by Pepe Escobar for the Asia Times
So in the end the West was saved by the election of Emmanuel Macron as President of France: relief in Brussels, a buoyant eurozone, rallies in Asian markets.
That was always a no-brainer. After all, Macron was endorsed by the EU, Goddess of the Market, and Barack Obama. And he was fully backed by the French ruling class.
This was a referendum on the EU – and the EU, in its current set-up, won.
Cyberwar had to be part of the picture. No one knows where the MacronLeaks came from – a last minute, massive online dump of Macron campaign hacked emails. WikiLeaks certified the documents it had time to review as legitimate.
That did not stop the Macron galaxy from immediately blaming it on Russia. Le Monde, a once-great paper now owned by three influential Macron backers, faithfully mirrored his campaign’s denunciation of RT and Sputnik, information technology attacks and, in general, the interference of Russia in the elections.
The Macron Russophobia in the French media-sphere also happens to include Liberation, once the paper of Jean-Paul Sartre. Edouard de Rothschild, the previous head of Rothschild & Cie Banque, bought a 37% controlling stake in the paper in 2005. Three years later, an unknown Emmanuel Macron started to rise in the mergers and acquisitions department, soon acquiring a reputation as “the Mozart of finance.”
After a brief stint at the Ministry of Finance, a movement, En Marche! was set up for him by a network of powerful players and think tanks. Now, the presidency. Welcome to the revolving door, Moet & Chandon-style.
See you on the barricades, babe
In the last TV face-off with Marine Le Pen, Macron did not shy from displaying condescending/rude streaks and even raked some extra percentage points by hammering “Marine” as a misinformed, corrupt, “hate-filled” nationalist liar who “feeds off France’s misery” and would precipitate “civil war.”
That may in fact come back to haunt him. Macron is bound to be a carrier of France’s internal devaluation; a champion of wage “rigor,” whose counterpoint will be a boom of under-employment; and a champion of increasing precariousness on the road to boost competitiveness.
Big Business lauds his idea of cutting corporate tax from 33% to 25% (the European average). But overall, what Macron has sold is a recipe for a “see you on the barricades” scenario: severe cuts in health spending, unemployment benefits and local government budgets; at least 120,000 layoffs from the public sector; and abrogation of some key workers’ rights. He wants to advance the “reform” of the French work code – opposed by 67% of French voters – ruling by decree.
On Europe, the only thing “Marine” said during the campaign that was closer to the truth was that “France will be led by a woman, either me or Mrs Merkel.”
Macron is more likely to be the new Tony Blair or, in a more disastrous vein, the new [former Italian PM Matteo] Renzi.
The real game starts now. Only 4 in 10 voters backed him. Abstention reached 25% – about one-third if spoilt ballots are counted. It will be virtually impossible for Macron to come up with a parliamentary majority in the upcoming elections.
France is now viciously divided into five blocks – with very little uniting them: Macron’s En Marche! movement; Marine Le Pen’s National Front, which will be recomposed and expanded; Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Disobedient France, which is bound to lead a New Left; the shattered Republicans, or the traditional French Right, which badly needs a new leader after the François Fillon debacle; and the virtually destroyed Socialists post-Hollande.
An Orwellian shock of the new
Contrary to global perceptions, the biggest issue in this election was not immigration, it was actually deep resentment toward the French deep state (police, justice, administration) – perceived as oppressive, corrupt and even violent.
Even before the vote, the always sharp and delightfully provocative philosopher Michel Onfray, author of Decadence, the best book of the year and founder of the Popular University of Caen, identified some of the main players behind the Macron bandwagon: the “bellicose” philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy; Le Monde’s Pierre Bergé; Jacques Attali – who almost single-handedly turned the Soclalists into hardcore neoliberals; eminence grise Alain Minc; former MSF head Bernard Kouchner; and former May 1968 stalwart Daniel Cohn-Bendit – “In other words, the feral promoters of a liberal policy that allowed Marine Le Pen to hit her highest score ever.”
All of the above are faithful servants of the French deep state. I have outlined in Asia Times how the Macron hologram was manufactured. But to see how the deep state managed to sell him, it’s essential to refer to philosopher Jean-Claude Michea, a disciple of George Orwell and Christopher Lasch, and author of the recently published Notre Ennemi, Le Capital.
