French Trade Research Articles

21. Main trends in world, European and French trade

21. Main trends in world, European and French trade

Gifts, Sovereignty and Power: The British and French Trading Companies in Mughal India, 1735-65

This article focuses on the gifts awarded by Indian powers to the British and French trading companies and their representatives in Mughal India in exchange for services rendered – notably the provision of military support. As the Mughal Empire disintegrated, Indian powers solicited the military backing of the British and French to secure their positions of power. When this support was delivered, the companies and their agents were handsomely rewarded with payments and gifts, the awarding of which was part of the performance of sovereignty by the rulers concerned. Beneath this appearance of sovereignty, however, real world power was increasingly vested in the British and French companies, which, confident of their military superiority, exercised more and more control over the rulers that they claimed to serve. What role did the gifts offered by Indian rulers to their European collaborators play in these changing power relations? What do the gifts reveal about how these relations changed? Can a distinction be maintained between gifts and payments? And can objects obtained coercively really be considered gifts? These questions are explored in relation to the political ascent of the British and French companies in the Carnatic and Bengal between 1735 and 1765.

Perceived Quality of Life in Intensive Care Medicine Physicians: A French National Survey.

Purpose: There is a growing interest in the quality of work life (QWL) of healthcare professionals and staff well-being. We decided to measure the perceived QWL of ICU physicians and the factors that could influence their perception. Methods: We performed a survey coordinated and executed by the French Trade Union of Intensive Care Physicians (SMR). QWL was assessed using the French version of the Work-Related Quality of Life (WRQoL) scale, perceived stress using the French version of 10 item-Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) and group functioning using the French version of the Reflexivity Scale, the Social Support at Work Questionnaire (QSSP-P). Results: 308 French-speaking ICU physicians participated. 40% perceived low WRQoL, mainly due to low general well-being, low satisfaction with working conditions and low possibility of managing the articulation between their private and professional lives. Decreased QWL was associated with being a woman (p = .002), having children (p = .022) and enduring many monthly shifts (p = .022). Conclusions: This work highlights the fact that ICU physicians feel a significant imbalance between the demands of their profession and the resources at their disposal. Communication and exchanges within a team and quality of social support appear to be positive elements to maintain and/or develop within our structures.

A French Manuscript on Trade and Diplomacy in Iran during the Zand Era

Abstract A highly interesting memoir about Iran, written by Jean-François-Xavier Rousseau (1738–1808), an agent of the French East India Company (Compagnie des Indes orientales) in Basra, apparently unpublished and unknown until now, covers the political situation of the late Zand period of the 1770s in an effort to promote French trade in the Persian Gulf. This text, entitled Situation actuelle du royaume de Perse (The Current Situation of the Kingdom of Persia), is a valuable document that sheds light on the French commercial strategy towards Iran and testifies to the social contacts between European merchants, diplomats, local rulers, and the Zand court in the eighteenth century.

Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World

Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World

A Letter from Sigismund II Augustus to King Charles IX of France: Trade Struggle in the Baltic under Ivan the Terrible

The message of the Polish king and Lithuanian grand duke Sigismund II Augustus to the French king Charles IX of France from July 28, 1568, highlights the problem of Polish-French trade controversies, which arose due to the policy of Jagiellon against Russian-French commerce in Narva in the 1560s. Believing that French traders were enriching themselves by supplying weapons and ammunition to Russia, the Polish monarch, in the crisis in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, took measures to cut off trade in Narva and blockade it completely. As a result, French merchant ships sailing to or from Narva were seized by the Polish privateers. It aroused the indignation of Charles IX who, with the help of Charles de Danzay, his ambassador in Denmark, defended the freedom of trade and navigation on the Baltic Sea. The text of the letter appeals to the feelings of the French monarch within the framework of Christian morality, while at the same time trying to show the power and the importance of the Polish king and his state to the Respublica Christiana, and the legitimacy of the tough stance he took on the “Narva navigation”. All this makes the letter from Sigismund II Augustus to Charles IX a valuable historical source whose importance is revealed in through diplomatic correspondence in the Baltic wars of the 1560s. Published for the first time, it comes from the collection of P. P. Dubrovsky (62, № 61), Russian National Library (St Petersburg). The article publishes the text of the letter in Latin as well as a translation into Russian.

