by Ramin Mazaheri
The French Socialist Party has the first round of their political primary on January 22nd, and as a longtime news correspondent in Paris I thought it incumbent on me to make a fun prediction.
The fun, if you couldn’t tell, has already started: the incumbent, Francois Hollande, is not even running for re-election.
Let’s bask in what a historically huge loser Hollande is: I cannot recall any incumbent Western president who has not even tried to win re-election. In the US LBJ did 1 win one election before throwing in the civil rights do-rag.
Hollande will go down as a huge traitor to his people: He campaigned on ending-austerity but instituted 5 grinding years of it. Idiot commentators who will talk about how “presidential” he looked during 2 terror attacks, but they don’t realize that such image-related concerns to the millions of people wondering how they will buy food when they have no job.
So, Francois is not there – and everyone is glad about that.
Who does that leave us with? I’m going to start positive – there is always the option of total nuclear annihilation before having to endure the soft parade of fake leftism that will be the Socialist Party primary.
However, failing that, I’m still going to stay positive and predict that Benoit Hamon “comes out of nowhere” to win it. The same surprise has happened with the conservative Republicain Party and Francois Fillon, after all.
I’ll put it simply: In years of covering the Socialist Party and talking to Benoit Hamon I have always thought that he is a rare Socialist Party politician who might actually have a soul. That is an uncommon occurrence, and it is a sincere compliment.
Yeah Hamon’s not a true leftist, because he’s in the Socialist Party, but I am glad to see that he has recently shot up in polls to 3rd place. Hamon is on the correct side of many issues, and he’s always been on the far-left of the Socialists.
He has the courage to promote ideas like guaranteed monthly revenue (welfare) of 750 euros per month. I know people who don’t make that here and that would make such a huge difference in their lives. What’s more, it what would be a huge improvement in the standard of living for the enormous number of people from 18-30 who suffer from tremendous unemployment.
I’ll be honest with you, trusty reader, I just checked the headlines on Hamon and he’s actually leading the polls following last night’s primary debate! This paragraph is letting you behind the curtain of how journalism works, LOL!
Good for Hamon! Maybe French leftists aren’t a bunch of poseurs like I think!
Truly, Hamon has always appeared to me like an authentic person, and I cannot say that at all about his main rival, longtime minister Manuel Valls.
It’s funny to write that Hamon and Valls are rivals – Hamon has been a junior cabinet minister while Valls has been the Interior Minister, longtime Prime Minister, and was the most popular politician for some time. English-language journalists have been writing that Hamon has “come from nowhere”, but junior minister is no small potatoes in the grand scheme of things, and Hamon has always impressed.
Manuel Valls is the type of soulless, ruthless, professional politician that the West specializes in. As the mayor of a heavily-Muslim Parisian suburb he would march with a pro-Palestine t-shirt, and then once he got into the upper echelon he openly espoused his everlasting ties to Israel. Voila.
Valls should lose because he’s been Hollande’s right-hand thug to enforce austerity. “Thug” is the right word – Valls is the one responsible for thousands of arrests of anti-government protesters; countless instances of police brutality; house arrests, warrantless arrests, arrests of (gasp!) non-Muslim environmental protesters.
Valls carried out the order for the State of Emergency, and he also incarnates the Blairist/Obama “3rd Way” philosophy which is just ruthless imperialist capitalism with a gay-friendly face. Valls should lose just like Clinton, Cameron and Renzi lost, if the “white trash revolution” (WTR) continues to be a significant historical trend in the West (and you can throw me in with the trash). It would be fitting if France lost doubly – Hollande and Valls – because whenever the whole world loses France seems to lose twice as badly, LOL.
Hamon should win because the center and right wing of the Socialist Party has totally discredited themselves and must be purged. Such a purge is justice, and it’s necessary for democracy. Otherwise you get 2 mainstream parties which are the exact same, and who wants to live like the Americans or English?
Of course, the WTR will only lose for a short time, just until people realize that the right – just like the center – cannot and should not govern, only the left can. So the WTR is a victory in the long run (vote Le Pen against Fillon in the 2nd round, French readers).
Valls is now running behind Arnaud Montebourg too? Man, I have been in Cuba for the last month (take a moment to salute some real leftists), but this has to be a recent development!
Montebourg is not bad, but he’s simply not viewed as “the one” – he’s also too tainted by being a Socialist Party bigwig for so long. Unlike Hamon, he’s not new – Monty has been around a long time and he may have already lost his soul. One is not sure that Montebourg is a genuine leftist or not. Montebourg may even be one of those poor guys who is so very sincere that he comes off as insincere.
After all, he was Hollande’s Minister of the Economy and resigned after it became clear Hollande would stick with austerity all the way.
The Socialists picking Montebourg would be a good development – he is from the left-flank of the party, but he’s not as left as Hamon.
France wants – France needs – new blood. This is half the reason Marine Le Pen is doing so well: the establishment is totally discredited to the point where people are saying “let’s give the far-right a chance”.
And just as the establishment works to overtake any threat of real democracy – like the Arab Spring – so the establishment has propped up their own “Obama”, someone who is all image, no substance, and no real change.
I was talking recently with a typical “oh-so-proper-and-nice English journalist who really is just aghast at all the bad things in the world but let’s not change horses in mid-stream” about the French left and he brought up Emmanuel Macron.
I did a double take because I thought he misheard the word “left”.
Macron is a former Rothschild banker – it would take a religious conversion for him to be a leftist. People convert all the time, abut he clearly has not yet.
But get used to Macron’s smug face because he will be around for the main reason that the English-speaking press loves him. The reasons are obvious – he’s a banker, and then there’s also that he worked in a bank. The strictly pro-capitalist English-speakers see him as one of their own even though he has a girl’s name.
The French, however, see Macron as they are increasingly viewing Hamon – as someone new. And being such a person is no easy feat in French politics because there is absolutely no new blood here.
In the UK, if you lose then you’re out. In the US it’s similar, but only now is the Hillary machine finally smashed. But in France it’s the same people over and over, who all went to the same school, who go to the same parties, who live in the same bubble and who have never really worked a day in their lives because working on a political campaign doesn’t count.
Dominque Strauss-Kahn defied all precedent by actually being brought down by a sex scandal, but he was the exception that proves the rule. Sarkozy came back despite a half-dozen corruption cases; Alain Juppe, who was the Republicain Party front-runner until the last 3 weeks, was exiled to Canada for 3 years after being convicted of corruption.
Macron intelligently broke with the Socialist Party because he knew two things: he is no socialist, and the Socialist Party’s about-face on austerity has doomed them for at least 1 election cycle, preferably 3 or 4 to clear out the old generation, assuming there can ever be any real justice among mainstream politicians.
Macron – why am I still writing about him, ugh! – started his own party called “En Marche”, which is exactly what dog-sled drivers in Quebec yell at their dogs before whipping them again – you may recognize the Anglicization of this as “mush”. If I can make a crude psychological rendering without losing your journalistic respect, please: Macron gets whipped by his wife – his former high school French teacher who is 24 years older than him – and then he whips us, is that what’s going on here? I vote ‘no’, Emmanuel.
Decades of Macron is yet another reason to hate Hollande: He’s the one who plucked a 37-year old banker from obscurity to replace the honorably departed Arnaud Montebourg. What did I tell you about how France’s politicians being the same permanently-stained socks tumbling around in a dryer? You think I make stuff up for fun? I write journalism, not fiction – look at that clichéd metaphor for proof why.
Macron will also stay around because he most accurately represents the average leftist among his (my) age group which is such a letdown not just personally but globally: Pro-European Union, pro-Eurozone, anti-xenophobia – it’s the “fake leftist trifecta” which is oh-so-popular at French parties but which is nothing but snobbish, effete, hyper-individualistic and culturally chauvinistic fake leftism.
If you think sincere, international leftism is popular in France…well, firstly there’s just so many French grandfathers who I don’t know how many Algerians and Indochinans they killed but I know they killed enough still around, but to be au courant I’ll point out that Hollande’s purely imperialist (and totally destabilizing) wars in Mali and the CAR had overwhelming approval rates here.
That’s the candidate recap. So what’s the best outcome?
That same solid, reliable mainstream English journalist posited that the Socialist Party would break up.
The Socialist Party will never break up, because Socialism will never die.
It is alive and well in places in non-imperialist countries unlike France and it’s actually popular among a small, dedicated minority within France.
