'Course, it was, anecdotally at least, true that quite a few people did leave France in the early- and mid-'90's. But let's not forget who was in charge at the time - it sure wasn't Mitterand (even when he was still President).  

As for me, the prof I was closest to basically told me it was time to leave in 1994. My wife didn't want to, it was very hard, moving with all your things and also your children is quite difficult, but getting the obligatory 5-7 years professional experience every cadremploi job listing seemed to require at the time, and then come back with the requisite cv, seemed important at the time. I was American too so it was easy for me back then, which went into his thinking. So here we came all of us, wife and kids in tow.

And when I got here, I found I was not alone, and when I ended up in b-school in the US (had planned to return to insead but my son fell ill so that wasn't possible in the end), there were actually quite a few fellow French including one other from La Seyne s/Mer, who is now in London. There are quite a few ex-pats here, for instance practically the entire MRI research lab here in Minneapolis is French (the unofficial language at the lab - my best friend here works there) and also for a time I had both a senior analyst from Clermont and an international tax specialist from Lille on my staff of eight, and it wasn't me who hired them.

So there was a bit of a brain drain, or perhaps more a drain of those with some modest ambition, but this came later on and cannot be left to the feet of the socialists. In fact if you look at the employment numbers since 1990, the only time we had it (relatively) good was during Jospin. I sometimes wonder how these market fundamentalists in anglo-counties get their facts wrong in this regard, but then one need not wonder overmuch - they've got a clear agenda, and it is the ultimate goal of neo-liberalism - accumulation of more wealth and power, the people be damned. Or rather, the people be moulded into better a more serviable service class.  As one (right-wing) colleague of mine often says, in the ultimate middle-class expression of the goal of anglo-american liberalism:

service at McDonald's is much better in times of high unemployment.

Non-US readers are reminded that unemployment benefits in the US are pitiful to the point of non-existance. In fact, credit card debt is the primary source of private unemployment insurance in America. A true worker's paradise.

That more equitable forms of social organization actually meliorate labor markets as well should seem like an evidence to me, but then, this is not their goal.

Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant