Police in Versailles, France, confronting protesters Jan. 20, 2020. (Still from video tweeted by Lucas Leger, @lucas_rtfrance.)

By David Climenhaga
AlbertaPolitics.Ca

The government of President Emmanuel Macron has introduced a scheme to overhaul pensions and retirement benefits for many workers, done as usual in the name of reform, rationalization and simplification. For most French workers, though, it will result in a significant reduction in pensions and loss of retirement security.

Among the changes would be a higher statutory retirement age, although still lower than Canada’s. Also, pensions for workers in high-risk and athletic occupations would be based on their earnings over time instead of the terms negotiated by their unions that recognize the danger they face, limits on their careers, and the contribution to society they make. Again, this is already the norm in Canada. There would also be reductions in negotiated early retirement benefits, and so on.

“The proposed change would thus, in practical terms, be financed on the backs of workers, who would be expected to work longer with less pay and security, rather than being paid for by increased taxes on corporations or the wealthy,” writes cultural theorist Gabriel Rockhill in Counterpunch.

French workers have responded by pouring into the streets, organizing massive demonstrations and paralyzing the entire country through a series rotating general strikes.

The disruption is severe. The danger in the streets is real, given the vicious response of the militarized French police.

Les manifestants repoussés par les FDO de #Macron dans les rues de #Versailles. #DémissionMacron #GreveGenerale #GiletsJaunes #greve20janvier #Acte63 #ViolencesPolicierespic.twitter.com/y12wj07N9q

— Mireille Paradis (@ParadisMireille) January 20, 2020

Indeed, the government of Canada recognizes this, warning Canadians in a detailed travel advisory updated last month under the heading “General Strike” that “a large-scale general strike is ongoing across the country since December 5, 2019.”

“This movement could continue for an indefinite period,” the advisory continued. “Demonstrations and significant service disruptions, including to transportation, are to be expected.” Indeed, at one point the Paris Metro was shut down, with only a few automated trains operating.

Warning to Travelers

Moreover, the Global Affairs Canada advisory goes on, “demonstrations take place regularly. Even peaceful demonstrations can turn violent at any time.”

And yet, in Canada there is virtually no news in mainstream media on these significant events in a modern, Western European country. If you want to get a sense of what’s going on, you’ll have to dig deep, seek alternative news sources, some of them pretty sketchy, and even then, there’s not much information.

One would think news of a nationwide disruption over pension policies would be of interest here in Alberta, for example, where the provincial government is hatching its own dangerous pension schemes and popular opposition, already significant, is growing. Instead, nothing but crickets.

The only point at which the ongoing general strikes and resulting nationwide chaos in France have even caused a ripple of attention in Canadian media was when Macron’s government introduced a “compromise” a few days ago to try to placate the nationwide opposition. If Rockhill’s analysis is right, the changes in the compromise are not very significant. A few stories appeared, disdainful in tone when they mentioned the general strikers’ positions, and then the curtain fell again.

At a glance, it would appear this phenomenon is not quite as severe elsewhere in the English-speaking world, although coverage is nevertheless sparse. The New York Times published a piece this month, mainly based on the oddity that in a Paris, even ballet dancers are on strike. Memo to the Times’ news desk: professional dancers are workers too, and like pro hockey players, they have short careers due to the limitations of the human body. The BBC publishes an occasional story.

Striking ballet dancers perform at the entrance to the Opera Garnier in Paris, Dec. 24, 2019. (YouTube screenshot)

In Canada, however, the blackout is almost total.

What gives? For those with a conspiratorial turn of mind, it would appear at least it’s not the government of Canada, which is after all prepared to warn tourists of the danger and state the basic reason for it.

Is the problem finding news about this because there isn’t any being written, or does it have to do with the organization of major search engines, like Google?

And why is there such a dereliction of duty day after day by Canadian media, private sector and state owned alike? Is it because they think we won’t be interested because we’ve mostly already lost, or never had, the benefits French workers are fighting to retain?

Or do they think we’re better off not knowing? Having worked many years in the newspaper industry, I find it hard to believe local managers would think thoughts like these. A riot’s a riot, as far as most of them are concerned — or used to be, anyway. But then, times have changed since I left, and the focus of the Canadian news business is more ideological, resources are fewer, and analysis is shallower.

The goal of the strikers now seems to be to bring down the government. If they succeed, will that be reported?

I certainly don’t recall media refusing to cover major upheavals in Western Europe in the past. Newspapers were full of reports of similar violence in France in 1968, for example. But that was a long time ago, of course.

I suppose some combination of laziness, inattention, lack of intellectual curiosity, herd instinct and a bureaucratic turn of mind, all of which plague modern Canadian media corporations, private and public, is the simplest and most likely explanation. It’s also true that there have been some other, very big stories in the past few days.

Still, I have trouble imagining a similar demonstration this week or next in Russia, say, or Hong Kong, would pass with so little notice.

And yet, we hear … rien. This is bizarre. What’s going on?

David J. Climenhaga is an award-winning journalist, author, post-secondary teacher, poet and trade union communicator who has worked in senior writing and editing positions at the Toronto Globe and Mail and Calgary Herald. His 1995 book, “A Poke in the Public Eye,” explores the relationships among Canadian journalists, public relations people and politicians.

This article is from Albertapolitics.ca and reprinted with permission.

The six major world powers approach the reorganization of international relations according to their experiences and dreams. Prudently, they intend to defend their interests first before promoting their vision of the world. Thierry Meyssan describes their respective positions before the fight begins.

The US withdrawal from Syria, even if it was immediately corrected, indicates with certainty that Washington no longer intends to be the world’s policeman, the "necessary Empire". It destabilized without delay all the rules of international relations. We have entered a period of transition during which each major power is pursuing a new agenda. Here are the main ones.

The United States of America

The collapse of the Soviet Union could have caused the collapse of the United States, since the two empires were leaning on each other. This was not the case. President George Bush Sr. ensured with Operation Desert Storm that Washington became the undisputed leader of all nations, then demobilized 1 million soldiers and proclaimed the quest for prosperity.

Transnational corporations then signed a pact with Deng Xiaoping to have their products manufactured by Chinese workers, who were paid twenty times less than their American counterparts. This led to a considerable development of international freight transport, followed by the gradual disappearance of jobs and the middle classes in the United States. Industrial capitalism was replaced by financial capitalism.

At the end of the 1990s, Igor Panarin, a professor at the Russian Diplomatic Academy, analyzed the economic and psychological collapse of American society. He hypothesized that the country would break up along the lines of what had happened to the Soviet Union with the emergence of new states. To repel the collapse, Bill Clinton freed his country from international law with NATO’s aggression against Yugoslavia. As this effort proved insufficient, US personalities imagined adapting their country to financial capitalism and organizing, by force, international trade so that the coming period would be a "new American century". With George Bush Jr., the United States abandoned its position as a leading nation and tried to transform itself into an absolute unipolar power. They launched the "endless war" or "war on terrorism" to destroy one by one all state structures in the "broader Middle East". Barack Obama continued this quest by associating a host of allies with it.

