LOOSENING THE TIES THAT BIND - THE IMPACT OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION ON FRENCH GOVERNMENT AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO BUSINESS

European integration has served to loosen the ties that have tradition ally bound French business and government by decreasing the independen ce of French govenment, which can no longer formulate policy unilatera lly, while it has increased that of French business, which now looks a s much to Europe as to the nation-state for policy-making, and more to the market and one another than the state for financing. European int egration has also reduced the flexibility of government at the impleme ntation stage, with the EU regulatory model replacing France's adminis trative model. The result is an unbalancing of France's traditional 's tatist' model of policy-making, and potential problems for French demo cracy.