Mobilizing anti‐discrimination law: the litigation strategies of UK and French trade unions compared

AbstractBased on cross‐national comparative research conducted in France and the United Kingdom, this article explores to what extent and under what conditions trade unions situated in different legal systems have turned to the courts to challenge discrimination at work. It investigates the interplay between a broad range of structural factors that offer specific opportunities, and the way in which trade unionists interpret contexts to promote legal mobilization in addition to or in place of other repertoires of action. In so doing, the article contributes to the understanding of anti‐discrimination law enforcement and the role of micro‐level actors in enabling litigation strategies.

Fragmented But Widespread Microconflicts: Current Limits and Future Possibilities for Organizing Precarious Workers in the French Logistics Sector

Abstract The logistics sector in France is emblematic of contemporary labor processes in the service sector, where working conditions are at the root of a long-term, but silent, health crisis. Although the unionization of French logistics workers has gained some strength since the early 2000s, struggles over wages and working conditions remained segmented and local, and were unable to contain the progressive casualization of the employment or to counter the intensification of work. This article is a reflection on the fragmented and low-intensity conflictuality of the French logistics sector. Drawing on three ethnographic studies and on quantitative data, we analyze labor conflicts in various segments of the warehouse industry during the last decade in France, and identify some of the limits of French trade union strategies toward organizing logistics workers. We show that the massive use of temporary work and the weakness of the efforts made by traditional trade unions federations prevent the emergence of a larger labor movement in the sector. We argue that the fragmentation and the very high turnover that characterizes the French warehouse industry should encourage trade unions to invest more resources, often local and rooted in logistics zones, from outside the workplace.

Die Illusion vom Frieden: Die Zweite Internationale wider den Krieg, 1889–1919

Die Illusion vom Frieden: Die Zweite Internationale wider den Krieg, 1889–1919

Colonizer identity and trade in Africa: Were the British more favourable to free trade?

AbstractIt has often been claimed that the structure of export trade between Africa and Europe during the colonial period depended on the colonizer's identity, with the British relying on free trade and the French, in contrast, employing monopsonistic policies. However, due to the lack of systematic data on colonial trade, this claim has remained untested. This study uses recently available data on export prices from African colonies to estimate monopsonistic profit margins for British and French trading companies. The results challenge the view of the British colonizers as champions of free trade. The level of profit margins was determined much more by the local conditions in Africa (history of trade and the presence of European producers) than by the identity of the colonial power. The British did not necessarily rely on free trade more than the French and did so only when implementing monopsonies was not a viable option.

Los Adaes, the First Capital of Spanish Texas

Los Adaes, the First Capital of Spanish Texas

In Search of Carhagouha: The Archaeological Identification of Two Early Seventeenth-Century Huron-Wendat Villages

Since 2014, the Tay Point Archaeology Project has actively investigated Ahatsistari (BeGx-76) and Chew (BeGx-9), two Huron-Wendat village sites. Archaeological and historical evidence suggest Ahatsistari and Chew are good candidates for the historically referenced villages of Carhagouha and Quieunonascaran respectively, visited by the French ca. 1615–1616 CE and 1623–1624 CE. The geographic locations, inter-village distances, and sizes of Ahatsistari and Chew correspond with historic accounts of Carhagouha and Quieunonascaran. Recovered European-made artifacts securely date Ahatsistari to the first quarter and Chew to the second quarter of the seventeenth century, matching the recorded occupations of Carhagouha and Quieunonascaran. Exceptionally high glass bead densities and unusual European trade items point to intense trade between the French and Huron-Wendat and the presence of notable European visitors at Ahatsistari. Still to be located at Ahatsistari are a triple palisade and small cabin outside the village of Carhagouha that was occupied by Samuel de Champlain, Recollect friar Joseph Le Caron, and French traders.

