Before the impact, Chu Tianjiang had been to Paris, participated in the show with Halevy, and then followed Zhang Xiaogang to Shanghai.

Despite the catastrophe, there are few traces of the catastrophe in Paris today.

Compared to a few months ago, Paris is now more than double in size, more prosperous and cosmopolitan than it was a little older. What impressed Chu Tianjiang the most was that there were many new buildings in the city center, dozens of skyscrapers had begun to take shape, hundreds of thousands of construction workers had turned the Champs-Élysées from the Arc de Triomphe to the Louvre into a large construction site, the air was filled with dust, and the roar of machines was everywhere, as if Paris was being reborn in this way and became the legislative capital of the European federation.

According to the information provided by Zhang Xiaogang, the population of the European Federation at this time has exceeded 100 million.

In the aftermath of the catastrophe, there were only 30 million survivors in France, Germany and Italy, of which about 12 million were in France. After the invasion of the invaders, the French government was the first to resume operations and restore order, and then ninety percent of the survivors went to Paris according to the government's orders, and the rest of the citizens scattered to the countryside near Paris. According to the plan made by the French government, Paris will be the only city in France after the catastrophe, and the rest of the cities will be temporarily abandoned until the social productive forces are fully restored, and the first step in restoring the social productive forces is to resume agricultural production. The plain of the Seine, where Paris is located, is fertile enough to produce enough food to feed more than 10 million French people.

However, France's population is now close to 20 million, the largest in the European Federation.

After the establishment of the European Federation, France, Germany and Italy became the core of the federation and began to expand outward, successively incorporating Eastern Europe, Northern Europe, Southern Europe and the United Kingdom, and also liberalized immigration restrictions to residents of North Africa on the southern shore of the Mediterranean. In just a few months, a large number of civilians poured into France, Germany and Italy, which were the first to restore social order, have access to adequate food supplies, and were relatively safe, and France absorbed nearly 10 million immigrants, including as many as 5 million immigrants from North Africa. It's just that these immigrants are not yet French citizens. According to the "Immigration Management Regulations" promulgated by the French government, in addition to abiding by French laws and administrative decrees issued by the French authorities, immigrants also need to live in the "reclamation area" for five years, reclaim a certain area of wasteland, and pay taxes to the French government on time according to the area of cultivated land in order to become French citizens.

The French government has set aside three reclamation areas: the Gironde delta with Bordeaux as the medium-sized area, the Rhône delta with Nîmes as the center, and Brittania west of Rennes. In these reclamation areas, immigrants are given a plot of land allocated by the French government in accordance with the number of available labourers, i.e., males between the ages of thirteen and fifty-five and females between the ages of fifteen and fifty, with the necessary tools for labour and only enough food to keep the family alive until the next crop harvest. The French government's security forces conduct regular patrols to check the number of family members of immigrants and collect taxes when the crops are harvested.

Because the land in France is very fertile, there are enough security guarantees, and the French government is relatively open-minded, France has become a major destination for immigrants. During these months, Italy attracted about six million immigrants, while Germany attracted less than five million.

In a sense, the number of immigrants it can attract determines the country's status in the European Federation.

The reason for this is that the size of the population directly determines the country's seat in the European Federal House of Lords.

France has nearly 20 million people and holds 23 seats in the European House of Lords, while Germany and Italy hold 14 seats each with 15 million people. In other words, France, Germany and Italy occupy a total of 51 seats, while the other European countries only have 49 seats. Relatively speaking, it is very good that the UK can get four seats. More than half of the members of the federation have only one seat, even Spain, which has a relatively large population, has only three, and fewer than ten countries have two seats.

The so-called "European Federation" is actually a federation with France, Germany and Italy as its core.

This can also be seen in the setting of the three core institutions of the federation.

Paris, Berlin and Rome are the seat of the three major federal powers: the Federal Parliament, the Federal Supreme Court and the Federal Government.

Although France, Germany and Italy signed an agreement at the time of the establishment of the European Confederation, after the social order was stabilized and industrial production was restored, the Federal Assembly would choose to build a city as a federal capital in the south of France, northern Italy or southern Germany, but this must be a few years later, and it is still a question whether the federal capital will be built specifically at that time.

Today, Paris is one of the core cities of the European Federation.

According to the information provided by Zhang Xiaogang, Paris is also one of the safest cities in Europe.

