An interesting article (and video http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22985889) by John Simpson, BBC World Affairs Editor
Here is an extract from the article. I have put the last part of the article in bold type as I think it sums up pretty well the state of France today.
Everyone in Europe is feeling the economic pain. So why do opinion polls show that the French are particularly gloomy, compared with other Europeans? For The Editors, a programme which sets out to ask challenging questions, I decided to find out.
In fact, the real pain has scarcely begun in France, though like a patient going in for surgery everyone is wincing in anticipation.
Is the French gloom simply caused by the news headlines?
Is it the cumulative psychological result of an apparently weak government, an awful spring, rising prices, and a fear that things cannot remain the same?
Or does it go deeper, much deeper?
I became a Francophile in my teens, in the 1960s. It came of watching Godard and Truffaut films, Jeanne Moreau and Jean-Paul Belmondo, and admiring the language and the way of life.
In 2000 I bought a flat in Paris, near the Eiffel Tower, and my family and I spend a few days here every six weeks or so.
We have never seen our French friends and neighbours so depressed.
The city remains as delightful as ever.
The restaurants are just as good, and if they are more expensive that simply makes it easier to get tables.
The health service is probably the finest in the world. Public transport is excellent, though taxi drivers are a miserable lot.
Everyone knows that savage cuts are on their way.
After the Socialist Francois Mitterrand's famous victory in 1981, at a time when Britain under Margaret Thatcher was cutting back fiercely on government expenditure, the French instinct was always to spend more.
Hospitals, transport, culture - money was lavished and the results were sensational.
Pensions and state benefits were among the best in Europe. The streets were beautifully clean.
To come here from depressed, dirty London was to feel a cloud lifting.
Paris remains an enchanting city but restaurants are not as full as they were
Now, though, there is a price to be paid. During the current economic troubles the Germans have made their cuts, gone through the pain barrier, and come out stronger and richer.
The British, the Spanish, the Greeks are doing the same and hope to have the same results.
Not so the French. They are still standing on the edge of the pool, dipping their toes in the water and wincing. Everyone knows that the combination of a short working week, early retirement, big pensions and excellent health benefits does not add up.
But when do the cuts start?
The waiting is becoming intolerable.
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