Former Soros associate: Wilders and Le Pen elected, then chaos in the EU and global markets

[Sierra]

Posted by sheme (here)
BBC are trending towards Macron ( the Cabals insert) he doesn't even have a party so he will be relying on the power hungry hangers on to put themselves up for political selection , I find it hard to believe the French people are that stupid> so he should fail. He married his teacher who was married and had children, he worked for Rothschild in banking> need I say more. Look out France you have a Trecherous little git ready to do the cabals bidding.

And we have the doubly divorced (and adulterous, his second wife was his mistress) man who *also* joined the political machine with no background, one year before taking the presidency.

So how stupid are we?

It's an international sign of the times. People know politics don't work, but the choices offered ... *shudder*

I would (as some countries do) dearly love to have the option on our (paper, hardcopy ballots only please) ballot that says "None of the Above". Had that been the case, imo, I think no candidate would have won the presidency (55% of the eligible voters did not vote).

[Hervé]

Le Pen & Trump aren’t even close – are we stuck with Emmanuel Macr-Obama?

by Ramin Mazaheri April 24, 2017

It’s not [so much] that the National Front has changed since the 1980s – it’s that the other parties have changed so much for the worse.

C’est ça – that’s the point, as the French say, and which translates into English rather ineffectively.

Nobody should be happy about having to vote for Marine Le Pen, but please tell me what economic policies has Emmanuel Macron espoused which will end the systemic anti-Muslim, anti-Colored racism in France?

Got nuthin’? Of course you don’t.

And that’s why it is intolerable to hear French people say that a vote against Le Pen is a vote against racism: Racism is not just pretty words but concrete actions – it is the government installing a Black family next to yours to promote equality.

Don’t fancy that: congratulations, you are not a leftist!

But Emmanuel Macron is the epitome of today’s “fake leftism” – leftism which has a “non-racist” and “minority-friendly” face, but which is neutered of any economic or social policy that would actually improve the lives of any minority.

What good is having gay marriage in France if you can’t afford the marriage certificate because you are both unemployed?

Gay marriage typifies the misplaced priorities of the West’s fake leftists – the show over substance –which must make the Ho Chi Minh’s of the world roll their eyes and mutter, “This is the Left I sacrificed for?”

While preparing to cover the first round of France’s election I was reviewing five years of news reports I made while covering the Francois Hollande era for Press TV. I was reminded that November 7, 2012, is a day which must not be forgotten.

On that date Hollande announced he was breaking the essence of his electoral campaign: He cut taxes for the wealthy and on corporations, with financing to come from cuts to social services and a hike to the VAT (sales) tax, which is a regressive tax on the average person.

Here were the two lead paragraphs from that report:

“France has announced another round of austerity measures, in an unpredicted change-of-heart. Many expected a recent report calling for tax breaks for businesses to be ignored, but the Hollande administration will implement its neoliberal measures almost completely.”

“This plan corresponds with President Hollande’s promises,” said Jean-Marc Ayrault, France’s Prime Minister. “They are leftist because our objective is to create more jobs and to correct injustice,”

Also on November 7, 2012: Hollande, Ayrault and the Socialist Party unveiled the bill for gay marriage in Parliament.

The politics of distraction….

It’s disgusting for fake leftists like Francois Hollande, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to manipulate civil rights in order to push right-wing economics, but it works.

Today, not enough French voters saw through the masquerade of Macron, I’m sorry to report.

Even fewer remember the lessons from 5 years ago, it seems. How many journalists even helped people to remember?

However, all of France does remember perhaps the biggest-ever anti-government demonstrations which followed November 7, 2012: between 300,000 to 1 million people marched – not against austerity, but against gay marriage.

The politics of distraction causing misplaced priorities….

Then in January 2013 Hollande launched a war in Mali.

The politics of distraction, this time with dead Colored bodies….

Blame Hollande for a lot, including Macron
Hollande is the one who foisted Macron on us. He plucked him from the obscurity of the chorus, schooled him as his deputy secretary-general of Élysée Palace, appointed Minister of the Economy out of nowhere, and dubbed Macron to carry on his legacy.

Hollande admitted as much – he wants to see what he “built” continue. Many thought he was the only one who felt that way, and that’s why Hollande couldn’t even run for re-election.

So France elects a younger version of Hollande instead?

Once again I write these words: This ends the myth that the French are more sophisticated or intellectually cultivated than everyone else.

They couldn’t even see through Macron!

Anyone think Macron will be promoting peace? Or even “first do no harm” isolationism?

Le Pen might…if the military-industrial-financial-media-cultural complex doesn’t hound her with accusations of being a Russian spy like they did with Trump. Maybe she won’t even bomb Syria to get some breathing room from the fake leftist hordes in pussy hats.

Or maybe not, but Le Pen is, like Trump, the hope candidate in the French election because a vote for Macron is a vote for your own unemployment. Or your wife’s. Or your children’s.

One thing is sure: If they elect Macron the whole country will be crying in 6 months, just as France was with Hollande.

It’s simply staggering that he’s expected to win at a huge 65%-35% margin. Austerity has never worked anywhere, ever – even the IMF now admits that, only after decades of ruined lives – and yet the French are going to elect a guy who will enact 20% more austerity measures than Francois Hollande.

Trump and Le Pen are totally different
Let’s admit it – Trump is hilarious…by presidential standards.

His tweets, his self-importance, his shilling for Trump merchandise while meeting with the president of China – he’s what we’d all like to be if we had no conscience or sense of responsibility.

In France we call this person: Gerard Depardieu. Seriously! The French talk about how they secretly would love to be this fat, vineyard-owning glutton who shoots his mouth off however he wants – the guy got a Russian passport from Putin, after all!

