particular displays an uncannily regular pattern, with France getting off to a good start
when the sector was small and the technology crude, but then flagging and failing to invest
in innovation.9 In retrospect, the failure to go the way of the Bayer Company or General
Electric-the way of intensive research and patenting may appear a mark of culpable
miscalculation. However, seen from within contemporary French industry, it was by no
means obvious that a heavy expenditure on laboratories and a strategy based on independent
. .
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Robert Fox
innovation could ever be justified. Indeed, even in Germany and the U.S.A., the large
company laboratory was a phenomenon of the period of consolidation, after the large research-
oriented companies had accumulated capital far in excess of the equivalent sums for France.
The case of Bayer is telling and typical. For it was only in the 1890s, nearly forty years after
the creation of the first artificial dyestuff by W. H. Perkin in 1856, that Bayer opened its first
substantial company laboratory.10 By then, but only then, many years of profits had provided
the essential elbow-room that made it possible to embark on a totally unprecedented course of
long-term planning for new products, such as synthetic indigo (the fruit of fifteen years of
intense effort in the company laboratory). In this, there are obvious parallels with the strategy
that led to the protracted development of the tungsten filament lamp in the laboratory of the
General Electric Company.
It might have been expected that as such firms as Bayer, General Electric, BASE, Hoechst,
and AEG grew ever more rapidly (from the late 1890s), French companies would be moved to
emulation. The Compagnie Generate d'Electricite was one company that did respond, lacing
the publicity that accompanied its launch in 1898 with a nationalistic lament about the
invasion of electrical manufacturing in France by foreign technology. But very rapidly the
resolve waned, and the goal of developing a range of independent products was abandoned.
Within a few years, the CGE had reverted to a traditional policy of technological dependence,
in particular on patents leased from the Swiss firms of Brown-Boveri and Ahlstom.
The indifference of French companies towards "in-house" research, apart from an essential
degree of routine testing and quality control, was profound and lastingly In the short term,
perhaps, this need not have been a source of weakness. The case of the Italian electrical
industry, which enjoyed great economic success while pursuing just such a policy between the
1 890s and 1914, makes the point plainly enough.~4 But, for my present argument, the
importance of the absence of any sustained quest for innovation is that it detached research
from the main stream of economic activity and helped to reinforce the traditional view of
science as a personal pursuit of truth not significantly different from scholarship in the
humanities. It also suppressed the industrial demand for employees trained in applied
research, with clear consequences for the kind of training that educational institutions felt
it proper to provide.
It was on the eve of the Second World War that these attitudes began to change. In the
1 930s, in the brief period of the left-wing Popular Front, under the influence of Paul
Langevin and Jean Perrin, there had been some attempt to make scientific research a major
responsibility of government. This culminated, in 1939, in the founding of the Centre
National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), as a national body that would break
aggressively with the past, not only by encouraging research but also, and more specifically,
by fostering cooperation and breaking down the barriers and intellectual fiefdoms that were
integral to the old system of patronage.is
The founding of the CARS can be seen as the first salvo in a continuing struggle by a
succession of pressure-groups and governments to detach scientific research from its
traditional institutional setting. (See Table 1.) After the war, the momentum was maintained,
with the confirmation of the CNRS and the reaffirmation of a deliberate interventionism
through the creation of the Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique (CEA), which (in a manner
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France
1 1
TABLE 1
MAJOR FRENCH NATIONAL RESEARCH ORGANIZATIONS
Title
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
(CNRS)
Institut Franpais de Recherche Scientifique pour le
D6veloppement en Cooperation
(ORSTOM)
Centre National d'Etudes des Telecommunications
(CNET)
Commissariat ~ l' Energie Atomique
(CEA)
Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique
(INRA)
Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales
(CNES)
Institut National de la Santa et de la Recherche M6dicale
(INSEAM)
Institut National de Recherche d' Informatique et d' Automatique
(INRIA)
Institut Franpais de Recherche pour ['Exploitation de la Mer
(IFREMER)
Date of foundation
1939
1943
1944
1945
1946
1961
1964
1967
1967
1 1
entirely characteristic of the new thrust of policy) combined national status with an immense
degree of autonomy encapsulated in the personality of its Director, Frederic Joliot-Curie, a
hero (at least of the Left) who soared above established interests.
