The Decline Of Old Europe

COLMAR, France--Visiting this charming Alsatian town for a conference on European defense, I tuned into French TV 5 for half an hour on Sunday evening. I caught the final segment of a program called Ripostes, a French-language Crossfirewith three on a side.

The topic for debate: "Is the United States a superpower with feet of clay?" The program was dominated by Emmanuel Todd, a French intellectual who has made a large reputation for himself in France with lip-smacking predictions of an imminent collapse of American power.

The effect of Todd's warnings was spoiled a little by the commercials that punctuated the show. One moment there was Todd, a handsomely coiffed French writer in a splendidly tailored shirt urging the nations of the world to join together to reject American hegemony.

The next minute, a big glass of orange juice is being poured as Louis Armstrong sings "It's A Wonderful World" in English. Immediately after that, five young people chant "one, two, three, four, five" in English as they pile into a new Honda. Now it's an advertisement for ring tones for your mobile phone: a choice of the best of Dr. Dre, Snoop Dog, and other American rappers. Once the commercials end, it's time for the evening's movie: Rocky IV.

One of the best books I read this summer was Philippe Roger's The American Enemy, a history of French anti-Americanism. With immense scholarship and shrewd wit, Roger argues that French anti-Americanism has very seldom had very much to do with America as it exists: Indeed, many of the most celebrated of France's anti-American intellectuals have known little if anything about the United States.

They may talk about America, but they are thinking of France.

And right now, the French political class is deeply anxious and pessimistic. The economy is performing badly: The official unemployment rate exceeds 10% and would be far worse but for a series of ingenious tricks. (The French have created a category of "intermittent" workers--actors for example--who draw benefits from the government when not at work, but who are not counted as unemployed. Ditto for the 32-year-old graduate students extending their educations indefinitely. Ditto for the displaced factory workers who get themselves classified as "disabled." Ditto for workers in the electrical and natural gas monopolies who are permitted to retire at age 55.)

Off the job, things are not going much better. French cities feel increasingly disorderly and dangerous. The French majority is not bashful about expressing its fear and resentment of the Muslim minority. The minority in turn does not disguise its alienation and hostility. French security officials say that France cannot expect to be spared an attack from within like those which struck Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005.

Unhappiness with the status quo has weakened the authority of France's political leaders. In June, French voters rejected the draft European constitution--a project more or less invented by the French state. Critics had attacked the constitution (absurdly) as an "Anglo-American" document--but in retrospect, even many former critics are lamenting that the French non marks the end of French political dominance within the European Union.

Decline-and-fall, then, is a topic much on the minds of people here.

How very comforting, then, to hear that what is declining and falling is . . . the United States.

Whatever else you may say about America, it is a superb all-purpose excuse for the failures of socialism. Across the Rhine in Germany, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder--who presides over an even more troubled economy--is trying to repeat his 2003 come-from-behind political victory by again campaigning against the United States.

Every time his Christian Democratic opponent Angela Merkel scores against him for economic mismanagement, he replies--as he did in last week's television debate--that to vote against him is to vote for George Bush, the war in Iraq, and the floods in New Orleans. Six weeks ago, Schroeder seemed headed for political obliteration, but since he began sounding his blame-America themes, his poll numbers have risen steadily.

Europe's problems are obvious: slow economic growth, ageing populations, extremism in its immigrant communities. The solutions are unfortunately equally obvious: lower taxes to encourage business creation and family formation, deregulation to reduce the cost of living for ordinary people, a firm determination to assimilate newcomers to prevailing European values and norms. Obvious as those solutions are, however, they are also unpalatable and unmentionable.

And so rather than mention them, Europe's political and intellectual leaders fill the airwaves with fond announcements of the doom of the superpower whose success might remind European voters that their countries could do better. It's not very honest. It's not very admirable. It is, though, to quote somebody who truly did foresee and warn against so much of what has gone wrong for Europe over the past hundred years: "human, all too human."