Most of the global community enjoys freedom and liberalism that was fought for many centuries ago. Many people shed their blood and lost their lives as they fought for civility to be obtained among different empires that existed at the time. Among the empires and kingdoms that have a long history of working on the liberalisation processes within its boundaries is France. In one of the recorded piece of history, France struggled with the idea of whether to liberalise and allow for free trade and movement of people within its boundaries or continue hanging on to the restrictions that existed at that particular time.
Research shows that there were both arguments for and against the liberalisation of France’s social and economic circles, with the older generation of leaders standing against liberalisation while the younger generation pushed for France’s economic and social circle to be liberalised. Yet the Conseil d’etat could not resist the fact that a time had come for France to take steps toward liberalisation, not only socially but economically if it was to remain relevant in the European region. The critics of liberalism in France had to understand that France could not continue to influence Europe if it closed its borders against other nations in terms of trade. Instead, it had to open up its economic boundaries to increase the flow of trade activities that would ensure that it had access to the necessary know-how and raw materials for its industries (Taithe1999, p.28).
On the other hand, it was important for France regime of Napoleon III to address the growing economic unrest among the working class by introducing excellent working conditions as this would allow workers to demand their human rights and be treated well. Similarly, France had a choice to make between pursuing a diplomatic or aggressive expansion thus setting itself as an economic power within its regions. However, since aggressive expansion meant using the military, this had weakened the military power of France in Europe thus making it vulnerable to attack from the surrounding nations. On the other hand, France was unable to intervene using the military in other areas in Europe since its troops were scattered and could not be reconvened quickly to intervene in places where France had economic interest. Therefore, it was important for it to change this strategy and employ the diplomatic strategy in quest to expand as this would exert little pressure on its military that was already depleted (Taithe1999, p.27).
France had to adapt industrial and economic changes at a very fast rate if it wanted to remain at par with countries such German and Prussia. However, as is noted by Henderson (2006, p.93), legislation of important policies dragged on for long periods of time thus denying France an opportunity to make rapid decisions that could enable it keep up with its economic opponents. Therefore, there was need to review how policies was passed by Conseil d’etat. On the other hand, France had to ensure that an economic balance was maintained in Europe to keep countries such as Prussia from furthering their policies. This could be done through entering into trade and political treaties with countries that were most likely to submit to the demands of Prussia. This was necessitated by the fact that the French military had been weakened at the time and therefore, a military intervention to stop the expansion of Prussia was an impossible assignment. On the contrary, France could enter into trade agreements with Prussia that would enable it to work closely with it thus reducing the tensions that could cause war in Europe.
The Conseil d’etat was tasked with the work of restoring the glory of France through the formulation of policies that would allow it to embrace industrial change and open up its borders to bilateral trade as countries such a Britain had done earlier on. Pierre Jules Baroche the minister for justice in the 1866 cabinet played a very important role that helped France address the problems it was facing at that particular moment. One of the problems he managed to address was many reforms among them liberalism. Thus, he played a key role as an advisor to Napoleon III when it came to the issues of national interest in regard to liberalisation, as well as Conseil d’etat (Zeldin 1993, p.173).