by Ghassan Kadi
The weak and selfish French monarch Louis the XV is perhaps best known for his famous/infamous quote; “Après moi, le déluge” (after me, the flood).
The weak and selfish monarch was at least wise enough to realize that during the time of his reign, the people of France had had enough of the ruthless yoke of absolute monarchy that his predecessor, Louis the XIV, epitomized in the worst manner possible.
Louis did not only have a premonition about a cataclysmic event that was about to hit France, but he also knew that there was precious little that he could do in an attempt to avert it, so he decided to savour his privileges whilst he could, because his premonition also told him that he could, and that it was his successor who had to bear the brunt.
The rest is history.
The French Revolution that took about a hundred years to finally manage to create the changes it was intended to implement has faced a number of challenges, and the French people have successfully managed to keep France’s nose above the water, and emerge after WWII as a victorious nation and an eventual permanent member of the UNSC, even though technically-speaking, the formal French Government, represented by Vichy, had actually lost the war.
Had it not been for the genius of General Charles De Gaulle and his Free France movement, France might have been reduced to the level of other European nations like Italy or Spain, even Austria.
But the French are resilient people and always managed to reinvent themselves and move with the times. The reforms that De Gaulle introduced with his Fifth Republic are perhaps the biggest recent success.
A few decades later, The dream that French President Mitterand and German Chancellor Kohl in creating the Euro-Zone does not seem to be working to the expectations. One does not need to take the stand of Marine Le Pen to cognize this.
But today’s problems of France do not start and end with the EU and the Euro. The French society is fragmented, terrorized, and a significant fraction of it is claiming that France is losing its identity.
We can learn from history as much as we can, but what gleans from pre-French Revolution France, does not necessarily reveal that France had bigger problems during the reign of Louis the XV as much as it has had during the reign of Hollande. Without being able to take a trip in time and live the events of the days of Louis the XV and later on the XVI, we can only get information from reading books that were written before cameras, voice and video recorders, and the Internet were invented.
In retrospect, it would be hard to imagine that a bigger proportion of the French population in pre-French Revolution France knew and was concerned about what was happening behind closed doors within the Élysée. It would be hard to imagine that Louis the XV and the XVI had a lower popularity than Hollande’s infamous 4% popularity rate.
So what is really stopping the French people from the French Revolution take II?
To qualify this statement properly and put it in context of 21st Century democracy, French people neither need or are expected to storm a new-found Bastille again. In today’s time and age, they can revolt at the ballot box, but they seem reluctant to do so.
The reason behind their reluctance is not exactly known and identified, but we all have the right to analyze and speculate.
The reluctance of French people to seek change is not because they do not realize that France is in trouble, but because they do not know the actual nature of that trouble, they don’t know how to deal with it, and they are fearful of the policies for change strewn at them.
In reality, they saw Macron as the devil they know something about. They expect him to make “some” change. They know that his centrist party is a remodeled version of the Socialist Party that Hollande managed to destroy, and is much as they disliked Hollande, the hope that Macron, by taking a centrist tact, will create some favourable change.
On the other hand, they saw in Marie Le Pen the unknown ultra-right loose cannon. They saw in her a divisive leader despite her attempts to unify French people; attempts that in hindsight came in the too little too late category. It is not surprising that French people decided to stick with what they know; painful as it may be.
Whether Marie Le Pen reinvents herself or passes on the reigns to her niece Marine as some are speculating, little will change unless the French people reach a level of conviction that they have a leadership they can trust to take them forward into a very challenging future.
Either way, Macron does not have the hallmarks of the leader who is able to save France from a seemingly impending tsunami.
With his little experience, ill-defined policies, and little or no political support base that will enable him to form a stable and efficient government, the best that Macron can do is to maintain France’s status quo.
Either way again, France is in deep trouble. France has financial, political, ethnic and religious problems, and her biggest problem is in the lack of proper and unifying leadership; a situation that is historically akin to the days of the infamous Louis the XV and his perhaps only documented quote of turning the blind eye to the flood that was coming after his days.
Given all the damage and carnage that Hollande has generated for France and the French people, given how he kowtowed to Obama and Merkel, given how he played a big role in destabilizing Europe with his stands on Ukraine and Russia, given his position on the “War on Syria” and the eventual export of the rise in terrorism in Syria to the EU, given his inability to deal with rising terrorism that devastated France and divided her people, and finally, given his acceptance that he was not prepared to face the voters for another tenure at the Élysée, is he the one who is inadvertently saying after me the flood or is he passing on the baton to his protégé Macron?
France sadly seems to be set on course for major upheaval and the recent electoral decision French people made has only succeeded in delaying having to deal with the problem.
