France

The live 12-month probability is 1.3%, representing a low risk. France’s strong state capacity, established institutions, and extensive security services provide substantial barriers to a sustained civil conflict or foreign attack. Its history includes recurring urban riots, separatist violence, terrorism, and periods of intense political unrest, but these have generally remained below the threshold of a new armed conflict.

Recent reporting shows unusually broad unrest: more than half a million people joined cost-of-living and student protests, while clashes, looting, arson, and attacks on public buildings produced roughly 2,400 arrests and nearly 1,000 injured police officers. President Emmanuel Macron, the national government, police, protest organisers, and political leaders are the principal actors; the violence remains fragmented rather than an organised insurgency. Prediction markets place partial-scope bets on a state of siege at 1.1–3.3%, while markets on French or allied military action abroad do not directly measure conflict on French territory.

The largest uncertainty is whether violent groups become organised, sustained, and politically directed rather than remaining episodic within mass demonstrations. Risk would rise if clashes continued across multiple cities alongside armed coordination or security-force fragmentation; it would fall if arrests, policing, political concessions, and protest mobilisation restored order without organised armed activity.