France: Now for the Hard Part

Having won the Elysée, the new President faces formidable obstacles

It was 6:30 p.m. and the stocky man in the light beige suit was talking about the weather. He had tried to take a walk, but the drizzle and the knot of well-wishers outside had scared him back into the hotel. Instead of returning to Chambre 15, the room he has occupied during his weekly visits to his parliamentary district for the past 35 years, he had wandered into a small thicket of journalists in the hotel dining room who were waiting for...

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