Louis Rouanet: The French Tradition of Liberty

Our guest this week is Louis Rouanet, a Summer Fellow at the Mises Institute and a formidable young Austro-libertarian scholar. Louis studies economics at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, and has published several articles at mises.org relating to his research work at the Institute. Jeff and Louis discuss the deep French libertarian tradition, which goes far beyond Bastiat and Jean-Baptiste Say. In fact, French economics was once a close cousin of the Austrian school. And while we tend to see France as hopelessly statist and egalitarian today, its intellectual traditions are radically liberal. Is France lost forever to the EU political project, and the likes of Hollande and Piketty? Or can she reclaim both her sovereignty and her liberty in the 21st century?