Spanish site: France is in a "state of decline"

The Spanish media website (Foz Boboli) said today, Monday, that between demonstrations, strikes, discontent, insecurity, unemployment and declining growth, "France's prospects can only be bleaker."

And the newspaper wrote in an article entitled “France is Dying” that nearly twenty years after the publication of the book “France that is Falling,” in which the writer Nicolas Baverez described in 2004 the unfortunate panorama of France “paralyzed by declining growth, unemployment, precarious work, strikes, Taxes, immigration, insecurity, etc. France, entering the third decade of the century, has not only not solved any of these problems, but seems to have strengthened and even exacerbated them.”

The source pointed out that the mass demonstrations against the pension reform project once again reflected to the world an image of France completely hesitant in any form of change, no matter how necessary, explaining that after the first major demonstration on January 19, more than a million people took to the streets again. On Tuesday, another large mobilization was announced on February 7, which will affect transportation, education, health, energy, administration and postal services.

And the Spanish media recorded that any announcement of a reform affecting the very generous French welfare state (more than 80 billion euros in subsidies during the 2020/21 period) provokes an angry reaction from a society that still adheres to the idea of “belonging to a rich country that is no longer so.” .

Fouz Boboli explained, “France today is a country suffering from a serious illness (…). External debt has now crossed the threshold of 3 billion euros, equivalent to 115 percent of GDP, and has become the third largest economy in the world after the United States and Japan, which are more powerful economies.

The author of the article stated that the per capita debt is now close to 46,000 euros, compared to 40,000 euros in Britain, 37,000 in Greece, and 32,000 in Spain. Public spending, the highest in the OECD, exceeds 61 percent of GDP (51.6 percent in the case of Spain, 47.8 percent in Portugal, 42.3 percent in the United States), the public deficit is about 5 percent and the trade deficit has already exceeded 100 billion euros and continues Height.

He continued, saying, "France no longer belongs to the rich north of Europe to become a full member of Club Med for the countries of the south, victims of governments accustomed to spending recklessly, far beyond the goods and services they produce."

The website (Fouz Boupoli) concluded that the old French aspiration to share the leadership of the European Union with a strong Germany has faded. A dream shattered, like the feeling of frustration left behind, in the country of Pasteur and Sanofi, the inability to develop its own vaccine to combat Covid-19, are disturbing symptoms of the decline of a nation.