https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/france-has-already-surrendered-coming-conflict
BY TYLER DURDEN
TUESDAY, APR 11, 2023
By Michael Every of Rabobank
Good Friday’s slightly stronger-than-expected US payrolls print saw the market reprice in a further 25bps rate Fed hike in May, albeit not stopping the meme that we are close to the cycle peak. Indeed, new BOJ Governor Ueda just provided no sign he is set to tighten policy, while the Aussie financial press ask ‘Is the RBA a dove or a chicken?’, noting Governor Lowe’s only justification for an April pause was “We’ve already done a lot, let’s pray it’s enough,” and that he’s said he’s “prepared to have a slightly slower return of inflation to target than other central banks… to preserve many of those job gains that have been delivered in the last few years, that’s a better outcome.” As Ben Picton points out, the RBA even has the gall to assume productivity rises ahead to counter low inflation. In short, the white flag is being waved in two places, but not the US.
Make that three, as the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook expects a return to ultra-low interest rates, with Fed Funds back comfortably below 1%. That’s a big call with struggling supply chains, overheating services, an ageing population acting as a secular push on wage rates, the Wall Street Journal saying ‘The US is back in the factory business’, a return to industrial policy –and mercantilism– and the Fund not even calling for a global recession first! And let’s not forget the global angle, as some EM think about barter not dollars, OPEC+ slash output, and money waits in the wings to leap back into speculative commodity trades again.
Actually, make that four white flags. President Macron’s red-carpet visit to China, where VDL was ushered in via the tradesman’s entrance, saw another big meeting at a big table –with ‘random’ Chinese citizens cheering Macron, not burning down his favorite restaurant– but mocked by national-security experts as “one of the greatest blunders by a major European power since the end of the Cold War,” because “flattery works”; and ‘to Macron’ is now defined as “to deliberately increase one’s dependency on China whilst lecturing European partners about naivety and the need to boost EU strategic autonomy.”
Indeed, Macron signed many China investment deals, a new Airbus plant, promised Huawei fair treatment, and snubbed VDL’s call for China supply-chain ‘de-risking.’ In doing so, despite saying the use of force to change the Taiwan status quo was “unacceptable,” Macron implied no French economic consequences for China, even adding, “I am neither Taiwan nor the US.” While he was there, Beijing said it would inspect cargo vessels entering Taiwan and stepped up major military exercises encircling it, seen as a warm-up for a potential blockade by some in uniform. Today, by contrast, the FT argues ‘Why Taiwan matters to the world: a dangerous rise in tensions with Beijing is a price worth paying to protect a flourishing Asian democracy.’
Monday then saw a Politico story with Macron quotes the site had to stress: “were all actually said by the president, but some parts of the interview in which the president spoke even more frankly about Taiwan and Europe’s strategic autonomy were cut out by the Elysée.” What they could report was Macron stating: “Europe must resist pressure to become America’s followers”; the “great risk” Europe faces is getting “caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy”; Europe had increased its dependency on the US for weapons and energy, and must focus on boosting its defence industries; and the EU should reduce its dependence on the “extraterritoriality of the US dollar,” because “If the tensions between the two superpowers heat up … we won’t have the time nor the resources to finance our strategic autonomy and we will become vassals.” De Gaulle of the man!
National-security experts stress Macron sent the wrong signal to China, as with Russia in 2022, with whom he is still keen to make a deal: imagine if the US had said Ukraine was “a faraway country of which we know nothing,” leaving the EU on their own – which some Americans wish they had. Equally, the EU is divided. France, Germany, and Spain want to deepen relations with China, while those east of Austria and north of Germany (and the Dutch) are looking to the US. This could threaten a schism given national-security nerves now transcend economics. Moreover, Macron is far too late in his warnings. As we argued in ‘Balance of payments –and power– crises’, Europe is already in a structurally weak, EM-like position in a raw ‘geopolitical’ world:
Meanwhile, Stephen Roach, among the most optimistic and pro-China voices in markets, just published ‘Beijing’s Grim Sense of Resignation’, which has remarkable quotes too:
“For the broad consensus of Chinese I met with during my March 23-28 visit to Beijing, the air was heavy with a grim sense of resignation over the US-China conflict… The China consensus now believes that there is very little that can be done to arrest this worrisome downward spiral in the world’s most important bilateral relationship. But resignation speaks to a different dimension of conflict – the acceptance that it is here to stay and that there is very little that can be done to arrest the escalation, let alone find a path to conflict resolution.… I am left with the uncomfortable sense that the Chinese leadership is now struggling to reconcile its core goals of prosperity and global stature with the mounting conflict with the US. In doing so, they are all but dismissing an important trade-off between conflict and prosperity… There is, of course, a dark side to resignation — of a China that has given up hope and is now preparing for a far more dangerous phase of conflict escalation– kinetic military action. Fortunately, I didn’t pick up any such sentiment on my recent trip in Beijing. But just the thought, reinforced by the recent bellicosity on the US Congress, adds to the lingering sleep deprivation of jet lag.”
That’s worth noting – as is France already surrendering. Indeed, Roach, Macron, the RBA, and the IMF all suggest we are heading for different, but equally painful, episodes of De Gaulle stones.
https://www.rt.com/news/574436-macron-autonomy-china-taiwan/
April 9, 2023
Emmanuel Macron gestures as he speaks to students at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China, April 7, 2023 © AFP / Ludovic Marin
Western Europe must pursue “strategic autonomy” and avoid getting dragged into confrontations on behalf of the US, Emmanuel Macron told Politico on Sunday. The French president has made similar assertions before, but has nevertheless followed Washington’s lead on Ukraine.
In an interview while travelling within China this week, Macron told the news site that “Europe faces a great risk” if it “gets caught up in crises that are not ours.”
“The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers,” Macron said. “The question Europeans need to answer… is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the US agenda and a Chinese overreaction.”
