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[/audioplayer]Last week President François Hollande, following his party’s humiliation in the European parliamentary elections (his Socialists won roughly half as many seats as the National Front), decided to cheer himself up. He left Paris and travelled to Clairefontaine to mingle with France’s World Cup football squad.
‘If you do win the World Cup final on 13 July,’ he told the millionaire players (most of whom avoid Hollande’s taxes by being paid outside France), ‘you will deserve a triumphant welcome. But we will not be able to give you the reception you will deserve, because the Champs-Elysées is already booked for the military parade of 14 July!’
Ed Miliband could hardly have put it more lamely. Having uttered his words of feeble encouragement, the least effective national leader the Fifth Republic has endured bumbled back to the scenes of economic devastation and ministerial panic that mark France’s political landscape today.
If the British recovery from the recession has been slow, in France it is nonexistent.
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