From the raid on the Louvre to the spectacle of Sarkozy in jail, it is tempting to think France is on a downward spiral. But history tells the tale of its resilience
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n the classic dinner-party scene in the film Notting Hill, Tim McInnerney’s character promises a brownie to “the saddest act here”. In response, the guests (including the glamorous movie star played by Julia Roberts) try to outdo each other with tales of their painful suffering and pathetic failures.
In our gloomy autumn of 2025, western democracies could play quite a convincing version of this game. There is the depressed United Kingdom, where Keir Starmer’s approval ratings have fallen to record lows and Reform leads in the polls. There is the deeply broken United States, where a supine opposition seems incapable of preventing Donald Trump from chopping away one guardrail after another of our constitutional order. There is Spain, where this summer a Socialist party scandal threatened to topple the fragile minority government of prime minister Pedro Sánchez.
But as winter approaches, it might seem as if France deserves the brownie. Its government has limped along in a state of paralytic ineptitude since a disastrous snap election in July 2024 produced the mother of all hung parliaments. Since then, Emmanuel Macron has gone through five prime ministers (counting poor Sébastien Lecornu’s second go-round), while his own popularity hovers around a disastrously low 20%, and dropping. Two-thirds of the French see politicians as fundamentally corrupt, and as apparent proof of this belief, former president Nicolas Sarkozy reported for prison this week to begin serving a five-year sentence for campaign finance violations. Meanwhile, the public deficit is expected to rise to a dangerous 5.4%, leading to the downgrading of France’s credit rating.
