Blum came into office with a nearly impossible economic mission – to increase the purchasing power of the working class in a manner that was permanent, generally felt and yet still under some central control. Retaliatory price increases, patchy distribution of the benefits and macro-economic rigidity soon undid most of what had been achieved in that respect. The social achievement, on the other hand, was more considerable. The laws restricting the working week to a maximum of forty hours and providing paid holidays are the elements which are most frequently recalled, for they became a kind of political shibboleth by which loyalty to the Popular Front was judged – and which Blum himself invoked as his greatest contribution to the well-being of working people. However, a distant observer comparing the France of 1935 with that of 1937 (or indeed any later date) would immediately realize that an even more profound change had been wrought – by the introduction of compulsory collective bargaining into industrial relations.

That development can be regarded from several points of view. Political intervention fell under three heads. The Popular Front's electoral victory on 3 May 1936 made reform possible, if not inevitable. Then came the great wave of strikes and the Matignon conference which sought to resolve them. Thirdly, the law of 24 June 1936 made it obligatory to negotiate wages and working conditions by collective contract. But there was also an internal evolution, which operated on quite another plane from parliamentary politics – for collective bargaining evidently depended on direct dialogue between unions and bosses.