Let France be a warning, Rachel Reeves: stand up to the bond market vigilantes, or they’ll come for Britain next

Demonstrators in Paris as part of the ‘bloquons tout’ (‘let’s block everything’) protest, 10 September 2025. Photograph: Benoît Tessier/Reuters

There are plenty of tough jobs in politics but none tougher than the one just handed to Sébastien Lecornu, the third French prime minister to be appointed by Emmanuel Macron in a year.

Lecornu has been given the nigh-on impossible task of getting an austerity budget through parliament at the head of a minority government facing implacable opposition from parties of the hard right and hard left. Talk about poisoned chalices.