A nationwide series of protests, some of them violent, is convulsing France. The proximate cause is pension reform, and the French are having a splendid time: In news photos, the protesters are positively beaming, and a recent BBC report described the mood, amid the arson and destruction of property, as “festive.”
I suspect that the American version of that will be less festive, when the time comes.
Paul Krugman of the New York Times, who as a columnist always has had a particularly unkeen sense of timing, in November attacked the “Europhobia” of centrist Democrats. “Going on about how terrible things are in France is a sure sign that you have no idea what you're talking about,” he wrote. I do not think France is a particularly badly governed country, but the French are mad as hell about it, and surely their opinion must count for something.
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