/li> 0 shares 32 comments Appetite for change: The French are clever, cleverer than us. But this leads them into the folly we avoid because we have no taste for brilliant schemes of government which lead to constant change When we watch France with all its woes, we have to remember that we are dealing with the Fifth Republic — which seems an awful lot of republics to us. What is lacking in the French system is a hearty dose of good old English stupidity. This is to paraphrase Walter Bagehot, the great Victorian writer on politics and finance. It is always somehow reassuring to find how something remains the same, despite our always being told that we live in an era of unprecedented change. What Bagehot wrote has a familiar ring today. The French are clever, cleverer than us. But this leads them into the folly we avoid because we have no taste for brilliant schemes of government which lead to constant change. A common British view of the French is that they are