But it’s simply not accurate to say that Trump and Le Pen are the same just because they both represent the White Trash Revolution sweeping the West.

Trump is hilarious and entertaining (and thousands of kilometers from where I live), yes, but hate for him is new: Le Pen and her family have been hated for decades.

The Le Pens have spent decades insulting Muslims, Roma, minorities – French people – and that simply cannot be erased.

French people repeatedly tell me: “Ramin, you are new here – you’ve only been here 8 years – you don’t understand the National Front.”

It’s possible, but I respond: Everybody I meet views the National Front in some sort of time warp. Only the cynics claim politics never changes: look closely and you see that the situation is different from 1980, or 2002, or 2007, etc. And they cannot see that five years of austerity will do far more collective damage than taking a risk on Le Pen.

Worse, they can’t understand that nearly all French parties are racist: Fillon wrote a book titled “Conquering Islamic Totalitarianism”; Melenchon is rabidly secular; the Socialists cracked down on the Roma worse than Sarkozy. Only the Communists got the brotherly love in France: Our 2 candidates only got 1.8% combined, and that is your fault and not ours.

Understand this well: Very few people are “happy” about Macron tonight. Think about it: 4 candidates all won nearly 20% of the vote – that’s unheard of! Macron eked out a miniscule victory – this is no sweeping mandate whatsoever.

And listen to me now and believe me later: This is not a “seismic shift” in French politics. Yes, the Gaullists didn’t advance for the first time ever, and the other mainstream party is absent too, but Macron has no party: he will necessarily staff his cabinet with the same old Socialists and Républicains; his neophyte party will necessarily make a coalition government with them in Parliament.

Macron is simply an Obama-style brand shift by the Empire. Like Obama he will be a smooth-faced handmaiden for Clintonian globalization. Nothing will change if Macron is elected.

However, I can report to you that this current of National Front fear/resentment/myopia is too strong for me to think that Le Pen will win: I have met so many people from across all boundaries who simply cannot, will not, ever vote for any Le Pen. Their dead ancestors practically forbid it.

Nobody can say the same about Trump.

So I am not hopeful that Le Pen will go the way of Brexit and Trump.

I write this while waiting to do interviews #9 and #10 on Round 1 Election Day for Press TV – maybe I’m not thinking clearly?

The worst has been seeing my grinning colleagues on France’s major media stations – they are thrilled to pieces. Of course, they’re on the wrong side of most of the issues. I’ll give them some credit: The #1 channel in France – TF1 – interviewed me as part of a piece about the view of foreign journalists and had the sense to make the lead quote, LOL. I coulda done it in French – they didn’t ask!

I have been repeatedly proven wrong about Macron
I was hoping the fawning, brain-dead, hugely pro-Macron French media would be wrong about “the Roths-churian candidate”, but it seems I was.

I never took him seriously because he’s such a seriously flawed candidate: 39 years old, Rothschild banker, Macron Law author who sparked 4-months of strikes and protests in 2016, 64-year old wife, heir to Hollande-ism, 7 step-grandkids, selling off industrial jewel Alstom to the Americans which only profited shareholders and not citizens, etc. and etc.

The guy is like Teflon! Nothing stuck! And why? He said nothing! He didn’t unveil his 60 billion in euros in austerity cuts (10 billion more than Hollande) until early March!

Robbers never tell you they are stealing, after all. But, beyond just the economy, Macron was as vague as possible – and it worked!

Well, now it’s up to Le Pen to attack him mercilessly for the great sins of…his record. Everybody should.

But instead it is Le Pen who will be attacked mercilessly and by everybody under the French sun. And let’s be honest – she is no saint, and her sins are not just bad TV and gaudy real estate.

In fact, she’s a terrible candidate, period. She’s useful to spark debate, but she’s no winner. Who really wants her to win? This all makes her a loser on May 7, most likely – that’s what Trump would say, and he can say that: he won.

The National Front is fighting decades of correctly-earned ill-will. There is undoubtedly tremendous – just tremendous – dissatisfaction in France, but how is Le Pen going turn the battleship around to take office?

I think I can fairly write that nobody is happy tonight, but Macron will provide an uplift when he likely wins. He will: it’s human nature – he has youth on his side. I suppose he’s an Adonis when you stand him next to hated hobbits like Hollande.

People will look at Macron and say: “it’s a fresh start”. They’ll lie to themselves – human nature.

The fools – they’ll be crying in 6 months again. And I hate to write that – I’m a fool too. But I’ll be a fool for the 3% chance that Le Pen could turn out to be a real statesman instead of just a blonde Mussolini. I repeat: austerity has never worked anywhere – just ask the IMF.

Hell, I’m a fool for democracy! Give the people a chance to simply VOTE on a Frexit! How can the EU be “democratic” if we are scared of democracy?

Waitaminut – I’m really losing my head here, eh? I’m forgetting the damned facts, the damned platforms, no matter how much Macron tried to hide his!

A referendum on Frexit, leaving NATO, possibly dropping the euro, finally ending austerity…what on earth is Macron offering that is even close to that?!?!?!?!?!

Macron is economically as far-right as Marine Le Pen is on the far-right on the cultural spectrum! Do you have to be a Communist like me to even THINK about an economic spectrum actually existing anymore?!

Dammit, it’s not over! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?! Heck no! We have 2 weeks of serious debate to make! We can quit when it’s over, not before!

I just talked myself into having faith in Le Pen again!!!!!!!!!!

Sure it was borne out of desperation, but it’s founded on facts.

Now we just have to let France know that.

===============================================

Macron was/is tutored/mentored by Jacques Attali...

[Atlas]

Posted by Hervé (here)
[...] scared of democracy?

