Like your young president, a spirit of thoughtfulness rejects the notions of left and right wing views, favouring a little sagesse instead. You are probably fortunate to have a leader tackling some of your country’s long-standing problems. Being brave, however, does attract a chorus of demagogues, appealing to the vested interests which have benefitted for decades from an excess of state largesse and burgeoning public debt. Even economists agree that debt for other than constructive works is inadvisable. As a cure for indebtedness, they offer economic growth, even though it’s scheduled to wipe out the planet within a few decades. In ancient times, we didn’t have economists, so we didn’t have debt or global warming.

Whenever there’s reform some people may lose advantages which have been transmogrified into rights. As a result, governments, terrified of losing even a single vote, daren’t take necessary measures. They can’t have noticed Queen Victoria’s wry amusement every time a few odd bods wave banners in front of the Assembly while waiting for photographers to arrive.

Plato and Aristotle warned that democracy tends to produce demagogues, who say everything and its opposite in their bid for popularity. A leader arises and, with his help, the masses then voice their various grievances. Enemies are designated such as capitalists, races and religions (Jews and Moslems are particularly popular), or, best of all, damned foreigners. When the game is finally over, the rule of the people gives way to a despot. It’s happened throughout history and still goes on.

Your namesake shows leadership in a different light. He’s liberalising laws that gave workers so many rights that employers were afraid to create jobs. He’s even tackling the pension system, which remains a sensitive subject here despite greater longevity and an older retirement age. A local Emmanuel is needed to raise the retirement age to 65 or more, as has already happened throughout much of Europe, before the system collapses. That may not help youth unemployment but that partly exists because youngsters have unrealistic expectations or are afraid of hard work. There’s a widespread misconception, best consigned to the rubbish dump, that governments can dole out jobs and money, and fix prices, without a country eventually facing bankruptcy.

Not terribly popular with trade unionists, more concerned with might than right, are Emmanuel’s reforms that reduce collective bargaining by enabling managers and employees to negotiate company by company. He’s lucky he doesn’t have to tackle the tripartite and PRB systems, which run on here regardless of whether the country can afford the proposed settlements. He’s now taken on the SNCF (French gravy trains), whose workers will do anything to defend the status-quo. At least he’s had the sense, rarely if ever found here, to bring in reforms early during his reign. It becomes more and more difficult as elections approach. A real contribution you could make to local development would be to offer to bring one of Emmanuel’s teammates here to lead sessions for MPs on themes like honour, courage and the national interest. All members could be ordered by the Speaker to attend. She’d like that. There’s so much that needs tackling, it might need a long visit but it could happen during one of the lengthy periods when the Assembly’s not sitting. Mind you, if there were an exam at the end, how many members would pass? It might need more than a balai fatak to sweep all the resulting detritus under the carpets.