French Radical Protests: Can the Sinister Fascist Traits of Capitalism be Overcome?

President Macron is not a king but a pawn of global finance

The current tenant of the Elysee Palace has been called by NUPES, the left coalition opposition in France, a President-King. To do so is to give him a bigger role and more power than what he has. In reality, Macron is just one of the numerous figure heads of the billionaire class that meets in Davos once a year. The power resides there, concentrated, often anonymous and always brutal in a masquerade of do-gooders. In Davos, the financial Masters of the Universe, posturing as philanthropists, have been in reality jealously protecting the complex Gordian Knot that is global capitalism. Perhaps France’s radical protesters, in their quasi insurrection form, are trying to emulate Alexander the Great by putting this giant Gordian Knot to the sword!

Macronie’s authoritarian fascist traits

To suppress and repress strikes and protests, Macron’s government has adopted a strategy of brutal repression, exercised by his Robocop Praetorian Guards, which are mainly composed of riot police from the CRS and the BRAV-M. Of course, Prime Minister Elizabeth Borne’s government justifies the alarming crescendo in police violence against retirement reform protesters and more recently against Green radical activists in Deux Sevres by saying that the State violence protect people and property from dangerous rioters.

This is the Law & Order above all motto: common grounds, with various degrees of brutality, to all authoritarian and fascist regimes. By following this dangerous strategy, Macron’s associates and sponsors have surely made the calculation that sooner of later they should be able to flip the proverbial silent majority in France, and by doing so reduce the current support for the protests, which is at around 63 percent of the overall population, and at an astronomical 90 percent of the active workers.

This strategy of “chose our Republican order” instead of the chaos from the populace, is unlikely to work. Further, it is a very dangerous political game. In fact, the chaos comes from the inability of the government to get a pulse of France’s public opinion. Besides, violence is a vicious circle, and the extreme violence exercised by units like the BRAV-M or the CRS on protesters, in the name of the Republic, is fueling violent reactions from the more radical elements of the protests.

Under the former Rothschild banker’s administration, France has become a province of the global Orwellian Empire. In this Orwellian construct where war is peace and lies are truth, French police forces, who are supposed to be agents for public peace (Guardiens de la Paix) and for order (Force de l’Ordre) are now, de facto, vectors of chaos, sternly criticized and even condemned by worldwide public opinion.

On his deathbed, George Orwell gave a TV interview to the BBC. What is said was chilling, and it applies to France’s turmoil: “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stumping on a human face forever. The moral to be drawn from this nightmare situation is a simple one: Don’t let it happen! It depends on you!”

The Prince’s Consigliere

Every prince has his Machiavelli. In the case of Macron his name is Alexis Kohler. Like all Consiglieres, Kohler is Macron’s number one adviser. He is also the palace gatekeeper, and ultimately the only one who controls access to the president. According to several political insiders, Kohler was the one absolutely adamant about the imperative of the unpopular retirement reform. Kholer, the man in the shadow running the Macronie, apparently picked Elizabeth Borne as prime minister. According to a former Macron adviser who made this statement anonymously: ” Emmanuel Macron has never governed so isolated. The core of his actions has always been elaborated with Alexis Kohler. But they are few people left to balance the duo, bring other points of view, and even less contradiction.”

Kohler just like Macron is an elitist who has contempt for ordinary French people and even elected officials. Both are technocrats and share a sort of arrogant petulance, an aspiration to modernity, which no longer charms French people. Jupiter-want-to-be has also a knack for provocation, a special talent to pour gasoline on an open flame. One of the little statements that got protesters even more enraged is what he said a few days ago: “La foule, quelle qu’elle soit, n’a pas de legitimite face au peuple qui s’exprime souverain a travers ses elus.” (The populace, whomever they are, have no legitimacy compared to the people who express their sovereignty through their elected officials). One can easily imagine Alexis Kohler Consiglieri /Machiavelli whisper to his Prince some awful Machiavelli advice such as: “Power is the pivot on which everything hinges. He who has the power is always right. The weaker is always wrong.”