This policy paid off, but only a very few benefited, the "super-rich". The Americans responded by electing Donald Trump as president of the federal state. He broke with his predecessors and, like Mikhail Gorbachev in the USSR, tried to save the United States by relieving it of its most costly commitments. He boosted the economy by encouraging national industries against those that had relocated their jobs. He subsidized the extraction of shale oil and managed to take control of the world hydrocarbon market despite the cartel formed by OPEC and Russia. Aware that his army is first and foremost a huge bureaucracy, wasting a huge budget on insignificant results, he stopped supporting Daesh and the PKK, negotiating with Russia a way to end the "endless war" with as little loss as possible.

...

In the coming period, the United States will be driven primarily by the need to save on all its actions abroad, until it abandons them if necessary. The end of imperialism is not a choice, but an existential question, a survival reflex.

The People’s Republic of China

...

In the coming period, China should affirm its positions in international fora, bearing in mind what the colonial empires imposed on it in the 19th century. But it should refrain from military intervention and remain a strictly economic power.

The Russian Federation

...

In the coming years, Russia will try to reorganise international relations on two bases: to separate political and religious powers; to restore international law on the basis of the principles formulated by Tsar Nicholas II.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

...

If Boris Johnson remains in power, the United Kingdom should in the coming years try to pit the European Union and the Russian Federation against each other.

The French Republic

...

In the coming years, France should measure its decisions in terms of their impact on the building of the European Union. It will seek as a priority to ally itself with any power working in this direction.

Federal Republic of Germany

...

In the coming years, Germany should focus on the possibilities of military intervention in the framework of NATO, particularly in the Middle East, and be wary of the project of a centralised European super-national state.

It is very strange to hear today about "multilateralism" and "isolationism" or "universalism" and "nationalism". These questions do not arise because everyone has known since the Hague Conference (1899) that technological progress has made all nations in solidarity. This logorrhoea does not hide our inability to admit the new power relations and to envisage a world order that is as unjust as possible.

Only the three Great Powers can hope to have the means to implement their policies. They can only achieve their ends without war by following the Russian line based on international law. However, the danger of internal political instability in the United States raises more than ever the risk of a generalized confrontation.

When they left the Union, the British were forced to join the United States (which Donald Trump rejected) or to disappear politically. While Germany and France, which are losing ground, have no choice but to build the European Union. However, for the time being, they assess the time available very differently and consider it in two incompatible ways, which could lead them to disrupt the European Union themselves.

The Yellow Vests forced the French government to not present an austerity-laden annual budget for the first time in a decade.

You should be saying, “Wow, that is a historic achievement.”

Please be clear: this is joyous, uplifting, pro-democracy, once-in-a-decade good news! An end to austerity is why France elected Francois Hollande in 2012, whose slogan was, “The change is now” – the “change” was away from far-right, neoliberal austerity.

The entire history of austerity is pretty pathetic, and I have covered it daily from the beginning:

It was first a screaming conservative-capitalist reaction to the huge plunge in global economic growth. When the hysteria wore off and some sort of logical, verbal explanation became required, they decided it was necessary to appease the “confidence fairy” of investors. When people tired of belt-tightening to avoid giving financial speculators a bit of indigestion, it became necessary in order to appease Brussels’ totally arbitrary “3% fiscal deficit rule”. And then…people just stopped talking about it altogether, as I wrote. Austerity went on so long it was just viewed as unstoppable and vitally necessary – the idea of a spending program instead of spending cuts stopped being discussed after Marine Le Pen lost the presidential election. Emmanuel Macron’s first budget was the 2nd-harshest in postwar French history.

Given these reminders, we should ask in 2019: How many millions and millions of people have marched in France in the past nine years to end austerity, either openly or indirectly?

They all failed – the Yellow Vests did not.

Furthermore, anyone who thought the Yellow Vests are useless have been proven totally wrong. The Yellow Vests have proven themselves to be more powerful than any other group – unions, NGOs, political parties, and also even Brussels, central bankers, the investor class, the mainstream media – because the French government ultimately bowed to the demands of the Yellow Vest demands and not those other groups.

The French government openly said that that a full decade of budget austerity was not possible in the context of massive social protest. No Yellow Vests? Tenth year of austerity, no doubt about it. Far-right Le Figaro’s headline read, “A 2020 budget to not wake up the Yellow Vests.” Make no mistake: the government did not derail budget austerity because they finally listened to the Yellow Vests, but because they fear them.

So… voila. The Yellow Vests ARE good, ARE effective, ARE anti-capitalist (at least neoliberal capitalism), and the previous 10+ months of repression have NOT been ineffective, 10+ months of sacrifices and risk have NOT been wasted, 10+ months of anti-mainstream democratic involvement have NOT gone unnoticed and unheeded.

Austerity: same as it ever was… only effective at increasing inequality

To remind those who may need a concise refresher of what budget austerity is…

Budget austerity has three primary components: increased taxes on individuals and households, cuts to government services and decreased taxes on the wealthy and corporations. The goals are, in associated order: to weigh people down with so much debt as to make them fearful & compliant workers & citizens; to achieve the neoliberal/libertarian goal of reducing the government as much as possible, as only the government can provide socio-economic constraints on the 1%; to create profits for the 1%, which are going to “trickle down” at some unknown time (this hype – not hope – has been going on since Ronald Reagan).

What is the problem with austerity?

...

One thing is certain: the Yellow Vests have shown that persistence and bravery counts a lot in any fight.

Because the mainstream media is anti-Yellow Vest and pro-austerity, very few seem to have registered what the Yellow Vests have achieved. It’s surprising, because the word of the decade in France and Europe is undoubtedly “austerity”?

What’s certain is that the Yellow Vests have many goals which go beyond one year and 10 billion euros – regaining sovereignty from Brussels, leaving the Eurozone to gain economic control and, for many, kicking Macron out of office. These are the next, admittedly-huge steps, but the Yellow Vests have undoubtedly had a laser focus on them since last November.

Were you one of the tens of millions of Frenchmen whose life has been worsened by austerity? Thank a Yellow Vest for finally achieving what countless French marches and votes could not.

Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of “I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China”.

For five years, Russia has been multiplying its approaches in order to re-establish international Law in the Middle East. It has relied in particular on Iran and Turkey, whose manner of thinking it does not really share. The first results of this patient diplomatic exercise are redefining the lines of division existing at the heart of several conflicts.

New balances of power and a new equilibrium are being set up discreetly in the Nile valley, in the Levant and the Arab peninsula. On the contrary, however, the situation is blocked in the Persian Gulf. This considerable and coordinated change is affecting different conflicts which in appearance have no connection with one another. It is the fruit of patient and discreet Russian diplomacy and, in some cases, the relative good will of the USA.

