This is the cover of the most recent (European edition) Economist:



Ho ho ho. How they must have sniggered when they put that together.

So, to summarise, according to the Economist:

France needs to be more like Britain;

It also needs a decade-long recession;

France's manufacturing sector - the most productive, highest value in the world - needs to be destroyed;

It would be handy to have a small war far away;

France needs to be tossed out of the Euro because its chancellor is incapable of keeping its revenue within shouting distance of its spending;

It needs more riots and hooliganism in its poorest suburbs; and

It needs to double unemployment and poverty as quickly as possible.

Let me see if I can think of reasons why French voters might be wary of the prescription.

(By the way, whatever happened to Mrs Thatcher? Was she the one who was tossed out by her own party, causing a ruption that inflicted fifteen years of division within the Tories? Or would that be another Mrs T?)