Reuters reports that the leaders of France and Germany in separate speeches last year warned their citizens of hard times ahead as the global economy encountered proliferating challenges. The Reuters piece captures those challenges nicely.
The article argues that many Europeans have concluded that if the economic pie is shrinking, then they might as well fight to prevent their share getting even smaller - as shown by the biggest German strikes over pay in decades and French anger at President Emmanuel Macron's plan to raise the retirement age. "If someone has to pay the cost, then people are fighting to not have to pay the cost," says Gregory Claeys, a senior fellow specialising in economic governance and public policy at Brussels-based economic think tank Bruegel.
"I do think there is a growing awareness that low-income earners have fallen further behind and that the wage gap in Germany has been widening," observes Carsten Brzeski, chief economist for bank ING Germany, adding that he forecast "increasing tensions" between low- and high-earners across Europe.