Unlike the United States, Russia is not seeking to impose its own vision on the world. It begins on the contrary with the culture of its interlocutors, which it modifies by small touches at its contact.

...

Conclusion

With time, the objectives of each protagonist have been organised into a hierarchy and are becoming clearer.

In conformity with its tradition, Russian diplomacy, unlike that of the United States, is not attempting to redefine frontiers and alliances. It is working to untie the contradictory objectives of its partners. Thus it helped the ex-Ottoman Empire and the ex-Persian Empire distance themselves from their religious definition - (the Muslim Brotherhood for the former, and Chiism for the latter - and return to a post-Imperial national definition. This evolution is clearly visible in Turkey, but supposes a change of leaders in Iran in order to become operational. Moscow is not seeking to « change the régimes », but to change some aspects of the mentalities.

Hey it's Nono and Alex ! Today we show you unpublished images of Notre Dame de Paris!

After clashes with the police, 148 students were arrested on Thursday, December 6, in front of a high school in Mantes-la-Jolie (Yvelines). The students were forced to kneel for several hours with hands tied or held above their heads before being taken to the police station. The arrests took place in a car park in front of the school.

"There were individuals who were threwing stones at the police. There was a second patrol that came to arrest them," said a high school student.

200 high schools blocked throughout the country. The day before, vehicles had been set on fire on the fringes of the blockades. Nearly 4,000 high school students mobilized throughout France. In Nantes (Loire-Atlantique), cars were set on fire. Police responded with tear gas. In total, 200 high schools were blocked in France, out of 4,200 schools.

This little gentleman, I followed him from the Préfecture to the train station, a lone man, 74 years old, with a communist flag. Neither protective glasses nor a mask, just the convictions of a little good-natured man.

He was alone, without anyone, who shouts his first convictions at the front and was the last to leave, standing straight like a 74-year-old man exhausted by life. Alone to make demands and shout his anger not for himself – he knows: what can 74 years old people expect? – but for me, for you, for them, for his children, his grandchildren, but not for himself anymore…

What a funny man he is!! He shouted at me to let go of him! “It’s not because it wasn’t a Saturday that we have to go backwards!!! No, but what do you want!!!!”

Many should take him as an example. This guy is my idol of May 1st – well done grandpa, You’re the boss!! Clap clap clap!!! So even having receiving a mouthful, I said that we leave no one behind, whatever happens.

I will have an eye on you, Sir!

...



Maria, 19, filed a complaint on April 30th at the Marseilles public prosecutor’s office for attempted murder, aggravated voluntary violence, and the non-rendering of assistance to people in danger. On December 8th, on the sidelines of a “Yellow Vests“ demonstration, she was kicked and beaten by police officers. Her brain, in particular, was damaged.

On December 8th 2018, in Marseilles, Maria*, 19, was seriously injured by the police. First hit by a flash ball launcher shot at her thigh, the young woman, who collapsed on the ground, was then violently beaten and kicked in the head.

At the hospital, she was operated on in an emergency basis for a“right craniofacial trauma by a truncheon stroke and right frontal blemish with cerebral contusion”. In other words, Maria has a fractured skull and her brain has been hit. It was only in April, five months later, that she was able to resume her job as a saleswoman, which she did alternately with her studies. Still under medical supervision, she is also followed by a psychiatrist, given her “acute state of stress” associated with “frequent nightmares”, according to the medical report.

Her lawyer, Brice Grazzini, filed a complaint on Tuesday, April 30th, with the prosecutor of Marseille against “unnamed persons, however identified as exercising a police function”, for “attempted murder”, “aggravated voluntary violence”, “not rendering assistance to a person in danger”, and “non-prevention of the commission of an offence”.

What happened on Saturday, December 8th, 2018?

On that day, at around 6 pm, Maria left her shop in the city center where she works in order to join her friend and then return home. They took Saint-Ferréol road, a shopping street that earlier in the day was the scene of clashes as a part of Act 4 of “Yellow Vests” and the mobilisation against unhealthy housing in Marseille. Not far away, on the Canebière and the Vieux-Port, clashes continued between protesters and the law enforcement officers who crisscross the periphery of the adjacent streets.

“I was with my friend and the police officers told us that they were forming a security perimeter. We then took the direction of my home,” explained Maria to Mediapart.

Six persons present gave their testimonies as part of the complaint. Among them, Olivia said that “the demonstrations of the afternoon had just ended and groups of CRS and police continued to occupy the main streets by blocking access or passage. There were a few people, of different ages, walking along Saint-Ferréol road. Nobody had threatening attitudes. Everyone was calm.”

In the images that Mediapart could see, the street seemed to be relatively quiet. Police were present, some young people too, and firefighters were extinguishing garbage fires.

“When suddenly a group of men, dressed in black and armed with clubs, rushed forward and shouted in my direction,” said Olivia in her statement, specifying that: “I immediately identified them as members of law enforcement. I had the quick reflex to pull myself away by putting myself against the wall of the building wall next door to avoid being hit in the process.”

These facts are confirmed by Camille, also present during the sudden and unexplained police charge. She testified: “While we were a few people walking calmly down Saint-Ferréol road, without clashes around us, a line of CRS and agents of the Anti-Crime Brigade fired projectiles (I do not know of what nature) and started to quickly come closer to us. Many of us ran to the first side street (rue de la Glace) to take shelter. I heard a cry of pain and I saw someone fall, a girl.”

The “girl” was Maria. “When the police charged, I did not understand the situation. I never protested and I was very scared. I ran to the first side street, rue de la Glace, but was shot in the leg. I screamed because I had a lot of pain in my leg. I fell to the ground.”

Seeing Maria wounded by the flash ball shot,

“people started shouting ‘someone is on the ground!’,” reported Laurence. “At the same time, this person on the ground was surrounded by police officers and was clubbed violently whilst being on the ground. […] At that moment, I was shocked. The scene was loaded with violence. I realised that truncheons violently hit the person continuously for a while.”

Camille saw

“more than ten police officers in jeans, helmets, truncheons in their hands and an armband on their arm, running and taking turns to beat and kick the person on the ground.”

Another witness contacted by “Mediapart”, Denise, is still moved at the mention of this evening.
“Just in front of me, there was this girl, small, who fell. And there, a swarm of policemen, mostly in plainclothes, helmeted, rush into the small street and give, by the way, truncheon blows and kicked the girl while she was on the ground.” Denise is categorical: “There were at least three truncheon blows, and three different police officers, and a kick in the face. Afterwards, I was moved away by a policeman.”

She wasn’t the only one to be pushed back.

“Despite the fact that the police forbade me to join her, I insisted and managed to pass,” says Lucie. “Arriving at her, I found other people who came to her rescue and I noticed that her head was caved in and bleeding. There were traces of blood on the floor, even on the walls. […] The plainclothes police left without even checking her condition.”