For Aristotle the underlying principle of democracy is freedom, since only in a democracy the citizens can have a share in freedom:

"But one factor of liberty is to govern and be governed in turn; for the popular principle of justice is to have equality according to number, not worth, ... And one is for a man to live as he likes; for they say that this is the function of liberty, inasmuch as to live not as one likes is the life of a man that is a slave." Aristotle, Politics 1317b (Book 6, Part II)

And the definition of freedom is: the quality or state of being free, such as:

• a : the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action
• b : liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another : independence

Fareed Zakaria: The Future of Freedom and Democracy

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

[Hervé]

The Attali-Macron ties:

French Embrace Rothschild Flunkie

Source -- Originally appeared at Vzglyad; Appeared in Bulgarian at Memoriabg, translated by Valentina Tzoneva exclusively for SouthFront
(Abridged by henrymakow.com) April 23, 2017

(Macron married his highschool teacher, Brigitte Trogneux, 24 years his senior. She is now 63.)

A Rothschild frontman seems poised to become the next president of France.
The French embrace national suicide. "Terror" wasn't even an issue. The Rothschilds continue to govern through blackmailed cutouts.

----------------------------------------------

Emmanuel Macron, the photogenic 39-years-old financier with an amazing career became the leader of the presidential race in France with 23.8% of the vote, followed by Marine Le Pen with 21.7%. According to opinion polls, he will reach the second round with Marine Le Pen, where he will win 66 percent of the votes.

Emmanuel Macron ... has no real political experience. He has not been elected anywhere before....He is an investment banker specializing in mergers and acquisitions and was successful in his career. He graduated from the National School of Administration, a leading university for the French elite. He worked for several years as an inspector at the Ministry of Economy. Then in 2007, a crucial year in his career, the promising 29-year-old economist was groomed by [Rothschild's Jewish lickspittle] Jacques Attali.

Jacques Attali (above) is a philosopher-globalist, a writer of colorful utopias of how all nations and states will disappear from the face of the earth during bloody conflicts, and the survivors of humanity will unite under the banner of democracy and under the control of a World Government. Moreover, for many years Attali was well received at the Elysee Palace and is one of the most influential advisers of generations of French presidents, from François Mitterrand to Francois Hollande. Local media, calling him "the true president of France" is hardly exaggerating.

It is Jacques Attali who created the link between financial capital and the elite of the ruling Socialist Party, which he supports. He is exceptional in his ability to skillfully wrap the predatory plans of the bankers in beautiful leftist slogans.


MIGRATION = LOW COST LABOR
In 2008, the Attali Commission presented to President Nicolas Sarkozy "300 proposals to change France" - a plan for modernization of the economy meant to save it from the long years of stagnation. The main idea can be formulated as follows: to avoid losing its competitiveness in the global market, the country must drastically reduce the cost of labor. One way for this to happen is to increase immigration to France; low-paid recent immigrants, who will not be able to get organized in trade unions, will displace the local workers from manufacturing and services. Also, the plan includes the proposal to drastically reduce government spending on health, education and pension provision. Sarkozy did not dare to accept this radical plan.

David de Rothschild

During his stay at the Commission, Macron managed to win the sympathy of Attali, who soon introduced him to his friend, Francois Enron. Enron, in turn, is the best friend and main partner of David de Rothschild (above). In 2008 Macron was hired by the Rothschild's & Co Banque where he rose from analyst to partner. His commissions exceeded more than one million euros per year.

Macron's biggest heist was his involvement in the purchase by Nestle of the US drug maker Pfizer's baby food division (for $ 11.85 billion). At that time, Matthew Pigasse, director of the French branch of the Lazard Brothers bank, who wanted to make the same purchase for his client, Danone, but failed. So Macron found his greatest enemy in the face of Matthew Pigasse.

In 2010, Pigasse who is a leftist banker and a friend and patron of the French socialists, planned to become an economic adviser to Francois Hollande but the ubiquitous Jacques Attali recommended Emmanuel Macron to Hollande. For several years Macron, perfectly fluent in English and German, was liaison between the top-socialist of France and the foreign financial circles. As the Guardian noted maliciously, while Hollande was shouting at rallies "My main enemy is the financial capital!" the banking officer of Rothschild, Macron, was flying to London City to assure bankers that under President Hollande everything would remain as usual.

In 2012, Hollande became president and Macron left the Rothschild Bank. He was appointed deputy secretary general of the Elysee Palace. In 2014, in his position of "young reformer", he headed the Ministry of Economy and Industry (taking the place of longtime friend and business partner of Pigasse, Arnaud Montebourg). Hollande gives him carte blanche for activities related to the modernization of the economy and Macron presents a bill with more than 300 sections, providing for the liberalization of the French market. Experts say that the nature of the law of Macron embodies all the ideas of the Attali commission. In it, embedded and encouraged are immigration, downsizing of employees, increased competition within the various professions, indirectly increased is the working day at the expense of Sundays and night shifts.

The working people in France did not approve this bill. The discussion was accompanied by massive protests. There was no chance to pass the law in parliament. Hollande then exercised his right to adopt certain bills without the approval of parliament and in August 2015 approved the "Law of Macron". Interestingly, before becoming president, Hollande sharply criticized this presidential law and even called it "fascist".

YET ANOTHER DARK HORSE
In 2016, when the rating of Hollande was embarrassingly low something unusual started to happen around Emmanuel Macron. Thus, out of nowhere a movement, "Youth for Macron" arose. It is difficult to even imagine the youth uniting suddenly around such an unpopular minister of economy in a country with depressed economy. However, several thousand people turned out to participate in the new movement.

