At the gates of power: when will the CIA assassinate Marine Le Pen?

[Paul Rigby]

French elite chose their new pawn, Emmanuel Macron, former Director of Banque Rothschild

by Cosimo

February 10, 2017

http://thesaker.is/french-elite-chose-th...othschild/

The Short Version: In a shocker on Jan. 25, the French elite moved to destroy the right-wing candidate, François Fillon with a scandal that may be fake. The elite is clearing the way for their new pawn, Emmanuel Macron, a former Director of Banque Rothschild. Macron's misdeeds are revealed here. The dissidents shine an unwanted light on the Macron-Rothschild connection and in return, the elite seemed to have gotten the police to put unspecified arrest charges against the well-known dissident Alain Soral. The FN will likely lose the second round of the elections. The Socialists, former pals of the elite, are running fourth in a field of four.

France: Scandal-Shock in the presidential race

Recall that in France, the April/May elections are for just the presidency. Legislative elections will follow in early June, but in the Fifth Republic, the President is extraordinarily powerful and the Senate and Chamber of Deputies are not.

On January 25, the French election campaign was thrown into turmoil when the oligarchs made it known that they had switched support to another candidate than the usual right-winger. Their tricks are quite visible no.

The background ins that France's globalist elites are in a panic. As elites elsewhere are also in a panic, really. Across Europe in 2017, voters are ready to kick out the oligarchy's pawns with elections in France, Italy, Germany and perhaps Holland. American just elected an anti-globalist president. That's Huuuge!!

In France, the oligarchy finds itself cornered, which only happens once or twice a century. The National Front is at record strength, as anti-elite as ever. The French elite enjoyed service from the utterly fraudulent "Socialist" Party since the summer of 1914, but in the last 5 years, the "Socialists" set new records for unpopularity and have little chance of winning elections any time soon, if ever.

Why the Elites Turned on Fillon

A casual observer might think the French oligarchs would be happy with François Fillon, a regular politician from the party now known as Les Républicains. That's the old UMP, with a fresh name in 2015 but nothing else changed. Fillon was Prime Minister in the right-wing and very pro-American Sarkozy government, 2007-2012. Fillon was a safe bet if the polls can be believed, they showed him winning the second round of elections, the "knock-out round."

This comes as shock a to people, especially outside France, but the oligarchs have rejected Fillon. A list of his "defects" reveal a stubborn French patriot who defends Christians and family values, who wants French-Russian friendship, and who is not a dyed-in-the-wool Europhile. This ordinary right-wing politician didn't support the Maastrich Treaty which is a foundational document of the EU. That was 1992, and since then he rebuilt bridges with the Europhile elite, or so people thought. Fillon wants to end the sanctions and he's also calling for an EU-Russian conference to work out new security arrangements. Fillion is also supportive of Syrian Christians, who have been a main target of the terrorists. In 2015, he spoke at a meeting of 1600 supporters of this endangered minority. (http://www.lepoint.fr/politique/francois...424_20.php)

It's shocking how Christian churches have been so silent on this state-sponsored attack on their coreligionists. That silence means that Fillon has gone out on a limb in opposing the genocide of Christians because the US, France, Saudi Arabia, even Israel are up to their eyeballs in supporting the terrorists.

I could summarize it by quoting Gérard Bardy, current president of the Union de la Presse francophone-France (UPF) and an author of books on Charles De Gaulle. "In my latest book, "De Gaulle was Right, The Vissionary" (Ed. Télémaque), I do not hesitate to say that F rançois is, to this day, the only heir to Gaullisme." ( http://www.facebook.com/groups/161767340689246/ )

The oligarchs schemed quietly fo two years to build a brand-new candidate to oppose Fillon, but the immediate trigger may have been an interview which Fillon gave to both Le Monde and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, published January 22, so 3 days before January 25, when The Chained Duck quacked its bombshell allegation. ( http://www.lemonde.fr/international/arti..._3210.html )

January 25 the elite's chosen date to rock France with this scandal. Le Canard Enchaîné claiming that Fillon, as a Senator put his wife and two adult children on his expense account as his aides. There is no doubt they were paid from his parliamentary expense account. This type of nepotism is common practice among French politicians on the left and on the right. The salaries are in the public record and it's legal. This nepotism is only illegal if the relatives didn't work to earn their salaries. At time of this writing, Fillon's supporters claim there is no evidence He did anything illegal, and they say it's all cooked up.