Another witness made the same observation:

“As we approached, all the police around the person on the ground dispersed. We found her condition very disturbing since she had an open wound on her head.”

...

The Élysée used the fire of Notre-Dame de Paris to carry out a project that was sleeping in the boxes. It has set new rules, outside tender procedures and respect for heritage not to restore the cathedral, but to transform the Île de la Cité into Europe’s leading tourist’destination on the eve of the Olympic Games of 2024. To avoid judicial constraints, he arbitrarily imposed the hypothesis of a construction incident.

...

In terms of communication, there will probably be a before and after this fire: a majority of French was stunned by this disaster, and revolted by the arrogant indifference of his ruling class.

Immediately, the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron decided not to rebuild Notre Dame, but to realize a difficult project that had been waiting in drawers for two and a half years. In December 2015, a mission was sponsored by the President of the Republic, François Hollande, and the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo. It lasted a whole year while Emmanuel Macron was Minister of Economy, Industry and Digital. Many personalities participated, including Audrey Azoulay, then Minister of Culture and now Director of Unesco [1], or the Prefect Patrick Strzoda, then Chief of Staff to the Minister of Interior and today Emmanuel Macron. It was headed by the President of the National Monuments Center, Philippe Bélaval, and the architect Dominique Perrault.

Noting that the island of the City is, since its remodeling by Baron Haussmann in the nineteenth century, an administrative complex closed to the public, housing the Sainte-Chapelle and the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris, the mission proposed to transform it into a "Island-monument". The opportunity is provided by the removal of the Palace of Justice, the reorganization of the Prefecture of Police and the hospital of the Hotel Dieu. It will indeed be possible to reorganize everything.

The mission has thus listed 35 coordinated projects, including the creation of underground traffic routes and the canopy of many interior courtyards, to make the island a must-drive for 14 million annual tourists and, possibly, French people. The report of the mission [2] evokes the incredible commercial value of this project, but does not say a word about the heritage value, particularly spiritual, of Sainte-Chapelle and Notre-Dame that it addresses exclusively as tourist sites, sources potential income.

Unfortunately this ambitious project could not, according to its authors, be realized quickly not so much because of the absence of financing as heavy administrative habits and enormous legal constraints. Although there are only a few people on the island, the slightest expropriation can last for decades. More surprisingly, the director of the National Monuments Center seemed to regret the prohibition to destroy part of the heritage to enhance another part. Etc.

In the hours that followed, it was obvious that very large funds would be offered by donors ranging from ordinary citizens to large fortunes. The objective of the Élysée was therefore to set up an authority capable of leading both the reconstruction of Notre-Dame and the transformation of the Ile de la Cité.

The next day, April 16, during a televised speech, President Macron declared: "So, yes, we will rebuild Notre-Dame Cathedral even more beautiful, and I want it to be completed within 5 years" [3]. Let’s forget the "I want" characteristic not of a Republican elected, but of a business leader. Five years is extremely short, especially considering the century and a half of the construction of the cathedral. However, it is the time necessary for the work to be completed in time for tourists from the 2024 Olympic Games. This was the date planned by the Bélaval-Perrault mission.

Two days later, on the 17th of April, the Council of Ministers was entirely devoted to the consequences of the fire. Three important decisions were recorded:

• Appoint the former Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, General Jean-Louis Georgelin, to lead from the Elysee a special representation mission "to ensure the progress of the procedures and work that will be undertaken ».
• Have the parliament adopt a bill [4] governing the collection of funds, regularizing the appointment of General Georgelin who has reached the age limit and above all exempting his mission from all tendering procedures, heritage protection laws, and any constraints that may arise.`
• Launch an international architectural competition to rebuild Notre-Dame.

Another decision was made: to stifle any debate on the causes of the fire in order to avoid a judicial inquiry disturbing this beautiful arrangement.

Immediately, the new prosecutor of the Republic of Paris, Rémy Heitz, appointed by personal intervention Emmanuel Macron, ensures that the criminal track is not privileged and that the fire is related to a construction site accident.

This insurance provokes an outcry from the site’s experts, firefighters, craftsmen and architects, for whom no worksite element was able to cause such a fire, at this place and at this speed.

The insistence of the Prosecutor and that of the Prefect of Police, Didier Lallement, to take a stand at a time when no investigator had been able to visit the scene of the fire attests to the development of an official version which does not constrain to long investigations blocking the site. It also feeds the interrogations on the arbitrarily dismissed track, that of an anti-Christian or anti-religious act, especially in the context of the vandalism against the churches (878 profanations in 2017), the voluntary fire of the Saint church -Sulpice on March 17, or even the fire of Al-Marwani mosque on the Al-Aqsa esplanade in Jerusalem.

In addition, knowing that the majority of large fires occur in the context of real estate projects, the hypothesis of a voluntary act to allow the transformation of the Ile de la Cité must be examined. These questions are all legitimate, but in the absence of investigation no definitive answer is.

Certainly, the goal of President Macron is commendable, but his method is very strange. While it is not possible to launch such a project without changing the rules of law, but if the appointment of a senior general officer is a guarantee of effectiveness, it is not a matter of respect for the law.

In September the Astana agreement between Turkey, Russia and Iran was the basis of a ceasefire in Idleb governorate. Turkey was supposed to cleanse the area of HTS and other terrorist groups. It deployed soldiers to fortified observation posts around the region but did little else to fulfill the agreement.

Turkey is not only dragging its feet on Idleb but allows new foreign fighters to go there:

According to local sources in the province cited by Sputnik, around 1500 terrorists crossed the Turkish border into Idleb under the cover of the Turkish authorities supported by Turkish agents and directly supervised by the Turkish Gendarmerie (Jandarma) that is affiliated to the Turkish army.
...
The sources mentioned that the terrorists are of Western nationalities, in addition to others who hold nationalities of East Asian and Arab countries, who were transported towards Jisr al-Shughour area that is under the control of terrorists from China and Turkistan, while the other foreign terrorists were transported to camps of Jabhat al-Nusra and Hurras Eddin in the southern and southeastern countryside of Idleb.

It is likely that many of these new arrivals are ISIS terrorist who fled from east Syria to Turkey and were then routed towards Idleb. The terrorist in Idleb governorate continue to attack Syrian troops around them. They use up quite a lot of ammunition and must have supply lines from Turkey to sustain the fighting.

Another recent meeting in the Astana format with Russia, Iran and Turkey confirmed the basic agreement but did not achieve a common position on how to proceed.

The Turkish newspaper Hurriyet just published an interview with Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. On Idelb he said:

Q: Should we expect an operation into Idlib in the short term?
A: We should leave that to our military experts. We do need an operation, but we have to decide on whether it will be Turkey’s operation or some other countries’. We should not hope to make a deal with the children of Ahrar al-Sham. That is a false hope, they are terrorists, they are al-Nusra, they are the children of al-Qaeda.