Macron met with Chinese President Xi Jinping prior to the interview, concluding afterwards that if “Europeans cannot resolve the crisis in Ukraine, how can we credibly say on Taiwan: ‘watch out, if you do something wrong we will be there’?”
Xi divides and conquers during Macron’s China visit
Hours after Macron left Chinese airspace, Beijing launched military exercises around Taiwan, a move widely perceived as a response to the island’s pro-independence leader Tsai Ing-Wen holding a meeting with US lawmakers in California on Wednesday.
Relations between China and the US are at a historic low point, with US President Joe Biden suggesting on several occasions last year that Washington would intervene militarily to prevent Beijing from reunifying Taiwan with the mainland. While world leaders including Macron are seemingly content to stay out of the Taiwan standoff, their insistence on pushing China to denounce Russia over its military operation in Ukraine has angered Xi, according to media reports and comments from Chinese officials.
The conflict in Ukraine has also largely scuppered discussions of “strategic autonomy” in Europe. While Macron and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel had talked extensively about lessening their reliance on the US in recent years, a change in power in Berlin saw Olaf Scholz’ government reverse decades of pacifist foreign policy to arm Ukraine at Washington’s behest, while both France and Germany have supplied armored vehicles, ammunition, and in Germany’s case, tanks, to Kiev’s forces.
With rising energy costs and inflation contributing to domestic instability, Macron has nevertheless backed all 10 of the EU’s anti-Russian sanctions packages. Despite speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin on several occasions since last February, Macron has not managed to push the Kremlin toward halting its operation in Ukraine.
The French president “is still talking about the strategic independence of the EU,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov remarked last summer, adding “I am certain they will not be allowed to have it.”
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/us-corporate-media-celebrate-france-s-attack-on-pensions
Apr 09, 2023
“The Party Is Ending for French Retirees.” That’s the headline the Wall Street Journal (3/14/23) went with just days before French President Emmanuel Macron invoked a special article of the constitution to bypass the National Assembly and enshrine an increase in the retirement age in national law. The Journal proclaimed:
The golden age of French pensions is coming to an end, one way or another, in an extreme example of the demographic stress afflicting the retirement systems of advanced economies throughout the world.
The possibility that this “golden age” could be extended is not even entertained. Due to previous “reforms” (CounterSpin, 9/17/10), the pension of the average French person is already facing cuts over the coming decades. So preserving the current level of benefits would require strengthening the system. For the Journal, this is out of the question. Stingier pensions, on the other hand, are portrayed as the inevitable result of “demographic stress,” not policy choices.
The French people, by contrast, recognize that a less generous pension system is far from an inevitability. Protesters quickly took to the streets this January after the government unveiled plans to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64; one poll from that month found 80% of the country opposed to such a change. And as the government pushed the reform through in March, protests grew especially rowdy, with monuments of refuse lining the city’s streets and fires illuminating the Parisian landscape.
But that’s just how the French are, you know? They’re a peculiar people, much different from us Americans.
As the New York Times’ Paris bureau chief Roger Cohen put it in a recent episode of the Daily (3/16/23), protesters have been “talking about how life begins when work ends, which is a deeply held French conviction, very different from the American view that life is enriched and enhanced by work.”
Left unmentioned is the fact that, for decades, Americans have consistently opposed increases to the Social Security retirement age, usually by a large margin (CounterSpin, 10/26/18). Moreover, two-thirds of the American public support a four-day workweek, and half say Americans work too much. How French of them.
US media (Extra!, 3–4/96) have taken to covering the uprising against pension “reform” in the same way the narrator of a nature documentary might describe the wilderness:
Now, we come to a Frenchman in his natural habitat. His behavior may give the impression of idleness, but don’t let that fool you. If prodded enough with the prospect of labor, he will not hesitate before lighting the local pastry shop ablaze.
The New York Times (2/24/23), for instance, ran an article in the midst of the protests headlined “The French Like Protesting, but This Frenchman May Like It the Most,” about a man who has “become a personal embodiment of France’s enduring passion for demonstration.” It followed that up with a piece (3/7/23) presenting French opposition to an increase in the retirement age as some exotic reflection of the French’s French-ness. A source attested to the country’s uniqueness: “In France, we believe that there is a time for work and then a time for personal development.”
Meanwhile, while the Washington Post has mostly been content to outsource coverage of the protests to Associated Press wires, it did run a piece (3/15/23) by one of its own reporters titled: “City of … Garbage? Paris, Amid Strikes, Is Drowning in Trash.”
This fairly unserious reporting on the protests contrasts sharply with the grave rhetoric deployed by the editorial boards of major newspapers in opposing the protesters’ demands. The Wall Street Journal (3/16/23), which has implored the French to face “the cold reality” of spending cuts, is not alone in its crusade against French workers. The boards of the Washington Post, Bloomberg and the Financial Times have all run similarly dour editorials promoting pension reform over the past few months.
Among these, only the Financial Times (3/19/23) opposed the French government’s remarkably anti-democratic decision to raise the retirement age without a vote in the National Assembly, opining that Macron’s tactics have both “weakened” him and left “France with a democratic deficit.”
The Washington Post (3/17/23), by contrast, suggested democratic means would have been preferable, but gave no indication of opposition to Macron’s move. (As FAIR has pointed out—3/9/23—the Post’s supposed concern for democracy doesn’t extend far beyond its slogan.) And the Wall Street Journal (3/16/23) actually saluted the move, remarking, “Give Mr. Macron credit for persistence—and political brass.”
The editorial boards’ case for pension reform is based on a simple conviction—French pensions are unsustainable—for which there are three main pieces of evidence.
First, the ratio of workers to retirees. The Wall Street Journal (3/14/23) included a graphic projecting the worker-to-retiree ratio through 2070:
As the graphic shows, this ratio has declined substantially since 2002, and is set to decline even more over the next several decades. This trend is referenced more or less directly in editorials by the Journal (3/16/23, 1/31/23, 1/13/23), the Washington Post (3/17/23) and the Financial Times (3/19/23).
