By Ali Rıza Taşdelen
In Türkiye, a fascination with Europe took hold in the 1960s and continued throughout the 1970s. People dreamed of making their way to this continent of “wealth and prosperity.”
“Tourist” in France
My father arrived in France in 1969 as a “tourist.” Not to visit the country’s tourist attractions, of course, but to work. Back then, those who came to Europe, stayed to work and had no official papers were called “tourists.”
After obtaining his residence and work permits, my father brought my mother and siblings over in 1977. I arrived in May 1980, followed by my wife and our two young daughters a year later.
I remember an incident from the year I arrived. One day, a postwoman knocked on our door. She told my mother that she had brought her child benefit payment. She handed over the money in cash, stayed for a cup of tea and then went on her way.
By the 1980s, the postwar era of “prosperity” was running out of steam. The welfare state and the protectionist economic system established after 1945 had entered a deep crisis following the 1973 oil shock. Average annual economic growth, which had stood at around 5% in the postwar years, fell to 1–2% in the 1980s. Unemployment rose from approximately 2% to 10%, and inflation from 5% to 10%.
The social security system established in 1945, which had provided healthcare free of charge, was increasingly being portrayed as a burden on the economy.
Neoliberalism, emerged as the proposed solution to the crisis of the global capitalist system in the 1970s, started overturning the social and political balances established across the world after the Second World War in the phase of the “globalization project”. The destruction by neoliberalism began to be felt not only in peripheral countries but also in Europe, at the heart of capitalism.
Public services and social welfare were among the sectors hardest hit. Social security protections began to be dismantled, hospitals saw their medical staff reduced, the state’s contribution to reimbursement for medications was reduced, and doctors who issued sick leave certificates were subjected to tighter scrutiny. Over the course of forty years, healthcare and education, two services fundamental to people’s lives, were stripped to the bone.
It is here that we must look for the roots of the problems facing high school students who shake the country today.
The capitalist system can no longer feed its own people, provide them with jobs, fulfill even its most basic responsibilities in healthcare and education, and is driving society into widespread misery.
9.8 million below the poverty line
Poverty in France is no longer a temporary economic problem. It is increasingly becoming a permanent social crisis.
According to data from the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE), the poverty rate rose from 12.9% in 2008 to 14.3% in 2011, and to 15.4% in 2024. Today, 9.8 million people in France live below the poverty line.
A study published by INSEE on October 1, 2026, reveals not only that poverty is becoming more widespread, but also that escaping it is increasingly difficult. Long-term poverty has risen significantly over the past fifteen years, turning economic insecurity into a permanent condition of life for millions of people.
Yet statistics alone cannot capture the full extent of the social crisis. In France, one of the largest economies in the world, working people and pensioners struggle to make ends meet, and young people face an uncertain and insecure future.
High housing and energy costs, rising food prices, debt and difficulties accessing healthcare make poverty a daily reality. The inability of people to meet their most basic needs reveals more than a lack of income: it exposes the deepened social inequalities.
Even food is becoming inaccessible
Poverty has reached a point where even the most basic human need, food, is becoming inaccessible to millions.
According to a study released on October 12, 2026, by the humanitarian organization Action contre la Faim (Action Against Hunger), approximately seven million adults in France, or 13% of the adult population, say they cannot get enough to eat. Among young people aged 18 to 24, that figure rises to 25%. 39% of respondents say that although they can obtain sufficient quantities of food, they cannot afford the foods they would like to eat. Among young people, this figure reaches 47%.
The fact that 80% of those experiencing food shortages cite financial difficulties as the main reason makes clear that the problem is fundamentally linked to inadequate incomes and the rising cost of living.
The experience of Yvan, a 60-year-old man who can no longer work because of health problems and lives on less than €1,000 a month, offers a striking illustration of this crisis: Speaking to France Inter, he said:
“By the 15th of the month, I already have no money. I can’t afford to feed myself. Sometimes I go three or four days without eating.”
In one of the world’s largest economies, people are struggling to survive on food distributed by charities: the problem is no longer simply inequality in income distribution; we are at the point where millions of people are now unable to meet even their most basic needs for survival.
After four decades of neoliberal economic policies
At the root of France’s deepening poverty lie more than forty years of neoliberal economic policies driven by globalization: privatization, the liberalization of capital movements, the relocation of production to countries with cheaper labor, and the restructuring of public services according to market principles. All this has fundamentally transformed France’s economic and social fabric. By prioritizing the interests of financial capital and corporate profitability over labor and production, these policies have weakened workers’ power and eroded the protective function of the welfare state.
On top of all this, the government in France, with a public debt exceeding 3.5 trillion euro (119% of GDP in the second quarter of 2026), is planning to cut social spending even further for the budget, and to continue providing Ukraine “military aid” at a time when France is already heavily suffering from the impact of sanctions on Russian gas.