Tag Archives: Emmanuel Macron

Western Leaders Privately Say Ukraine Can’t Win the War, by Joe Lauria

Posted on February 26, 2023 | Leave a comment

Maybe spending over $100 billion in Ukraine wasn’t such a good idea after all. From Joe Lauria at consortiumnews.com:

The German and French leaders have told Ukraine they must seek peace with Russia in exchange for a post-war defense pact, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. 

Élysée Palace where Macron and Scholz told Zelensky to seek peace. (U.S. State Dept.)

Western leaders privately told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Ukraine can not win the war against Russia and that it should begin peace talks with Moscow this year in exchange for closer ties with NATO. 

The private communications are at odds with public statements from Western leaders who routinely say they will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes until it achieves victory on the battlefield. 

The Wall Street Journal, which reported on the private remarks to Zelenksy, said:

“The public rhetoric masks deepening private doubts among politicians in the U.K., France and Germany that Ukraine will be able to expel the Russians from eastern Ukraine and Crimea, which Russia has controlled since 2014, and a belief that the West can only help sustain the war effort for so long, especially if the conflict settles into a stalemate, officials from the three countries say.

‘We keep repeating that Russia mustn’t win, but what does that mean? If the war goes on for long enough with this intensity, Ukraine’s losses will become unbearable,’ a senior French official said. ‘And no one believes they will be able to retrieve Crimea.’

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told Zelensky at an Élysée Palace dinner earlier this month that he must consider peace talks with Moscow, the Journal reported.

According to its source, the newspaper quoted Macron as telling Zelensky that “even mortal enemies like France and Germany had to make peace after World War II.”

Macron told Zelensky “he had been a great war leader, but that he would eventually have to shift into political statesmanship and make difficult decisions,” the newspaper reported.   

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How the Mainstream Media Misses the Money Quote, by Ted Snider

Posted on December 9, 2022 | Leave a comment

Either through inadvertence or ideological bias, the media is missing major shifts in global leaders’ attitudes towards the U.S. From Ted Snider at antiwar.com:

On December 1, French President Emmanuel Macron went to Washington for the first state visit of the Biden administration. After the pageantry, presents, hand holding and flattering words of fraternity and solidarity, Macron faced the gathered press.

“We will never urge Ukrainians to make a compromise that will not be acceptable for them.” “That,” said Helene Cooper of The New York Times, “is the money quote.”

But it wasn’t the money quote by several euros. The money quote came days later when Macron was not standing shoulder to shoulder with Biden in front of an American audience, but standing on his own addressing a French audience. Macron told the French television network TF1, in an interview filmed during his visit to Washington but aired as he left, that “We need to prepare what we are ready to do, how we protect our allies and member states, and how to give guarantees to Russia the day it returns to the negotiating table.” Then Macron made his full meaning clear: “One of the essential points we must address – as President Putin has always said – is the fear that NATO comes right up to its doors, and the deployment of weapons that could threaten Russia.”

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President Macron Says He is “Opposed to Self-Defense” After Farmer Shoots One of Four Burglars Who Broke Into His Home, by Paul Joseph Watson

Posted on April 7, 2022 | 1 comment

Macron is running neck-and-neck with Trudeau for pompous ass of the year. From Paul Joseph Watson at summit.news:

Tone deaf comments hurt presidential hopes just days away from first round.

After a farmer was charged with murder for shooting a man after four burglars broke into his home, French President Emmanuel Macron said people should not have the right to self-defense.

Yes, really.

“According to the initial investigation, the farmer fired twice with a large caliber rifle at a group of four burglars, killing one of them. The self-defense shooting took place last Friday, between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m., and the man was alone with his 3-year-old daughter at the time,” reports Remix News.

However, Macron responded to the story by asserting that the 35-year-old farmer had no right to defend himself or his daughter in such a manner.

“Everyone must be safe, and the public authorities have to ensure it,” Macron told Europe 1.

“But I am opposed to self-defense. It’s very clear and undisputable because otherwise the country becomes the Wild West. And I don’t want a country where weapons proliferate and where we consider that it’s up to the citizens to defend themselves,” said Macron.

