Election campaigns are little more than political theatre. The trick is to tell the audience a story it wants to believe in before the curtain comes down.
The economic programmes unveiled this week by Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, opponents in France’s presidential election, do the job for their constituencies nicely. Mr Sarkozy, of the centre-right UMP, warns a budget-conscious bourgeoisie of the disaster that lurks around the corner if France does not get its public finances under control.
