Ça Chauffe! - Turmoil in France

[Hervé]

France Slowly Sinking into Chaos

by Guy Millière
August 3, 2019 at 5:00 am

• President Macron never says he is sorry for those who have lost an eye or a hand... from extreme police brutality. Instead, he asked the French parliament to pass a law that almost completely abolishes the right to protest and the presumption of innocence, and that allows the arrest of anyone, anywhere, even without cause. The law was passed.

• In June, the French parliament passed another law, severely punishing anyone who says or writes something that might contain "hate speech". The law is so vague that an American legal scholar, Jonathan Turley, felt compelled to react. "France", he wrote, "has now become one of the biggest international threats to freedom of speech".

• The main concern of Macron and the French government seems not to be the risk of riots, the public's discontent, the disappearance of Christianity, the disastrous economic situation, or Islamization and its consequences. Instead, it is climate change.

• "The West no longer knows what it is, because it does not know and does not want to know what shaped it, what constituted it, what it was and what it is. (...) This self-asphyxiation leads naturally to a decadence that opens the way to new barbaric civilizations." — Cardinal Robert Sarah, in Le soir approche et déjà le jour baisse ("The Evening Comes, and already the Light Darkens").

French President Emmanuel Macron never says he is sorry for those who have lost an eye or a hand from extreme police brutality. Instead, he asked the French parliament to pass a law that almost completely abolishes the right to protest and the presumption of innocence, and that allows the arrest of anyone, anywhere, even without cause. The law was passed. (Photo by Kiyoshi Ota - Pool/Getty Images)

Paris, Champs-Élysées. July 14. Bastille Day. Just before the military parade begins, President Emmanuel Macron comes down the avenue in an official car to greet the crowd. Thousands of people gathered along the avenue shout "Macron resign", boo and hurl insults.

At the end of the parade, a few dozen people release yellow balloons into the sky and distribute leaflets saying "The yellow vests are not dead." The police disperse them, quickly and firmly. Moments later, hundreds of "Antifa" anarchists arrive, throw security barriers on the roadway to erect barricades, start fires and smash the storefronts of several shops. The police have a rough time mastering the situation, but early in the evening, after a few hours, they restore the calm.

A few hours later, thousands of young Arabs from the suburbs gather near the Arc de Triomphe. They have apparently come to "celebrate" in their own way the victory of an Algerian soccer team. More storefronts are smashed, more shops looted. Algerian flags are everywhere. Slogans are belted out: "Long live Algeria", "France is ours", "Death to France". Signs bearing street names are replaced by signs bearing the name of Abd El Kader, the religious and military leader who fought against the French army at the time of the colonization of Algeria. The police limit themselves to stemming the violence in the hope that it will not spread.

Around midnight, three leaders of the "yellow vest" movement come out of a police station and tell a TV reporter that they were arrested early that morning and imprisoned for the rest of the day. Their lawyer states that they did nothing wrong and were just "preventively" arrested. He emphasizes that a law passed in February 2019 allows the French police to arrest any person suspected of going to a demonstration; no authorization from a judge is necessary and no appeal possible.

On Friday, July 19, the Algerian soccer team wins again. More young Arabs gather near Arc de Triomphe to "celebrate" again. The damage is even greater than eight days before. More police show up; they do almost nothing.

On July 12, two days before Bastille Day, several hundred self-declared African illegal migrants enter the Pantheon, the monument that houses the graves of heroes who played major roles in the history of France. There, the migrants announce the birth of the "Black Vest movement". They demand the "regularization" of all illegal immigrants on French territory and free housing for each of them. The police show up but decline to intervene. Most of the demonstrators leave peacefully. A few who insult the police are arrested.

France today is a country adrift. Unrest and lawlessness continue to gain ground. Disorder has become part of daily life. Polls show that a large majority reject President Macron. They seem to hate his arrogance and be inclined not to forgive him. They seem to resent his contempt for the poor; the way he crushed the "yellow vest" movement, and for his not having paid even the slightest attention to the protesters' smallest demands, such as the right to hold a citizens' referendum like those in Switzerland. Macron can no longer go anywhere in public without risking displays of anger.

The "yellow vests" seem finally to have stopped demonstrating and given up: too many were maimed or hurt. Their discontent, however, is still there. It seems waiting to explode again.

The French police appear ferocious when dealing with peaceful protesters, but barely able to prevent groups such as "Antifa" from causing violence. Therefore, now at the end of each demonstration, "Antifa" show up. The French police seem particularly cautious when having to deal with young Arabs and illegal migrants. The police have been given orders. They know that young Arabs and illegal migrants could create large-scale riots. Three months ago, in Grenoble, the police were pursuing some young Arabs on a stolen motorcycle, who were accused of theft. While fleeing, they had an accident. Five days of mayhem began.

President Macron looks like an authoritarian leader when he faces the disgruntled poor. He never says he is sorry for those who have lost an eye or a hand or suffered irreversible brain damage from extreme police brutality. Instead, he asked the French parliament to pass a law that almost completely abolishes the right to protest, the presumption of innocence and that allows the arrest of anyone, anywhere, even without cause. The law was passed.

In June, the French parliament passed another law, severely punishing anyone who says or writes something that might contain "hate speech". The law is so vague that an American legal scholar, Jonathan Turley, felt compelled to react. "France has now become one of the biggest international threats to freedom of speech", he wrote.

Macron does not appear authoritarian, however, with violent anarchists. When facing young Arabs and illegal migrants, he looks positively weak.

He knows what the former interior minister, Gérard Collomb, said in November 2018, while resigning from government:

"Communities in France are engaging in conflict with one another more and more and it is becoming very violent... today we live side by side, I fear that tomorrow it will be face to face".

Macron also knows what former President François Hollande said after serving his term as president: "France is on the verge of partition".

Macron knows that the partition of France already exists. Most Arabs and Africans live in no-go zones, apart from the rest of the population, where they accept the presence of non-Arabs and non-Africans less and less. They do not define themselves as French, except when they say that France will belong to them. Reports show that most seem filled with a deep rejection of France and Western civilization. An increasing number seem to place their religion above their citizenship; many seem radicalized and ready to fight.

Macron seems not to want to fight. Instead, he has chosen to appease them. He is single-mindedly pursuing his plans to institutionalize Islam in France. Three months ago, the Muslim Association for Islam of France (AMIF) was created. One branch will handle the cultural expansion of Islam and take charge of "the fight against anti-Muslim racism". Another branch will be responsible for programs that train imams and build mosques. This autumn, a "Council of Imams of France" will be established. The main leaders of the AMIF are (or were until recently) members of the Muslim Brotherhood, a movement designated as a terrorist organization in Egypt, Bahrain, Syria, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- but not in France.

Macron is aware of the demographic data. They show that the Muslim population in France will grow significantly in the coming years. (The economist Charles Gave wrote recently that by 2057, France will have a Muslim majority). Macron can see that it will soon be impossible for anyone to be elected President without relying on the Muslim vote, so he acts accordingly.

Macron apparently sees that the discontent that gave birth to the "yellow vest" movement still is there. He appears to think that repression will be enough to prevent any further uprising, and so does nothing to remedy the causes of the discontent.

The "yellow vest" movement was born of a revolt against exorbitantly high taxes on fuel, and harsh government measures against cars and motorists. These measures included reduced speed limits -- 50 mph on most highways -- and more speed-detection cameras; a sharp rise in the penalties on tickets, as well as complex and expensive annual motor vehicle controls. French taxes on fuels recently rose again and are now the highest in Europe (70% of the price paid at the pump). Other measures against the use of automobiles and motorists still in force are especially painful for the poor. They were already chased from the suburbs by intolerant newcomers, and now have to live -- and drive -- even farther from where they work.

Macron has made no decision to remedy the disastrous economic situation in France. When he was elected, taxes, duties and social charges represented almost 50% of GDP. Government spending represented 57% of GDP (the highest among developed countries). The ratio of national debt to GDP was almost 100%.

Taxes, duties, social charges and government spending remain at the same level now as when Macron came in. The debt-to-GDP ratio is 100% and growing. The French economy is not creating jobs. Poverty remains extremely high: 14% of the population earn less than 855 euros ($950) a month.

Macron pays no attention to the growing cultural disaster also seizing the country. The educational system is crumbling. An increasing percentage of students graduate from high school without knowing how to write a sentence free of errors that make incomprehensible anything they write. Christianity is disappearing. Most non-Muslim French no longer define themselves as Christians. The fire that ravaged the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris was officially an "accident," but it was only one of the many Christian religious buildings in the country that were recently destroyed. Every week, churches are vandalized -- to the general indifference of the public. In just the first half of 2019, 22 churches burned down.

The main concern of Macron and the French government seems not to be the risk of riots, the public's discontent, the disappearance of Christianity, the disastrous economic situation, or Islamization and its consequences. Instead, it is climate change. Although the amount of France's carbon dioxide emissions is infinitesimal (less than 1% of the global total), combatting "human-induced climate change" appears Macron's absolute priority.

A Swedish girl, Greta Thunberg, age 16, -- nevertheless the guru of the "fight for the climate" in Europe -- was recently invited to the French National Assembly by members of parliament who support Macron. She delivered a speech, promising that the "irreversible destruction" of the planet will begin very soon. She added that political leaders "are not mature enough" and need lessons from children. MPs who support Macron applauded warmly. She received a Prize of Freedom, just created, which will be given each year to people "fighting for the values ​​of those who landed in Normandy in 1944 to liberate Europe". It is probably reasonable to assume that not one of those who landed in Normandy in 1944 thought he was fighting to save the climate. Such minor details, however, seem beyond Macron and the parliamentarians who support him.

