France: A Sick Country on a Sick Continent

Guy Millière

§  "The French Left has waged war on schools while building an alliance with Islamist leaders who hope to radically transform them. For both, the fight starts with the schools. 'Clearly, religious and politico-religious organizations "work on" these pupils, sometimes from primary school, as well as their family, their social milieu and their neighborhood, and some try to set them against the school,' the Education Ministry inspectorate's June 2004 report on religion in schools said." — Michael Shellenberger, October 2, 2026.

§  "What brings Islamists and the revolutionary left together is their intention to tear down Western civilization. The French Interior Ministry's May 2025 report on the Muslim Brotherhood described the movement's project in France as 'a long process of political conquest' with 'systematically priority investment at the local level.'" — Michael Shellenberger, October 2, 2026.

§  [W]hen thousands of French citizens said they could no longer afford both the fuel to travel to work and the food to feed their families, [French President Emmanuel] Macron replied that while some people might struggle with money, he must take care of something more important: "the risk of facing the end of the world".

§  Deindustrialization continues full-on. Punitive regulations have caused factories to close. They are replaced not by other businesses but by an increasingly costly welfare system, which now accounts for more than 40% of total public spending.

§  [S]uccessive French governments have pumped up spending without restraint.... This enormous difference means that the French government continues to spend far more than it raises in revenue.... Interest payments on the debt have been devouring an increasingly large share of the country's annual budget and, as in the United States, now exceed the national defense budget. The difference is that the US may still be able to grow its way out of such a hole -- $40 trillion, with interest at $7.1 billion a day -- whereas France, crushed by overregulation, cannot.

§  On another front, while Macron, in 2020, denounced "Islamist separatism," he has done nothing to prevent, or even slow down, the Islamist conquest of France. For a decade, the full-powered Islamization of the country has stormed on. Millions of people from the Muslim world have settled in France, both legally and illegally.

§  Most Muslims in France do not assimilate, and a growing proportion -- roughly 38% -- place Islamic sharia law above the laws of the Republic....

§  No-go zones, where radical imams and Muslim gangs hold sway, have grown since 2016. They now featured in the suburbs of the major cities of France. Muslim gang members raid and go looting several times a year,

§  In recent years, Macron has also been increasingly targeting freedom of expression, making use of Arcom — an institution he created in 2022 to regulate and control French audiovisual media — to do so.... CNews was fined twice in 2026: once because a guest stated that anthropogenic global warming does not exist; another time because a guest stated that "history shows that Islam is still a religion of conquest."

§  Macron might want a successor who would continue his programs, such as they are, but that does not seem about to happen. Marine Le Pen, for the first time in her political career, leads in polls, which indicate that in 2027 she could win.... All of her legal troubles, however, appear to have had no effect on her voters, who appear to understand that justice in France has now been politicized.

§  If Le Pen is elected president in the spring, the shockwaves will be heard across Europe. A Le Pen presidency would mean a victory for a political party that champions Western civilizational values — a party that every incumbent leader in Western Europe -- except Italy's Giorgia Meloni — seeks to keep out of power by any means necessary.

§  The situation in France differs little from the general situation in Western Europe.

§  Many other Europeans are just as dissatisfied with their leaders as are the French. They all see the economic destruction, the ongoing Islamization of their countries, the threat from China to undercut their automobile industries, and the growing impossibility of discussing certain subjects without being demonized or put on trial.

§  Many Europeans see Islamization gaining ground in their countries and enjoying support from Marxists: each thinks the other will bring it to power. They see their leaders doing nothing to remedy a situation that has become increasingly alarming. They appear to prefer having their Western civilization protected and saved.

The French government was reportedly "taken by surprise" when students began rioting roughly two weeks ago. Many Europeans see Islamization gaining ground in their countries and enjoying support from Marxists: each thinks the other will bring it to power. They see their leaders doing nothing to remedy a situation that has become increasingly alarming. Pictured: Municipal workers clean up around Marcel Sembat Secondary School in Rouen, France on October 1, 2026, after it was torched by rioters. (Photo by Guillaume Saligot/AFP via Getty Images)

"Who didn't see that coming? Oh yeah ....the politicians," noted "The Great Gats" on X.

The French government was reportedly "taken by surprise" when students began rioting roughly two weeks ago to protest conditions — overcrowded classes, dilapidated buildings, vermin and rats, lack of heating and air-conditioning, shortage of teachers — in their schools.

"But," American journalist Michael Shellenberger writes, " French schools have more money per pupil today than at any earlier time.... The French government spends 4.5% of gross domestic product on educational institutions, and Germany spends 3.7%.

The violent riots, which started on Paris's Ile de France and spread throughout the country, appear, according to investigations, to have been instigated by the French political party La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) headed by Jean Luc Melenchon, a far-left candidate in the French presidential elections scheduled for the spring of 2027. La France Insoumise denies the charges; however, according to Shellenberger, "the evidence clearly shows that La France insoumise (LFI)... instigated and led the protests."

