Much rests on a law designed to liberalise the economy by deregulating protected professions (among other measures), devised by Emmanuel Macron, his economy minister, which has yet to be unveiled.
Though Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, often harangues countries like Spain, Italy and Greece to become more competitive, the German economy features some of the same flaws that they do, including protected professions and zoning laws that favor existing businesses over new ones.
This will make it all the harder for Mr Valls to put in place the economic reforms he has promised.On the government's to-do list are pledges to liberalise protected professions, such as notaries, bailiffs and pharmacies; ease works-council rules in companies; simplify labour law; loosen Sunday and evening trading hours; cut bureaucratic red tape; and liberalise planning regulations.
In his acceptance speech, Lieberman said he hoped the next generation of lobbyists will put a light on the business, adding that it is "a critical, and really constitutionally protected" profession.
Several lawyers said protecting their profession from harsh criticism was only part of their reluctance to sue.
Indeed, as Mr. Menand points out, early reformers argued that the only way to elevate excellence above profits in a capitalist society was by protecting the profession from the market's insistence on cash rewards.
For example, legal barriers still protect regulated professions, such as lawyers, doctors and pharmacists, despite the authorities' commitment to push for all kinds of what is known as "structural reform".
In the U.S., cities and states routinely practice a variation of it through unnecessary regulations designed solely to protect certain professions from competition.
In the view of the early reformers, the only way to ensure that quality, rather than profit, would be rewarded was to protect the profession from outside competition.
But Commonwealth countries have not always offered an open environment; among the things they learned from British mentors along with ideals like the presumption of innocence was how to protect the profession from pesky competitors.
