WITHIN TWO weeks France could have a hard-left or hard-right government. That prospect has led to alarm in financial markets and to claim and counter-claim about each bloc’s economic policies and the damage that might result. The French will vote in two rounds on June 30th and July 7th, after President Emmanuel Macron unexpectedly called a parliamentary election, shocking even his closest allies and business. On Friday 21st he said he was “confident in French people, their intelligence, their strength”. But opinion polls continue to show the hard right is in the lead, with a left-wing coalition running second.

Both blocs’ agendas are “dangerous for the economy”, according to Patrick Martin, the head of MEDEF, a business federation. The hard left’s tax and spending splurge could lead to a “catastrophe,” according to Oliver Blanchard of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, while the hard-right’s programme “is like a Christmas tree, without logic or coherence”. Although neither bloc may gain a majority in parliament, France has high levels of public debt and a large deficit. As a result the public finances are more vulnerable than in the past to any divergence from centrist policies or political gridlock, while the national interest bill will swell if spiking risk-premia become permanently embedded in financial markets.