The cost of the European way of life, with health insurance, accessible education, and a decent pension for all, through high social expenses, becomes unbearable.
In France, as the national debt soars, the credit rating drops, incomes stagnate, helpless prime ministers come and go, and the country becomes increasingly difficult to govern, public opinion faces two questions: Will the younger generation live worse than their parents and grandparents? And if not, who will pay for the continued comfort?
These questions have become even more pressing in recent months, following the stunning resignation of Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, after just four weeks in office, plunging the country even deeper into political crisis.
"This is the last stop before the abyss," declared Lecornu's predecessor, Prime Minister François Bayrou, before being dismissed by parliament last month after presenting a budget that would have led to substantial cuts, including the elimination of two national holidays.
Similar challenges are looming in neighboring Germany, where the economy is stagnating after two consecutive years of decline, companies are losing jobs, infrastructure is crumbling, and the government is preparing the population for tumultuous cuts - even as borrowing costs remain low and most Germans still enjoy a high standard of living.
Like in the United States, a growing number of retirees are driving up pension and healthcare costs, while low birth rates and negative reactions to immigration threaten to shrink the workforce and erode the tax base. For France and Germany, long pillars of the European Union, it is unclear whether they can still afford to be beacons of economic justice in the West, writes The Washington Post.
The French way of seeing things
Like millions of French citizens, 31-year-old film industry camera assistant Anastasia Blay in Paris doesn't believe her generation should pay for the mistakes of the past or sacrifice their benefits.
For years, Blay has survived on a government subsidy for entertainment industry workers under state support for the arts, which she and others see as an unbreakable social contract in the nation of "liberty, equality, and fraternity."
A monthly social assistance payment for low-income workers now supports Blay during periods of unemployment in an unstable industry she loves. The young woman has joined a series of street protests aiming to paralyze the country. Even with government assistance and a family apartment that allows her to live rent-free, she says it's hard to make ends meet.
"For me, the issue is injustice, the gap between the poor and the rich, and the wealthy who, in reality, are barely taxed compared to what they earn," she said. Although she feels "a little ashamed" to rely on social assistance and fears people's judgment, the social help helps her maintain her "dignity" and "live decently." "In my opinion, it is a right and not a privilege," she said.
Over 200 kilometers away, in central France, 52-year-old cryptocurrency entrepreneur Éric Larchevêque sees a country clinging to a benefit system it can no longer afford, one stubbornly resistant to change.
Larchevêque left France, "fed up" with high taxes and bureaucracy, seeking better opportunities for his tech startups. Nostalgic, he returned. His hopes rose with Emmanuel Macron's election in 2017, a president friendly to the business environment.
But Macron's tax cuts were minimal and did not generate investments or the promised reforms. Larchevêque now feels unwanted, even insecure, in a France demanding more resources from the wealthy, in a country with one of the highest tax rates in the industrialized world.
At the same time, France allocates relatively more to public spending, including goods, services, and social protection, than any other wealthy country. Larchevêque says he is considering leaving again - this time for good.
"The French way of seeing things," he said, is this: "If you're successful, if you're rich, if you build companies, then you're a thief."
Low growth, high expenses
In their fundamental disagreement on solutions and accusations, Larchevêque and Blay illustrate the tension between those who want the country to change and those who insist it cannot.
However, there is a growing consensus that France's economy is stuck in a spiral of low growth and high expenses, with its budget issues at the core of the most unstable political period in decades. Concrete calculations indicate that France's unique and generous social assistance system is part of the problem.
The EU is no stranger to economic and political problems, but until recently, troubled countries were on the periphery: spendthrift Greece. Leadership turnover in Italy. Paralyzing unemployment in Spain. So far, the center has held - France and Germany have been beacons of stability and relative strength.
Now, Italy, enjoying the most stable government in decades, saw its credit rating improved last month, even as France suffered an embarrassing downgrade, with investment house Fitch citing a "high and rising debt ratio" and "political fragmentation." France now has to borrow at slightly higher interest rates than Greece, once an inconceivable idea.
Spain, where the government spends relatively less than Germany or France, is booming, with unemployment halved. Meanwhile, France has had four prime ministers in 15 months. Support for nationalist, anti-immigration parties - National Assembly in France and Alternative for Germany - has surged.
Under pressure from Trump and China
The unease in central Europe unfolds at a perilous moment in modern history, as the continent is caught between an aggressive Russian threat and a mercantilist American president pressuring traditional allies on tariffs and seemingly changing security commitments from day to day.