How will France move on from here will depend on how long will Macron last, how long will he need to bring France down to her knees or anarchy, and how long will it take before he incarnates either Louis, the XV or the XVI.
The short-term future of France seems to question of “après moi, le deluge” (after me, the flood), or après soi, le déluge (after him, the flood). This is how history is likely to read Hollande’s mind as he hands over the keys of the Élysée to the young Macron.
On the positive flip-side, what is of significant interest here is that France is leading a trend in Europe, a way in the West that seems unnoticed. Just like the French Revolution has led the way for liberation and inspired many generations globally, for better or for worse, the rise of Macron to power has broken the traditional Western two party monopoly, and that’s already something, or as the French put it, c’est déjà quelque chose.
Mr. Kadi, it seems you ignored the most crucial part in this analysis, one that impacted much more and more profoundly this elections and of course the complacency of the French.
For many of us it is very obvious, which makes your analysis look disenginous at best. O am talking about the mass social and political manipulation and brain washing which is now quite common in this side of the world. One jas to only look at the portrayals of the candidates by the MSM, political groups, civil organizations and entertainers. Tje excessive coverage Macron got vs. Marie was very blatant to say the least.
You seriously can not do any analysis regarding the social and political climate in the Western World, without taking this in to consoderation specially since it is clear, blatant and excessive.
Regards
Santiago
I would like to compliment mr.Ghassan Kadi for his good analysis. I like to hint on a typo considering two names; the present leader of the FN is Marion le Pen,and her younger niece is Marion Marechal-le Pen.
I have been in France often, so I can admit the correctness. However, I think the analysis is still mild for the actual situation.
Maybe Hollande was in his Foreign Affairs just bowing for his Masters, but the real pain is domestic.
First, France has built a kind of socialistic paradise that they can’t afford anymore. The power of the unions and the many, many regulations make french companies not compettive enough. Possible investors go away when they hear from the many regulations and restrictions.
Secondly, the social security system and the pensions are about to collapse.
Every time I see Macron, a thought flashes through my mind that I am looking at a hologram, projected from the City of London. The ideas of Macron are insane: he wants to install sort of a combined budget control in the EU, which in fact would mean that France will drop its debts in Germany. This is absolute non-negotiable in Germany, and I expect that indoors someone has said ‘when do these ‘frogs’ actually start working’.
So, this will not work. Also cutting down the union influence, or even raising the pension age, will be met with large protests and even riots. That is non-negotiable for many people in France.
Finally, don’t underestimate the danger of the many hundreds of no-go areas in France. No go means, that when police, fire brigade or even an ambulance enter such a zone, they will be attacked and even be shot at. Those people are armed. They are immigrants, mainly africans, arab and the like, with an enormous high unemployment rate, nearly all muslim and they hate western civilisation although profiting from the social security in rising numbers.
I have no idea how these problems can be solved with the French accepting it. I remember discussing with a French man, who kept repeating in his conversation ‘France is dying’.
Also Macron will fail misirably. There is a chance that the country will fall apart, or end up like a Failed State.
And maybe that is exactly what certain people (Soros) would like to happen.
keep blaming the muslims…if it was not for France invading raping killing in muslim countries and installing their puppets…..muslims will not in France…so France is harvesting what it planted in their world countries, in particular in muslim north africa and central african countries.
Reply to Rob on May 11, 2017 · at 1:59 pm UTC
/french-revolution-take-ii-apres-soi-le-deluge/#comment-356277.
Firstly The typo : wrong again … It’s actually Marine Le Pen, her father Jean-Marie Le Pen and her niece Marion Maréchal-Le Pen.
Secondly to get a handle on how Macron was put on the throne, by a process of mass hypnosis, deftly orchestrated by Kabbalist Jacques Attali and other members of his satanic network, get an eyeful of something I’m surprised The Saker hasn’t relayed online from Thierry Meyssan.
EXTRACTS :
“After having successively elected an agent of the CIA and an employee of the emirs of the Gulf to the Presidency of the French Republic, the French have been ripped off a third time, this time by an Israeli product.
They believe that they have chased away the spectre of fascism by voting for a candidate supported by NATO, the Rothschilds, all the companies of the CAC40 and the unanimous Press. Far from understanding their mistake, they are still in a trance, and will probably not wake up before the end of the general elections […]
The team of elected French President Emmanuel Macron has managed to hypnotise the French nation. They managed to fabricate the election of their protégé with two thirds of the votes cast – a young man, only 39 years old, whose party was created on the Internet just one year ago, and who had until then never stood in any election.
This exploit was realised by the team of Steele & Holt, a mysterious company whose name refers to the TV series Remington Steele, a police procedural in which the director of a detective agency asks a thief (Pierce Brosnan) to play the rôle of her boss in order to serve as her cover.