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Posted in Civil Liberties, Collapse, Crime, Government, Politics, Tyranny

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Nord Stream: The Geo-politics of Keeping Germany ‘Down’, Russia ‘Out’, and Instability in Ukraine

Posted on February 16, 2022 | Leave a comment

The Ukraine situation shines  the spotlight on a critical issue: who decides European nations’ foreign policies, the nations themselves or the U.S. government. From Alastair Crooke at strategic-culture.org:

It seems reasonable to expect we will have this crisis with us – in its various forms – for at least the next two years, Alastair Crooke writes.

Macron in a remarkably frank interview with a French Journal put his finger on the main structural problems facing the EU: He lambasted the fact that the EU Council (and other EU states) had vetoed the earlier French-German proposal for a Russia-EU summit. The consequences to this omission, he said starkly, was that: ‘Others’ were talking to the Russians on the behalf of the EU. It’s not hard to surmise that he is implying that U.S. ‘interests’ (whether directly or via NATO ventriloquism) were the ones doing the talking. And that ‘Europe’ had lost its voice.

This is not simply a case of wounded amour propre by the French Jupiterian leader. It is rather, that some West European leaders (ie. the Carolingian Axis), belatedly have awoken to the realisation that the whole fake artifice of the ‘imminent Russian invasion’ of Ukraine is about corralling European states back into bloc (NATO) discipline. Macron – to give him his due – showed by his remarks at the Moscow press conference that he understood that silence at this crucial moment could define Europe for the next decades – leaving it bereft of the autonomy (let alone any modicum of sovereignty) that Macron so much wants for Europe.

The account of Macron’s press conference after his long tête-à-tête with Putin represents the contortionism of a French President unable to explicitly diss the dominant Anglo-American narrative on Ukraine, whilst saying – in barely coded language – that he was at one with Russia on all its complaints about the failed European security architecture, and the real risks of its toxicity for Russia that could lead to war in Europe.

Macron explicitly said that new security arrangements in Europe are absolutely needed. (In spite of his care not to poke the U.S. in the eye, he was clearly signalling a non-NATO ‘new’ arrangement). He also flatly contradicted the Washington narrative, saying that he did not believe Russia had an intent to invade Ukraine. Adding that in respect to NATO expansion, mistakes had been made.

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Europe After Angela Merkel: Is The Atlantic Era Over? by James Carden

Posted on October 3, 2021 | Leave a comment

Are European countries tired enough of being US government poodles that they form a military alliance with teeth and occasionally tell Washington to go jump in a lake? From James Carden at zerohedge.com:

Any answer must begin with France’s role in the EU and include the US withdrawal from Afghanistan…

Just what shape Germany’s governing coalition will take is still unclear in the aftermath of the September 26 election, which saw the Social Democrats (SPD), led by finance minister Olaf Scholz, come away with just over a quarter of the vote, at 25.7 percent. The balance of power in Germany is now held by the Greens and the Free Democrats, which, taken together, received more votes than the victorious SPD or the Christian Democratic Union, the party of outgoing Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel.

The one thing that is certain is that after 16 years in power, Merkel will soon exit the scene. So the question that now arises is: What shape will post-Merkel Europe take?

Any answer must begin with an eye on the Élysée Palace, as French President Emmanuel Macron is set to become the senior most partner in the Franco-German partnership that has steered the EU since its founding in 1993.

There may be major changes afoot should Macron, motivated by the insult handed to him by the United States, the UK and Australia with AUKUS—a new trilateral security alliance—pursue his oft-stated desire for European strategic autonomy. As former State Department official Max Bergmann recently observed, AUKUS served to “empower stakeholders in Paris who advocate for a much cooler relationship with Washington and—tapping into the Gaullist foreign policy tradition—wish to be allied with the United States, but not necessarily aligned on key issues related to Russia and China.”