Macron founded his own party with the vague name "Forward!" (En marche!) The rallies began to gather huge crowds and this at a time when the socialists gathered with great effort several hundred people at their events. Macron's program was also unclear. Condemning the terrorist attacks, he has no plans to close borders or restrict immigration; promising to increase the country's military spending he does not distance it from NATO. In fact, Macron remains the same globalist, an exemplary pupil of Jacques Attali, focusing on the slogans of European unity. He criticized both the left and right, trying to distract voters who traditionally vote for the Socialists, and also to attract those for whom the National Front of Marine Le Pen is too radical.

With his sudden appearance in politics Macron got off at an incredible rate. Journalists literally carry him in their arms. Women's magazines call him a new sex symbol and a dream for any French woman. Influential newspapers highlight the advantages of his centrist position. Sociologists predict his victory. And no one reveals something serious to discredit him. In January, when some criticism undermined the chances of his main competitors, Marine Le Pen and Francois Fillon, Macron stayed out of any scandals.

[...]

Full article: https://www.henrymakow.com/2017/04/f...tatus-quo.html

[BMJ]

Can Marine Le Pen Win?

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ht7mYDOOb10

Published on 24 Apr 2017

Can Marine Le Pen upset the odds and beat the establishment lackey Macron?

Front National parliamentary candidate Tony Thommes joins me to break it down.

Tony Thommes on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tonythommes

Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/paul.j.watso...
FOLLOW Paul Joseph Watson @ https://twitter.com/PrisonPlanet

[Desire]

Why would anyone believe a friend of Soros.

[Hervé]

The French scuttle their own ship

by Thierry Meyssan

We are witnessing an historical reversal in France, where the ancient political spectrum is exploding into pieces as new fractures appear. Because of the intensive storm of media propaganda which has recently almost drowned the nation, the French can now perceive nothing more than the essential markers, and cling to red lines which no longer exist. However, the facts are clear, and certain evolutions are predictable.

Voltaire Network | Beirut (Lebanon) | 25 April 2017

français عربي Español

Private soiree at La Rotonde – congratulated as the new French President, Emmanuel Macron welcomes personalities from the CAC40 and the entertainment world on the evening of the first round of the election. Seen here with his friend, the banker Jacques Attali.

After a very agitated electoral campaign, the French chose Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen for the second round of the Presidential election.

Already, almost all the losing candidates, with the exception of Jean-Luc Melenchon – and that’s no accident – have appealed to their followers to support Macron, who should then be easily elected.

The two major historical parties which have governed France since the beginning of the Fifth Republique - Les Republicains (ex-Gaullists) and the Parti Socialist (ex-Jaurèsians) - have been beaten. A newcomer, En Marche !, has made it to first place on the podium, facing the Front National.

Is there fascist candidate?
This is not the first time that this sort of cleavage has occurred in the history of France – on one hand, a partisan of an alliance with what seems for the moment to be the world’s greatest power (the United States), and on the other, a movement seeking national independence – on one hand, the totality of the ruling class, without notable exceptions, and on the other, a party cobbled together of various bits and pieces, composed mostly of proletarians, two thirds of whom come from the right wing and one third from the left.

Evidently, the next French President will be Mr. Macron – a man from the Banque Rothschild & Cie, now supported by the totality of the business leaders of the CAC40.

However, whether our prejudices like it or not, the unanimity of the power of money is the fundamental characteristic of fascist parties.

This unanimity of Grand Capital is always accompanied by a National unity which erases the differences. In order to become equal, we must become identical. This is what President Hollande began with the law « Marriage for all », in 2012-13. Presented as establishing equality between citizens, whatever their sexual orientation, it posited de facto that the needs of couples with children are the same as those of gay couples. And yet there were several other more intelligent solutions. The opposition to this law led to a number of very important demonstrations, but they unfortunately failed to provide any other proposition, and were sometimes mixed with homophobic slogans.

Identically, the attack against Charlie-Hebdo was celebrated to the chant of « I am Charlie ! », and those citizens who declared that they were « not Charlie » were prosecuted.

It is a shame that the French people do not react either against the unanimity of Grand Capital, nor against the injunctions to use the same judicial techniques and to favour the same slogans. On the contrary, they insist on considering the current Front National as « fascist », with no other argument than its ancient past.

Can a fascist candidate be resisted?
In the majority, the French think that Emmanuel Macron will be a President à la Sarkozy and à la Hollande, men who will pursue their political beliefs. They therefore expect to see their country increasingly decline. They accept this curse, thinking that in this way, they will evacuate the menace of the extreme right.

Many of them remember that at its creation, the Front National gathered together the losers of the Second World War and the losers of the social politics of the colonisation of Algeria. They focused on the figures of a few men who had collaborated with the Nazi occupier, without seeing that the Front National of today has absolutely nothing in common with those people. They persist in holding Second-Lieutenant Jean-Marie Le Pen (Marine’s father) responsible for the Algerian tragedy, and exonerating from their responsibilities the Socialist leaders of the time, particularly their dreadful Minister of the Interior, François Mitterrand.

No-one remembers that in 1940, it was a Fascist minister, General Charles De Gaulle, who refused the shameful armistice with Nazi Germany. This man, the official heir apparent of Marechal Philippe Petain (who was his daughter’s godfather), charged into the Resistance alone. Struggling against his education and his prejudices, he slowly gathered around himself, against the wishes of his ex-mentor, French people from all horizons to defend the Republic. He linked up with a left-wing personality, Jean Moulin, who, a few years earlier, had secretly embezzled money from the Minister of the Marine, and trafficked weapons with which to support the Spanish Republicans against the fascists.

No-one remembers that a colleague of De Gaulle, Robert Schuman, wrote his signature on the armisitice of shame, then, a few years later, founded the European Economic Community (currently the European Union) – a supra-national organisation based on the Nazi model of the « New European Order », against the Soviet Union and today against Russia.

