A week of rioting in France, but we argue it’s no blip. Marine Le Pen is polling around 35%, with the next candidate on just 14%, and she could become the first ever to win outright in the first round. French public spending is 57% of GDP (31% in Ireland, and above anything the Soviet Union managed), over-65s have gone from 12% of the population in 1968 to 25% today, and bond yields have jumped from 3.4% to 4.8%. We unpack the poly-crisis behind it: the 68ers versus their grandchildren, diesel prices and the ghost of the Gilets Jaunes, a left captured by the educated elite, AI anxiety, and half of French schools missing a teacher. Plus 68% of French voters say democracy isn’t delivering, Meloni getting outflanked on her right, and whether the European project survives the generation that built it.
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