PARIS—The French political system, casually referred to as the “Republic of Friends,” is in the throes of one of its humiliating nervous breakdowns.
Now, a few weeks before an estimated 15 million baffled visitors, 10,500 bemused athletes and more than a billion bewildered TV viewers tune into Paris for the Summer Olympics, there’s an odds-on chance the government will be run by the sort of feral right-wing regime not seen in France since the Vichy administration ruled the country in cahoots with the Nazis between 1940 and 1944.
Time and nostalgia are a double-edged sword in France. What ended here 80 years ago with 567,600 corpses has been resurrected with such fiendish intensity that President Emmanuel Macron immediately drew a line in the sand, scheduling needless legislative elections on June 30 and July 7.
The Eiffel Tower is no longer the center of attention.
Is Paris Burning? No, but Macron’s surprise call to the ballot…