Paul Krugman: Hollande Takes a Wrong Turn

"You shall not crucify mankind upon a croissant d'or."

That was the economist Alan Taylor's response (in correspondence) to French President François Hollande's embrace of Say's Law - Mr. Hollande literally said that "supply actually creates demand" in a press conference - together with his shift to, again in his own words, supply-side policies.

The amazing thing to me, aside from Mr. Hollande's haplessness, is the extreme pessimism that has evidently enveloped the French elite. You'd think that France was a disaster area. Yet the numbers, while not good, just aren't that dramatic.