Part 12/13:
Economic indicators, including rising mortality rates overtaking births in the near future, suggest a society struggling to reproduce itself—a harbinger of potential collapse. Simultaneously, political polarization and cultural tensions threaten to escalate into crises that could destabilize the European Union’s integrity.
Concluding Thoughts
France’s current trajectory offers a stark warning for the rest of Europe and the Western world: a society cannot indefinitely sustain generous welfare states, high dependency ratios, and cultural liberalism without risking collapse. Its multitude of issues—demographic, economic, political, and cultural—are interconnected pieces of a puzzle revealing the fragility beneath Europe's façade of stability.