The oligarchs could have uncorked the scandal at any time in the last 20 years. They could have uncorked it before the LR primary of Nov. 20 and 27, which would have caused the victory of Nicholas Sarkozy. Why not December 1, after their favored candidate didn't win ? The oligarchs were clever and disciplined. They waited out December and most of January so their scandal would gain the greatest effect. When Le Canard Enchaîné ran the scandal on Jan. 25, Les Républicains didn't have enough time to replace Fillon with someone else. Alain Juppé, the runner-up in November understand what was afoot, that the oligarchs support Macron, so he ruled himself out of a second chance to be the LR candidate.

Even if the charge were true, it's worth noting how artificial this scandal really is, because that artificiality reveals a deeper truth. This routine scandal has been magnified and allowed to be sat on, probably for many years, which would support a suspicion that the scandal was cooked up. It's also crucial to keep the sense of scale. This scandal, if it's true, cost French taxpayers €800,000 over ten years. By contrast, as w will see below, Macron's scandal cost France at least €9 billion, so 100 times greater. The only way the oligarchs could inflate this relatively small account-padding into a career-destroying mega-story is because the elites own all of the mass media and have the power to turn any story into whatever size they want. This sizing is only partially based on the collective gullibility of their readers. Gullibility can be overcome with more repetition, as Goebbels noted in the 1940's. To rephrase, compare €80,000 a year to the €14 billion a year revenues of Alstom's power division, described below.

Emmanuel Macron, Director at Banque Privee Edmond de Rothschild S.A.

When the oligarchs pushed out Fillon, it became undeniable that Macron is their man, but in fact the process to create Macron the Candidate started two years ago.

Who is Macron ? Until he resigned on August 30, 2016, he was the «Ministère de l'Économie et des Finances» a second-tier post where he is best knows for a labor law which cuts salaries, allows employers to demand work on Sunday, and the usual right-wing stuff, but his greater importance is his contribution to the de-industrialization of France, where the giant, Alston was sold off to its American rival GE for a song). But since Macron also spent years as a Director at Banque Rothschild, he became a puppet of the rich and powerful, and they can work magic and turn Macron into a temporary somebody.

Macron and his Rothschild connection is really bad news for the French. Here is why:

The last time the Rothschilds put a puppet into the presidential office, it was to overthrow the great President Charles De Gaulle, who had become anti-imperialist. At the time, all the American Lügenpresse told us was that he kicked NATO out of France. In reality, De Gaulle's offenses were far greater. Few Americans known that he used the prestige of his office to oppose the US wars in Southeast Asia. His speech in Phnom Penh, Cambodia (Sept. 1, 1966) is breathtaking in its deep and eloquent denunciation of the American Empire. A French transcript of that speech is at http://www.charles-de-gaulle.org/pages/l...e-1966.php The most important offense is that De Gaulle, as a French patriot, was not interested in a European Union where France would lose her sovereignty, and De Gaulle had managed to Make France Great Again with a strong economy based on industrial competitiveness. The cherry on the top was his remark that "Some people even feared that the Jews, until then scattered about, but who were still what they had always been, that is an elite people, sure of themselves and domineering, would, once assembled again on the land of their ancient greatness, turn into a burning and conquering ambition." (press conference, Nov. 27, 1967 in the wake of the 1967 War). The elites decided De Gaulle had to go.

The chosen tool was Georges Pompidou. Like Macron, Pompidou was a relative nobody, but he was a former Director-General of Banque Rothschild. Behind-the-scenes support was vital for Pompidou to stage an insider revolt against Charles De Gaulle. Once Pompidou became president, he gave La Banque de France over to private bankers in early 1973. Dissidents scathingly call the legislation «la Loi Pompidou, Giscard, Rothschild». Destroying the Bank Of France was a huge treason. From 1936-1973, the sovereign French government ran its Bank of France to serve the public. The government borrowed money for public works at little or no interest. Bank policies were designed to grow the economy. Public Banking. It was the key to creating "The Glorious Thirty", the 30 years of postwar economic growth and prosperity (1945-1975). Stripping France of its national bank killed off that prosperity in a few short years.

So Pompideou stands as a great warning. When a Rothschild pawn is running for high office, the people should be very concerned about what comes next. Unfortunately, the French Lügenpresse swept all that under the rug and turned De Gaulle into first a bogeyman, and later a remote icon of history. The only people who bring to light how this is relevant today, and how France needs another De Gaulle are the French dissidents which I discuss below.

