Chrome dropped Java support
As of Chrome Version 42, an additional configuration step is required to continue using NPAPI plugins.
In your URL bar, enter:chrome://flags/#enable-npapi Click the Enable link for the Enable NPAPI configuration option.Click the Relaunch button that now appears at the bottom of the configuration page.
So will it be handled by Java somehow ..
If they found a way, that would be a bug in Chrome (that would quickly be fixed).
..or it is the death of my applet in the next year ?
Yep. Not that they were really that 'healthy' for a long time now.
Java applets are not dead. There are a lot of intranet web applications that use them, for instance, for digital signature with applet-javascript-web page interaction. Other option is migration to Firefox.