by Ramin Mazaheri
The Hollande era has ended, and the Macron era has begun –one must look to Brussels to find many who are happy about it.
This is not a column about Hollande’s reign, and reign is the right word for a man who leaves the country in an 18-month state of emergency, i.e. a police state dictatorship. But it would be too long to list all of Hollande’s crimes against France’s humanity and France’s humans, legal citizens and otherwise.
That is a column for another day.
It’s absurd to read the mainstream media’s coverage of the undearly departed Hollande: They are trying to convince us that he “didn’t deserve his unpopularity”, that he was “misunderstood” or that he “will be appreciated later”.
All of these false narratives arrogantly and shockingly whitewash his four years of record unpopularity, and they also show whose side the mainstream media is truly on: the side of power, and not the people.
If you are on the side of the French people you do not write such revisionist hagiographies of such a flagrantly undemocratic president – you condemn; you reflect the judgment of the people. That’s the only way a journalist should be able to cash their paycheck with a clear conscience.
Hollande betrayed his promises to fight for the rights of his people so scandalously that it is absolutely justice that he was betrayed in the end: Macron appears to have manipulated Hollande perfectly.
I’ll drop the repugnant Hollande with this clear statement: Hollande did not deserve any better than this – to be betrayed by the unknown he plucked from the chorus, groomed for power, and whose name was on the handle of the knife in his back.
Who is this kid we’re stuck with?
A fundamental question which will likely dog Macron: Is Macron an authentic person?
I covered the recent passing of Fidel Castro for Press TV and I heard from everyday people over and over – many of whom had met Castro – that he was an “authentic person”. I thought: “I hope people say the same for me when I pass on.”
But I am a nobody and I do not seek power over others – if I am an inauthentic person the circle of people I hurt will be limited. An inauthentic president, however, ruins entire nations.
Macron’s wife is a good indication that he may not be an authentic person. They met when she was his high school drama teacher: How can any actor ever be considered an “authentic person”? Actors pretend to be anyone but themselves, after all; they are people who perfect the craft of lying in public.
Trump was an amateur thespian, and I don’t think he even stops for five minutes to ask himself who he really is.
The fact is that since the advent of moving pictures politicians increasingly have nothing to do with intellectual accomplishments, ethical standing or even military discipline/selflessness – they simply know how to lie with poise after reading the polling data, which they throw out once in office.
A word about France’s new first lady, Brigitte Macron, née: Brigitte Trogneux: She was not just a simple drama and French teacher, as is commonly reported. She is also an heiress of the Chocolaterie Trogneux family. The former failed politician is not as rich as Theresa Heinz Kerry, but many are at a loss to explain America’s love for ketchup.
I’ve known plenty of 39-year olds who “kept it real” – the jury is out on Macron.
So far the MacronLeaks have not turned up much. To be honest, we journalists in France need more time – we have been busy with the transfer of power. However, Macron is from the new generation which grew up with home video games and computers in his private schools – he’s not dumb enough to leave digital evidence of malfeasance, one assumes.
So far the biggest thing has been that the Macron team paid hundreds of thousands of euros for polls. Obviously, this needs to be probed deeper, but I bring it up because Macron has just announced his prime minister.
The old lady, or ladies, who would be prime minister (ministerette?)
A front-runner for Prime Minister was Laurence Parisot, who is now the head of the national bosses union – yes, even bosses get a union in France, and they are almost supremely powerful in the political-business sphere, as you can imagine. Parisot owns and runs perhaps the top polling firm in France, IFOP, the French Institute of Public Opinion.
This intersection between polling and politics should worry any citizen. Of course, market research firms sell polls – that’s what people who are too dumb to be journalists and too uncreative to be advertisers do – but the obvious temptation to manipulate public opinion with false polling should preclude someone from holding office in a normal democracy.
However, Parisot was passed over. Many assumed it would be current IMF chief Christine Lagarde. It was not.
Many assumed it would be some old lady – any old lady – because the 39-year old Macron married a 64-year old woman, so he clearly works well with the elder female generation.
People are asking: “When will they stop bringing up his wife’s age?” They won’t, at least outside of France. That’s because most everyone assumes there is a moral component to sex, love and marriage. A winter-summer romance, especially on the flip-side of the usual gender, is going to provoke questions and that’s life in the public eye.
