Europe Recolonized After Cuban Missile Crisis

[saint polype]

More exactly, one possible outcome of Amerigo Vespucci's timeline, Europe somewhere halfway between 2012 and 2062

Many features and especially borders are placed very aproximately.

The Cuban War of the 1960ies left most of Europe east of the Rhine depopulated, and the countries least destroyed still lost at least half of their population.

In the decades after the war, most of the eastern lands were lawless, mostly jungle-like cold-temperate wilderness. Only a few hardy villages of post apocalyptic wasteland cannibals and city states managed to survive.

But once the surviving European nation states consolidated, they had to develop a coherent policy towards the lawless zone.

At the end of this evolution stands the European Union, a French empire in all but name.

The new French Republic runs the Union's foreign policy and dictates the constitutional order as well as its territorial structure, while maintaining its own domestic policy as if it were still a separate country.

Military districts are governed by administrators of the French military (with the New Strasbourg district having the specialty of being run from headquarters in French territory proper). Some of these used to be or contain recently conquered independent city states.

Autonomous zones run their own domestic policy, but are subject to directives of the European Parliament, also situated in the French capital of Orléans and elected by all registered Union citizens, French or otherwise, though Metropolitain French participation is notoriously low.

The rest of Union remains a land of small towns and villages lost in a sea of overgrown ruins. French and Autonomous Zone businesses with permits run mining and logging (and clandestine slave labour-) operations. The French military gets called in as the cavalery in case of disputes, to capture fleeing criminals and to put down would-be warlords.
Cities that grow to a certain size may lobby for the status of Autonomous Zone.

The independent city state of Bielefeld is a rumor among the german tribes, as of yet there is no proof it actually exists.

There is no freedom of movement between the different parts of the Union. Permits are needed to travel, and borders are enforced as strictly as feasible to prevent hit-and-run tactics from wilderness outlaws against the Republic and the Zones/Districts, as well as unsanctioned refugee movements.

What you need to realize is that the population of the entire rest of the "Union" is smaller than that of Metropolitan France.
In fact, French SOLDIERS in the combined military districts slightly outnumber the civilian population. Think less-than Canadian population densities.

While highly diverse as they are descended from many different nations, Union citizens are seen by French Metropolitains as a monolithic, nebulous "other", many young French people even believing "Union" to basically be a single ethnicity, an ignorance encouraged by the central government.

 

[saint polype]

Cont.
Life in the Military Districts

The official reason for the high militarization of the Union territories is to put down local warlords, monitor potentially hostile city states, hunt down criminals and terrorists and discourage the practice of wasteland cannibalism, which the german tribes seem to be especially fond of.
Of course the elephant in the room is China, lurking just behind the Ural mountains, and then there are the elephant shrews of the Nordic Union and Switzerland, all boasting respectable militaries of their own.
Finally, there is the embarrassing matter of ensuring the save and steady flow of resources to the Métropole...

Military districts are under the command of governors, who represent the highest official authority and run security and the justice system.
Other than that, local civilians in military districts are free to run their own affairs and do what they want, provided that what they want is to coexist and cooperate with the military.

The best ticket to a better life for many natives of the districts is to work as a labourer for the military or even get recruited into the military itself, with the possibility to obtain a permit to immigrate to the Métropole or an Autonomous Zone of their choosing.

While most Metropolitain French imagine the peoples of the Union to be backwards peasants, barely getting by in an unforgiving wilderness, the Military Districts and even the "lawless" zone also contain several stable and fairly prosperous cities with their own industries, hospitals and even universities.

 

[saint polype]

Cont.
Geopolitical Theory

According to the mainstream model of French geopolitical theory, every country that existed before the war still exists to this day - some are just unable to run their own affairs since they currently lack a centralized government or indeed, in some cases, citizens to govern.

The Union does not replace former countries, but is merely an administrative tool layered on top of them to provide peace and stability during the recovery period.

Cynics may point out that there is a joke shared among French buerocrats that the Autonomous Zone of Berlin is next in line to become the capital of a reunified, sovereign germany - right after Moscow becomes the capital of a reunified, sovereign Soviet Union (for context: French soldiers in the eastern territories outnumber Russian civilians about 4 to 1, and Moscow has been so neatly destroyed during the war that they genuinely can't even find it anymore).

There is an alternative, of course - the French constitution just received an amendement allowing Autonomous Zones to hold a referendum to decide if they want to forfeit previous borders and join the French Republic.

 

[Comte de Dordogne]

Let me guess:
The nuclear war that ravaged the world spared France, which managed through De Gaulle's policy to avoid annihilation? Very interesting, I'm a subscriber.

 

[saint polype]

Let me guess:
The nuclear war that ravaged the world spared France, which managed through De Gaulle's policy to avoid annihilation? Very interesting, I'm a subscriber.

Thanks!

Though not exactly. France is one of the surviving nation states and I think wasn't hit as badly as the UK, but was still very much touched in the war, though maybe not as a central player, and lost over 50% of its population, mostly in northern France. Still, that left it with a population of 20-30 million people while other European countries almost shrunk to 0 not only in the war but especially the chaotic aftermath of starvation, plagues, migrations and civil wars. France was quick to install a draconian central government keeping the country together at any cost.