"The protest had 'the involvement from the start of elected officials of La France insoumise and ultra-left collectives,' an anonymous security official told Le Point. A readout of the prime minister's October 1 crisis meeting, given to Reuters by a person close to him, described the movement as 'an operation organised by LFI (France Unbowed) and its proxies on the far left' in the 'shared assessment' of the intelligence services....

"'Parents, Insoumis [party] activists, mobilize to interpose yourselves against police savagery,' said Mélenchon, blaming the police, not the students, for the violence....

"In Marseille, hundreds of young people forced firefighters to flee their truck outside a lycée and then set it alight. In Paris, about ten protesters chased a trainee police lieutenant, threw her to the ground and kicked her amid cries of 'Kill her!....'

"'We're not entirely sure that they are even high-school students themselves,' said the French Justice Minister of the people arrested...."

"The French Left has waged war on schools while building an alliance with Islamist leaders who hope to radically transform them. For both, the fight starts with the schools. 'Clearly, religious and politico-religious organizations "work on" these pupils, sometimes from primary school, as well as their family, their social milieu and their neighborhood, and some try to set them against the school,' the Education Ministry inspectorate's June 2004 report on religion in schools said.

"What brings Islamists and the revolutionary left together is their intention to tear down Western civilization. The French Interior Ministry's May 2025 report on the Muslim Brotherhood described the movement's project in France as 'a long process of political conquest' with 'systematically priority investment at the local level.'

"The children of Muslim immigrants are often more radical than their parents. 'There is first of all a generational revolt,' wrote Olivier Roy, a French scholar of Islam, in 2015 of French jihadists...."

"LFI openly courts Muslim voters, and a parliamentary inquiry said that made it a target for Islamist networks....

"'LFI's commitment to a clientelist strategy toward the Muslim electorate may have made this movement a privileged target,' said Matthieu Bloch, rapporteur of a National Assembly inquiry into parties and Islamist networks, in December 2025....

"Polls 'all show [Mélenchon] losing massively in a run-off against Le Pen,' noted the BBC."

So far, around 2,000 students have been arrested and more than 1,000 schools affected. The violence has included "schools set on fire and teachers beaten and doused in petrol."

French President Emmanuel Macron, who is serving his second term of office and cannot run again, is ending his presidency facing widespread rejection from the public. According to a recent poll, only 21% support his policies, although up from 19% a few months ago.

Macron's numbers are not surprising. He has repeatedly shown contempt for the poorest members of French society.

A few weeks into his first term, which began in May 2017, he spoke of "those who made it" and "those who are nothing." Less than a year and a half later, in November 2018, while citing anthropogenic climate change, he raised France's already exorbitant gasoline taxes, a move that immediately triggered the "Yellow Vests" movement, when thousands of French citizens said they could no longer afford both the fuel to travel to work and the food to feed their families. Macron replied that while some people might struggle with money, he must take care of something more important: "the risk of facing the end of the world".

The Yellow Vests movement lasted more than a year — subsiding only in January 2020 with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout, Macron remained contemptuous, responding to the grievances of nonviolent protestors with police crackdowns inflicting deaths and mutilations. Meanwhile, he permitted left-wing agitators who had infiltrated the movement to riot and commit arson without asking the police to intervene. Many in France saw that Macron could be pitiless toward people expressing their distress, but lenient toward criminals so long as they were of his preferred political bent.

During the pandemic, Macron initiated some of the most authoritarian measures in Europe. The French were ordered to stay indoors and leave their homes for only one hour a day — within a half-mile radius — provided they filled out a form stating their name, address, and time of departure. The police, omnipresent, arrested thousands and fined them heavily simply for venturing slightly beyond the permitted distance or lingering a bit longer than one hour. All conversations outdoors were strictly prohibited.

The Macron years were additionally marked by a profound economic decline in France and a severe drop in the standard of living. For the past decade, France's per capita wealth has fallen below the EU average and now trails behind that of Cyprus. Ten years ago, in 2016, France's GDP per capita was globally ranked at 23; today, it ranks at 33. The unemployment rate, now at 8.3% , is increasing. For people between the ages of 15 and 24, it is an extremely high 21.1%.

Deindustrialization continues full-on. Punitive regulations have caused factories to close. They are replaced not by other businesses but by an increasingly costly welfare system, which now accounts for more than 40% of total public spending. In 2025, the poverty rate in France climbed to 15.4%, representing 9.8 million people living below 60% of the national median income and struggling every month just to meet their basic needs.