Macron and the French government also seem unconcerned that Jews -- driven by the rise of anti-Semitism, and understandably worried about court decisions infused with the spirit of submission to violent Islam -- continue to flee from France.

Kobili Traore, the man who murdered Sarah Halimi in 2017 while chanting suras from the Qur'an and shouting that the Jews are Sheitan (Arabic for "Satan") was found not guilty. Traore had apparently smoked cannabis before the murder, so the judges decided that he was not responsible for his acts. Traore will soon be released from prison; what happens if he smokes cannabis again?

A few weeks after the murder of Halimi, three members of a Jewish family were assaulted, tortured and held hostage in their home by a group of five men who said that "Jews have money" and "Jews must pay". The men were arrested; all were Muslim. The judge who indicted them announced that their actions were "not anti-Semitic".

On July 25, 2019 when the Israeli soccer team Maccabi Haifa was competing in Strasbourg, the French government limited the number of Israeli supporters in the stadium to 600, not one more. A thousand had bought plane tickets to come to France to attend the match. The French government also banned the waving of Israeli flags at the game or anywhere in the city. Nonetheless, in the name of "free speech", the French Department of the Interior permitted anti-Israeli demonstrations in front of the stadium, and Palestinian flags and banners saying "Death to Israel" were there. The day before the match, at a restaurant near the stadium, some Israelis were violently attacked. "The demonstrations against Israel are approved in the name of freedom of expression, but the authorities forbid supporters of Maccabi Haifa to raise the Israeli flag, it is unacceptable," said Aliza Ben Nun, Israel's ambassador to France.

The other day, a plane full of French Jews leaving France arrived in Israel. More French Jews will soon go. The departure of Jews to Israel entails sacrifices: some French real estate agents take advantage of the wish of many Jewish families to leave, so they buy and sell properties owned by Jews at a price far lower than their market value.

Macron will remain as president until May 2022. Several leaders of the parties of the center-left (such as the Socialist Party) and center-right (The Republicans) joined The Republic on the Move, the party he created two years ago. After that, the Socialist Party and The Republicans electorally collapsed. Macron's main opponent in 2022 is likely to be the same as in 2017: Marine Le Pen, the leader of the populist National Rally.

Although Macron is widely unpopular and widely hated, he will probably use the same slogans as in 2017: that he is the last bastion of hope against "chaos" and "fascism." He has a strong chance of being elected again. Anyone who reads the political program of the National Rally can see that Le Pen is not a fascist. Also, anyone who looks at the situation in France may wonder if France has not already begun to sink into chaos.

The sad situation that reigns in France is not all that different from that in many other European countries. A few weeks ago, an African cardinal, Robert Sarah, published a book, Le soir approche et déjà le jour baisse ("The evening comes, and already the light darkens"). "At the root of the collapse of the West", he writes, "there is a cultural and identity crisis. The West no longer knows what it is, because it does not know and does not want to know what shaped it, what constituted it, what it was and what it is. (...) This self-asphyxiation leads naturally to a decadence that opens the way to new barbaric civilizations."

That is exactly what is happening in France -- and Europe.

Dr. Guy Millière, a professor at the University of Paris, is the author of 27 books on France and Europe.

[Valerie Villars]

Thank you Herve. This is certainly very disturbing.

[Hervé]

President Macron’s amazing admission

By wmw_admin on September 13, 2019
The Saker – Sept 11, 2019

[this column was written for the Unz Review]

French President Emmanuel Macron. Click to enlarge

I don’t know whether the supposedly Chinese curse really comes from China, but whether it does or not, we most certainly are cursed with living in some truly interesting times: Iran won the first phase of the “tanker battle” against the AngloZionists, Putin offered to sell Russian hypersonic missiles to Trump (Putin has been trolling western leaders a lot lately) while Alexander Lukashenko took the extreme measure of completely shutting down the border between the Ukraine and Belarus due to the huge influx of weapons and nationalist extremists from the Ukraine. As he put it himself “if weapons fall into the hands of ordinary people and especially nationalist-minded people, wait for terrorism“. He is quite right, of course. Still, there is a sweet irony here, or call it karma if you prefer, but for the Ukronazis who promised their people a visa-free entrance into the EU (for tourism only, and if you have money to spend, but still…), and yet 5 years into that obscene experiment of creating a rabidly russophobic Ukraine and 100 days (or so) into Zelenskii’s presidency, we have the Ukraine’s closest and most supportive neighbor forced to totally shut down its border due to the truly phenomenal toxicity of the Ukrainian society! But, then again, the Ukraine is such a basket-case that we can count on “most interesting” things (in the sense of the Chinese curse, of course) happening there too.

[Sidebar: interestingly, one of the people the Ukrainians gave up in this exchange was Vladimir Tsemakh, a native of the Donbass who was kidnapped by the Ukie SBU in Novorussia (our noble “Europeans” did not object to such methods!) and declared the “star witness” against Russia in the MH-17 (pseudo-)investigation. Even more pathetic is that the Dutch apparently fully endorsed this load of crapola. Finally, and just for a good laugh, check out how the infamous’ Bellincat presented Tsemakh. And then, suddenly, everybody seem to “forget” that “star witness” and now the Ukies have sent him to Russia. Amazing how fast stuff gets lost in the collective western memory hole…]

Right now there seems to be a tug of war taking place between the more mentally sane elements of the Zelenskii administration and the various nationalist extremists in the SBU, deathsquads and even regular armed forces. Thus we see these apparently contradictory developments taking place: on one hand, the Ukraine finally agreed to a prisoner swap with Russia (a painful one for Russia as Russia mostly traded real criminals, including a least two bona fide Ukie terrorist, against what are mostly civilian hostages, but Putin decided – correctly I think – that freeing Russian nationalists from Ukie jails was more important in this case) while on the other hand, the Ukronazi armed forces increased their shelling, even with 152mm howitzers which fire 50kg high explosive fragmentation shells, against the Donbass. Whatever may be the case, this prisoner swap, no matter how one-sided and unfair, is a positive development which might mark the beginning of a pragmatic and less ideological attitude in Kiev.

Urkoterrorists Sentsov and Kol’chenko. Click to enlarge

Some very cautious beginnings of a little hint of optimism might be in order following that exchange, but the big stuff seems to be scheduled for the meeting of the Normandy Group (NG), probably in France. So far, the Russians have made it very clear that they will not meet just for the hell of meeting, and that the only circumstance in which the Russians will agree to a NG meeting would be if it has good chances of yielding meaningful results which, translated from Russian diplomatic language simply means “if/when Kiev stops stonewalling and sabotaging everything”. Specifically, the Russians are demanding that Zelenskii commit in writing to the so-called “Steinmeier formula” and that the Ukrainian forces withdraw from the line of contact. Will that happen? Maybe. We shall soon find out.

But the single most amazing event of the past couple of weeks was the absolutely astonishing speech French President Emmanuel Macron made in front of an assembly of ambassadors. I could not find the full speech translated into English (I may have missed it somewhere), so I will post the crucial excerpts in French and translate them myself. If I find a full, official, translation I will post it under this column ASAP. For the time being, this is the link to the full speech transcript in French:

https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macro...ambassadeurs-1

Let’s immediately begin with some of the most incredible excerpts, emphasis added by me: (sorry for the long quote but, truly, each word counts!)

L’ordre international est bousculé de manière inédite mais surtout avec, si je puis dire, un grand bouleversement qui se fait sans doute pour la première fois dans notre histoire à peu près dans tous les domaines, avec une magnitude profondément historique. C’est d’abord une transformation, une recomposition géopolitique et stratégique. Nous sommes sans doute en train de vivre la fin de l’hégémonie occidentale sur le monde. Nous nous étions habitués à un ordre international qui depuis le 18ème siècle reposait sur une hégémonie occidentale, vraisemblablement française au 18ème siècle, par l’inspiration des Lumières ; sans doute britannique au 19ème grâce à la révolution industrielle et raisonnablement américaine au 20ème grâce aux 2 grands conflits et à la domination économique et politique de cette puissance. Les choses changent. Et elles sont profondément bousculées par les erreurs des Occidentaux dans certaines crises, par les choix aussi américains depuis plusieurs années et qui n’ont pas commencé avec cette administration mais qui conduisent à revisiter certaines implications dans des conflits au Proche et Moyen-Orient et ailleurs, et à repenser une stratégie profonde, diplomatique et militaire, et parfois des éléments de solidarité dont nous pensions qu’ils étaient des intangibles pour l’éternité même si nous avions constitué ensemble dans des moments géopolitiques qui pourtant aujourd’hui ont changé. Et puis c’est aussi l’émergence de nouvelles puissances dont nous avons sans doute longtemps sous-estimé l’impact. La Chine au premier rang mais également la stratégie russe menée, il faut bien le dire, depuis quelques années avec plus de succès. J’y reviendrai. L’Inde qui émerge, ces nouvelles économies qui deviennent aussi des puissances pas seulement économiques mais politiques et qui se pensent comme certains ont pu l’écrire, comme de véritables États civilisations et qui viennent non seulement bousculer notre ordre international, qui viennent peser dans l’ordre économique mais qui viennent aussi repenser l’ordre politique et l’imaginaire politique qui va avec, avec beaucoup de force et beaucoup plus d’inspiration que nous n’en avons. Regardons l’Inde, la Russie et la Chine. Elles ont une inspiration politique beaucoup plus forte que les Européens aujourd’hui. Elles pensent le monde avec une vraie logique, une vraie philosophie, un imaginaire que nous avons un peu perdu