Michea studies in detail how the Left has adopted all the values of what Karl Popper dubbed “open society.” And how media spin doctors molded the term “populism” to stigmatize the contemporary form of Absolute Evil. Marine Le Pen was ostracized as “populist” – while media propaganda always refused to note that National Front voters (now 11 million) come from the “popular classes.”
Michea emphasizes the original, historical meaning of “populism” in Czarist Russia; a current within the socialist movement – much admired by Marx and Engels – according to which peasants, artisans and small entrepreneurs would have their place of honor in a developed socialist economy. During May 1968 in France nobody would have thought that populism could be equated with fascism. That only happened in the beginning of the 1980s – as part of the new Orwellian language of neoliberalism.
Michea also notes that now it’s much easier to be a Left neoliberal than a Right neoliberal; in France, these Left neoliberals belong to the very closed circuit of the “Young Leaders” adopted by the French American Foundation. French Big Business and high finance – essentially, the French ruling class – immediately understood that an Old Catholic Right candidate like François Fillon would never fly; they needed a new brand for the same bottle.
Hence Macron: a brilliant repackaging sold as change France can believe in, as in a relatively soft approach to the “reforms” essential to the survival of the neoliberal project.
What French voters have – sort of – endorsed is the unity of neoliberal economy and cultural liberalism. Call it, like Michea, “integrated liberalism.” Or, with all the Orwellian overtones, “post-democratic capitalism.” A true revolt of the elites. And “peasants” buy it willingly. Let them eat overpriced croissants. Once again, France is leading the West.
I think one reason that people like Macron get elected is because a very large percentage of the ‘ordinary’ population remains emotionally/intellectually trapped by the simple but biased main stream media. Many in this same population may struggle with the often complex references and analysis such as this. Personally I love the intelligent flair but perhaps we collectively need a wider focus if we are ever to effect change and free the numbers needed to make a difference.
@TEP
You said: “…..Many in this same population may struggle with the often complex references and analysis such as this…..
Who said:
“The great masses’ capacity to absorb information is very limited,they have little understanding and they are very forgetful.
For these reasons, any effective propaganda must be confined to a very few points,and these must be expressed in simple stereotyped formulas.
They must be used repeatedly until every last man cannot help but know the meaning instantly.
The moment we forget this principal, and try to vary the approach, try to be general or abstract, we minimize the effect.
The crowd cannot understand what is being offered.
Therefore, the greater the scope of the message, the more necessary it is for the propaganda to follow a simple plan of action, which is also the most effective and targeted psychologically.”
– Adolph Hitler
Most modern societies want stability and Macron supplied that. France, compared to the U.S. is a fairly convivial society still so they have reason to be cautious. In the U.S. large numbers of the bottom 80% are fed-up with business as usual and can only be brought to heel by more outrageous lies and the build up of external “threats” to stay cohesive. We in the U.S. are in much more dire straits, as a culture, than France. France as a culture and despite mass immigration can survive under the neoliberal regime. The U.S., in contrast, depends on continued economic growth to paper over the rather brutish society we live in and without that only war and the manufacture of enemies will keep the peasants from revolting. The problem with Europe is that they are no longer sovereign countries but vassals to the Empire just like the American people are. As long as Europe can maintain some kind of economic stability even without growth–they’ll not revolt against the Empire.
France is leading the west to it’s inevitable demise. The Emperor truly has no clothes .
Le Pen should have stuck to real meat and potato issues. IE:Austerity , the financialisation of the real economy. Job cuts. The further deterioration of workers rights. Malenchon is a false proletariot and comes from the Chardonnay set of leftist that we all have come accustomed to since Reagonomics and Thactherism had caused the left to reinvent it self as a vassal to high end finance.
Looking at Le pens political platform she appeared the more leftist candidate of them all. Further more using terms like centrist to portray Macron were all deceptive lies, and portraying Le-Pen like far right. Really todays journalist really need lessons on political science 101. This has been a real problem with identity politics.,rebranding and labels with no real meanings attached to them. Further more the western education system has created a society totally ignorant to history and really created a large intellectual vacuum which group think and msm distorting facts and creating insignificant labels with no reference to reality. Hollywoodian reality. How Orwellian the times we r living
>> Le Pen should have stuck to real meat and potato issues
Yes, she should, but the fact that she could not show that she wasn’t an option either. Same strategy as in the US, just the French voters voted the other way. The best real alternative – Melenchon – was kept from media coverage.