For a while, it seemed that the CNRS and the CEA were to be the harbingers of
unprecedented change in the patronage of French science. But if Joliot-Curie's communist
sympathies were acceptable enough in the immediate postwar reaction against what the Left
liked to portray as the dead hand of the universities, they soon underlined the dangers
inherent in the politicization of science. As the Cold War intensified, there were inevitable
questions of trust. In 1950, Joliot-Curie was dismissed, and gradually the traditional elite, with
its strong representation of former polytechniciens and predominantly conservative political
sympathies, reasserted itself, at least in the higher reaches of the CEA.
99
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Robert Fox
It was with the beginning of the Gaullist era, strengthened by stability and a new sense
of national pride, that the false dawn of the late 1 940s became an irreversible reality.
Immediately on coming to power in 195S, De Gaulle declared scientific research to be a key
to the national independence and economic prosperity of France, and suddenly what had
been seen as a relatively minor element in governmental planning assumed the status of a
priority. Hitherto the series of three- to six-year plans for postwar reconstruction, begun
under Jean Monnet in 1946, had done little for research, beyond articulating the sense that
France had fallen seriously behind as a scientific nation. Under the Fifth Republic, research
became the motor of social and economic planning, most obviously from the time of the Fourth
Plan, covering the years 1961-1965.~7
With centralization rehabilitated and d irigisme back at the heart of policy, a ma jor
restructuring of the committee network took place. A new Delegation Generate a la Recherche
Scientifique et Technique (DGRST) was established to serve as a joint secretariat for two
national advisory committees the Comite Interministeriel de la Recherche Scientifique et
Technique (CIMRST) and the Comite'Consultatif de la Recherche Scientifique et Technique
(CCRST, or the "Comite des Sages" as it came to be called) whose function was to establish
and implement a plan for research that would transcend the traditional divisions between
ministries. Significantly and quite crucially, the DGRST was to be answerable directly to the
Prime Minister.
The result of this new structure and of the dedication and freshness of the generation of
younger scientists, engineers, and industrialists who rose to prominence within it was a degree
of coherence in planning that has characterized France's effort in research ever since. The
first head (De'le'gue-general) of the DGRST, Pierre Piganiol, set the tone with a continuing
programme of evaluation and designation of areas of priority which had prominent
repercussions in all the subsequent national economic plans. These repercussions were to be
seen even when enthusiasm for research waned slightly, as it did at times during the centre-
right Presidencies of Georges Pompidou and Vale'ry Giscard d'Estaing (despite the fact that
the promotion of science and technology was now firmly equated with emulation of the U.S.A.,
rather than of the Soviet Union, which had been the main model of reformers in the
immediate postwar period).
Predictably, there were scientists who protested. But their argument that basic research
cannot be planned paled as those who were willing to follow the designated research priorities
found themselves spoiled. Time and again, the forced channelling of funds into priority areas
allowed France to leap ahead, in telecommunications technology, for example, and in her
vigorous nuclear power programme and military technology. Usually the mechanism would
be a specialized governmental agency, such as the CEA, the Centre National d'Etudes des
Telecommunications (CNET), or the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CES), but the national
plans in which the priorities have been spelled out have always fostered ways of diverting a
share of the budget for research towards academic institutions and private industry. Both
Thomson and Ae'rospatiale have been major beneficiaries of this policy, which has ensured
that the dependence of research and development on state funding has been proportionately
very much higher in France than in, say, the U.S.A. The figures of 55 percent for the
proportion of expenditure on scientific and technological research coming from the state in
France and less than 30 percent for the U.S.A. in recent years give a measure of the contrast.
100
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France
It is tempting to advance this structure of technologically oriented and carefully guided
research as something approaching an ideal. Certainly, the results since 1958 have been
impressive, as anyone who has witnessed the spectacular modernization of France must agree.
The losers, unquestionably, have been the university scientists in the classic mould who have
pined for the days of completely open-ended research. The gainers have been the far greater
number of scientists who have adjusted to the new style of patronage, salvaging at least a
measure of control from a process of public consultation between governments and the
scientific community that has had some remarkable manifestations. One, predating' the
Gaullist era, was a colloquium of 150 scientists, industrialists, and political figures, held at
Caen in an atmosphere of crisis in 1956.~9 Another was the consultation of 1982, when 25,OOO
scientists, technologists, and engineers from both the state and the private sectors participated
in a series of regional meetings and a final national colloquium on educational and research
policy stimulated by the election of the new socialist President, Franpois Mitterand.20
The effectiveness of consultation on this scale is, of course, open to question. It has also
been suggested that the period embraced by the successive National Plans is too long to allow
for the short-term changes of direction that might be coped with rather better in a company
involved in a constant review of its policies and priorities. A five-year plan may indeed be
hard to reconcile with flexibility of this kind. But, looking back over the history of technical
education and research in the last hundred years or so, I am convinced that closeness to the
market can be a handicap. It risks a diversion of attention from what I see, not least in the
context of the problems of present-day Britain, as a pressing need for more attention to the
medium and the long term.