Don’t bother trying to find out who is hiding behind this company – you’ll find nothing. Except for the fact that its two main clients are AXA and the Rothschild family. Everyone knows that Emmanuel Macron worked for the Rothschilds, but it’s a well-guarded secret that they organised his party. As for the insurance company AXA, it is presided by Henri de La Croix, fifth Duke of Castries, who is also president of the NATO think-tank (the Bilderberg group), the Bosphorus Institute (Turkey’s think-tank) and, in France, the Institut Montaigne (a right-wing think-tank).
Henry Kissinger also incidentally invited Macron to the annual meeting of the Bilderberg group in 2014, along with François Baroin and Christine Lagarde.
The Bosphorus Institute made it possible to identify and corrupt various personalities from the right and the left who lent their support to Macron.
The first meetings of the new party were held in the offices of the Institut Montaigne, whose headquarters were declared as the personal address of the Institut’s director. …” . The rest here : http://www.voltairenet.org/article196311.html
Title of article : Kadima ! En Marche ! by Thierry Meyssan VOLTAIRE NETWORK | BEIRUT (LEBANON) | 10 MAY 2017
For your information, Thierry’s top class piece of research is published in all these languages : FRANÇAIS عربي DEUTSCH ESPAÑOL TÜRKÇE ITALIANO РУССКИЙ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΆ PORTUGUÊS.
Here are the links to three of them :
Kadima ! En Marche ! Par Thierry Meyssan 9 mai 2017 http://www.voltairenet.org/article196289.html.
Kadima ! En Marche ! By Thierry Meyssan 9 mai 2017 http://www.voltairenet.org/article196311.html.
Кадима! или Вперёд ! Тьерри Мейсан 10 МАЯ 2017 http://www.voltairenet.org/article196313.html.
PS Scary spooky stuff really considering that France has just ‘elected’ a fervent carrier of that fatal disease : war fever. Talk about black magic, but Emmanuel Macron’s political party was created out of nothing on the internet, just a year ago. The rest was achieved by total control of the mainstream media and a targeted manipulation of the social mediasphere along with iconography and newspeak comparable to what George Orwell evokes in 1984.
TMWNS
France is plagued by many problems.
Since Giscard, France has been managed by some “protégés” of the mondialism system and as such, they have worked to erase what was making France.
They have pushed the immigration without taking adequate measure to integrate the newcomers. They have let them develop some kind of “ghetos” to live along their culture but chasing the original citizens. Most of the newcomers did not came to find a job but to take advantage of the French social system. They came to take but not to help and participate.
Also each year since Raymond Barre, governments have increased taxes and reduced liberties. Today beween 53 to 57% of the GDP is under the state control. By sending most of the productive job to foreign countries, they have increased unemployement and to reduce that negative effect, they have increased regulations which are further hampering France’s competitivity.
Also the government by living beyonds its means has induced people to do the same. The debt is out of control and the required service of the debt is further reducing the liberties.
France needs a shock therapy. Politicians who are telling the French that they have some magic trick to fix the problem are just cynical liars thinking ” Après moi le déluge” but far from having L.XV class.
“people of France had had enough of the ruthless yoke of absolute monarchy”
Do leftists still believe this myth lol? The French Revolution was a bourgeois, upper-middle-class capitalist revolution intended to transfer power from the French state to the Parisian and British oligarchs. The main victims of the “””French””” Revolution were French peasants.
Yes, and Napoleon came along and marched them to their deaths in Russia among other thrilling events like Waterloo. Oh, but, yes modern democracy was spread throughout Europe in the wake of his march or so the text books go.
and Napoleon accepted islam
Napoleon was a crypto-Jew like Macron.
How could he be a crypto jew? Napoleon was anti usury, thats what brought him to Islam.
My excuses for hinting on a typo and then making one myself ;-)
The present leader of Front National is Marine le Pen, and her younger niece is Marion Marechal-le Pen. Actually Marion is more popular, but she is only 32 (and with that roughly of the same age as Kim Jong-Un).
@Rob
I read somewhere that Marion just quit politics.
Well, at least France can always rely on the astute fellow BHL, n’est-ce pas?
Not always….
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/05/bernard-henri-levy-gets-pied-in.html
Thanks for the link — really made my day! Hilarious to see this crotte du diable being pied by “SKOJ” which is Swedish for the noun “joke” as well as the adjective “amusing”. Couldn’t possibly have made a more appropriate statement myself!
