Angry Socialist, meets Zanny Minton Beddoes recursive merde?
Oct 22, 2026
Europe | Charlemagne
How France became ungovernable at home yet unstoppable in Brussels
The paradox of Parisian power
Oct 21st 2026|5 min read
There are better ways to vaunt the merits of your economic model than setting fire to your capital. But tell that to the French. In recent years protests have become such a fixture of national life it is hard to see when one set of manifestations ends and the next begins. Everyone from students to pensioners seems to walk about in a perennial huff. The political class is at war with itself, wondering if an unloved president will soon make way for a populist rabble-rouser. Bond vigilantes are giving a bloody nose to the over-indebted government in Paris, demanding ever-higher yields to finance its runaway budgets. The recent spate of violence gives the impression of a state at once bloated and overmatched. As always, the situation looks somewhat less dire from inside France than it does to outsiders. Still, who would want to emulate the policies of a place that seems so firmly on the skids?
Moi! Moi! Moi! is the refrain from France’s neighbours in the European Union. For even as Paris reeks of tear gas, ideas promoted by French officialdom for decades have become ascendant in EU circles. Particularly on economic matters, French thinking is being copy-pasted into statute books in Brussels. France may be running out of money, political stability and public patience; it is not running out of influence. A country that plenty think ought to serve as a cautionary tale is instead being treated as a blueprint. Call it the paradox of Parisian power: even as French politicians lose the ability to govern at home, they are tightening their ideological grip on Europe.
Editor: But Reader there is so more, its a festival of schadenfreude! And Self -Congratulation, that resemble something like ersatz thought?
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Internal dynamics in the union have helped France’s cause, too. Brexit deprived the EU of a power whose raison d’être was to resist Gallic-infused thinking in Brussels. More recently Germany has made a startling pivot to support French economic interventionism, finding free trade much less appealing as Chinese firms started competing effectively with its own carmakers. Consider a slew of “Made in Europe” plans put forward by the EU’s industry commissioner, Stéphane Séjourné, a Frenchman close to Mr Macron. They advocate earmarking public spending for EU firms. Such protectionism would once have been dismissed out of hand by officials in Berlin. Now they merely want to make sure at least some allies such as Britain and Canada are included in an expanded definition of Europe. The aim is to water down French plans, not thwart them.
The Gaul of it all
For those Europeans already uneasy about importing France’s Colbertist instincts, there is a more unsettling thought: Mr Macron may prove the moderate version of France’s attempt to remake the EU. Marine Le Pen, the populist currently leading the polls, would seek to recast the EU along more nationalist lines.
Will adopting French ideas end up hobbling Europe, as it seemingly has France? Not necessarily. There is a difference between a state that intervenes strategically and one that spends indiscriminately. France’s predicament offers lessons in both. Mr Macron was right to warn that Europe needs greater autonomy from foreign foes. But a country that cannot control its own finances has precious little autonomy either. France got the diagnosis right. It is a pity it made such a mess of the treatment.
