“Striking public workers. Barricaded high schools. Blocked ports. Budget paralysis. Spiraling bond rates. Fears of a far-right takeover,” the New York Times reports.
“France suddenly finds itself engulfed by crisis — not a single spasm of unrest, but a cascade of disruption that is roiling city streets, trading floors and public offices across the country. France’s ‘rentrée,’ or ‘return,’ as the French call the back-to-school and back-to-work season, has been anything but orderly.”
“While the causes of the chaos may appear disparate, they can be traced to a common root: France’s two-decade-long struggle to fund its state, now exacerbated by high borrowing costs, surging fuel prices and political uncertainty, with jockeying underway to replace President Emmanuel Macron next spring.”
