by Ramin Mazaheri

The bottom line is: For the EU to work – for it to be of benefit to the average person – it has to follow France’s historical plan.

That has always been the case, and it has also never been the case: the flaw in the plan remains selfish West Germany (now just Germany).

This seems like common knowledge in the Eurozone, and certainly in smaller Eurozone nations such as Greece. But according to former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis: “…Paris bears greater responsibility than Berlin for the euro’s faults.”

To be honest, I don’t even have a dog in this bilateral fight, but this declaration doesn’t correspond with the facts. It doesn’t even correspond with the facts as presented by Varoufakis himself in his book, “And the Poor Must Suffer What They Must?”

In a previous article I debunked his book as being riven with fake-leftism; I provided abundant proof that Varoufakis is as “Marxist” about as much as Marx was from Mars.

I write this article because Varoufakis doesn’t seem to believe what every European outside of Germany already knows, and even what he has written himself: France has actually been right all these decades…IF one views the construction of the Eurozone through an authentically-leftist and anti-imperialist perspective (which Varoufakis lacks).

This is the second article in a seven-part series on the Eurozone, and the next article is The hopelessly corrupt structure of the Eurozone – that should give some indication of how little I support this “pan-European project”/banker cabal.

But blaming France instead of Germany is simply incorrect, and this article aims to remedy that.

France’s Eurozone: A tool against American imperialism & for ‘pan-European capitalist Stalinism’

Me, I’m a communist – I like any country which is anti-capitalist, which means I fundamentally oppose both Germany and France, and the Eurozone as well. But the historical reality is that France is more prone to tolerating communist thought than West Germany ever was: France’s legislature was 30% communist from 1946-1958, while the communist party was banned in West Germany.

The Eurozone is not a new project – its roots go back to the 6-nation cartel the European Coal and Steel Community, established in 1951.

And this is my thesis, totally ignored by Varoufakis: France may never have been more than one-third communist, but it was Marxist-influenced enough to realize that modern socio-economic policies are needed to fight imperialism – in France’s case, the United States. They realized that France was in a fight to keep its sovereignty, and so it conceived of the European Union as a Franco-German bulwark against imperial domination.

Now, a hard-core leftist might respond: “No, the 1% in France always conceived of the Eurozone as a capitalist cartel to enrich themselves and care nothing for their fellow citizens.” Well, I salute you – you can click onwards to other intellectual fare you find more interesting, but I suggest you read on because reality is far more nuanced.

What France has historically proposed for this European-sovereignty protecting bulwark can be termed: “pan-European capitalist Stalinism.” This is not as radical as it sounds, because we can all agree that on the spectrum of Western capitalism France is placed on the left-wing. But more proof for this thesis later….

I will prove that France’s machinations did contain an admirable, anti-imperialist goal: I think only a fake-leftist like Varoufakis would refuse to entertain such a view.

Since 1965 France has been openly opposing the hegemony of US imperialism in Western Europe

Sooner than any other Western European country, the French understood that the Bretton Woods monetary system (when accounts began being regularly settled not in gold but in dollars) was not, as Varoufakis absurdly believes, “…meant as a balanced system of international trade and financial flows,” but as a plan for US domination by the dollar.

Europe’s participation meant it supported American living standards and subsidized American companies. That the US could print unlimited dollars for unlimited imports was famously deemed an “exorbitant privilege” by France, but postwar France could do nothing about it…..

Until 1965, when it became clear that there was an explosion in the US deficit. Wars in Korea, Vietnam and vast domestic spending had reduced their control of gold stocks significantly: In 1949 the US had 22,000 tons of gold, 75% of all central bank reserves and 44% of the above-ground stock; by 1960 that had dwindled to 16,000 tons, 47% of central bank reserves and 25% of the above-ground stock.

Theoretically, the US had to pay their debts on demand with US gold. But the trade imbalance meant that there were increasingly insufficient gold reserves to ensure repayment of foreign debts.

And immediately in 1965, France and Charles de Gaulle openly demanded a reform of the Bretton Woods system and a return to the gold standard. “Perhaps never before had a chief of state launched such an open assault on the monetary power of a friendly nation,” said Time magazine in a February 12, 1965, article.

The idea that the monetary domination of the US was “friendly” is something which maybe London or Berlin would accept, but Paris saw through the fiction.

But the French were not all bold words but no action when it came to fighting US domination: Also in 1965, De Gaulle sent a ship to the US and demanded the removal of 350 tons of gold from the New York Federal Reserve – $23 billion in today’s value. This is more than the total Ghadaffi held in reserve to launch his proposed pan-African Dinar.

