Tobacconists are fuming over his new cigarette taxes, due to rise 40% by January. Medical workers are wary of his plans to overhaul France's health-care system. Actors and stagehands, outraged by his tightening of their unemployment benefits, shut down the summer culture season. Strikes by teachers and transport employees, incensed over his plans to reform pensions, brought the country to halt in May and June. And leading members of his own party are slamming his economic and social policies for being everything from too liberal to insufficiently ambitious. But since this is France, which has so often proved itself impervious to...
