France: "la merde" years

The philosophical and economic underpinnings of the chaos, and its commercial implications.

“They’re rioting in France” are words that have not surprised anyone for two centuries. But they should. How did a proud country, champion of one of the greatest literary, artistic, architectural, and philosophical traditions in the West, end up synonymous with unrest, strikes, and chaos?

A philosophical crisis

The problem in France is the same problem experienced throughout Western Europe: the state does not know its purpose, its raison d'être.

For much of Western Europe, the state is there as a substitute for the family and community - providing cradle to grave welfare, and therefore disincentivising having children. It is a force for social and economic equality - taxing the rich disproportionately to give handouts to the indigent and indolent. It enforces arbitrary rights divorced from any sense of reality - offering welfare to foreigners, legal and illegal, or guaranteeing the “right” to reject morality and biology. It acts as a champion of “global justice” - providing enormous amounts of aid to perennially dysfunctional alien societies. And it acts as an extension of the American Empire, subordinating its national interests to the plots of the Pentagon - France, historically, has been able to find common cause with Russia for all sorts of reasons, including containing Germany and balancing against the USA. Critically, the modern Western state, including France, makes no distinction between natives and foreigners - even as the foreigners continue to adhere to their own cultural norms and ethnic identity.

In reality, the state is there as an organic expression of the nation, to whom its owes its primary allegiance, and which it ought to serve. This service takes two main forms: enforcing justice and defending the nation. Justice and defence. And the French state, like all other European states with practically open borders, is failing in both, as a result of its loss of purpose.

Fiscal constraints

Another result of the French state’s delusions - delusions which are shared across the West - is that the French budget deficit stands at 5.8% while the debt to GDP is 114%. As a reminder, the EU used to require countries to keep their deficit to 3% of GDP and debt to GDP to 60%.

Worse, French bonds are trading at yields close to, and sometimes above, those of Greece and Italy. France’s government spends a total of 55% of the country’s GDP, a figure that must be cut to leave space for the private sector. Despite this obvious brewing financial crisis, Prime Minister Francois Bayrou lost a vote of confidence on 8 September because he tried to cut social spending to bring down the deficit to 4.6% of GDP.

This is extreme socialism; there is no other way to describe it. It is the direct result of the misconception that the state is responsible for everything in society, rather than the state existing to protect a free society.

La joie de protester

The reaction to Bayrou’s attempted spending cuts was unrest on 10 September by the Bloquons tout movement (Block Everything). The unrest occurred in dozens of cities, including Paris, Lille, Montpellier, Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Marseille, and Toulouse, though most violence was in Paris. It involved fighting with riot police, the use of tear gas and water cannon, smashing store windows, in one instance cutting electrical cables and disrupting train services, but no widespread looting (unlike during previous unrest by ethnic minorities).

An image from X of protests in Paris.

On 18 September, major strikes by all labour unions throughout France took place. More than half a million people took to the streets. The protesters aimed to block all access to Paris, to disrupt transport (with major disruptions to trains and the Paris metro), to close schools (one third of primary school teachers going on strike), and to conduct protests throughout the country. There were 181 arrests, but no reports of injuries and some damage to shop windows. The left is likely to continue to try to mobilise for more protests to oppose any budget cuts. And protests are likely to continue: on 26 September, farmers will be protesting against the Mercusor-EU trade deal, food imports, US tariffs and the EU’s acceptance of them, and general government mismanagement.

Political paralysis

Both the the 10 September and 18 September actions are fully supported by France’s far left socialist factions. The far left supports continued large-scale immigration, more spending, more taxes, more welfare, and further expansion of the state. The left’s problem, however, is that it is heavily splintered, with at least three separate competing blocs (NFP, LFI, and the Greens).

Polling shows that the most popular single party in France right now is Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement national (RN) However, the support RN has is insufficient to obtain a majority, and the entire French political spectrum has regularly united to stop the RN from gaining power. The right and centre right is split between Macron’s bloc (Ensemble), Le Pen’s RN, and the collapsing Les Republicans.

Marcon had decided to call for an early election in 2024, after the RN won the European elections. Although the RN won the first round, it ended up third in terms of number of seats in the National Assembly - the remaining right wing parties and the entire left united against it. And as no single coalition held a majority, leading to extremely unstable governments.

With this arrangement evidently failing, the left is calling for Macron to step down. Macron is trying to hold on until the 2027 presidential elections, while legislative elections are not scheduled until 2029. As a last ditch effort to hold on to power, Macron appointed a new Prime Minister, a long time loyalist, former Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu. He is the third PM in under a year.

Immigration

France hosts the largest Muslim population in Europe, and the least integrated. The French left looks to the Muslim vote for support. Like the rest of the Western left, the French left demonises its native rivals as fascists, racists, and Nazis.

For the right, and indeed a growing proportion of the centre, this is perceived as treasonous. For anyone thinking about the next two or three generations, rather than the immediate past or present, the Muslim population in Europe is an existential threat.

The extremism of the French and global left is willing into being the nightmares of their imagination: large-scale immigration will eventually lead to a backlash with fascist, racist characteristics, which would have never occurred had the pro-immigration side moderated its positions.

Commercial Implications

• An early Parliamentary election is likely before 2027, without which a stable government is very unlikely to be formed. Macron himself has become a major polarising figure, but he is unwilling to leave the presidency, so far.