The contracting system in the French construction industry: actors and institutions

An overview is presented of development in the French construction industry responding to economic, regulatory and legal changes over the last 20 years. As the French industry moved into recession in the early 1980s, the large French construction corporations increasingly moved upstream taking greater responsibility for design, and downstream becoming increasingly concerned with concessions for public works and services. The public sector clients' reactions to these developments is analysed, in particular the passing and implementation of the law on the public sector client. This safeguards a larger role for the architect in the construction process and tends to favour a shift back from general contracting to seperate trades contracting. The analysis is presented in terms of a struggle between the different actors in the French contracting system for predominance, and shows how the balance of relationships in the system is dynamic.