By Prof. Manlio Graziano

While these days everyone’s eyes are on Washington, the European Union is slowly but inexorably sliding towards definitive decline. In 1918, the German philosopher Oswald Spengler published a book entitled “The Decline of the West”; from then until now, with “The Defeat of the West” by French historian Emmanuel Todd, the chorus of those who have proclaimed the end of this impalpable political object called, precisely, the “West” has only grown.

I have written on various occasions that the “West” is an elusive concept that each of the so-called “Western” countries uses for its own political battles, even against other “Western” countries. In particular, after 1949, it was used by the United States to co-opt Europeans into a club of supposedly shared destinies, but whose rules were written in Washington. But I will not dwell on this. Instead, I will pretend to accept the current notion of the “West” to say that this 2025 could be the year when the club dissolves, with the increasingly convulsive crisis of its founder and, on the other side of the ocean, the decomposition of the European Union.

As for the club’s founder, the United States, Donald Trump laid the foundations for a rapid acceleration of its structural crisis even before taking office. His recent press conference went in this direction on three fronts. First, by using arguments against Greenland and Panama that are the same motivations dear to Putin (for Ukraine) and Xi Jinping (for Taiwan), he legitimized the reasoning of those who had so far been presented as Washington’s irreducible enemies. Adding Canada to this, he pushed all those who had been presented as the United States’ allies to look for ways to distance themselves as quickly as possible from this overbearing and arrogant big brother, perhaps seeking counter-insurances elsewhere. Finally, by threatening a flurry of new tariffs against everyone and fanning the flames of mass deportation of millions of immigrants, Trump is preparing the conditions for an inevitable economic collapse of his own country.

On the other side of the ocean, France and Germany are in the tunnel of an unprecedented political crisis. On February 23, we will take stock of Germany’s fever, which may turn out to be more acute than calm political commentators predict. As for France, a further signal of the temperature came earlier this week with reactions to the policy speech of the new, and already obsolete, Prime Minister François Bayrou.

In short, Bayrou stammered a few possible steps back on the pension reform passed by force more than a year ago, but the reactions of the right and left opposition were still negative, putting the new-already-old prime minister on the ramp for his possible exit. It is not at all certain that this is how it will end, but if it does not, it means that the plan to straighten out the French budget has been called into question. Indeed, the idea of moderating the terms of the only real structural reform—albeit extremely timid—adopted by Macron in his now seven years of presidency goes in this direction. In December, at the time of Bayrou’s appointment, the Moody’s agency downgraded France’s rating from ‘Aa2’ to ‘Aa3,’ and the country’s spread is now at the level of Greece’s (but still far from Italy’s). As Il Sole 24 Ore reminds us, the increase in the spread entails fewer services and/or higher taxes, a further increase in public debt, and a higher cost of financing.

France is at a dead end. Macron and his ultra-minority government in parliament know that it has become indispensable to save the country from an “Argentina-style” financial collapse, that is, due, as in Argentina, to out-of-control debt; and they know that the only way to do so would be to introduce drastic measures to reduce spending and increase revenues (as, incidentally, Milei is doing in Argentina). The opposition, particularly the far-right and far-left Peronist opposition, opposes in the name of defending the “pouvoir d’achat”—the purchasing power—which is presented and perceived as an independent variable from the macroeconomic context, or even dependent only on the good or, in this case, bad will of the president and the government.

It is likely that some among the far-right and far-left Peronists know that avoiding tackling public debt reduction means, as Il Sole 24 Ore teaches us, impacts purchasing power even more dramatically and definitively. But if they know, they pretend not to because, electorally, it pays more to ask for money for everyone than to ask for sacrifices for everyone.

Sometimes it is necessary to remind the most distracted that the far-right and far-left Peronists are the majority in French parliament because the majority of voters elected them—just as has happened many times in Argentina, with the consequences we know. Le Pen and Mélenchon did not fall from the sky but were chosen by the French in that free arena called elections. This means that the French—or at least the majority of those who voted—sent them to parliament precisely to do what they are doing, namely to sabotage any attempt to put the state’s finances back in order. Le Pen and Mélenchon, therefore, cannot behave otherwise, lest they risk losing the support of those who sent them to represent them.

So far, Macron and Bayrou have not brought out the heavy artillery. Article 49.3 of the Constitution, which authorizes bypassing the parliament’s vote, is light artillery, as evidenced by the fact that it did not work for Michel Barnier, and the government had to resign. Heavy artillery is the appeal to “European obligations”: we do not do it for our own sake but because Deus vult, because the European Union obliges us to put our public finances in order. To the average citizen who sends their representatives to parliament, the European Union is an annoying and distant entity that even intrudes into our homes to impose obligations and regulations without soliciting public input. In France, this sentiment, common to the majority of European voters, is exacerbated by the traditional hostility towards Germany, especially after its reunification, and, more recently, by Ursula von der Leyen’s— a German—decision to proceed with the signing of the Mercosur treaty, which the French, ultra-protectionists, unanimously reject, right, left, and center, extremes included.

The slope on which France is sliding is dangerously similar to the one on which the United Kingdom slid. There is the aggravating factor of a more serious budgetary situation and an international political weight that is fading like a spent match, with a series of humiliations in Africa that do not seem to be over. It is not far-fetched to think that someone might soon decide to throw the Frexit bomb.

For now, the measured discourse on a sense of responsibility still prevails, but we will see how long it lasts. The combination of growing anti-European sentiment in France, the anticipated success of the right in Germany, and the disasters Donald Trump is preparing for his own country and the rest of the world seem to leave increasingly less room for the residual optimism of those who, regarding the mythical West, have so far continued to think that, in the end, “everything will be fine.”

Manlio Graziano, PhD, teaches Geopolitics and Geopolitics of Religions at Sciences Po Paris, at la Sorbonne, and at the Geneva Institute of Geopolitics. He collaborates with the Corriere della Sera and with the geopolitical journals Limes and Gnosis. He founded and directs the Nicholas Spykman International Center for Geopolitical Analysis. He published several books in the US, with Stanford UP, Columbia UP and Palgrave. His latest book is Disordine mondiale: Perché viviamo in un'epoca di crescente caos.