If you want to know the likely result of next month’s French presidential election run off, just look at how the markets responded. The euro and the French markets both jumped dramatically.
And this has nothing to do with the underlying strength of the sclerotic, unionised, statist, overtaxed, unproductive French economy or, indeed, with the future of the doomed euro.
It was simply a case of the status quo breathing a sigh of relief that it was going to be business as usual, after all: Emmanuel Macron, the de facto Establishment candidate is now pretty much a shoo-in for the French presidency; his rival, Marine Le Pen doesn’t stand a prayer – of that the Establishment will make sure.
But Brexit. But Donald Trump…
Nope: I’m afraid those arguments just don’t wash in this case. Yes, it’s true the world is in the throes of a revolution in which the globalist elite is gradually being overthrown by populist, nationalist rebels. But it won’t happen yet in France – a country whose political system has more in common with Putin’s Russia or Erdoğan’s Turkey or some African hellhole with a president-for-life than it does with liberal democracies.
That is, Emmanuel Macron is going to win this presidency because it was decided long ago by France’s Establishment that he was the least-worst option of the candidates available.
The fact that he is a hollow man – a slippery, snake-oil-salesman with a winning smile and nice suits – who will do almost nothing seriously to address France’s massive social and economic problems is a help, not a hindrance.
Emmanuel Macron is the left-leaning French Establishment’s Manchurian Candidate.
He attended one of France’s most elite schools where he was trained in Civil Service, graduating in 2004. His biography states that in 2007, he served as deputy rapporteur for the Commission to improve French growth headed by Jacques Attali, Macron was 29. But the Commission wasn’t formed until 2008. Obviously he is a bit ‘math challenged’. The Commission report was heavily criticized for its proposal to ‘relaunch immigration’ and ‘open borders’… Attali was ridiculed and called a ‘globalist’.
Sound like anyone we know?
Macron left the Commission, which was shelved September 2010, to work for Rothschilds & Cie Banque where he became an overnight millionaire while working the Nestle acquisition of Pfizer’s nutritional outlet, which closed in 2012. Nestle is a client of Rothschilds. Macron had no experience in acquisitions and mergers whatsoever…
What does one do when one makes millions overnight? Apparently one quits.
He then left Rothschilds to work for Hollande as deputy secretary general of Elysee, and eventually Minister of Economy, Industry and Digital Data in 2014 where he served 18 months before running for Presidency. I’d call that a pretty fast paced runup with little to no political experience or business savvy.
Indeed.
Reports that Macron is a breath of fresh air who will transform French politics could hardly be further from the truth. Macron is an énarque – liberal elite through-and-through; the living embodiment of the French Deep State.
So how has this apparently isolated and underfunded individual managed all this in such a short time? It is clear that Macron has powerful supporters behind the scenes, and a clue may lie in the little-discussed fact that some years ago he was identified as a member of ‘les Gracques’ — a discreet centre-left pressure group loosely staffed by influential chief executives and civil service mandarins. They are pro-market socialists who long ago gave up on the Socialist party. Many are fellow ‘énarques’ (graduates of ENA) and every step of Macron’s career could have been directed by them. Spotted as a brilliant and charming student, Macron could first have been launched into the prestigious state Finance Inspectorate, then switched into Rothschild to gain business experience (and wealthy support) and then placed like a time bomb in Hollande’s outer office, where he ticked away until he could be moved into the heart of the Valls government. Last August he finally exploded into action at the perfect moment to cause maximum damage to Hollande, Valls and the entire Socialist presidential election campaign. Macron’s rise bears all the hallmarks of a classic ENA undercover operation, a fundamental part of the énarques’ stock-in-trade and one in which the country’s leading bureaucrats are cynically trained.
Like Obama, he got where is because the System arranged it that way. Consider, for example, how ruthlessly the best of the Presidential candidates – the Thatcherite François Fillon – was destroyed by an unwholesome alliance of the government Deep State and the judiciary.
Days after winning the Republican party primary, François Fillon, once Macron’s most dangerous potential opponent, was put under investigation for having put his wife and children on the payroll of the state, with little evidence that they did much if any work.
The evidence against Fillon appears to have come directly from a secretive cell within the Finance Ministry, a Cabinet Noir, with access to the tax returns of both Fillon and his Welsh wife, Penelope. These documents found their way to the investigating magistrates, who pounced. Only the naive can imagine that the magistrates are unmotivated by their political sympathies, especially after it was revealed that their union had compiled an enemies list of right wing politicians targeted for prosecution, and had even posted their pictures on the wall of their Paris headquarters.
While many French – and pretty much all the global commentariat – appear to have made up their minds that they have just dodged a bullet because they are not, after all, going to end up with a Presidency in the hands of the “far right”, they really have very little to celebrate.
All France has done is to guarantee the election of a lame-duck caretaker president – Continuation Hollande – who will ensure that France’s ongoing decline will continue unabated. Its industries will stagnate; its social unrest will intensify; ever greater numbers of its citizenry will be murdered in homegrown terrorist attacks; its economy will tank; the country that was once arguably the most civilised and beautiful and sophisticated in all the world will descend ever deeper into chaos, ugliness, and despair.
Salut, President Macron. Adieu, la France.
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