The Socialists should break up, certainly, or at least rename themselves. They are totally discredited by refusing to fight austerity, and French voters should seriously pause if hypothetically given a choice between handing power to the actual real people who staff the current Socialist Party or an imaginary Torture Children Party. “Hey, the TCP at least will stop listening to Brussels on economic austerity. Just keep an eye on your kid, that’s all.”
Ultimately, sober citizen that you are and God bless ya for it; you have just read an entire column about a Socialist Party which has no chance at all to make it to the 2nd round of France’s presidential election this spring. Much like the Democratic Party in the US, you can totally write off the Socialist Party in France until checking back in during their mid-term elections.
But remember, Hollande came into power controlling both houses of Parliament and nearly all the provinces, and yet he still refused to implement any true leftist programs. The same can be said for the man leaving office on this very day in the United States, Barry Obama.
Both leave with their parties in total disarray and their countries in far worse condition because they willfully ignored the needs of their own peasants – like me – and we do not forget and we do learn.
Hamon in a surprise. Just to add a bit – just a bit – of genuine leftism into the repugnant right-wing mix that is the French presidential election of 2017.
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 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 hit the spot. Like your piece on Cuba did. Thanks, RM.
Interesting. I have to admit that I didn’t know Benoît Hamon, other than by hearsay. I heard Michel Onfray saying a couple of good things about him, also. Which is as good a recommandation as I can imagine.
I would very much like to read more articles about the UPR party (Union Populaire Républicaine) and its 2017 presidential candidate : François Asselineau. I believe their analysis of the situation France is currently in are worthy. And the solutions they patiently constructed (the political party has been created in 2007) potentially very effective.
They say Cubans dance just walking down the street, while hanging up the laundry on a clothesline to dry, and so forth.
I don’t know RM’s work from before his month assignment in Havana, but I hypothesize that he may have picked up some journalistic rhythm there that has made his journalistic output notably smooth and fluid, not at all stiff. Very Cuban.
Reminds me of “Dance with Me” a movie about a Cuban janitor of a dance school facility on the Gulf Coast of Texas that ends up showing everyone how to dance, including the proprietor/owner/main instructor Kris Kristofferson,
The star in one of the many, many dance scenes……within a minute all the customers in the club take notice of something special, freelance going on, and stop dancing with each other and just sway and clap and watch the Cuban guy and his partner Vanessa dance to a Cuban song:
https://youtu.be/GQa10n21YIw
It sounds like France needs to loosen up.
I always remember with minutes of laughing (every few months over the subsequent 45 years since reading it) a passage from Eldridge Cleavers’ Soul on Ice:
“The Revolution started with Elvis. For the first time in History, music with Black roots was able to free American youth from their stiff-assed honky dances.”
Or something to that effect. What happened to Cleaver later is even funnier.
But back to France. The insight RM provides is precious and deep for it goes to the sexual root of a problem there:
Instead of a joyous Cuban dance full of play and sensuality, poetically symbolic of the best sort of love-making you have a stiff-assed Macron acting out the sadist/masochist by marrying a torturing mother who must have whipped his bare bottom in his youth. Mush! En Marche! Then he grabs the whip from Mom and uses it on the French people………………….
The French, who the world has always looked to for inspiration in L’Amour, and “the dance of Love” (sex) !!!
Well it looks like they have “hit bottom” and it can only be UP, from here!?
S & M: Socialism and Macron??
Perhaps Hamon (and our Guest author, fresh from Cuba…..)can begin to loosen up the Left and begin to free France out of its black leather and austerity whips dungeon.
I will watch closely for further reports from France by RM.
A Cuban style Dance with Me,
Or “En Marche!” austerity,
With right wing whips, which’ll it be??
The eyes of the world are on Pari’!
I am really enjoying Ramin’s posts.
Very non-conformist and individualistic in both style and content, and, like Thierry Meyssan, great at naming the ‘obscured’ dynamics behind political fronts. And a good heart – what western journalist would even conceive of the notion of soul? So refreshing :-)
Really loved the ‘dirty laundry’ repeatedly whirling around on spin-cycle – perfect analogy!
Breaking: German Opposition Leader Calls for Collective Security Union with Russia, Dissolution of NATO
http://www.globalresearch.ca/breaking-german-opposition-leader-calls-for-security-union-with-russia-dissolution-of-nato/5569929
“NATO must be dissolved and replaced by a collective security system including Russia,” Wagenknecht told Germany’s “Funke” media group.
