THE END OF FRANCE AS WE KNOW IT?
Tom Luongo
When an event grabs headlines like the protests in France have I temper my reactions to it. I didn’t give the Yellow Vest protests much thought at first wanting to see where they would lead.
Protests like this and even bigger ones like Catalonian independence are invariably betrayed by the European political establishment. They become an excuse to move towards tighter control — more cops, more surveillance, crackdowns on free speech, etc.
So, sometimes it’s hard to separate the manufactured reality show from the spontaneous uprising of human frustration.
But after the past two weekends of violent protests, after the French government backed down on the new diesel tax which was the inciting incident of this story, it’s safe to say this is real and there is real fear brewing among the political elite of Europe.
As Rev. Steve Turley points out in this video, the media across Europe and the U.S. are scared of where this leads.
A return of national sovereignty across Europe is no longer coming. I think it’s here. This can no longer be stage-managed as a relief valve of the massive discontent at neoliberal policies rammed down Europeans’ throats as it has in the past.
Something far more significant is here. They can’t cordon off this movement in France and use it to demonize the leadership and, by extension, the people.
It’s jumped borders. It’s part of the zeitgeist now.
No matter how many times rags like The Guardian, Der Spiegel and Politico call these people ‘far-right’ or ‘alt-right’ and link them to Nazism it doesn’t stop them because the protestors don’t see themselves that way.
And well they shouldn’t because they aren’t.
Macron made numerous mistakes in handling this protests. But the biggest one was opening up his conversation with the French people with the same, tired insults used in the past to smear them and sow division.
Have they learned nothing in the past three years?
Brexit was not a fluke.
Trump was not a fluke.
Salvini isn’t a fluke.
Orban isn’t a fluke.
France is not a fluke.
These elections represent gut level revulsion to the path the political and economic discourse is on. And crying Nazi wolf too many times eventually gets you eaten.
These people are sick of the corruption and demand results, not words. Not campaign speeches, but results.
And if these men don’t deliver quickly they will be on a short leash. A very short one in Macron’s case. Because it isn’t like 35% of France wasn’t willing to turn hard away from the status quo last year and vote for Marine Le Pen.
Macron was sold as the outsider, the reformer, who wasn’t in office a week before he began betraying the people who voted for him. And now he’s stuck.
The media turned against him quickly because they know he is done. Their job now will be to prep the narrative to puff up his replacement.
Kicking the can down the road means replacing the old boss with a new boss who is also just another globalist, neoliberal shill.
It’s what’s happening in Germany as Angela Merkel passes the torch of the CDU to a woman even more on board with Merkel’s agenda than Merkel was.
Theresa May’s attempted cynical betrayal of Brexit could actually fall apart as parliament looks ready to *gasp* do its job.
We’ve become used to France being the epicenter of nearly all the bad ideas coming out of Europe for decades. But, that may be changing rapidly for the better.
The villain always looks unbeatable when the second act closes and yet, more often than not, the heroes eventually prevail. The French people are ready for something different. They’ve donned vests and gas masks, picked up live grenades and thrown the crumbs Macron has thrown them back in his smug face.
Now the question is, what comes next? Because political unrest leads to financial unrest really quickly and the market hasn’t even begun pricing France into Europe’s evolving troubles.