Varoufakis both admiringly and dismissingly writes: “No one can deny that, when it comes to semiology, the French are unbeatable.” Yes, France’s move was full of metaphoric poetry…but it was also a damned intelligent and bold move to ensure their sovereignty and to fight a very real US imperialism.

In 1966 France withdrew from NATO and forced their headquarters to move from Paris to Belgium.

In 1967 de Gaulle was the first to withdraw from the West’s London Gold Pool, which had been hastily constructed in 1961 to defend Bretton Woods. France withdrew more significant gold stocks, further fighting the hegemon.

Finally, let’s recall the foundational Élysée Treaty of friendship between France and Germany, signed back in 1963 – it was a clear attempt to separate West Germany from the Anglosphere. The US was livid at France’s attempt at undermining the US-led order: “I can hardly overestimate the shock produced in Washington by this action or the speculation that followed, particularly in the intelligence community,” said top US diplomat George Ball.

So the French clearly saw what was coming and they repeatedly acted against Rome – for this they deserve credit. The English did not see it coming or were too closely tied to Caesar. West Germany was pro-USA all the way, for reasons I will soon elaborate.

France wanted a bold partnership with (still-fascist) Germany…against the US

Yes, as a leftist I see the Eurozone as a capitalist cartel…but, in a very real sense, at least it’s an anti-American capitalist cartel, no?

It’s an interesting and important distinction. Theoretically, if the capitalist elite in France could fend off US imperialism they would have more wealth which would not trickle down to the 99%, right?

And let’s not forget – the US forced France into anti-Americanism: de Gaulle was famously not invited to Yalta, where Stalin, FDR and his lap dog Churchill divvied up the spoils. France knew it was on a lower rung, and they didn’t like the view of an American boot.

But as soon as the British soldiers returned they did something extremely intelligent: they voted out the alcoholic, reactionary, racist Churchill and voted in the Labor Party. You can imagine that – in rabidly anti-socialist America – this made Washington very suspicious. The US immediately decided that better a fascist than a socialist (the same decision they routinely make in 2017), called off the in-progress plan to deindustrialize Germany and instead tapped West Germany for their imperial collaborators. That is why Germany is the industrial powerhouse of Europe today even though they lost WWII, make no mistake about it: US patronage.

When one looks at history from an anti-imperialist/Marxist perspective, we see that the French elite (capitalist, of course) clearly concocted the idea of Franco-German-led European unification to preserve their own sovereignty and to counterbalance the plans of the US.

However, Varoufakis misses this completely – he repeatedly presents the French push for a “European Union” not as a way to stave off US domination, but as way to dominate Germany: “For the French elites, a common currency with Germany was an attempt to neutralize Germany, indeed to conquer the Bundesbank without firing a shot.”

“Neutralize” and “conquer” can have two very, very different connotations. By the mid-1960s French elites were well aware that they could not compete industrially with America’s creation of a German Frankenstein, so they wanted to join with Germany. Thus it is in this sense of “neutralizing” a superior power that Varoufakis is correct, but not “neutralize” as in kill.

France wanted to not be conquered by the US-German alliance, so they kept proposing a Franco-German (capitalist) alliance.

What France assumed everyone wanted: Anti-austerity economics across Europe

LOL, and we still want this today in the Eurozone! The French were right then and now.

The French were also right in 1981: the French Left swept to power with more anti-capitalist fervor than any Western nation had ever seen. Labor was united, experienced, bold and ready to lead; capitalism was only taking the very first step of high-finance Ponzi-ism; Mitterrand’s “Common Project” was the most far-left of any economic project in any major Western economy ever.

The truth is that France had a genuine commitment to a pan-Europeanism guided by a mixed socialist/pro-growth/not-rabidly-capitalist economic plan.

And yet France was forced to renounce it in favor of austerity. There are two reasons for that, but one genuine reason is that France mistakenly assumed that Germany would fight for a capitalism which was, at least, not totally modeled on American ruthlessness.

“And so President Mitterrand’s government abandoned anti-austerity policies on the dubious grounds that austerity could only be defeated Europe-wide once the French economy was subjected to doses of anti-austerity sufficiently large to placate the money markets and to convince Germany’s elites to bow to the superior wisdom of French economic policymaking.” (my bolding)

So, you see, France’s economic policymaking IS superior – defeating austerity on a continental level is what everybody should want!

