Pessimistic views among French economist, political and scholar opinion givers have often prevailed about the assessment of French economic competitiveness ; that might be explained by negative surveys of the ability of economic elites to adapt themselves to the changes of the environment of...

For three years under Pompidou’s presidency, Chaban Delmas had to restart the process of modernising and industrialising French economy whilst altogether trying to put a ceiling to the inflationary trends spurred by the “May 68” events and the large easiness in wages increases and in...

Harsh arguments accompanied the development and the history of the Suez canal company either among nationalist Egyptians (just before, during or just after the nationalisation of the canal in 1956) or among some historians dedicated to find out clues of imperialist powers on key tools and moves...

The discovery of a huge gas deposit in North Siberia in the 1980s changed somewhat western Europe economy, because an abundant and low cost energy source allowed to alleviate the burden of the 'energy crisis' and, above all, paved the way to a large geopolitical argument: could western companies...

French banking expansion in China and South-East Asia had to respect the powerful influence of British banks there. From the 1860s French merchant and banking interests had been involved in Hong Kong business because of the colonial developments in Indochina and the links between this area and...

Our text does not intend to develop a history of French banks' Europeanisation, but instead to scrutinise the mentalities of French bankers, in order to determine whether they were confined to relationships with French business or embedded within networks of personal relations with their...