What really happened in France in the late 1990s?

In the late 1990s, the French and German economies were in similar situations with regard to the trade balance, the situation of industry, the employment rate and per capita income. Today, the situations of France and Germany have diverged strikingly on all these points: what happened in the late 1990s and early 2000s that explains France’s decoupling from Germany? We think that France’s decoupling can be explained by: The decline in skills in France relative to Germany; Which was exacerbated by the deterioration in France’s cost competitiveness and the reduction in working time; And weak capital modernisation in France. The combination of these three shortcomings (concerning skills, companies’ position on the value chain and price competitiveness) is of course disastrous.