The oncoming recession is about to test an economic proposition that has enjoyed immense popularity in France. According to this proposition, a government can, and should, accept a trade-off between fiscal prudence and economic reform. Having fully bought into this scheme, Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, has set out to reform the supply side of the economy, but he has left the budget deficit mostly untouched. This strategy is now coming unstuck.

Mr Sarkozy has already postponed the goal of a balanced budget until 2012, two years after an agreed date set by eurozone finance ministers. Even this remote and never quite credible date looks unrealistic now. On the present trajectory, France will not achieve a structurally balanced budget until at least 2014.