One difference is that they are genuinely open, for it is not at all clear which of the three leading contenders . . .

Nicolas Sarkozy, Segolene Royal and Francois Bayrou . . .

will end up winning. The other is that they hold the prospect of a significant change in economic policy.

Briefly on the former issue, it is very hard to know how the French will jump, witnessing the surprise second place in the first round of the 2002 elections by Jean-Marie Le Pen. He is standing again this time and presumably will take votes from the frontrunner Sarkozy rather than from the other more centrist candidates.

But there are things that can sensibly be said about France's crossroads economy. Whoever wins the presidency faces the same economic problems but also inherits the same inherent strengths of what is still in many ways an enviable economic position.

In world terms, France has an extremely competitive economy. True, it has serious unemployment, but, viewed structurally, France should be in a rather good position to cope with the pressures of globalisation. It has nimble and efficient hightechnology industries. It is also the world's largest tourist market in terms of the number of people visiting the country, with 77 million arrivals in 2005. And more broadly, it has a relatively high fertility rate by European standards.

So, unemployment aside, what is wrong? Unfortunately, you cannot put unemployment aside because labour market rigidities are a large part of the problem. French workers are very productive in terms of output per hour worked but that is achieved at great social cost, in that they have to work unusually intensively; the 35-hour week forces them, and their employers, to compress the work that needs to be done into a very short time.

The further cost is the exclusion of low-skilled people from the workforce.

About one-quarter of under25s are out of work, the highest level in Europe and double the level of the US. At the other end of the lifespan, the average age of leaving the workforce is just over 59 for both men and women, compared with 65.3 for men and 62.1 for women in Denmark.

There seems also to have been some relative deterioration in France's economic performance since the euro was introduced. Until 2002, French and German output rose roughly in line with each other, far outpacing Italy.

Since then, Germany has leapt ahead, while France has stagnated.

This has led to criticism of the euro by both Sarkozy and Royal. Neither wants the franc reinstated, unlike many French people, but they do want a less rigorous regime at the European Central Bank.

But they have no power over that. In any case France, unlike Italy, does not seem to have a competitiveness problem, therefore price of its output is not the issue.

There is a high degree of agreement on what is.

France needs to boost innovation and create a more friendly business environment. It needs to deregulate product and services markets. And it needs more flexibility in the labour market.

It is easy to say this but hard politically to do so.

Boosting innovation means changing the culture of the universities. Improving conditions for business and entrepreneurs means getting rid of regulations and bureaucracy. Deregulating product and service markets means less state intervention in business and opening areas such as retailing to more competition. It also means tackling the professions. And as for increasing flexibility in the labour market, that means cutting taxation and social security payments and reducing job protection.

The big question seems to be not which of the candidates is the most likely to be able to support a reform programme on these lines. No, the big question surely is whether France wants to reform in the first place. It does not have to. It can muddle through for another decade or so until pressure on public finances reaches a state where serious changes in the welfare system have to be accepted. Meanwhile, the business community will continue to diversify globally, building up their non-French activities.

That is a perfectly rational choice for the country to make and it is not for outsiders to pretend otherwise.

Provided Europe as a whole continues its present growth, it should be possible for France to grow by close to 2% a year and increase its living standards by 1.5%.

France has become a fascinating economic experiment: whether a model that has been successful in its own terms can be modified to regain its effectiveness is not so much a question of whether evolution will succeed, yet more one of: is evolution good enough? We cannot know; nor can the French.