I think what's happening in the Western Europe is that fiscal discipline has gone out the window in much the same way parental discipline has (in fact, it might be related). The fact that strikes are too often the natural response to budgetary restraint tells me that a large part of the French electorate is living in denial of the basic constraints of public finance. This is like denying the law of gravity. Markets obviously have taken notice. It's the same when parents stop demanding discipline and enforcing boundaries - children grow to become less able to handle delayed gratification or the consequences of their choices. Societies that lose the habit of fiscal restraint follow a similar path. Spending becomes an entitlement. Deficits are treated as temporary or someone else’s problem. The hard arithmetic of interest payments and primary balances is dismissed as austerity. The bond market is sending signals saying "stop." What scares the market is something other than the burning cars. It is what they symbolize - that there is so little understanding of the need for fiscal consolidation. In April, there is a presidential election. Mélenchon wants the central bank to cancel debt, and Marine Le Pen wants to lower the retirement age. The market might be starting to fear the election more than the debt itself. In 1981, François Mitterrand promised a break with capitalism. Capital responded by breaking with France, and two years later he was forced to change course. Back then, France could devalue. Today, the country has the euro. And be careful about counting on the European Central Bank (ECB) to come to the rescue as it did during the euro crisis. Back then, inflation was too low, and the ECB could print money without compromising its target. Today, inflation is too high. As the sick man of Europe, France should consider the Chinese concept of chi ku (吃苦) - eating bitterness. It is the idea of willingly enduring hardship, delayed gratification, in the belief that perseverance builds strength and later reward. China’s rapid industrialization and infrastructure build-out were not painless; they involved massive savings, hard trade-offs, and a cultural willingness to accept hardships and restraints for future gains. Admiring Chinese growth while rejecting the discipline that made it possible is incoherent. Without a willingness to eat some bitterness on the fiscal front, French admiration for China’s results remains hollow, and the bond market will continue to impose its own, less voluntary version of discipline.