# What is happening in France is happening everywhere

**URL:** <https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/what-is-happening-in-france-is-happening-everywhere/18124>\
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**Tags:** Communication, Society\
**Created:** [November 2, 2026, 5:47pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/what-is-happening-in-france-is-happening-everywhere/18124 "2026-11-02T17:47:17Z")\
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**Author:** ![Nesslig20](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/nesslig20/32/11875_2.png) [@Nesslig20](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Nesslig20)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2026, 5:47pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/what-is-happening-in-france-is-happening-everywhere/18124/1 "2026-11-02T17:47:17Z")

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![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/peacefulscience/original/3X/8/e/8e9ff3f724860b2ba7665e984a5e304c6fbcd943.jpeg)

Civil unrest has recently exploded within France, and is spreading across western Europe. What is happening?

### Background

In mid-September 2026, high-school students in Créteil, a Paris suburb, marched alongside teachers to protest poor school conditions: teacher shortages, overcrowded classrooms, and neglected buildings. Some endured classroom temperatures of 40°C (104°F) during heatwaves. By early October, hundreds of schools had closed, with similar protests spreading to Belgium, Greece, Italy, and ([as I was writing this](https://nltimes.nl/2026/11/01/gen-z-protest-hague-ends-without-major-incidents-34-arrested-mostly-teens)) the Netherlands. While most demonstrations remained peaceful, some escalated into urban violence. The state responded with forceful crowd-control weapons and up to 7,000 arrests, most involving minors. On September 30, a 16-year-old was [partially blinded by a rubber bullet](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/10/14/french-officer-charged-after-student-blinded-rubber-bullet/); on October 5, a 15-year-old [lost his left hand to a stun grenade](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/10/06/high-school-protests-what-we-know-about-injuries-among-demonstrators-and-police_6758279_7.html). In early October, trade unions, labour groups, and the Yellow Vests joined, broadening the movement into a wider backlash against the cost-of-living crisis, recently aggravated by rising oil prices following Trump’s war in Iran. Protests peaked on October 17–18, as peaceful daytime marches gave way to nighttime rioting, looting, and vandalism. [French police attributed](https://lawstreet.co/international/france-in-crisis-full-timeline-of-the-student-protests-that-turned-into-nationwide-riots) the violence to ‘radical far-left groups and opportunistic looters’ joining otherwise peaceful demonstrations.

### Bad takes

Political pundits have readily exploited the situation, most notably through xenophobic scapegoating that blames immigrants for virtually every problem. This includes the [U.S. vice president](https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/oct/20/jon-stewart-jd-vance-immigration-katie-zacharia), consistent with his brazen willingness to ‘[create stories](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/15/jd-vance-lies-haitian-immigrants)’ to demonize foreigners. Others blamed left-wing and far-left opponents for instigating the protests. While La France Insoumise members did join, the protests were grassroots in origin, beginning with a small group of local students whose actions snowballed as others with similar grievances joined or seized the opportunity to protest.

The mainstream narrative is essentially: _ **‘Tough MERDE! Grow up and accept austerity.’** _ France has run a budget deficit every year since the 1970s, with its current deficit exceeding 5% of GDP and public debt reaching **[119%](https://www.euronews.com/2026/09/29/frances-public-debt-soars-to-a-record-119-of-gdp)**[.](https://www.euronews.com/2026/09/29/frances-public-debt-soars-to-a-record-119-of-gdp) Critics point to its relatively low retirement age (62 since 2010), mocking protesters for opposing even modest pension reforms. They argue that the French live in a fantasy world, refusing to accept the need for fiscal responsibility and necessary reforms - echoing the rhetoric of the [Dutch equivalent of John Oliver](https://youtu.be/Cl1swKdyqQw), whose show shares a similar format and political leanings. This narrative appeals to those in countries with higher retirement ages, allowing us to feel rather high-and-mighty toward the French: if we accept later retirement, why can’t they? It is especially appealing to other EU countries seeking to impose austerity on France - particularly given France’s own role in imposing brutal austerity on Greece after the 2009 eurozone crisis, which led to the [massive foreign privatization](https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/privatisation-and-debt-lessons-greeces-fiasco) of state assets, including highways, seaports, and airports.