At the same time, successive French governments have pumped up spending without restraint. While the GDP growth in France from 2016 through 2026 was 13.17% in total, the increase in public spending in the same period was 35.6%. This enormous difference means that the government continues to spend far more than it raises in revenue. The national debt, which has grown continuously, reached 117.5% of GDP in January 2026, and will reach 119.3% by the end of the year. Interest payments on the debt have been devouring an increasingly large share of the country's annual budget and, as in the United States, now exceed the national defense budget. The difference is that the US may still be able to grow its way out of such a hole -- $40 trillion, with interest at $7.1 billion a day -- whereas France, crushed by overregulation, cannot.

On another front, while Macron, in 2020, denounced "Islamist separatism," he has done nothing to prevent, or even slow down, the Islamist conquest of France. For a decade, the full-powered Islamization of the country has stormed on. Millions of people from the Muslim world have settled in France, both legally and illegally. Around 2016, the approximate number of Muslim citizens and foreign Muslims living in France was 5.7 million (8.8%); now, officially, it is estimated at possibly 7 million out of a population of roughly 67 million, but the real figures are undoubtedly higher. Most Muslims in France do not assimilate, and a growing proportion -- roughly 38% -- place Islamic sharia law above the laws of the Republic (the figure is higher among Muslims aged 15 to 24: 57%).

Laws against illegal immigration are not enforced. Every year, only 7% of illegal aliens in France who were notified by the police to leave -- by the OQTF (Obligation to Leave French Territory) -- are expelled. This laxity means that more than 93% remain in the country. Many are criminals. Some of the most sickening murders in France during the Macron years have been committed by illegal aliens who had ignored their OQTF. Lola Daviet, age 12, for instance, was raped, tortured, and murdered in a Paris apartment by an Algerian thief and occasional prostitute, Dahbia Benkired. On August 21, 2022, Benkired had been arrested, issued an OQTF, and then released. Two months later, on October 14, she murdered the child.

No-go zones, where radical imams and Muslim gangs hold sway, have grown since 2016. They now featured in the suburbs of the major cities of France. Muslim gang members raid and go looting several times a year, especially when there is sports match with a French soccer team, and recently during the 2025 World Cup. The police have orders to intervene only minimally. If they hurt or kill a Muslim criminal, they have seen that their careers and lives can be destroyed. On June 27, 2023, Nahel Merzouk, a young Muslim criminal, refused to obey to a police officer, who then shot him by accident. Riots, which erupted all over the country, only began to calm when the police officer, Florian M., was placed in pre-trial custody and charged with first-degree murder. He now faces up to 20 years in prison.

"Right-wing" anti-Semitism has largely vanished, and it has been replaced by an exceptionally venomous Islamic and left-wing anti-Semitism.

After Hamas's October 7, 2023 massacre in Israel, Islamic and leftist protests in support of Hamas and "Palestinian resistance" were organized within days. La France Insoumise described the October 7 massacre as an "armed offensive by Palestinian forces" without ever mentioning that Hamas is a terrorist movement. One of the leaders of LFI, Rima Hassan, a French citizen, defines herself as "French-Palestinian", not French. She constantly falsely accuses Israel of "genocide" and claims that that "Hamas's actions are legitimate."

The massive surge of antisemitic assaults, threats, and insults has lasted until today.

In recent years, Macron has also been increasingly targeting freedom of expression, making use of Arcom — an institution he created in 2022 to regulate and control French audiovisual media — to do so. In 2025, Arcom shut down the television channel C8: the stated reason was a "lack of pluralism," and that too many conservatives had been invited to speak. On June 15, 2026, another television channel, CNews, received a formal notice from Arcom, also accusing it of a "lack of pluralism". CNews could soon shut down as well. It is the last major television channel in France that still invites right-of-center commentators whom other channels no longer invite. CNews was fined twice in 2026: once because a guest stated that anthropogenic global warming does not exist; another time because a guest stated that "history shows that Islam is still a religion of conquest."

In December 2025, France requested that two commentators — Jacques Baud and Xavier Moreau — be sanctioned by the European Union for their "pro-Russian remarks." Their bank accounts and assets within the EU were frozen, and their credit cards cancelled. They are no longer permitted to travel within the EU. Any financial assistance provided to them by anyone would be subject to sanctions. These measures are extrajudicial, but there is no avenue of appeal or recourse.

In May 2024, Macron's political party, Renaissance, lost the European Parliament elections. While France's main right-wing party, Rassemblement National (National Rally), received 31.37% of the vote, Macron's received only 14.6%. He spoke angrily about the result, dissolved the National Assembly and called for snap legislative elections. In the first round, the National Rally received more than 33% of the votes and was about to win a majority of the seats in the second round. Macron quickly created an alliance of all other political parties aimed at defeating the National Rally. He spoke of a "republican front," and implied that the National Rally is a danger to the republic. Voters supporting centrist or moderate-right candidates were encouraged to vote for a left-wing candidate if that candidate was best positioned to win. Voters supporting left-wing candidates were encouraged to vote for a centrist or moderate-right for the same reason. The result was that the National Rally secured the largest share of votes, but the "republican front" parties received the largest number of seats in the National Assembly, which was fragmented into multiple parties, none of which could form a coherent majority. Since then, the country has had several powerless governments, and no important decisions could be made. Macron made the country ungovernable.

