The Return of Industrial Policy? On Élie Cohen’s Book, ‘Souveraineté industrielle’

France, like many other countries, has been confronted for many years with a succession of crises — economic, health-related, geopolitical, energy-related etc. — that have shown the degree to which certain economic sectors had become (or returned to being) strategic. Besides foodstuffs, which have brought the need for a degree of food sovereignty back centre stage, difficulties of supply with regard to certain mineral ores, metals, electronic components, pharmaceutical products etc. have also shown the importance of the industrial sector. After decades of de-industrialization, the need to recover sovereignty in this sector is returning to the top of the political agenda. Is such a thing possible? How? And on what timescale? The economist Élie Cohen examined this question in a book published in the early part of this year, just before the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, and his analyses enable us to throw useful light on the subject. Pierre Papon gives a broad overview of the book here and shows how the question of France’s industrial sovereignty has become crucial to its economy and how important it is to set out a genuine strategy in this area.