Here is my informal translation of these words:

The international order is being shaken in an unprecedented manner, above all with, if I may say so, by the great upheaval that is undoubtedly taking place for the first time in our history, in almost every field and with a profoundly historic magnitude. The first thing we observe is a major transformation, a geopolitical and strategic re-composition. We are undoubtedly experiencing the end of Western hegemony over the world. We were accustomed to an international order which, since the 18th century, rested on a Western hegemony, mostly French in the 18th century, by the inspiration of the Enlightenment; then mostly British in the 19th century thanks to the Industrial Revolution and, finally, mostly American in the 20th century thanks to the 2 great conflicts and the economic and political domination of this power. Things change. And they are now deeply shaken by the mistakes of Westerners in certain crises, by the choices that have been made by Americans for several years which did not start with this administration, but which lead to revisiting certain implications in conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to rethinking a deep, diplomatic and military strategy, and sometimes elements of solidarity that we thought were intangible for eternity, even if we had constituted together in geopolitical moments that have changed. And then there is the emergence of new powers whose impact we have probably underestimated for a long time. China is at the forefront, but also the Russian strategy, which has, it must be said, been pursued more successfully in recent years. I will come back to that. India that is emerging, these new economies that are also becoming powers not only economic but political and that think themselves, as some have written, as real “civilizational states” which now come not only to shake up our international order but who also come to weigh in on the economic order and to rethink the political order and the political imagination that goes with it, with much dynamism and much more inspiration than we have. Look at India, Russia and China. They have a much stronger political inspiration than Europeans today. They think about our planet with a true logic, a true philosophy, an imagination that we’ve lost a little bit.

Now let’s unpack these key statements one by one:

1) “ great upheaval that is undoubtedly taking place for the first time in our history in almost every field and with a profoundly historic magnitude”

Here Macron sets the stage for some truly momentous observations: what will be discussed next is not only a major event, but one without precedent in history (whether French or European). Furthermore, what will be discussed next, affects “almost every field” and with huge historical implications.

2) “We are undoubtedly experiencing the end of Western hegemony over the world”

When I read that, my first and rather infantile reaction was to exclaim “really?! No kiddin’?! Who would have thought!?” After all, some of us have been saying that for a long, long while, but never-mind that. What is important is that even a Rothschild-puppet like Macron had to finally speak these words. Oh sure, he probably felt as happy as the Captain of the Titanic when he had to (finally!) order a general evacuation of this putatively unsinkable ship, but nonetheless – he did do it. From now on, the notion of the end of the western hegemony on the planet is no more relegated to what the leaders of the Empire and their propaganda machine like to call “fringe extremists” and has now fully entered the (supposedly) “respectable” and “mainstream” public discourse. This is a huge victory for all of us who have been saying the same things for years already.

3) “by the mistakes of Westerners in certain crises, by the choices that have been made by Americans for several years”

Here, again, I feel like engaging in some petty self-congratulation and want to say “I told you that too!”, but that would really be infantile, would it not? But yeah, while the internal contradictions of western materialism in general, and of AngloZionist Capitalism specifically, have been catching up with the Western World and while an eventual catastrophic crisis was inevitable, it also sure is true that western leaders mostly did it to themselves; at the very least, they dramatically accelerated these processes. In this context, I would single out the following politicians for a nomination to a medal for exceptional service in the destruction of the western hegemony over our long-suffering planet: Donald Trump and Barak Obama, of course, but also François Hollande and Emmanuel Macron (yes, he too even if he now changes his tune!), Angela Merkel, of course, and then last but not least, every single British Prime Minister since Margaret Thatcher (maybe with special commendation for Teresa May). Who knows, maybe they were all KGB/GRU/SVR agents after all? (just kiddin’!)

4) “ the emergence of new powers whose impact we have probably underestimated for a long time. China is at the forefront, but also the Russian strategy, which has, it must be said, been pursued more successfully in recent years”

Next, it’s not only China. Russia too is a major competitor, and a very successful one at that, hence the admission that in spite of all the efforts of the AngloZionist elites not only did the Empire not succeed in breaking Russia, but Russia has been very successful in defeating the western efforts. To those interested, I highly recommend this article by Jon Hellevig on the true state of the Russian economy. Finally, in military terms, Russia has achieved more than parity. In fact, I would argue that at least in terms of quality the Russian armed forces are ahead in several crucial technologies (hypersonic missiles, air defenses, electronic warfare etc.) even while she still lags behind in other technologies (mostly truly obsolete things like aircraft carriers). But most crucial is the political victory of Russia: five years after the Euromaidan and the liberation of Crimea from the Nazi yoke, the USA is far more isolated than Russia. It’s comical, really!

5) “real “civilizational states” which now come not only to shake up our international order”

I have been speaking about a unique, and very distinct, “Russian civilizational realm” in many of my writings and I am quite happy to see Macron using almost the same words. Of course, Macron did not only mean Russia here, but also India and China. Still, and although the Russian nation is much younger than the one of China or, even more so India, 1000 years of Russian civilization does deserve to be listed next to these two other giants of world history. And what is absolutely certain is that China and India could never build the new international order they want without Russia, at least for the foreseeable future. In spite of all the very real progress made recently by the Chinese armed forces (and, to a lesser degree, also the Indian ones), Russia still remains a much stronger military power than China. What Russia, China and India are, is that they are all former empires which have given up on imperialism and who know only aspire to be powerful, but nevertheless “normal” nations. Just by their size and geography, these are “un-invadable” countries who all present a distinct model of development and who want a multi-polar international order which would allow them to safely achieve their goals. In other words, Macron understands that the future international order will be dictated by China, Russia and India and not by any combination of western powers. Quite an admission indeed!

6) “ Look at India, Russia and China. They have a much stronger political inspiration than Europeans today. They think about our planet with a true logic, a true philosophy, an imagination that we’ve lost a little bit.”

This is the “core BRICS” challenge to the Empire: China and Russia have already established what the Chinese call a “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Coordination for the New Era”. If they can now extend this kind of informal but extremely profound partnership (I think of it as “symbiotic”) to India next, then the BRICS will have a formidable future (especially after the Brazilian people give the boot to Bolsonaro and his US patrons). Should that fail and should India chose to remain outside this unique relationship, then the SCO will become the main game in town. And yes, Macron is spot on: China and, especially, Russia have a fundamentally different worldview and, unlike the western one, theirs does have “much stronger political” goals (Macron used the word “aspirations”), “a real philosophy and imagination” which the West has lost, and not just a “little bit” but, I would argue, completely. But one way or the other, and for the first time in 1000 years, the future of our planet will not be decided anywhere in the West, not in Europe (old or “new”), but in Asia, primarily by the Russian-Chinese alliance. As I explained here, the AngloZionist Empire is probably the last one in history, definitely the last western one.

Now we should not be naïve here, Macron did not suddenly find religion, grow a conscience or suddenly become an expert on international relations. There is, of course, a cynical reason why he is changing his tune. In fact, there are several such reasons. First, it appears that the on and off bromance between Macron and Trump is over. Second, all of Europe is in free fall socially, economically and, of course, politically. And with a total nutcase in power in London dealing with Brexit and with Angela Merkel’s apparently never-ending political agony, it is only logical for a French head of state to try to step in. Furthermore, while I have always said that Russia is not part of Europe culturally and spiritually, Russia is very much part of Europe geographically, economically and politically and there is simply no way for any imaginable alliance of European states to save Europe from its current predicament without Russian help. Like it or not, that is a fact, irrespective of whether politician or commentator X, Y or Z realizes this or not. Macron probably figured out that the so-called “East Europeans” are nothing but cheap prostitutes doing whatever Uncle Shmuel wants them to do, Germany is collapsing under the weight of Merkel’s “brilliant” emigration policy while the UK under BoJo is busy trying to self-destruct at least as fast as the USA under Trump. Macron is right. If united, Russia and France could build a much safer Europe than the one we see slowly and painfully dying before our eyes today. But he is also wrong if he thinks that Russia can be “re-invited” back into the AngloZionist sphere of influence. In that context, Putin’s reply to the question of whether Russia was willing to return to the G8 is very telling: first he said that if the G7 wants to come back to Russia, Putin would welcome that, but then he also added that the G7/8 is useless without, yes, you guessed it, China and India.

It will be interesting to see if the current G7 will ever agree to mutate into a new G10 which would make Russia, China and India the most powerful block (or voting group) of this new forum. I personally doubt it very much, but then they are becoming desperate and Macron’s words seem to be indicating that this option is at least being discussed behind closed doors. Frankly, considering how quickly the G7 is becoming utterly irrelevant, I expect it to be gradually phased out and replaced by the (objectively much more relevant) G20.

Finally, there are Trump’s efforts into getting Russia back into the G8 which are very transparently linked to the current trade war and geostrategic competition between the US and China. The offer is useless to Russia, just like the return to PACE, but Russia does not want to needlessly offend anybody and that is why Putin did not publicly rebuff Trump or directly refuse to come to Miami: instead, he approved of the general concept, but offered a better way to go about it. Typical Putin.