I wonder whether Pepe has seen the common denominator (seen by many others) which glue together ‘the main players behind the Macron bandwagon’, ‘the feral promoters of a liberal policy’ identified by Michel Onfrey? It’s the usual elephant in the room, of course, hiding behind a Red Shield.
Michel Onfrey, the impostor Nietzschean (rabidly anti-Christian) pseudo-‘philosopher’, is on the same bandwagon, although his pose of ‘anarchist’ tries to convey the opposite image. I am puzzled that Pepe can find his trash and flows of hateful bile ‘delightful’. If anything, he is a a perfect embodiment of the ‘decadence’ of the “Occident’ that he ferociously blames on ‘Judeo-Christianity’ (more on Christianity than on Judeo, of course).
Its “interesting” that among these “French” Macron backers not a one has a name that looks ethnic French to me,Bernard-Henri Levy, Pierre Bergé,Jacques Attali,Alain Minc,Bernard Kouchner,Daniel Cohn-Bendit . I don’t doubt that they were probably born and raised in France. But they all seem to have non-French backgrounds to their names. Most ,if I was guessing would be of Jewish descent,from the look of the names. As in most of the West today. The native majority populations seem to be pushed aside in political and economic leadership. Some I suppose would consider that a “positive”,and a sign of a “healthy diversity”. I look on it as a “negative” and a sign of the subjection of those states to outside control.
Yep, various diasporas around the the world have led to the foreign policies of indigenous states being literally hi-jacked by small but highly influential, well-organized and funded ethnic-religious minorities. Nowhere is this truer than in the United States, where Polish, Ukrainian and above all, Jewish, minorities have a stranglehold on American foreign policy. The groups tend to be very right-wing and militantly Russophobic.
Patrick Buchanan of ‘The American Conservative’ referred to the US Congress as ”… an Israeli-occupied zone.” Which is about right. A similarly cogent analysis was put forward by two eminent American historians, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, ”The Israel Lobby’ a seminal work on the subject. Of course, all this will be waived away as ‘anti-Semitism’ the stock Zionist canard. But the facts say something entirely different. Starting with the blowing up of the King David hotel in Jerusalem in 1947, a terrorist act conducted by the Irgun Zvei Leumi under the leadership of Menachem Begin, and resulting in the death of 94 persons, mostly arab, but with some British military personnel, the zionist state-movement has used terroism to advance its cause since that date.
Apparently just to mention this historical fact makes you an anti-semite. And this crass historical revionism and propaganda is repeated ad nauseam by the mass media. When in actual fact the REAL anti-semites, our glorious allies against the Russian ‘threat’ are ensconced in Lviv, Riga, Tallin, where during the war the local populations were only too eager to take part in the anti-Jewish pogroms.
A world turned upside-down
I agree with you. But let me point out one thing. It wasn’t the King David hotel that started the zionist terrorism. The zionists embraced terrorism from the 1920’s-1930’s and on,at least.They murdered the British Ambassador to Egypt in one of their most “spectacular” terrorist assaults during WWII.There organization was a terrorist organisation before “terrorism was cool”. They could/should be “credited” as the largest Middle Eastern terrorist founder organization. The Jewish “Al Qaeda” of that period.
The Jewish sicarii zealots from the time of the Romans may have been the prototype ‘terrorists’.
Hey Bob,
Thierry Meyssan has IMHO the best background on this “boy”:
http://www.voltairenet.org/article196311.html
An “Israeli Asset”.
Good to see Thierry spelling out the all-to-obvious, as long as one keeps in mind that Israel is nothing more than the City of London bankers’ dacha.
A little correction to the otherwise cogent presentation of Thierry Meyssan.
‘Avanti’ was never the name of ‘Mussolini’s Party’, which was ‘Partito Nazionale Fascista’ (the only properly ‘fascist’ organization).