The declining worker-to-retiree ratio is meant to inspire fear, but in and of itself, it’s not necessarily a problem. After all, the increased costs associated with a rising number of retirees could very well be offset by other factors. It is therefore much more useful to look directly at how much of a nation’s wealth is used to support retirees.
Which brings us to the second commonly cited piece of evidence: pensions as a percentage of GDP. This is mentioned in editorials by the Journal (3/16/23, 1/31/23, 1/13/23), Post (3/17/23) and Bloomberg (1/16/23).
As it turns out, there’s no problem to be found here. In its 2021 Aging Report, the European Commission estimates that, even without a rise in the minimum retirement age to 64, public pension spending in France would actually decline over the next several decades, dropping to 12.6% of GDP in 2070, down from 14.8% in 2019. Cost-saving factors, primarily the deterioration in benefit levels, would more than cancel out the increase in the number of retirees. In other words, there is no affordability crisis. It doesn’t exist.
The only actual evidence for the unsustainability of France’s pension system is the system’s deficit, which is projected to reach around €14 billion by 2030. This piece of evidence is cited in editorials by the Journal (1/31/23, 1/13/23) and the Financial Times (3/19/23, 1/10/23).
One solution to the deficit is raising the retirement age. Another is raising taxes. Oddly enough, the editorials cited above almost universally fail to mention the second option.
The only editorial board to bring up the possibility of raising taxes is the Financial Times’ (1/10/23), which comments, “Macron has rightly ruled out raising taxes or rescinding tax breaks since France’s tax share of GDP is already 45%, the second-highest in the OECD after Denmark.”
This statement says much more about the Times than it does about the reasonableness of raising taxes. Oxfam France (1/18/23) has estimated that a mere 2% tax on the wealth of French billionaires could eliminate the projected pension deficit. Rescinding three tax cuts that Macron’s government passed and that largely benefit the wealthy could free up €16 billion each year. That would plug the pension system’s projected deficit with money left over.
Which option you pick—increasing taxes on the wealthy or raising the retirement age—depends entirely on who you want to bear the costs of shoring up the pension system. Do you want the wealthy to sacrifice a little? Or do you want to ratchet up the suffering of lower-income folks a bit? Are you on the side of the rich, or the poor and working class? The editorial boards of these major newspapers have made their allegiance clear.
© 2023 Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)
Conor Smyth is a recent graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, where he studied history and political science.
https://www.rt.com/africa/573620-russia-envoy-macron-claims/
March 26, 2023
© Getty Images / mtcurado
French claims that Moscow is pursuing a “predatory project” in Africa merely “reflect the neo-colonial approach of Western countries to cooperation with African states,” Alexey Saltykov, Russia’s ambassador to the Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso, told Sputnik in an interview published on Saturday.
Saltykov’s remarks come after French President Emmanuel Macron blamed Russia for his country’s deteriorating relations with its former colonies.
Protest movements against France have recently swept Africa’s Sahel region, with many people expressing pro-Russian sentiments. Paris has begun to withdraw its troops from some nations following failures in combating security threats, and Macron admitted that French influence in the region has diminished.
According to France’s president, Moscow is feeding disinformation in Africa, particularly Burkina Faso and Mali where Paris has suffered military setbacks. He stated in November 2022 that there was a “predatory project” at work in the region, “financed by Russia, sometimes others.” Macron alleged that “a number of powers, who want to spread their influence in Africa, are doing this to hurt France, hurt its language, sow doubts, but above all pursue certain interests.”
However, Saltykov argued that local people have started to question the benefits of cooperation with France, resulting in a decline in the country’s influence.
Uganda ‘very satisfied’ with defense ties with Russia – president
“As for France, I think the events that took place speak of shifts in the mass consciousness of Burkinabes, and not only of them but also of other African countries,” the ambassador told Sputnik. He added that “under the influence of world events, Africans are beginning to understand more what France’s policy was like, whether it was productive and useful in everything for bilateral cooperation.”
The envoy to the two Sahel countries proposed that African problems be solved by Africans themselves, but that Russia was willing to assist. He also said that as a sovereign state, Burkina Faso should decide with whom it wishes to collaborate.
He further stated that African countries should rely on the UN Charter, which forms a universal basis for establishing relations, rather than on the policies of individual countries, which change depending on the political situation. Saltykov said dealing with the terrorist threat in the Sahel would require as much cooperation as possible.
The envoy also mentioned the Russian embassy in Burkina Faso, which was closed in 1992 for financial reasons, and expressed optimism about its reopening in line with Russia’s strategic course of developing relations with countries on the continent.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/french-strikes-cautionary-tale-us
BY TYLER DURDEN
MONDAY, MAR 27, 2023
Authored by Adeline Von Drehle via RealClearPolitics.com,
In the city’s 14th municipal district, known here as an “arrondissement,” people walk in the street as mounds of trash stake their claim on the sidewalk.
And walk they must. Sanitation workers aren’t the only ones on strike. Transportation workers are also among the many refusing to work in retaliation against French President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform plan. The plan aims to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.
Thursday marked the ninth day of inter-union national strikes since the bill was introduced in January, days of protest in which virtually every French union member participates. Transportation, sanitation, and energy unions, however, have been on daily renewable strikes since March 7. Trains and planes arriving to, departing from, and crossing over France are experiencing major delays and cancellations. Teachers are walking off the job. The stench of weeks-old trash mingles with pain au chocolat.
Last Thursday, Macron ordered Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne to buck Parliament and ignore overwhelming public opinion and impose the pension reform plan via Article 49.3 of the French Constitution. The article permits passage of the bill while bypassing a vote at the National Assembly, though it is still subject to revision from the Constitutional Council before it becomes law. Macron lost his parliamentary majority last year, and the plan had support neither from the left nor the far right, but from Macron’s centrist alliance alone.
