So, how has France pulled this off? The US economist Paul Krugman has heralded the French outperformance as an example of the benefits of high levels of state intervention. He has a point, though not a strong one.
The unusual nature of the pandemic, when so much of the market economy was shut down, was always likely to flatter countries like France (or China) where the state was already dominant. Even in 2019, French government spending was more than 55pc of national income – the highest in Europe – compared to around 40pc in the UK.
The pandemic also played to the strengths of the French civil service, which is dominated by a technocratic elite from the Ecole Nationale d’Administration and leading business schools. Public officials and private executives come from similar backgrounds, often moving smoothly between the two sectors.
Dominic Cummings might have had fewer problems getting things done if he had worked at the Elysée, rather than No 10.
However, there are some big caveats. For a start, it is a bit odd for US Francophiles, like Krugman, to hold up France as an example that the US should follow, when the economic recovery in the US has been even stronger; US GDP was more than three per cent higher in the fourth quarter of last year than its pre-Covid level.
France has done better than the US on employment. But so have many other countries – including the UK, Germany, and Australia – which chose to protect jobs with furlough schemes rather than just top up the benefits paid to the unemployed. There is nothing particularly Gallic here.
More importantly, what works a little better during a once-in-a-generation crisis is not necessarily the best model in more normal times. Here, the problems of the French approach are much clearer.
One is persistently high rates of unemployment, particularly among young people. French productivity appears to be good partly because only the most productive people are able to find work.
Another is that the heavy burden of tax and regulation deters global companies from investing in France, and makes life particularly difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises. A handful of big firms thrive, but many French commentators look enviously at Germany’s Mittelstand, or the UK’s strengths in FinTech.
The French public finances are also in worse shape, and will get much worse as the population ages. The government looks set to keep spending more than half of national income for the foreseeable future, with debt well above 100pc of GDP.
