They Could Start By Allowing Fracking

But I digress.

This is the story at the WSJ: France looks to halt industrial decline. And with a Socialist in charge, France should do just hunky-dory.

France needs to slash payroll taxes and take other measures to reverse the country's declining industrial might, says a much-awaited report commissioned by the Socialist government to help it overhaul economic policy.

"I'm proposing 22 main measures to stop the slide and support the economy," Mr. Gallois said after submitting the report to French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault. "This is what I call a competitiveness shock."

Mr. Ayrault is set to announce the first raft of economic overhaul measures during a government meeting Tuesday, and is expected to employ some of Mr. Gallois's recommendations, but reject others. It wasn't immediately clear whether the payroll tax idea would be acted on.

The proposals come as the International Monetary Fund is singling out the lack of competitiveness as the major challenge facing France. "The loss in competitiveness predates the crisis, but risks becoming even more severe if the French economy does not adapt along with its major trading partners in Europe," the IMF said in a review of France's economy on Monday.

Unlike other euro-zone countries caught in deeper financial turmoil, such as Spain and Italy, France has yet to detail ways to make national production more competitive.

President François Hollande barely mentioned such a path prior to his election in May. But the outlook for the French economy has darkened considerably since then, with growth at a standstill and unemployment above 10% and rising. 

But with unemployment above 10% France is about on par with the US, somewhere between 7.9% and 14.5% depending on what numbers you trust.

And, yes, the Paris Basin in France looks a lot like the Bakken, but the French ban fracking, preferring their reliable source of oil from Libya instead.