Look closely, and this is simply another form of [resentment politics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_resentment): instead of blaming foreigners, the blame shifts to the French themselves. Domestically, this likely falls along generational lines, reviving familiar tropes of the ‘greedy boomer’ and ‘entitled zoomer’. I suspect such narratives will lose electorally. The foreigner who supposedly ‘steals your jobs and welfare’ remains a more convenient and less powerful scapegoat. I therefore wouldn’t be surprised - nor happy - to see Marine Le Pen, who was [convicted of embezzling EU funds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Front_assistants_affair), win the 2027 French presidential election.

The truth is, France’s debt is a symptom, not the cause. The underlying problem is a structural flaw entrenched in Western politics for decades, leaving France and others in a trap where rising national debt seems inevitable and austerity is treated as the ideological solution. If Marine Le Pen wins, I doubt she will understand or address this system. Instead, she will add performative cruelty to the establishment mix, harming migrants and non-migrants alike while perpetuating - or worsening - the same economic problems. Yes… Trump, but French.

### The Actual Root Cause

The real issue that France is facing is called _Neoliberalism_. Also the limitations imposed by the eurozone, but this has been deliberately structured in accordance with _Neoliberal_ dogma. More on that in the final section.

What is _Neoliberalism_? Often mistaken for a synonym of _ **Capitalism** _, the two are distinct. _**[Capitalism](https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/glossary/C/#capitalism)**_ is an economic system based on private ownership of capital and the means of production for profit. Its roots trace back to 16th-century mercantilism, evolving into modern _Capitalism_ during the 18th-century Industrial Revolution, around the time [Adam Smith](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith) published _The Wealth of Nations_. Capitalism has since taken many forms. _**[Neoliberalism](https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/glossary/N/#neoliberalism)**_, by contrast, is a social, economic, and political ideology that places markets at the center, arguing that the private sector is best at producing and distributing goods and services. It therefore advocates expanding free-market capitalism through deregulation, privatization, free-trade globalization, and tax cuts, while reducing the state’s economic role through austerity and spending cuts - with **several big, fat asterisks**. This seems like just _Capitalism_ to many, but only because that is the system we have been born into and/or grown accustomed to… since for decades it has been the establishment; both so-called ‘liberal’ AND ‘conservative’.

To understand the distinction between _Capitalism_ and _Neoliberalism_, we must return to the early 20th century. In response to the Great Depression, FDR introduced the New Deal, bringing major government interventions: financial regulation, the 44-hour (later 40-hour) workweek, bans on child labour, minimum wages, and social welfare. This laid the foundations for the post-WWII Keynesian consensus across the Western world, characterized by full employment as a policy objective, strong trade and labour unions, historically high top tax rates (91% in the US until 1963), and robust welfare states. Yet Western economies remained firmly capitalist. Indeed, this period became known as the **[‘Golden Age of _Capitalism_’](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%80%93World_War_II_economic_expansion)**[.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%80%93World_War_II_economic_expansion) Although governments owned significant parts of the economy and provided extensive public services, most economic activity remained private, albeit heavily regulated, with a more balanced relationship between capital and labor. **Capitalism operated within democratic constraints**. This is not to romanticize the period, since it was a time of institutional racial and gender inequality, (post-)colonial exploitation, and Cold War regime-change interventions… **[consequences of which are still felt today](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowback_(intelligence))**.

This ‘golden age of _Capitalism_’ ended and gave way to _Neoliberalism_ right at the start of the 1980s. What changed? A common misconception comes from how _Neoliberalism_ sells itself as a non-ideology. It’s merely the ideal order which naturally emerges from ‘individual freedom’ in the absence of ‘government meddling’. In reality, it was meticulously planned by a small group of liberal intellectuals, which includes Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. The ideological construction first started in 1938 with the [Walter Lippmann Colloquium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colloque_Walter_Lippmann), as a reaction to the death of _Classical liberalism_ after the Great Depression, and fearing that the success of the New Deal and post-WWII _Keynesianism_ would facilitate the spread of socialism or communism across Western nations. An elite group of _Neoliberal_ scholars coalesced with the founding of [The Mont Pèlerin Society](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Pelerin_Society) in 1947.

