Brad Stetser has a blog post on France today. His main theme is that the critique of France is wrong. But he also argues that there are some similarities to the more worrying parts of the US economy's growth sources, albeit in a milder from - namely overvalued housing and deficit spending.

France: The most "Anglo-Saxon" of the big 3 continental economies

The post as a whole illustrates the shift in thinking by left leaning economists since the beginning of the decade. As it has become clear that neoliberal reforms don't produce wage growth, they've become much more sceptical - think also Brad deLong in the blogosphere, or Paul Krugman in the press as examples of this phenomenon. These were all people enamored of the 'Washington Consensus' back in the nineties, now they're not.