Industrial policy in France: in search of lost time Philippe Mustar 1 Received: 13 May 2016 / Revised: 21 May 2016 / Accepted: 23 May 2016 / Published online: 1 June 2016 Ó Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale 2016 Abstract The article is a contribution to the debate on industrial policy launched by this special issue. It considers that before the question of industrial policy can be tackled, it is crucial to identify what is wrong with industry today, and which causes 21st-century industrial policy should deal with. The paper documents why the deficit of manufactured goods in the French trade balance is a major problem. It shows that the ability to maintain robust industrial capacity on French soil means to keep a capacity to innovate. It goes on to present several horizontal and vertical instruments used by public authorities to try to boost the competitiveness of French industrial companies, or to ‘‘reindustrialize the country’’. These numerous actions raise the question of the state’s strategic vision of industrial policy. Aligning macroeconomic and sectorial policies stays a major challenge. Keywords Industrial policy Á Manufacturing industry Á Innovation Á France JEL Classification E6 Á L5 Á O4 I intend to use the following pages to both express a point of view and contribute a few facts to the debate on industrial policy launched by Lucchese, Nascia et Pianta’s comprehensive and convincing paper on the situation in Italy. & Philippe Mustar philippe.mustar@mines-paristech.fr 1 MINES ParisTech, PSL Research University, 60, boulevard Saint Michel, 75006 Paris, France 123 Econ Polit Ind (2016) 43:305–313 DOI 10.1007/s40812-016-0036-7