When a fresh-faced Emmanuel Macron swept into presidential office for the first time, in 2017, he hoped for a grand European bargain. France, which had not balanced a government budget since 1974, would fix its public finances and restore its credibility with its thrifty neighbour. In return, Germany, the euro zone’s biggest economy, would cede ground on French ideas for European integration, such as joint borrowing. Initially the bargain worked. In 2018 and 2019 France cut its annual deficit to below the EU’s limit of 3% of gdp. In 2020, nudged by the need to respond to the pandemic, the EU issued its first big joint bond.