Yes, as a Marxist I am skeptical and unimpressed by France’s mixed socialism, but I note that – for a capitalist project – this is a far, far more humane program than Germany’s harsh capitalism where austerity’s goal is greater inequality with Germany perpetually in surplus.

France’s crucial error was just that -they failed to realize how completely capitalistic Germany is: Grandma was a Nazi and Pops was a US boot-licker – no wonder the kids in Germany think Merkel’s austerity against Greece is justified.

Germany remains imperialistic in 2017 – they have not changed. France’s failure is one of naiveté, which is far less of a sin than Germany’s heartless austerity.

And France did not change this somewhat-noble effort from 1981 all the way up to Francois Hollande:

“…(Mitterrand) embarked on a project that is with us to this very day: to convince German voters that monetary union was Germanizing France and exporting Teutonic discipline to Latin Europe, turning grasshoppers into ants rather than importing French sloth into Germany.”

There are so many things wrong with this quote from Varoufakis : “Teutonic discipline” is absurd – they have profited from untold billions from the US and did not reinvent the wheel all alone; “French sloth” is absurd – France’s productivity rates are higher than Germany’s and among the best in the world; “convince German voters” is the biggest absurdity because there has never been an EU-related referendum in Germany. It is the capitalist and media elites of Germany who have duped German voters into not realizing that the 99% is significantly poorer thanks to the perpetual “race to the bottom/beggar thy neighbor” that is modern capitalism: The Eurozone has not brought prosperity to the average German, as inequality has risen sharply this century and their poverty rate of 16% is much higher than in France.

But Varoufakis is correct that for three decades France has been trying to “convince” Germany into giving up their surplus dominance and, literally, sharing the wealth with Europe’s deficit nations. Of course, of course, of course – you cannot have a surplus without a deficit: France is Marxist-influenced enough to accept that, but not Germany.

France’s ‘pan-European capitalist Stalinism’

“Instead of the socialism-in-one-country that he had promised French voters in 1981, (Mitterrand) ended up espousing cartelized-corporatism-on-one-continent….”

A true Marxist would point out that this statement affirms – hold on to your socks, fake-leftists – the genius of Stalinism: By giving up the coordinated international revolution of Trotskyism and allowing the USSR to prosper all alone, Stalin made his great theoretical contribution to communism.

Yes, international revolution is the goal, but there is no reason why socialism cannot take hold in one country all alone – the enemies of communism are too great, and we should do what we can, when we can do it. Just because German revolutionaries famously failed the join Soviet Revolution in 1917, there was no reason why Russia should abandon communism. (Sheesh…how many times is Germany gonna let everyone down…?)

The solidly real yang of Stalinism provides an indispensable base of support for Socialist victories to grow elsewhere, which is the inevitable and magnetic yin of Trotskyism – the two can never be separated, nor should they.

(Sidebar 1: As an Iranian I can tell you this: If we had waited around for Trotskyism to catch global fire we’d still be shoveling the Shah’s mud! Countries have a right to go it alone. And where would Syria be without Iranian support, or Palestine and Lebanon for that matter?)

(Sidebar 2: When you read leftists attempting to denigrate France’s unions as “Stalinist”, this is what they mean: they are looking out for France’s unionists/labor and are not sufficiently connected to the international movement. To be fair, France’s unions have repeatedly shown a self-centered lack of solidarity by selling each other out by cutting side deals time after time in the age of austerity.)

So what France has been essentially proposing since WWII is “Stalinism-on-one-continent”, or at least the version provided by those on the left-wing of capitalism: France’s plan is based upon the idea that – gasp! – austerity is not good, while growth policies are.

It’s important to remember that this mirrors France’s own postwar economic model: the “Mixed Economy”. The state gives short- and long-term targets for industry to meet, and aids them to achieve it. There’s planning, but it’s not at the USSR’s level. There’s state ownership, but not at the USSR’s level. There is also a commitment to a decent social safety net for things like health and education because, again, austerity is simply not sustainable: some investments must be made…assuming that you want society to gain empowerment and not just the 1%.

France’s Mixed Economy is also not at the level of Japan, where the state’s role was much larger (until the mid-1980s), and where economic success was far greater.

It’s not a terrible plan…for capitalism.

The problem is: it’s far, far too left for West Germany to follow and always has been. West Germany (now just “Germany) sees, as they stood on America’s shoulders while France could only crane their neck, that they can control everything; they can make a “United States of Europe” with Berlin as Washington DC, Frankfurt as New York City, and everyone else as flyover country full of poor deplorables.

