Broadcast from Île de Ré, we dive into France’s mounting fiscal mess and political paralysis. With Macron a lame-duck, bond markets charging Paris more than Athens, and a nationwide strike looming, we ask: could Europe’s cornerstone become its weakest link? We unpack France’s towering state-and-semi-state debts, why Japan can print and Paris can’t, the ECB’s “will they/won’t they” backstop if Le Pen takes power, and how a sovereignist turn could trigger a rewrite of France’s constitution, goodbye Fifth Republic, hello Sixth. Along the way: Anglo-Saxon doom-mongering, De Gaulle’s Jupiterian legacy, contagion math, and why life in “paradise” can still feel like purgatory. Big stakes, bigger history, and a very French cliff-hanger.

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