“It’s a strategy of building a wall separating Russia and the European Union. I know from my own experience of work in the European Parliament that the European Union is conducting a real Cold War against Russia,” Le Pen said....Russia Feed
While a large majority of FN supporters back a return to the French franc, opinion polls indicate three-quarters of French voters want to keep the euro, including many older voters who fear their euro-denominated pensions could be devalued....Reuters
“Electoral statistics” in France too (the “political laboratory” of Europe for the last two hundred years) confirm that, mutatis mutandis and of course taking into account the peculiarities of the present day, we are entering into a situation comparable to the crisis that shook the Weimar Republic in the interwar period. It is also an indirect, because political, not economic, still strong indication that we are well into the economic crisis that began in 2008 and metamorphosed into a crisis of the EU and that this crisis is not just a usual cyclical one, but a crisis as deep as the crises of 1873-96 and 1929 (those that led to the two world wars of the past, the Russian and Chinese revolutions, Nazism and the American New Deal)....Hang on to your hats. Storm brewing.
At the weekend, French Presidential election frontrunner Emmanuel Macron told the BBC that EU leaders “have to face the situation, to listen to our people, and to listen to the fact that they are extremely angry today, impatient and the dysfunction of the EU is no more sustainable”.
He then warned that if EU leaders do not correct this dysfunction, either France would exit the eurozone or the National Front would take over or both. I think what he says is true and let me explain why....Credit Writedowns
I have argued on Asia Times that Macron is nothing but an artificial product, a meticulously packaged hologram designed to sell an illusion.
Only the terminally naïve may believe Macron incarnates change when he’s the candidate of the EU, NATO, the financial markets, the Clinton-Obama machine, the French establishment, assorted business oligarchs and the top six French media groups....
Everyone in Brussels “voted” Macron as he proposes a budget for the eurozone, a dedicated Parliament, and a dedicated Minister of Finance. In short; Brussels on steroids....Then illusion and the reality:
If the coming, epic clash could be defined by just one issue that would be the unlimited power of the Wall of Cash.
Macron subscribes to the view that public debt and expenses on public service are the only factors responsible for French debt, so one must have “political courage” to promote reforms.
Sociologist [not economist] Benjamin Lemoine is one of the few who’s publicly debating what’s really behind it — the interest of financiers to preserve the value of the debt they hold and their aversion to any negotiation.
Because they control the narrative, they are able to equate “political risk” — be it Marine or Mélenchon — with the risk to their own privileged positions.
The real issue at stake in France — and across most of the West — revolves around the conflicting interests of financial masters and citizens attached to public service and social justice....Asia Times
Please do not interpret in what follows any hint of support for FN from this blog other than as a ‘cat among the pigeons’ force in European politics, anything that upsets the right-wing, neo-liberal, corporatist elites that run the show is to be welcome.…
FN’s policy proposals are outlined in its – 144 Engagements Présidentiels (144-point manifesto).
The opening statements talk about regaining France’s freedom and mastery over their own destiny (“Retrouver notre liberté et la maîtrise de notre destin en restituant au peuple français” and defines sovereignty in terms of “monétaire, législative, territoriale, économique”, which would suggest a return to its own currency.
Critics seem to characterise those who advocate a return to national currency sovereignty as ‘small vision’ as opposed to the European Union which is claimed to be ‘big’. It is big on corporatism and anti-democratic bullying and certainly big on the unemployment it has created.
My view is that a return to national currency sovereignty, that is exiting the Eurozone and floating one’s currency is a grand vision for full employment and reduced inequality.
Of course, the neo-liberals can take control of a nation that is sovereign in its own currency (as in Australia or the UK at present) and use the capacity that currency independence brings to bad effect.
But a truly progressive government cannot really exist in the Eurozone or in a nation that pegs its currency or accepts legal dictates from an undemocratic bloc (such as the EU)....Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Late Sunday, the Trump transition team announced that Bannon, executive chairman of far-right Breitbart News and CEO of the Trump campaign, will serve as chief strategist and senior counselor to the president, working as an "equal partner" with Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman Reince Priebus, who is being appointed White House chief of staff.This is unprecedented. Trump in effect appointed two White House chiefs of staff.
Now it appears that with Bannon by the incoming president's side, "[Breitbart] will be as close as we are ever going to have—hopefully—to a state-run media enterprise," said Kurt Bardella, a former Breitbart spokesperson.
"There is talk of Breitbart bureaus opening in Paris, Berlin, and Cairo, spots where the populist right is on the rise. A bigger newsroom is coming in Washington, the better to cover a president-elect whose candidacy it embraced," according to a New York Times report on Sunday, which Breitbart re-posted.
