As France prepares to celebrate le quatorze juillet, here’s the latest:
The Wall Street Journal outright blames French consumers for Europe’s sluggishness. “The French are getting thriftier, and that poses a problem for the European economy,” it says.
Our pages feature Dominique de Villepin with a rare head-on attack on Nicolas Sarkozy from his own (sort of) ranks. The president’s borrow-and-invest strategy comes in for particular criticism: “Is it really by building more bridges and roads when France has one of the best public infrastructures in the world?”
Boss-nappings not being enough to attract media attention these days, workers at a failed factory near Poitiers are threatening to blow it up if they don’t get €30,000 each, the Guardian reports.”The bottles of gas have already been placed at various parts of the factory and are connected with each other,” says one trade unionist.
Across the globe: Gideon Rachman and his FT colleagues debate international affairs on