As France is usually considered the stage on which processes of historic significance for the whole of Europe play out, then current and likely future developments in Paris are sounding a deafening alarm.
For everyone.
The situation is easily summarized. The Center is weakened and the extremes are growing alarmingly in strength on both Right and Left.
But while the two extremes may have common targets—President Macron, for example—, there is no shared ground on which they can work together.
The result? No effective government. And the only winners will be chaos, and Putin.
Because France is being destabilized at the worst possible time. When the European Union needs the unifying force and leadership it provides more than ever before.
The alarm bells are certainly a source of concern. And they are echoing far beyond the borders of France itself.
Of course, the question is how a nation that has been a model of political stability since 1958 and the establishment of the 5th Republic has reached its current state, where it changes governments like shirts, is proving incapable of coming up with a working budget for the next year, and is on the verge of bankruptcy.
Because France may stagger on with a new government (if it can find one…) or proceed to fresh elections, but no one knows how long it can withstand the instability, and at what cost.
Especially since it’s far from certain new elections will produce a viable solution.
Indeed, the chances of that happening are vanishingly slim.
In European democracy, political and economic stability go hand in hand. When one collapses, the other follows. And any country that loses its ability to balance the two faces the threat of destabilization.
That’s what is happening in France today. And that is the danger facing any European democracy that fails to heed the alarm bells from France.
Especially since, while France is a big country and an important economy that will find its way one way or another, this is definitely not true for weaker members of the Union.
Especially with America succumbing to chaotic madness, Russia threatening from the margins, and the entire international system (political and economic) mired in levels of uncertainty we haven’t seen for decades.
And while it’s useful that France is sounding the alarm, a warning is only useful if people choose to heed it.