But this, however, is France. Mitterand had a secret family which the press dutifully covered up; Hollande secretly dated an actress. If Macron has certain needs – however varied his may be – that 39-year old men have…well, he’s in the right country to keep it under wraps.
Or maybe he’s already found that mistress that every French president seems to have: Angela Merkel.
Hey, shortly after appointing his Prime Minister that’s who he flew off to see…but my imagination insists on keeping visions of that meeting purely work-related. It’s bad enough Merkel has damaged so much else!
Is Macron even capable saying “no” to Merkel? Regardless of any possible attraction, it’s much more likely this generation’s Margaret Thatcher will act as the inexperienced Macron’s guru, and all we can do is just groan yet again.
As Marine Le Pen said in the lone presidential debate: “In any case France will be governed by a woman: either me or Madame Merkel.” Ouch!
But, for form’s sake, Merkel was not appointed French Prime Minister
The new prime minister is 47-year old Edouard Philippe.
Who? Well, that’s not such a bad response – maybe Macron is going to do what he promised: totally regenerate France’s pool of politicians. Polls said that was the 2nd most-popular reason why voters chose Macron over Le Pen. Neither the Socialists nor the party of de Gaulle advanced to the 2nd round for the first time ever in large part for this important reason.
The new PM may not even last a month, however – it all depends on the “Third Round of the Presidential Elections”: next month’s legislative elections.
Macron’s list of legislative candidates is also pleasantly surprising, in this vein – there are only a few dozen recycled Socialists among his first 430 of roughly 580 candidates. Half are new to politics (probably businessmen, I imagine). We’ll have to wait for the final list, but now is the time to be optimistic: Maybe there really will be new blood in the halls of French power? Maybe the Socialists will get the punishment they deserve? Maybe the Conservatives won’t keep getting ghost jobs on the taxpayer dime?
It would be very easy for Macron to blow up the system: He has already said that he is not envisioning a career in politics. His hope appears to be to stay president for 10 years and then go back into the private sector and make more Rothschild-type of money.
As I wrote, this is good in the sense that it reflects the democratic will of the people – well, at least one current of it. However, there are clearly drawbacks to having your country run by mercenaries.
It is very easy to blow up public service when you have no intention of recreating a better public service. Isn’t this the overarching goal of neoliberalism? Reflect on this at your leisure….
The goal of Western politicians is not to create a better government, but to end social services and become billionaires. Look at the Clintons; look at Barack Obama, who is somehow planning to own an NBA team on the salary of a university professor and presidential pension.
There is no guarantee that Macron’s party will win a majority in Parliament – that’s actually opposed by 61% of the public – but bringing in political neophytes also has a nefarious advantage: they will be easy to control and whip into line. Hollande’s far-right “deforms” – not “reforms” – suffered from too many Socialist “rebels” (LOL) who refused to back them. Macron saw up close how Hollande had to bypass Parliament, threatening it with dissolution, in order to pass the right-wing labor code rollback known as the “Macron Law”.
It sucks to be ruled by a Westerner – welcome to the 3rd World
Here is what the new prime minister thought of Macron – per an interview with French centrist paper Libération, dated January 18 of this year:
“Who is Macron? For some, impressed by his ability to seduce and his reformist rhetoric, he will be the natural son of Kennedy and Mendès France. We can doubt this: the first had more charisma and the second had more principles. For others, he will be Brutus, the adoptive son of Caesar.”
Wow…was this the best buddy Macron could find to be his number two? Can’t Macron play nice with people his own age? Compare me to Brutus and I wouldn’t hire you to run my lemonade stand.
“Macron, who takes no responsibility but promises everything, with the ardor of a youthful conqueror and the cynicism of an old truck-driver. If I dare to say it, he acts like a used-car salesman.”
Sweet Mary, whose side are you on?! Why on earth are you going to work for such a man, then? Do you just want money and power, is it? Who is worse – you or your boss? Sheesh….
The luckiest countries – whether they know it or not – have revolutionaries as leaders instead of politicians. Ho Chi Minh, Sankara, Khomeini – all were simple people who lived simply, with no desire for material wealth. You might not agree with them, but damned if they weren’t authentic people.
In the West it’s nothing but total phonies running the show. There’s no metric for it, but the effect this has on increasing individual alienation must be astronomical.
