Le Dossier Agache-Willot

The Agache-Willot group was for many years at the forefront of the worries of économie and political circles. This book attempts to show, within the context of the internationalization of industrial activity and the crisis in textile industry, how the Willot brothers' strategy fits into the logic of the capitalist System and the évolution of the rôle of the Nation-State. The industrial, financial, and real estate choices of the four brothers explain both the skyrocketing growth of the group and, when the crisis worsened, its brutal downfall. The upgrading of capital which was losing its value in the textile sector brought about the development of the group, but also kept it in the framework of an even greater downgrading because the crisis was also financial. Is there a way for textile industries to survive the crisis and even overcome it? The history of the Agache-Willot group shows a solution linked to the principles of traditional capitalism. That of Boussac-Saint-Frères, which has succeeded it, suggests a différent one.