The Noose Tightens Around the EU’s Neck
Last weekend’s protests across France may have done far more damage than just smashed windows and stolen iPhones. The depth of French anger at the neoliberal globalist policies of President Emmanuel Macron has finally been heard.
And Macron’s response may be exactly the thing needed to destroy what is left of imperial Europe’s credibility.
Macron’s handling of these protests have been nothing short of abysmal. He began November the darling of the globalist set I like to call The Davos Crowd, excoriating any sense of national pride, likening it to terrorism.
He also called for the creation of a Grand Army of the EU and pushed hard for banking federalization to consolidate power under Brussels over the currency, the true Achilles’ heel of the EU itself.
Then a planned tax hike on diesel fuel, which was sold to the French as a way to combat global warming, as part of the EU’s unquenchable desire to tilt at climate windmills, erupted in a nation-wide peaceful protest.
At which point Macron called the protesters ‘thugs.’
And now, after two weekends of violence and having scrapped the diesel tax, Macron emerges from his bunker to reaffirm France’s commitment to cracking down on the violence. But at the same time, as reported by Zerohedge, he’s calling for significant tax cuts and welfare spending.
Macron – whose approval rating is at an all time low, says he has asked his government to increase wages by 100 euros per month beginning in January as part of a series of new measures to be released in detail on Tuesday. He also announced that overtime hours won’t be subject to payroll tax, and that his administration will scrap a tax hike on poor and low-income retirees. Furthermore, Macron asked companies to pay end-of-year bonuses which won’t be taxed, and will suspend a CSG levy on pensions below 2,000 euros per month.
Macron also said that immigration “must be debated” as well, as anti-immigrant sentiment has spread throughout Europe.
Correct me if I’m wrong but France is already running a budget deficit that defies EU regulations. So, how is Macron going to pay for these programs and cuts?
Does Brussels even care?
No, they don’t because Macron is one of theirs so anything that can save his government from extinction will be tolerated. But what this move by Macron signifies is how close the Yellow Vests are to winning, because there’s no way these kinds of things would be on the table if the political winds hadn’t shifted far enough to leave him badly exposed.
With his approval rating dropping faster than Deutsche Bank’s stock price, Macron had to do something to stem the tide against him. It’s so bad even the rest of the French political establishment are sharpening their knives looking for a no-confidence vote and his resignation.
So, this is a desperate bid to quell the anger by throwing some money around and supporting tax relief for the very people who are rioting against him and turn some of the public’s opinion his way.
I note that Marine Le Pen has kept her mouth mostly shut while this is going on allowing the tempest to gather strength on its own. It’s been more than a week since she called for the French parliament to be dissolved for the first time in 20 years.
And, in my mind, that’s a very good thing. Le Pen is a divisive figure and by her staying out of this it doesn’t give the compliant European media any chance to link these protests to her and ‘far-right’ and ‘alt-right’ she’s supposed to occupy.
Instead they’ve had nothing at all to focus on but the protests themselves while test-marketing a tired “Russia hacked muh protest” narrative without proof or cause.
The best part about this move by Macron is that Italy’s Matteo Salvini, a man who walks through crowds in Rome like he’s the messiah, can use this to enflame Italian passions (not a difficult proposition, let me tell you) over just how unfair the EU is treating them with respect to their budget.
Salvini is looking at this proposal of Macron’s like it truly is manna from heaven. But for the EU, does it really have any other choice? When you’ve stepped off the cliff and are falling, anything you can do to keep from hitting the ground is what you do regardless of the long-term damage. Survival is all that matters.
And that’s exactly where the EU and Macron are now. Every action they take to try and hold this dysfunctional and tyrannical union together is only tightening the noose around their necks and hastening their eventual demise.
The more they struggle to maintain control in one place the more they empower their enemies in another.
The little Dutch Boy in Brussels is running out of fingers.
By Tom Luongo
Source: Strategic Culture