_Neoliberalism_ had its first practical test-run in Chile, with the [Chicago Boys](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Boys) shaping the country’s economy during the 17-year long military dictatorship under Pinochet. This followed the 1973 Chilean coup d’état backed by the CIA. In the Western world, _Neoliberalism_ remained fringe for a bit longer, since nobody wanted to change the system which seemed to be working well… until… the economic crisis of the 1970s. Now westerners were open to alternatives. _Neoliberal_s were all too eager to take advantage of this situation after having prepared for decades. They claimed the crisis were caused by too much government spending, high taxes, excessive regulations, and that the free market was [the only solution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_is_no_alternative)… even though the main cause were [the oil crises](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis) and the Nixon shock. This was echoed by [Ronald Reagan](https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/glossary/T/#trickle-down&gsc.tab=0) and [Margaret Thatcher](https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2022/03/11/let-us-never-forget-this-fundamental-truth-there-is-no-source-of-money-other-than-the-state/#gsc.tab=0), both of whom were advised by Milton Friedman. Their rise to power would pave the way for the _Neoliberal_ establishment in the West.

### The Big Failure of _Neoliberalism_

One part of _Neoliberal_ dogma dictates that taxes should be very low to allow for private investments, while government spending should be minimized. If there ever is a budget deficit, the _Neoliberal_ solution is to reduce spending… NOT increase taxation. However, we can clearly see that _ **Neoliberalism** _ **has been a complete and abject failure** regarding its goal of fiscal discipline.

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/peacefulscience/original/3X/c/2/c2332f27a0d369a9f010d1b2e98bd4d0f507b84d.png)

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/peacefulscience/original/3X/b/7/b778172258a331268c27ec034f20019531d18269.png)

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/peacefulscience/original/3X/d/4/d48c39f2f2359638c2841c34589a5169979d06d3.png)

Furthermore, the assumption that government deficits are always bad, and surpluses are always good is just wrong. We should also **pay attention to private debt** … which is much HIGHER and riskier than public debt. The Great Recession clearly illustrates both these points.

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/peacefulscience/original/3X/b/d/bd99eaad6b5956a77a62e2cbd5cd27b765792f18.png)Before the recession, private banks were issuing high-risk loans (significantly [subprime mortgages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis)) facilitated by the _Neoliberal_ deregulation of the financial market. When lenders defaulted, the banks made huge loses, and were therefore less inclined to issue new loans. This meant banks were destroying more money (more loan pay-backs) than they created (less lending). People were also more inclined to save than spend. The money supply was bleeding out of the economy, money-velocity stagnated, demand plummeted, businesses closed… ergo… recession. The financial system had also become increasingly more globalized since the 1970s, so the financial crisis rippled throughout the world. **What was the solution?**  **BIG GOVERNMENT**.. over $1.0 trillion in direct emergency spending, and the total debt increased from $8.95 trillion in 2007 to $13.53 trillion in 2010. The government bailed-out the banks and pumped money into and through the economy, which likely prevented the total collapse into the second great depression.

### The Big Lie of _Neoliberalism_

Pause for a moment to take this all in. The government is more than willing to spend and run huge deficits when it comes things like the military and to stop recessions (occurring every 6 to 10 years) from spiraling into depressions. As I alluded to previously, the fiscal responsibility arguments of _Neoliberalism_ has **several big, fat asterisks** attached to them. Here they are. How is this consistent with _Neoliberalism_?

The dirty open-secret is that ‘small government’ is not a true goal of _Neoliberalism_ whatsoever… that’s just how it advertises itself. **The government still has BIG roles to play; as the primary maintainer and major consumer of the private sector**. Funding the military industrial complex serves both. Government subsidies is the primary source of profit for mega-corporate contractors, and military interventions are required for _Neoliberal_ globalism to secure foreign resources and global trade routes… **[well… ain’t… that… topical](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_of_Hormuz)**. Even domestically, free-markets do NOT exists naturally. They are legal constructs which must be maintained and enforced by the government. Money… specifically fiat currency… is a government construct, which is created when governments run deficits. Without fiat money, credit would have no value.

What _Neoliberalism_ promotes as “the free-market” is also an oxymoron for three reasons:

