No book comes to mind.
The whole corporate structure of France went over to the fascists.
We need to remember just why it was that France failed so quickly.
It was because France was divided almost perfectly down the middle between socialists/communists, on the one side, and corporatist/fascists on the other.
These two domestic factions hated each other intensely, and the government was socialist, but the military command was quasi-fascist.
The degree of hatred and distrust exceeded even the current level of partisan hatred in America.
The left wing of French government was spiritually akin to the Soviets. The right wing of French government was spiritually akin to the fascists in Italy and Spain, with a dose of anti-Semitism akin to (although not anywhere near extreme as) the German Nazis.
So, when the French military collapsed, practically for the want of desire of the French general command to fight, the Parliament voted in Petain as national leader, and the French fascists took command of the government. They were nationalist adversaries of the Germans, still, but ideologically they were very much in tune with the fascist corporatists.
Now, that was virtually the whole French right.
We should remember that from 1941 until 1944 or so, practically all of the active Resistance in France was Communist. The French right was fascist, and the Nazis were their ideological allies, although the French right were still French nationalists and resented German domination. So, what you had was all of the major French industries, the entirety of it, continuing to operate, stepping up to war production, for the Germans, with French corporate leadership squeezing the hell out of French labor. The French laborer was exploited by the French corporatists for their PROFIT, and for the benefit of the whole fascist cause everywhere. Renault cooperated enthusiastically with the German war effort. THAT'S the main moral reason why Renault was nationalized as soon as the free French government was restored.
This is also why the French are specifically suspicious of corporatism.
Remember, in France during the occupation, the only fighting heroes were Communists. The French right, the republicans and business class. Were, as a class (if not always as individuals) Vichy, and cooperative with the fascists. Now, this didn't mean that they were eager to kill Jews, and there was plenty of hiding Jews. But in social terms, the French right saw in the German conquest the opportunity to bring well in hand labor and the left, kill the Communists, and establish a corporatist state in France which would focus on iron-fisted production and rule for maximum profits. Vichy was not about race war, but it WAS about class war. It was the moment of full domination by the corporate far right, and they viewed French laborers as work units, essentially livestock, to be driven to the greatest extent possible. Communists and any sort of labor organization was, of course, subversive, and murderously attacked.
THAT'S why the French are distrustful of unregulated corporatism. Because that was Vichy France. And it's why the French view labor organization and control, and direct labor presence in corporate board rooms, etc., as an essential tool of democratic control of the country. The last time the French capital class was completely unregulated by French workers, it went over as a class to fascism with a vengeance.
iron-fisted production
full domination by the corporate far right
fascism with a vengeance
Funny how the communist totalitarians are held in great esteem while the fascist totalitarians are abomination.
Communists snicker at the pathetic body count that the fascists were able to roll-up. No beats the communists at murdering millions with very little complaints in the media.
Funny how that works.
"The whole corporate structure of France went over to the fascists."
And if they had refused? But never mind. Which side of schizophrenic pe-War France built the Maginot Line along the border with unfriendly Germany but not that of friendly Belgique? If the military was pro-Facist, why did they put the Wehrmacht through the trouble of going through Belgium? Just open up the gates and... Germany overwhelmed France because of superior weapony. And just to be fair, the "anglo-saxons" as you derisivly call them, were taking old muskets out of museums in desperation after Verdun, Britain having suffered from quai-socialism since Ramsey MacDonald. The socialists/communists weren't interested in armament developments or armies. Witness the job Uncle Joe Stalin did to the Red Army in 1937, murdering, among many, many others, the brilliant Marshall Tuckachevsky.
You started this argument with the notion that we "anglo-saxons" were angry at France for not following our model. Assuming we think our model is superior(and we know it is) why would we want to force it upon you and cause ourselves extra competition?
A) freedom of speech does not exist (hate speech laws, anyone? Ask Brigitte Bardot); note also that newspapers are funded by the government, there is no truly free press in France (instead, the government "ensures diversity of the press" by ensuring that papers can't fail by subsidizing them heavily). The irony there is that it's far more expensive to buy a paper in France than in the US...
B) The government controls 53% of the economy, has enacted extremely rigid labor laws which make it nearly impossible to become an entrepreneur and make it illegal to work at more than one full-time job. (note Vicomte (and God almighty, how I hate royalists---believing in superiority based on accident of birth, although I suspect you must be a Gaullist)-- in the US, most of the people who work at more than a full-time job do it by choice, either to gain enough to achieve a certain dream, or to get a new venture off the ground).
C) Taxes are so confiscatory and regulation so onerous that none of your personal capital is truly your own. Don't believe me? Try evicting a non-paying tenant in France. You will still pay your mortgage, but the tenant doesn't have to pay you and you can't make them leave. There's always a way to be allowed to stay---get pregnant, become unemployed, you name it. Taxes are so ridiculously heavy that the black market is the thriving part of the economy in France. Polish plumbers were the latest bugaboo of the French, not because they'd displace legitimate French plumbers, but because those French plumbers would lose their lucrative under-the-table payments. Domestic workers were so notoriously paid under the table that the government had to come up with a freakishly byzantine tax incentive structure to get people to pay legally. French employees have very low salaries because they don't want to pay the taxes on salary, so they get paid "in nature" instead---with paid-for vacations, cars, etc., which the government approves of because it bases medical benefits payments on salary and would have to pay out more on higher salaries. Don't even start with the series of CDD (temp) jobs with which many French are stuck---because no one wants to hire anyone they cannot fire. The country is reaching SOL time, but refuses to acknowledge the need for reform, something the Germans have at least learned.
Per your latest comment, Fascists and Communists are merely two sides of the same coin (although the communists are still going strong in France)---giving up personal control of your life to the government is common to both, just as it is common to current French society. Given your obvious deficiency of understanding on matters economic, there are some French authors with whom you must be sadly unfamiliar, including one of the most brilliant: Frédéric Bastiat (see here). Seriously, the French model is fated to collapse, just as the Soviet Union was fated to collapse, because the economic model is simply untenable. Not surprising that the French understanding is so skewed when even the so-called "right-wing parties" in France are far to the left of the left parties in the rest of Europe. Check out the chart in the current issue of "L'Expansion" for yourself if you don't believe me.
The young are protesting because they are fearful of globalization, fearful of uncertainty and fearful of risk, period. You have obviously been too long out of France to have your finger on the pulse anymore. It is a country run as a nanny state for its infantilised citizens (see La Grande Nurserie : En finir avec l'infantilisation des français). And I say all of this as someone who is very very worried about the state of France and who has a stake in seeing it succeed.