The English say all unhealthy concepts come from France, but that is unfair to the Germans. The scenes of riot and destruction from France may come up from our Gallic buddies’ specific circumstances and peculiar habits, but they replicate Europe’s normal malaise — one to which the United States is not immune.

The “French intifada” is overthrowing the icons of France. The photographs are as memorable as the menu at Maxim’s restaurant. A statue of Joan of Arc is defiled with the Palestinian flag. A bust of Marianne, the icon of the French Revolution, is forged to the floor in the trashed metropolis corridor of Marseilles. The Nineteenth-century city corridor of Limoges goes up in flames.

@koshercockney /X

The statistics are as beautiful as Maxim’s costs. More than 2,400 arrests on last Saturday alone. A thousand police and gendarmes injured. Hundreds of companies looted in Paris, Lyon, and Marseille. Schools set on fireplace. Rioters throwing roof tiles on police like they’re in “Les Misérables.”

French President Emmanuel Macron waits for EU leaders to arrive for an EU summit at the Chateau de Versailles, in Versailles, west of Paris, Thursday, March 10, 2022. European Union leaders on Thursday will focus on how to assist Ukraine in its battle with Russia, but the measures mentioned are expected to cease quick of fulfilling the nation’s hopes it can quickly be part of the bloc. AP

Another set of statistics is as surprising as the tab for a detour into Maxim’s cellars. And this invoice has yet to land. Though the mob may riot, the actual harm will come from the markets.

France has the second-biggest financial system in the Eurozone. Its GDP shrunk by 0.2% in the first quarter of 2026. It hit 0% in the second quarter, then grew 0.1% in the third. France’s CAC 40 is the only main European inventory change to lose worth this yr.

A fireplace burns and destroys the metropolis corridor after a group of people pressured entry into the constructing during a protest motion against the excessive value of dwelling, in Limoges, central France, Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026. AFP via Getty Images

France’s public debt is 119% of its GDP. In the European Union as a entire, it’s 82.9%. Only Greece and Italy, locked by Brussels in punishing compensation schedules pour encourager les autres, have worse debt issues.

To meet its welfare budgets, France points 10-year treasury bonds. Foreign buyers maintain about 60% of France’s debt. As the market loses confidence in France’s future, the premium on French bonds is rising. It’s now at 4.78%, the highest yield in 24 years.

High yields imply larger borrowing prices for the French authorities. Combine that with a paralyzed financial system, a authorities failing to push its 2027 finances through a divided National Assembly, and the chance of a shock consequence in the 2027 presidential elections, and France is heading for a debt spiral. 

Marine Le Pen, chief of France’s National Rally (RN), attends a assembly of get together leaders in Wenceslas Square in Prague, Czech Republic, Thursday, April 25, 2019. Getty Images

President Emmanuel Macron is caught between the mob and the markets. Pacify the streets with a Napoleonic “whiff of grapeshot,” and he empowers his left-wing enemy, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is polling second in the 2027 race for the presidency. Let the mob run free, and Macron empowers his right-wing enemy, Marine Le Pen, whose lead over Mélenchon is rising. 

Jean-Luc Melenchon, chief of French far-left opposition get together La France Insoumise (France Unbowed – LFI) and candidate for the 2027 French presidential election, attends a press convention to current the get together’s various finances for 2027, in Paris, France, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026. REUTERS

Meanwhile, if Macron doesn’t restructure the financial system, the markets will proceed to guess against France. And nothing radicalizes the voters like chapter. For, while we are in France’s debt when it comes to cheese and wine, years of waste and paralysis have put France in everyone’s else’s debt.

It is arduous to reward Emmanuel Macron, more durable still to like him. He is a small man, but he lacks the Napoleonic drive that, so my taller spouse tells me, compensates for shortcomings. Still, it is a matter of report that Macron warned the French they were dwelling beyond their means, and that he did what he could, in a small method.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron attends a assembly with the UAE president at Qasr al-Watan presidential palace in Abu Dhabi, Monday, Oct. 19, 2026. Macron started a Gulf tour on Oct. 19 aimed at securing oil and diesel provides in an effort to deliver down costs, after a weekend of violent protests sparked by hovering dwelling prices. POOL/AFP via Getty Images

After beating Marine Le Pen to the presidency in 2017, Macron tried to scale back the regulatory pink tape that has throttled France’s financial system. To sluggish the brain-drain of gifted younger graduates, he even transformed an outdated railroad station into a start-up incubator for the French tech firms that, he said, would break Silicon Valley’s monopoly.

He boldly urged that a 35-hour work week and 30 paid trip days a yr might place France at a aggressive drawback. In 2023, he fearlessly raised the retirement age from 62, the lowest in the European Union, to 64, phasing in at a headlong three months per yr over eight years.

When I visited Macron’s tech incubator, the inmates moaned about a sequence of human rights’ abuses. How could they transfer quick and break issues if they were wallowing on California-style bean luggage? How could the French dream massive when they were banned from smoking in the constructing? The expressions of defiance and defeat as they lined up by the meals vehicles in the rain for their soggy lunchtime tacos reminded me of the retreat from Moscow.

The Station F start-up incubator, previously recognized as the Halle Freyssinet, is pictured in Paris on Thursday, June 22, 2017. Station F is house to 1,000 start-ups, co-financed by Xavier Niel, CEO of Free and Caisse des Depots. AFP via Getty Images

Today, the 35-hour work week is still in the Code de travail, the Work Code, with additional time convertible into even more days off. C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas le travail.

Today, the retirement age is still successfully 62. In November 2025, Macron’s lame-duck prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, minimize a parliamentary deal that deferred implementation until after the 2027 presidential elections.

Macron folded when the standard suspects — the unions, the pensioners, the Yellow Vests, the racaille — did what they always do. They took to the streets in protest and spent even less time at work than standard.

The vested pursuits got what they needed. The majority got mass immigration, Islamist terrorism, financial sclerosis, and eye-watering costs. Something has to give. As Margaret Thatcher would have said, the state is operating out of other folks’s cash.

Macron can pull his punches with the presidential elections in thoughts. He can take the gloves off and ship in the military. But he can’t escape the verdict of the markets.

Hang it in the Louvre.

Dominic Green (@DrDominicGreen) is a Wall Street Journal Free Expression columnist.