Between the disgrace for the President of the Republic and the honor finger of a young Antillean, controversy blew up ... Nadia Le Brun returns to the scandal triggered by the photo of Emmanuel Macron taken during his trip to St. Martin.

The photo on which Emmanuel Macron poses alongside two young men, one out of prison, the other addressing a honor finger to who knows, is perplexing. To see the President, all smiles, casual, between the two shirtless West Indians, one first wonders if it is not a photomontage, but when you understand that this picture is not a hoax, we are caught between astonishment and consternation.

Has this picture, undeniably vulgar, been validated by the president, who displays a satisfied and mocking air? Was there a flaw in his media plan, orchestrated to reconnect with the French people, to stop his downfall in the polls?

He had been embarrassing by his presumptuousness. "I really love to be close my fellow citizens, within kissing distance, embrace and conversation," he said, stating: "But I will not change politics." As if, in his overconfidence he did not understand that the faith of France is in crisis. From Macron, France suffers from indigestion due to being too well fed.

Yet, employment stagnates, growth slows, deficits continue to grow. His fellow citizens can not stand to be treated like beggars. From workers of Gad - the "illiterate" - to the strikers in Lunel: "You will not scare me with your T-shirt; the best way to pay for a suit is to work." Next, riling the unemployed and the "sans-abris": "I cross the street and I find at least one." [meaning there are lazy bums everywhere].

In the West Indies, what was to be a publicity stunt ended with a bloody nose. In these theatrics, Emmanuel Macron got his feet caught in the carpet and fell.

Read more:

https://francais.rt.com/opinions/54336-macron-se-caricature-lui-meme

Translation by Jules Letambour.

Note: in regard to the toon at top, the elderlies have died or are too sick to complain or there is nowhere to complain any more about Macron's social policies...

Kepone, also called chlordecone, is a chemical, which was used in the past to kill insects. Just like closely related compounds DDT and Mirex, it proved to be a bad choice, since it doesn’t degrade well in the environment, tends to accumulate in animals and causes various health problems. The chemical caused a health scare in the mid-1970s in the US and was promptly banned. The World Health Organization listed it as a possible carcinogen in 1979.

...

"Small doses are very harmful because they have an effect on our DNA, in an epigenetic way. And this is transmitted to our children. This propensity to being affected by cancer, obesity and fertility problems spreads over three, four generations, leading to a possible extinction of Martinicans," said Dr. Christiane Jos-Pelage, a pediatrician on Martinique

The chemical’s spread is hardly surprising. It made its way into water supply, aquatic animals and up the food chains. In addition to health effects, it harms the islands’ agriculture, since products containing chlordecone cannot be exported to mainland France.

“People started to wonder because some food is good enough for Martinicans but not for people from mainland France,”said David Desnel, a spokesperson for the Federation of Fishery and Waters Association of Martinique.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/newsline/440765-french-indies-cancer-pesticide/

By Finian Cunningham

French people are standing up for their rights and speaking out for many others around the world who are sick at the injustice of capitalism. None more so than people of Western states who have had to endure decades of economic austerity while a tiny elite become ever more obscenely wealthy.

In addition to the irrational malign distribution of wealth that capitalism bestows, Western states — that is, the oligarch-serving politicians — spend and waste inordinate financial resources on militarism and waging criminal wars.

READ MORE: Yellow Vests Revolution Drives Beyond France's Borders — Author

For the fourth weekend in a row, the French public have taken to the streets of Paris and other major cities to demand economic justice.
They also want President Emmanuel Macron to resign. Macron has so far kept his usual aloof silence on the protests, leaving it up to his prime minister Edouard Philippe to placate the angry nation.

Bringing the country to almost a standstill by blocking transport links and fuel supply, the French have demonstrated "people power" and what can be achieved when we organize for our rights.

Macron's government has caved in to scrap plans for tax hikes on the transport fuel. Those proposed price hikes is what triggered ordinary people's fury, donning the now symbolic "yellow vests" that all drivers in France are obliged to carry in vehicles for safety reasons.

The French public say the new taxes would hit their livelihoods.
Macron claimed the new fuel levies were for raising government funds in order to pay for transition to a more ecologically sustainable society.

However, ordinary citizens point out that Macron — whom they disparage as "president for the rich" — recently abolished taxes for the very wealthy. That giveaway could have been used instead by the government to fund whatever green projects it is planning.

Macron's administration is also planning major tax reductions for big business and corporations. Again, that move shows the elitist priorities of this president and his ministers. The Élysée Palace is intent on making the majority of working people pay for social changes, rather the rich class who could easily afford it.

