"The best our country can hope for now is to manage its decline in an orderly fashion,"
said one of Britain's most important senior civil servants, disillusioned, in the mid-1970s.
Pessimism and resignation then characterized the state of minds across the Channel.
The atmosphere of the time, among our neighbors, is reminiscent of current French discouragement and fatalism.
While the scenario of a blockage of refineries is becoming clearer to protest against the pension reform, many of our fellow citizens are of the opinion that France is condemned to hopeless immobility.
However, half a century ago, it was the United Kingdom that was nicknamed “
the sick man of Europe
”.
The all-powerful miners' union had, on several occasions, almost paralyzed the country, not hesitating to deprive the British of electricity and to dictate its will to the governments.
An incredible succession of strikes during the winter of 1978-1979, dubbed "
the winter of discontent
", had driven the nation's exasperation to its peak.
It was this feeling of generalized public helplessness, this conviction of going around in circles and of having tried all the traditional recipes in vain, which, in the spring of 1979, was to lead...
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