The Obama-Clinton model
Emmanuel Macron has recieved the strong support of ex-US President Barack Obama, and has gathered a team for foreign policy composed of the main neo-conservative diplomats. He makes no secret of supporting the external politics of the US Democratic Party.

Barack Obama, although he presented his foreign policy with a rhetoric which was diametrically opposed to that of his predecessor, the Republican George W. Bush, in practice followed his lead in all points. The two men successively continued the same plan for the destruction of the societies of the Greater Middle East – a plan which has already caused more than 3 million deaths. Emmanuel Macron supports this policy, although we do not yet know whether he intends to justify it by speaking of « democratisation » or « spontaneous revolution ».

If Hillary Clinton was beaten during the US election, Emmanuel Macron had to be elected in France.

Nothing proves that Marine Le Pen will be capable of playing the rôle of Charles De Gaulle, but three things are certain :

Just as in 1940, the British, choking back their disgust, welcomed De Gaulle to London, today Russia could support Le Pen.

Just as in 1939, only a few Communists braved the orders of their party and joined the Resistance, there will only be a few of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s partisans who will take that step. But as from the Nazi attack on the URSS, it was the whole Communist party who supported De Gaulle and formed the majority of the Resistance. There is no doubt that in the years to come, Mélenchon will fight side by side with Le Pen.

Emmanuel Macron will never understand people who resist the domination of their homeland. So he will not understand any better the people of the Greater Middle East who struggle for real independence alonside Hezbollah, the Syrian Arab Republic and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Thierry Meyssan

[Hervé]

French election reality: Macron booed and jeered in his hometown, where crowd chants 'Président Marine!'

Tyler Durden Zero Hedge
Wed, 26 Apr 2017 18:42 UTC

© DR

Chaotic scenes broke out during a visit by French presidential frontrunner Emmanuel Macron to striking factory workers in his hometown of Amiens.

Macron was greeted Wednesday with jeers, boos and chants in favour of his far-right rival Marine Le Pen as he made a chaotic visit to the factory in northern France, after what Bloomberg said was "an ambush" by his nationalist rival Marine Le Pen forced him into a confrontation with some of her hardcore supporters.


Earlier on Wednesday, Le Pen had made a surprise visit to the Whirlpool plant on the edge of Amiens while election front-runner Macron was meeting with union leaders from the plant in the center of town. Le Pen told reporters on the picket line that Macron's decision to meet the workers' representatives behind closed doors showed his "contempt" for their plight, forcing her rival to change his plans and engage with the demonstrators live on television. During the hastily arranged visit, some in the crowd shouted "President Marine!" and booed as the 39-year-old former banker stood outside the appliance factory in the rustbelt city of Amiens.

French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen outside a Whirlpool home appliance factory in Amiens, France, Wednesday April 26, 2017. © Associated Press

"I am here to speak to you," said the pro-business former economy minister, ringed by a horde of cameramen and journalists.

The Whirlpool factory has become a focus of the free-trade debate at the heart of the French election campaign because 280 jobs will be cut next year when the company shifts production to Poland.

As Bloomberg describes the scene, "with the black smoke of burning tires whipped up by a cold wind and cries of "Marine! President!" punctuating his remarks, Macron tried to mount a defense of the European trade regime in the factory parking lot as angry demonstrators crowded round."

"When she tells you the solution is to turn back globalization, she's lying," Macron told the workers, his comments picked by the microphones of more than 100 reporters witnessing the clash. "We cannot outlaw firing. We must fight to find a buyer."

Judging by the response, the local workers did not find Macron very convincing.

A worker at #Macron: "There is no work. You do training to lower the unemployment rate."

Earlier, Macron was in his hometown of Amiens to try to counter accusations that he had made a complacent start to campaigning for the presidential runoff on May 7 after he finished ahead of Le Pen in the first round on Sunday. But his trip to the city was upstaged when Le Pen made an unannounced visit to the factory earlier in the day, arriving while he was meeting with workers' representatives elsewhere. She posed for selfies with workers and waved to supporters, AFP reported.

"Everyone knows what side Emmanuel Macron is on -- he is on the side of the corporations," Le Pen said. "I am on the workers' side, here in the car park, not in restaurants in Amiens."

Macron said after Le Pen's stop that he would also visit the site. He told angry workers at the factory that the only reason she had come was "because I'm here." As the following clip shows, it was not a good idea.


Macron spoke to the strikers for almost an hour, some still booing throughout, but many engaging with him, while France 2 television's special correspondent broadcast behind the candidate from a temporary set they'd erected.


Patrice Sinoquet from the CFDT union, who met with Macron earlier in the day, said 90 percent of his members will be voting for Le Pen. "Macron is the worst of free-market politics," said Clement Pons, a 32-year-old unemployed man waiting outside the town-center meeting. "He's a globalist who will kill the working class. He makes me want to throw up. I don't understand his ideas."

Chantal Flahaut, a 57-year-old assembly line worker on the Whirlpool picket line, said she's been striking on and off all week and she's so sick of the situation in France that she didn't even register to vote on Sunday. Her T-shirt said "Whirlpool Manufactures Unemployment."

"I am so disgusted," she said. "Macron is in favor of big companies like ours. Stop giving aid to multinational billionaires and give us our money."

The theatrics continued on Twitter, where Macron said that Le Pen had spent "10 minutes with her supporters in a car park in front of the cameras" whereas he had spent "an hour and a half with union representatives and no media."


"Come May 7, everyone will make their choice," he added.

Benjamin Griveaux, an aide on the Macron campaign, said Le Pen was focusing on political stunts rather than trying to address voters' problems. "If this is about tweets and selfies, then she hasn't understood what's at stake," Griveaux said. "She's fueling her political ambitions with misery and suffering. What has she proposed? Nothing. We are trying to deal with the issues."

