Unrest in France looks like a ‘pretty big foreshadowing’ to economists nervously eyeing national debt at 126% of GDP

When U.S. markets watched as Paris metaphorically imploded just weeks ago, the consensus reaction was: “Let’s not do that.”

Unrest ripped through the French capital after protesters initially highlighted failings in the public school system. The action snowballed into widespread expressions of dissatisfaction with the cost of living and job prospects.

The macroeconomic health of the European nation is not in great shape: unemployment was 8.3% in Q2, real GDP growth was 0.4%, and wage growth was 1.7% at the national level. And underpinning it all is public debt, currently at 116% of GDP, with 30-year bonds topping 5.4% at the time of writing.

And the U.S. bond market, flirting with a wrap on the wrist for its own policymakers presiding over mounting debt, stalled. In fact, 10- and 30-year Treasury yields even declined.

“There’s a reason that the U.S. has pulled back a little bit in the last few weeks [and] why France has not,” Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, told a Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) event last week. “It’s a couple of key indicators that differentiate us........

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