Southern Europe lost 8-17% industrial output since 2005

That's what a graph at Der Spiegel shows: that Southern Europe, including France, have lost a lot of industrial output since 2005:

This is surely because of loss of international competitiveness because of a too strong euro, which has increased its exchange value some 40% since its inception in 1999 - what is almost the same as saying that the EU as a whole has lost 40% of competitiveness in that period.

Oddly enough Germany and the small satellite states around it have increased their industrial output, which in most cases they surely sell in Southern Europe charging it to increased debt. 

The fact that France and Italy are not exempt (at all) from these bad figures (not either from low growth in general nor increased debt) offers at least some hope because the states affected negatively by the bad German-led EU policies makes up a vast majority of EU citizens, specially of those in the Eurozone. But France and Italy, and Spain too, should begin forging an alliance against the bad EU policies and not just bow to German hegemony. 

In fact, they either face Germany upfront or they are done because by now it is clear that Germany holds no interest in a EU of equal partners in which the interests of all are treated equally but one in which the Germanic powers are hegemonic and treat the rest as mere colonies: Hitler's dream.

But the blame must fall also on Latin (and other peripheral) Europeans for not realizing what they were signing to. At least the French voted "no" to the Euro-scam in 2005 but the Spaniards were so blind that only the Basques opposed. My conservative brother, who has pro-Spanish ideology also, argued that he was against the constitution but that he believed that Spaniards should not appear as opposing the EU, that such role should be of others. What a cowardice and duplicity! But I presume that Spaniards in general genuinously believed that the EU was a desirable project, even if the constitution included no bill of rights whatsoever nor made the decision-making process more democratic at all.

I voted against, you can imagine. And not because I am against a continental confederation but because I am for a democratic and socialist one, and not this rotten nest of vampires.

Shame on us, shame on Europeans for not being able to force things straight, for bowing to the predetermined plans of our Capitalist masters. 

Now we pay for it.

The data is horrible also for the future because youth unemployment is extreme: 

As a Portuguese mentions in the associated article: the prospect for many is to get occasional jobs while young and then stop being hired altogether after hitting the 40s, still 20 or more years away from a retirement that will never come in any proper terms. 

It does not matter if you have a degree in Physics and speak several languages, as the Catalan interviewee, who is forced to live with his parents for lack of a job: there are simply no jobs, there were never many but now is much worse. 

And don't deceive yourself by colors above, green states like France, Belgium or Finland are still bad with youth unemployment figures above 20% in most cases. It's not the extreme Spanish case but it's still very bad. We must not get used to people not being able to find jobs - even if it actually happens that no so many workers are needed, then we MUST proceed to a leisure society in which work is split more or less equally and benefits are as well. We cannot accept that maybe as many as half the people is condemned to marginality just because the system does not work. 

In brief: the Capitalist system on which the European Union we know of was built cannot deliver anymore. In addition to that the European Union has a too strong pro-German bias, even for Capitalist parameters, and the euro is extremely overvalued. Something must be done: if within Capitalism, devalue the euro a lot, even if that means kicking Germany out of it; if beyond Capitalism... then the options are wide open and hope may be restored completely. But that first needs to permeate in the consciences of Europeans and people around the World in general.