Continent-wide anti-austerity was a decent goal, and France was right to push for it.

But France’s consistency is ultimately a foolish one; it is France’s fault for believing international solidarity plays any role at all in capitalism. I’m not going to descend into foolish stereotyping and say “It’s those damned selfish Germans again!” – I’m just going to say: “It’s those damned selfish capitalists again!”

US, Germany & high finance versus everybody

Anglophone, capitalist media is more than happy to keep relaying Germany’s absurd moral attacks on deficit nations, all while ignoring France’s pleas: In 1992 France’s prime minster talked of a “victory of German selfishness over international solidarity,” and I’m sure it was rarely relayed in the Anglosphere.

German selfishness is the secondary reason France’s anti-austerity push failed in 1981 and ever since, but the primary reason was: the fundamental nature of capitalism, where high-finance wages war on any nation threatening their dominance.

I must quickly lay out the true reason why Mitterrand failed to implement socialism in his own country: Despite their huge democratic mandate to end austerity and restore growth polices, France was immediately foiled by high finance and currency speculators.

Capital flight from France to Germany immediately took place with Mitterrand’s coming victory, putting the franc in immediate peril. Long-term borrowing rates (10-year bond) went from 9.6% in March 1979 all the way to 17.3% in May 1981, when Mitterrand was elected.

The franc was devalued 3 times, but Mitterrand was forced into submission. He made his U-turn in March 1983, and by March 1986 10-year bonds were at 9.3%.

What happened was that Germany and the Bundesbank, knowing that high-finance was philosophically in their corner and betting against France with every dollar they could borrow, joined with global high finance and professional currency speculators to strangle France in order to compel them to backtrack on communist-inspired ideas.

If high finance cared at all for democracy and not a possible redistribution of their billions in personal savings, they would have supported France’s anti-austerity plan.

France’s could not boldly defy high finance and keep devaluing their currency until growth took hold for another crucial reason: they would have had to abandon the new European Monetary System (EMS), and this currency rate linkage was France’s brainchild for their long-term goal: wooing Germany away from the US and towards European integration. The EMS was the direct predecessor of the euro.

To stay in the EMS, of course, meant violating the people’s will: “It was the first time a left-leaning government was to discard an anti-austerity agenda in favour of remaining true to the iron logic of Europe’s monetary union.”

Without high finance’s support France was unable to follow its own independent, sovereign, democratically-supported path.

It must be taken as axiomatic that the 1% will make war with any leftist government in the exact same manner.

(I point you to examine the “War of the Triple Alliance”, the “original sin” of post-Bolivar South America and the continent’s bloodiest war ever. In short, Paraguay had totally shut out foreign investors in favor of economic protectionism and internal development…and created a place where poverty ceased to exist. British and French bankers put the dogs (Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay) on them, and 70% of Paraguayan males were slaughtered for not wanting any part of foreign “loans”. )

France was pushing leftism, ok, but Mitterrand was no Khomeini. France’s leaders and their people lacked the revolutionary fervor of places like 1979 Iran to go it alone and say “to hell with high finance”. Such a path is not for the faint-hearted: the West’s 1% foisted war with Iraq on revolutionary Iran (just as they did with Paraguay), and a truly deadly Cold War has existed ever after.

Given the lack of revolutionary fervor, France’s best route to the fundamentally-limited grassroots sovereignty offered by capitalism may truly have been to keep pushing the Franco-German alliance, and to stay in the EMS. France was truly fighting an imperial hegemon (while also being a neo-imperial hegemon themselves) and Varoufakis and others totally miss this.

And France was on the right track to at least ameliorate capitalism – Germany was wrong to refuse any sort of economic solidarity. It’s appalling that this is still the case!

Creeping fake-leftism culminates with Hollande, but are the deplorables infected?

The “Ponzi stability” of the 1980s and beyond blinded the French Left to the reality of class war, deluding them into thinking that high finance would ever share their wealth with the 99%.

“…Mitterrand’s unique achievement of co-opting much of the traditionally recalcitrant French Left to (French Finance Minister Jacques) Delors’s cause – effectively into support for the conservative North-Central European cartel.”

Instead of supporting communism – which will always be genuine “leftism” – the West’s left opted for pan-European cartelism. It took the European Sovereign Debt crisis to re-unveil the anti-social hydra that is high finance and capitalism.

