其实，有很多更恰当的方式来宣扬自己经济模式的优点，而不是通过破坏自己的首都来达到这一目的……但这种道理，恐怕连法国人都难以接受。近年来，抗议活动已经成为法国社会生活的常态；很难分辨哪一场抗议活动已经结束，哪一场又刚刚开始。从学生到退休人员，几乎所有人都处于愤怒与不满的状态中。法国政治阶层内部矛盾重重，人们都在猜测：那位不受欢迎的总统是否很快会被一个民粹主义的煽动者取代？
There are better ways to vaunt the merits of your economic model than setting fire to your capital. But tell that to the French. In recent years protests have become such a fixture of national life it is hard to see when one set of manifestations ends and the next begins. Everyone from students to pensioners seems to walk about in a perennial huff. The political class is at war with itself, wondering if an unloved president will soon make way for a populist rabble-rouser.
在巴黎，一些“债券维权者”正在向负债累累的政府施压，要求政府支付更高的利息来维持其失控的财政开支。最近的一系列暴力事件让人觉得：这个国家既臃肿不堪，又无力应对各种挑战。不过，对于外界来说，法国的局势似乎总是比实际情况看起来要严重一些……不过，谁又会愿意模仿一个明显处于衰退中的国家的政策呢？
Bond vigilantes are giving a bloody nose to the over-indebted government in Paris, demanding ever-higher yields to finance its runaway budgets. The recent spate of violence gives the impression of a state at once bloated and overmatched. As always, the situation looks somewhat less dire from inside France than it does to outsiders. Still, who would want to emulate the policies of a place that seems so firmly on the skids?
“Me too! Me too!”（“我也是！”）——这正是法国在欧洲联盟中的邻国们常用的口号。尽管巴黎空气中弥漫着催泪瓦斯的气息，但法国官员们多年来倡导的理念却在欧盟各国逐渐流行起来。尤其是在经济领域，法国的思想正被直接照搬进布鲁塞尔的法律法规中。法国或许已经失去了资金、政治稳定性和公众的耐心，但它的影响力却依然存在。
Moi! Moi! Moi! is the refrain from France’s neighbours in the European Union. For even as Paris reeks of tear gas, ideas promoted by French officialdom for decades have become ascendant in EU circles. Particularly on economic matters, French thinking is being copy-pasted into statute books in Brussels. France may be running out of money, political stability and public patience; it is not running out of influence.
这个本应被视为警示案例的国家，反而被当作了一个榜样来效仿……这或许就是“巴黎权力的悖论”吧：当法国政客们在国内逐渐失去治理能力时，他们却在欧洲加强了自己的意识形态控制力。
A country that plenty think ought to serve as a cautionary tale is instead being treated as a blueprint. Call it the paradox of Parisian power: even as French politicians lose the ability to govern at home, they are tightening their ideological grip on Europe.
布鲁塞尔曾是法国国家干预本能与德国市场信仰及（相对）自由贸易相碰撞的地方，而且法国通常落败。欧盟机构长期以来带有自由主义倾向，削弱了法国大政府、国家干预主义的偏好。该俱乐部的规则阻止各国政府通过向受青睐的企业拨款等方式干预工业事务。（法国作为回报获得了慷慨的农业补贴。）欧盟远非保护国家冠军企业，通常倾向于让本国企业面对来自欧盟内部和外部的竞争。
Brussels was once a place where France’s instincts for state intervention collided with Germany’s faith in markets and (relatively) free trade—and usually lost. The EU’s institutions have long had a liberal bent that blunted France’s big-state, dirigiste preferences. The club’s rules prevented national governments from meddling in industrial matters by doling out money to favoured firms and so forth. (The French got generous farming subsidies in return.) Far from protecting national champions, the EU was usually minded to let domestic firms face competition from both within the bloc and outside.
巴黎的决策者对国家行动能力受到束缚感到愤慨。从十年前就任总统之初，埃马纽埃尔·马克龙就警告说，这正导致欧洲失去其“战略自主权”——大致上，指大陆在日益由美国和中国主导的世界中独立行动的能力。俱乐部中的许多人将此视为一种高卢式的古怪，就像喜欢吃蜗牛和八月休假一样。
Parisian policymakers fumed at the hemming-in of the state’s capacity to do something. From the outset of his presidency a decade ago, Emmanuel Macron warned it was resulting in Europe losing its “strategic autonomy”—broadly, the ability for the continent to act independently in a world increasingly dominated by America and China. Many in the club dismissed this as a bit of Gallic eccentricity, along with the penchant for escargots and taking August off.
