This year Jacques Attali (pictured below) took to the stage of a Paris theatre to present 316 recommendations to “liberate” French economic growth. At the request of President Nicolas Sarkozy, the Socialist intellectual and his high-profile 43-member commission ransacked many of the best ideas from home and abroad to reform the sluggish economy.

But perhaps most telling is the recommendation the commission did not make: that policymakers reach for the traditional French remedy of throwing more public money at a problem. As the commission noted, the state already raises and spends about €1,000bn ($1,500bn, £760bn) a year out of a gross domestic product of €1,800bn. Indeed, Mr Attali argued it was essential to cut public spending as a proportion of GDP. What was needed was to streamline government, liberalise labour and product markets, overhaul the tax system and increase the efficiency of spending.