France is going, going...

Unfortunately for Emmanuel Macron, a man many regard as an enviably polished product of the globalised technocratic elite, he began his presidential stint in 2017 when France was already in decline and, unless he resigns in time, he could well go down in history as the man who was in charge when the Fifth Republic finally came apart at the seams. All his efforts to prevent this from happening have failed. Though many blame him for his inability to stop the rot, there is no reason to think any other politician could have managed to save the doomed political order he thought he would be able to handle. Though by and large Macron has proved to be a fairly sensible head of state, he has come a cropper because, decades ago, the governing classes in France and other European nations committed themselves emotionally to a series of policies that were bound to lead to ruin.

At the root of many of them is the catastrophic fall in the birth rate and a marked increase in life expectancy that began to be felt towards the end of the 20th century. As well as making generous pension schemes unsustainable, the demographic changes gave political leaders what struck them as a valid reason to open the floodgates and allow many millions of mostly unskilled immigrants from the Third World to come pouring in. This led to the establishment of virtually autonomous communities in countries that, until then, had been relatively homogeneous.

To make matters worse, after World War II members of Europe’s intellectual elites became addicted to feverish “self-criticism,” with their own forerunners and, by extension, almost all their present compatriots, getting cast in the role of arch-villains guilty of a wide array of unforgivable historical crimes. And after deciding that nationalism was evil, they aggressively promoted “multi-culturalism” and told working-class folk that their lives were being “enriched” by the newcomers. By behaving in this way, influential European progressives, like their counterparts in the United States, Canada and Australia, did much to demoralise the societies they lived in and prepare them for the civic strife that last weekend erupted in spectacular fashion not only in France and Belgium but also Italy.

Many fear that what looked much like a Middle-Eastern “intifada” ignited by what many have taken to calling the “Islamo-Left” could soon spread to the rest of Europe Britons, Germans, Netherlanders and Swedes suspect that their countries could be next on the list. The ingredients are certainly there; large numbers of young people who are aware that their personal prospects are distinctly unpromising and have been taught to despise their native land, widespread economic discontent, the apparent inability of the national authorities to keep out uninvited “invaders” from parts of the world where sexual mores are radically different from those in Europe and the presence of Jihadists who make no secret of their hate not just for Jews but for all those who have no desire to share their beliefs.

When the riots began, defenders of the status quo took comfort from the notion that it was only a matter of naturally rebellious youngsters wanting a better education in cleaner schools. Some even regarded the torching of buildings to be an understandable reaction to years of alleged neglect. Those inclined to downplay the seriousness of what looked more and more like a revolutionary uprising then went on to attribute the extreme violence to worries about the cost of living, but the proliferation of Palestinian flags did not fit in with that reassuring explanation. Neither, for that matter, did the repeated profanation of symbols of French identity, such as the statues of Marianne that adorn all town halls, the law courts and most other public buildings. It was also reported that in Marseilles looters were told to concentrate on stores owned by Jews or Christians and leave the Muslim ones alone. To nobody’s surprise, synagogues and churches came under attack but no mosques were targetted.

Even if things do quieten down on the social front in the coming weeks – which given the threats coming from the French labour unions, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far left and the “yellow vests,” seems most unlikely – any attempt to appease the malcontents by delaying clearly necessary spending cuts would increase the risk of not just France but also the rest of Europe getting hit by a financial firestorm. Before too long, European leaders will have to choose between federalising France’s huge national debt, which would oblige other countries, especially Germany, to help pay it off, and telling the French they will have to solve the problem by themselves, something they could do with an Argentine-style default that would destroy the euro. The prevailing view is that, unlike Greece, France is too big to fail and also too big to keep afloat. Awareness of this has the bond markets rattled, as are the economic authorities in the United Kingdom which, despite not using the euro and being out of the European Union, would suffer contagion because its financial situation is similar to the one France was in a couple of years ago.

Time and time again, Macron tried to reduce public spending to a rational level, but even the smallest cuts he proposed brought angry mobs onto the streets which forced him either to backtrack or to make use of special presidential powers that may have worked but did nothing to enhance his personal prestige. As things stand, he cannot buy off the protestors by promising them money because there is hardly any left. This means that from now on he will have to rely on brute force, but the police, who last week suffered over 1,000 casualties, are in no condition to provide much more of it, which is why members of his government want him to call in the army as in fact Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni says she will do in order to keep the lid on mob violence in her country. Having tanks rumbling through the streets may be the logical next step but, far from guaranteeing peace, it could make an already dreadful situation even worse.