Unfortunately for Kohler and Macron, and fortunately for France, the advices of Machiavelli in “The Prince” do not apply in a country with a rich history of serious revolutions. No, France cannot be run like a start up company or be managed like a large hedge fund. No, seeking advice from the CEO of Black Rock or the consulting firm McKinsey should have been absolutely out of the question. One cannot behave like a banker and have at the same time aspirations to be considered a statesman. The interests of the French do not meet with those of the CAC 40, Wall Street or Goldman Sacks. Emmanuel Macron is perceived as the president of the rich, and that is precisely what he is. It is utterly obscene that France’s top five billionaires have more wealth than 27 million French citizens! No wonder people who can barely make ends meet are mad! This wealth concentration is likely higher than the one in France circa 1789. At some point, something will have to give. It happened before. This time, it could be now!

Potential solutions for France’s political turmoil

The government of Prime Minister Elizabeth Borne has in reality very few ways out of the current turmoil. The easy way out for the administration would be, of course, to withdraw the law or at least postpone it, but France’s Jupiter, drunk with power, has dug his heels deep like a capricious and ill tempered child. He has stubbornly refused to pull out his retirement reform law despite the massive protests. It would be wise to reconsider, but he won’t as he would lose face in the battle of the will he has engaged in with a majority of French citizens.

At the moment, if the retirement law is implemented, governing the country will be basically an impossible task. The best options to calm things down are drastic. Firstly, it could be a dissolution of the National Assembly to organize new parliamentary elections. Gains would likely be made by the NUPES & Marine Le Pen‘s RN. In such a case there would be two options for prime minister, either Jean-Luc Melenchon or Marine Le Pen. After all, this type of power sharing wouldn’t be the first time during the Fifth Republic. Francois Mitterrand lost a parliamentary election while president, he had to pick Jacques Chirac, from the opposition, as his prime minister. Then it was Chirac’s turn to lose an election and he picked socialist Lionel Jospin. Secondly, as an alternative to calling for new elections, the French government could organize a referendum without much delay.

Perfect storm in Macronistan

Many factors play in favor of the retirement reform strikers and protesters. This has become completely beyond the unpopular reform, as it is only the tip of the iceberg of France social turmoil. It is now a perfect storm for capitalism and the billionaire class that Macron represents. A lot of factors play in favor of radical French protesters who might want to pursue a toppling of the Macron government.

Other potential tipping points are: double digit inflation on food items; the fact that 10 million people in France have to rely on food banks to eat; a remarkable growth in the awareness of climate collapse; the worldwide banking crisis, which started at Silicon Valley Bank and then spread to Credit Suisse and more recently hit Deutsche Bank. This will not help Macron and his little financial wizard friends to sell the French people on the notion of how smart they are and that “banks and financial markets are on solid ground.”

COVID, war in Ukraine and all that jazz

As matter of fact, all of it, everywhere is on shaky ground. It should obviously make citizens in the West wonder about the validity of bleeding public finances to buy weapons for Ukraine in a war that Ukrainians cannot possibly win. With the COVID crisis and now Ukraine, governments in the EU and US thought that they had beaten their respective populations’ will into submission through the manipulation of fear, respectively of a virus and of autocrat Vladimir Putin. If COVID was a golden goose for the biotech industry, the war in Ukraine is a money tree, more like a forest, for the merchants of death of the global military-industrial complex either in the US, the EU, Russia, Iran and even China. All of them manufacturing weapons, all of them to blame for this infinite mayhem, waste of resources, and, of course, human lives.

The radical French protesters, and united trade union workers alike are moving heaven and Earth to break the mold fabricated to suit global capitalism’s perverse imperatives! With nothing to lose, they are standing strong! All the stress factors on global capitalism such as inflation, debt, banking meltdown and climate crisis events work in their favor as catalysts to shore up and fuel the protests, and this could mark the beginning of the end for a capitalist system in tatters!

Editor’s Notes: Gilbert Mercier is the author of The Orwellian Empire. Photographs one, two, three, four, five, six, seven and nine by Jeanne Menjoulet; photograph eight by Nykaule; and photograph ten by Alisdare Hickson.