France is doing well, but feeling miserable
Blame a looming election, the structure of the state and an innate Gallic gloom
TUNE IN TO any French prime-time talk show this autumn and discussion rages over the country’s wretched decline. France is losing its factories and jobs, squeezing incomes and small businesses, destroying its landscapes and language, neglecting its borders and squandering its global stature. Its people are fractious and divided, if not on the verge of a civil war, as a public letter from retired army officers suggested earlier this year. At the second presidential primary debate for the centre-right Republicans party, on November 14th, the five candidates competed with each other to chronicle French disaster. Listen to the hard right and it is “the death of France as we know it”.
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Aux larmes, citoyens!”
Europe November 20th 2021
- France is doing well, but feeling miserable
- The EU’s stand-off with Belarus is complicating its row with Poland
- Near death in jail, Georgia’s former president defies its current one
- Allies fear Germany’s incoming government will go soft on nukes
- Putting Cyprus together may be impossible
- Last of the commies
From the November 20th 2021 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionMore from Europe
François Hollande hopes to make the French left electable again
The former president moves away from the radicals
Germans are growing cold on the debt brake
Expect changes after the election
The Pope and Italy’s prime minister tussle over Donald Trump
Giorgia Meloni was the only European leader at the inauguration
Europe faces a new age of gunboat digital diplomacy
Can the EU regulate Donald Trump’s big tech bros?
Ukrainian scientists are studying downed Russian missiles
And learning a lot about sanctions-busting
How Poland emerged as a leading defence power
Will others follow?