Expansive protests have broken out across all of Northern France and Germany, with thousands of citizens of both nations tramping to the streets to publicly oppose the massive debt crisis that has commenced between the powers since the occupation of the Rhine. Since 2023, billions of francs and marks have been overextended into military acquisitions and upkeeps, floundering the welfare programs of both states, and disenfranchising millions of lower class laborers who suffer from the sudden massive inflation of both currencies. While attempts have been made by Imperial economists to fix the problem in recent months, the German annual income still remains in the negatives, wherein the French economy has been plummeting further and further into critical levels, with even massive Bavarian bailouts doing little to mend the crashing economy.

In Germany, thousands of miners and laborers have gathered in the streets of various small extraction communities, reportedly under a universal motivation of ‘refusing to work until we can afford bread’. A good portion of the organized labor force also decries the exorbitantly high salaries of the military whilst their own salaries remain so small that they are beginning to be unable to feed their families. In addition to these anti-debt protests, several small miner organizations have begun to sympathize with Bavarian economists, endorsing the full-union system of the southern state. Some more vocal activists call for the Empire to abandon the idea of occupying the Rhine, though their voices are seldom heard by the press, and few citizens support the idea, yet.

In France, the situation is far more dire. Nearly millions of civilians, as well as low-ranking military personnel have taken to the streets in a spectrum of peaceful protests to borderline armed insurrection to protest the simultaneous inaction and overreach of the newly-established Federation government, though several thousand protest organizers have found themselves placed under house arrest, or thrown directly into jail without clear cause. This lack of judicial oversight has led many dissenters to begin brandishing their government-assigned firearms in public alongside their peers, actively threatening the large military police presence in larger cities with full-scale revolt. Labor and teamster unions have demanded that the government either dedicate all feasible resources to fixing the debt crisis or they will order a full-scale halt of the production economy, endangering the military with total shutdown due to lack of supply on all levels. The impetus of these protests is, almost universally, to convince the government to de-occupy the Rhine in hopes that the massive resources dedicated to the Federation Army will be slashed tenfold, therefore improving the situation to the point where democratic reform can be enacted to resume building a functional French economy. However, the Federation government remains so unutterably divided that many have found this solution impossible to achieve, and are calling for an Anti-Bonapartist revolution to restore French glory, though these calls, as of now, are far and few between, with most simply demanding reform.

[Germany: -2 DP allocation until the debt crisis is mendable. -9% IG and CM production until equilibrium can be reached with the non-unionized miners. 22 unhappiness and 12 unrest]

[North France: -7 DP allocation for this year (the next years will vary by roll). -12% IG and CM production. -2% food production. 59 unhappiness and 6 unrest]

This crisis will continue for as long as both debt and the Rhine are issues are contention, or until aforementioned governments find a way to quell the unrest via unorthodox means.