{
  "id": 13397874,
  "title": "Why France’s Center Does Not Hold",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/10/why-frances-center-does-not-hold",
  "topic": "world",
  "section": "World",
  "published": "2026-10-10T11:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "The Atlantic",
    "slug": "the-atlantic",
    "url": "https://www.theatlantic.com/international/2026/10/french-decline-politics-extremism/688953/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "In 2017, President Emmanuel Macron was seen as the savior of France, the country's remedy for its alleged decline. However, nearly a decade later, the French people are increasingly convinced that their nation is still falling. A recent Ipsos-BVA poll indicates that 85 percent of respondents believe France is in decline, while 98 percent express dissatisfaction with the country's current state. This sentiment, reminiscent of the pre-revolutionary France burdened with debt, soaring prices, and an inept elite, suggests that the French Fifth Republic is faltering. Declinism, in turn, appears to be fueling the rise of extremist radicals who aim to reshape the republic. French pessimism may seem puzzling, as many have claimed that the French have a long history of self-flagellation about their nation's decline. Political and intellectual elites have long predicted the country's descent, from the rise and fall of authoritarian regimes to the rise of republican governments. The global energy shocks and financial crises of the late 1970s led to the emergence of \"declinism\" again. Industrial growth once fueled by immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East turned into scapegoats for growing fears over national decline. In the 21st century, this fixation on decline has intensified and darkened. Historical accounts, such as Robert Frank's La hantise du déclin (The Obsession With Decline), and polemical works like Nicolas Baverez's La France qui tombe (Falling France), fueled public appetite for dire predictions. Éric Zemmour's Le suicide français (French Suicide) claimed that Western elites were enabling waves of Muslim immigrants to replace native French people, a theory that gained traction and led to the formation of the Reconquête! political movement. This movement and its message of immigration policies as national suicide have gained mainstream acceptance, as 63 percent of the public support a three-year moratorium on legal immigration, according to a CSA Institute poll. Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Rally party, aims to change the constitution to give preferential treatment to French citizens, while Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the founder of the extreme-left party France Unbowed, seeks to replace the hybrid regime of the Fifth Republic with a Sixth Republic dominated solely by Parliament. Both candidates, in their own ways, promise to break the rules and bury the current French Republic in their respective visions.",
  "summary": "The belief that the country is on a downward slope fuels the appeal of radicalism.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}