Avanti! (meaning “Forward!” in English) is an Italian daily newspaper, born as the official voice of the Italian Socialist Party, published since 25 December 1896. It took its name from its German counterpart Vorwärts, the party-newspaper of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Mussolini banned it in 1926. After 1945 Avanti was the newspaper of the ‘Italian Socialist Party (PSI)’. Today it remains associated with PSI.
The only connection with Mussolini would be his ‘March on Rome (Marcia su Roma)’.
It evokes rather the ‘Grand March’ of Milan Kundera, the political kitsch joining leftists of all times and tendencies (“He saw the marching, shouting crowd as the image of Europe and its history. Europe was the Grand March. The march from revolution to revolution, from struggle to struggle, ever onward.”)
“The Permanent Revolution” of Marx, Engels, Trotsky against ‘fascism, nationalism, xenophobia, racism and anti-semitism’, homophobia, transphobia and whatever other ‘phobias’).
Well Uncle Bob, your guess is correct. But a simple Googling of every name would spell it clear and loud.
Sheikh Imran Hosein in one of his videos spoke about Pax Britanica (about 3-400 years) followed by Pax America (about 100 years) followed by Pax Judaica (only a few years hopefully, otherwise the world will not survive) which is what we are seeing the emergence of. It won’t be long before they start openly announcing their true tribal roots.
All but Berge’ are Jewish. Had to listen to the execrable philosemite Philip Adams groveling to Dominique Moisi (another Eternal) after the election of Macron, where Adams’s joy was unbounded and Moisi’s adoration of Macron rather creepy.
Bergé might be Berger. Anyhow he is big on the Pédé scene (Bernard Buffet’s ‘live-in lover’ and then ‘romantically involved with Yves Saint Laurent’). His associate at Le Monde, Xavier Niel was indicted and detained for a month for alleged procuring (pimping) and misuse of company assets, which occurred in several sex shops in which he was a shareholder. A real ‘maquerau’!
On 16 March 2013, on Twitter, Bergé retweeted the following message: “If a bomb explodes on the Champs Elysees because of the “#laManifPourTous” (anti-same-sex marriage) I won’t be the one crying.”
On 26 September 2013, Bergé declared he was in favor of the removal of all Christian holidays in France.
Interestingly, ‘Mr Macron unexpectedly turned up on Monday [7 February] at a local Paris meeting of activists from his En Marche (On the Move) movement and laughed off the persistent rumours of a homosexual relationship with Radio France chief executive Mathieu Gallet…’Mr Macron has previously dismissed claims he is gay, but his latest comments may have been sparked by a report in the Russian government controlled news site Sputnik in which a French MP from Mr Fillon’s Les Républicains party said he was backed [by] a “gay lobby”’
@http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/07/emmanuel-macron-laughs-gay-affair-rumours/.
I could not give a toss if Macaroon is gay, but if he is, yet denies it, while living with his mother substitute, he is even more creepy than he appears. His eyes are quite shifty, don’t you think? In any case, he is totally controlled by those well-known philanthropists, the Rothschilds and their ilk.
@he is totally controlled by those well-known philanthropists, the Rothschilds and their ilk.
How else could it be? The Rothschilds are the masters of France for a very long time. Look at this amusing piece, written by the [in]famous Louis Ferdinand Celine in 1937:
“Savez-vous, c’est assez piquant, ce que répondit notre grand patriote Poincaré (marié a une juive) aux représentants d’une très importante société financière venus le pressentir, le solliciter de plaider éventuellement contre les Rothschild?… “Messieurs! vous n’y pensez pas!… Une première fois déjà ministre des Finances, Je peux à tout instant être appelé de nouveau… et il suffirait d’un mot du Baron de Rothschild… ” (I have no time to translate it, a Google translation would do it).
Anyhow, it is worth reminding that at the Congress of Vienna 1815 “Nathan (Nathan Mayer, Freiherr von Rothschild) Rothschild presented a plan for the United States of Europe – de facto to be ruled by his Central Bank of England, which Nathan took over by a stock exchange trick after the Battle of Waterloo 1815. The plan nearly succeeded – but was thwarted by Czar Alexander I of Russia. Nathan flew into a rage and swore reven.ge. His house had that revenge in 1917 through the Jewish Russian Bolshevik Revolution, which Rothschild and Germany financed. More than 80% of the first Soviet Government were Jews, acc. to Vladimir Putin”. Nothing really new.