In fact, my own reaction to the rhythm of the French process of planning is that the five-
year periods of the plans may not be long enough. They allow new specialities to be
abandoned before they are established, and they scarcely give time for the training of
researchers, who come predominantly through the slower and more conservative mechanisms
of the university system.
In conclusion, it seems unsurprising that the dynamic reforms of the last thirty years have
yielded both successes and failures. It could scarcely be otherwise when planning in research
is being attempted in an academic structure that is still, at bottom, wedded to a profile of
teaching not necessarily supportive of new departures. Yet through its designation (at
ministerial level) as a priority area and the focus of a major "action the'matique programmed"
(ATP), molecular biology is just one discipline that has been fostered to a degree that would
have been inconceivable in the context of a single university. For the failures, we have to look
to fields that have not enjoyed priority status and to the recurring patchiness of France's
performance in industrial research in these areas which has been a recurring source of concern
to the ministers responsible since the early l980s. Especially notable, and disturbing, is the
sharp contrast between the relatively high investment in research and development (much of
it directly or indirectly helped by governmental funding) in aviation, electronics, or nuclear
power, and the modest financing of R and D in the automobile industry, metallurgy, food and
agriculture, and many branches of chemistry, where encouragement by governments has
traditionally been slight.2i It remains to be seen whether tax and other incentives introduced
since 1983 to encourage expenditure on research by smaller firms will eventually lessen this
disparity.
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Robert Fox
It will be clear from all this that, despite the failures, I take a somewhat more favourable
view of the French system than Luc Rouban, in his recent book, L'Etat et la science. La
politique publique de la science et de la technologie.22 Where Rouban identifies a gathering
"crisis" in the 1980s, with governmental policy unable to cope coherently with the multiple
and often conflicting demands of society, I tend to see a constructive ministerial response with
its roots (though not its only inspiration) in the heady early days of socialist dominance that
began with the election of Franpois Mitterand as President of the Republic and the creation
of the first government of Pierre Mauroy, both in May 1981.23
The Mauroy administration took one of the most significant steps in favour of research
that we have seen in the history of modern France. The creation of a Ministry of Research
and Industry in that administration was conceived both as a declaration of the importance that
was attached to research in all its forms and of a determination, in this privileged area, to
extend the vision of the general five-year plans (whose efficacity, in any case, had been called
in question since the later 1960s).24 From the start, the ground was laid overtly for expansion,
and barely a year later, in July 1982, the expansion began to take shape in the governmental
programme enshrined in the LOP (Lot d'orientation et de programmation de la recherche et du
developpement technologique de la France), which can be seen as a realization of the process of
consultation on research conducted earlier in the year.25
The vision was a captivating one. It was intended that the proportion of the GNP devoted
to research and technological development would increase from 1.S percent to 2.5 percent
between 1981 and 1985, and that there would be an increase of 4.5 percent per annum in the
number of scientists and engineers employed in the main national research organizations,
accompanied by a comparable growth of posts in higher education. There was also to be a
determined push in the direction of greater cooperation between governmental and academic
laboratories and private industry; here, a reinvigorated Agence Nationale pour la Valorisation
de la Recherche (ANVAR) was to be given a central role in facilitating the economic
exploitation of new scientific and technological ideas.26 However, the budget for R and D
grew to only 2.1 percent of the GNP by 1985, and there were signs of a slight weakening of
resolve in the mid-1980's, even before the Left lost power in the legislative elections of 1986.