Macron, who created his own centrist movement, was to hold a rally later in nearby Arras, a city in the northern rustbelt where Le Pen topped the first round of voting. On Monday, Macron drew criticism for what some saw as a triumphalist speech and then a celebratory dinner at a Paris bistro on Sunday.

Socialist Party boss Jean-Christophe Cambadelis told French radio: "He was smug. He wrongly thought that it was a done deal."

Macron served as economy minister in the Socialist government, after working as an M&A banker at Rothschild, before quitting in August to launch his presidential bid.

[Desire]

Whom ever Obama wants......I don't want

[Hervé]

Twenty truths about Marine Le Pen

James Petras Petras.Lahaine.org
Tue, 02 May 2017 13:47 UTC

La candidata a la presidencia francesa, Marine Le Pen, el 23 de abril de 2017. © Charles Platiau/Reuters

Introduction: Every day in unimaginable ways, prominent leaders from the left and the right, from bankers to Parisian intellectuals, are fabricating stories and pushing slogans that denigrate presidential candidate Marine Le Pen.

They obfuscate her program, substituting the label 'extremist' for her pro-working class and anti-imperialist commitment. Fear and envy over the fact that a new leader heads a popular movement has seeped into Emmanuel "Manny" Macron's champagne-soaked dinner parties. He has good reason to be afraid: Le Pen addresses the fundamental interests of the vast- majority of French workers, farmers, public employees, unemployed and underemployed youth and older workers approaching retirement.

The mass media, political class and judicial as well as street provocateurs savagely assault Le Pen, distorting her domestic and foreign policies. They are incensed that Le Pen pledges to remove France from NATO's integrated command - effectively ending its commitment to US directed global wars. Le Pen rejects the oligarch-dominated European Union and its austerity programs, which have enriched bankers and multi-national corporations. Le Pen promises to convoke a national referendum over the EU - to decide French submission. Le Pen promises to end sanctions against Russia and, instead, increase trade. She will end France's intervention in Syria and establish ties with Iran and Palestine.

Le Pen is committed to Keynesian demand-driven industrial revitalization as opposed to Emmanuel Macron's ultra-neoliberal supply-side agenda.

Le Pen's program will raise taxes on banks and financial transactions while fining capital flight in order to continue funding France's retirement age of 62 for women and 65 for men, keeping the 35 hour work-week, and providing tax free overtime pay. She promises direct state intervention to prevent factories from relocating to low wage EU economies and firing French workers.

Le Pen is committed to increasing public spending for childcare and for the poor and disabled. She has pledged to protect French farmers against subsidized, cheap imports.

Marine Le Pen supports abortion rights and gay rights. She opposes the death penalty. She promises to cut taxes by 10% for low-wage workers. Marine is committed to fighting against sexism and for equal pay for women.

Marine Le Pen will reduce migration to ten thousand people and crack down on immigrants with links to terrorists.

Emmanuel Macron: Macro Billionaire and Micro Worker Programs

Macron has been an investment banker serving the Rothschild and Cie Banque oligarchy, which profited from speculation and the pillage of the public treasury. Macron served in President Hollande's Economy Ministry, in charge of 'Industry and Digital Affairs' from 2014 through 2016. This was when the 'Socialist' Hollande imposed a pro-business agenda, which included a 40 billion-euro tax cut for the rich.

Macron is tied to the Republican Party and its allied banking and business Confederations, whose demands include: raising the retirement age, reducing social spending, firing tens of thousands of public employees and facilitating the outflow of capital and the inflow of cheap imports.

Macron is an unconditional supporter of NATO and the Pentagon. He fully supports the European Union. For their part, the EU oligarchs are thrilled with Macron's embrace of greater austerity for French workers, while the generals can expect total material support for the ongoing and future US-NATO wars on three continents.

Propaganda, Labels and Lies

Macron's pro-war, anti-working class and 'supply-side' economic policies leave us with only one conclusion: Marine Le Pen is the only candidate of the left. Her program and commitments are pro-labor, not 'hard' or 'far' right - and certainly not 'fascist'.

Macron, on the other hand is a committed rightwing extremist, certainly no 'centrist', as the media and the political elite claim! One has only to look at his background in banking, his current supporters among the oligarchs and his ministerial policies when he served Francois Holland.

The 'Macronistas' have accused Marine Le Pen of extreme 'nationalism', 'fascism', 'anti-Semitism' and 'anti-immigrant racism'. 'The French Left', or what remains of it, has blindly swallowed the oligarchs' campaign against Le Pen despite the malodorous source of these libels.

Le Pen is above all a 'sovereigntist': 'France First'. Her fight is against the Brussels oligarchs and for the restoration of sovereignty to the French people. There is an infinite irony in labeling the fight against imperial political power as 'hard right'. It is insulting to debase popular demands for domestic democratic power over basic economic policies, fiscal spending, incomes and prices policies, budgets and deficits as 'extremist and far right'.

Marine Le Pen has systematically transformed the leadership, social, economic program and direction of the National Front Party.

She expelled its anti-Semites, including her own father! She transformed its policy on women's rights, abortion, gays and race. She won the support of young unemployed and employed factory workers, public employees and farmers. Young workers are three times more likely to support her national industrial revitalization program over Macron's 'free market dogma'. Le Pen has drawn support from French farmers as well as the downwardly mobile provincial middle-class, shopkeepers, clerks and tourism-based workers and business owners.

Despite the trends among the French masses against the oligarchs, academics, intellectuals and political journalists have aped the elite's slander against Le Pen because they will not antagonize the prestigious media and their administrators in the universities. They will not acknowledge the profound changes that have occurred within the National Front under Marine Le Pen. They are masters of the 'double discourse' - speaking from the left while working with the right. They confuse the lesser evil with the greater evil.