The French business press has mentioned that Macron was a Director of Banque Rothschild, but this is not much discussed. Only the dissidents give it the prominence it deserves.

The French public know two big bad things about Macron. Alstom and the Macron Law which attacks labor. The third, the Rothschild connection lies hidden in plain view.

Because the Macron Law it affects all working people in France, the polemics around it have attracted widespread attention. It allows top-down changes to labor contracts with the consent of whichever trade union represents 50% of the workers. It abolished the restrictions on Sunday work, an important item and a serious blow to family life a strategic goal of anti-humanist liberals, since strong families are a basic protection against predatory capitalism. It ends the 35 hour work week and allow companies to demand 46 hours work for up to 12 weeks a year. This law is another attack on the working class, with the propaganda that it will increase employment.

Macron wrote this law, but in an endless string of frauds, the French media call it la Loi El Khomri even though El Khomri, the Labor Minister, didn't help write it and seems to have opposed it. (fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myriam_El_Khomri) Macron says long and loud that he would have gone much further in this law, if political realities hadn't restrained him.

The Alstom matter is more serious, really.

Macron's role in the sell-off of Alstom is very strategic damage. It de-industrializes France.

With his portfolio in the "Socialist" government, Macron should have worked to prevent the sell-off of Alstom to GE. This stands as a second clear warning that Rothschild puppets can inflict serious damage.

Alstom was one of France's few remaining high-tech dynamos, a key to French prosperity in the 21st Century. Nuclear reactors, high speed trains, electricity transmission, etc. GE has a similar set of industries, so the American giant offered to buy the nuclear power and electrical transmission part of Alstom for €12.35 billion, but not the train business. That was a paltry sum for businesses with an annual turnover of over €14 billion. Any businessman would understand GE's initial offer as a fire sale price but Alstom was not in distress. Even worse, after all the flim-flam such as a US Department Of "Justice" fine ($970 million) for bribing Indonesian officials, French share-holders ended up with less than €3.7 billion. French people made a public outcry and an effort to prevent losing this jewel, but to no avail. Macron should have prevented this catastrophe, and he did nothing because he's a neoliberal with masters to please and amazing at is seems his French masters serve American masters. The American website, Counterpunch, ran a detailed story on Alstom two months ago, although it failed to highlight the role of Macron as the most responsible "Socialist" minster. Link:

Behind GE's Takeover of Alstom Energy: http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/02/b...om-energy/

Emmanuel Macron, the Candidate

In the last two years, the oligarchic press, the French Lügenpresse, has been trying to turn the nobody Macron into a major candidate, creating a big PR campaign. The French website Le Vent Se Leve (The Wind Rises) has a good short exposé at http://lvsl.fr/medias-ont-fabrique-candidat-macron "How The Medias Fabricated Macron The Candidate". The exposé note that more articles were published about Macron than all three of the other "Socialist" candidates combined, a peer group that included Hamonthe "Socialist" presidential candidate. Polling data from before this campaign started, in late 2014, shows only 6% of the public considered Macron as a serious candidate. The way the glossy press portrayed him, you'd think the 1970's pop star, Johnny Halliday, was being created all over again. Minus the good mood music and the Ford Mustang driving-on-the-beach commercial, however.

In April 2016, Macron started a political movement,"En Marche", and it was clear he was preparing for a presidential run and he was soliciting campaign money. When he resigned on Aug. 30, President Hollande called him "a methodical traitor" so the bridge to the "Socialist" Party was truly burned. What's curious, so odd and artificial, is that Macron waited until November 16 to announce his run for the presidency. That delay indicates Macron has run a stealth campaign.

Macron's ties to Rothschild are in the French media if you know to search it out, but the ties don't get the prominence and the analysis that it should. The Lügenpresse describes Macron as an "independent centrist." He is "independent" of everything except the oligarchs. "Centrist"? Really ? No, this label is as meaningless in France as anywhere. There's only one polite label for Macron; he is a neoliberal. That means fundamentalist capitalism where, without exaggeration, nothing matters except the accumulation of capital.

