But as winter approaches, it might seem as if France deserves the brownie. Its government has limped along in a state of paralytic ineptitude since a disastrous snap election in July 2024 produced the mother of all hung parliaments. Since then, Emmanuel Macron has gone through five prime ministers (counting poor Sébastien Lecornu’s second go-round), while his own popularity hovers around a disastrously low 20%, and dropping. Two-thirds of the French see politicians as fundamentally corrupt, and as apparent proof of this belief, former president Nicolas Sarkozy reported for prison this week to begin serving a five-year sentence for campaign finance violations. Meanwhile, the public deficit is expected to rise to a dangerous 5.4%, leading to the downgrading of France’s credit rating.