Sino-French Trade at Canton, 1698–1842 by Susan E. Schopp

Reviewed by: Sino-French Trade at Canton, 1698–1842 by Susan E. Schopp Jeff Horn Sino-French Trade at Canton, 1698–1842. By susan e. schopp. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2021. 216 pp. ISBN 97898885228509. $73.00 (hardcover). Susan Schopp's brief monograph is misnamed. Although its title is Sino-French Trade at Canton, 1698–1842, the volume, profits, and meaning of that trade are completely absent from this book. Nor does Schopp place her findings into any sort of historiographical context whatsoever. This short work of 130 pages of text is restricted to an exhaustive, repetitive description of a commercial exchange by France and the French involving a particular place, namely Canton. Between 1698 and 1842, 289 French ships called at Canton bringing silver, textiles, luxuries like coral and gold thread, and metals, especially lead. They returned laden with cargoes primarily of tea with some porcelain and raw silk along with tiny quantities of other goods (pp. 38, 135–159, 161). Schopp did not delineate how these cargoes, or their profitability, may have changed over time. The number of French ships arriving in Canton peaked under the second Compagnie des Indies between 1730 and 1769 when 16–22 French ships arrived in China annually except during the frequent periods of war with Britain (p. 15). Three periods of "Company rule" (1664–1719, 1719–1769, 1785–1793) were interspersed with eras of "private trade." Schopp devotes a chapter to "The French Company Model of Sino-European Trade" (pp. 25–40). She emphasizes: (1) the role of the French state in creating the French East India Company; (2) the dependence on the royal family for capital; the Company's "broad founding mission and geographical scope"; and the important role of private traders within the Company's monopoly (pp. 29–30). A brief description of the East India Companies chartered by other countries (pp. 25–29) stands in for any consideration of what was distinctive or important about that model. Schopp's findings beg for comparison to French trade patterns with the Levant, North America, and the Caribbean or even with other areas that had been part of the bailiwick of the East India Company like pondicherry or the Mascarenes. This type of analysis of commercial exchange is being undertaken across the field and has been a longstanding part of historical inquiry into commercial matters. Junko Takeda's new monograph, The Other Persian Letters: Iran and a French Empire of Trade, 1700–1808 (Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, 2020) is deeply imbricated in the literature on commercial interaction [End Page 720] and successfully demonstrates how an example can bring out the contours of the whole. This book also stresses that the French Company's operations were located primarily in Paris, Versailles, and Lorient though Saint-Malo and Nantes are also mentioned (p. 31) which calls for comparison to the Dutch system described earlier in the chapter. She concludes that "The most striking characteristic of the French model was its relationship with the Crown and the consequent effect on the Compagnie's administration" (p. 32). She follows that observation with an exhaustive description of the French East India Company's administrative structures and then their replacement by a Consulate with a resident royal agent as France's representatives in Canton (pp. 32–36). The divorce of this information from the volume or profitability of trade, the importance of import substitution, or the shape of commercial interactions in Canton or how other models performed leaves this material unmoored from their very purpose. In good encyclopedic fashion, Schopp delineates the various types of ship, their characteristics, and the crews used in the Sino-French trade as well as the "chop boats" that unloaded goods in Canton, Macao, or Whampoa. The various routes across the Indian Ocean and through the archipelagoes south of Canton are explored thoroughly. A brief look at the trans-Pacific route is interesting but had little commercial impact except for a short period in the early eighteenth century (pp. 60-62). She devotes chapters to the daily life and physical plant of the French hong or commercial establishment, entertainment, and lengthy biographical sketches that draw on her earlier interest...