Who with a normal salary would really rather have a Hillary or a Macron instead of a Castro? All Cubans want is the West to lift their blockade – they don’t want Western culture. Of course, Westerners assume the Coloreds surely want both: Excuse us while we either bust a gut laughing or an eye vessel from excessive rolling.
Well, Brutus lasted only a year in power. Macron appears likely to be the 3rd consecutive 1-term president in France – such turnover is great for established capitalists and terrible for the long-term management of society’s needs.
But we should not be cynical from the beginning: The owl of Minerva flies at night. That’s a dramatic way of saying that we can’t properly judge until time has run its course.
But it is midnight for Hollande, and the very real victims of austerity hope it comes crashing down on him like the thunder of hell.
I’m getting pretty dramatic here, eh?! Macron and his wife would likely applaud.
Best of luck enjoying your Macron era!
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.
“That’s the only way a journalist should be able to cash their paycheck with a clear conscience.”
Of course, writing such garbage is the almost the only way a journalist can collect such a paycheck. Editors of course produce the stories the owners want. And journalists either give the editor the stories they want, or they find their stories cancelled and if it happens too often they lose their jobs.
A fortunate few might get a gig like with PressTV. But for most, writing what the owners and editors don’t want to see is the way out of a career in journalism.
In the US, there’s been a long running theme amongst the opposition that journalists are not doing their job. For a long time, there was this strange belief that writing letters to the editor could correct this. The problem is that journalists are indeed doing their job. Like any other working stiff, a job consists of doing what the boss wants you to do. Fail to do that and you find yourself out of a job. So, editors do what the owners want, and front line journalists do what the editors want. And no amount of public complaints will change this, at least not while the money is saying that this is what they want.
The answer for those of us who find this sickening is simply to turn them off. This has two wonderful effects. They lose ratings/audience/readership/circulation. Since that’s what they sell to advertisers, its a good step towards putting them out of business. Or at least raising the cost to the big money that owns everything. The second wonderful effect is that you get to keep the garbage about how wonder Hollande and the other tools of the bankers are completely out of your head. Life becomes better when you don’t let these people tell you how to think.
Turn them off.
A decade or so ago, there was a wonderful movie called “V for Vendetta”. One of my favorite scenes was when towards the end the Great Leader tried to talk to his people. And there were only empty chairs around the tellies … no one was listening. That’s a fine goal we can strive to achieve.
Do not worry Mr Mazaheri, Vee is having a bad hair day, it is really quite unmanageable. However, on the subject of journalism, what is the news altogether from Turkey ? The horrendous Erdogan giving Trump a bad hair day apparently, but, what about the journalists rounded up after the attempted army coup, apparently over a hundred, in solitary confinement since over three months /
I think of them often, it would be nice to know one is thought of in that position, and one never knows who may be next . . .
I wasn’t in any way trying to be rude to Mr. Mazaheri. I’m happy he has his gig with PressTV.
Just pointing out that journalists who are not that lucky have to write what their editors want them to write. Or else they get “let go”. And then they rarely seem able to find other jobs. In the US, most of the ‘mainstream’ writers who were critical of Dubya lost their jobs over it. You can still find a few with their own websites. But the reason that the ‘mainstream’ media is so subservient is that those who were not lost their jobs and the rest got the message.
In the US, back when a “left” even still existed, I got tired of the emails on their list which urged people to write a letter to the editor or otherwise complain about coverage. The underlying assumption was that the media wasn’t doing their job. But, that hasn’t been the problem since the age of Reagan and the wave of media consolidation that occurred then. Now the problem is much more serious. Its institutional. We can not count on this small handful of corporations ever giving us honest reporting. The only way to get there is to become our own media.
“A decade or so ago, there was a wonderful movie called “V for Vendetta”. One of my favorite scenes was when towards the end the Great Leader tried to talk to his people. And there were only empty chairs around the tellies … no one was listening. That’s a fine goal we can strive to achieve.”
