But of course there is nothing mediocre about a €2,000 billion national debt. (Admittedly €600 billion of that was incurred on Sarkozy's watch.) And how was anyone to know that legalising same-sex marriage would attract such powerful antipathy? Or that so many young French would opt to fight in Syria (ISIS had approval ratings of 27 per cent among 18-24-year-olds, according to an ICM poll in August). Or that there would be so many scandals involving ministers and MPs? Or that in August Hollande would be forced to let his economy minister Arnaud Montebourg go after he fomented rebellion over prime minister Manuel Valls's attempts to impose discipline on the moribund economy?  Hollande famously admitted that he doesn't like the rich. According to Trierweiler he also despises the "toothless" poor. So whom does he like? And who, moreover, likes him? It is quite possible that he likes Ed Miliband: Britain's Labour leader has declared his admiration for France's first citizen on more than one occasion, though is now understandably adjusting the stage lights. Miliband, who could win the general election in May even if he polls fewer votes than David Cameron, has openly compared himself to Hollande, as well he might. Similarities between the two are initially striking. Both come from privileged political backgrounds and went on to study politics in their respective countries' top institutions. Both have been cocooned in the world of politics, having little experience of work in the outside world, so both lack the hinterland inhabited by the big political beasts of the past. Both have worked their way up, and both espouse high-tax radical-left policies.

The first obvious pitfall facing Britain's putative PM is the so-called mansion tax (on homes worth more than £2 million), drawing parallels with Hollande's disastrous supertax on the rich. In February 2012, just two days after Hollande announced the 75 per cent tax, Miliband described his bold proposals as something "sorely needed as Europe seeks to escape from austerity, and it matters to Britain". It is feared that Miliband's proposed tax hikes could have a similar effect. The Labour leader was subsequently greeted with enthusiasm on the steps of the Élysée Palace, ahead of David Cameron, when Hollande came to power in May 2012.

"The agenda of Ed Miliband is very similar to that of François Hollande at the beginning of his tenure," comments Gaspard Koenig, president of the think tank Generation Libre. "So I think you should be very careful in the UK not to replicate the same mistakes." The Labour leader has let it be known that he is keen to dictate to energy companies what they should charge their customers, part of a French-style dirigiste economic strategy which seems to lack any support from business leaders.

Over the years only a handful of commentators in France have dared make a diagnosis of what was going seriously wrong, as the state actively discourages such disrespect. This, however, could never be said of Britain and it is unlikely that Miliband will get such an easy ride if he becomes PM. Notable exceptions in France are Natacha Polony, who wrote on the fall of the once outstanding state school system, now dubbed "the idiot factory"; her husband, the food critic Perico Légasse, who dared to detail the fall of French gastronomy; Pascal Boniface, who chronicled the corruption and decline of the French intelligentsia; Pierre Péan, who wrote about France's unholy alliances abroad; and Alexandre del Valle, who examined France's failure to grasp the Islamist threat at home and abroad. All have tried to urge French leaders to get a grip, only to be treated with anything from condescension to outright hostility by the ruling elite. In the economic field, writers such as Nicolas Baverez have been dismissed as "declinologues" (theorists of decline).