Immediately following the employment of Article 49.3, some 7,000 demonstrators flooded Place de la Concorde, a grand square in central Paris famous for housing the guillotine during the French Revolution. More than 230 years later, it remains a site of unrest. Protestors charged riot police armed with stones and were met with tear gas. Over 300 activists were arrested.
The public outrage is two-fold. On one hand, the French despise the plan. Activists would rather see taxes increase on the wealthy. Yet Macron insists that because France’s retired population is expected to increase from 16 to 21 million people by 2050, that won’t be nearly enough, and his proposal is the surest way to make the French economy competitive.
“It’s in the greater interest of the country,” Macron said. “Between opinion polls and the national interest, I chose the national interest.”
Pushing it by way of Article 49.3, though, has been seen by many as a slap in the face to the democratic process. Far-left lawmaker Mathilde Panot put it simply: “The government is already dead in the eyes of the French; it doesn’t have any legitimacy anymore.”
Lawmakers on the left and right each filed a no-confidence motion against Macron’s government, though both were rejected by the National Assembly on Monday. One motion lost by just nine votes, increasing the pressure on Macron to either withdraw his reform or replace Borne to refresh his government’s image. Mass union strikes and protests in France are not uncommon. But the battle lines in this fight may foreshadow a future fight in the United States.
In last month’s State of the Union address, President Biden seemingly achieved rare unanimity on one key issue: Social Security and Medicare. For now, it appears both parties have agreed to leave the programs untouched – irrespective of what the actuary tables portend.
“Let’s stand up for seniors. Stand up and show them we will not cut Social Security. We will not cut Medicare,” Biden exhorted members of Congress, most of whom began clamoring to their feet.
The conversation about Social Security was sparked by Republicans’ mere mention of the same issue that is roiling France: delaying the retirement age.
One of these plans, proposed by the Republican Study Budget Committee, suggests raising the retirement ages for both Social Security and Medicare from 66 or 67 (depending on date of birth) to 70. The increase in retirement age would be gradual. Based on the proposal, people born after 1977 would have a full retirement age of 70.
Democrats, for their part, would like to see money from additional payroll taxes on the wealthy shore up senior benefit programs. Currently, payroll taxes are capped at $160,200. Proposals on the left look to extend the solvency of Social Security and Medicare while reapplying payroll taxes on incomes as high as $400,000.
The retired population in the United States is expected to increase from 17% to 22% by 2050, a jump equal in proportion to that of France.
America’s aging demographic suggests a potential clash that is generational as well as ideological.
“Gen Z and Millennials will rely on their Social Security benefits even more than current seniors do,” says Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.
Citing “massive student debt, disappearing pensions, and the ever-widening wealth gap,” he argues that Americans 40 and under will find it more difficult to accumulate wealth over the course of a career.
The vast majority of strikers and protestors in France are two-to-four decades from retirement age. And while the United States is perhaps too sprawling, diverse, and individualistic to experience crippling national strikes, Congress need only to look across the Atlantic Ocean to understand just how serious people are about their government benefits.
I don’t know if there are 3.5 million French on the streets but if true this could be the first nation to exit the WEF cowardly world of Satanists!
Yes, France should learn the basic concepts of democracy. Canada should ponder this advice as well. Hypocrites.
Stop electing elitist doofuses ye doofuses! Hear that, Trudeau supporters?
There is still hope:
2 December, 2022
Carlos Alvarez via Getty Images
France’s greatest living author Michel Houellebecq says Europe will be “swept away” by mass migration, adding that he was “shocked” that the ‘great replacement’ is treated as a conspiracy theory.
Houellebecq made the comments during a conversation with French philosopher Michel Onfray.
“The Great Replacement, I was shocked it’s called a theory. It’s not a theory, it’s a fact,”said Houellebecq. “When it comes to immigration, nobody controls anything, that’s the whole problem. Europe will be swept away by this cataclysm.”
Onfray agreed with him, asserting, “It’s objectively what the figures say,” in relation to the issue of massive demographic change.
“The fact that France’s greatest living writer, as he is often described by the mainstream press, has said the Great Replacement is fact will only add to the growing body of intellectuals, academics, and politicians who have increasingly been willing to describe the Great Replacement in public forums,” remarks John Cody.
While Onfray believes most of the migrants (many of whom are Muslim) will simply turn into consumers like everyone else, Houellebecq sees a far more violent future of “reverse Bataclans.”
“When entire territories are under Islamist control, I think acts of resistance will take place. There will be attacks and shootings in mosques,” said Houellebecq.
During a television debate back in January, French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut said it would take a “fanatical denial of reality” to disregard the “spectacular” demographic changes that are taking place in Europe.
A poll taken in April last year found that the majority of French citizens thought some form of “civil war” was likely as a result of failed multiculturalism and attacks on French identity.
The so-called ‘Great Replacement’ is the idea that leftist politicians are deliberately encouraging rapid levels of mass migration in order to replace native people with migrants whose descendants are more likely to vote for left-wing parties.
Whenever someone on the right suggests this is happening, they are vilified as a dangerous extremist, but whenever someone on the left points to the phenomenon as a good thing, they are lauded as a progressive thinker.
As we previously highlighted, new census figures out of the UK show that white Brits now make up less than 75% of the population in England and Wales.
Across England’s three biggest cities – Manchester, Birmingham and London, white Brits now represent a minority of the population.
Araud condemned US diplomats for insisting that Washington must always be the “leader” of the world, and stressed that the West should work with other countries in the Global South, “on an equal basis,” in order “to find a compromise with our own interests.” He cautioned against making “maximalist” demands, “of simply trying to keep the Western hegemony.”
Araud argued that if the international community is serious about creating a “rules-based order,” it must entail “integrating all the major stakeholders into the managing of the world, you know really bringing the Chinese, the Indians, and really other countries, and trying to build with them, on an equal basis, the world of tomorrow.”By Ben Norton
Global Research, November 24, 2022
Multipolarista 21 November 2022
Region: USA
Theme: History
***
France’s ex-US Ambassador Gérard Araud criticized Washington for frequently violating international law and said its so-called “rules-based order” is an unfair “Western order” based on “hegemony.” He condemned the new cold war on China, instead calling for mutual compromises.
