On the radio today I heard a new word, dirigisme, and I managed to get the text, noted here, from an on-line audio clip. There is nothing more in the on-line dictionaries. Can anyone give a more thorough explanation?

quote:

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Announcer: Drugmaker Aventis is uniting with Sanofi [both French] in a $65 billion deal. Aventis nixed the idea when Sanofi first came calling and even found a rival suitor - Novartis of Switzerland - to help fend off Sanofi's advances. Then the French government intervened. French authorities were determined to keep all that business talent safe at home.

Reporter: The French call it dirigisme or state intervention. This $65 billion merger is a prime example. First, Sanofi made a bid for Aventis which the company angrily rebuffed. But when a foreign firm, Novartis of Switzerland, courted Aventis, the French government intervened, warned off Novartis, and pressured the two French companies into a deal.

It would be almost unthinkable in almost any other western democracy. Said Andrew Hilton, head of London think tank, "The fact that their small shareholder on the street may get screwed doesn't really matter half as much as the fact that they're operating in the interest of greater France."

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Google's French > English translation facility translates it as "state intervention".

Did you check the online French dictionaries? Ultralingua French > English gives "intervention by the state (Economics)".

>There is nothing more in the on-line dictionaries.

OneLook® led me to this Encarta entry:

government control: full and direct government control of a country’s economy and social institutions

[Mid-20th century. From French, where it was formed from diriger “to direct,” from Latin dirigere (see direct).]

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OED2 has citations for dirigiste, dirigistic.

Quotes: The French call it dirigisme or state intervention.
Google's French > English translation facility translates it as "state intervention". Ultralingua French > English gives "intervention by the state (Economics)."
But
Encarta entry: full and direct government control of a country’s economy and social institutions

Isn't there a pretty major difference, the one being periodic case-by-case intervention, the other being Orwellian central control? Can we pin down this concept any better?

That depends on the context. It can be used for occasional intervention; for example, if a government decides that a company is too valuable to the nation to be allowed to go bankrupt, or it can be used for full control, as in communist countries.