If the bond market could talk, it might respond to France’s increased policing after recent riots with the words of the crusader knight from the series: “You have chosen… wisely.”Investors see the social unrest after the looting and violence of Oct. 17 as a big test of whether the unpopular lame-duck Macron administration can keep an already fragile fiscal and political crisis from getting worse. The fact that the country was able to avoid a repeat of large-scale mayhem and confine most ongoing (and largely peaceful) demonstrations to the edges of Paris last weekend has helped contain the risk premium applied to French debt over Germany’s.

The spread has fallen to around 150 basis points after rocketing to a 15-year high of 178 in the wake of the rioting, which inflicted around €1 billion ($1.1 billion) worth of corporate damage, from the luxe stores of Hermès to the headquarters of fintech firm Qonto.

A pullback in market stress also reflects President Emmanuel Macron’s avoidance of emergency spending to stuff protesters’ mouths with gold — a restraint in keeping with the new reality of ever-watchful bond vigilantes and a debt pile equivalent to almost 120% of gross domestic product. It should ideally provide an opening for the European Central Bank to move to calm nerves further on Thursday, when it’s expected to keep interest rates unchanged. Throw in rating agency Moody’s decision to spare France from a credit-rating downgrade and it’s clear why some funds have decided the market malaise has gone too far.

But longer term, a milder “riot premium” on its debt and other reprieves shouldn’t mask the fact that whoever succeeds Macron will inherit a more dangerous and uncertain era.

Behind the unrest are simmering social issues that law and order can’t fix. A backlash against rising inflation is feeding protests and unions’ call for a strike on Nov. 5, even if Macron has little control over Donald Trump’s inflationary war of choice in the Middle East. Fed-up students pessimistic about their future echo increasingly widespread dissatisfaction with public services; two-thirds of the population thinks they’ve gotten worse. And that likely includes many of the country’s top 10% of earners, on whom the state relies for around 75% of its total income tax take.

Patience with the state is running thin, but so is its ability to respond — next year France will pay around €73 billion in interest alone, more than its defense budget.

What is at stake is an economic model that leads the rich world in public spending, yet appears to be running out of steam. It’s effectively a chronic, rather than acute, condition, worsened by successive governments spending more on social transfers without delivering the productivity growth required to sustain them. Former Bank of France Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau, in a new book, likens it to an debt addict who takes larger and larger doses even as the drug becomes less effective. His recommendations include incentivizing work and wealth creation, while halting the skew of public spending toward pensions.

The hope in some corners is that presidential elections in six months’ time can rally the country behind such a new dawn. Macron, who has first-hand experience of the euphoria that greets a new French head of state before the itch to bring out the guillotine sets in, is asking citizens to save their anger for the ballot box. If a budget deal can be clinched by the current government and another May 1968 can be avoided, the next occupant of the Elysee has a shot at building a majority in parliament capable of doing better at managing public finances and healing society.

The problem with this scenario is that opinion polls and the current composition of parliament show a fragmented and divided electorate that could outlast Macron. The political extremes are riding high in the presidential race, offering budget plans that look unrealistic — even downright dangerous — and unwilling to face reality on issues like pensions. And regardless of who wins, a hung parliament is still a risk. That might be less harmful than a parliamentary majority intent on breaking with European Union partners. But it doesn’t bode well for pushing through ambitious, positive change. Le Pen’s recent rhetoric has talked up a “renaissance” in France but even she might be rattled by the level of unrest on French streets.

It bears repeating: France is not Greece circa 2010. But being strangled by a mounting debt burden can still be painful even if it doesn’t lead to the kind of sovereign default France last experienced in the 1790s. Markets can move quicker than governments’ best-laid plans. The current investor mood is a recognition that the government has chosen wisely from several bad options. Yet there are more choices to come, and the calm may not last.