This article studies the “turn toward austerity” taken by President Mitterrand in March 1983 from a sociological angle. Interpreting this key episode in French political history as a regulatory process, it shows how this process resulted not only from external economic constraints and the French elites’ conversion to neoliberalism, but also from collective action following decision-making. Drawing on different empirical corpora (archives, directories, participant accounts), it identifies the contours of the controversy over economic policy. After establishing the list of actors who took part in the decision-making, it analyzes their positions in the social and relational structures. It stresses the important roles played by forms of social, political, and state-level status in the unfolding of the controversy, and it shows the significant relational work done by some actors. It brings to light the scope and importance of such phenomena as homophily, intermediacy, status competition, and social niche construction in the framework of this regulatory process.