COLCANOPA
The lament of decline is a familiar yet persistent refrain. In the wake of the American intervention in Venezuela and threats made by US President Donald Trump regarding the territorial integrity of Greenland, it has echoed widely across the political spectrum. “France is now among the weak,” said retired general Pierre de Villiers on Monday, January 5, to Le Figaro. And the Europeans? “Impotent spectators to the unraveling of any kind of order, and (…) blissful defenders of institutions now entirely outdated,” said Gabriel Attal, head of the centrist Renaissance party, on January 3 on X. Former prime minister Edouard Philippe echoed this sentiment in Le Figaro: “Europe has become a commentator.”
The perception of decline, while not new, has taken on fresh resonance. Geopolitically, because declinism has become one of the tools used by the United States to weaken Europe. Electorally, the narrative of decline threatens to dominate the 2027 French presidential campaign.
Government instability and the absence of a budget have provided fertile ground for declinist discourse in France. Despite its national roots, it can almost be seen as a mirror of the American president’s rhetoric. On December 5, 2025, in its national security strategy, the Trump administration denounced Europe’s “economic decline,” “eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure,” citing, among other things, migration policies as sources of “conflict” and the “loss of national identities.”
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