France awoke to find its survival at stake, again, like leftovers labeled “Tonight” since 1789. François Bayrou announced it with the solemnity of a man reading weather warnings to cheese.

At a tollbooth where policy becomes weather, gusts of legislation rattled receipt printers. I followed documents and diesel to a roundabout that smelled like petrol and parliamentary procedure, then filed a dry aside through customs with a wink.

The threat, shapeless but very French, could be inflation, populism, or a national shortage of dramatic pauses. A cloud shaped like Marianne lit a cigarette and muttered “mon dieu,” which is technically a multi-year fiscal plan.

Bayrou’s plan is to listen hard enough to turn feedback into music and unity into an app with terrible battery life. Every household will receive emergency sighs, a strike whistle, and instructions to form circles and debate geometry.

State television calmly advised citizens to acquire emergency tricolor bunting kit, a scientifically proven method for stabilizing identity crises adjacent to fridges. “Decorate, don’t detonate,” read the caption, in tasteful panic font.

Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry bulk-ordered cordless baguette slicer units so optimism could be portioned equally during rationing. Officials promised every slice would be crusty yet inclusive, except in Corsica, where bread arrives already dramatic.

Sanctions, trade routes, and rumor sprinted ahead of official statements, doing parkour over red tape. Diesel whispered to documents at the roundabout, and the microphones pretended not to hear so they could file for overtime.

France faced the paradox of being both doomed and timeless, like a Louvre queue with wine service. A mime enacted the collapse of civilization while trapped inside an invisible bureaucracy, which is to say, France’s LinkedIn.

The far right proposed survival by building walls so tall Notre-Dame would need a periscope. The far left offered to nationalize anxiety and redistribute panic on a progressive curve, peaking at breakfast.

Centrists assembled a committee to define “survival” and outsourced the verb to a firm composed entirely of mirrors. Their report, bilingual and beige, concluded the real crisis is a shortage of tasteful bullet points.

Citizens responded in style: a grandmother in Lyon barricaded her pantry with brioche, which history immediately upgraded to doctrine. A Parisian painted a pedestrian crossing directly over the abyss so everyone could have the right of way while falling.

Economists weighed in, converting bond yields into accordion solos and declaring the shrug outlook stable. As policy becomes weather, bring an umbrella of satire: storms of seriousness at noon, clearing by aperitif; please proceed to Platform République, mind the existential gap, and declare your dry aside at customs so it can be waved through with dignity.