The site's editor, Alexander Marlow, told the newspaper that Breitbart's "international expansion was tied to upcoming elections in France and Germany," the Times reported.
"There’s an underserved readership" in Europe, Marlow said.
Further, Marlow said that the alt-right news site planned to support the candidacy of Marine Le Pen, the leader of France's National Front party.It appears that Donald Trump seeks to give new meaning to America as "the leader of the free world."
In an aircraft hangar on the French Riviera, as thousands of supporters waved French tricolour flags, France’s far-right Front National leader, Marine Le Pen, boomed proudly from the stage: “The time of the nation state is back!”The Guardian World News
She praised Britain’s vote to leave the European Union and said plans to build walls across the world – including one to keep out migrants and refugees at Calais — showed a return to “the time of borders”.
Le Pen also went after Clinton, saying the former secretary of state would bring “war,” “devastation” and “instability” as president.
“For France, anything is better than Hillary Clinton. Anything but Hillary Clinton. Because I think Hillary Clinton means war. Hillary Clinton means devastation. It means world instability.”America in general either believes that instability will not affect the homeland because it is isolated geographically, other than the Mexican border, and that this can be resolved by building a wall across it. And so it goes.
Le Pen is not alone. Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilder also wants the Netherlands to decide its EU future.The Duran
It’s the unemployment, stupid
This success is obviously linked to the deep and long economic crisis France has been suffering for years. Unemployment has reached unheard levels, with officially more than 3,6 millions of people and actually probably over 4,5 millions.…RussEurope » In English
For the first time, the extreme-right National Front (FN) party has claimed victory in a national election in France. The first round of the regional elections has left Marine Le Pen's movement as the leading political force in French politics, ahead of the traditional socialist and republican parties.Qatar freaking over the prospect of a Le Pen victory? Well, they aren't alone. That would be a game-changer.
The financial sacrifice resulting from the absence of members of parliament and electoral victories - political parties in France receive public funds on the basis of the number of elected members - was swiftly alleviated when the party reportedly received loans from Russian banks earlier this year.
This opportunistic support from Russia raises serious questions about the movement's independence and its vassalage to Russian President Vladimir Putin.…Then he waxes all liberal.
No doubt, the November 13 attacks in Paris have played a part in the National Front victory. The terrorist actions from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have been an opportunity for Le Pen to target Muslim minorities and scapegoat a community that is mostly peaceful and respectful of the French Republican values of Freedom, Equality and Solidarity. This is in no way a coincidence.He doesn't conveniently omits saying that Qatar is not only an Islamist state but also Wahhab-Salafist like Saudi Arabia, and one of places from which support allegedly flows to Sunni fundamentalist jihadis.
While France is ailing and still mourns the attacks against its multicultural society, the Nationa Frontl's victory on Sunday, in the same vein as ISIL terrorist attacks, is another step towards communitarianism and the defeat of a secular and progressive model inherited from the Enlightenment and the philosophical triumph of reason.This is exactly what Wahhabi-Salafist states like Qatar and Saudi Arabia not only oppose but criminalize.
Those who prefer favouring short-term electoral interests, such as Nicolas Sarkozy, are the favourite allies of anti-republican forces.Nicholas Sarkozy — that would be the president of France who engineered the debacle in Libya while in office.
Greece's finances look to be more precarious than previously thought, which puts Syriza in an even weaker bargaining position.The real threat to the EU and EZ is not Greece but France.
Evans-Pritchard’s assessment is that Syriza is willing to play an extreme form of a game of chicken because the costs to the Eurozone will be high if Greece is forced out. He like many observers believe that once the Rubicon of defining exit mechanisms is crossed, other exits are inevitable. The idea that a Grexit will be contained, even if it is “contained” in the immediate sense of limited immediate financial contagion, will prove to be illusory as the spring 2007 delusion that the subprime criss would be contained.It's looking more and more likely that eurocrat intransigence may end darkly, with rightist ascendency in Europe — the very thing that the euro was established to preclude from ever happening again.
And let me again stress that Varoufakis sincerely believes that a Grexit would be a disaster for Greece. The idea that Syriza is executing a nefarious plan to produce a Grexit while looking blameless to Greek voters is implausible. The damage to the Greek economy, not just short term but longer-term, would almost assure Syriza’s ouster and pave the way for big gains by the Nazi party Golden Dawn. This is what Varoufakis wrote in 2012 on why a Grexit was a terrible idea (emphasis original)
