In case you hadn’t observed, an extremely daring experiment in social dirigisme is unfolding not in France, the place linguistically and spiritually it belongs, however within the land of the free.

The Frenchwoman writing these strains confesses she has been flabbergasted by the circumstances, unveiled this week, hooked up to $39bn in grants and loans within the US Chips act, which is designed to encourage the event of a whole semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem in America.

What US commerce secretary Gina Raimondo has outlined is a far-reaching try to bend employer behaviour, not solely within the area of business and monetary technique — chipmakers should agree to not broaden in China for a decade and chorus from inventory buybacks — but in addition in how they deal with their employees.

Amongst a number of the most hanging options — and after the administration needed to reduce its legislative plans on childcare — firms making use of for the funds must show that they are going to present “inexpensive, accessible, dependable and high-quality baby care”.

Baby care ought to be inside attain for low- and medium-income households,” states the documentation, “be situated at a handy location with hours that meet employees’ wants, grant employees confidence that they won’t must miss work for surprising childcare points, and supply a secure and wholesome setting that households can belief.”

Candidates should additionally “describe any wraparound companies — resembling grownup care, transportation help, or housing help”. They’re “strongly inspired” to signal collective bargaining offers with unions forward of constructing new crops. That is language that France’s pre-eminent Socialist president François Mitterrand would have been happy with.

Within the US, firms have to date kept away from complaining publicly about these provisions however they haven’t gone unnoticed.

“Inexpensive childcare is an admirable purpose however it has nothing to do with semiconductors,” tweeted Steven Rattner, former auto trade adviser to Barack Obama. “If we wish the CHIPS act to work, it may’t be used as a pack mule for unrelated coverage priorities.”

Economist Joseph Stiglitz expressed a extra constructive view. “Employee shortage is a major problem in our financial system, particularly in high-tech industries. The supply that firms receiving CHIPS cash present childcare for employees is a vital part,” he mentioned. “We want a market financial system that not solely displays values however encourages and develops these values from the outset.”

In Europe, the initiative shall be intently watched. “They’re utilizing industrial coverage to push social insurance policies,” mentioned Shahin Vallée, former EU adviser to Emmanuel Macron and now senior fellow at DGAP, the German Council on International Relations. “There was a profound ideological shift within the US, and in Europe, we nonetheless haven’t adjusted to it.”

The statist Charles de Gaulle would even have been envious of Joe Biden’s industrial volontarisme: broadly that the place there’s a will, there’s a manner. The Chips act, mixed with the Inflation Discount Act and its $369bn in grants, loans and tax credit for the rollout of renewable vitality and clear applied sciences, are essentially the most important makes an attempt to revive industrial coverage within the western capitalist world because the aftermath of the second world conflict.

This sea change has deeply unsettled European firms and policymakers, triggering a rethink of business coverage at EU and nationwide stage, and spurring makes an attempt by Brussels to loosen state help and nationwide subsidy guidelines.

European enterprise leaders, who complain that the EU is about sticks and never sufficient carrots, have referred to as for comparable incentives within the type of direct funding and tax credit. However they’d absolutely be much less eager on the numerous strings that the US has additionally hooked up.

As one French authorities official pointedly mentioned: “If we had been doing this in France, we might be described as communists.”