Le Baron of Poincare was Édouard Alphonse James de Rothschild (1868-1949) of the French branch of the gang. The present ones are:
1) Baron David René James de Rothschild (1942-), Chairman of N M Rothschild & Sons
2) Baron Édouard Étienne Alphonse de Rothschild, the present patron of the ‘Liberation’ newspaper, the asswipe (torche-cul) of the 1968 generation, “combining counter-culture and political radicalism”.
Of course they share the ‘Château Lafite Rothschild’.
The freedom and democracy show continues on in the West,
as our “leaders” move the masses ever closer to the abyss.
Funny how many dependent pundits manage to overlook the elephant in the room, in this case, even mentioning one the elephant’s well known patrons and several of it’s high placed colonial assets, but still the elephant remains invisible.
I believe the 2-D description of politics from Left to Right is highly misleading.
A 3-D cone shape is more accurate. Probably more D’s needed to model accurately, but 3-D is the best humans not named Stephen Hawking can visualize, so lets go with that.
The top and point of the cone is the 1%. The bankers and other powerful people who rule. They are mislabeled as “centrists” in the media that they own and control.
The bottom ring of the cone is ordinary working people at the bottom of the society. The mass numbers of people who’ve been made powerless in the recent decades, and who generally pay the price for the thefts and extortions of the 1%.
The middle classes are higher up the cone.
The “left” and the “right” populist movements are both representing people at the bottom of the cone. They are just located on different sides of the circle. But both are equal in their relations with the rulers/thieves of the 0.001% at the very top of the cone.
Thus, left populists and right populists both represent people who largely have the same complaints and issues. They both represent people who’ve been made powerless in modern society. And that given the robber-baron nature of modern society, the people they represent are the people made to pay most heavily the price for the thefts and excesses of those at the top.
Since the various groups around the base of the cone have similar issues, what would really make sense would be if they united in a common struggle against the few at the top. However, a huge amount of effort goes into making sure this does not happen. The people on the left side of the circle are instead confused into thinking that the people on the right side of the circle are their largest enemy, and vice-versa. You will always find loud voices in the media of the 0.001% telling the left populists that they must hate and oppose the right populists, and similar loud voices telling the right populists that they must hate and oppose the left populists.
The fake 2-D representation of politics is used to tell the ‘left’ that the ‘right’ is their opponent and enemy and so forth in reverse. When in actuality, the enemy and opporessor of the bottom of the 3-D cone is the people at the top of the cone.
The ‘left’ and the ‘right’ are both taught to think in different words and language. But if you really cross the battle lines and talk to the other side, you’ll find more people who are also being ripped-off by the powerful expressing the same outrage.
You could see how the fake 2-D representation was used in the French Presidential election. The ‘left’ was told that the ‘right’ was ‘fascist and racists’ and must be opposed by voting for the ‘center’. Which has now of course led to the top of the cone cementing its rule over all. Should a challenging movement arise from the left, the right will be told that they must oppose ‘socialist and communists’ and that its their turn to vote against their own interests by supporting the center.
What we need for real change, to challenge the “elephent in the room” that sits and the top of the cone and that sprays its droppings down on every one else, is for everyone at the bottom to realize that they are in this together and must fight and stand together. This of course is what truly gives the Elephant nightmares.
Hey Pepe, Macron overall approval is less than 30% once you factor null/blank votes, and the people who wanted to block Lepen but in no way approve Macron’s fascist platform.
Therefore the french voters haven’t “endorsed” anything.
Macron appears to be primarily a Jewish project. What percentage of the French population is Jewish, and how did they come to be so powerful?
The emails likely leaked as a shot over the bow letting Mucron know they have everything needed to blackmail him. What is missing from the cache is the point…non.?
And given the hype about Bear meddling for months in the leadup to the election how is it possible the trove was so easy to filch.?
In any event it is such a lovely reminder for all European politicians that they have adequate companionship and support from the powers that be.
I wonder if The Saker will republish Pepe’s latest op/ed, “The Decline of the West Revisited,” given its attack on The Church, https://sputniknews.com/columnists/201705111053515381-decline-of-the-west-revisited/
Nope, I won’t :-)
Cheers,
The Saker
And the French Deep State – very few Jews in it are there?