如今已非如此。如今，法国式的对全球化和不受约束市场的怀疑几乎成为正统。那些阻止公共资金向国家冠军企业倾泻的欧盟规则几乎已被遗忘：曾被视为经济文盲证据的补贴（包括本报在内，常常如此）如今被呈现为战略老练的证明。“工业政策”已从禁忌变为主流。欧洲一直天真——在实行经济自我克制，而美国和中国公然追求经济自身利益——这一法国观点如今已司空见惯。自由贸易仍被容忍，但仅限于不妨碍欧洲重获一定程度经济主权的更广泛目标。
No longer. These days French-infused scepticism of globalisation and unfettered markets is close to being orthodoxy. Those EU rules preventing public money from being showered onto national champions are all but forgotten: subsidies once considered evidence of economic illiteracy (including by this newspaper, often) are now presented as proof of strategic sophistication. “Industrial policy” has gone from taboo to mainstream. The French idea that Europe has been naive—practising economic self-restraint while America and China brazenly pursue economic self-interest—is now commonplace. Free trade is still tolerated, but only insofar as it does not interfere with broader aims of Europe recouping some measure of economic sovereignty.
法国思想为何能够胜出，即使法国看似已脱轨？部分原因在于，曾经看似巴黎式偏执的东西，如今显得像是先见之明。2019年，马克龙在接受《经济学人》采访时警告，欧洲面临“不再掌握自己命运”的风险，欧盟内部许多人对此嗤之以鼻。事态发展证明他是对的。新冠疫情让自由贸易传教士所催生的跨全球供应链，在一些人眼中显得不再那么聪明。
How did French ideas triumph, even as France has seemingly gone off the rails? In part, because what once looked like Parisian paranoia has come to seem like foresight. Many in the EU sniggered when Mr Macron in 2019 warned in an interview with The Economist that Europe risked being “no longer in control of its destiny”. Events proved him right. Covid-19 made globe-spanning supply chains spawned by free-trade evangelists seem less clever to some.
2022年俄罗斯入侵乌克兰凸显了依赖进口——此处指天然气——会带来不想要的依赖关系（中国后来利用小众原材料加以利用）。而且，也许、仅仅也许，历届法国总统警告美国可能有一天会证明是欧洲安全不可靠的担保人，这是正确的。
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 underscored how relying on imports—in this case, of natural gas—brought with it unwanted dependencies (of the sort China went on to exploit with niche raw materials). And maybe, just maybe, generations of French presidents had been right to warn that America might one day prove an unreliable guarantor of European security.
联盟内部动态也助推了法国的事业。英国脱欧使欧盟失去了一个其存在理由就是抵制布鲁塞尔法兰西式思维的强国。最近，德国令人惊讶地转向支持法国的经济干预主义，随着中国企业开始与德国自身的汽车制造商有效竞争，德国发现自由贸易不再那么有吸引力。请看欧盟工业专员、马克龙亲信斯特凡娜·塞茹尔内提出的一系列“欧洲制造”计划。
Internal dynamics in the union have helped France’s cause, too. Brexit deprived the EU of a power whose raison d’être was to resist Gallic-infused thinking in Brussels. More recently Germany has made a startling pivot to support French economic interventionism, finding free trade much less appealing as Chinese firms started competing effectively with its own carmakers. Consider a slew of “Made in Europe” plans put forward by the EU’s industry commissioner, Stéphane Séjourné, a Frenchman close to Mr Macron.
它们主张指定公共支出用于欧盟企业。这种保护主义曾会被柏林官员一口回绝。现在，他们只是希望确保至少包括英国和加拿大等一些盟友，纳入一个扩大后的欧洲定义中。目的是稀释法国方案，而非挫败它们。
They advocate earmarking public spending for EU firms. Such protectionism would once have been dismissed out of hand by officials in Berlin. Now they merely want to make sure at least some allies such as Britain and Canada are included in an expanded definition of Europe. The aim is to water down French plans, not thwart them.
对于那些已经对引进法国的重商主义本能感到不安的欧洲人来说，还有一个更令人不安的想法：马克龙可能只是法国试图重塑欧盟的温和版本。目前民调领先的民粹主义者玛丽娜·勒庞，将寻求沿着更民族主义的路线重塑欧盟。
For those Europeans already uneasy about importing France’s Colbertist instincts, there is a more unsettling thought: Mr Macron may prove the moderate version of France’s attempt to remake the EU. Marine Le Pen, the populist currently leading the polls, would seek to recast the EU along more nationalist lines.
采纳法国的主张会不会最终拖累欧洲，就像看似拖累了法国那样？未必。战略性干预的国家与不加选择地挥霍的国家截然不同。法国的困境在这两方面都提供了教训。马克龙警告欧洲需要摆脱对外部对手的依赖，这点是对的。但一个无法控制自身财政的国家，同样几乎谈不上什么自主权。法国诊断对了病症，可惜却把治疗搞得一团糟。■
Will adopting French ideas end up hobbling Europe, as it seemingly has France? Not necessarily. There is a difference between a state that intervenes strategically and one that spends indiscriminately. France’s predicament offers lessons in both. Mr Macron was right to warn that Europe needs greater autonomy from foreign foes. But a country that cannot control its own finances has precious little autonomy either. France got the diagnosis right. It is a pity it made such a mess of the treatment. ■