France’s former ambassador to the United States, Gérard Araud, has publicly criticized Washington, saying it frequently violates international law and that its so-called “rules-based order” is actually an unfair “Western order.”
The top French diplomat warned that the United States is engaged in “economic warfare” against China and that Europe is concerned about Washington’s “containment policy,” because many European countries do not want to be forced to “choose a camp” in a new cold war.
Araud condemned US diplomats for insisting that Washington must always be the “leader” of the world, and stressed that the West should work with other countries in the Global South, “on an equal basis,” in order “to find a compromise with our own interests.”
He cautioned against making “maximalist” demands, “of simply trying to keep the Western hegemony.”
Araud made these remarks in a November 14 panel discussion titled “Is America Ready for a Multipolar World?“, hosted by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a think tank in Washington, DC that advocates for a more restrained, less bellicose foreign policy.
Gérard Araud’s credentials could hardly be any more elite. A retired senior French diplomat, he served as the country’s ambassador to the United States from 2014 to 2019. From 2009 to 2014, he was Paris’ representative to the United Nations.
Before that, Araud served as France’s ambassador to Israel, and he previously worked with NATO.
He was also appointed as a “senior distinguished fellow” at the Atlantic Council, NATO’s notoriously belligerent think tank in Washington.
This blue-blooded background makes Araud’s frank comments even more important, as they reflect the feelings of a segment of the French ruling class and European political class, which is uncomfortable with Washington’s unipolar domination and wants power to be more decentralized in the world.
In a shockingly blunt moment in the panel discussion, Gérard Araud explained that the so-called “rules-based order” is actually just a “Western order,” and that the United States and Europe unfairly dominate international organizations like the United Nations, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund (IMF):
To be frank, I’ve always been extremely skeptical about this idea of a ‘rules-based order.’
Personally, for instance, look, I was the permanent representative to the United Nations. We love the United Nations, but the Americans not too much, you know.
And actually when you look at the hierarchy of the United Nations, everybody there is ours. The Secretary General [António Guterres] is Portuguese. He was South Korean [Ban Ki-moon]. But when you look at all the under secretaries general, all of them really are either American, French, British, and so on. When you look at the World Bank, when you look at the IMF, and so on.
So that’s the first element: this order is our order.
And the second element is also that, actually, this order is reflecting the balance of power in 1945. You know, you look at the permanent members of the Security Council.
Butting Heads with China and Russia: American Diplomats Are Outclassed
Really people forget that, if China and Russia are obliged to oppose [with] their veto, it is because frankly the Security Council is most of the time, 95% of the time, has a Western-oriented majority.
So this order frankly – and you can also be sarcastic, because, when the Americans basically want to do whatever they want, including when it’s against international law, as they define it, they do it.
And that’s the vision that the rest of the world has of this order.
You know really, when I was in – the United Nations is a fascinating spot because you have ambassadors of all the countries, and you can have conversations with them, and the vision they project of the world, their vision of the world, is certainly not a ‘rules-based order’; it’s a Western order.
And they accuse us of double standards, hypocrisy, and so on and so on.
So I’m not sure that this question about the ‘rules’ is really the critical question.
I think the first assessment that we should do will be maybe, as we say in French, to put ourselves in the shoes of the other side, to try to understand how they see the world.
Araud argued that if the international community is serious about creating a “rules-based order,” it must entail “integrating all the major stakeholders into the managing of the world, you know really bringing the Chinese, the Indians, and really other countries, and trying to build with them, on an equal basis, the world of tomorrow.”
“That’s the only way,” he added. “We should really ask the Indians, ask the Chinese, the Brazilians, and other countries, really to work with us on an equal basis. And that’s something – it’s not only the Americans, also the Westerners, you know, really trying to get out of our moral high ground, and to understand that they have their own interests, that on some issues we should work together, on other issues we shouldn’t work together.”
“Let’s not try to rebuild the Fortress West,” he implored. “It shouldn’t be the future of our foreign policy.”
Gérard Araud revealed that, in Europe, there is “concern” that the United States has a “containment policy” against China.
“I think the international relationship will be largely dominated by the rivalry between China and the United States. And foreign policy I think in the coming years will be to find the modus vivendi … between the two powers,” he said.
He warned that Washington is engaged in “economic warfare” against Beijing, that the US is trying “basically to cut any relationship with China in the field of advanced chips, which is sending a message of, ‘We are going to try to prevent you from becoming an advanced economy.’ It’s really, it’s economic warfare.”
“Really on the American side is the development of economic warfare against China. It’s really cutting, making impossible cooperation in a very important, critical field, for the future of the Chinese economy,” he added.
Araud pointed out that China is not just “emerging”; it is in fact “re-emerging” to a prominent geopolitical position, like it had for hundreds of years, before the rise of European colonialism.
He stressed that many countries in Asia don’t want to be forced to pick a side in this new cold war, and are afraid of becoming a zone of proxy conflicts like Europe was in the first cold war:
Asia doesn’t want to be the Europe of the Cold War. They don’t want to have a bamboo curtain. They don’t want to choose their camp.
Australia has chosen its camp, but it’s a particular case. But Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, they don’t want to choose their camp, and we shouldn’t demand they choose their camp.
So we need to have a flexible policy of talking to the Chinese, because talking is also a way of reassuring them, trying to understand their interests, and also to define our interests not in a maximalist way, of simply trying to keep the Western hegemony.
Araud challenged the idea that the United States must be the unipolar “leader” of the world, stating:
The Americans entered the world, in a sense, being already the big boy on the block. In 1945, it was 40% of the world’s GDP.
Which also may explain what is American diplomacy. The word of American diplomats, the word of American diplomacy is ‘leadership.’
