Germany and France are in structural trouble. India will not cure it. But it may help—if Europe is clear-eyed enough to use it.
For decades, European prosperity rested on two pillars: Germany built things the world wanted and sold them at a premium. France spent lavishly on strategic grandeur—giving Europe the posture of a continent still capable of projecting geopolitical weight it no longer carries. Together, they accounted for roughly 45% of the eurozone’s economic output, providing the political ballast that kept the European project globally envied. That model is now fracturing at its core: Germany and France suffer from distinct structural pathologies. What they share, however, is an underappreciated strategic asset: a substantial relationship with one of the world’s fastest-growing major economies, India. Whether Berlin and Paris can leverage it quickly is another question entirely.