France’s prime minister, Sebastien Lecornu, just resigned after less than one month in office, the shortest-serving PM in the country’s history. That’s the fifth prime minister who has spun through the revolving doors of the French government in the past two years.
It’s a mess. Emmanuel Macron, whose approval rating is in the low-20% range, needs to go but is hanging on for dear life. France faces a huge budget deficit, and Macron cannot possibly lead the country through the changes necessary to make it well again, much less great. Plus ca change and all that.
France – and The EU – Needs a Donald Trump https://t.co/yDshyOUR4s pic.twitter.com/p6v6s9hJwD
— Liz Peek (@lizpeek) October 6, 2025
I love Europe. I love the old cities with narrow stone streets and the boulangeries turning out fresh bread in the morning; I love the dazzling towns that cascade down into the Mediterranean and the dark forests of the north.
I love, especially, Europe’s essential dysfunction, the mindless bureaucracy and bizarre way that unimportant political parties claiming tiny minorities can end up in charge. (Watch the riveting TV series Borgen for a tutorial on this topic – or just read the news about France.)
I am particularly keen on how Europe makes the US look good, even while we are in the midst of a shutdown, and even with our political leaders indulging in performative politics and absurd social media jousting. Even as we seriously entertain the notion that an ignorant man with zero experience and preposterous anti-capitalist ideology might become mayor of the world’s financial center.
This weekend a story in the FT reminded me that Europe cannot get out of its own way. The headline read, “EU Simplification drive becomes entangled in its own red tape.”
To their credit, EU officials are trying to pare back the crazy-quilt of rules and regulations that have arguably stifled growth on the continent. Not only is the red tape tide suffocating the EU, it also drove the Brits to vote for Brexit, a loss for the European experiment.
In February, members of the EU “set up a fast-track procedure to eliminate the most onerous requirements and reduce the number of companies subject to them” reports the FT. But, apparently, “parliamentary wrangling” is causing big delays, undermining the entire program. Quel surprise.
Here’s what’s happening: faceless Brussels bureaucrats are warring over turf; the omnibus simplification bills evidently “clash with parliamentary procedures” and deprive “political groups and committees of their usual roles.
In addition, right-leaning political groups, inspired by Donald Trump (and maybe DOGE), want to strip out more red tape while the Left “accuse them of pursuing deregulation.” Think about “pursuing deregulation” as an insult.
You have to laugh; this is exactly what has been going on in the U.S. but thank heavens we have a president and a Congress eager to crawl out from under Democrats overreach and mountain of bullying bureaucracy. A lot of the bickering of course is over climate rules, which are completely strangling the EU economies, driving electricity costs higher and making Germany and France, for instance, unable to compete in industries that require a lot of power.
But rules on reporting about “forced labor’ or “pollution” in supply chains – mostly to do with tracking down bad behavior from China – may also come under the ax. People who create these kinds of obligations have rarely actually run a business or created a job; they don’t understand that the hours spent tracking down how much of a product has been produced by Uighurs, for instance, is one less hour spent selling a product. In our hyper-competitive world, every hour counts.
For the sake of Europe, which needs to get stronger and smarter to stave off Russia and China, I hope their purge of wasteful rules works. Meanwhile, U.S. voters should be grateful the hard work of batting back the state is being done for you – by President Trump. EU needs its own Donald Trump, and soon.