It is significant that as head of the Ministry of Research and Technology (1981-1982) and of
its successor, the Ministry of Research and Industry (1982-1983), Jean-Pierre Chevenement
had the select title of a Minister of State. Thereafter, in the third of Pierre Mauroy's
governments (1983-1984) and the government of Laurent Fabius (1984-1986) that status was
lost. The Ministries of Industry and Research (1983-1984), headed by Fabius, and of Research
and Technology (1984-1986), under the influential and energetic leadership of the scientist
and writer Hubert Curien, remained important but no longer laid plans with the same
confidence that had been characteristic of the early 1980s.27
One source of anxiety between 1983 and 1986 was the current of criticism emanating from
the political opposition, notably from the right-wing deputy Alain Devaquet. The main
charges concerned the cost of the government's patronage of research and the long-term
commitment represented by proposals, contained in the LOP, for the formalization of the
status of employees in research as fonctionnaires with the associated rights and privileges.
When the right-wing government of Jacques Chirac was formed, after the elections of March
1986, those anxieties briefly exerted some influence on policy. But it was Devaquet, with the
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France
significantly modest rank of a "Ministre delegue-" responsible for research and higher
education, who now responded to the menacing noises that were being made against the CNRS,
the Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicate (INSEAM), and other research
organizations. As a result, despite some initial cuts in funding (particularly severe in the
budget of ANVAR), the state's support for research was soon restored very nearly to its former
levels. Even more importantly, the essential structure of research laboratories and institutions
remained intact, though the bond between research, technology, and industry was distinctly
loosened in favour of the more traditional association between research and higher education
(both Devaquet and his successor in the Chirac administration, Jacques Valade, being
answerable to the Ministry of National Education rather than to the Ministry of Industry,
Posts, and Tourism).
For all the anxieties that some researchers voiced during the two years of the Chirac
government, the absolute growth in the governmental budget for research and technological
development through the 1980s has been consistent and large enough to calm most critics, even
if it has not attained anything like the annual increase of 17.8 percent (for civil purposes) that
was set in 1982 as a target for the period 1982-1985.28 The CNRS, with its 1300 laboratories
and research groups, 17000 researchers and engineers, 8500 technicians and administrators, and
annual budget of 10 000 million francs, has just celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in a spirit
of great optimism. And even in the universities and the grandes ecoles, which in the 1960s
still tended to be set apart from the relatively prosperous world of the organizations for
research, the new wave of planning has won support. One irresistible attraction has been the
implantation of CNRS groups in university laboratories, a procedure that has accelerated the
diversion of significant research funding into higher education and helped further to erode
the traditional French divide between research and teaching. It is a mark of the success of
this diversification that polytechniciens too have been touched by the new spirit: in recent
years nearly fifty of the Ecole Polytechnique's annual graduating class of about 300 have gone
on to careers in research, often (at least in their early years as researchers) within
Polytechnique itself.
Plainly, a definitive assessment of these latest new departures is impossible. We just do not
know what will happen to a favoured "secteur de pointe" that loses its status and privileged
support; and it cannot be pretended that the old rivalries between the universities and the
CNRS, or between the advocates of open-ended research and those with more immediate
expectations of an economic return, have completely disappeared. But the benefits of thirty
years of a coordinated national policy for research are unmissable and, at least to British eyes,
enviable. Most striking of all is the fact that the pace of the development of research seems,
if anything, to be quickening, as successive governments continue to foster areas of special
priority and as, in the population at large, reticence towards the spirit of industry and
enterprise, so characteristic of France before the 1950s, or even the 1980s, passes into the
recesses of the national memory.
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Robert Fox
NOTES
1. I base this statement on the standard literature of which Robert Gilpin, France in the Age of the Scientific State
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968, is typical. For an alternative view that stresses the flexibility and
underestimated degree of decentralization in the system, see R. Fox and G. Weisz, "The Institutional Basis of French
Science in the Nineteenth Century," The Organization of Science and Technology in France, 1808-1914, edited by R.
Fox and G. Weisz, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme,
1980, pp. 1-28.
2. See, in particular, J. Ben-David, The Scieniist's Role u' Society, A Comparative Study, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice
Hall, 1971, pp. 88-107.
For convenient listings of these schools, see the guides for potential candidates for admission, such as the annual
Devenez ingenieur. Le guide des formations et des carneres, from which much of my statistical information is drawn.
For some classic contemporary statements of the view that France had been defeated by "German science," see the
views of Henri Sainte-Claire Deville, Armand Quatrefages de Breau, and others in Comptes rendus hebdomadaires
de l'Acade~mie des Sciences, Vol. 72 (1871), pp. 237-9 and 261-9.