Yes,but the important part of the ending was when the crowds in the millions were in the streets. And walked over the police and soldiers. Who knew the “jig was up”. And started to join the crowds. Good movie that it was. It also has a problem. Most dictatorships aren’t nearly as “overt” as that one was. And while millions of people watched that movie. And cheered it on. Only maybe a dozen or so (if that many) were willing to stand up like that and save their countries. While millions daydreamed about it. That was as far as it went.Even in the ancient times,during all the centuries of Roman slavery. How many Spartacus type’s arose to fight to end it.Slavery only started to end in the “former” Roman Empire,during the aftermath of the “age of migrations” (Germanic tribal invasions).People so rarely will revolt to end their slavery (actual or wage slavery) that those events are recorded large in history. For most of history though, slaves “grin and bear it”. And only an outside event (usually a war) is the cause of peoples casting off their chains.
Ramin. Thanks for this great article.
Funny thing is that reading your work is like hearing a Frenchman speak honestly about his own thoughts. The French pride themselves on being socialists, nationalists and free thinkers. They’d never submit to another country, never!!… -Such pride!
Yet, they voted Macron!! (if we believe the numbers)
Now they can have their turd and eat it too..
Some lines that stood out in the text, something the French need to ponder the coming months:
“In any case France will be governed by a woman: either me or Madame Merkel.”
-Marine Le Pen
“The goal of Western politicians is not to create a better government, but to end social services and become billionaires.”
“It sucks to be ruled by a Westerner.”
Have a good one and prepare for survival in France the coming years..
Regards
/Jonas
The question whether Macron is authentic… I have serious doubts.
Last weekend my daughter asked me my opinion about Macron. She (10 years old) asks these kind of questions often, since I correctly predicted the result of the American presidential election more than a week before – I knew the polls were rigged.
I answered: ‘I have the impression that he is not real, just a pretty face smiling and smooth talking to the moments needs. He will not fix any of the many problems of France, unless it would be a banking problem. And his wife is scary.’
Which brings me to an eerie fact that no one talks about. Most of the important leaders in the EU have something in common.
I’m talking about German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, French president Emmanuel Macron, Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
They share one important detail: they have no children.
Being a father myself, I think it is the most important experience in a life to have children. The care, the responsibility – my guess is that many parents would agree with me.
Those people lack that experience – do we really think they will have care and responsibility over their people?
I’m deeply worried over Europe. Actually, a few years ago I have advised my children, when they have finished their education and have the chance, to emigrate out of Europe.
Europe has a dark history. And, a project combining differrent nations with different languages, history, religion and traditions under one flag has already taken place. This project was called ‘Yugoslavia’. That ended up well, didn’t it?
Very good point. I must admit I hadn’t considered that.Those without children really don’t have a future to care about. Their name won’t continue after their deaths. They have no personal reason to care about the future of their people and nation after they are gone.An interesting point indeed.
Very interesting point – Theresa May of the UK neither.
Macron does have 3 step-kids (the oldest is Macron’s own age) and 7 step-grandkids. Which at 39 is, of course, totally normal…nothing to see here, move along.
Dear Mr. Ramin Mazaheri,
I forgot to mention that you wrote an excellent article. Thank you for that.
Let me add a story. Valerie Trierweiler was not exactly popular in France, as I’ve noticed. French friends of mine called her ‘Rottweiler’. The story that I heared, was that when Valerie Trierweiler found out that her Francois was knitting up with Julie Gayet, she went raving mad, dashed to the presidential office room, and shriekingly started to destroy his desk and all surrounding objects. The alarmed presidential guard tried to get her under control but eventually a medic had to come to stick a needle in her arm to knock her out. The next morning she woke up in a hospital and a ‘smoke and mirror’ story was made up.
I don’t know whether this is true, but it makes sense.
Of course this changes nothing to the decline of this nation. That’s the whole story, nothing changes. Bankers rule.
I feel nothing but pity for the little “Charlies” that shrank to virtual invisibility, after a few obvious false flags, despite the better, greater example of a real Charles, of France.
I don’t know many of the particulars about Emmanuel other than what I read about his wife, his Rothschild ownership, etc shortly before the election.
But I can read a face and a pair of eyes, fairly readily.
That’s why I change an “a” in his name to an “i” and call him “Micron”: One millionth of an inch.
A fit representative for a national culture pulling a disappearing act.
You can’t even measure him as ruler or with a ruler. You need a micrometer.
“As Marine Le Pen said in the lone presidential debate: ‘In any case France will be governed by a woman: either me or Madame Merkel.’ Ouch!”