At the recent security conference in Munich Russia's Foreign Minister Sergej Lavrov also mentioned (vid @~15:00min) the situation in Idleb. He said that there would be common Russian and Turkish patrols in some areas of Idleb governorate but provided no details.

For now everyone waits for the U.S. to retreat from northeast Syria as Trump has ordered. Idleb will only be attacked when that proceeded.

The Islamic State as a territory holding entity is finished. It will continue to exist for some time as an underground terrorist movement in Syria and Iraq and as a brand that local groups elsewhere will use for their misdeeds.

Since the end of last week the last holdout of ISIS is down to a few thousand square meters. The U.S. is now again negotiating with the terrorists instead of finishing them off:

More than 300 Islamic State militants surrounded in a tiny area in eastern Syria are refusing to surrender to U.S.-backed Syrian forces and are trying to negotiate an exit, Syrian activists and a person close to the negotiations said Monday.
...
The DeirEzzor 24, an activist collective in eastern Syria, said several trucks loaded with food stuff entered IS-held areas in Baghouz in Deir el-Zour on Monday morning. The group also reported that ISIS released 10 SDF fighters Sunday without saying whether the supplies of the food stuff were in return for the release.
DeirEzzor 24 said that the truce reached between ISIS and the SDF last week has been extended for five more days as of Sunday.

A French colonel who led an artillery group in the fight against ISIS criticized the U.S. way of fighting that war:

Colonel Francois-Regis Legrier, who has been in charge of directing French artillery supporting Kurdish-led groups in Syria since October, said the coalition's focus had been on limiting its own risks and this had greatly increased the death toll among civilians and the levels of destruction.
"Yes, the Battle of Hajin was won, at least on the ground but by refusing ground engagement, we unnecessarily prolonged the conflict and thus contributed to increasing the number of casualties in the population," Mr Legrier wrote in an article in the National Defence Review.

"We have massively destroyed the infrastructure and given the population a disgusting image of what may be a Western-style liberation leaving behind the seeds of an imminent resurgence of a new adversary," he said, in rare public criticism by a serving officer.

French artillery in northeast Syria

Note the mix of LU107 high explosive and LU214 white phosphorus grenades (Nexter catalog) which together can be used to "shake 'n bake" the enemy forces. The tactic is highly controversial.

Several times during the last months bad weather prevented the use of aerial bombing and artillery fire against ISIS. The terrorists always used these pauses to counterattack. The poorly armed and led Kurdish/Arab SDF suffered a lot of casualties because of these. The colonel opines that a well armed professional ground force would have shortened the conflict with less casualties and much less damage.

The original essay by the soon to be former colonel was taken down from the web. It is available in French on page 65 of this pdf.

It is still not clear if or when the U.S. forces will leave northeast Syria. President Trump had asked Turkey to take over the area but Syria, Russia, Iran and the Kurdish forces the U.S. used as proxies against ISIS are against this. A U.S. attempt to recruit British, German or French forces to occupy the area failed.

The Syrian ground must obviously be turned back to the Syrian government. The Kurdish forces, controlled by the anarcho-marxist PKK/YPG which Turkey and others designate as terrorists, use their current position to demand political autonomy in the area they now control. The Syrian government is strongly against this. Any federalization of Syria would be the beginning of its end.

Yesterday the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad offered a compromise to the Kurds. In a speech in front of the heads of local councils he announced local council elections and the decentralization of some political decisions. The required law 107 is already in place but its implementation was held up by the war:

[Assad] said that the essence of the local administration law is achieving balance in development across all areas by giving local administrative units the authority to develop their areas in terms of economy, urban development, culture, and services, thereby improving citizens’ living conditions by launching projects, providing job opportunities, and providing services locally, particularly in remote areas.
President al-Assad said it is no longer practical to manage the affairs of the society and state and achieved balanced development in the same centralized way that had been used for decades, noting that the population of Syria in 1971 when the previous law was issued was around 7 million, while the population in 2011 when law 107 was issued had reached around 22 million.

That the implementation of elected local administrations is offered now is a clear sign to the Kurds that they can get some autonomy but not the wide ranging one that they ask for. While they can have local elections, councils and administrations as all other areas will have, there will be no separate armed force, police of judicative in Kurdish majority areas.

Several times over the war the Kurds overreached, made too large demands and lost because of it. Turkey took the Afrin area and the Kurdish population had to flee because the Kurdish leadership did not want the Syrian army to take over control. In a later part of the speech Assad again addressed the Kurds without specifically naming them. He warned:

“The Americans will not protect you… you will be a bargaining chip in their pocket along with the dollars they have, and they have already started bargaining. If you don’t prepare yourselves to defend your country, you will be mere slaves for the Ottomans. Only your state will protect you and only the Syrian Arab Army will defend you when you join it and fight under its banner.
“When we stand in one position and in the same trench, face a single enemy, and aim in the same direction instead of aiming at each other, there will be no worry of any threat no matter how big, His Excellency said.

President al-Assad said the time has come for those groups to decide how history will judge them, and that they have a choice: to be masters in their own land, or slaves and pawns in the hand of occupiers.

The offer is quite clear and the consequences of not accepting it would be harsh. The Kurds and the area they hold must come back under Syrian government control or Turkey will grab it and will put the Kurds under its boots. The pigheadedness of their leadership could easily lead to that. In his speech Assad already predicts that they will reject his offer before - maybe - accepting it.

“As you noticed, I will not name these groups, but as usual, for a few hours or maybe for a few days, they will issue statements attacking this speech, then you will know who I’m talking about,” he added.

A few hours after Assad's speech the Kurdish commander of the SDF was again begging the U.S. to keep 1,500 of its troops there.

Mazloum Kobani, commander-in-chief of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), called on international coalition allies to keep 1,000-1,500 troops in Syria.
...
“We would like to have air cover, air support and a force on the ground to coordinate with us,” Kobani told reporters at an undisclosed airbase in northeast Syria, Reuters reports.
It is very unlikely that Trump will change his position. The U.S. troops will leave. Only the Syrian government can give the Kurds the protection they need.

How many more Kurds will have to die until their leadership finally accepts that?

Geographer Christophe Guilluy had prophesied the potential of this uprising in 2014. Guilluy demonstrated the demographics of most major French cities comprising the wealthy, banking, industrial-capitalist centers surrounded by the ghettoized and marginalized suburbs that are home to an estimated 60 percent of the urban population. For those scraping a living together in the suburbs, driving to and parking in the city center for work could cost as much as 250 Euros ($284) per month. The impact of an increase in the cost of fuel would hit these people the hardest.

Historian and author Diana Johnstone, based in France, best explained the origin of the Yellow Vest as the symbol of this organic, grassroots movement. The yellow vest is something that every French citizen must have in their car in case of a road accident — the vest must be worn to prevent being unseen and run over by other vehicles. Wearing the yellow vest during protests signifies that French citizens do not accept being invisible to and railroaded by their government.

