Last week the New York Times praised President Macron’s management of Covid-19 and asked why the French were not impressed. None were more surprised by the article than the French media, who were at least pleased by the external praise.
Perhaps the Times’s off-beam musings can be put down to its internecine distractions, for the French picture is very different on serious inspection. Other than the publicly acknowledged failings of inadequate preparation in terms of masks, ventilators, emergency beds and testing, there is the crucial issue of the economic impact, which the NYT didn’t even discuss. With media attention focused on the economic effects of Covid-19 on Italian and Spanish debt levels, France’s economy is often overlooked. Yet the debt mountain of the second largest economy in the Eurozone is soaring as a result of Covid – making for a baleful prognosis of the French economy and its politics.
Since the creation of the Euro twenty years ago the French debt to GDP ratio has increased at twice the rate of the European average,
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