Really, it’s always striking for foreigners, as soon as there is a debate about American foreign policy, immediately people say, ‘We have to restore our leadership.’ Leadership. And other countries may say, ‘Why leadership?’
Gérard Araud similarly criticized Western media outlets for their cartoonishly negative coverage of China. The top French diplomat called on officials to “try to see the world from Beijing”:
When you look at the European or Western newspapers, you have the impression that China is a sort of a dark monster which is moving forward, never committing a mistake, never really facing any problem, and going to the domination of the world – you know, the Chinese work 20 hours a day, they don’t want a vacation, they don’t care, they want to dominate the world.
Maybe if we will try to see the world from Beijing, really we will consider certainly that all the borders of China are more or less unstable, or threatened, or facing unfriendly countries, and that’s from the Chinese point of view.
Maybe they want to improve their situation. It doesn’t mean that we have to accept it, but maybe to see, to remember, that any defensive measure of one side is always seen as offensive by the other side.
So let’s understand that China has its own interests. You know, even dictatorships have legitimate interests. And so let’s look at these interests, and let’s try to find a compromise with our own interests.
Araud went on to point out that the US government is constantly militarily threatening China, sending warships across the planet to its coasts, but would never for a second tolerate Beijing doing the same to it:
When I was in Washington, just after the [hawkish anti-China] speech of Vice President Pence to the Hudson [Institute] in October 2018, I met a lot of specialists on China in Washington, DC, but when I was trying to tell them, you know, your [US] ships are patrolling at 200 miles from the Chinese coast, at 5000 miles from the American coast, what would be your reaction if Chinese ships were patrolling at 200 miles from your coast?
And obviously, my interlocutors didn’t understand what I meant. And that’s the question, you know, really trying to figure out what are the reasonable interests of the other side.
Araud stressed that China “is not a military threat” to the West.
With this new cold war between the United States and China, Gérard Araud explained, “in this context, Russia is a bit like Austria-Hungary with Germany before the First World War, is a bit doomed to be the ‘brilliant second’ of China.”
While Araud harshly denounced Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, he also criticized the Western sanctions on Moscow, which he cautioned, “on the European side, it is inflicting to ourselves some pain.”
He warned that Europe is in a “dead end” with Russia, “because as long as the war in Ukraine will go on, and my bet, unfortunately, is that it may go on for a long time, it will be impossible for the Europeans, and the Americans in a sense, but also for the Europeans to end the sanctions on Russia, which means that our relationship with Russia may be frozen for an indefinite future.”
“And I think it’s very difficult to have diplomatic activity [with Russia] in this situation,” he added.
You can watch the full panel discussion hosted by the Quincy Institute below:
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Featured image: France’s Ambassador to the US Gérard Araud with President Barack Obama in the White House in 2016 (Source: Multipolarista)
The original source of this article is Multipolarista
Copyright © Ben Norton, Multipolarista, 2022
https://www.rt.com/news/567185-mali-france-russia-disinformation/
FILE PHOTO: French soldiers of the Barkhane force boarding a transport airplane of the Interarmy Transit Detachment, in Gao, amid the French military drawdown with troops leaving the last bases in Mali. © Handout / Etat Major des Armées / AFP
Mali declared a ban this week on the activities of non-governmental organizations within the country that receive funding from France. The move came in the wake of France’s decision to withdraw development aid to the country as its final troops pull out of the Sahel region, marking the end of the eight-year Operation Barkhane.
What started as a counterterrorism operation in Mali had until recently begun to take the shape of a showcase for French President Emmanuel Macron’s vision of an integrated European defense. Now that dream seems to be falling apart due to an overstayed welcome and less-than-stellar performance. Whose fault is that? Russia’s, according to Macron.
The fact that there were three coups in Mali in the space of a decade is pretty much all one needs to know about the “success” of France’s ongoing security and stability operation. Play around with a revolving door long enough and you’ll get smacked right in the face. This is exactly what happened when France was ultimately kicked out earlier this year by the most recent interim government.
France ends anti-jihadist Africa operation
Macron then said that the French troop drawdown would happen gradually, as though he was still calling the shots on a former French colony. The message from Mali was clear: You’ll get out now. So then Macron said that French troops would just redeploy elsewhere to the Sahel region. But on November 7, he announced that the Sahel mission was ending as well, despite French troops still remaining in Chad and Niger. Nonetheless, Macron said that within six months there would be a new French military strategy for Africa. No doubt geared primarily towards finding a way to stick around as an eventual pretext for getting Western hands on the African natural resources that Europe desperately needs. Because that’s what it has always been about. Just consider the darkly hilarious spectacle of Patrick Pouyanné, the CEO of France’s multinational, Total Energies, asking the EU to send him military assistance in Mozambique a couple of years ago, citing the growing presence of Daesh (ISIS). Which is an indication that once Western industry has successfully planted its feet inside a country and secured its resources, fighting terrorism doesn’t really matter so much anymore.
African political experts here in Paris have been saying for the past few years that the French operation in the Sahel had worn out its welcome and that its anti-jihadism effectiveness was highly doubtful, if not disastrous. You’d think that would have led to some soul-searching on Paris’ part, particularly when anti-French sentiment is multiplying on the continent, with protests in Burkina Faso also sparking debate over troop presence there.
But, before any introspection even had a chance, Macron found a scapegoat for Paris and Europe’s African failures: Russia.
“A number of powers, who want to spread their influence in Africa, are doing this to hurt France, hurt its language, sow doubts, but above all pursue certain interests,” Macron said this week at a Francophone conference in Tunisia, citing a “predatory project” by Russia to push “disinformation.” Macron still seems sore about the fact that, when the Malian government kicked French troops out, they opted instead for more security cooperation with Russia, with the latest of such agreements signed just this week during Mali Interior Minister Daoud Aly Mohammedine’s visit to the Kremlin.
