"I do not believe in the market at all." This is not the confession of a French socialist or even a staunch member of the Gaullist party who reveres French state hegemony, writes Eric Le Boucher (pictured). It is Claude Bébéar, founder and former president of Axa, the French insurance giant, who until now has been a paid-up member of the free market liberal tendency on the French side of the Channel.

When such a staunch advocate of pure capitalism admits that he has lost his faith in the market, you know that something has changed in the French management psyche. The burst of the internet bubble, the Enron scandal and the crisis at Vivendi Universal have unleashed a fervent debate about, and potentially triggered a U-turn on, Anglo-Saxon values.