In fact, France is now ruled by two vile harridans: Angela Merkel and Christine Lagarde. Toutes mes félicitations!
Oh, I don’t know, there doesn’t seem to be too much question in it, does there?
Macron(i) is the KD (stands for ‘Kraft(copyright) Dinner’, ‘Kraft’ being a a large prepared ‘food’ company, interestingly enough now owned by the Heinz Corporation) of nouveau (millennial) politicians. We have one now in our current prime minister, in Canada, son of a famous Prime Minister, very camera-friendly, very politically correct, shiny-happy politician, but 90% of the same policies and rotten political manoeuvring of the previous regime under the dark lord zombie-dictator Harper.
Made by the establishment.
For the establishment.
And yes, even in our country, for which France was 50% of the ‘founding’ colonialists, the situation with Macron(i) and his… uh, ‘marital?’ contract, is, well, a little disturbing, even though one can’t really put a finger on specifically what it is?! (but IT IS SOMETHING!) more than enough on that).
Of course they will do everything to derail the authentic now, anything.
The question is, what now?
What prescriptions for action within the system can be taken by the people?
At what objectively measurable point do the people have to collectively admit that the system cannot be reformed under the current established regime?
Does anyone doubt that this milestone has already been passed?
What then?
“Is Macron even capable saying ‘no’ to Merkel? Regardless of any possible attraction, it’s much more likely this generation’s Margaret Thatcher will act as the inexperienced Macron’s guru, and all we can do is just groan yet again.”
Actually yes. Macron will be very ready to say No to Merkel in case there is a disagreement between the ruling circles of Germany and the rest of the Zionazis for some reason. For a vainglorious utter nobody such as Macron, that must feel like wielding incredible power. Not that Merkel would fail to see the despicable character of her French underling.
Wonderful wizecracking journalism. Right on!
US CIA is messing with me daily the actual Deplorables.
He will deliver France as a comple package for the Rothschilds’ global agenda:
Austerity
Open Borders
Waves of immigrants
Privitization without limit
Reduction in government spending
Gutting labor laws and protection
Ceding of more French sovreignty to Brussels
Pro-NATO expansion
Russophobic
Israel-centric
The French who were foolish enough to vote for him will live to rue the day…
How could they allow the MSM to convince them to vote for a 39 Rothchild-manufactured creature?
Quoting from the original article: “It is very easy to blow up public service when you have no intention of recreating a better public service.”
Could well be.
Pray tell, in all this time what good has the “public service” been for the ordinary Frenchman? It has been hugely expensive to the public (who get to pay for all of it and its greedy little denizens). It has been populated by self-serving jobsworths, provided padded cushy make-work positions for insiders. It has, at best, participated in atrocities all over France and Africa and the Mid-East and, at worst, been causal in their initiation. It has robbed the French people of wealth, savings, present and future prospects, their society, culture and their property. It has infected everything with demand for permissions tributes and compliance. It has threatened, cajoled, coerced, defrauded, lied and wrecked everywhere in society it has touched. It has presided over the wrecking of other people’s lives.
Could well be time to wreck the “public service” and its oh so noble denizens…
Si
Emmanuel Macron is now Prince of Andorra – so he probably doesn’t need a secret bank account in the Bahamas now that he controls his own tax haven.
British brexit negotiators should make much of the best-of-both-worlds position of Andorra if Macron starts getting awkward.
Well, one of my educated, well-travelled, polyglot, and decent co-workers told me yetserday how glad she was that Macron won and that the terrible racist LePen didn’t – what a relief that was for her.
*sigh*
Western societies are products of there leaders. and leaders are products of their society. Vico noted that the elite class run and organise the sovereign/state. Hence the conclusion is that they will run affairs hopefully to the benefit of all hence the universality of laws ,principle and values. Since 1972 western principles. and values have been trending to the abyss. The wage disparity between we the sheeple and the elite clan has never been this high since the Gilded age.
My point following Vico’s [philosophy is that if things continue at this pace the elites will bring about their inevitable demise. As you so ritely pointed out and are pointing out in this article. the next administrative elections I. France and in 5 years time the people will not stand 4 this total destruction of society the sovereign state and principles of justice and prosperity for all.
Bitter irony of this is the west professes to be exceptional and the bearers of human advancement when in reality they are getting closer to the dark ages of the modern era.