Take off that masque de la tragédie

Ce n'est pas votre style, says Paul Krugman, and besides you're less sucky than those other Europeans;

You’d think that France was a disaster area. Yet the numbers, while not good, just aren’t that dramatic.

Start with growth since the crisis. How does France stack up in the European context? Not as good as Germany, obviously. But if you compare it with other European countries — even if you leave out the troubled debtors — it doesn’t stand out as a poor performer

And you've still got baguettes, sorta. Still,

...things aren’t good. But you do have to wonder why the French elite is so easily intimidated into making a hard right turn while the elites of much worse cases like Finland and the Netherlands remain steadfast in their notion that the worse things get, the more committed they have to be to inflicting further pain.

Stick out that noble chin...and make yourselves a better target?