We now see that Hollande’s presidency fits right in-line with this leftist analysis: In 2012 he was supposed to lead a “Latin Bloc” to fight Germany into – as usual – ending austerity.

It’s interesting to note that 10-year bonds stood at 2.75% when Hollande was elected…and they fell immediately and constantly. French 10-year bonds stood at 0.81% when he left office…in disgrace.

How can we explain that there was no capitalist war on France even though Hollande campaigned on promises of ending austerity, funding infrastructure and saying that “high finance is my enemy”? Varoufakis has Hollande’s number, calling him “the meekest of leaders” – high finance knew he was a patsy and the thinnest of paper tigers. Hollande put up no resistance to western Germany-led capitalism once he took office.

Varoufakis, writing in 2015, ends on a high note for France, despite Germany’s continued rejection of pro-growth policies and pan-European solidarity.

“France is important in that, despite rapid decline after its ill-fated attempt to capture the Bundesbank, it remains difficult to subdue and almost impossible to absorb into a modern-day version of Bismarck’s unitary empire.”

I have a couple of interesting theories for this, so please indulge me.

France will never be subdued by Germany for a reason which is almost beyond economics: food. By nature, France will always remain powerful for the simple fact that God has designated their territory to be the breadbasket of Western Europe. Somebody MUST produce the food, and the global economy is not in a place where faraway nations can do it much cheaper than your neighbors. France’s agricultural production is 18.1% of the EU total, and that is 35% more than Germany, 47% more than Italy and 71% more than Spain – forget about Netherlands and their flower-dominated agriculture, that’s not the same thing. France leads in nearly all the key categories: cereal (wheat for bread), beef and poultry. Add in being first in potatoes and they have all the staples covered. Their dominance here is as huge as German dominance in manufacturing even if it is worth less overall than manufacturing.

I don’t think this geographic determinism can be easily dismissed. I think it is too bottom-line oriented to try to get past a simple fact of life so quickly forgotten by ivory tower urbanites: somebody’s gotta produce the damned food. The fact that France comprises top-quality farmland, while others sit on rocky mountains or in bad weather zones, must mean something. It certainly always has meant a great deal….

Secondly, France has also long-known what the US knows about their huge deficit: their nuclear power prohibits Germany or anyone else from ever collecting. Who is going to invade France? So of course they are don’t mind running up the bill….

Macron: the death knell of decades of fighting American-German imperialism

Of course…that is predicated on France having a leadership which was actually looking out for their sovereign interests.

Is it too late, now that France voted in Macron, the uber-globalist?

Macron represents the death of France’s historical push to end the imperial domination of Germany, the US and high-finance.

This is why Macron is poised to present the maximum amount of subversion from within: by selling off as much of France as possible, and by creating a Eurozone structure which decreases as much French democratic power as possible. Macron is acting as the ultimate 5th Columnist, and he is a major deviation from French postwar history. Indeed, who could have predicted his ascent not even one year ago?

Macron just kicked off a $12 billion privatization drive of state-owned companies. Oh, the shares didn’t sell as high as his government assured us? Why, I’m sure they’re all just sick about that! How will Macron be able to sleep tonight, between that and the smell of his wife’s Bengay arthritis cream?!

For Macron and all “globalists”, only money matters: not national sovereignty, not the living condition of those on the other side of their hometown, not preserving France’s unity, health and sanity. I told y’all to vote Le Pen!

What could have been: A ‘Petroeuro’

Why isn’t there one? The Eurozone is the largest macro-economy after all?

Well, Saddam Hussein tried selling oil in euros in 2000. We know what happened in 2003.

France’s Dominique Strauss-Kahn was the huge front-runner for president in 2012…but also a supporter of Special Drawing Rights, which had the potential to sharply reduce dollar domination. Then Strauss-Kahn was accused of assaulting a very rare type in New York City: A hotel maid who speaks French instead of Spanish. What are the odds…? (The case against him was dropped due to lack of evidence, let’s justly recall.)

I notice that the US has not picked up Ghadaffi’s sensible pan-African Dinar plan after they toppled him? I wonder why?

Ironically, Iran – and not any European country – is the only nation which has pushed for a Petroeuro! And why not? The US keeps waging war on us by any means possible – Iran continues to say, “Bring it on!”

So, the recent news that China is going to soon open up a yuan-gold-oil exchange is earth-shattering. It’s a commodities bombshell, a global financial bombshell, a geopolitical bombshell…and we have waited a long time for this.

