As all these issues and more were trotted out under Mr Fabius’s eye, the scope of the work yet to be done was clear. The time that remains is limited; the talks are scheduled to end on Friday December 11th, though few in Paris expect a deal to emerge before the weekend. The acceptance of the draft text suggests strongly that such a deal will emerge: as a Russian negotiator put it, while registering serious objections, “we can’t leave without an agreement.” And so, after midnight, the negotiators went back to their tasks, aiming to delete a few more brackets before entering the final stages. Where there is strife, there is hope.