It’s becoming increasingly apparent the French have a AAA rating in name only.

French debt yields have hit 20-year highs, and the spread between French and German bonds is now more than 2 percent. Yields are currently up 2.82 percent, up from 2.31 percent in the previous auction - not exactly a trend favorable to the French government.

The market has much more confidence in the German and U.S. markets, where bond rates remain near zero.

A recent study by the Brussels-based think tank the Lisbon Council ranked the country last among the six AAA-rated eurozone countries. It ranked 13th overall for financial security, only one place above troubled Italy.

On the Euro Plus Monitor’s scoreboard measuring economic reform, France came in 15th out of 17 and was given “the Leviathan award” for its bloated public spending. More than half of the nation’s economic output, 54 percent of gross domestic product, is doled out by the government.

French taxes are high to pay for the massive entitlement state, but industry finds it difficult to meet the burden, saddled with inflexible employment laws. The work week, for example, is limited to 35 hours, and such factors have driven French labor costs beyond Germany’s. As a result, economic growth has been throttled at a barely measurable 0.1 percent last quarter.

Paris cannot tax its way out of a problem created by decades of overspending. As in every other nation with an unsustainable welfare state, government must be scaled back. For France, that means taking on the unions. If it fails to do so, it will surrender much more than its AAA rating.