Robin Lapert

Econ 2101W

Paper 4 - Industrial

08.21.20

Unlike the situation in England, no industrial sector is dominant in France. Textile

production is diversified: wool is dominant, but the flax and silk industries are also

important. Other sectors such as construction and food industries are similar in importance

to textiles. Metallurgy, on the other hand, remains poorly developed. In the cities, the crafts

are the result of the corporations, that is to say of organizations managing the entire

production of a type of good in a city. Together with the State, they strictly regulate the

activity that concerns them, bringing together employers, workers and apprentices. They

struggle against the development of capitalism and the emergence of modern industry in

order to protect their jobs. They were, however, challenged by the factories inherited from

Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who already often brought together several hundred workers. They

may be public, or private with a royal privilege, but are also subject to binding regulation

(William R. Nester 47). In this context, rare are the industries showing dynamism and

revealing the first famous entrepreneurs.

The first signs of the Industrial Revolution were visible at the end of the century.

France’s foreign trade flourished in the 18th century. Between 1716-1720 and 1740-1788 its

value increased fivefold, which due to the change in prices must represent a doubling in

volume. This expansion was very strong in the first half of the century. According to

Cameron “throughout the first half of the nineteenth century and probably as late as 1860,
France was the world’s wealthiest nation. Its agricultural resources were the greatest in

Europe at a time when agriculture was the occupation of the major part of the population

even of Europe” (Cameron 1). On the other hand, import growth was faster than export

growth, leading to a trade deficit at the end of the Old Regime. In fact “ France is also a major

importer, especially of machinery, chemicals and chemical products, tropical agricultural

products, and traditional industrial goods such as clothes and textiles. The high level of

imports led to a trade deficit for much of the period between the early 1970s and early 1990s.

However, from 1992 France experienced a trade surplus, combined with a positive balance

from invisible (non merchandise) transactions, especially tourism.” (Wright and Popkin,

Trade). The nature of the products traded makes France appear as a relatively industrialized

country: exporting manufactured products, importing raw materials. An important part of

French trade was with the Levant, but also with the colonies, despite the dislocation of the

first colonial empire by the Treaty of Paris of 1763. During the period 1789-1815, France was

permanently distanced by its neighbour in the English Channel. While England knows what

Walt Whitman Rostow calls its take-off, a vigorous industrial takeoff over twenty years,

France is undergoing a period of slowing down its economic development, despite a change

of regime favorable to the bourgeoisie.

Among the great industrial nations of the 19th century, France holds a special place.

Its industrial start-up is one of the earliest, after that of the United Kingdom, but it has

never been as clear as in the other countries, which explains why, despite its lead, French

industry lags behind those of the United States and Germany at the end of the century. A

clear sign of this original development is the long absolute increase in the number of

farmers. At the beginning of the 19th century, France suffered from a number of handicaps
which prevented it from experiencing economic growth comparable to that of the United

Kingdom. On the demand side, the weakness of population growth, compared with other

European countries, reduces domestic markets, while on the external side, the British

domination of the seas temporarily hinders trade.

The economy of France in the 19th century remained dominated by agriculture, while

the population of the country remained mainly rural. Quantitative history shows that French

agriculture experienced a growth between 1820 and 1870 which, from a historical point of

view, was surpassed only by that of the aftermath of the Second World War. In general, these

advances contribute to an increase in purchasing power that stimulates the development of

consumer goods industries. They help reduce the so-called “old regime” crises in which an

agricultural crisis affects the industry. In addition to agricultural progress, another factor

favourable to the launch of the industry is the development of transport. The traditional

system more than tripled between 1815 and 1848, with the digging of canals to ensure the

supply of industries and the development of the road network. Indeed, “New organization of

business and labour was intimately linked to the new technologies. Workers in the

industrialized sectors laboured in factories rather than in scattered shops or homes. Steam

and water power required a concentration of labour close to the power source.

Concentration of labour also allowed new discipline and specialization, which increased

productivity.” (Peters and Stearns 43 )

The 1850s and 1860s were the years of real economic prosperity. Financially, Napoleon

benefited from the economic situation: the discovery of gold in California and Australia. The

large share of this gold that ends in France allows the monetary boom, which stimulates
business. The public works set up by the Second Empire are very important. Napoleon III

encouraged the creation of the Suez Canal, inaugurated in 1869, which revolutionized

maritime transport between Europe and the Indian Ocean. The development of the railways

directly stimulated the steel industry. Following the Depression, France experienced a period

of unprecedented growth until the First World War, which was later called “Belle Époque”

after the Great War.

The industrial boom is partly linked to technological innovations, the prime example

of which is the automobile, a sector that emerged at the turn of the two centuries and for

which France becomes the world’s second largest producer. France also developed other new

industries early on, such as aeronauticals and cinema. Among the still recent industrial

sectors, electricity also experienced a significant boom at that time: its consumption

increased fivefold between 1900 and 1913. Linked to electricity, certain metallurgical

industries and chemicals developed. Signs of economic dynamism, the universal

exhibitions of 1889 and 1900 put the French economy in the spotlight. The construction of the

Eiffel Tower on the occasion of the 1889, is only one of the many manifestations of the

evolutions that can know a city like Paris at the time: electricity, buses, automobiles appear

at this time.
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Cameron, Rondo E., and Search for more articles by this author. “Economic Growth and
Stagnation in France, 1815-1914.” The Journal of Modern History, 1 Mar. 1970,
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Peters, Edward, and Peter N. Stearns. “Social Upheaval.” Encyclopædia Britannica,

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 4 Feb. 2020,
www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-Europe/Social-upheaval.

Wright, Gordon, and Jeremy David Popkin. “Services.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia
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