What went wrong, says Régniez, was a bill passed by the then socialist Lionel Jospin government reducing the working week to 35 hours. “Where our competitors, especially the Germans, saw the need to keep prices and costs down, France spent money she couldn’t afford.” The entire system, he explains, tilted fatally to the side of salary hikes, perks and a lowering of retirement age, in the face of every observable demographic trend. Investment slowed down in the private sector, and almost stopped in the public one. “Each year, France has missed out on four GDP points of capital investment. By now, after a decade-and-a-half, we are not only lagging behind, it’s not certain we can make up for it. It would cost a 4.5 per cent hike in VAT, and other significant hikes in payroll taxes. That, quite simply, is not realistic.”