That it has touched such a raw nerve suggests that many French people think so too.

ECONOMIST: Zut alors, even Britain is ahead

Shifting call-centres to cheap-labour countries such as India seems to touch a particularly raw nerve.

ECONOMIST: Outsourcing to India

"I think I touched a raw nerve, particularly among civilian intellectuals who feel and think they can become leaders, " he says.

CNN: The Unlikely 'Military Man'

This kind of talk has touched a raw nerve with Italians and increasing numbers of Grillo's candidates are winning mayoral races.

CNN: Beppe Grillo: Clown prince of Italian politics

This kind of talk has touched a raw nerve with Italian voters, roughly a quarter of whom cast ballots for M5S in the lower house of parliament.

CNN: Beppe Grillo: Clown prince takes Italian election by storm

If the new treatment centres hit a raw nerve for many Labour members, the charge that they represent poor value for money is just as painful for ministers.

ECONOMIST: The threat of competition is what matters

The article touched a raw nerve.

ECONOMIST: France��s government and business

This touches a raw nerve in Japan as voters ponder the cost of the government's efforts to spend its way out of a recession, which ended (for now) in the three months to March when the economy grew by 1.9% compared with the previous quarter.

ECONOMIST: Japan

The recent surge in gas prices has touched a raw nerve for many around the country, reminding us of an economy that is increasingly uncertain for the middle-class, a growing addiction to oil that draws us ever closer to dictators and despots, and a fragile global position with a climate that is increasingly out of balance.

CNN: Redford: Kicking the oil habit

Daft though his ideas were, Mr Hain touched a raw political nerve.

ECONOMIST: Peter Hain touched a sensitive spot