Across the rich world, governments' borrowing costs have shot up this year.
Nowhere is this more problematic than in France.
Its long-term bond yields have reached levels last seen almost a quarter of a century ago,
but its debts are far greater than they were then.
There's little room for manoeuvre.
Add to that the riots that broke out over the weekend after hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets
demanding more spending on schools and lower energy prices.
France is dangerously close to tipping into a crisis.
Could it take the euro zone down with it?
I'm Henry Curr, and this is Inside Economics.
So today down the line, we have Mike Bird, our Wall Street editor,
back from paternity leave and back on the show.
We have Sophie Pedder, our Paris bureau chief, dialling in as well.
And here in the studio with me, we have Christian Odendahl, our European economics editor.
And what we're going to discuss today is how France got into this position,
where things go next and a bit on the political dynamics of that.
And finally, we're going to talk about if there is a crisis, what should policymakers,
and particularly the European Central Bank, which is always at the centre of these sorts of things in Europe,
what should it do, if anything, about it.
But Sophie, let's start with you because we've all seen these pictures of the riots over the weekend in France.