Wagenknecht, who leads the opposition Left Party in parliament, added that comments made by the future US president “mercilessly reveal the mistakes and failures of the [German] federal government.”
The Left Party is Germany’s largest opposition group in parliament, and holds seats in several state legislatures.”
If Merkel does not immediately crush this initiative, then Germany will never get its gold returned.
Germany’s gold? Unfortunately, it’s not going to occur. It might be a safe assumption that it was used to pay for a NATO activity that was “in Germany’s best interest.” Perhaps replaced with worthless dollars. It’ll be interesting to witness what occurs when they are forced to “come clean.”
Huge news – meant to post it yesterday, but got distracted.
Ok, Wagenknecht is opposition, and has no size able electoral mandate.
She needs to make ‘common purpose ‘ with AfD on this issue, to really bring it into media focus ( they will shoot it down, but won’t be able to ignore it).
Apparently, Merkel’s peeps responded by saying it had been ‘read with interest’, which suggests it isn’t outside the realm of possibility.
Now with Libya making overtures for Russian diplomacy to become involved in forming a solution there – and by extension, potentially shutting off one avenue of illegal migration – it will hopefully gain momentum.
Then there’s Turkey. It’s cooperation with Russian make that possibility even more attractive.
Last I heard, Washington has refused to participate in the peace-talks in Astana – so, along with the Kerry undercover tapes exposing themselves further as takfiri supporters.
I would add that the CNAS – a neocon group run by the Atlantic council – are already trying to adapt the ‘no-fly’ strategy for the Trump admin.
They look to be attempting to coopt/subvert Flynn’s intel reforms to further their destructive aims in Syria.
My first read on Ramin and I am super impressed. Each bit is spot on and it’s a super funny read. Very nice pick for a regular column, if that’s what it is.
I thought the Socialists were the Torture Children Party. All the Socialist leaders are Free Masons and do those bizarre rites, as well as attacking their own people (Paris False Flag attacks).
ramin wasn’t macron instrumental in the major rip off of selling alstom to general electric?(see evan jones extensive article in counterpunch.com.)
Hi Paul, thanks for reading and replying.
Jones’ article was excellent, thanks for bringing it to my attention. Absolutely a great case study showing how the US-led capitalist system can only end by Washington devouring everybody.
Regarding Macron’s role, I agree with what Jones says here about him:
“The government had taken no interest in the future of Alstom Transport, not least with the useless anti-statist Macron at the Economy Ministry”.
Montebourg fought for Alstom because any country should have control over the basic sectors of their economy as well as their strongest sectors, but this is why he was ousted/resigned. Macron was picked because he is a neoliberal 100%, 100% pro-EU, and because if Brussels can force France’s economic policy under Hollande they must have surely hand-picked France’s Finance Minister. Macron is basically just ‘pro-money’, much as Hollande calls the homeless “people without teeth”.
Some other highlights from that great article:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/02/behind-ges-takeover-of-alstom-energy/
Alstom is “…quintessentially representative of the parlous state of what currently constitutes ‘industry policy’ in France.”
Because there is no conception of states in modern capitalism, so why would France have a ‘national’ industrial policy anymore? Their postwar ‘mixed economy’ – of state direction in key sectors of the economy – has been erased by the European Sovereign Debt Crisis.
“But France has jettisoned its perennial flirtation with dirigisme (i.e. state direction of the economy) and gone down the neoliberal path… a new breed of managers – pro neoliberalism, contempt for the state, with no concept of the national interest.”
But the EU is working for it’s own interests, right? It’s not just a lackey of the US? Capitalists do sincerely care about the people in their own country, right?
“Joke. Brussels has no positive mechanisms to support industrial development and revitalisation…now been supplanted by the overarching principle that competitive markets must prevail. European champions like Airbus/EADS have now been rendered impossible by Brussels’ assertive competition authority and its refusal to countenance state-led strategies of industrial development and national responses to economic and industrial crises. Inter-EU national rivalries complement Brussels’ animosity. Thus the paralysis of Europe since the Great Financial Crisis”.
US “free trade” has never been “free” but always capitalist economic war, and France has no capability like the Pentagon, the largest employer in the world:
“By the end of the 1990s, the U.S. administration claimed that intelligence activity against foreign companies had gained the U.S. nearly $150 billion in exports.”
