France on the Brink: Debt, Drama, and a Possible Sixth Republic

The David McWilliams Podcast

David McWilliams

News & Politics

4.6 • 643 Ratings

🗓️ 9 September 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Broadcast from Île de Ré, we dive into France’s mounting fiscal mess and political paralysis. With Macron a lame-duck, bond markets charging Paris more than Athens, and a nationwide strike looming, we ask: could Europe’s cornerstone become its weakest link? We unpack France’s towering state-and-semi-state debts, why Japan can print and Paris can’t, the ECB’s “will they/won’t they” backstop if Le Pen takes power, and how a sovereignist turn could trigger a rewrite of France’s constitution, goodbye Fifth Republic, hello Sixth. Along the way: Anglo-Saxon doom-mongering, De Gaulle’s Jupiterian legacy, contagion math, and why life in “paradise” can still feel like purgatory. Big stakes, bigger history, and a very French cliff-hanger.

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Transcript

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1:13.2	To understand the economy, you have to understand human nature.
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1:25.1	Hello, all the world.
1:27.2	We serve exclusively Jean Davis on the world. We'll serve exclusively John Davis
1:30.4	on the problem fiscal of the country
1:33.8	who's called the Belle France.
1:37.2	The Belle France.
1:38.3	It's all, Mr. McWilliams?
1:40.6	Well, I'm very, very well.
1:43.1	But I am in France, John.
	...

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