Les Trente Glorieuses (French pronunciation: [le tʁɑ̃t ɡlɔʁjøz]; 'The Glorious Thirty') was a thirty-year period of economic growth in France between 1945 and 1975, following the end of the Second World War.

[1] As early as 1944, Charles de Gaulle introduced a dirigiste economic policy, which included substantial state-directed control over a capitalist economy.

From 1946 to 1950, France, paralyzed by an obsolete economy and infrastructures, did not achieve real growth, and living conditions remained very difficult after the war and the penury which resulted from it.

As noted by the historians Jean Blondel and Donald Geoffrey Charlton in 1974, If it is still the case that France lags in the number of its telephones, working-class housing has improved beyond recognition and the various 'gadgets' of the consumer society—from television to motor cars—are now purchased by the working class on an even more avid basis than in other Western European countries.

[7]In his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, French economist Thomas Piketty describes the Trente Glorieuses as an exceptional 'catch up' period following the two world wars.