Legal Expertise: A Critical Resource for Trade Unionists? Insights into the Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail

Abstract Based on in-depth qualitative research conducted in one of the major French trade unions (the CFDT), this article explores to what extent and under what conditions trade unions adopt different legal practices to further their members’ interests. In particular, it investigates how ‘legal framing’ has taken an increasingly pervasive place in trade union work, in increasingly decentralised industrial relations contexts, such as France. This article therefore argues that the use of the law has become a multifaceted and embedded repertoire of action for the CFDT in its attempt to consolidate its institutional power through various strategies, including collective redress and the use of legal expertise in collective bargaining and representation work.

France in the Levant: Trade and Immaterial Circulations in the “Long Eighteenth Century”

Abstract The article analyzes aspects of French trade in the Levant during the eighteenth century by tracing the link between commercial exchange, institutions, and socio-cultural interaction within the system of French échelles in the Eastern Mediterranean. As the paper argues, this trade not only acquired a primary relevance within Ottoman and French economies but also created institutional and social interdependencies that prefigured nineteenth-century developments. The study discusses how economic, institutional, and social aspects are highly intertwined, each of them playing a core role in explaining the relevance of the French presence in the Early Modern Eastern Mediterranean.

European Insiders and Outsiders? Assessing the Reaction of German and French Trade Unions to EU Austerity

Though the existence of a European insider-outsider division has previously been theorised, a robust link between the actions of certain workers and the existence of such divisions has yet to be demonstrated. In this article, I examine differing reactions of German and French trade unions to austerity in Southern Europe. German and French unions reacted to austerity in a lukewarm manner, contributing to the emergence of European divides. This was particularly the case in Germany, in which the stronger position within Economic and Monetary Union meant that there were fewer incentives for solidarity. I link this development with the nature of the contemporary EU, contending that the division is related to the propensity of Economic and Monetary Union to initiate competition between national labour markets and an upturn in nationalism.

A leading French trade house in China: Olivier (1900s–1930s)

The history of the forces of capitalism in pre-Communist China regained momentum at the turn of this century because present Chinese authorities commenced to enhance the valuation of local entrepreneurialism. It had been for a long time identified with a mere form of imperialism or some kind of companionship with the economic offshoots of the Powers having imposed their rules along several Unequal Treaties. Historians can therefore reinterpret the developments of foreign business in the China of the 1900s–1940s to reconstitute the interlocking between actual imperialist forces and more and more strong Chinese houses.

Canoes in context: An Ojibwa maritime cultural landscape

A birch-bark canoe often conjures up images of French and British fur traders but its most important context comes from an association with the Native communities that invented the craft. This article describes Ojibwa birch-bark canoes’ place in a culture that was influenced by the lakes, ponds, rivers and streams that made up their environment throughout the Great Lakes region and Canada. Just as importantly, Ojibwa canoes offer an excellent device for exploring the multitude of ways that water influenced identity, cosmology and day-to-day life.

The changing face of union action put to the test by neo-liberal reforms in France

This article reviews how French trade union are coping with the neo-liberal policies since the early 1980s. It shows their divergent reactions, and how these liberal reforms are implemented in a context of transformation of trade union action: the use of strikes is more difficult at the same time as the relationship between trade unions and collective bargaining is transformed in a logic of depoliticizing their strategies of action. These developments did not prevent a resurgence of strikes in the 2000s. It reveals the limits of the trade unions’ power of political influence, that implies the use of collective action. However, strikes have declined further in recent years, revealing the weakening of trade union mobilisation power.

How do social movements behave within EMU? The case of trade union reaction to EU austerity

ABSTRACT There is much literature on the Europeanization of social movements, yet work tends not to theorize the influence of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) upon social movements. I examine the extent to which EU-imposed austerity in Southern Europe inspired European protests among German, Spanish and French trade unions. On the basis of an analytic framework which distinguishes between (i) Europeanization and (ii) continuing attachment to national institutions, I contend that degrees of Europeanization are contingent upon position within EMU. Unions in weak positions have incentives to undertake Europeanization, as in the case of Spain, whilst unions within strong positions have less incentive to undertake Europeanization, as in the case of Germany.