If Macron wins this election (and nothing is guaranteed!), he will certainly implement his 'hard' and 'extreme' neo-liberal agenda. When the French workers go on strike and demonstrators erect barricades in the streets in response to Macron's austerity, the fake-left will bleat out their inconsequential 'critique' of 'impure reason'. They will claim that they were right all along.

If Le Pen loses this election, Macron will impose his program and ignite popular fury. Marine will make an even stronger candidate in the next election... if the French oligarchs' judiciary does not imprison her for the crime of defending sovereignty and social justice.

[seko]

In this video Le Pen seems to be repeating the same words as the other French candidate Fillon, I wonder if Herve or another French speaker can tell us if they are using the same speech. If so, why? Is she part of the elite; just a mistake or is she trying to get Fillon's voters??

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=xeDGnD5x1tQ

[Hervé]

It does sound very much to be almost the same speech... bizarre... teaching fillon a lesson about the difference in "delivery"? Or, maybe, a dirty trick played on Le Pen by her speech writer? However, Fillon and Le Pen do share some common ground with respect to France and her future.

[araucaria]

It is a verbatim, even synchronized quote. Scroll down for a video with Fillon and Le Pen speaking side by side. https://www.marianne.net/politique/v...rancois-fillon
It is a blatant copycat tactic to attract the other man’s votes. She did something similar with Mélenchon, presenting a list of bullet points purportedly showing that her agenda was the same as his, which of course it is not. Apparently there is no problem aping opposite ends of the political spectrum at the same time. She needs all these voters to have even the remotest chance of winning. She cannot persuade them with her own words, so she uses the words used by the candidates they voted for.

[Hervé]

Posted by Hervé (here)
[...]
... Or, maybe, a dirty trick played on Le Pen by her speech writer?
[...]

Voilà:

VIDEO - Voilà comment Marine Le Pen a plagié le discours de François Fillon

Par Étienne Girard
Publié le 02/05/2017 à 08:48,
modifié le 02/05/2017 à 10:07

Pour son meeting du 1er mai, Marine Le Pen a copié des pans entiers d'un discours de François Fillon. Ses proches plaident le "clin d'oeil assumé". Difficile à croire alors que RTL affirme que les deux candidats ont tout simplement la même source d'inspiration : l'essayiste nationaliste Paul-Marie Coûteaux. Lui-même s'en est expliqué.

Paul-Marie Coûteaux‏ @pmcouteaux

2/2 #clind'oeil. Ces termes, d'inspiration gaulliste, sont ceux de mon ouvrage "L'Europe vers la Guerre" (1997) Nécessaire #UniondesDroites

12:35 AM - 2 May 2017

A 60 ans, Paul-Marie Coûteaux [...] a été tour à tour proche du FN, de Debout la France et du Parti chrétien-démocrate de Jean-Frédéric Poisson... avant de soutenir François Fillon en 2017. Mais l'on ignorait jusqu'à présent qu'il avait contribué à ses discours.

---------------------------------------------

VIDEO - This is how Marine Le Pen plagiarized the speech of François Fillon

By Étienne Girard
Published on 02/05/2017 at 08:48,
Modified on 02/05/2017 at 10:07

For her meeting on May 1st, Marine Le Pen copied entire sections of a speech by François Fillon. His relatives plead the "wink of the eye". Difficult to believe while RTL claims that the two candidates simply have the same source of inspiration: the nationalist essayist Paul-Marie Coûteaux. He himself explained it.

Paul-Marie Coûteaux‏ @pmcouteaux

2/2 # clind'oeil. These terms, of Gaullist inspiration, are those of my book "Europe towards War" (1997) Necessary #UniondesDroites

12:35 AM - 2 May 2017

At 60, Paul-Marie Coûteaux [...] was in turn close to the FN, Debout France and the Christian-Democratic Party of Jean-Frédéric Poisson ... before supporting François Fillon in 2017. But l It was unknown until now that he had contributed to his speeches.

[AutumnW]

Well, much as a le Pen presidency could start France on a road to ruin, I must say, I do really like her and love the way she bi*** slapped Christine Amanpour in an interview. It was hilarious!

[araucaria]

Nonetheless what remains is a series of layers. One layer is Fillon quoting his speech-maker. This presupposes another layer above it, where Fillon would be speaking directly for himself. When that occurred, it was mostly out of his control: the fake jobs for family, the conflicts of interest. The same can be said of Le Pen; she cannot speak too much for/about herself either: the fake jobs for FN subordinates, the embezzlement of the EU, her microparty Jeanne misappropriating public funds by selling compulsory parliamentary candidate kits at exorbitant rates to be refunded by the State.

What Le Pen is doing here is several layers further down: not speaking for herself, not quoting her speech-maker, not even quoting Fillon speaking for himself, but deliberately quoting Fillon quoting his speech-maker only two weeks ago. She has acknowledged doing that by claiming it was a wink or nod in his direction. If we were talking about factual statements as opposed to lofty sentiments, we would we well into urban legend territory: my Dad’s friend’s workmate’s brother says.... In the case of lofty sentiments – which one would like to hear coming from the speaker in person – the embedded quotes dilute the message until it eventually becomes nothing but hot air. Sincerity disappears, to be replaced with irony – watch Le Pen smirk all the way through this piece – and turning it into blatant vote-catching rhetoric. She is prepared to say whatever it takes to get votes from suckers who are prepared to believe any of it – to any of her campaigning at all at face value. As Chirac once said, promises are only binding on those who believe them.