“It is salutary that the US Department of Justice’s pursuit of Alstom ran parallel to GE’s pursuit of Alstom….at least five companies known to be pursued by the DoJ have been snapped up by GE – Invision (US, 2004), Ionics (US, 2005), Amersham (UK, 2004), Nycomed (Norway, 2004) and Vetco Gray (UK, 2007).
The US succeeds through corruption.
“GE was well primed to pick up Alstom. Moreover, GE was readily able to come up with the do-re-mi for the Alstom purchase because of its huge tax-evading cache offshore, courtesy of official tolerance….by end of 2012, GE had accumulated $108 billion offshore. Between 2002 and 2011, GE generated $80 billion in gross profits, but paid only $1.4 billion to the US exchequer. Taxes paid in other countries were negligible.”
Another example of thousands of job cuts due to such a lack of national policy/pro-neoliberal policy – I did a lot of reports on this for Press TV, as you can imagine. Peugeot had to come back hat in hand to Iran – certainly a very good outcome for Iran. Now we got technology transfers, true joint ventures, etc. You might think this outcome would only weaken France, but mutual cooperation is the way forward.
…”the disastrous impact of the entry of GM (then under partial government ownership) into Peugeot’s register in February 2012. Peugeot is subject to an immediate demand to pull out of Iran, location of its largest export market.”
Wonder how much the Mistral cancellation had to do with Brussels?
Excellent article -irreverent refreshing & much needed-Please more from this writer
Valls, Hamon Enter Second Round of French Socialist Party Primaries
https://sputniknews.com/europe/201701221049891917-valls-hamon-second-round-french-primaries/
“”According to the results obtained from 3,090 polling stations, Benoit Hamon receives 35.21% of votes, Manuel Valls gets 31.56%, Arnaud Montebourg gains support of 18.70% voters,” the High Authority said.
The two top candidates will participate in the second round of primaries set for January 29.
The PS candidate will have to face French far-right National Front leader Le Pen, center-right The Republicans’ nominee Francois Fillon and independent candidate from the left Emmanuel Macron as his or her most important competitors.
The first round of the French presidential elections will take place on April 23.”
As predicted! Hamon wins, and thankfully so – Valls has been terrible.
France’s Montebourg Calls to Vote for Hamon in 2 Round of Socialist Primaries
https://sputniknews.com/europe/201701221049892680-ex-economy-minister-vote-hamon/
“Next Sunday I will vote for Benoit Hamon and urge you to do the same. We are talking about the need to unite for the future of the Left and of France in general,” Montebourg said.
He added that the vote showed the voters’ discontent with the outcomes of Francois Hollande presidency.”
The court of appeal of Liège confirmed Friday, January 20, the condemnation of the French humorist Dieudonné to two months in prison and 9,000 euros fine
And yet the zionazi charlie hebdo insult machine continues its subsidised publishing with impunity.
Hamon is a Soros style leftist and Nato goon.
He is also a Takfiri lover (the guy is elected from Trappes).
I havent heard anything unusual on his part regarding Syria, Ukraine, Russia. Etc
Totally follows Hollande’s doxa on these subject.
The guy is fake left. Totally. Melanchon supported Russia and Syrian authorities. The only one un the French left. But I don’t trust him either… he is a maconist.
Drain the Swamp ❗️
The jew in Western politics has two main aims, israel and the preservation of fellow tribesmen khazar wealth, or as DSK put it “he wakes up every day thinking what he can do for israel today”. In return the goyim are now for brexit,Trump,Marine etc, their politics has been hijacked for the betterment of zio interests, goyim voters interests including Flint water supply have not been catered for. The list of dual loyalty is long lieberman,schumer,cameron,fabius,hollande, merkel,darkozy,milliband, ryan,etc,etc. They have their owned MSM and the “big jew” in the newsroom of the CNN,Time,etc behind them, and the goyim are none the wiser-in fact the saud money is allied with the jew in owning these assets eg talal in murdochs Fox. But for this zio domination to continue it is ESSENTIAL any promising/superior goy be downed or compromised or made an honorary jew eg biden, this is the ONLY reason for this mass MSM assault on Trump.
Well, Ramin, you have been vindicated! :) Congratulations!
It’s going to be fun to watch the competition between Marine and Benoit. Whatever their opposing views on some issues, at least they don’t seem intent on wars.