1. _Neoliberal_ deregulation leads to market sectors being dominated by a handful of multi-national giants. The consequences of which we will see in the next section. Owners of capital do not want market competition. **They wish for [domination](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diapers.com)**. As they gain more power under _Neoliberalism_, independent startups and small-businesses are increasingly less likely to survive. This undermines a truly free-competitive market… which is exactly what **Adam Smith - the founder of _Capitalism_, who is often invoked by _Neoliberals_ - [warned against](https://aeon.co/essays/we-should-look-closely-at-what-adam-smith-actually-believed)**.
2. To underpin the ever increasing power of private institutions, **labor- and consumer rights must be suppressed** by the legal system. That’s why petty-theft is penalized more aggressively than wage-theft. That’s why anti-union laws are framed as ['right-to-work](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law)’ laws. That’s why poverty is criminalized, but not rent-seeking, nor predatory practices of private equity firms or hedge funds. That’s why thousands of lenders were arrested and millions were legally evicted during the Great Recession, but [only one banker](https://lawreview.uchicago.edu/online-archive/making-mismarker-case-only-banker-jailed-us-his-role-financial-crash) went to jail. That is why the explicit - legally established - priority of law enforcement is to[protect property, not individual people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_of_Castle_Rock_v._Gonzales).
3. As noted earlier… when the private sector (even due its own failures) suffers from a recession, the public budget becomes an emergency blood-bag. We have also seen this reality more recently with [Trump’s CARES Act and Biden’s American Rescue Plan](https://www.crfb.org/papers/trump-and-biden-national-debt) during the COVID recession. The government has no choice but to run deficits, because the private institutions have become ‘too big to fail’. Economic gains are privatized, while loses are incurred on public debt (often erroneously phrased as ‘losses are socialized’). **Big government deficits and debt is not a bug, but a FEATURE of _Neoliberalism_.** Even during ordinary times, _Neoliberalism_ has made the private sector so powerful that it [habitually parasitizes, infiltrates, and corrupts the government](https://www.citizen.org/news/corporate-tax-dodgers-lobbying-and-political-spending-records-reveal-self-reinforcing-loop/) through influencing policy via lobbying and campaign donations… eroding or outright destroying any semblance of democracy in the process.

The only way to make private institutions completely free and independent from governments is for both of them to become one and the same thing. This will naturally lead to a dystopian nightmare where one giga-conglomerate empire has claimed ownership of the entire planet (and perhaps further beyond as well), enforcing its absolute hegemony with its global private military, and issues [company scripts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip) as the only valid currency.

### The Only “Real Success” of _Neoliberalism_

You may have noticed that the disingenuous question _[“How are you going to pay for it?”](https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2020/04/03/answering-the-question-how-are-you-going-to-pay-for-it/#gsc.tab=0)_ is only asked regarding budget proposals that benefit those on the bottom of the social pyramid. When it comes to providing welfare for corporate and the elite… the government always finds a way. This seeming contradiction has often been called out as _“socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor”_, but that distorts the original meaning of both terms. Let’s just call it for what it really is… _Neoliberalism_, under which private institutions must increasingly gain more wealth and power. This necessitates pushing laborers and consumers into despair (e.g. [unemployment](https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2026/07/27/the-bank-of-england-creates-unemployment/#gsc.tab=0)) such that they are (1) willing to work for meager wages, and (2) forced to pay more for certain goods and services… especially loans… all in order to extract and redistribute more wealth from the bottom to the top. **That’s the only true and ultimate goal of _Neoliberalism_. Consolidating wealth and power into capital by extracting wealth from labor and natural resources, and concentrating capital into fewer and fewer hands** … which has indeed been a resounding success.

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/peacefulscience/original/3X/4/f/4f77651dc48a300bc487b8996f3c768967ec04b4.png)

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/peacefulscience/original/3X/9/4/94702f9febf13c813f0805b801e8c96d69c57b1d.png)

Graphs plots the wealth for several percentiles from the top. [Data](https://wid.world/methodology/) from Distributional National Accounts (DINA) from the World Inequality Database (WID). The values are normalized against ‘National Income Price Index’ (GDP deflator), such that a unit of wealth and labor income is consistent across time. I chose the year of 1948 as the baseline for all percentiles, because that’s when GDP started to increase after it dipped during the transition from wartime economy. So we are NOT comparing the absolute inequality between different percentiles. We are only looking at **how relative inequality has changed** … how the situation for each percentile has improved (\>1.0) or worsened (\<1.0) relative to 1948. I am using two different datasets: One for **labor income** , which only includes earnings through work (wages and salaries), represented by dotted lines. The second is **net wealth** (sum of all assets and liabilities) represented by solid lines.

