The seventh plan—the demise of French planning?

Abstract

Many critics claim that the Seventh Plan marks the demise of economic planning at the national level in France. Looking at the content and the preparation process of this 'non‐democratic non‐plan',1 this paper shows that this Plan is simply a 'strategic framework' (=a party platform) with, as a central core, a limited number of public investment programmes which stand a reasonable chance of being implemented. With regards to its preparation, 'consensus‐building' has become little more than a dead letter. Nor does the future of planning look very hopeful, whatever the complexion of the Government in power.