There was a sense, when I arrived in Paris a couple of weeks ago, that France was if not quite in meltdown then certainly enduring a profound existential crisis.
Unemployment had metastasized to 10.6 percent, and the country's credit rating was in the dumps. President Francois Hollande's maligned plans for a 75 percent "supertax" had sent some of the most famous French citizens scuttling to Belgium.
In November 2012, a cover of the Economist magazine showed seven baguettes tied with a tricolor, a lit fuse poking out. The article warned: "Mr. Hollande does not have long to defuse the time-bomb at the heart of Europe."