READ MORE: Yellow Vests Protests: Paris Police Countermeasures Reportedly Leaked

In addition, the French state spends about $50 billion a year on military. If that expenditure was, say, halved, then there would be no need for austerity and arbitrary cuts in public services and welfare.
The French extravagance on military is typical of all Western states and NATO members in particular. If they slashed their militarism, then other countries like Russia and China would also be able to reduce their military budgets, which are maintained out of defensive posture owing to the aggressive stance of Western states.

The French yellow vest movement appears to be at a momentous turning point. It could go either of two significant directions.

Already, the Macron government has capitulated over its brazen tax burdens on ordinary citizens. There is a sense that the elitist president and his administration are teetering to stay in office. For the French people their protest movement has gone beyond fuel levies.
They are questioning the entire neoliberal capitalist system, and why they have been made to endure decades of economic exploitation and oppression.

Moreover, there are signs that the yellow vest movement is inspiring the public in other European countries to likewise take to the streets and finally hold the oligarchic system to account. There are reports of similar solidarity protests taking place in neighboring Belgium. We can be sure that governments across Europe are wary of a tidal wave of people power.

There is also a more ominous, sinister direction. A foretaste of that was seen last week when French riot police arrested dozens of high school students rallying against education reforms, and made them kneel on the ground, hands on head. Some of the students were forced to kneel with their faces against a wall.

That scene has horrified many people in France and further afield. It bore the actions of a police-state dictatorship and the abrogation of legal rights. Some commentators even remarked that the detained students cowering in front of armed officers looked like a mock-execution scenario.

This weekend ahead of the planned protests in Paris, hundreds of people traveling to the capital to join demonstrations were arrested "preemptively" by police, and taken into custody. The French authorities claim they were preventing "trouble makers" from inciting violence.

Though many other French citizens fear that what is really going on is the beginning of repressive crackdown by the state against democratic rights to free speech and public assembly.

READ MORE: 950 People Detained During Yellow Vests Protests in Paris — Reports

Recall too how only a few weeks ago, during World War One commemorations, President Macron sparked a hue and cry when he praised former General Philippe Pétain for his battlefield bravery. Pétain later became the leader of Vichy France which collaborated with the German Third Reich during World War Two. Ignominiously, the French state functioned as a fascist regime, rounding up tens of thousands of its citizens, and dispatching them to Nazi death camps.

Arguably, capitalism is an irrational, anti-democratic system that always has a tendency towards oligarchy, militarism and fascism. When the economy is doing relatively well, then the system tolerates forms of "liberal democracy". But when the system is running on empty, then more extreme powers are exercised to control the restless masses.

Decades of economic austerity and mass impoverishment across Western states show that capitalism can no longer disguise itself as liberal democracy. The people are rightly becoming restless and angry for their human rights: to have decent jobs, salaries and public services.

The rebellious French are inspiring all people to demand what is their natural rights and to overthrow the injustice of capitalism. That could go in an historic progressive direction, not just in France, but across all Western oligarchic states.

There again, the powers-that-be may, out of desperation to retain their privileges and wealth, go full fascism. The liberal mask of Western democracies appears to be slipping to reveal the brute force beneath.

We seem to be at a historic juncture.

The views and opinions expressed by the contributor do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/columnists/201812091070530273-france-protests-ma...

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All citizens have been ordered to stay home and will only be allowed out for “essential duties” such as trips to the grocery store or pharmacy, Macron told the nation on Monday.

Anyone defying the restrictions will be punished, Macron noted, without specifying whether the penalties will be civil or criminal.

Not a single French company will go bankrupt. Not a single French person will go without help.

However, the collection of utility bills – gas, electricity, water and rent – will also be suspended for the duration, as the Elysee Palace sought to temper the hardship imposed on France.

France has registered at least 6,633 cases of covid-19 as of Monday, with 148 fatalities. Macron admitted he did not know for how long the current situation will go on.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/483271-france-severely-limits-movements-elections/

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Remembering mignon Macron's own words:

“allows me to avoid the tyranny of immediacy, which is an absurdity of our times, which means day-to-day vagaries should not decide a nation’s course.”

Lockdown measures will be eased in France from Monday May 11 as hoped, the prime minister has announced.

The rules explained today are largely as previously announced, though with new details – for example to travel more than 100km leaving your own department, you will need a new kind of attestation form indicating that it is for an urgent work or family reason.

As expected, France has been divided into green (good) or red (bad) areas depending on factors including numbers of new cases of people testing positive for Covid-19, how well the hospitals are coping, and availability of testing.

Areas classed as red are Ile-de-France, Grand Est, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté and Hauts-de-France.

In green areas, parks and gardens may reopen and collèges (early age secondary schools) may reopen from May 18.

In red areas collèges will remain closed this month, however in all areas primary schools will reopen in May, in most cases from Monday, though parents can choose whether or not to keep children at home for distance learning.

For the most part however the same rules will apply everywhere.

As expected, most shops may reopen, though not cafés and restaurants, cinemas or salles des fêtes or large museums. Prefectures will establish lists of local cultural facilities such as small museums that may open.

Large shopping centres with more than 40,000m2 of floorspace will be able to open if local prefects agree to it, though not at present in Ile-de-France.

Beaches and lakes and water sports centres will remain closed, unless prefects decide otherwise. Mayors may request to the prefecture that they should reopen if they promise to maintain physical distancing and 'barrier gestures' on the beach.

Read more:

https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/Deconfinement-in-France-PM-details-plan

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Drink an aperitif, do not wage war...

By Rachel Marsden, columnist, political strategist and host of an independently produced French-language program that airs on Sputnik France. Her website can be found at rachelmarsden.com

It was a remarkable statement from a modern European leader. During a visit to Lithuania this week, French President Emmanuel Macron said, “We, some countries more than others, gave up on our strategic independence by depending too much on American weapons systems. We cannot accept to live in a bipolar world made up of the US and China.”

Macron has shown repeated signs of wanting to lead an effort to reject global models that are now as outdated as the Berlin Wall. And that includes Europe’s role in the world as a third major pole in this multipolar world now divided primarily into East and West. But it has been an uphill battle. Old institutions that depend on outdated paradigms have shown that they’re willing to sacrifice peace, prosperity, and progress, rather than be forced to take a hard look in the mirror.

NATO, which exists to make US foreign policy seem like a multilateral coalition effort in the same way that a gang leader who wants to beat someone up always asks his posse to accompany him, is one such institution. And it hasn’t escaped Macron’s attention.

“What we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO,” Macron told the Economist in an interview last year. 

Macron was referencing American unilateralism under President Donald Trump. But when has cooperation with other countries ever mattered beyond the US paying lip-service to the idea? When have other NATO nations not been strong-armed into backing an intervention or initiative that the US had already decided that it wanted?

The French president has said that NATO – created for the sole purpose of opposing the old Soviet Union – should modernize its raison d’être in light of new threats. “Is our enemy today, as I hear sometimes, Russia? Is it China? Is it the Atlantic alliance’s purpose to designate them as enemies? I don’t think so,” Macron has said, suggesting that terrorism could be the new boogeyman instead. 

While visiting French troops this week serving a NATO mission in the Baltics – who are there on the pretext of protecting the region from Russia – Macron also underlined France’s initiative of strategic dialogue with Moscow. Equally absurd is the fact that Macron is constantly having to defend any rapprochement with Russia, as though diplomacy and cooperation should be strictly reserved for nations with which you’re already in total lockstep.

Europe has to forge its own agenda and partnerships, even if NATO decides to stick to shadowboxing with the ghosts of past conflicts. If Europe doesn’t look out for its own interests, no one else will. The US certainly won’t. Whenever American interests come into conflict with Europe’s, it’s always Europe that takes the hit.

For example, Europe was set to be the primary commercial beneficiary of the multilateral nuclear deal with Iran. The American government had long been in unilateral control of who could or couldn’t do business in Iran, granting certain companies waivers and exemptions from sanctions at their sole discretion. Lifting all sanctions in exchange for inspections was set to be a boon for Europe’s economy. But because Trump decided to withdraw from the agreement, Europe’s plans were dashed.

And it was only because the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, set to supply Europe with Russian gas, is at odds with US interests, that European companies and governments have been repeatedly threatened by the US. “We will do everything we can to make sure that that pipeline doesn't threaten Europe,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said. “We want Europe to have real, secure, stable, safe energy resources that cannot be turned off in the event Russia wants to.” Translation: Washington wants Europe to buy their gas and to be dependent on America. This would also allow the US to threaten to turn off the supply at any time. And to prove just how much Pompeo cares about Europe’s welfare, he’s also wielding sanctions against European companies involved in the project. 

These examples show that the existential threat to Europe isn’t Russia. It’s not Russia that’s always trying to drag European countries into questionable foreign interventions. It’s not Moscow that’s harming the continent’s economy by threatening it with sanctions whenever it adopts a position at odds with Russia’s own interests.

Macron has the right idea. And he’ll continue to face enormous pressure, bullying, and manipulation attempts for attempting to foster European independence and prosperity through increased diversification of its interests and a better balance of its partnerships. 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/502366-macron-nato-europe-us/

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Read also:

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/35134