[Hervé]

Documents Indicate That Emmanuel Macron May Be Engaging In Tax Evasion

by William Craddick
May 3, 2017 3:03 PM

Documents leaked online today appear to show that French Presidential Candidate Emmanuel Macron entered into an operating agreement for a Limited Liability Company (LLC) in the Caribbean island of Nevis, and that the company may have had a business relationship with a bank which has been previously involved in tax evasion cases in the Cayman Islands. Macron claimed he was not concealing assets or holding secret offshore accounts less than a month ago.

The first document is an operating agreement drawn up on May 4th, 2012 to form "La Providence LLC" under the 1995 Nevis Limited Liability Company Ordinance bearing Mr. Macron's name and signature. La Providence is the name of Macron's former high school in Amiens, where he first met his wife. The decision to form a company in Nevis is suspect, as the Nevis Confidential Relationship Act prohibits the disclosure of information and guarantees the secrecy and privacy of offshore LLCs in Nevis. Information about company owners is not published nor is it available to the public. Nevis has been described by Bloomberg as one of a number of popular tax havens in the Caribbean.

Screenshot of document showing Macron's name on the operating agreement for La Providence LLC

A second document is a letter sent to La Providence Ltd. from the First Caribbean International Bank, indicating a business relationship with Macron's LLC. Forbes reported that First Caribbean International Bank was implicated as a facilitator of tax evasion in 2013. It has also been named by Reuters as a player in fraud relating to the 2015 Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) scandals, after it emerged that a representative for First Caribbean had personally collected a check from a FIFA official and then returned to deposit it in an account in the Bahamas.

In April, Macron denied that he was hiding offshore accounts or inheritances from French authorities, even as his opponent Francois Fillion became mired in similar allegations. If confirmed as authentic, the documents would prove these claims to be untrue and provide important clues as to where the hidden funds might be located.

[araucaria]

When politicians seeking high public office make their statutory statement of their assets, they often seem as improbably hard-up as someone facing divorce proceedings. Macron’s 3 million earned as a banker several years ago were not mentioned in his current assets; in other words he invested nothing. He says he paid hefty taxes and blew the rest: a private matter, which of course it is. Not, however, if this is how he ‘spent’ the money, a possibility that has occurred to not a few people, as it was bound to do after Jérôme Cahuzac, the minister in charge of curbing tax evasion, was jailed for precisely that.

This only confirms once again that we have two unsuitable candidates in the presidential run-off. In last night’s debate Le Pen again showed that she doesn’t have a clue about what government of any kind actually entails, while Macron gave no hint that he has a clue about what is totally unacceptable about his technocratic governing style. The only viable solution to this dilemma would be a ‘white hat’ type of candidate, one thoroughly acquainted with the workings of government and having the moral fibre to use that inside knowledge in order to tweak the system into something it was not designed to be. This would not be a spectacular event of the prime-time TV kind like the boxing match that passes these days for a presidential debate. Are we getting any closer to where we need to be? Possibly (probably) so, but then, how would we know?

[araucaria]

The position in France is that the documents published by 4chan.org are obvious fakes and that Le Pen herself was talking about them too quickly after they were released not to have been personally involved in some way.
http://boards.4chan.org/pol/thread/1...as-a-fraudster
http://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article...3_4408996.html

The least that can be said is that, true or false, these accusations are clutching at straws, too little too late, just as the accusations against Fillon, starting in February, were timely (almost too much almost too soon); but while they were ascertained to be factually true – since Fillon admitted as much, merely contesting their interpretation – Macron has simply shrugged off the allegations. As usual, the entire scenario makes sense to both the conspiracy theorists and the rest.

[Hervé]

Nigel Farage pledges full support to Le Pen

RT
Thu, 04 May 2017 11:49 UTC

Ex-UKIP leader Nigel Farage and French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen. © Reuters

Ex-UKIP leader Nigel Farage has come out in full support of far-right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen. In a column for the Telegraph, Farage said he would welcome Le Pen as the new president, despite his long-standing concerns about the Front National (FN), of which she was leader before deciding to run as an independent. Farage said he would welcome the independent candidate, who is competing against Emmanuel Macron, leader of the centrist political party En March!

The Brexiteer, who currently hosts a radio show on LBC, said he would welcome her especially in light of her clear willingness to seal a trade deal with a post-Brexit UK. "From a UK perspective, as we enter tough negotiations, what is best for our country?" Farage asked.

He said Macron, on the other hand, is a mere "cardboard cut-out creation of the political class." "I have no doubt that a Le Pen victory would give the EU an even bigger headache than the UK voting for Brexit, which is why the European Commission is openly backing Macron. "Her victory would take much of the pressure off our negotiations. She will put France first and take her country out of the euro, which has damaged their competitiveness."

Farage, who is also a Fox News commentator, claimed even if Le Pen does not win the presidency this time around, she will be elected in 2022. He said it is "monstrous" that Le Pen has always been automatically associated with her father, who is a convicted anti-Semite.

"I wonder whether, had her surname not been 'Le Pen', she might now be ahead in the polls. There is nothing she has said in this entire election campaign that I find unreasonable or extreme. Indeed, she has a more rational line on Islam than many Euroskeptic parties across the Continent. She is a sincere Euroskeptic, and under her the FN is about sovereignty, not race. Marine has met virtually all of my previous conditions."

Le Pen has previously hailed Brexit a "great" move. Speaking on Farage's LBC show, Le Pen said: "It's really great what they've done in the UK. The results in Great Britain are formidable. Their growth is double our growth."

She encouraged relations between France and the UK, before slamming the EU for its "blackmailing" tactics. "There is no reason not to take the British decision in our stride and work with Great Britain in negotiations that will take place between two nations that have had long-standing trade relations for centuries."

"What I cannot stand in the behavior of the EU with regards to Great Britain is blackmail, constant threat. This structure is no longer moving without blackmail and threat."