Conclusion: Macron reads the writing on the wall
Whatever his political motives to say what he said, Macron is no idiot and neither are his advisors. Neither is this a “one off” thing. The French meant every word Macron spoke and they are putting everybody on notice (including the Ukrainians, the US, the EU and the Russians, of course). In fact, Macron has already invited Putin to participate in a Normandy Format meeting in Paris in the very near future. If that meeting eventually does take place, this will mean that the organizers gave Putin guarantees that this will not just be the usual kaffeeklatsch and that some serious results will finally be obtained. That, in turn, means that somebody – probably the French – will have the unpleasant task of telling the Ukrainians that the party is over and that they now need to get their act together and start implementing the Minsk Agreements, something which Zelenskii might or might not try to do, but which the real gun-toting Ukronazis will never accept. Thus, if the West is really serious about forcing Kiev to abide by the Mink Agreements, then the West has to finally give-up its self-defeating russophobic hysteria and substantially change their tone about the Ukraine. To invite Putin to Paris just to tell him again that Russia (which is not even a party to the Minsk Agreements) “must do more” makes zero sense. Therefore, all the other parties will have to come to terms with reality before inviting Putin. Apparently, this might be happening in Paris. As for Trump, he just offered to mediate (if asked to do so) between Russia and the Ukraine.

It shall be extremely interesting to see if this Normandy Format meeting does actually take place and what role, if any, Trump and the USA will play behind the scenes. We shall then know if Macron’s epiphany was just a one-time fluke or not.

The Saker

PS: the latest rumor from the Ukraine: Zelenskii supporters are saying that Poroshenko is preparing a coup against Zelenskii and that he is preparing a special force of Ukronazi deathsquads to execute that coup. Dunno about a real coup, but they have already blocked the Rada. Never a dull moment indeed…

[Hervé]

Chaos erupts in Nantes amid 44th week of protests against Macron's economic policies

RT
Sun, 15 Sep 2019 08:36 UTC

A protester throws a projectile during clashes with police during anti-government demonstration in Nantes, France on September 14, 2019. © AFP / Sebastien Salom-Gomis

Yellow Vests protests against President Emmanuel Macron's economic polices hit France for the 44th weekend in a row. It got especially heated in Nantes where clashes between police and protesters left several people injured.

Some 1,800 people took to the streets of the city on Saturday, according to police figures. This week, the Yellow Vests tried a different approach to the protests, avoiding the city's center and hitting different routes instead.

At some point protesters engaged in scuffles with law enforcement. The police extensively used tear gas to disperse the crowds, footage from the scene shows.

Water cannons were also deployed.

The protesters pelted police with various objects and even used Molotov cocktails.

Although most of the demonstrators marched peacefully, there were around 400 people from the so called 'black block' attacking and damaging various venues, including a local McDonalds, smashing bus stops and setting dumpsters on fire.

© AFP / Sebastien Salom-Gomis

At least two protesters and four police officers were injured in the scuffles.

A protester trips a French gendarme. © AFP / Sebastien Salom-Gomis

Ahead of the rally, the police managed to seize a whole crate of Molotov cocktails, a handful of firecrackers and a haul of around one hundred umbrellas - which come in handy to hide from water cannons and tear gas canisters.

In fact, many things get one in trouble during the protests, as one man was detained by police apparently over merely carrying a tennis racket. During protests such sports implements are known to be used to hurl tear gas grenades back at police.

The protests were also held in other major cities across France. In Lyon, the gathering was also marred by scuffles with the police, that deployed tear gas to disperse the protesters.

Protesters cover their faces in a cloud of tear gas in Lyon, France on September 14, 2019. © AFP / Olivier Chassignole

In Toulouse, the yellow vests occupied a train station, getting onto the tracks in an attempt to disrupt the railroad.

[Hervé]

...

...............................

Ian56‏ @Ian56789

Thread:

Macron Regime Forces swarm #Paris ahead of the 45th #GiletsJaunes protests today.
People are already being arrested. The threat of Police Violence is heavy in the air
Vive les #GiletsJaunes for their fortitude & endurance
Vive la France! #Acte45

Anne-Marie GIBERT [COLOR=rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.85)]

[video at: https://twitter.com/i/status/1175328997468704769 ]

2:05 AM - 21 Sep 2019

Ian56‏ @Ian56789

Massive crowd of #GiletsJaunes protesters sing and wave French Flags to protest Macron's disastrous policies in #Luxembourg gardens. #Acte45 #GiletsJaunes #Paris

la chouette

[video at: https://twitter.com/la_chouet/status...79600504958976 ]

5:12 AM - 21 Sep 2019

[Hervé]

Why France’s 20- and 30-somethings hate the Yellow Vests

by Ramin Mazaheri for The Saker Blog
September 27, 2019

It’s a question which needs be asked, but we can’t wait for the French media to answer it because they have almost totally stopped reporting on the anti-government movement for several months.

The first poll on the Yellow Vests since late March (“!”, and then “?”) finally came out two weeks ago. It was so eagerly gobbled up by a French media hungry for objective knowledge on the Yellow Vests that as many as two media talked about it. I missed it because I have already wasted a minimum of 3 hours of my life doing fruitless Google news searches for “Yellow Vest poll”.

The headline of Ouest-France newspaper, by far the most read Francophone paper in the world, was typically “negative-no-matter-what”: “A majority of France have had enough of the Yellow Vests”.

That’s a pretty bold statement considering that this majority is just 52%, which must be within the poll’s margin of error.

The headline could have fairly been: “A majority of France still supports the Yellow Vests despite all the state repression and media negativity”. Considering what a historic anti-government movement this is – the French have just avoided a 9th consecutive austerity budget expressly because of the Yellow Vests – objective journalism would have prioritised the “support” angle and not the “oppose” angle.


More poll tidbits to munch on for those who care about public opinion (which means you are obviously not a Western politician):

Vesters are now openly opposed by retirees (63%), executives/management (61%) and technicians/professionals (58%). However, they are openly supported by workers (52%), rural citizens (47%), the National Front party (64%) and the (true, not far-) leftist Unsubmissive France party (80%). Per the pollers: “The Yellow Vests remain popular with those segments of the population which were at the origin of the movement.”

One final poll petit-four: 93% of those who support Macron’s party are against the Yellow Vests, while another recent poll showed that 98% of Macronistas think he is doing a good job. What this reminds us is that there is a hard-core Macronista base for whom he can absolutely do no wrong. I assumed such adoration was limited to 60+ year old single women dreaming of a winter-spring romance (an incredibly winter-spring romance), but it is a solid quarter of the population. This rate of genuine support is actually unchanged since the election in 2017: a quarter of France just adores this guy, no matter what, and apparently no amount of violence can change that.

Let’s get to the point of this column
One segment of society which does not support the Yellow Vests is the 20- and 30-something crowd.

This is based on my regular attendance at Yellow Vest demonstrations, and also many months of informally talking with this age group (of which I am quite nearly a part of). I’d like to pass on what I think are the reasons for their opposition:

• We must remember that the Yellow Vests are primarily a middle-aged phenomenon – the average of those marching is probably 50 years old. This age group is the one which is most motivated because they are nearing retirement and they see just how bad austerity will make things for them. This generation will not do anywhere as well as their parents, and they are rightfully upset – they really had no chance to “succeed”: they found jobs (or can’t find any job) which will provide the personal nest egg which is required in the Anglo-Saxon system, which is the system that neoliberal austerity seeks to disruptively impose on France. The main problem is that French wages have always been far lower, and taxes quite higher, than their Western counterparts because the deal was that they’d have low wages but a much better social safety net. This deal has been terminated during the Age of Austerity, and Macron’s absurd, inhuman “one-size-fits-all” pension reform is the coup de grâce. Therefore, this segment of society – not professional, working class, low savings, not university educated, not thrilled with their job but still as vital to the functioning of society as you or me – is leading the revolt because they know that if they don’t… they will be working their low-paying job until they are 64 or their knees give out (whichever comes first), and then have a pittance of a pension to boot.

• What about the young adult Parisians? Firstly, this is an old persons’ town – you have to have money to live within its highway walls. But are you talking about those who were raised in Paris? I guess you mainly referring to those who grew up in the rich Western areas – that place I go and look at like a tourist (seems nice over there), with all their fancy little kids and quiet and trees. People who grow up in these areas are rich – these are the very Macronista urbanites who are young, terrifying and want to eat their elders. They view Macron as their leader, God and role model. So young adult Parisians manning the barricades? Fuggetaboutit. This holds true for all of France’s cities.

• What about the working class adult urbanites? Like in my area? Do you mean the Chinese, the Hasidic or the Arabs? All of these worker bees crammed into small, noisy apartments were likely turned off by the immediate and totally false smear that the Yellow Vests were racist. Also, the working class is often quite busy working.

• What about the poor city suburbs, surely they are sympathetic? Indeed, the poor Muslim, Arab and Black areas are all totally sympathetic to the Vesters. However, they are not stupid – they know that if they go to the Vester demonstrations in any city the cops will absolutely, undoubtedly wage police brutality on them first. This truth is so very, very, very self-evident to Muslims and people of Color that we cannot even imagine that many of you cannot accept this, and we just turn and walk away when we start getting blamed for not leading the Yellow Vest charge. People from these areas have been totally marginalised… but when you need cannon fodder, then we get an engraved invitation? LOL, thanks, but no thanks. Nobody cares about the opinion of these areas/groups anyway, but I can report that the Vesters do indeed have their sincere moral support. Finally, Muslims and Blacks probably compose around 5-8% of France – if they did join en masse only 1 out of every 20 Vesters or so would be a non-White, anyway.