There’s no way that Macron is naive enough to think that global competition doesn’t exist. Nor is he oblivious to the fact that countries are constantly selling themselves as partners to other nations. That’s what a nation’s entire diplomatic corps is for. They’re glorified sales and PR people. And, if amid France’s security cooperation in Mali, jihadists are running rampant and coups d’état are happening, then why shouldn’t that country exercise its sovereign right to choose a different security provider? Rather than assume responsibility, it’s easier for Macron to blame Russia for France’s failures and it fits with the current dominant Western narrative.
Two years ago, Facebook said it had put its finger on what it claimed to be duelling online influence efforts in the Central African Republic by “individuals associated with the French military” squaring off against others they linked to Russia. The incident underscores that Paris is neck-deep in efforts to save its footprint in Africa using all of the tools at its disposal, including influence operations in which Macron publicly pretends France and its allies would never engage.
Mali apparently begs to differ. Of all the possible efforts by various countries attempting to compete for partnerships in Africa, Mali has just singled out France by banning its ability to use in-country NGOs as proxies in support of Paris’ agenda. So, despite Macron’s accusations that Russia is gaining a foothold in Africa through “disinformation,” it’s France’s own influence operations that African countries like Mali are actually denouncing.
Michael Snyder
Nov 20, 2022
If you had to choose between living under an extremely oppressive world government or living through a nuclear war, which one would be your choice? Personally, I don’t like either of those two options, but in recent days western leaders have been trying to convince us that we will either have one or the other. According to them, either we can submit to a “global order” that is dominated by the values and the agenda of the western elite or we can accept a multipolar world which will eventually lead to widespread chaos and nuclear war. Needless to say, western politicians are going to try very hard to get us to choose the former.
On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron delivered a speech at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Bangkok even though France is not actually a member.
During that speech, Macron lamented the fact that rapidly deteriorating relations between the U.S. and China are tearing the world apart, and he boldly declared that what we really need is “a single world order”…
French President Emmanuel Macron called for world government in a speech Friday, claiming it would avoid conflicts between competing superpowers.
“We need a single world order,” Macron told the audience at the ongoing Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Bangkok, Thailand.
“Are you on the U.S. side or the China side?” Macron asked rhetorically. “Because now, progressively, a lot of people would like to see that there are two orders in this world.”
“This is a huge mistake — even for both the U.S. and China,” he added after comparing the two superpowers to “big elephants” in the geopolitical “jungle.”
Of course when he says that we need a “single world order” he is not suggesting one in which nations such as China and Russia are equal partners.
What Macron and other western leaders envision is a global system that is governed by western rules and western values.
As he delivered his line about a “single global order”, Macron slowed down and pronounced each of the words with special emphasis.
I have a feeling that Macron can picture himself leading a “single global order” someday.
Such delusions of grandeur can be extremely dangerous.
Meanwhile, other western leaders such as U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin are warning that a truly multipolar world would be one that would inevitably lead to nuclear confrontation and nuclear conflict…
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned Saturday Russia’s invasion of Ukraine offers a preview of a world where nuclear-armed countries could threaten other nations and said Beijing, like Moscow, seeks a world where might makes right.
Austin made the remarks at the annual Halifax International Security Forum, which attracts defense and security officials from Western democracies.
Politicians all over the western world have been talking a lot about the threat of nuclear war lately.
I think that they are trying to use the threat of nuclear war as a scare tactic in order to advance their agenda because if they were truly concerned about nuclear war they would be working really hard to stop one from happening.
But instead of pursuing peace with China and Russia through diplomatic means, western leaders seem to have decided that now is the time to get really tough with China and Russia.
Ultimately, our leaders would love to see both regimes collapse and be replaced by governments that are ready to embrace western values and a “single global order” that is led by the western nations.
Western politicians keep hoping that the war in Ukraine will lead to such an outcome in Russia, and I am sure that they are trying to figure out how to use the coming Chinese invasion of Taiwan to bring about such an outcome in China.
We have seen so many governments get toppled over the decades, and now the western elite are going after the two biggest fish in the pond.
But by being so aggressive, they are literally bringing us to the brink of nuclear conflict.
Earlier this year, a study was released that concluded that a full-blown nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia would result in billions of deaths.
But only about 360 million people would be killed by the original nuclear exchange.
That is the good news.
The bad news is that about 5 billion people would starve to death during the nuclear winter that would follow…
According to a peer-reviewed study published in the journal Nature Food in August 2022,[139] a full-scale nuclear war between the United States and Russia, which together hold more than 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons, would kill 360 million people directly and more than 5 billion indirectly by starvation during a nuclear winter.[140][141]
In the aftermath of a full-blown nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia, global temperatures would plunge dramatically because of all the soot that is injected into the atmosphere…
“A war between the United States, its allies and Russia — who possess more than 90% of the global nuclear arsenal — could produce more than 150 teragrams of soot and a nuclear winter,” the study reads.
A teragram is a unit of measurement equal to 1 trillion grams and models show that soot injections into the atmosphere larger than 5 teragrams would lead to mass food shortages in almost all countries.
In such an environment, very little would be able to be grown, and so global food production would soon fall to only a small fraction of what it is today…
In the scenario of a war between the United States and Russia, the global average calorie production from crops would decrease by around 90% within four years after the nuclear war. Nuclear war would also reduce the global fish supply.
People in most nations would consume fewer calories than their bodies burn at rest and more than 5 billion people would die by the end of the second year.
Western leaders are trying to convince us that the way to avoid such a fate is to embrace their vision of a “single world order” that is led by them.
And the truth is that there are a whole lot of people out there that would be more than willing to give up their freedoms for the security of a one world government.
Such people are just like the mindless sheep that were recently spotted “walking around in a circle for 12 days straight”…
Dozens of sheep have been eerily walking around in a circle for 12 days straight in northern China’s Inner Mongolia region.
The bizarre behavior, captured on surveillance video, shows the large flock continuously marching clockwise in a nearly perfect circle on a farm.
