Mainstream WeeklyThe recent upsurge in France and Europe reflect deep underlying processes of transition from industrial to service society in 21st century. France is a rich country, culturally, politically, philosophically, and also economically, known for outstanding thinkers from Saint Simon and Charles Fourier to Sartre to Andre Malraux and Maurice Thorez, Jacques Duclos and of people like Romain Rolland who left their indelible mark on modern history.
It has a wide kaleidoscope of powerful anti-fascist, Marxist, post-Marxist and utopian traditions, Eurocommunist, Trotskyte, ultra-left, new left and ultra-right trends, a whole range from Jean-Paul Sartrian transcendentalism, utopianism, rainbow colours of Marxism, strong left, right and centre, modernism and postmodernism, ‘workerism’, fashion and paintings, archaic and post-industrial spread, and constantly oscillating between them, a whole universe!
France is a country of the great ‘Popular Front’ and its government of 1936, which rolled back fascism, fought back Nazi aggression through ‘Forces of Free France’, and saw the rise of a powerful Communism and Gaullism before during and after the Second World War (WW II).
That France is in crisis today, failing to come to terms with 21st century realities.
France in deep crisis: beginning of movement
The educational system is falling apart. We can hear problems of broken benches and falling buildings, something we are quite familiar with India! France is on the boil protesting declining educational facilities, rising prices, falling public services and widening cracks in social security system. Hundreds of thousands have joined mass protests, reflecting widespread frustration and anger. Thousands of shops across France have been damaged in not so commendable events, and worst of all, the 19th century historic town hall in Limoges in south-west France burnt down.
The movement began from one school in mid-September, Lycée Saint-Exupéry in Créteil, a working-class suburb southeast of Paris, where students walked out in solidarity with teachers demanding more staff.
It was at first a simple protest against falling standards in educational institutions such as broken furniture, inadequate facilities including toilets, absence of teachers during classes and lack of facilities particularly to protect against the recent rising temperatures etc. They acted as a spark.
An estimated 1,588 teaching positions have been eliminated due allegedly to falling enrollment.
Growing Unpopularity of Government
Emmanuel Macron is the youngest president of France elected a decade ago; he also perhaps faces the trickiest and turbulent situation. He tried to meet the people’s expectations with certain reforms, which soon became unpopular. He raised retirement age from 62 to 64, creating unforeseen whirlpool in economy. It caused upheavals engulfing whole economy, meeting fierce resistance. Roughly one-fourth of the total state funding goes to the pensions. It took place at a time when there was a massive sell off in the govt debts, leading to a big rise in borrowing costs highest in the last 25 years.
A peculiar situation arose as it caused huge discontent among youths, a conflict of generations of old and new, but on pensions!
Pains of Transition from Industrial to Service Society
Daniel Bell in his epoch-making The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (1973) had announced the arrival of a post-industrial service society. It proved to be prophetic, even though it pointed mainly to the US and also to the emerging trends in Western Europe. The transition is basically due to the scientific and technological revolution(STR) and also because of emergence of new levels of world market.
France and Europe went through such a transition in the last 5 to 6 decades. But the transition has not always been so exciting as appeared at first sight. It created fundamental problems, even upheavals, in European society.
Service sector today constitutes nearly 80% of economy iin France.
Some people call it ‘de-industrialisation’, an inexact description. In reality, the service sector has overcome the industrial manufacturing; so it is not so much ‘de-industrialisation’ as ‘post-industrialsiation’.
Industrial economy marked France, Germany and most of the other European countries post-WW II. France had an economic identity second only to Germany. Factory workers could afford a Parisian holiday, and middle class enjoyed comfort and prosperity. Elite education was open even to workers, who spent weekends at cultural exhibitions.
France co-developed Airbus and the Concorde. Air France expanded aggressively, French fashion turned a global cultural export, and the luxury sector went beyond competition.
That era appears evaporated in 2026.
‘Trente Glorieuses’ loses Steam Post-Keynesianism
Global oil shocks of 1970s exposed France’s dependency on imported energy. Keynesian consensus broke up, post-Keynesian reassessment of economic strategies began.
Post-World War II period was characterized by the profound structural transformations under the ‘Trente Glorieuses’ or Thirty Glorious Years, a term coined by French economist Jean Fourastié for industrial expansion of 1945 to 1975.
However, the oil crisis of 1973 and 1979, among others, forced a series of complex transitions from industrial production-based economy to a service-oriented post-industrial one, increasing influence of globalization and pressure of European integration.
The transition saw a reduction of nearly 36% of its industrial workforce, something that justifies somewhat the term ‘de-industrialisation’.
Measures like reducing workweek from 40 to 35 hours, lowering the retirement age to 60, and successive expansions of social benefit entitlements, created an expensive environment.
