Trump’s rhetoric feeds France’s long tradition of national decline

Famous references to France’s capital city are many and varied and historically they were always characterised by optimism, especially when delivered by Americans. 

“We’ll always have Paris,” said Rick, the character played by Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. Ernest Hemingway called his memoir about Paris A Moveable Feast, while Gertrude Stein, another fine novelist, enthused: “America is my country, and Paris is my hometown.”

Contrast such upbeat words with those of Donald Trump, who has never missed an opportunity to bash France. It is more than a decade since the US president made the claim: “They have sections in Paris that are radicalised, where the police refuse to go. They’re petrified.” 

Such nonsense about no-go zones was followed up by Mr Trump’s infamous “Paris is no longer Paris” quote, and there have been plenty more. 

He now depicts a once-great nation ruined by mass immigration and rising crime. This is all pretty rich from a politician who was himself found guilty in 2024 of 34 felony charges related to hush money paid to a porn star.

Such a view is not new. There is a centuries-long tradition of French pessimists spreading intense gloom, and watching it explode into violent insurrection. 

The legacy of the 1789 Revolution, when the Ancien Régime of kings and queens was ultimately overthrown by furious mobs, remains as strong as ever, with street riots still commonplace. 

So-called déclinisme – the sense that everybody and everything in the nation state is in decline – is part and parcel of French identity. 

Right now, it encompasses Emmanuel Macron being a lame duck president whose lieutenants have not even been able to steer the 2026 budget through parliament, and instead have to rely on an undemocratic decree. 

Societal inequalities are stark, especially between the super-rich managers of enormously successful Gallic corporations and ordinary people trying to make ends meet. 

Mr Macron, a former merchant banker, is portrayed as an out-of-touch dictator with little interest in anybody, apart from billionaires operating in the global economy. 

The Fifth Republic – the current iteration of modern France – is considered unfit for purpose, with many calling for the constitution to be torn up and replaced with a new one. 

A feeling of never-ending crisis certainly plays right into the hands of those who embrace déclinisme. 

Marine Le Pen, the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) firebrand who will spend much of 2026 trying to overturn an embezzlement conviction, said in her New Year address: “The downward spiral has continued.” 

Ms Le Pen’s party is currently the largest in parliament, despite its joyless outlook. Its increasing popularity owes much to fears about civilisational collapse and the loss of national identity. 

All of this comes straight from the playbook of Mr Trump – a maverick bully who does not care much for facts or rational argument. Instead, he uses divisive and brutal rhetoric to stigmatise foreigners and other perceived enemies of the state, blaming them for pretty much everything.

Former French prime minister Dominique de Villepin summed up the increasingly hyperbolic discourse of the American head of state, saying: “Trump’s new nuclear weapon is shock.”

French déclinisme used to be tempered by eternal compensations, ranging from decent cuisine to beautiful countryside. 

Myths about “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity” – the national motto – were easily exposed, but they at least pointed to an idealistic culture that many other nations could never hope to emulate. 

In this sense, there is nothing new about French déclinisme; the country is simply experiencing a far nastier and much more powerful version. 

It is nihilistic in its ferocity, and it has much to do with the xenophobic, fact-free ramblings of America’s first criminal president, and currently the most influential shock jock on the planet.