> However, I and my two French flatmates are genuinely curious how France can continue on its current public-spending/entrepreneurship-throttling trajectory.
Look at a graph of GDP per capita for France vs. other countries (Google will happily draw one for you if you search for "gdp per capita france" - for me it shows comparisons to UK and Germany)
As it happens, it turns out that the rather substantial aggressive changes to things like working hours and tax laws over the years in France that have caused predictions of doom and gloom have had little to no noticeable impact on GDP per capita - the trajectory for France, UK, Germany and other major European countries are only very minimally differentiated based on their economic policies.
Look at a graph of GDP per capita for France vs. other countries (Google will happily draw one for you if you search for "gdp per capita france" - for me it shows comparisons to UK and Germany)
As it happens, it turns out that the rather substantial aggressive changes to things like working hours and tax laws over the years in France that have caused predictions of doom and gloom have had little to no noticeable impact on GDP per capita - the trajectory for France, UK, Germany and other major European countries are only very minimally differentiated based on their economic policies.
That is how France can continue this.