Macron might want a successor who would continue his programs, such as they are, but that does not seem about to happen. Marine Le Pen, for the first time in her political career, leads in polls, which indicate that in 2027 she could win. Other candidates belong to parties that are now associated with the disaster into which France has plunged.

Le Pen was even prosecuted for allegedly allowing parliamentary assistants of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) from her party to work in Paris for the MEPs who employed them. When centrist candidate François Bayrou and left-leaning Jean-Luc Mélenchon were accused of the same offense, the charges against both were dropped. Not for Le Pen. On March 31, 2025, she was sentenced to four years in prison and a five-year ban from holding public office, presumably to prevent her from becoming a candidate.

After she appealed the verdict, on July 7, 2026, her sentence was reduced to three years in prison -- one year of which was to be served under house arrest, wearing an electronic monitoring tag -- and a 45-month ban from holding public office, 30 months of which were suspended. The new ruling enables her to run for office. She has lodged an appeal with France's highest court and execution of the judgment has been suspended. She will not have to wear the monitoring tag during the election campaign. The court is scheduled to issue its ruling on her appeal before the election and could reverse its decision. Le Pen would then be required to wear a monitoring tag during the final days of her campaign and, should she be elected, at the Élysée Palace upon taking office.

All of her legal troubles, however, appear to have had no effect on her voters, who appear to understand that justice in France has now been politicized.

If Le Pen is elected president in the spring, the shockwaves will be heard across Europe. A Le Pen presidency would mean a victory for a political party that champions Western civilizational values — a party that every incumbent leader in Western Europe -- except Italy's Giorgia Meloni — seeks to keep out of power by any means necessary.

The economic, financial and social situation Le Pen would face in the event of her victory would be harsh. All available data indicate that France is almost bankrupt at almost every level. A recovery will be highly complex and difficult.

Most leaders of LFI have already declared that they would refuse to accept a Le Pen victory: if she wins, they would call for an insurrection. Several political analysts think that in such an event, widespread riots involving leftist groups and Islamist gangs might break out across the country.

Several other French politicians attempting to stoke panic will do so with increasing intensity right up until the election. It is not at all certain that these obstructions would be enough to defeat Le Pen.

A recent poll commissioned by the center-right Foundation for Political Innovation shows that 78% of voters believe that "the French way of life, its traditions, and its lifestyle habits are under threat." Available data indicate that, unfortunately, this is true. Another recent poll shows that 85% of voters think France is in decline. They are quite right. France is in sharp decline and large majority of the French see it.

The situation in France differs little from the general situation elsewhere in Western Europe. The policies pursued in most other Western European countries do not fundamentally differ from those adopted by Macron -- and lead to the same results.

Many other Europeans are just as dissatisfied with their leaders as are the French. They all see the economic destruction, the ongoing Islamization of their countries, the threat from China to undercut their automobile industries, and the growing impossibility of discussing certain subjects without being demonized or put on trial.

Many Europeans see Islamization gaining ground in their countries and enjoying support from Marxists: each thinks the other will bring it to power. They see their leaders doing nothing to remedy a situation that has become increasingly alarming. They appear to prefer having their Western civilization protected and saved.

Political parties in Western Europe with platforms close to that of Le Pen's National Rally, such as Germany's Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), are gaining momentum despite attempts by leaders in power and the media to demonize them.

On September 6, 2026, in a state-level election in Germany's Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD won 43.8% of the vote -- twice as much as five years earlier. In May 2025, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz came to power at the head of a grand coalition united solely by the desire to halt the rise of the AfD. His coalition did nothing to combat Germany's deep industrial slowdown and the growing non-integration of Muslims living in the country. The situation is now worse. Merz is currently more unpopular in Germany than Macron is in France (only 14% of Germans consider him worthy of holding the office of Chancellor). The AfD is now the most popular party nationwide in Germany. A recent poll puts its support at a record 30%.

In the UK, in May 2026, the Reform Party won many local and municipal elections, inflicting heavy defeats on both the ruling Labour Party and the Conservative Party. Recent polls indicate that if an election for Parliament were held today, it would secure the highest number of seats.

A political groundswell in Western Europe is taking shape. Most mainstream media commentators dismissively label it "populist."

"What they call populism," wrote Éric Zemmour, former columnist and president of the right-wing Reconquest party, "is the cry of people who do not want to die."

Dr. Guy Millière, a professor at the University of Paris, is the author of 27 books on France and Europe, Gatestone Institute, October 4, 2026 at 5:00 am