French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron once warned that France would turn into “Cuba without the sunshine” if the government didn’t change its tax-and-spend-and-regulate ways. Mr. Macron on Wednesday unveiled a package of reforms designed to avert just that.

The Bill for Growth and Activity—already known as the “Macron Law”—would demolish longstanding barriers to entry for the legal and notary professions, open up domestic rail lines to competition from private bus companies, fast-track the adjudication of some labor disputes, and lower some of the environmental hurdles developers need to jump to gain approval for new projects. The bill also would require the government to dispose of up to €10 billion ($12 billion) in state-owned assets, primarily in airports and utilities.

The item that seems to have exercised the French political class the most is a proposal to increase the number of Sundays that Paris department stores can stay open—to 12 a year from the current five. The law would also allow stores located in “international tourist zones” to stay open until midnight. Martine Aubrey,the parliamentarian behind the country’s productivity-killing 35-hour workweek, has called for a Socialist war on the Sunday reform, since it “casts doubt over all the historical battles of the left.”

The protests against these common-sense reforms have already started. First up were the attorneys, notaries and bailiffs, who last week flooded Parisian streets, robes and all, to object to Mr. Macron’s plan to make it easier for recently minted lawyers to start their own practices and to reduce the tariffs and legal privileges currently enjoyed by these “protected professions.”

The plan will undoubtedly dent the profits of notaries who currently face minimal competition and can charge maximal fees to process routine paperwork. But this is the kind of reform France needs to reduce the cost of doing business for everyone else.

Expect more protests from other vested interests as Mr. Macron and Prime MinisterManuel Valls try to push forward with reforms. But the status quo—with zero growth, 10.4% unemployment, and a rising xenophobic right feeding off popular frustration with stagnation—can’t persist. As Mr. Macron said last week, quoting Nobel-winning French economist Jean Tirole, “by overprotecting, we end up protecting nothing.”