My hope is that we can get more “sheeple” to wake up while there is still time to do so.
We don’t want world government.
And we don’t want nuclear war either.
Unfortunately, we don’t always get what we want.
The western elite are really making a mess of things, and we are all going to suffer the consequences of their incredibly reckless decisions.
It was clearly not for nothing that veteran US grand strategist and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once remarked, “to be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal.”
https://www.rt.com/news/566392-good-friends-better-enemies/
By Felix Livshitz
Nov 15, 2022
FILE PHOTO. French President Emmanuel Macron (R) and US President Joe Biden (L) meet at the French Embassy to the Vatican in Rome. © Ludovic MARIN / AFP
New research published by France’s Ecole de Guerre Economique has revealed some extraordinary findings about who and what the French intelligence services fear most when it comes to threats to the country’s economy.
The findings are based on extensive research and interviews with French intelligence experts, including representatives of spy agencies, and so reflect the positions and thinking of specialists in the under-researched field of economic warfare. Their collective view is very clear – 97 percent consider the US to be the foreign power that “most threatens” the “economic interests” of Paris.
Who is your true enemy?
The research was conducted to answer the question, “what will become of France in an increasingly exacerbated context of economic war?”. This query has become increasingly urgent for the EU as Western sanctions on Moscow’s exports, in particular energy, have had a catastrophic effect on European countries, but have not had the predicted effect Russia. Nor have they hurt the US, the country pushing most aggressively for these measures.
Yet, the question is not being asked in other EU capitals. It is precisely the continent-wide failure, or unwillingness at least, to consider the “negative repercussions on the daily lives” of European citizens that inspired the Ecole de Guerre Economique report.
As the report’s lead author Christian Harbulot explains, ever since the end of World War II, France has “lived in a state of the unspoken,” as have other European countries.
At the conclusion of that conflict, “manifest fear” among French elites of the Communist Party taking power in France “strongly incited a part of the political class to place our security in the hands of the US, in particular by calling for the establishment of permanent military bases in France.”
“It goes without saying that everything has its price. The compensation for this aid from across the Atlantic was to make us enter into a state of global dependence – monetary, financial, technological – with regard to the US,” Harbulot says. And aside from 1958 – 1965 when General Charles de Gaulle attempted to increase the autonomy of Paris from Washington and NATO, French leaders have “fallen into line.”
FILE PHOTO. Meeting of US President Richard Nixon and French President Charles de Gaulle in Paris, France, March 1969. © REPORTERS ASSOCIES/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
This acceptance means aside from rare public scandals such as the sale of French assets to US companies, or Australia cancelling its purchase of French-made submarines in favor of a controversial deal with the US and UK (AUKUS), there is little recognition – let alone discussion – in the mainstream as to how Washington exerts a significant degree of control over France’s economy, and therefore politics.
As a result, politicians and the public alike struggle to identify “who their enemy” truly is. “In spheres of power” across Europe, Harbulot says, “it is customary to keep this kind of problem silent,” and economic warfare remains an “underground confrontation which precedes, accompanies and then takes over from classic military conflicts.”
This in turn means any debate about “hostility or harmfulness” in Europe’s relations with Washington misses the underlying point that “the US seeks to ensure its supremacy over the world, without displaying itself as a traditional empire.”
The EU might have a trade surplus of 150 billion euros with the US, but the latter would never willingly allow this economic advantage to translate to “strategic autonomy” from it. And this gain is achieved against the constant backdrop of – and more than offset by – “strong geopolitical and military pressure” from the US at all times.
Harbulot believes the “state of the unspoken” to be even more pronounced in Germany, as Berlin “seeks to establish a new form of supremacy within Europe” based on its dependency on the US.
As France “is not in a phase of power building but rather in a search to preserve its power” – a “very different” state of affairs – this should mean the French can more easily recognize and admit to toxic dependency on Washington and see it as a problem that must be resolved.
It is certainly hard to imagine such an illuminating and honest report being produced by a Berlin-based academic institute, despite the country being the most badly affected by anti-Russian sanctions. Some analysts have spoken of a possible deindustrialization of Germany, as its inability to power energy-intensive economic sectors has destroyed its 30-year-long trade surplus – maybe forever.
But aside from France’s “dependency” on Washington being different to that of Germany, Paris has other reasons for cultivating a “culture of economic combat,” and keeping very close track of the “foreign interests” that are harming the country’s economy and companies.
The Elysee palace. © Eric Feferberg / AFP
A US National Security Agency spying order sent to other members of the Five Eyes global spying network – Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK – released by WikiLeaks, shows that since at least 2002 Washington has issued its English-speaking allies annual “information need” requests, seeking any and all information they can dig up on the economic activities of French companies, the economic and trade policies of France’s government, and the views of Paris on the yearly G8 and G20 summits.
Whatever is unearthed is shared with key US economic decision-makers and departments, including the Federal Reserve and Treasury, as well as intelligence agencies, such as the CIA. Another classified WikiLeaks release shows that the latter – between November 2011 and July 2012 – employed spies from across the Five Eyes (OREA) to infiltrate and monitor the campaigns of parties and candidates in France’s presidential election.
Washington was particularly worried about a Socialist Party victory, and so sought information on a variety of topics, “to prepare key US policymakers for the post-election French political landscape and the potential impact on US-France relations.” Of particular interest was “the presidential candidates’ views on the French economy, what current economic policies…they see as not working, and what policies…they promote to help boost France’s economic growth prospects[.]”
The CIA was also very interested in the “views and characterization” of the US on the part of presidential candidates, and any efforts by them and the parties they represented to “reach out to leaders of other countries,” including some of the states that form the Five Eyes network itself.
Naturally, those members would be unaware that their friends in Washington, and other Five Eyes capitals, would be spying on them while they spied on France.
It was clearly not for nothing that veteran US grand strategist and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once remarked, “to be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal.”
Tales from the Conspiratum 
