Industrial policy was designed as much by motives of interest as by the sympathy of Napoleon III, beyond the opposition to the bourgeoisie who had the ambition to govern or who wanted to be ousted. The path was easy because its only policy was to exploit the prejudices of the working classes. They were still subject to the Le Chapelier law of 1791, which by prohibiting any professional association placed them at the mercy of their employers. Moreover, the limitation of universal male suffrage had given the bourgeoisie a political monopoly that placed it beyond the reach of the law. Finally, whenever the working classes had left their position of rigid isolation to save the charter or universal male suffrage, the triumphant bourgeoisie had rewarded them with negligence at best. The silence of public opinion under the Empire and the prosperous state of affairs had completed the separation of the workers' party from the political parties. The visit of an elected and paid workers' delegation to the 1862 World's Fair in London gave the Emperor an opportunity to re-establish relations with the workers, and these relations were in his opinion quite profitable, since the workers , by refusing to associate their social and industrial claims with the ambitions of the bourgeoisie, maintained a neutral attitude between the parties, and could therefore, if necessary, divide them, while, by their criticism of society, they awakened the conservative instincts of the bourgeoisie and therefore moderated their enthusiasm for freedom.
A law of May 23, 1863 gave workers the possibility, as in the United Kingdom, of saving money by creating cooperative societies. Another law, of May 25, 1864, gave them the right to demand better working conditions by organizing strikes. Moreover, the Emperor allowed the workers to imitate their employers by creating trade unions for the permanent protection of their interests. And finally, when the workers wanted to replace the reductionist utilitarianism of the British trade unions with a vision common to all working classes throughout the world, he put no obstacle in the way of their leader Tolain's plan to found an International Society of Workers. At the same time he encouraged the measures taken by employers for savings and the improvement of the condition of the popular classes.
Assured of being supported, the emperor, through Rouher, a defender of the absolutist regime, refused all demands from the liberals.