A characterisation of the French financial system

Data on the net sources of finance for France are used to argue that the French financial system was never an economie d'endettement, and to question the idea that France has converged on the Anglo-Saxon model under the impact of financial innovation and deregulation since the early 1980s. These data and additional qualitative information suggest that in the French financial system firms and their managers have more autonomy and more control over the allocation of financial resources than their counterparts in the Anglo-Saxon countries or Japan, and the French system should not therefore be seen as a mere 'halfway-house' between these two polar types.