France Is on Fire Again—and the World Can’t Look Away
France: The World’s Most Glamorous Patient in Relapse
By “Correspondent X” (still wearing yesterday’s cologne)
Paris—If nations were dinner guests, France would arrive fashionably late, ignore the dress code, and somehow make the entire table talk about her. Once again, the hexagon is convulsing—this time over pension reform, police violence, and the charmingly medieval habit of setting anything flammable alight whenever the price of baguettes creeps above one euro. From the outside, it looks like Europe’s favorite perfume commercial has been interrupted by a hostage video. Yet the rest of the planet keeps watching, because when France sneezes, the world checks its own blood pressure.
Global markets have learned to treat French unrest like a recurring virus: uncomfortable, occasionally debilitating, but rarely fatal. Each strike season, analysts at Goldman Sachs place gentle bets on how many days the Louvre will shutter and whether TotalEnergies will need to import refined gasoline from—quelle horreur—Germany. Meanwhile, China’s state media runs looping footage of tear-gas waltzes on the Champs-Élysées with the barely concealed glee of a rival whose own streets are monitored by roughly one CCTV camera per blade of grass. The message: liberal democracies, behold your future—slightly singed.
Washington, for its part, oscillates between schadenfreude and panic. The Biden administration quietly hopes Paris will keep its nuclear deterrent aimed eastward, while U.S. think-tankers type furious op-eds about “the limits of the social contract” over lukewarm coffee in Dupont Circle. Across the Channel, Britain’s government suppresses the urge to send a thank-you note for diverting attention from its own collapsing healthcare system; instead, it leaks anonymous briefings about “continental instability” to anyone still listening to the BBC World Service.
Of course, the French themselves regard protest as civic yoga—painful, necessary, and best performed in groups. The current stretch involves raising the retirement age from 62 to 64, a move President Emmanuel Macron insists is vital to keep the national pension fund solvent until the year 2070, by which time most voters will presumably be 112 and too exhausted to riot. Critics counter that Macron—who once worked as an investment banker—could simply tax the super-rich instead of the merely well-preserved, but that would require asking Bernard Arnault to choose between a fifth super-yacht and the entire city of Marseille. Tough call.
What makes France’s spasms globally significant is not the scale—India has bigger protests before breakfast—but the brand. France still exports a seductive mythology: café terraces, existentialism, lingerie that costs more than a used Peugeot. When that myth combusts, it reminds consumers everywhere that national identities are just marketing campaigns with passports. Silicon Valley bros sipping $12 cold brew suddenly realize the “French lifestyle” they hashtag from SoMa co-working lofts involves tear gas, not tear-shaped croissants. TikTok influencers discover that filming a baguette on a rainy balcony won’t protect them from inflation or authoritarian creep. The illusion dissolves, and we’re all left staring at the same cracked mirror.
Meanwhile, the planet’s autocrats take notes. Moscow sees the gilets jaunes and wonders if yellow is available in Russian sizes. Beijing’s security services bookmark every viral clip of CRS riot police for future “best practices” seminars. Even Tehran quietly envies France’s ability to shut down entire city centers without once invoking the word “martyr.” If democracy must die, let it die with good lighting and a soundtrack by Édith Piaf.
Still, France endures. The Eiffel Tower reopens, the vineyards harvest, and some future government will inevitably declare the whole affair a “national dialogue.” Tourists will return, wallets open, ready to believe again. Because deep down, we all need a place that pretends romance is more powerful than compound interest—even if the smoke from burning trash cans occasionally drifts into the shot.
So raise a glass of overpriced Bordeaux to France, the glamorous patient who refuses to take her medicine quietly. The world needs her tantrums; they remind us that civilization is a performance, and sometimes the lead actress storms offstage mid-monologue. Curtain up, lights on, encore inevitable.
