An “end of empire” feel is floating upon the Elysée Palace in Paris. As time goes by, the last months of François Hollande’s presidential term are revealing themselves as an immense waste of time, skills, and missed opportunities: the current “chienlit” (a pun, meaning both “dog bed” and “shit in the bed,” used to describe social havoc), which spread throughout the public services with forceful actions aimed at severing the fuel distribution by blocking access to oil refineries, massive strikes – especially in rail transport – and continuous popular demonstrations and protests that always end up in acts of vandalism, shows how the power has weakened. Still, the French crisis, coupled with the Islamist terrorism emergency (and which, apart from the economic aspect, involves general issues such as national identity, immigration and the relationship with the European Union) should be correctly interpreted.