And here is the main reason why French Whites – who are the majority among the 20- and 30-somethings in France – do not support the Vesters.

• I was surprised at the immediate antipathy for the Yellow Vests among the young White French adults I talked with in Paris, but who are the young White French adults in Paris? These are the primarily the people from small towns who are creative types and who move to the urban areas in order to flee the small-town culture, people, mores and activities they found so very stifling. The Yellow Vests are a primarily rural movement, and – as I have described their primary social-class makeup – France’s young urbanites seem to view the Vesters as the older classmates/bullies who made fun of them for being arty and weird and urbanite-aping back in their small town – many 30-somethings in Paris moved expressly to get away from these types! Therefore, it is unthinkable for them to side with the Yellow Vests, and after only the very first couple of demonstrations Parisian young adults seemingly all turned against the Yellow Vests, in my experience. These Parisian young adults see a faded, generic, poorly drawn forearm tattoo on many a Vester, and then they look at their own fancy tattoo (a Chinese character, a magic symbol, or some emblem of personal motivation or social defiance) and they think: “To hell with those White Trash – I never got invited to their parties and I want to lead a different lifestyle.”

So there you have it in a nutshell. Many French people actually made the move to the big city from the small town because they fundamentally resent the people who primarily compose the Yellow Vests.

There are other reasons:

• Paris attracts young adults from all over the world – where are they? The Western expatriates living in France feel similarly or even more hostile than their French counterparts, in my experience. Many absurdly view Yellow Vests as outright reactionaries, mainly because they have absolutely no idea what the hell they are talking about when it comes to “French culture + class struggle”. These Western White expats simplistically view Vesters as extensions of their own “Brexiteers”, “basket of deplorable American rednecks”, etc., and do not feel the need to dig any deeper than such a superficial comparison – many of these immigrants would have a hard time understanding even if they tried, such is their unfamiliarity with a class lens. Bottom line: they are not about to stop the “Western expat party” and get tear gassed for any Yellow Vest, that is certain.

• France, contrary to Anglophone media claims, is not a socialist country: aristocratic snobbery permeates and runs amok in the culture here as only it can on the Old Continent. It’s worse in Paris, but “I reject you first” is the initial war a French person declares upon meeting someone. The young adult urbanites in France have not at all been inculcated with class warfare and class solidarity, but identity politics: they identify with their fellow “bobos” (bourgeois bohemians), hipsters, artists and pretty young people. Have a shoulder tattoo I can’t see and not a wrist tattoo? Not cool enough. Next please. Swipe left. Je m’en fous.

• France was an individualist country even before the rise of neoliberalism, I imagine, but rapacious neoliberalism surely leads to a fundamental lack of sympathy: Young urbanites here simply cannot imagine – nor do they try to – the grim future which 50-year old Yellow Vesters know to be a rapidly encroaching fact.

• Furthermore, young people are dumb, (If you were paying me for this I’d look it up and provide the link but you’ll have to just take my word for it): I read a recent poll which said that something like 10% of young French people think Macron’s radical reforms will not actually reduce their own pensions, LOL! Sure… you’ll be the one who is special. Vesters are old enough to know better to get involved with this movement.

Given all these facts, we must realise that these urbanites want revenge on the class which primarily composes the Vesters – they don’t want to see them win, and they have repeatedly told me they don’t want them marching anymore in their hipster paradise areas of Paris.

I use the strong word “revenge” because I have found this to be a hugely important motivator in Western capitalist society. These young (smug, stupid, classist, fake-leftist/rabid neoliberal) anti-Yellow Vesters want not only a huge chunk of the pie, but they also to show all the people they left behind what a big shot they lost.

This is not hyperbole – this is what “competition” truly is. Western society (being anti-socialist and rabidly individualist) is fundamentally predicted on competition, and thus these types of feelings can be found plastered on billboards as a form of encouragement.

Finally, it is not “cool” to be a Vester in the French mainstream, and 20- and 30-somethings in the West prize “cool” above all. If you think famous actors, musicians, artists, thinkers, ballplayers, etc. are showing up/have ever showed up to Yellow Vest demonstrations… you must think these people don’t fear losing their social status more than anything – then they would have to get a real job.

“But Ramin,” you object, “how can cool people not be at the Yellow Vest demonstrations when YOU are there?”

Thank you. It seems paradoxical, indeed, but there’s an easy explanation: I turn 42 next week.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Hervé (here)
Why France’s 20- and 30-somethings hate the Yellow Vests

Thank you! I have to say, that's really, really interesting.

[Hervé]

Alain Soral Sentenced to 2 Years Jail for Sharing “Gilets-Jaunes” Anti-Rothschild Rap Video

By Guillaume Durocher
September 26, 2019

He Could Pay Over €170,000 in Fines and Compensation

The French civic-nationalist and anti-Zionist intellectual Alain Soral was sentenced to two years prison last week for sharing a rap video entitled “Gilets-Jaunes.”

The music clip (watch it while you still can) is typical of the Yellow Vests in denouncing French media, political, and financial elites, and making a plea for direct democracy, notably the famous proposed Citizen’s Initiative Referendum (Référendum d’Initiative Populaire or RIC).

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=rxFchAvqwK4

The video also argues for the abrogation of the banking law of June 1973 – known as the “Pompidou-Rothschild Act,” after the then French president and the investment bank he used to work for. Critics claim the law has reduced France to debt slavery by making her dependent on financial markets for loans rather than self-finance through the national bank.

The video also features a pyre where various figures are symbolically burned: President Emmanuel Macron, various media (TF1, Le Monde, BFMTV . . .), the Rothschild bank, and, most problematically, powerful elite Jews (Jacques Attali, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Patrick Drahi).

The rapper points out: “And if we talk about the media and Macron, we’ll have to talk about Drahi. His bank account is in Israel and he pays no taxes here.” Drahi, a Franco-Israeli-Portuguese oligarch born in Morocco and residing in Switzerland, has bought up large swathes of French media in recent years.

In case the denunciation of Jewish-globalist and Jewish-Zionist power elites in the financial and media spheres were not explicit enough, the video also states: “We’re not talking about a so-called oppressed minority. We’re talking about the deliberately neglected majority [of workers, farmers, and pensioners] . . . France has decided to free itself from the Rothschilds.”

President Macron speaking before the powerless lobby you will be destroyed for criticizing.

As the words “so-called oppressed minority” are uttered, images are flashed of the annual dinner of the CRIF – the influential official French Jewish lobbying organization – an event where the crème de la crème of the French politico-media elite regularly come to genuflect.

The rapper lauds the “prolo patriotes” (patriotic workers) who are rising up and denounces the oligarchic “parasites” who are enriching themselves all the while demanding austerity from the masses. The song concludes: “The French are fed up with these parasites. The French are fed up, it ain’t racist. National uprising!” The author is a certain “Rude Goy.”

There are various pro-Arab and pro-Muslim symbols included. Drahi is mentioned while a pro-Palestine hoody is flashed. The rapper wears a fashionable keffiyeh. As a mainstream journalist anxiously warns that the French State is bordering on collapse in the face of the protesters, the rapper answers: “Inshallah” (God willing in Arabic).

The video then artfully interweaves mainstream yellow-vest concerns about French democracy’s subversion by high finance with a denunciation of the specific role of Jewish elite power in this process. There is no blanket anti-Semitism or attack on day-to-day Jews.

The images of Jewish oligarchs and intellectuals being symbolically burned – along side mainstream media and the French president, mind you – angered a certain number of Jewish activist and (mostly Jewish-run) “anti-racist” organizations. I imagine these images felt downright Auschwitzian to them.

The groups sued Soral for “granting enormous visibility to this video by publishing it on his website” and thus promoting the anti-Semitic theory of a “Jewish conspiracy.”

Note Soral did not create the video: he merely shared it on his website, as he did innumerable other yellow-vest videos. One wonders if linking to the video is also considered a criminal act. Probably not, or only if your name is Alain Soral. This tells you something about the legal arbitrariness of these censorious laws and liberticidal ethnic lobbies.

Soral will also be requires to pay a 45,000-euro fine and tens of thousands of euros in “compensation” to the various aggrieved Jewish and/or professional “anti-racist” activist organizations. That’s called good business.

Coincidentally, or not, the bank BNP Paribas simply closed the bank account of Égalité & Réconciliation, Alain Soral’s influential counter-cultural organization.

Presumably the court decision will be appealed. However, the noose is apparently tightening around Soral. Earlier this year, he was also sentenced to a year in jail for sharing a cartoon highlighting various holocaust hoaxes (lampshades, soap, etc).

Soral has always said that true intellectuals must inevitably come up against the authorities sooner or later. An intellectual who really stands up for his ideals “passera par la case prison” (will go to jail, do not pass-go), as Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Charles Maurras did.

Whatever happens, more people than ever are being sensitized to a certain certain ethnic group’s considerable power and privilege by the very fact of jailing a French intellectual on their lobbying organizations’ behalf.


Related:

• Russia refuses to comply with IMF's demands to put surplus money into other countries' financial systems

• Look who's paranoid now!

