People who give themselves permission to fail or permission to give up for any reason (valid or imaginary), find making excuses habit forming. They never achieve their potential. It doesn’t matter if your victimology world-view is comforting, is constantly validated, or is justified, if you accept it as a reason for failure, you’ll never look beyond it to ask; “What can I do to improve myself”… or “What if the reason this person is telling me that I need to improve at my job is because… I ACTUALLY just need to improve at my job?”

The government further insisted that it doesn’t really consider itself bound to the law requiring them to only launch wars with parliamentary support, saying that the Prime Minister needs to be able to act without being “artificially constrained” by things like the law.

The constant presence of camouflage uniforms everywhere from quiet neighbourhood streets to Métro carriages, patrolling past schools at home-time or milling through markets, has transformed the cityscape – and the relationship of the French to their soldiers. People now bring hot drinks and food offerings to men in military fatigues at the end of their street. The elite troops of the foreign legion are invited into a barmitzvah in a street of synagogues that they normally guard. There are now military medals for serving on the streets of French towns and many more young people applying to join the army.

Tone was set early on when the president said things were “getting better” and a brave journalist interrupted “Is that a joke?”