Aviation and French political identity: between transformation and strategic redefinition

This thesis examines how French national identity has shaped the aviation sector since the Second World War and asks whether the successive adaptations of French aviation policy in response to European integration and globalization reflect a genuine transformation of that identity or its strategic redefinition through new institutional mechanisms. The thesis argues that French political identity rests on three pillars grandeur, sovereignty, and technocratic prestige, and that these pillars, far from disappearing under pressure, have adapted. The French state has moved from direct ownership and unconditional subsidy to strategic shareholding, from unilateral command to negotiated governance, and from purely national strategies to what this thesis calls "Europeanized dirigisme": using EU institutions, frameworks, and regulatory processes as instruments to serve national objectives rather than as constraints to be endured. Through case studies of Air France, the Concorde, Airbus, and the Air France-KLM merger, the thesis demonstrates that the instruments of French industrial policy have changed but the underlying identity has not. The Concorde is gone, but Toulouse still builds Airbuses. Air France is no longer fully state-owned, but it remains French-led. France has become Europeanized, not liberal.