[Hervé]

'March of anger': Thousands of French police protest over suicides, working conditions and pension reforms

RT
Wed, 02 Oct 2019 17:53 UTC

© Reuters/Christian Hartmann

The center of Paris was paralyzed by the largest rally of police officers in years; they say they are in total despair after being abandoned by the government.

More than 20,000 police officers of different ranks - from operatives and commissioners to administrative staff - marched from Bastille to the Republic Square in the French capital on Wednesday, according to organizers.

They chanted slogans and carried union flags and banners with messages such as: "National Police are angry" and "Hands off the cops" among others. Flares were also lit, much to the delight of the crowd.

Several officers also brought a cardboard replica of a coffin with them to the protests to commemorate their colleagues who reportedly took their own lives this year due to tough working conditions. There have already been some 52 suicides among French police officers in 2019, local media says. Meanwhile, the annual average is standing at 42.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=h6RIKlLN_xs

Police have been on high alert since November 2015 when more than 130 people were killed in terrorist attacks in Paris and the pressure on the force has been mounting since.

France hosted the UEFA Euro 2016, which required unprecedented security measures. Since last year, there have also been weekly Yellow Vest protests in cities across the country which have frequently spiraled out of control.

The officers claim the government still owes them for 23 million hours of overtime, which it had agreed to pay them last year. They also say their job has become more dangerous, as the number of attacks against police rose by 15 percent in 2019.

© Reuters/Christian Hartmann

A parliamentary report earlier this year raised the alarm over numerous police stations in France in poor condition and officers having to use old cars.

Another sticking point is the planned pension reform, which, the officers fear, could deprive them of their traditional perks. Interior Minister, Christophe Castaner, vowed that "dangerousness of their profession" will be taken into consideration, but said nothing about the police staff occupying non-operative jobs.

[Bluegreen]

Il a un bon rythme et vous pouvez danser

Posted by Hervé (here)

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=rxFchAvqwK4

[Hervé]

First in a decade: Yellow Vests end French austerity, finally


By Ramin Mazaheri for The Saker Blog
October 02, 2019

The Yellow Vests forced the French government to not present an austerity-laden annual budget for the first time in a decade.

You should be saying, “Wow, that is a historic achievement.”

Please be clear: this is joyous, uplifting, pro-democracy, once-in-a-decade good news! An end to austerity is why France elected Francois Hollande in 2012, whose slogan was, “The change is now” – the “change” was away from far-right, neoliberal austerity.

The entire history of austerity is pretty pathetic, and I have covered it daily from the beginning:

It was first a screaming conservative-capitalist reaction to the huge plunge in global economic growth. When the hysteria wore off and some sort of logical, verbal explanation became required, they decided it was necessary to appease the “confidence fairy” of investors. When people tired of belt-tightening to avoid giving financial speculators a bit of indigestion, it became necessary in order to appease Brussels’ totally arbitrary “3% fiscal deficit rule”. And then…people just stopped talking about it altogether, as I wrote. Austerity went on so long it was just viewed as unstoppable and vitally necessary – the idea of a spending program instead of spending cuts stopped being discussed after Marine Le Pen lost the presidential election. Emmanuel Macron’s first budget was the 2nd-harshest in postwar French history.

Given these reminders, we should ask in 2019: How many millions and millions of people have marched in France in the past nine years to end austerity, either openly or indirectly?

They all failed – the Yellow Vests did not.

Furthermore, anyone who thought the Yellow Vests are useless have been proven totally wrong. The Yellow Vests have proven themselves to be more powerful than any other group – unions, NGOs, political parties, and also even Brussels, central bankers, the investor class, the mainstream media – because the French government ultimately bowed to the demands of the Yellow Vest demands and not those other groups.

The French government openly said that that a full decade of budget austerity was not possible in the context of massive social protest. No Yellow Vests? Tenth year of austerity, no doubt about it. Far-right Le Figaro’s headline read, “A 2020 budget to not wake up the Yellow Vests.” Make no mistake: the government did not derail budget austerity because they finally listened to the Yellow Vests, but because they fear them.

So… voila. The Yellow Vests ARE good, ARE effective, ARE anti-capitalist (at least neoliberal capitalism), and the previous 10+ months of repression have NOT been ineffective, 10+ months of sacrifices and risk have NOT been wasted, 10+ months of anti-mainstream democratic involvement have NOT gone unnoticed and unheeded.

Austerity: same as it ever was… only effective at increasing inequality
To remind those who may need a concise refresher of what budget austerity is…

Budget austerity has three primary components: increased taxes on individuals and households, cuts to government services and decreased taxes on the wealthy and corporations. The goals are, in associated order: to weigh people down with so much debt as to make them fearful & compliant workers & citizens; to achieve the neoliberal/libertarian goal of reducing the government as much as possible, as only the government can provide socio-economic constraints on the 1%; to create profits for the 1%, which are going to “trickle down” at some unknown time (this hype – not hope – has been going on since Ronald Reagan).

What is the problem with austerity?

Well, morally (to take an economic tack never conceived in the West and in non-socialist inspired economies), taxing the poor to feed the rich is simply wrong.

However, putting morality aside, economic austerity is a guaranteed recipe for low growth and especially in the context of a global slowdown. Thus, it is ineffective, wasteful and increases lasting socioeconomic inequalities.

Since Lehman Brothers in 2007 there has been a global economic slowdown, but for some unknown reason I seem to be the only reporter who has talked about the undeniable, factual “Lost Decade” in the Eurozone (2008-17). Annual economic growth averaged 0.6% during this era, a rate worse than either of Japan’s two recent Lost Decades; it’s also 3.5 times less than the global average of 2.1% over this timeframe Thus, the idea that austerity has been a total failure cannot be denied no matter where your ideas lay on the economic spectrum.

We are now widely expecting not just a global economic slowdown but a global economic recession. The blame is absurdly laid at the feet of China – for daring to grow at 7% instead of 8% – when the obvious culprit is the enormous stagnant backwater that is Europe. They remain the weakest leak in the global macro-economy.

You are crazy if you think Yellow Vests – down to each man and woman – do not recognise these economic realities: they are living it. They even articulate it better than I do half the time.

Prior to the budget news, I wrote how the Yellow Vests had already stopped another far-right goal: the privatisation of Paris’ three airports. That’s a € 10 billion deal.

The total tax cuts are only €10 billion as well. €1 billion were the result of lowering the corporate tax rate 2% – no matter what, tax cuts for the wealthy/corporations occur with or without austerity.

The reality is that austerity continues, and I’ll explain why: Essentially, Macron didn’t want to waste his tiny amount of political capital by fighting for the small prize of austerity cuts. A much more lucrative prize – for the bosses and stockholders – is if he can successfully push through his backdoor raising of the retirement age to 64 as well as the shift to a universal, one-size-fits-all retirement system which even the mainstream media calls “radical”. And then after that, another radical reform to the unemployment system.

These reforms will effectively redistribute upwards hundreds and hundreds of billions in the medium term, and they gut what I call “the French bad example” – France’s social safety net is a lot like a Scandinavian country despite also being a Western imperialist nation.

Macron has now backed down on privatizing more state assets (which was done the most under the recently departed Jacques Chirac) and on an austerity budget – can the Yellow Vests stop his most sweeping “deforms” yet? The fights, strikes and protests began last month.

One thing is certain: the Yellow Vests have shown that persistence and bravery counts a lot in any fight.

Because the mainstream media is anti-Yellow Vest and pro-austerity, very few seem to have registered what the Yellow Vests have achieved. It’s surprising, because the word of the decade in France and Europe is undoubtedly “austerity”?

What’s certain is that the Yellow Vests have many goals which go beyond one year and 10 billion euros – regaining sovereignty from Brussels, leaving the Eurozone to gain economic control and, for many, kicking Macron out of office. These are the next, admittedly-huge steps, but the Yellow Vests have undoubtedly had a laser focus on them since last November.

Were you one of the tens of millions of Frenchmen whose life has been worsened by austerity? Thank a Yellow Vest for finally achieving what countless French marches and votes could not.

[Matthew]

I haven't been following the Yellow Vest phenomenon, but noticed this video report by Carl Benjamin

Editorial Censorship of the Yellow Vests

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=TKbgImLEJ4w

From 7 mins. onwards:

... What this can be called is editorial censorship; because one of the great tricks the media has learnt, and I'm gonna be honest it is the left wing media that learnt this first. But to be fair the right wing media probably does the same. But one of the great things the media has learnt is that you can control the narrative through editorial decisions, you don't even have lie about the things you are writing about, you can write entirely true statements and leave out other true statements that will provide extra context, or you can ignore a problem entirely, you can ignore civil unrest entirely; if people aren't in France how are they going to know? Well, thank God for social media but no wonder that's being censored out of existence, isn't it?

They know very well that they're doing it as well, according to Carlos Maza, ex-vox.com, ...well they call him a journalist, but I don't think I'd call him that, ...it's something they call Gate-keeping; they decide what's valuable and important, and what the public needs to know. ...

[Hervé]

France: More Death to Free Speech

by Guy Millière
October 13, 2019 at 5:00 am

• Defending someone who is accused of being a "racist" implies the risk of being accused of being a "racist" too. Intellectual terror reigns in France.

• France is moving from a "muzzled press to a muzzling press that destroys free speech". — Alain Finkielkraut, writer and philosopher.

• Writers other than Éric Zemmour have been hauled into court and totally excluded from all media, simply for describing reality.