Countries with oil who are strong enough to stand up to the US – Iran, Russia, Venezuela, Syria, etc. – can soon circumvent US sanctions. (Iran has been bartering oil bilaterally for years – this should get us a better rate, now that we are not all alone.)

So, “bombshell” is not strong enough, and I hope that this article’s discussion of Bretton Woods, EMS, etc. gives China’s news a bit more historical context for you.

Eurozone citizens can add “Where’s my Petroeuro” to the question of “Where’s my bailout?”

Well, if you hadn’t voted for Macron, if your fake-leftists had seen American-German imperialism for what it is, if you were devoted to an anti-imperialist/anti-capitalist worldview…y’all would have had a Petroeuro. It’s really been quite a missed opportunity….

However, because of all these reasons I just mentioned, the new “Petroyuan” (long may she reign!) will be fundamentally different than a Petroeuro would likely have been: Even if Europe had the guts to stand up against America, neo-imperial history shows that they would have found a way to employ it as a capitalist tool for “zero-sum” manipulation. The Petroyuan is so typical of China’s “non-imperial” imperialism: you can sell oil for yuan or for gold – you can choose.

And that’s why China is not imperialist at all – don’t believe the hype.

China has SOME communist solidarity in their makeup, as opposed to NONE for capitalists. “Mutually beneficial” is how they routinely deal with the 3rd World in Africa, Latin America, Asia, etc. and all these countries report exactly that: there’s a fundamental ethical difference between doing business with China and doing business with the West.

So, with friends like West Germans and voting in leaders like Macron…a Petroeuro just wasn’t in the cards for the Eurozone.

Knock the ‘French model’, but they’ve been fighting the “German model” since Bismarck

Anyway…it’s not all Macron’s fault. Sarkozy rejoined NATO, after all.

This is a generational, cultural trend in the making since the 1980s, when the scourge of fake-leftism began.

Let’s reflect on the historical reality: The Eurozone is ruled by bankers and not by an idea of pan-European solidarity. And it is Germany’s bankers and Bundesbank which bear the greatest fault for a lack of pan-European solidarity, not France’s elite, even according to Varoufakis:

“…the Bundesbank was always there, guiding, enabling and actively undermining the Franco-German axis around which the European Union rotated.”

France (being capitalist) is not an angel in all this, but Varoufakis is clearly completely off the mark when he blames Paris for the Eurozone’s faults: France’s elite realized that a West Germany allied with the US meant they would be the soon-dominated 3rd wheel. And why wouldn’t Germany be next to drop?

But decades of bold moves, daring diplomacy, anti-austerity programs and other efforts culminated in “Flanby” Hollande, and now the worm has turned into Macron, “the Rothschurian Candidate”.

But Paris has shown that they have some sense of solidarity, whereas Berlin is not playing by the rules of humanity – they are playing by the rules of capitalism, which is “dog eat dog”.

There is historical, genuine support for communism in France. There is also historical, genuine support for socialism/communism in Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal.

But such ideas have been legally verboten in West Germany, and the corporate media means it is still effectively that way today. Forget about there being some sort of ideological leavening from East Germany because the West has totally dominated the former East Germany culturally, economically and demographically. (If East Germany was reinstituted as a country today they would be the oldest country in the world, and by several years.)

The hard-core capitalists and the elites of Berlin and Frankfurt have proved they refuse to share for decade after decade, and they will prove it again when you open your next newspaper.

Without the very real “Latin Leftism” the Eurozone is doomed…to domination by German bankers working alongside American ones.

Blame capitalism, as you should, but France deserves credit for trying.

***********************************

France is headed back from summer vacation, and head-on to more austerity-provoked social unrest. I thought it might be interesting to refresh our familiarity with the cause of the unrest: the Eurozone.

This is the second article I have written in a 7-part series on today’s Eurozone which will combine some of Varoufakis’ ideas with my 8 years of covering the crisis first-hand from Paris.

Here is the list of articles slated to be published, and I hope you will find them useful in your leftist struggle!

Varoufakis book review: Rock star economist but fake-leftist politician

Why no Petroeuro? or France’s historic effort for an anti-austerity Eurozone

The hopelessly corrupt structure of the Eurozone

The Eurozone: still as primed for collapse as ever

The Eurozone has likely entered its final calendar year, contraction coming

The English-speaking world’s fear of calling communism, ‘communism’

Forced recession as a tool of social war against the 99%

Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. His work has appeared in various journals, magazines and websites, as well as on radio and television.