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This is great news actually, hopefully with the economy in France becoming worse and worse they will finally be forced to change - it was possible to bail out Greece and to some extend Spain, but there is no way, shape or form where we actually bail out France, not even partially.

Deregulation and freeing the economy worked for Germany (they used to be considered the sick man of Europe) there is no reason it couldn't work for France.

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Germany is really a special case: Around 1990 the first world western part merged with the second world eastern part, while giving all citizens of the eastern part around 2/3rd (I think, correct me if I'm wrong) of the western level of social benefits.

It's a little like if the U.S. would merge with Mexico and give all Mexicans huge social benefits.

So I would be careful with an analysis why the economy has improved exactly. After all the regulated economy had worked fine in the West until 1990.

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