????20世紀80年代，我曾以《財富》法國分社社長（Fortune）的身份在巴黎生活了八年。在這期間，我曾報道過一位著名的首席執行官（在法國叫PDG），后者以譏諷本國的商業哲學為樂。這位通曉法國工業史的高管曾詼諧地說：“英國人完成了工業革命。法國人卻只會說，他們完成的是口頭革命。”

????現在，許多人都在議論法國。但有些人的話與實際情況不符。法國的現狀，從極高的失業率到普遍存在的低迷，正是經濟陷入困境的真實寫照。然而，有些專家卻想讓人們相信，法國的情況還不錯，而且會變得更好。

????具體來說，我指的就是《紐約時報》（New York Times）專欄作家、諾貝爾經濟學獎獲得者保羅?克魯格曼。克魯格曼教授認為，法國目前的發展道路既有勇氣又有見識，堪稱競爭對手的楷模。對此我們應該問一問，法國年輕人中那25%的失業者是否贊同他的觀點。

????克魯格曼教授在周一的《紐約時報》專欄文章中闡述了上述觀點，文章的題目叫《針對法國的陰謀》（The Plot Against France）。它讓我特別感興趣的原因是，克魯格曼教授對我在1月份發表的文章提出了批評，那篇文章的題目是《無人提及的歐元危機：自由落體的法國》（The euro crisis no one is talking about: France is in free fall）。他說這是“無休止唱衰法國”的行徑之一。

????克魯格曼教授認為，批評者為法國提出的緊縮方案并不明智——這類方案主要涉及削減開支，放松管制。他指出，這樣的措施已經在其他國家慘淡收場。克魯格曼教授認為，法國現在的做法完全正確，比如保持高水平的政府開支，無視赤字，選擇增加稅收而不是削減開支。他的結論是， 外界批評法國的原因是，“它對財政負責，而這是不可饒恕的罪行”，而且法國的“情況和大多數鄰國相同，甚至更好”。

????我在自己的那篇文章中強調，近幾年法國的競爭力急劇減弱，出口因此大幅下降，這讓法國在這些年一直處于低增長態。和克魯格曼教授的觀點相反，我認為衡量法國經濟走勢的基準不應該是希臘、葡萄牙和西班牙，而應該是德國、美國和一些亞洲國家。它們既是法國的最大消費者，也是它在全球貿易市場上的對手。德國是法國的最大貿易伙伴國，把法國過去幾年的表現和它對比能讓人深受啟發。

????While living in Paris as Fortune's bureau chief for eight years in the 1980s, I wrote a piece on a prominent CEO (or PDG en Francais) who liked to skewer his nation's philosophy of business. "The British had the industrial revolution," quipped this connoisseur of industrial history. "The French just talked. They had the verbal revolution."

????Today a lot of outsiders are talking about France. But some of the rhetoric doesn't adhere to the facts. Everything about France now, from the huge jobless rate to the widespread malaise, defines an economy in crisis. However, certain pundits would have you believe that things are just fine and poised to get better.

????Specifically, I'm referring to New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman. It's worth asking if the 25% of young people who can't find jobs in France would agree with Professor Krugman's view that France is following a courageous, enlightened course that should be a model for competing nations.

????He presented his views on Monday in a Times column headlined "The Plot Against France." I took a special interest in the piece because Krugman criticized a story I wrote here in January, titled "The euro crisis no one is talking about: France is in free fall." He lumped it in as part of a campaign of "incessant negative propaganda."

????Krugman brands France's critics as folks who are unwisely promoting an agenda of austerity -- chiefly spending cuts and deregulation -- that, he argues, has miserably failed in other countries. For Krugman, France is doing just the right thing by keeping government spending at high levels, ignoring deficits, and favoring tax increases over reductions in spending. He concludes that France is being vilified for "the unforgivable sin of being fiscally responsible" and is "performing as well or better than most of its neighbors."

????My story emphasized France's dramatic loss of competitiveness over the past several years, causing a severe drop in its exports and, as a consequence, years of sluggish growth. Contrary to Krugman's argument, the benchmark for France's performance shouldn't be Greece, Portugal, and Spain, but Germany, the U.S., and the Asian nations that are both its biggest customers and rivals in world trade. It's highly instructive to compare France's performance over the past several years with that of its biggest trading partner, Germany.