Any other business: How François Hollande let France miss the global recovery train

I’ve always respected stationmasters, but that sentiment is not universally shared. A distinguished friend of mine across the Channel described François Hollande the other day as ‘un chef de gare, sans aucune dignité’ — and it’s not difficult to picture the little president, peaked cap awry, trousers unbuttoned, haplessly waving his whistle as the last train à grande vitesse departs for the Eurotunnel laden with talented compatriots who see no future in France.

As modern socialist leaders go, Hollande is beginning to make Gordon Brown look statesmanlike. Nicknamed ‘Flanby’ after a cheap custard pudding, he has left decision-making to his ragbag of ministers and done nothing to steer France towards economic recovery. He was finally stirred into a response by global attention to his sex life, but the big gestures in his press conference last week — a €30 billion cut in payroll taxes and a €50 billion reduction in public spending — can have scant impact before 2017 when, if his party lets him stand again, Hollande will face re-election. By then, the UK should overtake France to become Europe’s second largest economy behind Germany, and London will have a bigger French population than Clermont-Ferrand.

The French have long been reluctant to correct the over-dominance of the state in their economy because they believe the high quality of life they have enjoyed in recent decades is the product of well-directed public investment. They’re not entirely wrong about that, but it can’t go on if their taxes won’t pay for it and the private sector that drives growth is suffocated — while financial markets are on constant watch for the incipient debt crisis that has recently been labelled the ‘baguette bomb’.