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Coronavirus: A French Disaster by Guy Millière

Posted on April 13, 2020 | 1 comment

How not to handle the coronavirus, from Guy Millière at gatestoneinstitute.org:

  • The first bad decision was that, in contrast to the European Union fantasies, borders apparently do matter. France never closed them; instead it allowed large numbers of potential virus-carriers to enter the country.
  • In January 2020, several hundred thousand masks were available, but on February 19, President Macron decoded to send them to Wuhan, as a “gesture of solidarity with the Chinese people”…. The French government announced that masks would be available soon, but by the end of March, most doctors and caregivers still had no masks. Several doctors fell ill. As of April 10, eight have died from COVID-19 and several others are in critical condition. On March 20, the Government’s spokeswoman, Sibeth N’Diaye, incorrectly said, “masks are essentially useless”.
  • On February 25, a renowned French epidemiologist, Professor Didier Raoult… published a video… In it, he said he had found a treatment quickly to end the pandemic: hydroxychloroquine… (used with azithromycin)… On April 10, Professor Raoult published data showing that he had treated and cured 2,401 patients.
  • Immediately, Olivier Veran, the new French minister of health, said that Professor Raoult’s statements were “unacceptable” and that the treatment he was proposing was “worthless”…. In an attempt to quell the controversy, the French government, by decree, authorized Professor Raoult’s treatment in “military hospitals” for “patients reaching the acute phase of the disease” but prohibited family doctors from prescribing hydroxychloroquine. Professor Raoult replied that the treatment was only effective if administered “before the disease reaches its acute phase“. [Emphasis added]
  • France’s mainstream media would do well to fight harder for physicians to be able supply hydroxychloroquine with azithromycin and zinc sulfate. The French media would also do well to be more aware of the dirty game China is playing.
  • “The behavior of our leaders has been marked by unpreparedness, casualness, cynicism, and many of their acts imply the enforcement of the criminal law. Deliberate endangerment of the lives of others and failure to provide assistance to people in danger are obvious… In war, generals who are judged incompetent are sometimes shot. The President and other officials are well aware of this.” — Regis de Castelnau, attorney, in Marianne, a center-left magazine, April 4, 2020.
In contrast to European Union fantasies, borders apparently do matter. France never closed them; instead it allowed large numbers of potential coronavirus-carriers to enter the country. Pictured: A French policeman uses a drone to check the surroundings of the German-French border in Strasbourg, France, on April 9, 2020. (Photo by Frederick Florin / AFP via Getty Images)

On April 9, in France, one of the three European countries most affected by COVID-19 — the others being Spain and Italy, 1,341 people died from the Chinese Communist Party virus. For Italy, the main European country affected so far, the figure on April 9 was 610 deaths; for Spain 446, and for Germany 266. While the pandemic has been stabilizing in Italy and Spain — and in Germany seems contained — in France it seems still expanding.

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ASSANGE EXTRADITION: Can a French Touch Pierce a Neo-Orwellian Farce? by Pepe Escobar

Posted on March 1, 2020 | 1 comment

Julian Assange has become the focal point of the issues that define our times. From Pepe Escobar at consortiumnews.com:

By offering asylum to the persecuted publisher of WikiLeaks, France’s Macron would enhance his status in myriad European latitudes and all across the Global South, writes Pepe Escobar.

It’s quite fitting that the – imperially pre-determined – judicial fate of Julian Assange is being played out in Britain, the home of George Orwell.

As chronicled by the painful, searing reports of Ambassador Craig Murray, what’s taking place in Woolwich Crown Court is a sub-Orwellian farce with Conradian overtones: the horror…the horror…, remixed for the Raging Twenties. The heart of our moral darkness is not in the Congo: it’s in a dingy courtroom attached to a prison, presided by a lowly imperial lackey.

In one of Michel Onfray’s books published last year, “Theorie de la Dictature” (Robert Laffont) – the top dissident, politically incorrect French philosopher starts exactly from Orwell to examine the key features of a new-look dictatorship. He tracks seven paths of destruction: to destroy freedom, impoverish language, abolish truth, suppress history, deny nature, propagate hate, and aspire to empire.