I included a logarithmic graph because the linear scale only visibly separates the **top 0.01% ultra-rich** but ONLY their wealth - not even their labor income is visible. This decoupling is staggering: their real net wealth has grown over **100x** to **1,000x** more than their labor income. Their share of aggregate wealth quadrupled from 2.5% in 1980 to over 10% today. For the top 0.0001%, it increased sixfold (0.5% to 3%), while the richest 20 individuals saw a **9- to 18-fold increase** (0.1–0.2% to 1.8%). Even if we set aside the fact that top earners largely determine their own salaries… this gives the lie to the myth that people become billionaires through hard work. Anyone who says otherwise is an absolute fool or is in on it.

The ballooning wealth of the top 0.01% also exposes how misleading the broad ‘upper-class’ label has become. Millionaires (top 10% - 20%) and even deca-millionaires (top 1%) have seen wealth growth which appear relatively stagnant beside the ultra-rich. Perhaps this explains why many millionaires, even those with substantial liquid assets, still feel like they are middle-class. Inequality is also staggering within the top 0.01%: centi-millionaires and even billionaires appear closer to the poor than to the richest 20 centi-billionaires. The ultra-rich have effectively outgrown the traditional ‘upper-class’ category over the past five decades.

### The Losers of _Neoliberalism_

Now that we have covered the winners, let’s talk about those who got the short end of the _Neoliberal_-stick. Let’s zoom in on the linear graph such that we can actually see the middle-class below the 25th percentile. I also added the 90th percentile, which roughly corresponds to the current poverty line… 10% are in poverty based on the U.S. Census Bureau’s criteria.

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/peacefulscience/original/3X/0/8/084a242b53f173878ac11d4222a015ad831ca73b.png)

The ‘Golden Age of _Capitalism_’ was markedly different: from 1948 onward, every income and wealth class experienced growth, with the two remaining closely linked. The lower 75% actually enjoyed the greatest relative gains and improvements in living standards. However, prosperity was [far from universally shared](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_rights_movement). Growth peaked around 1968 and declined thereafter, even as GDP continued rising until the 1973 recession. Wages and wealth increasingly fell behind inflation. The causes were multifaceted. Government deficits grew to finance the prolonged Vietnam War and LBJ’s Great Society programs. This is an example when government spending can be bad, since it will overheat the economy if there are not enough resources available to increase output that can absorb the influx of money. However, a particularly important factor was the real minimum wage, which [stopped rising after 1968](https://www.epi.org/publication/the-federal-minimum-wage-has-been-eroded-by-decades-of-inaction/).

To see which groups suffered and how under _Neoliberalism_ since 1980, we need to look at each economic class in isolation:

**The BIGGEST loser is the lower-class:** those below the 75th percentile (the poorest 25%). Their real labor income has decreased starkly since 1980. They get less for every hour of work, corresponding to the decline of the real minimum wage. What’s more insane is that their real net wealth is currently NEGATIVE!! They are drowning under debt. This was not always the case. Those between the 75th and 90th percentiles still had positive wealth until 1990. After the Great Recession, the liabilities of virtually everyone among the poorest 25% outweighed their assets. This is mostly in the form of debt like underwater mortgages, unpaid rent, student loans, car loans, medical debt, relying on credit to pay for food. They are often forced to rely on high-interest payday loans just to survive, and represents poverty traps wherein they lose huge portions of their earnings just to barely pay the loans and rollover fees, on top of basic necessities. We ought to call the lower-class the DEBT-CLASS instead, and we should be far more concerned about this than government debt.

**The**  **LARGE loser is the lower-middle-class:** those between the 66th and 75th percentile point (9% of the population). These also experienced substantial decreases in both labor income and net worth, but their total net worth remained positive, so not drowning under debt… as of now.

**The**  **PARADOXICAL loser is the upper-middle-class:** those between the 25th and 66th percentile (41% of the population). This is where things get weird. This group also suffered from decreasing labor income… but… their total net worth actually increased. They became “asset-richer” but “cash-poorer”, showing again how much wealth has been decoupled from labor income. However, their net worth was absolutely HAMMERED by the Great Recession. The net wealth for those between the 50th and 66th percentile temporarily collapsed below to what they had in 1980, and - as of today - none of the entire 25th-66th percentile group have recovered back to the peak prior to the Great Recession.

**The LARGE Winners is the upper-class:** Those between the 1th and 25th percentile. Only the richest 25% have experienced both increased labor income and recovered their net wealth after the Great Recession.

**The BIGGEST Winners is the ultra-rich elite class** : Those among the top 1%, and especially the top 0.01% as noted in the previous section.

