Thomas Piketty — The Transferunion fantasy

On Macron's proposals for EU reform.

It is almost as if the revolutionaries in 1789, instead of setting up a National Assembly enabling all privileges to be abolished immediately and a new fiscal system to be set up, had only announced that it would be a good idea to pause to reflect on the setting up of a commission to consider a long-term plan to save the Ancien Régime. It is the difference between doing something and empty rhetoric.

Thomas Piketty's Blog at Le Monde
The Transferunion fantasy
Thomas Piketty | Professor at EHESS and at the Paris School of Economics

Gilbert Doctorow — The CIA Got Macron Elected - It Looks Like They Wrote His Big US Speech Too

In this essay, I offer a detailed textual analysis of the speech which French President Emmanuel Macron delivered before the Joint Session of Congress, Washington, D.C. on 25 April 2018, in line with the kind of textual analysis which I performed on major political documents signed by heroic East European freedom fighters in 2007 and 2009, which were in fact authored by US intelligence operatives....

Russia Insider
The CIA Got Macron Elected - It Looks Like They Wrote His Big US Speech Too
Gilbert Doctorow | European Coordinator of The American Committee for East West Accord Ltd.

Sputnik — Lavrov Calls French President Stance on Syria ‘Colonial’

Getting real about motives.

Sykes-Picot.

For France and the UK, making their countries great means recapture some of their colonial power.

Macron setting himself up as the new DeGaulle? "A la gloire de la patrie."

Sputnik International
Lavrov Calls French President Stance on Syria ‘Colonial’

Alex Lantier — French President Macron calls for military buildup in foreign policy address

At the centre of Macron’s policy is an attempt to re-assert French influence in its former colonial sphere in Syria, North Africa, and the Sahel. “Two great zones are the focus of our efforts in the struggle against terror: Syria and Iraq on the one hand, and Libya and the Sahel on the other,” he said. He announced that he would “soon” travel to Ouagadougou, the capital of the former French colony of Burkina Faso, which has played a significant role in the French war in neighbouring Mali.

Neoliberalism, neo-imperialism, neocolonialism; what else is new?

Macron’s agenda shows that the promises the European bourgeoisies made as they launched the European institutions after World War II—that it would never again fall into war, economic depression, and dictatorship—were false. Unless they are stopped by a conscious political movement of the international working class against war, the imperialist powers are again heading towards military catastrophes on a scale as great, or even greater, than the wars of the previous century.

WSWS
French President Macron calls for military buildup in foreign policy address
Alex Lantier

Only 40 per cent approve of his performance, the Ifop poll showed, a 14 per cent plunge since July, although another poll has placed his rating as low as 36 per cent.

The dramatic decline since his landslide election victory in May, when he enjoyed a 62 per cent approval rating, will do little to enhance Mr Macron’s standing as he hosts a summit on Monday with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, and Italian and Spanish leaders.

That didn't take long.

The far-Left leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who the poll indicates is seen as the most effective opposition leader by a majority of voters, on Sunday urged his supporters to “take the struggle to the streets”.

The Telegraph
Majority of people in France now dissatisfied with Macron

David Chazan