The political and strategic aspects of General de Gaulle's policies, his grandeur rhetoric and his hostility to European integration have between them taken up the attention of historians. It has therefore been overlooked that the 1960s were a period of unprecedented mobilisation by the French state in the promotion of French exports. This policy is not only due to the history of commercial diplomacy. The senior civil servants in charge of this process were interested not only in selling but also in creating a fundamental change to the perception of France by those abroad. It was a keen fight, involving not only official and semi-official bodies, but also private enterprise, who together furthered the neo-corporatist programme of the French state.