5. See, for example, T. Shinn, "The French Science Faculty System 1808-1914: Institutional Change and Research
Potential", Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences, Vol. 10, 1979, pp. 369~2; G. Weisz, The Emergence of Modem
Universities in France, 1863-1914, Princeton, NJ., 1983; R. Fox, "Science, the University, and the State in Nineteenth
century France," Professions and the French State, 17001900, edited by G. L. Geison, Philadelphia, 1984, pp. 66
145; H. W. Paul, From Knowledge to Power, The Rise of the Science Empire in France, 18601939, Cambridge, 1985;
M. J. Nye, Science in the Provinces. Scientif c Communities and Provincial Leadership in France, 1860 1930, Berkeley,
Los Angeles, and London, 1986.
H. Le Chatelier et. al., "Rapport sur les laboratories nationaux de recherches scientifiques," Comptes rendus... de
l'Academie des Sciences, Vol. 163 (1916), pp. 581~ (583~.
7. L. F. Haber, The Poisonous Cloud. Chemical Warfare in the First World War, Oxford, 1986, especially chapter 6.
8. Pierre Jacques, La vie laboneuse d'Edouard Branly, Paris, 1942.
9. For my own views on this pattern, see Robert Fox, "Contingency or Mentality? Technical Innovation in France in
the Age of Science-based Industry," Technological Education - Technological Style, edited by Melvin Kranzberg, San
Francisco, 1986, pp. 59-68.
10. G. Meyer-Thurow, "The Industrialization of Invention: A Case Study from the German Chemical Industry", Isis, Vol.
73 (1982), pp. 363~1.
11. The need for a strong existing economic base before a significant programme of fundamental research can be
embarked upon is also bought out in Leonard S. Reich's study of research at General Electric: 17ze Making of
American Industrial Research Science and Business at GE and Bell, 187~1926, Cambridge, 1985.
12. ~ Broder, "La multinationalisation de l'industrie electrique franpaise, 1880-1931: causes et pratiques d'une
d~pendance", Annales ESC, 39e annee (1984), pp. 1020-43 (1020~. The passage cited on p.1020 illustrates very
clearly my point about the nationalistic tone of the leaders of the CGE at its foundation.
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France
13. Me sluggishness of the growth of "in-house" industrial research in France is brought out well in Terry Shinn's, "The
Genesis of French Industrial Research 1880-1940," Social Science Infonnanon, Vol. 19 (1980), pp. 607 40.
14. ~ Guagnini, "Lee Formation of Italian Electrical Engineers: the Teaching Laboratories of the Politecnici of Turin
and Milan, 1887-1914", in An siecle d'electncit' dans le monde, 188~1980, edited by Fabienne Cardot, Paris, 1987,
pp. 283-99.
15. Frederic Blancpain, "In creation du CNRS: histoire d'une decision 1901-1939~" Bulleizn de l'Ir~siitut Interr~aiiorzal de
['Administration Publique, Vol. 32, 1974, pp. 93-143.
16. On the early history of the CEA and of Joliot-Curie's role in it, see B. Goldschmidt, Me Atonuc Adventure. Its
Political and Technical Aspects, trans. by P. Beer, Oxford, 1964, pp. 59~5; L. Scheinman, Atonuc Energy Policy Al
France under the Fourth Republic, Princeton, NJ., 1965, chapters 2 and 3; and P. Biquard, Frederic Joliot-Cune.
The Marc arid His Theones, trans. by G. Strachan, London, 1965, chapter 5.
17. For an autobiographical account of a major figure who lived through this transformation, in his capacity as
Commissaire du Plan between 1959 and 1966, see Pierre Masse's pleas et progres. Entre Candide et Cassandre,
Paris, 1984, especially chapter 3.
18. For an impression of Pierre Piganiol's resolute but always realistic view of the need for planning in science and
technology, see his reflective book Ma~tnser le progres, Paris, 1968.
19. Papers written for this Colloque National and the resulting proposals are reproduced in a special issue of Les cahiers
de la Republique, 2e annee, no. 5 (January-February 1957~.
20. Actesducolloquenationalrechercheettechnologie, Paris, 1982. Ibenewlaw that resulted from this consultation
is referred to in note 24, below.
21. On the historical persistence of this contrast, see H. W. Paul and T. Shinn, "The Structure and State of Science in
France," Contemporary French Civilization, Vol. 6 (1981-2), pp. 153-93 (176-81~.
