This, in particular...

The worry is that the more that France struggles to define a role for itself in the world, the more it will in turn be tempted to fasten on its social model as its raison d'être, and so cling to a discredited creed.

WTF? France has been around the top of European politics continually since Charlemagne, and the Economist wants to make us believe that France's problem is that it's desperately looking for a role in the world?

F* off!

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman