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Category: France

  • CIA And Western Special Ops Commandos Are In Ukraine

    The CIA and special operations forces from NATO members Britain, France, Canada, and Lithuania are physically in Ukraine, helping direct the proxy war on Russia, according to a report in The New York Times.

    These Western forces are on the ground training and advising Ukrainian fighters, overseeing weapons shipments, and managing intelligence.

    At least 20 countries are part of a US Army-led coalition, guiding Ukraine in its fight against Russian troops.

    Some Ukrainian combatants are even using US flag patches on their equipment.

    This is all according to a June 25 report in The New York Times, titled “Commando Network Coordinates Flow of Weapons in Ukraine, Officials Say.”

    The Times is a de facto organ of the US government. Although technically private, the paper closely follows the line of the CIA and Pentagon.

    The post CIA And Western Special Ops Commandos Are In Ukraine appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Climate activists block IMF Paris office doors

    Climate activists on Monday blocked entry to the International Monetary Fund’s Paris office with some gluing their hands to its doors, demanding developing countries’ debt be scrapped to help tackle climate change.

    The Paris protest is part of a “Debt for climate” global campaign calling on wealthy-nation leaders attending the G7 summit in Germany to cancel the debts of poorer and less industrialized countries, known as the global south.

    The post Climate activists block IMF Paris office doors appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Fritch slams Tahiti pro-independence wins for Paris as ‘catastrophic’

    RNZ Pacific

    French Polynesia’s President Édouard Fritch has described the election of three candidates of the pro-independence Tavini Huiraatira party to the French National Assembly as “catastrophic”.

    They won all three seats in a run-off against candidates of his ruling Tapura Huiraatira party, which holds two-thirds of all seats in French Polynesia’s Assembly.

    Fritch said French Polynesia was sending people to Paris who would talk about sovereignty, independence, and the United Nations while the territory was near the end of its means.

    He said French Polynesia was in the middle of an economic crisis, making him wonder how he could work when the three were part of the opposition to President Émmanuel Macron’s bloc.

    Fritch said Tavini’s independence plan lacks a roadmap and only offers something nebulous.

    He said after the first round of the election, all the opposition forces turned against the Tapura, accusing the unsuccessful candidates of the other parties of hypocrisy.

    Fritch should resign, says Temaru
    French Polynesia’s pro-independence leader Oscar Temaru said after last weekend’s election defeat of the government candidates that President Fritch should resign.

    Temaru’s Tavini Huiraatira party won French Polynesia’s three seats in the French National Assembly, defeating the three candidates of the ruling Tapura Huiraatira.

    Mayor of Faa'a Oscar Temaru
    Pro-independence leader Oscar Temaru … calls on territorial President Édouard Fritch to resign. Image: Tinfos 30

    Temaru said in view of this result it would only be fair if he quit.

    He said the weekend victory was a “historic moment” that should resonate beyond French Polynesia and showed that the Māohi people wanted to be recognised for who they were.

    Temaru said, however, that in the current situation French Polynesia had neither the institutions nor the means to solve its problems, but with independence, it would have them.

    He said for French President Émmanuel Macron, the election result in Tahiti would be a “cold shower”.

    He also said independence would not be achieved tomorrow but at a time when people wanted it.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • French parliamentary election results: Bad blow for Macron, mixed news for the left

    The left, under the banner of the newly formed Popular Union (NUPES), grew from 64 MPs to around 142 in the second round of the French parliamentary elections on June 19, reports John Mullen.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.

  • Rival New Caledonian sides left in run for French National Assembly seats

    RNZ Pacific

    New Caledonia’s first round of the French National Assembly election has seen surprise advances of the pro-independence Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) whose two candidates both made it to next Sunday’s run-off round.

    Wali Wahetra came second in the constituency made up of the anti-independence stronghold Noumea plus the mainly Kanak Loyalty Islands and the Isle of Pines.

    Her success marks the first time in 15 years that an FLNKS candidate has qualified for the second round there.

    “The goal was attained for the first round”, she said and thanked “those who think our struggle is legitimate and noble”.

    Sunday’s voting was the first since the referendum on independence from France in December when the FLNKS boycotted the event, which then saw 96 percent vote against independence.

    The election was open to all French citizens in New Caledonia, in contrast to the referendum, for which the roll was restricted to indigenous people and long-term residents.

    Turnout was 33 percent, which was a one-percent drop over the previous National Assembly election in 2017.

    Lift in independence vote
    However, there was a slight lift in areas traditionally voting for independence because last time a key FLNKS party, the Caledonian Union, had called for abstaining.

    With the joint FLNKS call to go out and vote, Wahetra secured 22 percent of the vote while the winner in the constituency Philippe Dunoyer got 41 percent.

    Seeking re-election for another five-year term, Dunoyer stood for a newly formed Ensemble, which is a four-party coalition linked for the purpose of this election to French President Emmanuel Macron.

    In the other constituency, encompassing the main island minus Noumea, the anti-independence candidate Nicolas Metzdorf won 34 percent of the vote, a narrow advantage over the FLNKS candidate Gerard Reignier with 33 percent.

    Reignier said: “We gave us a goal of making it to the second round and we made it to the second round”.

    Seventeen candidates contested Sunday’s election, including a former president Thierry Santa of the Rassemblement, which had historically been the key anti-independence party.

    He won, however, just 22 percent, clearly distanced by Metzdorf and Reignier.

    The Rassemblement’s other candidate, Virginie Ruffenach, also came third in her southern constituency, winning 14 percent of the vote.

    Reacting to her defeat, Ruffenach urged her supporters to back Dunoyer in the run-off to ensure the anti-independence parties keep being represented in Paris.

    Single candidate tactic
    The success of the FLNKS has in part been explained by its member parties agreeing to run a single candidate in each of the two constituencies.

    After shunning the referendum in December, it campaigned for the two seats in the hope of getting a representative elected to the French Assembly to have its quest for sovereignty heard.

    The result also confirmed the political divide entrenched for years and largely along geographical and ethnic lines.

    The polarisation is such that Reignier won more than 90 percent of votes in the northern electorates known for their pro-independence stance.

    The anti-independence camp has been riven for years by varying rivalries but for the National Assembly election, four parties formed the Ensemble group, which Metzdorf considered to be a success.

    Metzdorf, who is mayor of La Foa and the leader of Generations NC, joined as did Dunoyer of Caledonia Together Party, which had won both seats in 2017.

    In the 2018 provincial election, Caledonia Together was weakened and the party leader, Philippe Gomes, who had held one of the two Paris seats for a decade, did not seek re-election this year.

    First round victories hailed
    Sonia Backes, who is the president of the Southern Province and the anti-independence politician representing the French president in New Caledonia, hailed the first-round victories of the Ensemble candidates.

    She welcomed the support immediately expressed by the defeated Rassemblement politicians, saying there must be a united “loyalist” camp.

    Backes added that perhaps the new French overseas minister might visit next week while the law commission of the French Senate will conduct a fact-finding mission in preparation of a new statute for New Caledonia.

    Many candidates expressed concern about the low turnout, saying some thought has to be given to finding ways of engaging the public.

    With campaigning resuming for next Sunday’s run-off, the two camps are aware that a large pool of voters could be mobilised on both sides.

    The anti-independence side is however poised to bolster the support for its two candidates as the losing contenders in its ranks can add their backing for Dunoyer and Metzdorf.

    This leaves scant hope for the FLNKS to win a seat in Paris — one of 577 on offer.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • France’s New Ecologic and Social People’s Union presents a radical vision in parliamentary election

    France is set to hold parliamentary elections on Sunday, June 12. The election for the 577-member National Assembly will be held in two stages. The first round on Sunday will be followed by a run-off round on June 19 in constituencies where it is necessary. The voting follows the presidential election in April when incumbent Emmanuel Macron won a lackluster victory.

    One highlight of the presidential election was the strong showing by left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon who won close to 22% of the votes and ended up narrowly losing to the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen who contested against Macron in the second round. However, in these elections, left and progressive forces were divided. For the parliamentary elections, they have come together under the banner of the New Ecologic and Social People’s Union (NUPES) under Mélenchon’s leadership with a radical vision for France. Zoe Alexandra of Peoples Dispatch speaks to Florence Roger, the NUPES candidates for the First constituency for French Residents Overseas which covers French citizens living in the US and Canada.

    The post France’s New Ecologic and Social People’s Union presents a radical vision in parliamentary election appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Emmanuel Macron’s Precarious Hold on France

    Ahead of this month’s parliamentary elections, the French left has reemerged as the primary opposition to the president.

    This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.

  • Fijian policymaker calls for an ‘inspired’ defence of world oceans

    RNZ Pacific

    The global community needs to “be inspired” to defend the world’s oceans ahead of the second United Nations Oceans Conference in Lisbon at the end of the month, a Fijian policymaker says.

    Fisheries Minister Semi Koroilavesau said the Pacific could not protect its greatest resource through advocacy and action on its own.

    Safeguarding the ocean and its resources against future dangers “to make it truly sustainable” will require the “entire world” to show more commitment, Koroilavesau said.

    A former Navy commander and a self-professed marine advocate, he believes Pacific people’s future will be secured if “we will take whatever actions we must take”.

    There are “enormous challenges before us and we need to turn our hopes into genuine ambition” to boost ocean action in the Blue Pacific, he told participants attending the World Oceans Day celebrations in Suva on Wednesday.

    “As stewards of the Ocean, our task is to lead, to be a beacon of Blue leadership that inspires the world to turn away from the model of development that harms our ocean and threatens to strip off our life given resources,” he said.

    This year’s theme for the international day — marked annually on June 8 — is “Revitalisation: Collective Action for the Ocean”.

    Collaboration called for
    Koroilavesau said it calls for “wider commitment” and urged stakeholders to collaborate to realise the changes necessary to protect the ocean.

    “Our shared commitment towards collaboration will inspire and ignite actions that will certainly benefit us and our future generations,” he said, adding “the health and wellbeing of the Pacific Ocean and “the state of our climate are an interconnected system.”

    The Pacific Ocean spans approximately 41 million square kilometres and is a fundamental part of the livelihoods and identity of the Pacific people.

    Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS) deputy director-general Dr Filimon Manoni said the ocean was at the heart of the region’s geography and its cultures.

    “It’s all we have…[and] all we return to in times of need, either for daily sustenance, for economic development, and nation building aspirations,” Dr Manoni said.

    “We are inextricably linked to the ocean in all aspects of our everyday life.”

    The ocean is home to almost 80 percent of all life on Earth. But its state is in decline, as it faces a range of threats due to human activity.

    Critical year for the ocean
    “Its health and ability to sustain life will only get worse as the world population grows and human activities increase,” the United Nations has said.

    This year 2022, therefore, is regarded as a critical year for the ocean and an opportunity to reset the global ocean agenda at the Portugal conference.

    This week, regional stakeholders gathered in Suva during the fourth Pacific Ocean Alliance (POA) meeting convened by the Office of the Pacific Ocean Commissioner (OPOC) to prepare for the UN conference.

    The gathering was scheduled to align with the World Oceans Day to drive regional and global awareness of the region’s priorities for global ocean action, according to OPOC.

    Over two days, the alliance aimed to identify the collective priorities for ocean action and approaches to drive global support.

    Ocean’s Commissioner and Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Henry Puna said “much has evolved” since the last time the Alliance met in 2019, prior to the covid-19 pandemic.

    Puna said the region now finds itself “in a much more contested and challenging environment…faced with heightened geostrategic competition” as it “navigates the impacts of a global pandemic”.

    Ocean health still suffers
    “Yet the health of our ocean and indeed our planet continues to suffer as a result of climate change and other anthropogenic depressions,” he said.

    “This challenging context will place significant pressure on our ability to realise our political and sustainable development aspirations.”

    Several high-level ocean-related events have already been held this year with the Our Ocean Conference in Palau in April and the One Ocean Conference hosted by France in May.

    Puna is expecting the conversations held during the POA meeting will strengthen the Pacific’s collective vision to conserve and sustainably use the world’s oceans and marine resources.

    “I am hopeful that this gathering of the POA will provide an opportunity for us all to share our experiences and reflect on how we can work together, how we can collaborate and engage better, and how we can do more to ensure the health and survival of our ocean,” he said.

    The UN Oceans Conference will be held from June 27 to July 1.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • French court rejects Kanak Senate bid to annul New Caledonia referendum outcome

    RNZ Pacific

    An indigenous legal challenge in a bid to annul the result of last December’s referendum on New Caledonia’s independence from France has failed.

    The highest administrative court in Paris has rejected a claim by the Kanak customary Senate that the impact of the covid-19 pandemic was such that the referendum outcome was illegitimate.

    More than 96 percent voted against independence in the third and last referendum under the Noumea Accord, but more than 56 percent of voters abstained.

    The pro-independence parties had called for a boycott of the referendum after France had rejected pleas for the vote to be postponed until this year.

    When the first community outbreak of the pandemic was recorded in September, a lockdown was imposed, which was extended into October, as thousands contracted the virus and hundreds needed hospital care.

    The court in Paris found that the epidemiological situation had improved in October and November and that by the time of the referendum on December 12, more than 77 percent of the population had been vaccinated.

    It also said the year-long mourning declared by the Kanak customary Senate in September was not such as to affect the sincerity of the vote.

    No minimum turnout
    The court added that neither constitutional provisions nor the organic law make the validity of the vote conditional on a minimum turnout.

    In the week before the referendum, 146 voters and three organisations filed an urgent submission to the same court, seeking to postpone the vote.

    They said given the impact of the pandemic, it was “unthinkable” to proceed with such an important plebiscite.

    They said because of the lockdown, campaigning had been unduly hampered as basic freedoms impinged.

    However, the court rejected the challenge and voting went ahead as intended by the French government.

    Rejecting the referendum outcome, the pro-independence side said apart from court action, it would seek to win the support for its position from the Pacific Islands Forum and the United Nations.

    A pro-independence delegate to last month’s UN decolonisation meeting said French President Emmanuel Macron had declared after the referendum that New Caledonia showed it wanted to stay French although it was known that 90 percent of Kanaks wanted independence.

    French Senate mission planned
    The French Senate is hearing experts this week as its law commission prepares work on a new statute for New Caledonia following last year’s rejection of independence.

    The commission, which is chaired by François-Noel Buffet, has also formed a team that will travel to New Caledonia in two weeks for talks with all stakeholders.

    The team is expected to stay for a week and complete its work by the end of July.

    In December, more than 96 percent voted against independence in the third and last referendum under the Noumea Accord, which had been the decolonisation roadmap since 1998.

    However, the pro-independence parties refuse to recognise the result, saying their abstention had rendered the outcome of the process illegitimate.

    Paris plans to hold a referendum next June on a new statute for a New Caledonia within the French republic.

    Buffet said his mission to Noumea was to consider the institutional situation by consolidating the dialogue initiated by the Matignon and Noumea Accords between France and New Caledonia.

    Electoral rolls issue
    A key issue will be the fate of the electoral rolls.

    The Noumea Accord, whose provisions have been enshrined in the French constitution, restricts voting rights to indigenous people and long-term residents.

    Migration this century has added about 40,000 French citizens who remain excluded from referendums and from provincial elections.

    The anti-independence parties want the rolls to be unfrozen, but the pro-independence side is strongly opposed to this.

    It told the UN Decolonisation Committee that France’s intention to open the electoral rolls to French people who arrived after 1998 was the ultimate weapon to “drown” the Kanak people and “recolonise” New Caledonia.

    It warned the Kanaks would be made to disappear, which would not be accepted but inevitably lead to conflict.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • The Geopolitical War over Mali: West Africa is Up for Grabs

    The distance between Ukraine and Mali is measured in thousands of kilometers. But the geopolitical distance is much closer to the point that it appears as if the ongoing conflicts in both countries are the direct outcomes of the same geopolitical currents and transformation underway around the world.

    The Malian government is now accusing French troops of perpetuating a massacre in the West African country. Consequently, on April 23, the Russian Foreign Ministry declared its support for Malian efforts, pushing for an international investigation into French abuses and massacres in Mali. “We hope that those responsible will be identified and justly punished,” the Ministry said.

    In its coverage, Western media largely omitted the Malian and Russian claims of French massacres; instead, they gave credence to French accusations that the Malian forces, possibly with the help of ‘Russian mercenaries’ have carried out massacres and buried the dead in mass graves near the recently evacuated French army Gossi base, in order to blame France.

    Earlier in April, Human Rights Watch called for an ‘independent, credible’ inquiry into the killings, though it negated both accounts. It suggested that a bloody campaign had indeed taken place, targeting mostly “armed Islamists” between March 23-31.

    Media whitewashing and official misinformation aside, Mali has indeed been a stage for much bloodletting in recent years, especially since 2012, when a militant insurgency in Northern Mali threatened the complete destabilization of an already unstable and impoverished country.

    There were reasons for the insurgency, including the sudden access to smuggled weapon caches originating in Libya following the West’s war on Tripoli in 2011.  Thousands of militants, who were pushed out of Libya during the war and its aftermath, found safe havens in the largely ungoverned Malian northern regions.

    That in mind, the militants’ success – where they managed to seize nearly a third of the country’s territory in merely two months – was not entirely linked to western arms. Large swathes of Mali have suffered from prolonged governmental neglect and extreme poverty. Moreover, the Malian army, often beholden to foreign interests, is much hated in these regions due to its violent campaigns and horrific human rights abuses. No wonder why the northern rebellion found so much popular support in these parts.

    Two months after the Tuareg rebellion in the north, a Malian officer and a contingency of purportedly disgruntled soldiers overthrew the elected government in Bamako, accusing it of corruption and of failure in reining in the militants. This, in turn, paved the road for France’s military intervention in its former colony under the guise of fighting terrorism.

    The French war in Mali, starting in 2013, was disastrous from the Malians’ point of view. It neither stabilized the country nor provided a comprehensive scheme on how to pacify the rebellious north. War, human rights violations by the French themselves, and more military coups followed, most notably in August 2020 and May 2021.

    But France’s intervention was fruitful from France’s viewpoint. As soon as French troops began pouring into Mali, as soon as France began strengthening its control over the Sahel countries, including Mali, leading to the signing of two defense agreements, in 2013 and 2020.

    That’s where the French West African ‘success story’ ends. Though Paris succeeded in digging its heels deeper in that region, it gave no reason to the Malian people or government to support their actions. As France became more involved in the life of Malians, ordinary people throughout the country, north and south, detested and rejected them. This shift was the perfect opportunity for Russia to offer itself as an alternative to France and the West. The advent of Russia into the complex scene allowed Bamako to engineer a clean break from its total reliance on France and its Western, NATO allies.

    Even before France formally ended its presence in the country, Russian arms and military technicians were landing in Bamako. Attack helicopters, mobile radar systems and other Russian military technology, quickly replaced French arms. It is no wonder why Mali voted against the United Nations General Assembly Resolution to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council.

    As a result of the Ukraine war and western sanctions starting in late February, Russia accelerated its political and economic outreach, particularly in southern countries, with the hope of lessening the impact of the west-led international isolation.

    In truth, Moscow’s geopolitical quest in West Africa began earlier than the Ukraine conflict, and Mali’s immediate support for Russia following the war was a testament to Moscow’s success in that region.

    Though France officially began its withdrawal from Mali last February, Paris and other European capitals are increasingly aware of what they perceive to be a ‘Russian threat’ in that region. But how can the West fight back against this real or imaginary threat, especially in the light of the French withdrawal? Further destabilizing Mali is one option.

    Indeed, on May 16, Bamako declared that it thwarted a military coup in the country, claiming that the coup leaders were soldiers who “were supported by a Western state”, presumably France.

    If the ‘coup’ had succeeded, does this indicate that France – or another ‘western country’ – is plotting a return to Mali on the back of yet another military intervention?

    Russia, on the other hand, cannot afford to lose a precious friend, like Mali, during this critical time of western sanctions and isolation. In effect, this means that Mali will continue to be the stage of a geopolitical cold war that could last for years. The winner of this war could potentially claim the whole of West Africa, which remains hostage to global competition well beyond its national boundaries.

    The post The Geopolitical War over Mali: West Africa is Up for Grabs first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • General Electric’s French Tax Scam

    Since the purchase of Alstom Energy in 2015, the US multinational could have put in place a vast system of tax evasion involving France, Switzerland and Delaware. With the blessing of the French Finance Ministry.

    It is an industrial fiasco which has no end. Seven years after the sale of Alstom Energy to General Electric,1 the record of the American multinational has been disastrous – 5000 workers retrenched, including 1400 in the key Belfort factory complex; an advanced technology hub left to rot; a preliminary inquest for conflict of interest against Hugh Bailey, CEO of GE France.2 And now, a scandal involving tax evasion.

    According to our inquest, supported by independent audit reports and several internal accounting documents of the group, the American multinational has put in place an opaque financial setup between its French subsidiary, General Electric Energy Products France (GEEPF) and subsidiaries domiciled in Switzerland and in the American State of Delaware.

    Objective: to bypass the French tax authorities in concealing the profits arising from the sale of gas turbines produced at Belfort, in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté.region. We estimate that more than €800 million has disappeared from GEEPF’s accounts between 2015 and 2020. This translates into a deficit for the public exchequer of €150-300 million.

    Mediapart has already analysed in 2019 the means by which the financial policies of the company has drained the Belfort site. The massive utilisation of intra-group financial transfers via transfer pricing has been outlined. The revelations of Disclose confirm and deepen this information.

    For GE, the large-scale tax evasion begins in late 2015 by a trick both simple and discrete: the transfer of corporate liability to a company created for the occasion at Baden, in Switzerland. Its name: General Electric Switzerland GmbH (GES).

    From then onwards, the Belfort factory, announced at the time of purchase from Alstom as the future global site of turbine production for the group, ceases to be a manufacturing site and becomes a ‘production unit’ placed under the direction of a Swiss company. This restructuring marks the last profitable year of the Belfort site. And for good reason: with this sleight of hand, GE comes to launch its process of the appropriation of the profits arising from the sale of turbines and component parts ‘made in France’.

    An illustration from 2019. This particular year, a contract is passed between GEEPF and the Swiss company GES for the sale of gas turbines. The contract price – more than €350 million. Although these products have been produced in France, GES appropriates for itself the status of ‘manufacturer’, presenting the Belfort site merely as a banal ‘distributor’.

    The point of this vanishing act: to allow the Swiss outlet to resell the turbines to the ultimate client in order to garner the profits of the sale. In the framework of the contracts, not less than 97 % of the profits fly off to Switzerland, where the company tax rate ranges between 17 – 22 % against 33 % in France. Contacted, General Electric has not responded to our questions.

    Laissez-faire of the state

    A similar setup concerns the sale of replacement parts for the turbines – the bulk of revenues generated at Belfort. From estimates based on the GE group’s annual reports, the scheme could have transferred around €1.5 billion to GES, the Swiss subsidiary, between 2016 and 2019. All with the blessing of the French Finance Ministry.

    From our investigations, General Electric, following the acquisition of Alstom Energy, could have benefited from the protocol of a ‘trust relationship’ (relation de confiance) with the French Treasury. This mechanism allows that “the enterprise should furnish all the elements necessary to the understanding of its [fiscal] situation”, citing a document from the DGFiP (direction générale des finances publiques), dating from 2013. Clearly, the multinational has validated its tax scheme, involving the links with its subsidiaries, with the Finance Ministry. In return, it has ensured that the Ministry has arranged to not execute any control over the arrangement. Interrogated over its precise knowledge of this mechanism of fiscal optimisation established by General Electric, the Ministry of Economy and Finance has not responded to our questions.

    At Baden, 8 Brown-Boveri Strasse, General Electric has domiciled three other subsidiaries as French ‘service providers’. The first two, General Electric Global Services GMbH and GE Global Parts and Products GmbH, are charged to sell replacement parts manufactured at Belfort. The third, baptised General Electric Technology GmbH, has as mission to hold the patent rights over gas turbines. For one simple reason, according to one of the audit reports consulted by Disclose: “The foreign revenues arising from patents are very little taxed in Switzerland”. Since 2017, €177 million of royalty payments have left France, direction Baden.

    The millions sent to Delaware

    To complete its strategy of fiscal optimisation, General Electric relies on another subsidiary of the group, based, this time, in the US. Monogram Licensing International LLC – this is its name – is domiciled in Delaware, a State known for imposing zero tax on companies. Between 2014 and 2019, it could have received around €80.9 million on the part of GE France for the utilisation of GE’s brand, logo and advertising slogans. According to the contract in place between GE France and Monogram, France must pay 1 % of its annual turnover to Delaware. However, this threshold has been cleared on several occasions. With no explanation, one of the audits of the group has underlined.

    The massive appropriation of the wealth produced by the workers of Belfort is essentially illegal, as outlined in the international tax convention BEPS (Base Erosion and Profit Shifting). Taking effect in France in 2019, this text, intended to reinforce the struggle against tax evasion, stipulates that company profits must be “taxed where the real economic activity takes place … and where value is created”. Logically, in the case of turbines manufactured at Belfort, the associated tax must then be deducted in France, not in Switzerland.

    The workforce the losers

    In making disappear €800 million from the accounts of General Electric Energy Products France, the multinational has then escaped tax. But it has also deprived the French workforce of a part of their participation in the enterprise. A tax expert to whom we’ve submitted the details of the operations of General Electric at Belfort confirms it: in artificially reducing the profits, the industrial could have deprived its employees of several thousand euros each, between 2015 and 2019, by virtue of their formal participation in GEEPF profits. In December 2021, the SUD Industrie Union and the Social and Economic Committee (CSE) on the Belfort site have lodged a complaint against their employer for “fraud against the right to participation [in profits] of employees”.

    The system implanted by the group has equally burdened the municipal budget. “Leaving from the moment when GE moved its profits offshore, inevitably it pays less [local] taxes”, explains Mathilde Regnaud, opposition Councillor at Belfort. By February 2022, given “the cumulative loss of tax takings”, estimated at €10 million, from the tax on enterprise value-added (cotisation sur la valeur ajoutée des entreprises, CVAE), members of the Municipal Council of Belfort have requested a detailed analysis of the tax losses suffered by the town. A demand which points above all to “the legality … of the manoeuvres of fiscal optimisation” carried out by General Electric on the territory. In 2021, the aforesaid manoeuvres could have in part provoked the augmentation of property taxes on the commune.

    *****

    31 May. Following publication, the Ministry of the Economy and Finance and the DGFiP (direction générale des finances publiques) have reacted through Agence France-Presse, claiming that they had never validated GE’s tax arrangements via any ‘trust relationship’. General Electric, through AFP, claims that the group “respects the fiscal regime of the countries in which it operates”.

  • The article has been translated by Evan Jones.
    1. [Translator’s note] The complex saga of the corrupt takeover of Alstom Energy by General Electric is told in Jones, ‘Behind GE’s Takeover of Alstom Energy, Counterpunch, 2 December 2016; and Jones, ‘The Coalition of the US Justice Department and GE against Alstom’, Dissident Voice, 20 April 2019. Of great significance regarding the rise and rise of General Electric is a recent book by Stephen Maher, Corporate Capitalism and the Integral State: General Electric and a Century of American Power, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.
    2. [Translator’s note] In September 2019, the public prosecutor of Paris charged Bailey for possible conflict of interest. Bailey was advisor in the office of Emmanuel Macron, then Economy Minister, when €70 million was granted to the French export authority which directly benefited GE’s exports. In 2017, Macron becomes President, Bailey is hired by GE France and is appointed CEO in 2019.
    The post General Electric’s French Tax Scam first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • French parliamentary elections, the ‘People’s Union’ and Mélenchon

    In the run-up to June’s parliamentary elections, the political atmosphere in France has been transformed by a new left alliance, the New Popular Ecological and Social Union, reports John Mullen.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.

  • New York Times admits truth of Haitian coup

    “A Haitian president demands reparations and ends up in exile”, declared the front-page of Wednesday’s New York Times. Eighteen years later those who opposed the US, French and Canadian coup have largely won the battle over the historical record.

    French ambassador Thierry Burkard admits that President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s call for the restitution of Haiti’s debt (ransom) of independence partly explains why he was ousted in 2004. Burkard told the Times the elected president’s removal was “a coup” that was “probably a bit about” Aristide’s campaign for France to repay Haiti.

    Other major outlets have also investigated the coup recently. In 2020 Radio-Canada’s flagship news program “Enquête” interviewed Denis Paradis, the Liberal minister responsible for organizing the 2003 Ottawa Initiative on Haiti where US, French and Canadian officials discussed ousting the elected president and putting the country under UN trusteeship. Paradis admitted to Radio-Canada that no Haitian officials were invited to discuss their own country’s future and the imperial triumvirate broached whether “the principle of sovereignty is unassailable?” Enquête also interviewed long time Haitian Canadian activist and author Jean Saint-Vil who offered a critical perspective on the discussion to oust Aristide.

    Radio-Canada and the Times’ coverage was influenced by hundreds of articles published by solidarity campaigners in left wing outlets. Damming the Flood: Haiti and the Politics of Containment: Repression and Resistance in Haiti, 2004–2006, Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority, Haiti’s New Dictatorship: The Coup, the Earthquake and the UN Occupation, An Unbroken Agony Haiti, from Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President provide richer documentation about the coup, as do documentaries Haiti: We Must Kill the Bandits, Haiti Betrayed and Aristide and the Endless Revolution.

    The Times article on Aristide’s ouster was part of a series on imperialism in Haiti the paper published on its front page over four days. “The Ransom” detailed the cost to Haiti — calculated at between $21 billion and $115 billion — of paying France to recognize its independence. “A bank created for Haiti funneled wealth to France” showed how Crédit Industriel et Commercial further impoverished the nation in the late 1800s while “Invade Haiti, Wall Street urged, And American military obliged” covered the brutal 1915–34 US occupation, which greatly reshaped its economy to suit foreign capitalists.

    The Times decision to spend tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of dollars on the series was no doubt influenced by the Black Lives Matter movement and the paper’s 1619 project on slavery. Additionally, Saint-Vil and other Haitian-North American activists have been calling for France to repay the ransom for more than two decades. In 2010 a group of mostly Canadian activists published a fake announcement indicating that France would repay the debt. Tied to France’s Bastille Day and the devastating 2010 earthquake, the stunt by the Committee for the Reimbursement of the Indemnity Money Extorted from Haiti (CRIME) forced Paris to deny it, which the Times reported. The group also published a public letter that garnered significant international attention.

    While these campaigns likely spurred the series, a number of academics made it about themselves. White Harvard professor Mary Lewis bemoaned that her research assistant was cited in “The Ransom” but she wasn’t. Another academic even apologized for sharing the important story. “I regret sharing the NYT article on Haiti yesterday. So many scholars are noting their egregious editorial practices. The writers of the article did not properly credit their sources.” Unfortunately, the academics’ tweets received thousands of likes.

    Leaving aside the pettiness of academia, the series is not without questions and criticisms. First, will the Times apply the historical logic of the series to its future coverage of Haiti or continue acting as a stenographer for the State Department? More directly, why didn’t the series mention the “Core Group” that largely rules Haiti today? The series is supposed to show how foreign intervention has contributed to Haitian impoverishment and political dysfunction, but the Times ignores a direct line between the 2004 coup and foreign alliance that dominates the country today.

    Last week Haitians protested in front of the Canadian embassy in Port-au-Prince. They chanted against the Core Group, which consists of representatives from the US, Canada, EU, OAS, UN, Spain, Brazil and France. A protester banged a rock on the gates. Previously, protesters have hurled rocks and molotov cocktails, as well as burned tires, in front of the Canadian Embassy.

    The Times series has solidified the historical narrative regarding the 2004 coup and popularized the history of imperialism in Haiti. The series is a boon to North Americans campaigning for a radical shift in policy towards a country born of maybe the greatest victory ever for equality and human dignity.

    But the point of activism is not simply to describe the world, but to change it.

    The post New York Times admits truth of Haitian coup first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Grenoble takes on French state as burkini legal row reaches highest court

    Dispute due to go before Conseil d’Etat in municipal bid to allow people to wear any kind of swimwear

    The legal row over whether burkinis, or full-body swimsuits, should be allowed in French municipal swimming pools is to go before France’s highest administrative court as the city of Grenoble battles the state.

    The city, at the foot of the French Alps, has been a the centre of a bitter political row since its Green mayor, Éric Piolle, who leads a broad left-wing coalition, proposed loosening rules on swimwear in outdoor municipal pools.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • New Caledonia’s Frogier pulls out of French National Assembly race

    RNZ News

    A New Caledonian anti-independence candidate has withdrawn from the race for a seat in the French National Assembly just hours before nominations closed.

    Vaea Frogier pulled out, citing concern about the splits in the anti-independence camp.

    Seventeen candidates in New Caledonia are standing in next month’s election, with the pro-independence parties jointly fielding just one candidate in each of the territory’s two electorates for the seats in Paris.

    Frogier said the anti-independence side was more divided than ever, facing the unity of the pro-independence side, which may win a seat.

    Her withdrawal is meant to increase the chances of anti-independence politicians retaining the two seats.

    In March, Frogier had been among the first to lodge a candidacy.

    Frogier is a former deputy mayor of Mont-Dore and the daughter of Pierre Frogier, who is a former president of New Caledonia and now a member of the French Senate.

    New French Overseas Minister
    Meanwhile, a new French Overseas Minister has been appointed by President Emmanuel Macron in the second stage of his government reshuffle, reports RNZ Pacific.

    Yael Braun-Pivet has replaced Sebastien Lecornu who has been given the defence portfolio.

    Braun-Pivet had been the head of the National Assembly’s law commission.

    Her main challenges include negotiations with New Caledonian leaders in the aftermath of last December’s controversial independence referendum.

    While the anti-independence camp wants the territory’s reintegration into France after its victory at the ballot box, the rival pro-independence side refuses to accept the referendum result.

    In the reshuffle’s first step on Monday, Macron chose Elisabeth Borne as the new prime minister.

    The foreign affairs portfolio has been given to Catherine Colonna who has been France’s ambassador to Britain.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Mali’s Military Ejects France, But Faces Serious Challenges

    On May 2, 2022, a statement was made by Mali’s military spokesperson Colonel Abdoulaye Maïga on the country’s national television, where he said that Mali was ending the defense accords it had with France, effectively making the presence of French troops in Mali illegal. The statement was written by the military leadership of the country, which has been in power since May 2021.

    Colonel Maïga said that there were three reasons why Mali’s military had taken this dramatic decision. The first was that they were reacting to France’s “unilateral attitude,” reflected in the way France’s military operated in Mali and in the June 2021 decision by French President Emmanuel Macron to withdraw French forces from the country “without consulting Mali.”

    The post Mali’s Military Ejects France, But Faces Serious Challenges appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Flosse’s Amuitahiraa party names candidates for French elections

    RNZ Pacific

    French Polynesia’s Amuitahiraa Party has registered its three candidates for the French National Assembly elections next month — just hours before the nomination deadline.

    The three are Pascale Haiti, Jonathan Tariha’a and Sylviane Terooatea.

    Haiti, a former member of the French Polynesian Assembly, is the partner of party founder and leader Gaston Flosse, who is banned from public office until 2027.

    If elected, the Amuitahiraa politicians say they will work towards developing the territory’s autonomy statute to make French Polynesia a sovereign state associated with France.

    The 90-year-old Flosse was president of French Polynesia five times and was a French government minister under President Jacques Chirac.

    Two of the three French Polynesian seats in the French National Assembly are held by the ruling Tapura Huiraatira Party, and the third by a pro-independence party.

    Pro-independence Tavini Huiraatira party’s Moetai Brotherson is seeking re-election.

    Wallis and Futuna nominations
    Meanwhile, nominations opened in Wallis and Futuna on Monday for the election of the territory’s only member of the French National Assembly.

    Candidates can register until Friday for the elections.

    The territory’s seat has been held by Sylvain Brial since 2018 when he won a byelection after successfully challenging the 2017 electoral victory of Napole Polutele.

    In Kanaky New Caledonia, nominations are still open this week, with candidates of the pro-independence camp yet to be announced.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Although Macron Won French Election, Far Right Le Pen Increased Her Vote Share

    French President Emmanuel Macron won a second five-year term on Sunday, but the neoliberal incumbent’s victory over far-right challenger Marine Le Pen was significantly closer than it was in 2017 — portending an ominous future for the country in the absence of far-reaching egalitarian reforms.

    Macron received a projected 58% of the vote to Le Pen’s 42%, becoming the first French president since 2002 to be reelected. Macron’s 16-point margin of victory, however, underscores how much ground Le Pen’s openly xenophobic and Islamophobic party has gained since the previous election when both candidates faced off in the runoff round for the first time. Just five years ago, Macron beat Le Pen much more soundly — 66% to 34%.

    Earlier this month, Daniel Zamora Vargas, an assistant professor of sociology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, argued on social media that Macron, a former investment banker who has reduced the corporate tax rate and exacerbated economic inequality and insecurity, “is no centrist.”

    “He was the most right-wing president of the 5th Republic,” said Zamora. “He created the conditions for the extreme-right to be able to win the presidential election.”

    Macron, who has pursued anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim policies of his own, “legitimated all the topics of the extreme-right” and “totally normalized” Le Pen, Zamora wrote as first-round votes were counted on April 10.

    French people were forced to “vote for Le Pen or vote for what created a favorable environment for Le Pen’s ideas,” Zamora said last week. “It’s a choice between an evil and the cause of that evil.”

    On Sunday, British Labor Party parliamentarian Zarah Sultana made a similar point: “By trying to outdo the far-right, ‘moderates’ legitimize and mainstream them. That’s the context for Le Pen gaining 8% from 2017.”

    “We need progressive anti-systemic alternatives,” she added.

    Left-wing presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon came up just short of a second-place finish in the opening round. Fortunately for Macron, Mélenchon advised his disappointed voters to “not give a single vote” to Le Pen.

    In her concession speech, which she delivered shortly after polls closed, Le Pen said that “the ideas that we represent have reached new heights.” She called Sunday’s performance a “striking victory” and said that her National Rally party is “more determined than ever.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • The French Presidential Election

    [Do what you want but vote for Macron; Libération, 6 May 2017]

    The second round of the French Presidential election will be held on Sunday 24 April. The two front runners contesting the election from the first round are Emmanuel Macron (27.85%) and Marine Le Pen (23.15%). The left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon came a close third (21.95%).

    Macron and Le Pen also met in the 2017 election, gaining 24.0% and 21.3% in the first round, with Macron winning decisively in the second round with two-thirds of the vote. It was extremely convenient for Macron that the front runner for the 2017 election, François Fillon (President Sarkozy’s Prime Minister, 2007-12), was found to have employed family members at public expense and for no recognisable work (emploi fictif) – a perennial practice but for which Fillon was found to be a culprit of some consequence.

    It will be closer this time, reflecting a protest vote against the incumbent President. Marine Le Pen (MLP) is a stayer, having run in the 2012 election, surprising pundits by coming third in the first round with 18% of the vote.

    Another facet of the 2022 election was the candidacy of journalist/author Éric Zemmour. Stridently anti-immigrant, and his interpretations of history controversial (for example, the treatment of the Jews under Vichy, 1940-45), he was given saturation media coverage – not least on billionaire Vincent Bolloré’s CNews. Zemmour’s star faded into fourth place with 7% of the vote – whose numbers will presumably flow to MLP.

    In the medium term, the rising votes for MLP are a protest not merely against Macron but also against his two predecessors in office and their two Parties – Nicolas Sarkozy (Union pour un mouvement populaire, now Les Républicains) and François Hollande (Parti socialiste).

    The previously formidable LR and the PS have now gone to the dogs, appropriately, with LR’s Valerie Pécresse getting 4.8% and PS’ Anne Hidalgo 1.7% in the first round. Getting under 5% means that the Parties aren’t reimbursed for their campaign expenses. Pécresse, as President of the Île-de-France Council, has demonstrated indifference and incompetence in office. Hidalgo, as mayor of Paris, has accumulated a huge debt – not least with madly acquiring the deadweight Olympic Games for Paris in 2024 as a means of leveraging her running for Presidential Office. Hidalgo is so much on the nose that in Paris itself she managed to garner only 2.17%.

    MLP heads the Rassemblement national, renamed in 2018 from the Front national (France creates and changes the names of its political parties with the weather). The universal qualifying adjective for the RN/FN is ‘far right’. The RN/FN policy agenda has varied, not least for opportunistic reasons, but the essential permanent planks are social conservatism and a hostility to (read African and/or Muslim) immigration. In respectable circles the Party and its adherents are the perennial subjects of vilification and condescension.

    Representative of the condescension is a July 2019 piece by academics Pablo de Orellana and Nicholas Michelsen. It’s a juxtaposition between the rational and enlightened (the governing class and its minders – of which us) and the irrational and ignorant. More, the latter are prone to invent and believe in ‘conspiracy theories’ – from which ‘we’ are entirely immune! The problem is that these people have the vote and that their numbers keep growing.

    The French far right’s traditional stamping ground is in the South-East. But the 2017 election saw MLP popular right across the North and North-East, a veritable brown tide (the felicitous expression is a “vague bleu Marine”) across a landscape of long term de-industrialisation. For 2022 votes by Departments, see here; for votes by Communes, see here. For example, in Pas-de-Calais, MLP obtained 38.7% of the vote. MLP herself is a Deputy since 2017 in one of Pas-de-Calais’ 12 Constituencies, along with three other RN Deputies. None of the 12 Constituencies presently has a left-wing Deputy – historically unprecedented. Moving East, MLP obtained 33% in the Somme, 39% in Aisne, 30% in Marne, 36% in Ardennes, 35% in Meuse, 27.5% in Meurthe-et-Moselle, 30% in Moselle, but losing to Macron in the far-East Bas-Rhin.

    The astute commentator François Asselineau (of the Union Populaire Républicaine Party) has noted that, in the first round, MLP arrived at the head of 20,036 Communes of 35,080 (57%), whereas Macron won 11,861 Communes (34%).

    Orellana and Michelsen acknowledge the tangible background to the dissent:

    These [New Right alliances] depend on the continued presence of grievances that directly affect people’s lives, particularly growing poverty even when working, the collapse of stable and safe social identities linked to work, the increasing instability of employment security, and the rapid change of local communities due to emigration, migration, collapsing housing affordability, and redevelopment initiatives that displace communities. These provide precise and urgent electoral rallying points.

    They are particularly effective given that so many mainstream politicians ignore these basic grievances. … If their success is to be confronted, the basic grievances they claim to resolve will need to be addressed and solutions offered.

    But it isn’t going to happen, in France or elsewhere. These people are misguided trash and we’re not going to cater to them. Rather, the mainstream media (plus the ‘progressive’ media) have mounted a broadside against MLP and RN to ensure that France is rendered safe for the moment against the nasties. Representative is the online site Mediapart (originally created by a bloc of refugees from Le Monde). As per 2017, it devotes multiple articles to denigrating Mélenchon and his La France insoumise Party with the aim of keeping Mélenchon from the second round. With Mélenchon disposed of, Mediapart editorial (read Edwy Plenel) goes full bore against MLP and RN (corrupt, anti eco, anti worker, anti-Islam, etc. – and, worst of all, pro-Russia!), pretending that the always preferred candidate Macron is the journal’s reluctant choice by default.

    Nevertheless, Mediapart has in its stable admirable journalists – at least on French matters. On 14 April, the journal interviewed sociologist Didier Eribon (in French, paywall), who brings a close personal experience to the ascendancy of MLP and RN. Eribon notes that almost all his family have passed in less than ten years from voting Communist to voting FN. For Eribon’s mother, her vote has always been a protest vote. But underneath the continuity of protest there has been a profound transformation – from one background culture to another. The first involved industrial employment, membership of the communist-affiliated CGT union, communal solidarity built on workplace solidarity. The second involves unemployment or precarious employment, social isolation and desperation.

    Eribon lays special blame on the Parti socialiste in power from Mitterrand after 1983 but especially from the government of Lionel Jospin (1997-2002) onwards. The PS should have read the wind after Jospin, self-considered a shoe-in to the second round of the 2002 Presidential election against incumbent Jacques Chirac, was edged out by MLP’s father Jean-Marie Le Pen. But no. An incisive account of the PS’ ongoing self-deception is made by Serge Halimi in the June 2018 Le Monde Diplomatique (English, paywall).

    The PS’ neoliberal drift is reinforced by a new generation of intellectuals seeking to destroy the culture underpinning the long boom (“les trentes glorieuses”) in France, comprising academics, some industrialists and bankers, and journalists to sell the story. The establishment of the think tank la fondation Saint-Simon in 1982 encapsulated the onslaught. Sympathetic technocrats emanating from the École nationale d’administration, especially those ensconced in the Finance Ministry, completes the picture. As Eribon notes, Macron is the incarnation of this historical sequence.

    Emmanuel Macron is a cold fish, without empathy. In January 2017, I claimed that there was a touch of Chauncey Gardiner, the hollow character of Kozinski’s Being There, in Macron. But there is no malice in Gardiner. An expert has weighed in on this delicate subject. Dr Adriano Segatori, an Italian psychiatrist, has mercilessly decoded Macron’s persona. His presentation, in Italian with French subtitles, is here. An English translation of the essence of Segatori’s diagnosis is here. Macron displays the characteristics of a sociopath.

    A minor interaction with a ‘member of the public’ well reflects Macron’s mentality. The person, unemployed gardener, was anxious to improve his lot. Macron haughtily told him: “There are heaps of jobs, it’s necessary to find them! Hotels, cafés, restaurants, I can find you a job just by crossing the road”. Here’s the event recorded. Macron’s period in office is peppered with such arrogance and disdain for the hoi polloi.

    Macron was elevated into President Hollande’s administration and then into the Presidency courtesy of very well-connected patrons and mentors, supported by a private media dominated by very wealthy businessmen and by a compliant public media. Since 2017, private media ownership has become even more concentrated, with the bulk owned by five billionaires – Bernard Arnault (luxury goods), Vincent Bolloré (transport and logistics), Martin Bouygues (construction), Patrick Drahi (telecom) and Xavier Niel (telecom). Add the Dassault family, who have long held the dominant conservative paper Le Figaro, and Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, who in 2018 secretly bought a controlling interest in the iconic daily Le Monde. Macron faces no opposition from this coterie, other than pressure to hasten his neoliberal agenda.

    As Economy Minister under Hollande, Macron led the introduction of the loi Travail in August 2016 which weakened workplace rules and protections, including measures to ease employer rights to sackings and to lower sacked employee payouts. After widespread resistance, including in parliament, the law was imposed under section 49.3 of the Constitution, a draconian secret of the Fifth Republic never before used for such purposes. Here was Macron’s authoritarian character on full display.

    Once elected in 2017, Macron set about abolishing the wealth tax, the Impôt de solidarité sur la fortune (ISF). True, the tax was largely symbolic, and some wealthy were quitting the country. Bernard Arnault, France’s richest man, and in his maltreatment of employees having no sense of solidarity (vide François Ruffin’s documentary Merci patron!), threatened to clear out. Solidarity is also not in Macron’s makeup, as he had failed to report his sizeable earnings at Rothschild when becoming Economy Minister in 2014, lying about them, and thus avoiding his personal liability for the ISF.

    It is standard practice for neoliberal governments everywhere to cut taxes on the wealthy, to go easy on their tax evasion lurks, and then claim that fiscal prudence demands that arms of the ‘unsustainable’ welfare state be wound back (‘defense’ spending is, of course, off the table). This ruse is institutionalised in the EU, with Brussels pressuring national governments under the 1992 Maastricht strictures. In 2013, as Hollande’s economic adviser, Macron fostered the introduction of the Crédit d’impôt pour la compétitivité et l’emploi (CICE). This tax credit was granted in the claimed expectation that businesses would create a huge number of jobs. But the credit granted was in the form of relief on employer contributions to the social security fund. This mechanism was thus a direct redistributive vehicle from the welfare state to the well-off (the greatest beneficiaries were large corporates like the supermarkets). As President, Macron closed down the CICE at the end of 2018, but replacing it with a permanent comprehensive lowering of social security contributions by enterprises. The cost to the exchequer has been enormous, in tens of billions of euros, for estimated minor gains in employment generated from this poorly targeted measure.

    In the run-up to the 2022 election, Macron declared his candidacy belatedly and declined to campaign, declaring that his opponents didn’t deserve his attention. In any case, how could he run on his record?

    Macron’s obsession with enslaving wage labour has continued with his prolonged attempt to achieve ‘reform’ of the unemployment relief system (assurance-chômage). After two years of Macron trying, delayed partly by objections from no less than the authoritative Conseil d’État, the structure was belatedly installed in October 2021. The unemployed face lower payments, already derisory, and being readily ‘penalised’ – cut off from any payment for failure to adhere to impossible demands.

    The spontaneous and prolonged protests, in the form of the ‘yellow vests’ movement, against his contempt for struggle street have been met with brutal repression.

    Macron has nothing but disdain for public infrastructure. He has been happy to kowtow to Brussels’ demand to facilitate ‘competition’ in areas where natural monopolies prevail (electricity generation, transport). He presided over the cynical privatisation of Toulouse-Blagnac airport – a strategic public asset adjoining a major Airbus facility. He wanted to privatise the core Aeroports de Paris, but was forced to back off due to the public backlash.

    Macron has had no overall industry policy. He legitimised the scandalous selloff of Alstom Energy – the dominant part of the French flagship (fleuron) Alstom – see my articles here and here. The only beneficiaries have been vulture advisory law firms and banks. He overlooks ongoing de-industrialisation. He tacitly endorsed the predatory and anti-competitive takeover of Suez by Veolia.

    His election manifesto to instigate ‘the start-up nation’ appears formally to have had some success. Macron boasted of such in January. But a 23 February article in Le Canard Enchaîné is cautionary. Many start-ups are in flippant domains, and with minimum employment prospects. Those in substantive fields, like Exotec which makes small industrial robots, are rare. Insiders note that “The concept of a unicorn [start-up reaching a billion dollars in market valuation] rests on a sole criterion: the capacity of an individual to convince investors to hand over their money. That says nothing of the capacity of an enterprise to be profitable, of its social and environmental impact, of its employment generation capacity …”. Quite. To date, there is little to see here with respect to overall employment generation and regional township viability.

    Macron has consciously neglected the health system, subject to long term corporatisation and funding cuts. The ravages of Covid have seen no change of heart. Respected medicos have pleaded with the government for assistance, without effect. I wrote a short piece on the background to the health system crisis after the early months of Covid in June 2020. In early June 2020, France had witnessed 29,000 deaths attributed to Covid. Now the figure is over 144,000. Meanwhile the aged care system (ehpad), subject to the diabolical excesses of for-profit companies, remains a national disgrace.

    Macron’s interventions in both higher and secondary education are reactionary and divisive.

    His environmental record is heavy on rhetoric and devoid of substance.

    His administration has involved a series of scandals, none of which have rubbed off on him because of complicity of relevant institutions of state (in particular, the Parquet national financier). The placement of his income (essentially a gift from his patrons) from employment at Rothschild and the sources and extent of his 2017 campaign spending remain mysteries. Representative of the scandals are Macron’s employment and defense of bully boy Alexandre Benalla and the most recent disclosure of the fabulous sums spent on advisory firms (McKinsey in the first rank) in the outsourcing of public policy advice and operation.

    As for the European Union, Macron has done nothing to offset the ongoing dominance of the EU’s institutions by a selfish Germany. His duplicity and weakness, with Germany, in prevarication with respect to Ukraine’s non-compliance with the two Minsk Accords, and its implied subjugation to US imperatives, has facilitated the catastrophic outcome of the Russia-Ukraine war which we currently endure.

    Finally, Macron’s foreign policy has been quixotic and chaotic – most striking in France’s humiliating retreat from the Sahel – the work of an absolute novice.

    In short, Macron’s reign has been wretched. Macron deserves, like his predecessors Sarkozy and Hollande, to be consigned to irrelevance and to write his memoirs regarding his salutary role in public life.

    If re-elected for a second term (quinquennat), Macron’s first agenda will be unfinished business with the welfare state – ‘reform’ of the retirement system (retirement age pushed back from 62 to 65), against which he has also faced dogged resistance.

    Régis de Castelnau has been a long time lawyer turned legal scholar and commentator. He blogs at Vu du Droit. From an ‘old’ family, he has acted for clients on the left of the spectrum (due to lessons learned from working on the factory floor). However, his commentary is detached, unique and astute.

    de Castelnau notes:

    to vote for Macron for a non-renewable term will have him engage in open slather. We know his project. Social security and the retirement system will be dismantled to the profit of private pension funds. McKinsey will be charged at great expense to put it in place and those such as Blackrock will walk off with the loot. That which remains of French industry will be auctioned off, to the great pleasure of the investment banks organising the selloff. Our sovereignty will finish by being dismantled to the profit of a EU dominated by Germany, to whom we will acquiesce to share our seat on the UN Security Council and to access our nuclear force of dissuasion. The all of course in the name of a “European sovereignty” which doesn’t exist.  … At the end of these five next years, France will be unrecognisable and it will be irreversible.

    As with 2017, there is no satisfactory option. Some principled people have given notice that they intend to vote blank – an option ultimately to little effect unless tens of thousands demonstrate by such means their disgust. The French electoral system being non-compulsory, the abstention rate is a significant player – in the local vernacular, many choose to ‘go fishing’. In the 2022 first round, the abstention rate (voters relative to enrolled citizens) was a high 26.8%. There is a tug between those who call to come out in droves to keep ‘the fascists’ from gaining power and those individuals who can’t bring themselves to endorse either of the poxy alternatives.

    Whatever the outcome, France’s immediate future is guaranteed to be not much fun.

    The post The French Presidential Election first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Marwan Bishara: French presidential elections: It’s déjà vu all over again

    ANALYSIS: By Marwan Bishara

    The French have done it again. Despite having been utterly scandalised by the result of their own vote in the 2017 presidential elections, they have propelled the unpalatable Emmanuel Macron and the deplorable Marine Le Pen to yet another runoff.

    But such is the state of French politics — chaotic and in flux. Now, the power of the traditional centre-left and centre-right parties has diminished, and the Fifth Republic is changing beyond recognition, with dramatic consequences for Europe.

    After five years in power, the incumbent won only 28 percent of the vote in comparison with Le Pen’s 23 percent in the first round two weeks ago, and the result of the second round, due to take place tomorrow, looks even less certain than ever, considering Macron’s controversial domestic and foreign policy record.

    In 2017, Marcon defeated Le Pen by 30 points, but today she’s too close for comfort, with some polls putting them almost at the same level, given the 3 percent margin of error. Although some polls have also shown him opening a significant lead.

    Predictably, most of the other candidates have lent their support to Macron as he rushed to emphasise Le Pen’s “extremism” and present an ultimatum: It is me or the far right (read the neofascists), or in the words oft attributed to King Louis XV, “After me, the deluge”.

    But the trick may not work as well as it did the last time, because this time it smacks of despair and duplicity.

    The president looks desperate if he chooses to focus on Le Pen’s record instead of focusing on his own, especially now that he has a record to run on. And he looks desperate if he engages in the politics of fear instead of laying out a hopeful agenda for the next crucial five years.

    Neither the pain nor the gain has spread evenly
    In terms of numbers, and considering Brexit, the pandemic, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Macron has actually done better than expected for the French economy as a whole; better than most other Western economies.

    Yet, neither the pain nor the gain has spread evenly during his term.

    Despite lower unemployment and higher growth, Macron is widely seen as a “president of the rich”, focused on improving corporate performance as the engine of growth, investing more in white-collar jobs than in blue-collar labour, and showing no sympathy for struggling families.

    Macron has proven a good speaker but a bad communicator; better at lecturing than listening, condescendingly talking at people instead of talking to them.

    Some now fear that, free of electoral pressures in his second and final term in office, Macron could become even more indifferent, raising the retirement age, undermining labour rights and shrinking the welfare state to suit his neoliberal economic agenda.

    Either way, Macron should have mustered the courage in the past two weeks and beyond to set the record straight about where he is taking the country. This is especially important because Macron also needs to come clean about a record of double standards.

    He, who had appealed for “hope over fear”, was quick to spread panic about so-called “Islamist separatism” during his presidency, in an opportunistic manoeuvre to deflect attention from his failures and salvage his waning popularity on the right.

    Accused Muslims of living on margins
    He accused Muslims living on the margins of French society of offending democratic and secular values, instead of fulfilling his promise to end social marginalisation in France.

    In the process, he paved the way for the likes of populist candidate Eric Zemmour to claim Islamists and Muslims are one and the same; demonising Islam as an imminent danger to the French republic.

    Paradoxically, just as Macron embraced such a xenophobic image, Le Pen shed hers in order to appeal to mainstream conservative voters.

    Though she has not changed her fanatic views or chauvinistic agenda, the far-right candidate has replaced her image as an angry extremist, obsessed with immigration, Islam and French identity, with a more moderate one of a warm caring leader, speaking to peoples’ economic and personal anxieties.

    Instead of her usual rants against EU authoritarianism, Le Pen has railed against high prices and high taxes in order to rally her base.

    Le Pen’s clever but deceiving repositioning has allowed her to make inroads to the political centre without losing the radical right, and propelled her to the top of the polling charts along with Macron, despite her dark past and her admiration for Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, both very unpopular in France.

    She has long shared Putin and Trump’s vision of nativist white Christian nationalism, but understood that French voters today are fixated on domestic woes, not on foreign worries, and therefore spoke only in slogans about making France strong, authentic and great again.

    Activist president on world stage
    But Macron has been an activist president on the European and world stage, believing that France must lead on both fronts. What he lacked in experience, he made up for in youthful energy, bouncing about world forums, hosting important leaders and expressing an opinion on every issue.

    Yet despite his energy and ambition, Macron has fared worse on foreign policy than he did domestically. Not only did he fail to make any breakthroughs on any major issue, but much of what he touched also seemed to blow up in his face.

    In Europe, he failed to score any gains in his so-called “Normandy format” summit in 2019 and later failed to anticipate, prevent or reverse a Russian invasion of Ukraine. In the process, his vision of European defence autonomy at the expense of a “brain-dead” NATO dissipated to no return.

    In Africa and the Middle East, Macron failed to preserve or expand French influence, especially in the Sahel and North Africa. He also fared miserably in Libya, Lebanon and in Palestine despite PR stunts on the streets of Beirut and Jerusalem.

    His hastily arranged photo-op with warring Libyan leaders early in his presidency underlined his amateurish approach to foreign policy, as the conflict hardened and France’s role waned. Macron’s appeasement of authoritarian Arab regimes while preaching human rights has been utterly hypocritical.

    Macron has lost huge multibillion-dollar arms deals to the United States, including those with the Australian navy and European air forces. Unable to make up his mind about Beijing, or settle on a strategy, he failed to create any form of partnership or make economic inroads with China.

    And yet again, it is the immediate bread-and-butter (and, ahem, cheese) issues that count most for the French in these elections, not far-off conflicts and conspiracies.

    Faced and debated Le Pen
    So far, President Macron has used France’s turn at the presidency of the European Union and the threat Russia’s invasion of Ukraine poses to European security to avoid debating other candidates or defending his record — until this week’s traditional television debate.

    He faced and debated Marine Le Pen, who is much better prepared, more polished and experienced than the last time. Any major faux pas in the next two weeks could have cost him the presidency, but he seems to have the edge as demonstrated in the debate.

    Winning back the Elysees is not the only challenge facing him. He will also have to win back the majority in the National Assembly come June legislative elections, in order to pass any major laws or programmes.

    It should come as no comfort for the incumbent that his victory was driven, not once but twice, by the electorate’s fear of his far-right opponent

    But Macron could still turn a second mandate into a second chance and show the French that he can ensure that the gain, as well as the pain, is fairly shared.

    Marwan Bishara is an author who writes extensively on global politics and is widely regarded as a leading authority on US foreign policy, the Middle East and international strategic affairs. He was previously a professor of International Relations at the American University of Paris.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Far Right Threat Looms in France as Macron Faces Marine Le Pen in Runoff

    French President Emmanuel Macron and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen are headed to a runoff on April 24 after winning the most votes in France’s first round of presidential elections on Sunday. We speak with Rokhaya Diallo, French journalist and writer, who says France’s political landscape is now dominated by three parties — the far-right, the liberal right and the left, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who urged his supporters to not vote for Le Pen in the following election. Diallo also explains how Le Pen — who ran against Macron in the last presidential election — has since softened her xenophobic rhetoric. “She has hidden in a way the real agenda of the National Rally, which is explicitly anti-immigrant, xenophobic and also sexist,” says Diallo.

    TRANSCRIPT

    This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

    AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

    French President Emmanuel Macron and the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen are headed to a runoff election on April 24th. In the first round of voting Saturday, Macron won over 27% support. Le Pen placed second at 23%. Macron urged French voters to reject Le Pen’s xenophobic policies.

    PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: [translated] I solemnly call on my fellow citizens, whatever their leaning and whatever the choice they made in the first round, to join us. … At this turning point for the future of our nation, nothing will ever be the same. This is why I want to reach out to all those who want to work for France. I am ready to invent something new to gather different convictions and leanings in order to build with them a common action for our nation for the coming years. It is our duty.

    AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, after the vote, Le Pen called on French people of all parties to vote for her in the runoff later this month.

    MARINE LE PEN: [translated] From this moment, I’m calling on all French, from all sides, from the right or left or elsewhere, French of all origins, to join this great national and popular movement. Together we will build, with enthusiasm and conviction, this victory to implement the great shift that France needs, and drive with joy our country into the third millennium. Long live the republic! Long live France!

    AMY GOODMAN: This comes as the left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon placed third with about 22% of the vote. He urged his supporters to not give a single vote to Marine Le Pen in the runoff.

    For more, we go to Paris to speak with Rokhaya Diallo, French journalist, writer, filmmaker, contributing writer to The Washington Post, her latest piece headlined “France has a chance to choose progressive ideals over hate and division.”

    Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Rokhaya. Explain the significance of this vote.

    ROKHAYA DIALLO: So, first of all, thank you for inviting me. I’m glad to be back on air on Democracy Now!

    The significance of that is that it’s something — the fact that Emmanuel Macron would face Marine Le Pen on the second round was something that was expected, but for the first time we’ve had two strong candidates from the far right, and there is also the fact that Jean-Luc Mélenchon, as you just mentioned, is also now impersonating the leading voice on the left. So, his party, La France Insoumise, is like the most likely to challenge the right and the far right. And to me, what has happened yesterday just showed that now there are three — three oppose, if I can say, on the French political landscape, which is the far right, the liberal right and then the left, impersonated by Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his party, La France Insoumise.

    AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about what actually took place and what the protest vote against Macron is all about. For example, most of his time recently he has been focused on Ukraine. Today he’s headed to the north, to Le Pen country. Talk about what Marine Le Pen represents, what she said she would do if she became the head of France.

    ROKHAYA DIALLO: So, Marine Le Pen is the leader of the National Rally, which is the party that was created from the National Front by her father in the early ’70s, so it’s a very far-right party that was created in early ’70s by former Nazis, French, from France, and which has been — which has taken a very strong stance against immigration and against — yeah, mostly against immigration and against immigrants, and on the idea that French citizens should be privileged in front of the people from other countries. So, Marine Le Pen has put her feet in the legacy of her father but has really tried to change the party in a way to — in a certain way to soften the package.

    So, now she has chosen, during that campaign, not to focus on immigration but on the cost of life and the fact that the French people, the French citizens, have lost much of their purchasing power. So, she has hidden, in a way, the real agenda of the National Rally, which is explicitly anti-immigrant, xenophobic and also sexist, to put herself in the shoes of a leader who would support French people who are facing challenges because of the rise of the prices. So that’s the reason why she’s been — she’s gained so much support. And Emmanuel Macron, who was elected in 2017, given the fact that he really supported policies that would have made the rich richer, have sparked much anger among the population. And that anger has found, in a way, some — its way to the National Rally, that is the party of Marine Le Pen.

    AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk more about how Ukraine figured into this, and the relationship between Macron, the current president of France, with Putin, and the ad he put out with Marine Le Pen, rhyming “Le Pen” with “Putin,” and her close relationship with Putin?

    ROKHAYA DIALLO: The thing is that, yes, indeed, among the presidential candidates, Marine Le Pen was one of the ones who were saying that she had an admiration for Putin. So, after the war started in Ukraine, of course, what she said, the fact that she was someone — an admirer of Putin, didn’t look good. So Macron is using now the fact that she’s been supportive to Putin, also the fact that in 2017, in order to fund her campaign, she borrowed money from Russia. And this year, in 2022, she borrowed money from Hungary. So Macron is using that to say that she’s more likely to be in solidarity with Russia than him, because he says that he challenged Putin, and he was one of the people who went to visit him and who tried to stop the war in Ukraine.

    So, it’s true that Marine Le Pen is very ambiguous with Putin, but it’s not the only thing that she needs to be addressed about. And also, the thing is that Emmanuel Macron for the first time said that Marine Le Pen and her party, the National Rally, was racist, which he hasn’t done during his mandate during the five years. He was more, I would say, blurry about the line that he should have drawn between his party, his politics and the far right.

    AMY GOODMAN: What do you expect in this run-up to the final election on — what is it? — April 24th?

    ROKHAYA DIALLO: So, for now, Emmanuel Macron is the most likely to win. But if he wins, he will not win in the same way as he won in 2017, because in 2017 he was the face of a renewal of the revolution, which was the name of his book, and he was claiming that he was neither from the right nor from the left. But we can tell now, after five years of his presidency, that he was definitely from the right and that he was supporting a neoliberal agenda. So, now it will be very difficult for him to be appealing to the voters from the left, who are likely not to vote at all. So the challenge now is to make sure that the far right doesn’t come into power, but at the same time not to give — to make Macron under the impression that he has the support of the whole population.

    And whether Marine Le Pen wins or not, she will have won in the way that she has been able to anchor herself and her party into the political landscape and to make sure that her ideas have been widespread over the whole political landscape. And we can tell that in the fact that Emmanuel Macron, as a president, really supported the hard line regarding immigration and regarding minorities. So, to me, she has won in a way that she has changed the French mentality, and she has had a very important influence over the voters, who now, if we addition her votes to the votes of the other far-right parties, makes the far right over 30%, which is much.

    AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you, Rokhaya Diallo, French journalist, writer, filmmaker, contributing writer for The Washington Post. We’ll link to your latest piece.

    Next up, we’re going to go down to Texas, where a prosecutor arrested a woman for murder after accusing her of causing a “self-induced abortion.” After massive public outcry, he says he will drop the charges. Stay with us.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • French presidential elections: First round results reveal continuing collapse of the traditional parties, polarisation

    John Mullen shares his initial analysis of the French presidential election results.

  • Amazon Workers In France Wage Unprecedented Strike For Wage Increases

    A strike by Amazon workers in France resumed in earnest on Tuesday, April 5, and extended to all Amazon sites across the country. “Management offered us a 3 percent increase, but we want at least 5 percent,” Antoine Delorme of the CGT Amazon trade union at Châlons-sur-Saône told Révolution Permanente.

    This is happening in the context of compulsory annual negotiations (NAO) under France’s Labor Code. Management’s proposal of a wage increase that is less than inflation has provoked an unprecedented strike movement at every Amazon France facility.

    The post Amazon Workers In France Wage Unprecedented Strike For Wage Increases appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Elections and class struggle in France Part II: Taming the capitalist state?

    In the second of a two-part series leading up to the April 10 French election, John Mullen shares his analysis of the politics of Jean-Luc Melenchon and La France Insoumise.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.

  • No end to NSO’s Pegasus trouble

    TechCrunch of 5 April 2022 reports that Investigators say they have found evidence that a Jordanian journalist and human rights defender’s iPhone was hacked with the Pegasus spyware just weeks after Apple sued the spyware’s maker NSO Group to stop it from targeting Apple’s customers.

    Award-winning journalist Suhair Jaradat’s phone was hacked with the notorious spyware as recently as December 5, 2021, according to an analysis of her phone by Front Line Defenders and Citizen Lab that was shared with TechCrunch ahead of its publication. Jaradat was sent a WhatsApp message from someone impersonating a popular anti-government critic with links to the Pegasus spyware, compromising her phone. According to the forensic analysis, Jaradat’s iPhone was hacked several times in the preceding months and as far back as February 2021.

    Apple had filed a lawsuit against Israeli spyware maker NSO Group in November 2021, seeking a court-issued injunction aimed at banning NSO from using Apple’s products and services to develop and deploy hacks against its customers. See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2021/07/21/nsos-pegasus-spyware-now-really-in-the-firing-line/…But so far the case has gotten off to a slow start after the first judge assigned to the case recused herself, with no decision on the case likely to be made any time before June.

    Jaradat is one of several Jordanians, including human rights defenders, lawyers and fellow journalists whose phones were compromised likely by agencies of the Jordanian government, according to Front Line Defenders and Citizen Lab’s findings out Tuesday.

    Among the others targeted include Malik Abu Orabi, a human rights lawyer whose work has included defending the teachers’ union, which in 2019 led the longest public sector strike in the country’s history. Abu Orabi’s phone was targeted as early as August 2019 until June 2021. Also, the phone of Ahmed Al-Neimat, a human rights defender and anti-corruption activist, was targeted by the ForcedEntry exploit in February 2021. The researchers said the hacking of Al-Neimat’s phone is believed to be the earliest suspected use of ForcedEntry.

    Another Jordanian journalist and human rights defender’s phone was targeted, according to the researchers, but who asked for her identity not to be disclosed.

    —

    Meanwhile, on 5 April 2022, AFP reported that Palestinian lawyer Salah Hamouri, who is in Israeli detention, filed a complaint in France Tuesday against surveillance firm NSO Group for having “illegally infiltrated” his mobile phone with the spyware Pegasus.

    Hamouri, who also holds French citizenship, is serving a four-month term of administrative detention ordered by an Israeli military court in March on the claim he is a “threat to security”.

    He is one of several Palestinian activists whose phones were hacked using the Pegasus malware made by the Israeli company NSO, according to a report in November by human rights groups. See: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2021/11/10/palestinian-ngos-dubbed-terrorist-were-hacked-with-pegasus-spyware/

    On Tuesday, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the Human Rights League (LDH) and Hamouri filed a complaint with the Paris prosecutor.  It accused NSO of “having illegally infiltrated the telephone of rights defender Salah Hamouri,” they said in a statement sent to the AFP bureau in Jerusalem. 

    “Obviously, this is an operation that is part of a largely political framework given the harassment Hamouri has been subjected to for years and the attacks on human rights defenders in Israel,” attorney Patrick Baudouin, honorary president of the FIDH, told AFP.

    https://www.securityweek.com/palestinian-lawyer-sues-pegasus-spyware-maker-france

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • France: Mélenchon, Macron, Zemmour and the future of the left

    Panos Petrou from the Rproject, Greece speaks with French anti-capitalist activist and commentator John Mullen about the upcoming French election.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.

  • Corsica: Youth-led revolt forces France to offer ‘autonomy’

    The murder of Corsican nationalist hero Yvan Colonna has sparked huge demonstrations on the island and renewed calls for self-determination, reports Dick Nichols.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.

  • If you’re fighting for a world beyond capitalism, take notice of this political prisoner

    For more than 14 months, Libre Flot has been incarcerated in a French prison. He languishes in solitary confinement; a political prisoner who hasn’t even faced trial yet.

    For the last month, he has been on hunger strike. A few days ago, he was hospitalised for a second time after suffering from chest pressure and sharp pain in his heart. He is getting weaker and weaker, and is finding it difficult to move.

    So, what is Libre Flot accused of, and why is he imprisoned?

    Fighting ISIS

    Flot is one of many internationalists who travelled to North and East Syria (commonly known as Rojava) to join the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in the fight against Daesh (ISIS), and to defend the anti-capitalist revolution in the region. After returning to France, he was one of seven people who was arrested in December 2020 and accused of being part of “a criminal association planning a terrorist attack”. He says that he has been framed because of his links to the YPG, and that he was spied upon by the French state including being:

    followed, traced, bugged 24 hours a day in my vehicle, my home, spied on even in my bed.

    The six others were released, but Flot remains in prison, in what he describes as “hellish and permanent solitude”.  He says:

    it is my political opinions and my participation in the Kurdish YPG forces in the fight against Daesh that they are trying to criminalize. It has been more than 14 months that 7 people who do not know each other are accused of being part of a criminal association.

    Flot argues that the investigation against him is biased, and that the state “investigates only for the prosecution and never for the defense.”  He continues:

    [The investigating judge] allows himself [to give me] the most unacceptable insult by referring to the barbarians of the Islamic State as my “friends from Daesh”. Although verbal, this remains an unfathomable act of violence. It is inadmissible that this judge grants himself the right to insult me to the highest degree, tries to smear me, and thus spits on the memory of my Kurdish, Arab, Assyrian, Turkmen, Armenian, Turkish and international friends and comrades who have fallen in the struggle against this organization. I am still outraged by this.

    European states criminalising revolutionaries

    Flot isn’t the only international who has found themselves behind bars after joining the revolution in North and East Syria. The UK has also charged and prosecuted a number of its citizens. There’s 18-year-old Londoner Silhan Ozcelik, who was imprisoned in 2015 after she attempted to go and fight against Daesh in Rojava. There’s Jim Matthews, who was charged with terrorism offences for fighting in the YPG in 2018. The charges were finally dropped against him. And then there’s Aidan James, who was sentenced to prison for terrorism in 2019. He also fought in the YPG against Daesh. Like Flot, James was remanded in prison for a number of months before his trial even began. Then, in July 2020, terrorism charges against three British men were also dropped after an “extraordinarily misplaced prosecution”. Those who were charged included Paul Newey, a 49-year-old father from Solihull, who sent £150 to his son Dan, a volunteer with the YPG. Another of those charged, Daniel Burke, spent eight months in prison on remand before the charges were dropped.

    But it’s not just YPG volunteers who are targeted by European states. Matt Broomfield, a professional journalist from the UK, was detained while on holiday in Greece, thrown into a Greek detention centre, and imprisoned for two months. He was subsequently banned from the 26 countries that make up the Schengen Area for ten years. Broomfield hasn’t actually been told what his crime is, but he is certain it is because he volunteered as a journalist in Rojava. Others who have volunteered in North and East Syria have faced similar Schengen bans.

    So why are these people such targets? It’s because they have volunteered in a region of the world where revolution has succeeded, against all odds; a region that is anti-capitalist, attempting to give power to the grassroots. And it is a society that centres on women’s liberation, religious tolerance, and minority protection as key. This is, of course, a very real and direct threat to the world’s powerful, particularly those who rule under a thinly-veiled guise of ‘democracy’.

    International day of action

    Activists have called for an international day of action in solidarity with Flot. They say:

    The 4th of April will be his 36th day of hunger strike.

    The 4th of April is also his birthday.

    On this day, we call for an international day of solidarity. We call upon all comrades and every decent human being with a sense of justice to protest outside French embassies, consulates or institutes, or to find any other way to voice their objection to this blatant injustice.

    For radicals around the world, the prosecution of those who have risked their lives in Rojava should continue to be of massive concern. As capitalist states begin to see their rule threatened, they will come for more of us. Whether it is the fighters in the YPG or the activists who defended themselves against the police in Bristol, more and more of us will begin to see our freedoms being taken away.

    Featured image via Xavier Malafosse / Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons 1.0 license, resized to 770 x 403px

    By Eliza Egret

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • A Peculiar European “Peace”

    Building Europe to have peace. Such is the just and fine ambition that one must pursue relentlessly. Nevertheless, it is necessary to define ‘Europe’ and to specify the conditions for the peace that is desirable on our continent.

    For Europe is a continent. Only de Gaulle had envisaged Europe as a geopolitical ensemble composed of all the states participating in balance. François Mitterrand took up the idea in the form of a European confederation, but he too quickly abandoned it.

    Since 1945, what is presented as ‘Europe’, in the West of the continent, is only a subset of countries incapable by themselves of ensuring peace. One regularly hides its powerlessness behind proud slogans. Such is the case with that which affirms ‘Europe means Peace’. As a historical reality and as promise it is false.

    During the Cold War, it is not the organs of the Common Market, of the European Economic Community then of the European Union which have assured peace in Europe. It is well known that the equilibrium between the great powers has been maintained by nuclear dissuasion and, more precisely, by the potential for massive destruction possessed by the US, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and France.

    NATO forces under American command offered Western Europe a fragile umbrella, since the US would not have put their very existence in jeopardy to prevent a very improbable land-based offensive by the Soviet Army. Ready for all possibilities but not prepared to pay the price of a classic confrontation, France, having left the integrated command of NATO in 1966, considered the territory of West Germany as a buffer zone for its Pluton nuclear-armed missiles.

    The collapse of the Soviet Union has pushed into the background the debates on nuclear dissuasion, but it is still not possible to glorify a ‘Europe’ pacific and peace-making. For thirty years we have seen the «peace of cemeteries» established on our periphery, and under the responsibility of certain members states of the European Union.

    The principal states of the EU carry an overwhelming responsibility in the bloody break-up of Yugoslavia. Germany, supported by the Vatican, unilaterally recognises Slovenia and Croatia on 23 December 1991, which pushes the then “Twelve” to follow this lethal route. France could have opposed this decision. It gives up this option because, on 15 December in Council, François Mitterrand reaffirms his conviction: it is more important to preserve the promises of Maastricht than to attempt to impose the French position on Yugoslavia. In other words, Yugoslavia has been deliberately sacrificed on the altar of “Franco-German friendship“, when one could already see that Berlin lied, manoeuvred and imposed its will. The German ambition was to support Croatia, including by the delivery of arms, in a war that would be pursued with a comparable cruelty by all the camps.

    The recognition of Slovenia and Croatia embroiled Bosnia-Herzegovina and provoked the extension of the conflict, then its internationalisation. Tears would be shed for Sarajevo while forgetting Mostar. Some Parisian intellectuals would demand, in the name of ‘Europe’, an attack on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, then comprising Serbia, Vojvodina, Kosovo and Montenegro. Their wish was granted in 1999 when NATO, under American commandment, bombed Yugoslav territory for 78 days, killing thousands of civilians. France, Germany, Italy, Belgium … participated in this military operation, in contempt of the UN Charter and of NATO statutes, an alliance theoretically defensive …

    Let no one pretend that the principal member states of the EU were waging humanitarian wars and wanted to assure economic development and democracy. ‘Europe’ has protested against ethnic cleansing by Serbs but has left the Croats to force out 200,000 Serbs from Krajina. ‘Europe’ waxes indignant about massacres in Kosovo but it has supported extremist ethnic Albanians of the Kosovo Liberation Army who have committed multiple atrocities before and after their arrival to power in Pristina.

    These Balkan wars occurred in the previous Century, but it is not ancient history. The countries devastated by war suffer henceforth the indifference of the powerful. In Serbia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, one lives poorly, very poorly, if one is not involved in illegal business networks. Then one seeks work elsewhere, preferably in Germany, if one is not too old.

    After having mistreated, pillaged then abandoned its peripheries, ‘peaceful’ Europe then goes to serve as an auxiliary force in American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is true that Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron were in the forefront in the bombardment of Libya, but the outcome is as disastrous as in the Middle East and Central Asia – graveyards, chaos, the hate of the West and, at Kabul, the return of the Taliban.

    This brief review of the deadly inconsistencies of European pacificism cannot ignore Ukraine. The European Commission itself has encouraged the Ukrainian government in its quest for integration in the EU, before proposing a simple accord of association. The Ukrainian government, having declined to sign this accord, the pro-European groups allied to the ultranationalists have descended into the street in November 2013 with the support of Germany, Poland and the US. The Maidan movement, the eviction of President Yanukovych and the war of the Donbass have led, after the Minsk accords and a stalemate in the conflict to the situation that we have before our eyes in early January – the US and Russia discuss directly the Ukrainian crisis without the ‘Europe of peace’ being admitted to the negotiating table. The EU has totally subjugated itself to NATO and does not envisage leaving it.

    It is therefore possible to note, once again, the vacuity of the discourse on the ‘European power’ and on ‘European sovereignty’. Thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, we should acknowledge all the opportunities lost. After the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, France could have demanded the withdrawal of American forces installed in Europe and proposed a collective security treaty for the entirety of the continent, while pursuing its project for a European Confederation. From Right to Left, our governments have preferred to cultivate the myth of the “Franco-German friendship”, leave the US to pursue its agenda after the upheaval of 2003, and then return to the integrated command of NATO.

    They offer us not peace but submission to war-making forces that they have given up trying to control.

    *****

    • Translated by Evan Jones (a francophile and retired political economist at University of Sydney) and is published here with permission from author.

    The post A Peculiar European “Peace” first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Elections and class struggle in France: Who is Jean-Luc Mélenchon?

    Who is Jean-Luc Mélenchon and can his party La France Insoumise harness the anger of working people to bring about a radical change of government in next month’s elections? John Mullen shares his analysis.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.