The Foundations of Economic Life

At the Flamanville nuclear plant on the Normandy coast, engineer Sylvie Leclerc monitors the control room displays showing the reactor's vital signs. Five hundred kilometers away in Marseille, dock worker Karim Benoit guides a massive container crane, part of France's busiest port complex. Between them, high-speed TGV trains race along dedicated tracks at 320 kilometers per hour, while trucks navigate the autoroutes carrying goods that keep the economy moving. These scenes—nuclear energy, maritime trade, rail transport, and road networks—represent the critical infrastructure underpinning France's modern economy.

Infrastructure and energy systems rarely capture public attention until they fail. Yet these networks form the economy's circulatory and nervous systems, enabling everything from morning coffee (delivered through complex supply chains) to international video calls (transmitted through fiber optic cables). This chapter examines how France built, maintains, and modernizes the infrastructure powering its economy, exploring both remarkable achievements and mounting challenges in an era of climate change and digital transformation.