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In France, the nation is built around the state, as opposed to England whose institutions were created to protect citizens from the vagaries of public power. With the senior civil service taking over political power, state prominence in the 5th Republic has reached its highest point ever. The corollary of this is the subordination of, and contempt for, civil society, as described by Tocqueville: \u201cWhat characterizes the French civil service is the violent hatred it feels towards all those who want to deal with public affairs apart from itself.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In an open world in which governments are being circumvented by universal capitalism and by technoolgy, in which they face competition from the vitality of cities, entrepreneurial innovation and individual mobility, and in which they are losing the monopoly of legitimate violence to the point of collapse, statism is undergoing a crisis of legitimacy and effectiveness. Far from fostering change, public custodianship blocks any reform. And because society is being brutalized, it ends up by revolting. Two forms of protest are open to citizens living in democracies: opting out or violence.<\/span><\/p>\n Fran\u00e7ois Hollande has caused French society to swing from passivity to revolt. Faced by confiscatory taxation, by the predominance of public expenditure (57.5% of GDP) over private activity, and by the proliferation of regulations and the state’s pretension to dictate behavior, the French have invented a right for citizens to opt out which goes beyond simply abstaining during elections.<\/span><\/p>\n Retaliation for attacks on the family and on businesses is brutal. People have stopped having children \u2013 births plummeted by more than 19,000 in 2015 \u2013 and the Macron law has produced a response that has had the paradoxical result of reducing activity and the number of shops open on Sundays.<\/span><\/p>\n The most absurd and destructive of measures are being refused. In education, parents and teachers have come together to ensure the survival of beacons of excellence \u2013 the European classes (in which there is intensive language-learning), and bilangue<\/em> classes (conducted in two languages) \u2013 as well as the teaching of Latin. Doctors have defeated the generalization of the tiers payant<\/em> (a third-party payment system). Agricultural workers have announced that they will not apply the compte p\u00e9nibilit\u00e9<\/em> (a hazardous jobs pension points system), opening a path for artisans and workers in the building and transport sectors to follow.<\/span><\/p>\n The most radical reaction to oppressive taxes and regulations is to leave the country. Every year, more than 80,000 people with high potential leave France. More than 300 billion euros of productive capital have gone elsewhere. There has been a sharp rise in the number of public companies changing their status to societas europ\u00e6a<\/em> (European company), which guarantees their right to set themselves up elsewhere in the European Union. Finally, under the cloak of mergers, there have been increasing numbers of company relocations, as in the cases of Solvay, Alstom, Lafarge and Alcatel.<\/span><\/p>\n The temptation to resort to extremism and violence is seen through the rise in power of the National Front party \u2013 which obtained 6.6 million votes in the regional elections \u2013 and in the beginnings of a French jihad.<\/span><\/p>\n