No-Confidence Man: Retirement Reform Gets Uglier

The government barely survives a vote to dissolve it, but emerges greatly weakened.

Walking back to the RER station last week at Les Châtelets, I stopped at the plaza and took a long look at one of my favorite cathedrals in the city, Saint-Eustache. There were no mounds of garbage in sight, no streams of protestors. Just a quick snapshot of tranquillity.

That has been the exception rather than the rule in France since the government of …