Michel Onfray in 2009. (Alexandre López, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)

To destroy freedom, Onfray stresses, power needs to assure perpetual surveillance; ruin personal life; suppress solitude; make opinion uniform and denounce thought crimes. That sounds like the road map for the United States government’s persecution of Assange.

Other paths, as in impoverishing language, include practicing newspeak; using double language; destroying words; oralizing language; speaking a single language; and suppressing the classics. That sounds like the modus operandi of the ruling classes in the Hegemon.

To abolish truth, power must teach ideology; instrumentalize the press; propagate fake news; and produce reality. To propagate hate, power, among other instruments, must create an enemy; foment wars; and psychiatrize critical thinking.

There’s no question we are already mired deep inside this neo-Orwellian dystopia.

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Did Macron and Johnson Negotiate a Hard Brexit in October? by Tom Luongo

Posted on December 29, 2019 | Leave a comment

A hard Brexit might be in both Macron’s and Johnson’s interests. From Tom Luongo at tomluongo.me:

Something odd is happening with Brexit. It looks like Prime Minister Boris Johnson is pushing for a hard Brexit much to my surprise.

Johnson’s strong showing in the recent election which secured the Tories its biggest majority since the days of Margaret Thatcher should have set the stage for the great Brexit bait and switch.

This has been my argument for months since Johnson became the front-runner to replace Theresa May. All Johnson had to do was manipulate events to get a majority which marginalizes the hard Brexiteers of the European Research Group (ERG).

Then he could undermine Brexit by giving back all the concessions during his subsequent negotiations with the EU over a trade deal.

This analysis should have been the correct one given the staunch opposition by the political elite in the U.K. to Brexit.

But something has changed.

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Brain Dead Congress Doesn’t Realize It’s Trying to Finish Off NATO, by Thomas Luongo

Posted on December 17, 2019 | Leave a comment

If Turkey leaves NATO then it will want the US to abandon its important airbase at Incerlik. From Tom Luongo at tomluongo.me:

After what can only be termed a terrible NATO Not Summit two weeks ago it was clear the alliance has serious fissures forming in its facade.

It opened with French President Emmanuel Macron’s refusal to back down on how ‘brain dead’ NATO’s current mission is. And it ended with an embarrassing hot mic moment with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau which led to President Trump leaving early.

It was Macron’s statements about Turkey reinvigorating ISIS with its invasion of Northern Syria which revealed the depths of European brain death in foreign affairs.

This is a talking point straight out of neocon central to appease the U.S. MIC and Israelis while he asserts the need to decouple European foreign policy from the U.S. and reorient NATO to combat terrorism, which it isn’t designed to do.

But what truly borders on farce today is the U.S. Congress threatening to sanction Turkey over buying Russian S-400 missile defense systems while its President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is actually threatening NATO member Greece, ignoring the idea that Crete even exists and making territorial claims to the eastern Mediterranean that would make Ataturk himself blush.

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Frenchmen. To Arms! by Eric S. Margolis

Posted on December 7, 2019 | 2 comments

NATO no longer protects Europe from the Soviet Union, now defunct and replaced by Russia, which doesn’t currently pose a threat.  Rather, it now provides diplomatic cover and operational support for US interventionism in places far removed from Europe. From Eric S. Margolis at lewrockwell.com:

Citizens of France. To arms! Man the ramparts. The American barbarians are coming. They shall not pass!

Le Trump’s threat to France’s splendid wines and Roquefort cheese are the gravest menace France has faced since the Germans invaded this fair land in 1914.  Burgundy wines and France’s 300 fromages form the very soul of la Belle France.

Trump does not know or care that France saved America from British mis-rule.  He wants revenge because France – which taxes nearly everything – seeks to tax US IT firms like Google and Amazon.  Trump considers this a personal affront.  Besides, he dislikes wine and lives on desiccated burgers made with petrochemical cheese, washed down by acidic Diet Cokes.

On top of this outrage comes the squabble over NATO.  Trump used to scoff at the Alliance, saying it was ‘obsolete’ as well as under-armed and short of money.  The president and his backers really dislike France and all it stands for, including wine and cheese.

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