It’s easy to mock the French. I’ve done it myself. Most of them expect the state to fund their 25-year retirements and everything else. Then, when the budget deficit hits 5.8 per cent of GDP, and the government looks for cuts, people here go on strike, complaining that the developed world’s biggest-spending state is “néolibéral”. Opposition parties refuse any compromise with Emmanuel Macron, the so-called “president of the rich”.

But I’ve come to feel that French anger is partly justified. France today is an underfunded social democracy crossed with an oligarchy. More than any other western European country, it’s dominated by powerful billionaires paying relatively low taxes. Most voters agree that France should cut its deficit. The argument is about who should pay. The majority says: the super-rich first.

Oligarchs are people who possess both wealth and power, and use one to acquire the other. They have grown abundant in France this century, thanks largely to the rise of French luxury companies. The EU’s seven most valuable companies include LVMH (run by France’s richest man, Bernard Arnault), Hermès and L’Oréal. LVMH now exports more than all of French agriculture. Even comparative minnow Dior is worth nearly double Germany’s most valuable car company, Mercedes-Benz.