Acte XII came one week after the shocking targeting of prominent Gilet Jaune spokesman Jerome Rodrigues in Paris on January 26, 2019. Rodrigues had been filming live during the march when the arrival of the Black Bloc contingent caused him to call for the GJs to withdraw and avoid the inevitable violence. The Black Bloc element will be examined in a later section of this article.

On film, we can see the police factions advance, ignore the Black Bloc (or “Casseurs” in French), and begin targeting the retreating and peaceful GJs. Rodrigues is first targeted by a GLIF4 grenade that detonates close to him and is then hit in the eye by an LBD40 “flashball” bullet. After his hospitalization, Rodrigues informed his thousands of followers that there is little chance of saving his eye. As he is a plumber by trade, this senseless injury will have a potentially catastrophic effect on Rodrigues’ ability to provide for his family.

Rodrigues is only one of 19 GJs who have lost an eye to the “sub-lethal” LBD40 bullet launcher that is being liberally used by security forces during GJ protests across France. The LBD40 is the evolution of the notorious “flashball bullet,” 10 times the velocity of a paintball. The modern LBD40 launcher is a very accurate instrument with a “red-dot” laser pointer sight that ensures pinpoint targeting of civilians.

Recently, French human-rights organizations, the UN Human Rights Commissioner, and members of the French medical fraternity have unequivocally cautioned against the use of the LBD40 in crowd-control situations. While it is classified as a “sub-lethal” weapon, when used in violation of police regulations, at close range and in unstable crowd environments, it is lethal and capable of terrible damage to a human body — particularly the face, which appears to be a favorite target of the national police in France.

A member of the Toulouse Observatory of Police Practices (OPP) was shot in the face during the Acte XII protests in Toulouse on Saturday February 2, 2019. The following statement is taken from a translation of the OPP press release:

One of the OPP members, Jerome, also a member of the Human Rights League, was injured in the forehead by a projectile shot by the police forces […] his helmet, which was badly damaged, probably prevented a more serious injury.”

The press release goes on to condemn the disproportionate “panic” use of tear gas against peaceful protestors. The OPP also observed the heavy-handed tactics of the police, “including police officers, members of the Brigade Anti-Criminalite — Anti-Crime Brigade (BAC) — and members of “security and intervention companies.” The statement ends with this chilling indictment:

The injury of our comrade and OPP observer [..] recalls that police services, in the context of law enforcement operations, are disproportionately and indiscriminately using weapons of war in their possession. They cause serious injuries, regardless of the victim’s behaviour, including when the victim is not responsible for any incident.”

OPP calls for a ban on LBDs and GLIF4s. It also demands that the BAC police officers are no longer involved in demonstrations and asks for a moratorium on the presence of private security and intervention companies at the GJ marches. The photo below has been circulating on social media; it shows what appear to be civilians carrying French national police weapons and working alongside official police factions during a GJ march.

Interviewer: Nicolas Gauthier
Respondent: Alain de Benoist

Do you think that we can already make a review of the Yellow Vests' action?

The best review that we can make about it is to note that it's still too early to make one, because the movement is ongoing and even seems to have found a second wind. For almost three months, despite the ice and the cold, despite the Christmas truce, despite the dead and wounded, despite the causalities caused by police brutality (torn off jaws, shredded hands, crushed feet, punctured eyes, cerebral hemorrhages), despite the criticisms that have successively tried to present them as alcoholic beaufs1, Nazis (the “brown plague”) and thugs, guilty moreover of having ruined commerce, of dissuading tourists from coming to France, and even, oh the scandal, of having sabotaged the opening of sales, despite all that, the Yellow Vests are still here. They've held up well, they haven't disbanded and a majority of French people continue to approve their action. This is the confirmation that this movement is unlike any other.

There is another point on which we must insist. The Yellow Vests, previously, didn't know each other. Plunged into the anonymity of the mass, even when they were neighbors, they often remained strangers to each other. For weeks, around the roundabouts, they mutually discovered each other. They spoke together, they confronted their experiences and their hopes, shared the same anger and resonated with the same emotions, they also shared the same meals, experienced the same days and even nights, benefited from the same spirit of solidarity and giving. The Yellow Vests movement has thus functioned as a formidable machine to recreate socialization in an era where the social link has crumbled everywhere. There will evidently remain something of it. The Yellow Vests know, henceforth, that they are no longer alone to be “invisibles.” They've rediscovered the importance of the commons.

But the future of the movement? Can we imagine a vast populist front, of which the Yellow Vests could be the crucible?

It's very premature, even if certain people think so. In the short term, the Yellow Vests must resist all attempts at division and recapture. They must especially not present electoral rolls to the European elections, which would certainly weaken the opposition. The must remain elusive, bring the least possible harm to small businesses, firmly remove external thugs from the movement, and, maybe, concentrate their demands on themes that can best unite their anger by demanding, for example, the institution of the popular referendum initiative.

And the “great national debate?”

Guy Debord said that if elections could change anything, they would have been banned long ago. We can say the same about the “great debate” launched by Emmanuel Macron: if it was really likely to satisfy the Yellow Vests' demands, it simply wouldn't have taken place. When parliamentarians want to bury an issue, they create a commission. To buy time, Macron proposes – it's fashionable – to “open the floor”. The “great debate” is doctor Freud's couch: “Lie down and tell me all your miseries, afterwards you'll feel better.” To discuss rather than decide has always been the favorite method of the bourgeois class. In the worst case, the “great debate” will terminate without results. At best, the mountain will give birth to a mouse2. They will make concessions here and there (the carbon tax, the 80 km/h speed limit, etc.) but they won't touch the hard questions. That is to say the questions that imply a real change in society.

Those who are in power today are incapable of facing the Yellow Vests' demands because the lower world is mentally, culturally, and physiologically foreign to them. They imagine that they are facing demands of the classic type (“discontent people”) to which they can respond through mere announcements and appropriate communication strategies. They don't see that they are, in reality, confronted with a necessarily existential revolt, coming from people who, after having wasted their lives trying to earn, have discovered that what they earn no longer permits them to live and so they no longer have anything to lose. At the height of the demonstrations, at the moment where a helicopter circled Élysée in case Macron needed to be extracted, they were nevertheless afraid. Physically afraid – and we haven't seen that in a long time as well. Today, they've recovered their class contempt, even when they try to be empathetic, they will never forgive those who frightened them.

The “reluctant Gauls” are worthy successors of the “Beggars” (Geuzen) who, in 16thcentury Flanders and the Netherlands made a title of glory from a pejorative name, carrying the popular discontent that received the support of William of Orange against the authority of King Phillip II of Spain. The guerrilla war they lead over the years starting from 1556 ended up achieving the total liberation of the United Provinces. A beautiful Dutch song celebrating their memory was entitled “Long Live the Beggars!” It deserves to be sung again today.

