The American citizen can then be anti-statist with a self-confidence that to the French, let alone the Confucianist Asians, is simply incredible.

ECONOMIST: In love with regulation

The fact is that many British people continue to make assumptions about the duties of the state towards its citizens which are closer to the social democratic ideas of continental Europe than to the more individualist, anti-statist traditions of America.

ECONOMIST: Mr Blair goes to Washington

One explanation for Mr Chirac's embrace of a soft-left, statist, instinctively anti-capitalist creed could be that he is playing Mr Blair's post-ideological game of stealing the opposition's clothes ahead of the 2007 presidential election.

ECONOMIST: The French president