France: The small successes should not make us forget the big problems
There is too much of a tendency in France to emphasise the small successes (start-ups, large number of new companies created , successes in mathematics education, artificial intelligence, the return of a few bankers from London, etc.) and to forget the big problems: low level of corporate modernisation, poor cost competitiveness, low labour-force skills, poor quality of the education system, tax system that discourages employment. Unfortunately, the negative impact of the big problems on GDP is far greater than the positive impact of the sma ll successes.