A final point about the upper-middle class: representing around 41% of the U.S. population. The paradox of being ‘asset-richer’ but ‘cash-poor’ significantly affects their psychology. Since homeownership is often their primary source of their wealth growth - and that of their descendants via inheritance - they must become HYPER protective of property values and assets. This helps explain why even middle-class families become ABSOLUTELY LIVID at policy measures for affordable housing, or raising taxes on property and inheritance. **[NIMBYism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIMBY)** is not simply individual selfishness, but a disease caused by _Neoliberalism_ infecting the mind. The unfortunate irony is that the middle-class ends up fighting against its own long-term interests, as well as those of the lower classes. Under the _Neoliberal_ system, housing becomes primarily an investment vehicle to passively grow more wealth, which requires real estate prices and rents to outpace wage growth. This is ultimately self-defeating for the middle-class as homeownership and housing in general becomes increasingly unaffordable. The upper-middle class will gradually find homeownership slipping out of reach. Younger generations are already experiencing this.

### Returning back to Europe

I have used the U.S. as a prime example for this discussion, but the truth is that the timeline and consequences of _Neoliberalism_ pretty much applies to all Western and [Westernized](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westernization#Significantly_influenced_countries_or_regions) nations. In France the ‘Golden Age of _Capitalism_’ is called '_[Les Trente Glorieuses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trente_Glorieuses)’_ (The Glorious Thirty). The 1983 U-turn by… [the socialist party](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_French_municipal_elections) of all things… to _Neoliberalism_ is called _‘Tournant de la Rigueur’_ (Turn to Austerity), which led to [major shifts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_history_of_France#Mitterrand_Presidency_(1981%E2%80%931995)) in the stances and electoral victories/defeats of French political parties.

A major _Neoliberal_ constraint on France and the Eurozone at large was how the Euro was implemented. [The Maastricht Treaty of 1992](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastricht_Treaty#The_Maastricht_criteria) has put a limit on member states to maintain debt below 60% relative to GDP and deficits below 3% as part of the “stability and growth pact”. If any member states exceed this limit without justification ( **asterisk, asterisk** ) the European Commission can launch a “Excessive Deficit Procedure” (EDP) to enforce “budgetary discipline”. These are basically arbitrary limits, because they assumed real economic growth would maintain at 3%, and the European countries at a time just happened to had an average debt of 60% and they assume this was just a norm that must be maintained based on _Neoliberal_ dogma. In reality, EU countries habitually float above these limits… and there are countries that don’t appear to suffer from far greater government debts like, the U.S. or Japan (also a _Neoliberal_ economy) nor China (a non-_Neoliberal_ economy).

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/peacefulscience/original/3X/a/5/a5cb1bac84510e40a5a11511c4f01da59590f1d3.png)

The EU on average sits above 80% and the Eurozone (those that share the same currency) is above 90%. Jumps in debts and deficits occurred during… as you may have guessed… economic crises. What’s more, if one or a few member states faces a crisis, the EU enforces brutal austerity, such as in the case of Greece… where debt to GDP is indeed decreasing fast, but so are its standards of living. The fact that the indicators which are used to measure economic prosperity are often decoupled from living standards is also something that can be blamed on _Neoliberalism._ However, if every member state is affected by the same crisis, the EU will readily trigger “[escape clauses](https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-triggers-deficit-rules-escape-clause-to-boost-public-spending/)” so it can pump as much money into the economy as needed. It’s a plain double standard.

The fact is that the majority of prosperous economies have run government deficits and debt, because that’s how fiat money is created. Virtually no country has stable debt ratios. The [only exceptions](https://www.us-debt-clock.com/blog/countries-with-no-debt) are extremely small countries with virtually no military (e.g. Liechtenstein) and/or are extremely rich in natural resources, or financial services, relative to population size. As mentioned in the previous sections regarding the big failure and the big lie of _Neoliberalism_, deficits and debts also tend to increase under _Neoliberalism_ because that’s a feature not a bug of the system it promotes. It’s self-contradictory dogma that government deficits and debt are the main danger to an economy is also useful to _Neoliberalism_ since it’s used as an excuse to perpetuate itself… by permitting or exacerbating a “problem” it claims to “solve”. _Neoliberal_ policies are imposed, creating problems and governments are forced to run deficits, after which _Neoliberals_ cry foul and proclaim that we aren’t doing “true” _Neoliberalism_ properly, so they push for more austerity, rinse and repeat… driving everything into a death spiral wherein living standards continue to deteriorate.