22. See Luc Rouban, L'Etat e' la science. La politique publique de la science et de la technologie, Paris: Centre National
de la Recherche Scientific, 1988.
23. For a generally sympathetic review of science policy under the successive socialist administrations of the early and
mid 1980s, see P. Papon, "Science and Technology Policy in France, 1981-1986," Minerva, Vol. 26 (1988), pp. 493-
511. Although it is an important part of my argument that the tide had been running strongly in favour of research
since the accession of President De Gaulle in 1958, the signs of anxiety about the state of research in France in the
later years of the Presidency of Valery Giscard d'Estaing are unmistakable. See, most notably, the review of French
provision for all sectors of research presented to the President of the Republic in September 1980 by a committee
under the chairmanship of Monsieur Jacques Friedel: Constnuire l'avenir. Lime blanc sur la recherche presente a
Monsieur le President de la Republique, Paris, 1980. The "Prologue" to the report speaks of the profound "malaise"
of the research community and itemizes complaints ranging from the excessive bureaucratization of research to what
was seen as a weakening of governmental support through the 1970s.
24. The doubts concerning the appropriateness of the plans, from the time of the Fifth Plan (1966-70), are reflected in
the contributions to a conference organized by the Institut d'Histoire du Temps Present in 1985 See H. Rousso (ed.),
La planipcation en crises (1965-1985,, Paris, 1987; and cf. the more favourable view of the first four plans conveyed
in H. Rousso (ed.), De Hornet a Masse, Paris, 1986.
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Robert Fox
25. Idle text of this law was published, with associated documentation, in the Journal offciel de la Republique Franpaise,
114e annee, no. 163 (15-16 July 1982), pp. 2270~0.
26. ANVAR had been created in 1967 to facilitate the development of innovations emerging from both industrial and
governmental laboratories. In the 1980s, it has had a particularly important role in support of the research efforts
of smaller industrial companies.
27. The appointment of Hubert Curien reflects the relative ease with which the French system of administration admits
figures with particular expertise from outside the political world. At the time of his appointment, Curien was President
of the Centre d'Etudes Spatiales, one of the most important of the national agencies for research.
28. Journal ofFciel (cited in note 24, above), pp 2270 and 2274. The budget for this purpose in 1982 stood at 254()0m
francs.
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France
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l 'Administraiion Publique, Vol. 32 (1974), pp. 93-143.
Broder, ~ "La multinationalisation de l'industrie electrique franpaise, 1880-1931: causes et pratiques d'une dependence."
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Construire l'avenir. Lime blanc sur la recherche presente ~ Monsieur le President de la Republique, Septembre 1980. Paris:
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Fox, R. "Science, the University, and the State in Nineteenth-century France." Professions and the French State, 1700
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Fox, R. and G. Weisz, editors. The Organization of Science and Technology in France, 1808-1914. Cambridge: Cambridge
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Gilpin, R. France in the Age of the Scientific State. Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1968.
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Leprieur, F. and P. Papon. "Synthetic Dyestuffs: The Relation between Academic Chemistry and the Chemical Industry
in Nineteenth-century France." Minerva, Vol. 17 (1979), pp. 197-224.
Masse, P. pleas et progres. Entre Ca~dide et Cassandre. Paris: Economica, 1984.
Nye, M. J. Science in the Provinces: Scientific Communities and Provincial Leadership in France, 1860-1930. Berkeley,
Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1986.
Papon, P. Le Pouvoir et la Science en France. Paris: Le Seuil, 1978.
Papon, P. "Science and Technology Policy in France: 1981-1986." Minerva, Vol. 26 (1988), pp. 493-511.
Paul, H. W. From Knowledge to Power: The Rise of the Science Empire in France, 1860-1939. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1985.
Paul, H. W. and T. Shinn. "Lee Structure and State of Science in France." Contemporary French Civilization, Vol. 6,
(1981-2), pp. 153-93.
Piganiol, P. and L. Villecourt. Pour une politique scientifque. Paris: Slammarion, 1963.
Rouban, Luc. L'Etat et la science. La politique publique de la science et de la technologie. Paris: Centre National de la
Recherche Scientific (CNRS), 1988.
Scheinman, L. Atomic Energy in France under the Fourth Republic. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966.
Shinn, T. "~e French Science Faculty System 1808-1914: Institutional Change and Research Potential." Historical Sedges
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Weisz, G. The Emergence of Modern Universities in France, 1863-1914. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
robert fox