These threats increase pressure on Europeans to spend more on defense, by cutting social benefits or imposing higher taxes, potentially disrupting business in a globalized world. Some say Europe already taxes its citizens and businesses too much.
At the same time, France and Germany face increasing economic challenges from China, which competes with European production in high-value goods such as electric vehicles made in Germany and nuclear power plants made in France.
Europe may not be on the brink of imposing an unsubsidized, American-style healthcare system, less generous, with limited leave and reduced social benefits, but some form of correction seems inevitable.
The budget that ousted Bayrou included radical cuts of 44 billion euros - including maintaining the pension payment cap and eliminating two holidays. Public opinion was outraged, and the proposal went nowhere. Paralyzed, Bayrou called for a vote of confidence and was sent home.
Caught between the far-right and the far-left, Bayrou's successor, Lecornu, had ruled out a "wealth tax" proposal but insisted that the warring factions in parliament find a way to reduce the growing budget deficit before it's too late. His sudden resignation on Monday came after seeking and failing to reach a compromise with the belligerent political parties.
Others say the problems are exaggerated. Michel Sapin, who was France's Finance Minister between 1992 and 1993 and again between 2014 and 2017, criticized Macron's government for excessive spending on supporting the population after the pandemic and the shock of energy prices following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But he said France's budget issue is manageable. "I believe we have the means - even now - to find solutions and that in France and in Europe, we have the resources to prevent things from going in the wrong direction," he said.
In Germany, however, Chancellor Friedrich Merz has called for a politically risky review of the country's generous social assistance programs. "We simply can no longer afford the system we have today," Merz said in a speech at his center-right Christian Democratic Union party's conference in Bonn in August. He added: "This will mean painful decisions. This will mean cuts."
Today, between basic social assistance and housing support, a German family of four receiving social assistance can receive up to 5,000 euros per month - approximately 5,873 dollars or 70,476 dollars per year, an unimaginable sum in the United States.
However, parliamentary negotiations make any reform difficult. Agreements will have to be reached with Merz's government coalition partner, the center-left Social Democratic Party, which has long opposed social assistance cuts. A few days after Merz's speech, Labor Minister and co-leader of the SPD, Bärbel Bas, bluntly responded to Merz's claim that Germany cannot afford social programs. "That's nonsense…," Bas said.
The Battle Between Generations
Like other Western countries, France has suffered blows in the internal manufacturing industry due to globalization, turning certain parts of the country into deprived rust belt areas.
Unable to replace these jobs to the same extent as the United States did with new engines of growth in services and technology, and facing a rapidly aging population with huge pension demands, France spent 31.5% of its GDP on social protection in 2023, the highest amount in Europe, according to the French Department of Research, Studies, Evaluation, and Statistics.
Experts say that this type of expenditure is incompatible with the state's declining revenues.
"There is an increasing awareness that the system needs to become less generous, and many people are not very happy about it," said Willem Adema, a senior economist in the Social Policy Division of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The theme of "who pays?" is a battle between young and old, rich and poor, rural and urban, writes the American daily.
Larchevêque, a cryptocurrency entrepreneur, said that the government must continue to reduce taxes and impose "many cuts" to pensions, social assistance, and other public expenditures. He acknowledges that the impact would be "very dramatic," but also said that it is the "only way to restart" France's economy.
Christine Boucau-Podorski, a 75-year-old retired textile worker from Roubaix, a former industrial city located 230 kilometers north of Paris, is upset by the increasing focus on freezing pensions to reduce public spending and says that young people do not appreciate how hard her generation worked in exchange for state support in old age.
Boucau-Podorski was 14 years old when she started working in 1964 as an intern at a textile factory in Roubaix, and she stayed there until the factory closed in 2000. She worked 47 hours a week on the wool yarn production line. Now she receives a pension of 1,100 euros from the state every month, in addition to about 300 euros from her husband's medical pension after he passed away in 2019. This amount is enough to cover her modest expenses. "I live without excesses. But I am satisfied with what I have and I don't complain", said Boucau-Podorski.
However, she would be willing to pay more taxes on her pension if it could help "people who really need it." She said there is too much poverty in France and believes the government should help the most vulnerable, but reduce benefits for those who have never worked.
In 2023, Macron's government adopted a reform, using a constitutional mechanism to bypass a parliamentary vote, which will gradually increase the retirement age from 62 to 64.
Blay, a chambermaid, feels that "everyone is trying to save their own skin." She believes that the state should manage its expenses better and blames the rich for amassing wealth.
T.D.