Reference News Network, October 9 report: The U.S. "Washington Post" website published an article titled "The High Quality of Life in Europe Is Becoming Increasingly Unaffordable, Just Ask France" on October 6. The author is Annabelle Tansy. The following is a translated excerpt:

Across Europe, especially in France, the country is repaying debts it previously incurred.

A hallmark of humanistic economics, known as the European way of life, which includes providing healthcare, affordable education, and decent retirement for all through high social spending, is becoming too costly to bear.

In France, with soaring national debt, declining credit ratings, stagnant income, the resignation of the prime minister, and the country falling into a state of ungovernability, the public is struggling with two issues: Will the lives of millennials and younger generations be worse than those of their parents and grandparents? If not, who will pay for the continued comfortable lifestyle?

On the 6th, after Prime Minister Le Kourci unexpectedly resigned just four weeks into his tenure, further plunging the country into a political crisis, these questions have become more urgent.

Adjacent Germany also faces similar challenges. After two consecutive years of economic decline, its economy has stagnated, companies are laying off workers, infrastructure is collapsing, and the government is preparing to make people accept significant spending cuts.

Like in the United States, the growing number of retirees is increasing pension and healthcare costs, while low birth rates and strong opposition to immigration may reduce the labor force, eroding the tax base. For a long time, France and Germany have been pillars of the EU, but it remains unclear whether they can still serve as guiding lights for the Western economy.

More and more people agree that the French economy has fallen into a vicious cycle of low growth and high expenditure, and its budget difficulties are key to the most unstable political period in decades. France's generous social welfare system is part of the problem.

Like other Western countries, France's domestic manufacturing has also suffered from globalization, with some regions becoming marginalized rust belts. France cannot replace old jobs with new growth engines like services and technology as the U.S. does, and it faces rapid population aging and huge pension demands. In 2023, France allocated 31.5% of its GDP to social security, the highest proportion in Europe. Experts say this spending is mismatched with the declining national income.

Europe may not be immediately forced to adopt an American-style unsubsidized healthcare system, limited vacation time, and a lifestyle with reduced social benefits, but some form of correction seems inevitable.

In Germany, Chancellor Mertz has called for politically risky reforms of the country's generous social welfare programs. This August, at a meeting of his center-right Christian Democratic Union in Bonn, Mertz delivered a speech saying, "We can no longer afford the current system." He also said, "This will mean painful decisions. This will mean cutting spending." (Translated by Wang Qun)

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