But what we have witnessed in recent weeks seems to be of an entirely different nature. These protests stem from a fundamental breakdown of the French social contract: the government is failing to invest effectively in its education system, sending an ever-increasing share of its money to retirees, relying on an ever-shrinking pool of young workers to pay them, subjecting its population to years of anemic growth and, above all, offering no viable path to prosperity and growth, while facing an affordability problem. In this context, it is not surprising that the streets are full of young French people: one in five of them is unemployed.
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