Hence we have come to the situation that is happening in France. There are factors as to why the protests started to happen here specifically. It indeed does have a high debt to GDP of **119%** relative to the rest of the EU (although Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy are higher). What’s more, because of a weakness of not being in control of its own currency, the government is not able to monetize its own debt independent from the EU central bank. That’s why 50% of France’s debt is [held by foreign entities](https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/who-owns-frances-debt-why-it-matters-2024-06-26/), compared to 30% of the U.S. debt. That of China’s is only 12%. Let’s also not forget that the riskier PRIVATE debt also exists, which in France is over **200%** relative to GDP.

However, the protests could have started anywhere else, the bucket just happen to spill over in France. Indeed, the protests are spreading across Europe. People are fed up with _Neoliberalism_ and for good reason.

_Vive la France._

_FIN_

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**Author:** ![AllenWitmerMiller](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/allenwitmermiller/32/2519_2.png) [@AllenWitmerMiller](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/AllenWitmerMiller)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2026, 7:17pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/what-is-happening-in-france-is-happening-everywhere/18124/2 "2026-11-02T19:17:59Z")

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Very interesting topic. I’ve not kept up on the situation in France as well as I might wish so you’ve provided some helpful analysis. I’d read some of the main points in the WaPost etc but you’ve given me a lot more detail.

In some ways I’ve been surprised that all this hadn’t blown up a few years ago—but no doubt the huge economic stresses of the war and USA trade decisions have brought a lot of stresses to the system. (Understatement, I know.)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Tim](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/tim/32/9381_2.png) [@Tim](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Tim)\
**Post date:** [November 3, 2026, 1:15am UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/what-is-happening-in-france-is-happening-everywhere/18124/3 "2026-11-03T01:15:38Z")

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A few notes:

1. Mass protests over economic conditions, including ones that have turned violent, have a long history in France, dating back to the aftermath of WWII. The most prominent of these have tended to be by farmers.

2. Farming in France has a long history of subsidisation. The EU’s [Common Agricultural Policy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Agricultural_Policy), which was introduced in 1962 “is often explained as the result of a political compromise between France and Germany: German industry would have access to the French market; in exchange, Germany would help pay for France’s farmers” (Wikipedia). However, as the EEC/EU enlarged over the decades, this policy became increasingly unsustainable, and it was eventually reformed. In 1985, it was 73% of the (then) EEC’s budget. By 2017 this was reduced to 37%, and by 2021, less than 25%. Given that France has been the largest beneficiary of this policy (17.3% of it in 2019), the removal of the bulk of these distortions would have had a profound impact on French finances.

3. **Deficits and the Euro:** When a country that has its own currency, and runs a deficit, it has three options: (i) it can spend less, (ii) it can tax more, or (iii) it can print more money (and endure increased inflation). If a country shares its currency with other countries, the third option impose the costs of inflation on all the countries sharing the currency. This is why Maastricht imposed limits of deficits. France can continue to spend as much as it has, it just needs to raise taxes to pay for it. France has the second highest government expenditure as percentage of GDP in the Euro-zone.

4. **What is the alternative to Neoliberalism?** The answer would appear to be [Economic Nationalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_nationalism). This would seem to be the ideology behind China’s industrial policy (with its industrial overcapacity, increasing foreign resistance to its subsidised exports, and exploding government, particularly local government, debt), and Trump’s trade policy. As a New Zealander in my early 60s, I also have a more direct experience of this ideology – it was the driving force behind centre-right populist [Robert Muldoon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Muldoon)’s economic policies in the 1970s and 1980s, which over time became increasingly distortionary, invasive and _ad hoc_: massive ‘Think Big’ energy projects of questionable economic viability, ‘Supplementary Minimum Prices’ that subsidised farming, a wage and price freeze, carless days, etc, etc. While it can be argued that some of the neoliberal reforms of the centre-left Labour government that followed Muldoon (and his desperate final snap election), and successive centre-right National governments thereafter, went too far, that the Muldoon-era policies were unsustainable, and borderline unworkable even in the short term, is blatantly obvious, to me at least.

So I would conclude that a degree of neoliberalism may not be harmful – it can be a useful antidote to an excess of economic nationalism. I would not however advocate for a purist implementation of _either_ ideology. I would also suggest that laying France’s economic ills purely at the feet of neoliberalism is an oversimplification.