The period coincided with stiff Chinese competition, which flooded Western markets with cheap labour goods. The peaking of 35-hour workweek timed wrongly and proved disastrous. France’s per-unit labor cost rose further at the worst possible moment in modern trade history.
Growing Economic-Structural Crisis
Picture of ‘State versus private’ characterises much of the French economy. France has a high state participation in the economy (‘dirigisme’), is world’s 7th largest economy by GDP and ninth by PPP (purchasing power parity). It constitutes 3% of world GDP, has the largest FDI in Europe, is second largest spender on research and development, 5th largest trading nation in world, second in Europe, the most visited country in world with 10 crore tourists last year, Paris has 1/3rd of France’s economy and is among the two largest in Europe.
It entered a crisis phase in 2008, and in 2014, and since then has not really recovered. The crisis was forced by the US economic turmoil, with deeper roots in crisis of imperialism.
France’s public debt is closing in on 120% of GDP. Business failures exceeded 68,500 in 2025, a five-decade high and the fifth consecutive annual increase. Unemployment has shot beyond 8%. GDP growth is limping at barely 1%. Slow GDP growth of 0.8% in 2025-26, government deficit of 5% plus of GDP, more than 13% of GDP on pensions, only 18.2% private savings rate in 2025 and a reduced consumption growth: such are the problems.
The ratings agency Fitch downgraded French debt. Earlier, KBRA (Kroll Bond Rating Agency) downgraded France’s long-term rating to AA-, citing deficits and a deteriorating debt trajectory. The IMF projected France’s debt-to-GDP ratio to 130% by 2030.
How did it reach here? It is an accumulation of structural fractures and ill-conceived decisions."A fragmented political environment is weighing on credit metrics… keeping deficits elevated,” said KBRA senior director Ken Egan in December 2025. Government borrowing has become costly, clouding ability to service that debt. The possibility turning to the IMF or European Central Bank becomes more difficult. French debts reached 3.46 trillion Euros by 2025-end.
Shock of 2008 and Covid Crisis: Failure to Invest
International financial crisis of 2008 exposed the gap in France’s financial management. France opted for stimulus-driven stabilization without the corresponding measures, increasing public spending and expanding welfare coverage simultaneously with the economic downturn.
The timing turned out to be wrong. The structural deficit was never fully closed, leaving France carrying a high level debt load directly into the next major crisis.
Between 2018 and 2024, the COVID-19 related and the previous waves of crises erupted with full force, France deploying hundreds of billions of Euros in economic support and relief programmes. Though justified to an extent, they produced fiscal deficit of 5.8% of GDP in 2024, double the EU’s permitted threshold.
The French economic structure right now is highly strained and fragile, making recovery very difficult. Public debt is more than 120% as share of GDP, and is accelerating towards 122% in 2027. Projected debt servicing cost is 60 billion Euros, nearly doubling since 2020. Business failures are the worst since 1974.
Finance Monopoly Capitalism
France is part of international finance monopoly system and one among the imperialist ones. France’s is a story of failure to overcome deepening structural crisis combined with world economic recession.
France’s 59.3 Euro billion annual interest bill in 2026 cannot fund industrial investment, and certainly not invest in educational institutions or medical services. Growing layers of deficit spending add to a debt stock without productive investment.
Position of Communists
National Secretary of French Communist Party (PCF), Fabien Roussel, jointly with Union of Communist Students and Young Communists, announced at a press conference in the party headquarters that “The government is choosing repression to silence the protests,” “We have a duty to understand” the anger driving the high school movement.” This he said shortly before leaving to join the students in the streets of the capital, as part nationwide struggle rattling the government.
Roussel is party candidate in the forthcoming presidential elections next year. He has unleashed a Youth Plan 2027-32 demanding billions of Euros towards structural and educational reforms. National TU centre the CGT actively supports mass movement. “Sixty percent of schools were built before the 1980s,” Roussel noted, and some are no longer fit to house students.
Threat of Extreme Right
Simultaneously, there is a growing threat from the extreme rightwing and Neo-fascists, who have been on the rise, using popular discontent; they are already using the present movement too. The threat cannot be ignored in the euphoria of ‘upsurge’. The rightwing already commands 35% of votes. Similarly, the ultra-left groups are playing a provocative role, only helping the rightwing and neo-fascists. Genuine left has to be careful. People are being reminded of the student revolt of May 1968, which had the New Left in the centre. It was an unprecedented revolt, challenging the established institutions. But that only resulted in an unprecedented win for the Gaullist forces in the elections, simply because the rising middle class veered away from it.
PCF (Communist Party of France) had stated that for every car burnt, the ruling bloc got big chunks of middle class votes. This lesson must not be forgotten. False comparisons to ’68 need to be avoided and genuine strategy has to be worked in changed conditions of service-sector dominated economy.
The French crisis has already spread to Western Europe like wildfire in the first mass upsurge with 21st century stamp.