Notes:

1. Beauf is a French colloquialism for a chauvinistic, unrefined, and unintelligent man with strong uninformed opinions, popularized by the Charlie Hebdo cartoonist Cabu, who created a character of that name, derived from a contraction of the French for brother in law, “beau-frère”. The term can be likened to “Redneck” in American English.

2. In French “La montagne accouchera d’une souris” means that a marginal result will be obtained from a large amount of effort.

Source: http://www.bvoltaire.fr/alain-de-benoist-pourquoi-le-gouvernement-ne-comprend-pas-la-revolte-des-gilets-jaunes/

President Macron is often presented as a Rothschild Boy. This is true, but secondary. Thierry Meyssan demonstrates that he owes his electoral campaign mostly to Henry Kravis, the boss of one of the world’s largest financial companies, and to NATO – a considerable debt which weighs heavily today on the solution to the Yellow Vests crisis.

Emmanuel Macron did not feel destined for a career in politics. As a young man, he hoped to become a philosopher, then a senior civil servant, then a business banker. To help him on his way, he frequented Uncle Sam’s fairy godmothers - the French-American Foundation and the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

It was in this milieu that he met Henry and Marie-Josée Kravis, in their residence on Park Avenue in New York [1]. The Kravis couple, unfailing supporters of the US Republican Party, are among the great world fortunes who play politics out of sight of the Press. Their company, KKR, like Blackstone and the Carlyle Group, is one of the world’s major investment funds.

« Emmanuel’s curiosity for the ’can-do attitude’ was fascinating - the capacity to tell yourself that you can do anything you set your mind to. He had a thirst for knowledge and a desire to understand how things work, but without imitating or copying anyone. In this, he remained entirely French », declares Marie-Josée Drouin (Mrs. Kravis) today [2].

Bearing the double recommendation of the Kravis couple and Jean-Pierre Jouyet [3], he integrated the closed circle of François Hollande’s campaign team. In an e-mail addressed to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Director of political planning Jake Sullivan named the four principal members of the Socialist candidate’s campaign team, including the unknown Emmanuel Macron. He specified that Macron would probably become the Director General of the Treasury (« the top civil servant at the Finance Ministry »)

The current wave of protests in France, which started two weeks ago, is growing in impact and applied violence. On Saturday some 120,000 people took part in demonstrations around the country. The movement was initiated from the political right but many other parties also support it. Most of the participants seem to take part spontaneously. The movement is supposedly leaderless. But it is too early to exclude that there is some larger organizing power behind it. In short: the Arab spring arrived in Europe.

Like the 1968 May protests that started in Paris this new movement will have echos in other countries. While mostly peaceful protest were held in all parts of France the situation in Paris caught the most attention. On Saturday the protesters stormed the Arc de Triomphe.

They rearranged the interior, damaged a statue of Marianne, and redecorated the outside. When the riot police tried to intervene it came under a hail of cobble stones and had to retreat. Graffiti left behind by the protesters read: 'We’ve chopped off heads for less than this'

The immediate reason for the protests are an increase of the fuel tax that President Macron defends as a step to fight climate change. But the fuel tax is only the last drop of a steady stream of price increases for the poor and middle class while their income stagnates. Meanwhile the rich are receiving one tax cut after the other. The fuel price is important for anyone who needs to drive to work. Public transport may work well within the Paris ring-road but most people live beyond the view of the Elysées and do need a car.

On Saturday the peaceful protesters in Paris were accompanied by 'moderate rebels'. They left behind the usual trail but are still waiting for foreign powers to arm them. Trump does not get along with Macron. How long will it take for him to suggests a no-fly zone?

The use of yellow warning vests, gilets jaunes in french, give the protester a smell of an arranged 'color revolution'. Then again - it is always helpful in demonstrations to distinguish one's side. These warning vests are mandatory emergency equipment in each car, they are readily available and sell for as little as €0.65.

After seeing the same neoliberal policies executed under the presidencies of Sarkozy and Hollande, the French people despised both the conservative party as well as the 'socialists'. But they well still not ready to move to a more radical parties on the right or left side.

The powers that be put up a former Rothschild banker as an alternative to the established parties and the media pushed him over the finish line. But Macron is even more neoliberal that Sarkozy or Hollande ever were and he is way more aloof and arrogant than both of them. He resembles a modern Marie Antoinette: 'If they don't like my fuel taxes let them buy electric cars.'

Macron's next projects are a pension reform and changes in the unemployment insurance. Both will cause more protests. Polls show that the French public overwhelmingly supports the yellow vests protests and their demands while Macron's popularity has fallen from 55% in May 2017 to some 27% now.

Some commentators blame the EU for Macron's policies. But that excuse is false. The EU did not demand the elimination of the wealth tax in France. Moreover - the EU implements the policy guidelines the large EU countries set out. Macron could surely change those if he wanted to.

On Saturday both sides were violent. But Macron and his police are far from innocent in the escalation. On May 1 Macron's top security aide Alexandre Benalla was filmed beating up protesters. In July a scandal ensued when Macron attempted to cover up the case. He sees violence as an appropriate way to handle resistance against his polices. On Saturday the police even deployed sniper teams on roofs.

The economic divide between peripheral France and the metropolises illustrates the separation of an elite and its popular hinterland. Western elites have gradually forgotten a people they no longer see. The impact of the gilets jaunes, and their support in public opinion (eight out of 10 French people approve of their actions), has amazed politicians, trade unions and academics, as if they have discovered a new tribe in the Amazon.

The point, remember, of the gilet jaune is to ensure its wearer is visible on the road. And whatever the outcome of this conflict, the gilets jaunes have won in terms of what really counts: the war of cultural representation. Working-class and lower middle-class people are visible again and, alongside them, the places where they live.

Their need in the first instance is to be respected, to no longer be thought of as “deplorable”. Michael Sandel is right when he points out the inability of the elites to take the aspirations of the poorest seriously. These aspirations are simple: the preservation of their social and cultural capital and work. For this to be successful we must end the elite “secession” and adapt the political offers of left and right to their demands. This cultural revolution is a democratic and societal imperative – no system can remain if it does not integrate the majority of its poorest citizens.

Christophe Guilluy is the author of Twilight of the Elites: Prosperity, Periphery and the Future of France

The following is the text of a statement issued 30 August 2018 by The Global Network for Syria. It is posted here on the Network’s behalf. The signatories and contact details follow the statement. 

