Sabotage

Chapter 641: Sabotage

The French restarting their colonial development plan had caused a tremendous uproar. With Austria's successful example before them, no one could be certain that the French would fail.

In recent years, France had gradually fallen behind in international competition. The biggest problem was that domestic economic development had hit a bottleneck and could no longer keep pace with Britain and Austria.

Especially over the past two years, France's economic growth rate had plummeted, while the economies of Britain and Austria continued to surge ahead.

This was apparent from their total economic output. Britain, which had originally been surpassed by the French, was now showing signs of catching up again.

This was no small matter. The British Isles had a total population of just over thirty-one million, while France now had nearly sixty million people.

In terms of per capita income alone, French citizens earned only sixty percent of what Britons did.

This was mainly because the Italian regions were dragging them down, especially Southern Italy, where the local economy was still agricultural and had seen almost no development in recent years.

If total industrial output were calculated, the gap would be even more glaring. Greater France's total industrial output was less than half of Britain's and less than forty percent of Austria's.

As time passed, this gap continued to widen. People of this era had yet to realize the true power of industry, but they could still clearly feel the lack of money in their pockets.

At its peak, French fiscal revenue had once approached Britain's. During Napoleon III's era, France had even been able to engage Britain in an arms race. Now, France's fiscal revenue was only a little higher than that of Britain proper.

This was the impact of the butterfly effect. With the Italian