• In a society where freedom of speech exists, it would be possible to discuss the use of these statements, but in France today, freedom of speech has been almost completely destroyed.

• Soon in France, no one will dare to say that any attack openly inspired by Islam has any connection with Islam.

(Images source: iStock)

On September 28, a "Convention of the Right" took place in Paris, organized by Marion Marechal, a former member of French parliament and now director of France's Institute of Social, Economic and Political Sciences. The purpose of the convention was to unite France's right-wing political factions. In a keynote speech, the journalist Éric Zemmour harshly criticized Islam and the Islamization of France. He described the country's "no-go zones" (Zones Urbaines Sensibles; Sensitive Urban Zones) as "foreign enclaves" in French territory and depicted, as a process of "colonization", the growing presence in France of Muslims who do not integrate.

Zemmour quoted the Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, who said that the no-go zones are "small Islamic Republics in the making". Zemmour said that a few decades ago, the French could talk freely about Islam but that today it is impossible, and he denounced the use of the "hazy concept of Islamophobia to make it impossible to criticize Islam, to reestablish the notion of blasphemy to the benefit of the Muslim religion alone..."

"All our problems are worsened by Islam. It is a double jeopardy.... Will young French people be willing to live as a minority on the land of their ancestors? If so, they deserve to be colonized. If not, they will have to fight ... [T]he old words of the Republic, secularism, integration, republican order, no longer mean anything ... Everything has been overturned, perverted, emptied of meaning."

Zemmour's speech was broadcast live on LCI television. Journalists on other channels immediately accused LCI of contributing to "hate propaganda". Some said that LCI should lose its broadcasting license. One journalist, Memona Hinterman-Affegee, a former member of France's High Council of Audiovisual Media (Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel), the body that regulates electronic media in France, wrote in the newspaper Le Monde:

"LCI uses a frequency which is part of the public domain and thus belongs to the entire nation ... LCI has failed in its mission and lost control of its program, and must be sanctioned in an exemplary manner".

The journalists of Le Figaro, the newspaper employing Zemmour, wrote a press release demanding his immediate dismissal. Calls heard on most radio and television stations for a total boycott of Zemmour stressed that he had been condemned several times for "Islamophobic racism".

Alexis Brézet, the managing editor of Le Figaro, said that he expressed his "disapproval" to Zemmour and reminded him of the need for "strict compliance with the law", but did not fire him. SOS Racisme, a left-wing movement created in 1984 to fight racism, launched a campaign to boycott companies publishing advertisements in Le Figaro and said that its aim was to coerce the management of the newspaper to fire Zemmour. The mainstream RTL radio station that employed Zemmour decided to terminate him immediately, saying that his presence on the air was "incompatible" with the spirit of living together "that characterizes the station".

A journalist working for RTL and LCI, Jean-Michel Aphatie, said that Zemmour was a "repeat offender" who should not be able to speak anywhere and compared him to the anti-Semitic Holocaust denier Dieudonné Mbala Mbala:

"Dieudonné is not allowed to speak in France. He must hide. That is fine, since he wants to spread hatred. Éric Zemmour should be treated the same way."

Caricatures were published depicting Zemmour in a Waffen SS uniform. Another journalist, Dominique Jamet, apparently not seeing any problem comparing a Jew to a Nazi, said that Zemmour reminded him of Hitler's Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels. On the internet, death threats against Zemmour multiplied. Some posted the times Zemmour takes the subway, what stations, and suggested that someone push him under a train.

The French government officially filed a complaint against Zemmour for "public insults" and "public provocation to discrimination, hatred or violence". The investigation was handed over to the police. Someone in France accused of "public provocation to discrimination, hatred or violence" can face a sentence of one year in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros ($50,000).

Whoever reads the text of Zemmour's speech on September 28 can see that the speech does not incite discrimination, hatred or violence, and does not make a single racist statement: Islam is not a race, it is a religion.

Zemmour's speech describes a situation already discussed by various writers. Zemmour is not the first to say that the no-go zones are dangerous areas the police can no longer enter, or that they are under the control of radical imams and Muslim gangs who assault and drive out non-Muslims. Zemmour is not the only writer to describe the consequences of the mass-immigration of Muslims who do not integrate into French society. The pollster Jerome Fourquet, in his recent book, The French Archipelago, points out that France today is a country where Muslims and non-Muslims live in separate societies "hostile to each other". Fourquet also emphasizes that a growing number of Muslims living in France say they want to live according sharia law and place sharia law above French law. Fourquet notes that 26% of French Muslims born in France want to obey only Sharia; for French Muslims born abroad, the figure rises to 46%. Zemmour merely added that what was happening is a "colonization".

Zemmour had been hauled into court many times in the recent past and has had to pay heavy fines. On September 19, he was fined 3,000 euros ($3,300) for "incitement to racial hatred" and "incitement to discrimination", for having said in 2015 that "in countless French suburbs where many young girls are veiled, a struggle to Islamize territories is taking place".

In a society where freedom of speech exists, it would be possible to discuss the use of these statements, but in France today, freedom of speech has been almost completely destroyed.

Writers other than Zemmour have been hauled into court and totally excluded from all media, simply for describing reality. In 2017, the great historian Georges Bensoussan published a book, A Submissive France, as alarming as what Zemmour said a few days ago. Bensoussan, in an interview, quoted an Algerian sociologist, Smaïn Laacher, who had said that "in Arab families, children suckle anti-Semitism with their mother's milk". Laacher was never indicted. Bensoussan, however, had to go to criminal court. Although he was acquitted, he was fired by the Paris Holocaust Memorial, which until then had employed him.

In 2011, another author, Renaud Camus, published a book, The Great Replacement. In it, he talked about the decline of Western culture in France and its gradual replacement by Islamic culture. He also noted the growing presence in France of a Muslim population that refuses to integrate, and added that demographic studies show a birth rate higher in Muslim families than in non-Muslim ones.

Immediately, commentators in the media accused Camus of "anti-Muslim racism" and called him a "conspiracy theorist". His demographic studies were omitted. He had never mentioned either race or ethnicity, yet was nonetheless described as a defender of "white supremacism" and instantly excluded from radio and television. He can no longer publish anything in a French newspaper or magazine. In fact, he has no publisher at all anymore; he has to self-publish. In debates in France, he is referred to as a "racist extremist," and credited with saying things he never said. He is then denied the possibility of answering.

The difference between Eric Zemmour and Georges Bensoussan or Renaud Camus is that Zemmour had published books that became best sellers before he talked explicitly about the Islamization of France.

Those who have destroyed the careers of other writers for stating unfashionable facts have been doing their best to condemn Zemmour to the same fate. So far, they have not succeeded, so they have now decided to launch a major offensive against him. What they clearly want his personal destruction.

Zemmour is not only risking a professional ban; like many other writers being silenced by an intolerant "lynch mob", he is risking his life.

Almost no one shows any interest in defending him, just as no one defended Georges Bensoussan or Renaud Camus. Defending someone accused of being a "racist" implies the risk of being accused of being a "racist" too. Intellectual terror now reigns in France.

A few days ago, the writer and philosopher Alain Finkielkraut said that suggesting that "Islamophobia is the equivalent of yesterday's anti-Semitism" is scandalous. He said that "Muslims do not risk extermination" and that no one should "deny that today's anti-Semitism is Arab Muslim anti-Semitism." He added that France is moving from a "muzzled press to a muzzling press that destroys free speech".

France, wrote Ghislain Benhessa, a professor at the University of Strasbourg, is no longer a democratic country and gradually become something very different:

"Our democratic model which was based on the free expression of opinions and the confrontation of ideas is giving way to something else ... Relentless moral condemnations infect the debates and dissenting opinions are constantly deemed 'nauseating', 'dangerous', 'deviant' or 'retrograde', and therefore the elements of language repeated ad nauseam by official communicators will soon be the last words deemed acceptable. Lawsuits, charges of indignity and proclamations of openness are about to give birth to the evil twin of openness: a closed society."

On October 3, five days after Zemmour's speech, four police employees were murdered in Paris police headquarters by a man who had converted to Islam. The murderer, Mickaël Harpon, had gone every week to a mosque where an imam, who lives in a no-go zone ten miles north of Paris, made radical remarks. Harpon had been working at police headquarters for 16 years. He had recently shared on social networks a video showing an imam calling for jihad, and saying that "the most important thing for a Muslim is to die as a Muslim".

Harpon's colleagues said that he had been delighted by the 2015 jihadist attacks in France in 2015, and said they had reported "signs of radicalization" to no avail. The government's first reaction had been to say that the murderer was "mentally disturbed" and that the attack had no connection with Islam. French Minister of the Interior Christophe Castaner simply stated that there had been "administrative dysfunctions," and acknowledged that the killer had access to files classified "secret".

A month before that, on September 2, an Afghan man who had the status in France of a political refugee, slit the throat of a young man and injured several other people in a street in Villeurbanne, a suburb of Lyon. He announced that the fault of those he killed or injured was that they did "not read the Koran". The police immediately stated that he was mentally ill and that his attack had nothing to do with Islam.

Soon in France, no one will dare to say that any attack openly inspired by Islam has any connection with Islam.

Today, there are more than 600 no-go zones in France. Every year, hundreds of thousands immigrants coming mainly from Muslim countries, settle in France and add to the country's Muslim population. Most of those who preceded them have not integrated.