We, members of the Global Network for Syria, are deeply alarmed by recent statements by Western governments and officials threatening the government of Syria with military intervention, and by media reports of actions taken by parties in Syria and by Western agencies in advance of such intervention. In a joint statement issued on 21 August the governments of the US, the UK and France said that ‘we reaffirm our shared resolve to preventing [sic] the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime and for [sic] holding them accountable for any such use… As we have demonstrated, we will respond appropriately to any further use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime’. The three governments justify this threat with reference to ‘reports of a military offensive by the Syrian regime against civilians and civilian infrastructure in Idlib’. On 22 August, Mr John Bolton, US National Security Adviser, was reported by Bloomberg to have said that the US was prepared to respond with greater force than it has used in Syria before. These threats need to be seen in the context of the following reports and considerations. Reports have appeared of activity by the White Helmets group, or militants posing as White Helmets, consistent with an intention to stage a ‘false flag’ chemical incident in order to provoke Western intervention. These activities have reportedly included the transfer of eight canisters of chlorine to a village near Jisr Al Shughur, an area under the control of Hayat Tahrir Ash Sham, an affiliate of the terrorist group Al Nusra. Some reports refer to the involvement of British individuals and the Olive security company. Other reports indicate a build-up of US naval forces in the Gulf and of land forces in areas of Iraq adjoining the Syrian border. We therefore urge the US, UK and French governments to consider the following points before embarking on any military intervention:

This is a long read by one of the inhabitants of the Zad, about the the fortnight rollercoaster of rural riots that has just taken place to evict the liberated territory of the zad. It’s been incredibly intense and hard to find a moment to write, but we did our best. This is simply one viewpoint, there are over 1000 people on the zone at the moment and every one of them could tell a different story. Thank you for all the friends and comrades who helped by sharing their stories, rebel spirits and lemon juice against the tear gas.

The Revenge against the Commons of the zad or Why France’s biggest police operation since May 68 is prepared to kill for Macron’s Neoliberal Nightmare.
“We must bring into being the world we want to defend. These cracks where people find each other to build a beautiful future are important. This is how the zad is a model.” Naomi Klein

“What is happening at  Notre-Dame-des-Landes illustrates a conflict that concerns the whole world”   Raoul Vaneigem

The police helicopter hovers above, its bone rattling clattering never seems to stop. At night its long godlike finger of light penetrates our cabins and farm houses. It has been so hard to sleep this last week. Even dreaming, it seems, is a crime on the zad. And that’s the point: these 4000 acres of autonomous territory, this zone to defend (zad), has existed despite the state and capitalism for nearly a decade and no government can allow such a place to flourish. All territories that are inhabited by people who bridge the gap between dream and action have to be crushed before their hope begins to spread. This is why France’s biggest police operation since May 1968, at a cost of 400,000 euros a day, has been trying to evict us with its 2500 gendarmes, armoured vehicles (APCs), bulldozers, rubber bullets, drones, 200 cameras and 11,000 tear gas and stun grenades fired since the operation began at 3.20am on the morning of the 9th of April.

The state said that these would be “targeted evictions”, claiming that there were up to 80 ‘radical’ zadists that would be hunted down, and that the rest, the ‘good’ zadists, would have to legalise or face the same fate. The good zadist was a caricature of the gentle ‘neo rural farmer’ returning to the land, the bad, an ultra violent revolutionary, just there to make trouble. Of course this was a fantasy vision to feed the state’s primary strategy, to divide this diverse popular movement that has managed to defeat 3 different French governments and win France’s biggest political victory of a generation: The abandonment of the building of the international airport of Notre-Dames-des-Landes.

In 2010, when announcing emergency help for Haiti after a devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake, President Barack Obama noted America’s historic ties to the impoverished Caribbean nation, but few Americans understand how important Haiti’s contribution to U.S. history was.

Toussaint L’Ouverture, leader of Haiti’s slave rebellion against France.
In modern times, when Haiti does intrude on U.S. consciousness, it’s usually because of some natural disaster or a violent political upheaval, and the U.S. response is often paternalistic, if not tinged with a racist disdain for the country’s predominantly black population and its seemingly endless failure to escape cycles of crushing poverty.

However, more than two centuries ago, Haiti represented one of the most important neighbors of the new American Republic and played a central role in enabling the United States to expand westward. If not for Haiti, the course of U.S. history could have been very different, with the United States possibly never expanding much beyond the Appalachian Mountains.

In the 1700s, then-called St. Domingue and covering the western third of the island of Hispaniola, Haiti was a French colony that rivaled the American colonies as the most valuable European possession in the Western Hemisphere. Relying on a ruthless exploitation of African slaves, French plantations there produced nearly one-half the world’s coffee and sugar.

Many of the great cities of France owe their grandeur to the wealth that was extracted from Haiti and its slaves. But the human price was unspeakably high. The French had devised a fiendishly cruel slave system that imported enslaved Africans for work in the fields with accounting procedures for their amortization. They were literally worked to death.

The conception of US politics held by a stereotypical Marxist is “They are all bad! All the politicians work for big money interests! We need a working class revolution to get rid of them all!” While this may be common among those who have only a basic understanding of Marxian thinking, this was certainly not the analysis of Karl Marx when observing french politics in 1851.

When military officials dubbed “The Party of Order” grouped around the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte took over France, government policies changed significantly. It was not a revolution, but an attempt to make the system function better with authoritarian methods. Marx observed and studied the 1851 coup, composing his famous pamphlet “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.” He came to understand that when the rate of profit falls, and instability abounds, the rich and powerful begin fighting among themselves.

The new French regime built railroads, legalized labor unions and strikes, created hospitals for poor people, and enacted other dramatic reforms hoping to restore stability. Louis Napoleon violently suppressed many wealthy french capitalists who wanted “laissez faire” policies to continue. The reforms enacted by the “Party of Order” were only a temporary fix, and 20 years later France was once again in a crisis, with the Paris Commune emerging in 1871. When one section of the rich violently suppresses others, and takes dramatic action at the expense of other capitalists, this is what Marxists call “Bonapartism.”

In recent American history, the key issue of division among America’s ruling elite has been how to combat the rise of Russia and China as competitors on the global stage. The rise of the Eurasian superpowers is something the billionaire monopolists who run the USA find intolerable. But what can be done about it? On this point, the powers that be often disagree, and clash with each other.

https://journal-neo.org/2017/12/05/russia-china-the-white-house-a-study-in-bonapartism/

If France wants to throw their legal rights out the window over what equals a bad day in Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria – that’s their choice. But please don’t expect Iran to do the same.

It’s a terrible thing, 12 people dying and dozens of casualties (so far). But I think many in Iran are looking at Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Palestine, Mali, the C.A.R….and the US, France and the UK… and thinking: it could be a lot, lot worse.

I’d make this column longer, but I want to make sure to get a good seat tonight at the Champs de Mars for when the Eiffel Tower changes colors. It won’t resemble the Iranian flag, of course. I just figure that since the Eiffel Tower famously went dark when Al-Qaeda was finally kicked out of Aleppo, Paris will want to mourn Iran’s failure to be defeated by terrorism by radiating ISIL’s color – black.