John Lichfield is a former foreign editor of the Independent and was the newspaper’s Paris correspondent for 20 years.
There are 10 weeks to go until the first round of the presidential election and the French economy is buzzing.
Growth last year was 7 percent — the highest for half a century and the best in the G7 group of big, industrial nations. Unemployment at 8 percent is the lowest for 15 years.
If you apply the James Carville Rule — “It’s the economy, stupid” — President Emmanuel Macron should glide to a second term in the Elysée Palace on April 10 and 24.
Maybe. It depends on how you interpret the Carville Rule.
Carville was the successful manager of Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign in 1992. His celebrated dictum referred not to the “official” economy but to the “lived” well-being of voters — their sense of prosperity.
I covered the 1992 U.S. election,…
