Beneath France’s revolts, hidden success

So far thisGDP year the French have done a fine job portraying their country as broken. Twice they have spread mayhem, and derailed a state visit, with street rebellions. The first, over a rise in the retirement age, underlined people’s refusal to face up to the financing needs of the state pension system. The , over the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old, spoke of a failure to get law enforcement right in rough neighbourhoods. Emmanuel Macron, the president, runs a minority government that seems to lurch from crisis to crisis.Yet behind the headlines, one of the abiding mysteries of France today is this: a country with an aversion to change, a talent for revolt and an excessive taste for taxes still manages to get so much right. Recently France has even outperformed its big . Since 2018 cumulative growth in in France, albeit modest, has been twice that in Germany, and ahead of Britain, Italy and Spain.