A striking thing about the West, especially today when it’s rotten ripe after 40 years of neoliberal plague, is that the concepts of “Left” and “Right” were coined as political buzzwords with little or no connection with the worldwide struggle for human emancipation. Case in point: The late 18th century was a time of mammoth slave uprisings in the French Carribean, targeting colonial rule there outright. Did this give rise to any repercussions in ‘revolutionary’ France? Nope. Just like any French government since, imperialist booty was the supreme concern. “Left” and “Right” never made any difference (‘there is no alternative’).
Today, fewer and fewer people take these buzzwords seriously. The oligarchs have become so arrogant they don’t mind what the rest think of them; hence no need for them to entertain this silly Western Left/Right hogwash.
Yes,but with no TV,internet,radio,telephone,and it being at least several weeks (at the least) to travel by ship from the Caribbean to France. It was much easier to hide bad news. And even when it couldn’t be hidden. There were weeks of delay before it was even known.Things are different today. Sometimes only hours pass between an event,and it being well known in Paris. Even if the MSM can hide an event. The internet will not let it be totally hidden,at least for long.
A few thoughts: to the extent that France is fractured today, some of it is clearly a pay-back for its imperial and colonial past. I am not shedding tears on that account (some sort of a reconciliation will be necessary before moving forward). As for the devil we do not know – let’s remember there was the Rein of terror and Napoleon after the great revolution. So maybe some trepidation of a big change is not unjustified. But also one thing is not mentioned – many Frenchies benefit from the system as it stands today. Why would they want change? Too many have a stake in the way things are… (and then there are those who are either brainwashed or lack the knowledge to understand what causes all the trouble).
a link from Paul Craig Roberts you might have seen –
http://yournewswire.com/marine-le-pen-election-rigged/
the same thing just happened in British Columbia Canada – we’ve had a ‘Liberal’ (banker-friendly) provincial government for at least 20 if not 30 years – I couldn’t believe that they would get in again – and yesterday – they did –
Its sickening really – the mass amount of voters (city people sadly) are not uncomfortable enough to vote for change –
its enough to make one hide one’s head under the covers.
I don’t agree though clearly France is more tense now than normal but nowhere near as tense as the U.S. France provides a much more comfortable situation for the people and they are unlikely to revolt without a very major economic downturn and some kind of “reform” that will eliminate many if not most of the laws and regulations that make France and Europe a relatively convivial place to live. Revolt is possible only in the U.S. where the standard of living is declining and, if there were to be a major downturn soon some serious shit would hit the fan here. Europeans have it too good to really revolt except maybe in Greece or Italy (where things have been going downhill for some time).
The French have been ever resistant to dramatic change in their personal life. The little ice age and the resultant wheat crop failures led Louis XVI to promote the potato as an alternative to bread but was this rejected by the people :
http://blog.catherinedelors.com/potatoes-the-ancien-regime-and-the-french-revolution/
Thus seed “drills, potatoes, and crop rotation did not spread in France. French farmlands were mainly owned by absent noblemen. Its illiterate peasants remained committed to bread, even when the wet crop years provided only damp, moldy grain.”
https://www.pipelinenews.org/2006/apr/14/the-little-ice-age-french-intransigence-in-the-face.html
“Two decades of poor cereal harvests, drought, cattle disease led to the bread price protest of October 5, 1789 led to the downfall of Louis XVI”
https://www.theglobalist.com/weathering-the-french-revolution/
Later in this cooling period “Napoleon was defeated by this Little Ice Age. his massive army of 500,000 starved and froze to death in Russia during one of the worst winters ever. “ https://parnellhistory.wordpress.com/2007/10/05/issue5-the-little-ice-age/
Yes, the French Revolution is a complex event which can hardly be reduced to a single set of causes. Putting this on the shoulders of Louis the XVth is a bit of a stretch. He was a well-meaning dude, but affected with severe bouts of depression and unhappiness in his personal life. Louis the XVIth was by all accounts the nicest and kindest monarch France had in at least a few centuries, but he was unable to decide. I find “The French Revolution” by Carlyle to be one of the most vivid depictions of this period.
The difference to now is that France had an immense amount of untapped wealth. The French state was actually a dwarf, with a quite small budget, and a huge deficit which could have been plugged easily if not for the intransigence of most of the bourgeois and noble class. The Revolution, then Napoleon, managed to get hold of that wealth and thus the huge fireworks of the 1799-1815 period.
Today we’re tapped out. The French state has bloated to its maximum, the remaining wealth is hiding offshore, we’re at the end of the road. In that case, the statist answer is to expand the state, and that’s exactly what Macron is doing. The old recipe since Roman times ; devalue, expand, and free bread for the people. Maybe Merkel is going to lend Macron a hand. And when we’ll be truly tapped out, we’ll wake up in a dystopian EU nightmare, of which France will only be a province.