Since January 2012, more than 260 people in France have been murdered in terrorist attacks, and more than a thousand wounded. The numbers may increase in the coming months. The authorities will still call the attackers "mentally ill".

Dr. Guy Millière, a professor at the University of Paris, is the author of 27 books on France and Europe.

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• Look who's paranoid now!

[Hervé]

Police blast French firefighters with water cannons during protest over working conditions

RT
Tue, 15 Oct 2019 17:29 UTC

Firefighters protesting in Paris, France on October 15, 2019 © Reuters / Charles Platiau

French riot police have turned water cannons on some of the thousands of firefighters who are marching through Paris to demand better resources in order to tackle the increasing number of forest fires each year.

Police have also reportedly fired tear gas at the demonstrators.

Firefighters are demonstrating against a number of key concerns, chiefly government policies on resources for their sector, funding problems, and difficult working conditions.

"Police fire water cannon at firefighters #Paris"

Footage from the protests show riot police and protesters squaring up to one another in some parts of Paris, while water cannons were deployed to push firefighters back and clear streets.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=MO3GhmZoiG8

Don't play with fire: French firefighters protest low pay & difficult working conditions in Paris

[Hervé]

...

[BMJ]

Starts at 1.30 minutes Dr Steve speaks of some positive backlash against Macron in a recent poll favouring Marine Le Pen, and draws similarities between Matteo Salvini rise in Italian politics to Marine Le Pen's possible rise to president.

BOMBSHELL POLL: Macron LOSES to Marine Le Pen for FIRST TIME!!!

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=t7FPYs9af4g

Dr. Steve Turley

Related Article: https://www.express.co.uk/news/world...ce-Le-Pen-news

[Hervé]

'No farm, no food, no future!': Farmers clog traffic in Hamburg with 4,000 tractors, reject 'scapegoating' by govt

RT
Fri, 15 Nov 2019 15:04 UTC

© Daniel Bockwoldt / dpa / Global Look Press

German farmers have flooded a city's streets with thousands of tractors, in protest against new environment regulations; they are accusing the government of bullying them as it conducts its fight for a 'green' economy.

Around 4,000 tractors arrived in the northern city of Hamburg on Thursday, where a meeting of regional environment ministers was being held. The kilometer-long convoys, stretching across the city's busy streets, caused "considerable traffic disruption" downtown, police said. The protesters also held a rally at the city's Gaensemarkt square.

Placards displayed on the tractors included slogans such as 'Cooperation instead of bans' and 'No farm, no food, no future.' Another popular protest motto - 'Just say 'Thank you' - was also heavily present. It conveys many farmers' desire for the government to appreciate what those in agriculture do for the economy, instead of engaging in what they see as bullying and scapegoating in the name of pursuing green goals.

The Environment Ministry has recently proposed a set of regulations what would limit the use of certain types of weed killers and fertilizers - in order to protect birds, insects and groundwater. The farmers fear this will tank their businesses and endanger their very livelihood.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=hXOq_cn5-X0

"The rules, which are coming from the German government, are so hard for us that we can't work on our farms." Klaus-Peter Lucht, Vice President of the regional Farmers Association, told RT. "We can't make good crops. We can't have good fodder for the dairy [cows]."

The farmers have also been accusing the government of crafting ever-more restrictive rules without consulting them first. Dirk Andresen, the spokesperson for the 'Land Creates Connection' movement, which organized the rally, said that Environment Minister Svenja Schulze has been avoiding frank dialogue.

"We invited her to come here but she is staying in Berlin and isn't speaking to us."

The situation, meanwhile, remains grim, Andersen said. He earlier warned that "things for us look so bad that the regional farming culture will disappear in the long run."

Similar 'tractor demos' have taken place in different parts of Germany in recent months. Around 1,000 of vehicles rolled through Bonn alone last month. Food and Agriculture Minister Julia Koeckner promised the farmers subsidies and the help with modernization but their anger does not seem to cool down just yet.

[Hervé]

...


The title says it all...

Hypocrisy much? Media glorifies 'medieval ingenuity' of Hong Kong protesters, while branding French Yellow Vests as 'rioters'

RT
Thu, 14 Nov 2019 23:02 UTC

Universities across Hong Kong are shuttering their doors and foreign students fleeing the chaos, as protesters hurl bricks, fire javelins, construct “watchtowers” and start fires on campuses.

As anti-China protesters transform Hong Kong universities into "weapons factories" and arm themselves with petrol bombs, mainstream media is increasingly impressed by their ingenious and "novel" methods of taking on riot police.

Universities across Hong Kong are shuttering their doors and foreign students fleeing the chaos, as protesters hurl bricks, fire javelins, construct "watchtowers" and start fires on campuses, insisting that they have "no choice" but to resort to the most violent methods.

Yet, mainstream coverage is focusing little on the danger posed to those caught in the crossfire and instead adopting a more admiring tone, which focuses on the students' ingenuity and the contents of their eclectic armories.

AFP, for instance, glorified the "novel arsenal" of weapons being used by students to "defend themselves" from police - from bow and arrows looted from sports stores to "giant makeshift catapults."

The news agency posted a video of black-masked activists hauling a massive hand-crafted wooden slingshot across a bridge, which was apparently being used to attack police officers from afar, seemingly in offense rather than defense.

AFP even produced a handy graphic showing photographs of all the types of weapons being used, including molotov cocktails and stockpiles of bricks ripped up from street pavements.

Meanwhile, The Daily Mail reported that the students are "combining new tactics with medieval tech" and The New York Times described a "hard-core activist" who set a man on fire during an argument.

Reuters detailed how protesters have "fashioned garden hose and nails into spikes to puncture car tires" and even wielded "electric saws" against officers during the "purposeful anarchy." Though, the news agency did acknowledge that the increasingly violent methods create "a new level of risk for all sides."

The coverage of Hong Kong provides a sharp contrast to that of the French Yellow Vest protests, during which anti-government activists were often disapprovingly branded as "rioters" in Western media. Similarly, despite their own brutal tactics, the media often sympathized with French police who were described as simply trying to restore public order.

The admiring coverage of the Hong Kong students' latest tactics is hardly surprising, given that CNN published a how-to guide for anti-China protesters only a few months ago, complete with a list of all the materials one would need to battle police on the streets.

Indeed the risk to civilians is huge. A 70-year-old street cleaner is in critical condition after being hit in the head with a brick while he was clearing the bricks protesters had left around the Sheung Shui metro station. Video footage shows the man lying on the ground unattended as protesters continue to fling objects at police.

Footage has also emerged of a "pro-democracy" mob violently attacking and beating a woman who disagreed with them on the street. Yet, there has been next to no Western coverage of these incidents as the media prefers to focus on the heroism of protesters.

[Hervé]

Water cannon deployed & cars flipped as tensions run high during Yellow Vests protests (VIDEOS)

RT
16 Nov, 2019 14:32
Updated 42 minutes agoGet short URL

Videos at: https://www.rt.com/news/473615-yello...paris-clashes/

Yellow Vest protesters were doused with water during clashes with police and rioting in downtown Paris, ahead of the first anniversary of their nationwide anti-government demonstrations.

The Place d’Italie circle in the city’s 13th arrondissement descended into chaos as protesters erected makeshift barricades and threw stones at police officers, which responded with tear gas and water cannon.

RT ✔ @RT_com

Police fire water cannon at #YellowVests protestors in Paris#YellowVests1YearOn

4:11 PM - Nov 16, 2019

The protesters overturned several parked cars and set vehicles on fire. A group of Yellow Vests attempted to block a fire truck from getting through to the barricades, which were also set ablaze.

A shopping mall and several bus stops were vandalized when the protesters vented their anger over what they deem as government inaction towards their demands, made throughout a full year of weekly demonstrations.

The windows of a bank were smashed during the rioting. The protester groups on social media had earlier called on their colleagues to occupy and block several stores, including the Ikea and Apple stores.

Police were also called in to disperse protesters who were blocking traffic along the Boulevard Peripherique, the city’s main ring ‘beltway’ road.

The authorities revoked their permit to stage a rally at the Place d’Italie, after the protests turned violent. Police had arrested 61 protesters by 3pm, Prefect of Paris Didier Lallement confirmed, adding that some officers were injured in the clashes.

The Yellow Vests first hit the streets of major French cities in November last year. The protesters were initially enraged by the planned fuel tax hikes but since grew to make other demands, such as the resignation of President Emmanuel Macron and improving the living standards.

[Hervé]

ICYMI: Yellow Vests’ anniversary marked with barricades, militarized police & furious protesters

RT
17 Nov, 2019 14:06
Updated 22 hours ago
Get short URL

(L) © Reuters / Charles Platiau; (R) © Global Look Press / imago-images.de / Alexis Sciard

Exactly a year since the Yellow Vest protests first broke out in France and spread across the nation to become a regular weekend tradition, the anniversary was marked by clashes and tear gas.

The boutiques and brasseries of central Paris remained largely untouched, although there was a clear nervousness that protesters would make it to the center of the city, and streets were barricaded and traffic blocked off from any likely targets.

The main area of confrontation on Saturday was in Place d’Italie with angry protesters, now largely without their signature gilets jaunes, facing off against heavily armored police who have developed their tactics over the last 12 months to try and contain the confrontation.

ICYMI’s Polly Boiko traveled to Paris to chart the rise of the gilets jaunes, and see exactly how their anniversary would be marked.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=wTp_X5lRwWM

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=DQseFljg9lA