French president Emmanuel Macron is finding that translating his ideas espoused on the campaign trail into public policy is wreaking havoc on his popularity, gained from his landslide victory just three months ago. Macron is running into the same problems his three predecessors discovered when they, too, tried to reform the archaic labor laws that are a huge drag on the economy.  The president is also in hot water with several other groups over proposed budget cuts to trim the size of government, reform pensions, and rein in military spending. France has the second largest economy in Europe, but it's been hamstrung in recent decades by a plethora of union-friendly labor contracts and 3,000 pages of labor laws that make it virtually impossible to fire anyone while granting extraordinarily generous pay and benefits to all workers.  Unemployment is close to 10% – worse for working-age adults under the age of 25.  Economic growth has been stagnant,...(Read Full Post)