Growth Forecast Reduced

According to the European Commission, the French economy will grow only 1.3% in 2012 instead of the 1.7% previously predicted.  The media are presenting this as a challenge to and constraint on François Hollande's policies even before he assumes the powers of the presidency. This is backwards. They should be treating it as a verdict on the failure of the "Merkozy" policy to produce the "expansionary contraction" promised. Austerity is a failure. The new forecast is proof of the need for a revision of thinking. If Hollande is shrewd, he will immediately present the new figures in this light rather than submit to the prescriptions of the Eurodoctors, who, like characters out of Molière, ritually intone the same formula: "Our medicine has made you sicker, you must take more of it." It's time for Hollande to assert himself, to change the tone of this dialogue des sourds.