Although more than half of the French population lives in the city, the population of Paris has actually fallen by almost 20 percent compared to before the catastrophe. In the past few months, the electricity and water supply in Paris has been restored, and the city's main infrastructure has been restored. Because the first crops planted after the disaster, such as wheat and potatoes, were about to be harvested, Paris had an abundant supply of food.

The biggest change for the inhabitants of Paris compared to before the Apocalypse is that they are no longer so laid-back and everyone is in a hurry.

After coming to Paris, Chu Tianjiang clearly felt that Paris was no longer a fashion capital, but more like a city that had just entered the era of industrialization.

Of course, this is understandable.

In this era, the only way for commoners to live a prosperous life is to work hard and exchange their labor for living materials. Although the powerful can get something for nothing and can get far more material comforts than the common people, the powerful take far more risks for the sake of power than the common people.

For civilians, Paris is a calm, safe and comfortable city.

For the powerful, Paris is a city full of traps and dangers.

The catastrophe and subsequent invasion have completely destroyed the original power structure of human civilization, and the construction of a new power framework system has become the main theme of the post-disaster era, as well as the main battlefield of new and old interest groups. Although order has been restored in European countries, the struggle for power has not stopped.

Paris is at the center of the vortex of power struggles.

Both the current federal government and the Federal Supreme Court are temporary, and when it comes to rebuilding the framework of power, the first thing to be established is the Federal Parliament, and the Federal Upper House. After the establishment of the Federal House of Lords, the European Federal Constitution can officially enter into force, and then the Federal President is elected through a general election, and the Federal House of Commons has a wider representation, and then the President and the House of Commons jointly elect seven justices to form the Federal Supreme Court, and amend the Federal Constitution approved by the Provisional Supreme Court and the Federal House of Lords. The new federal constitution will eventually be established by referendum to legally ensure the legitimacy of the federal form of government.

Thus, the House of Lords was the first formal federal authority to be established.

Then, the members of the Bundestag of Lords, that is, the "senators", will become the first magnates of the European federation, and they will be the ones who hold real power.

For ambitious politicians, for the sake of the title of "senator", will definitely do whatever it takes.

Interestingly, the internal struggle in the House of Lords came mainly from France, Germany and Italy, which created the European Federation, and not from countries like England, which were invited to join after the conquest. The reason is that, in addition to France, Germany and Italy, the seats of the elders of other countries are allocated by France, Germany and Italy, and they are all internally determined. For example, the United Kingdom can only get four Elder Seats, and each of the four Patriarchs comes from one of the four first-tier administrative regions of the United Kingdom.

France has twenty-three seats, Germany and Italy have fourteen each!

These are three big cakes that all politicians salivate, and all politicians want their share, but the number of politicians far exceeds the seats of the senators.

According to the information provided by Zhang Xiaogang, there are hundreds of politicians in France who are qualified to sit in the position of senators. Among these politicians are members of the French Parliament, French government officials, French generals in politics, and some powerful and politically ambitious capitalists. Because the patriarchs are not internally determined, before the dust settles, these people will definitely fall into each other, attack each other, and fight to the death.

Of course, the situation in Germany is similar to that in Italy.

This is also the main reason why Zhang Xiaogang asked Chu Tianjiang to dress up as Cullen and go to Paris.

The four British senators had long made it their minds that Cullen would be able to operate in Paris as the "elected senators" and make full use of the internal contradictions of the French ruling circles to create trouble for the European Federation, delay the formation of the European Federation, and make it impossible for the European Federation to use troops against foreign countries in a timely manner.

What's more, it's also an important opportunity to find a source of energy.

According to the information provided by Zhang Xiaogang, almost all of the magnates in France who are qualified to become patriarchs are energy people, and they all obey the orders of one person, that is, the person who holds the energy source. It's just that Zhang Xiaogang hasn't figured out who this guy is, and he doesn't know where the Dao energy source is hidden.

Although Chu Tianjiang did not doubt the information provided by Zhang Xiaogang, he didn't understand one thing.

That is, the guy who controls the energy source, why should he let his loyal subordinates turn against each other, instead of picking a few of them to serve as the patriarch?

Natural competition, survival of the fittest!?

Or are those careerists only superficially loyal to the supreme ruler, with their own little calculations, and supported by some powerful force?

If this is the case, Franco-German-Italian relations are by no means as harmonious as they seem.

Perhaps, the supreme rulers of these three countries all want to become the supreme rulers of the European Federation, and they all want to obtain the energy bodies in the hands of the other two!