Alain Soral, the Dissident Who Must Be Silenced

The critical importance of the French dissidents is that they make the connection between Macron and Rothschild, as well as Pompidou to Rothschild. The dissidents are the only people in France who describe 1968 as a Color Revolution created by hidden networks, and the dissidents also lead the way in describing De Gaulle as a great patriot, when the mass media tries to paint him as an authoritarian nut, just some obscure old general. A lot hinges on how people evaluate "1968". It was sold, then and now, as being spontaneous, anti-authoritarian, romantic, etc. It was a great sales job and only the dissidents unravel the marketing of "May, 1968".

The dissidents are a major force in France. Their main power is word of mouth. They are sprinkled throughout France, at most income levels and ethnicities, so they can bend the ear of non-political French citizens. I estimate there are about 250,000 dissidents, and obviously Alain Soral one of the most prominent. The main dissident web site is egaliteetreconciliation.fr/ and it averages 144,000 unique visitors a day. Almost none of this is in English. This is French nationalism at work and one of their goals is preservation of French culture and French language.

If ever the French oligarchs needed to suppress the dissidents, it's now. The arguments of the dissidents are strong, but their biggest obstacle has been the passivity of the French people. Passivity is ending in France as it is elsewhere. So the elite decided it was time to call in the police.

The French police have been trying to arrest Alain Soral since Thursday, Feb. 2. The police haven't stated why they want to arrest him, but the leaders of the "Socialist" government have said in just so many words, that they want to permanently silence Soral and Dieudonné. To quote Valls, the recently departed prime minister, "Death! … Uh, I mean social death!" So yeah, the oligarchs want the dissidents silenced for the duration of the elections.

Soral and fellow dissidents have been on the receiving end of a concerted campaign of intimidation with arrests and trumped-up civil suits. This has been going on for a decade and it's a case of attempted murder social death by a thousand cuts. It drains the dissidents of money and energy.

Unlike the US, France does not have free speech. Some topics can't be discussed openly without fear of arrest. Comments which can be interpreted as racist, as "hate speech", or as "supporting terrorism", or merely as revisions of details from the official history of the Holocaust, or simply annoying a few well-connected Jews, are all prosecutable under French law. In the US, back in the old days when free speech was not all that free, we had gray zones for artistic license, for humor, and for speaking when reporters were not present. France never developed these gray zones because they had free speech from 1881 until the new laws of 1972 and 1990 slowly crept up on them.

One example can give you an idea how this works. Dieudonné, an Afro-French humorist fills large halls at all his performances, at 50 Euro a ticket. He's extremely talented, insightful, and his humor is gentle and fierce. This is all too dangerous and subversive. For a Facebook posting, he was sentenced to 200 days in jail or 30,000 Euros fine, reduced on appeal to 2 months or 10,000 Euros. After the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack, he posted, «Je me sens Charlie Coulibaly.» "I feel like Charlie Coulibaly." It was a hybrid name. Charlie for Charlie-Hebdo, the humor magazine where the victims had worked. Like Dieudonné , they had been humorists, and Dieudonné understood that not everyone likes funny men. Coulibaly, supposedly one of the terrorists, was AfroFrench. Well, Dieudonné is Afro-French, too. Dieudonné said he was trying to do the Christian thing and to lovingly reconcile these two opposites which he said he also finds within himself. He told the court that he "condemned the terrorist attack, holding back nothing, and without any ambiguity." The upshot is that in France, the government decides what's funny.

Soral's Views On The Election

In an interview on Saturday, Alain Soral had some interesting comments. https://youtu.be/Yl2TBBy3HII

Soral says the globalists are very concerned after Trump's election and "the loss of America". They believe they have no choice but to hold on to France «à tout prix», "at any cost." He says the Empire is in panic mode because Hamon, Fillon, and the FN are all against the globalists.

Soral says the "globalist oligarchy" expected and wanted Juppé to win the LR primary. For them, Fillon is "too French, too Catholic, and not submissive towards the Empire." He notes that the attacks on Fillon are coming from the globalist right-wing, not as you'd expect from the left. The globalists see Fillon, even with his Bilderberger membership, as a member of the "grande bourgeoisie" and too close to Putin. So the oligarchs need Macron and they are doing everything to puff up Macron "who incarnates the candidate of the Empire." Soral says Macron is a nobody, an of course the Empire magnifies Macron's small accomplishments into the serious doings of a serious candidate, the same as they did with Manuel Valls before they had to dump him Easily made, easily broken, like a pie in the Mary Poppins musical.

French Polls

Let me end this essay by asking what the polls do or do not reveal. First what do the polls say, and then the question of their credibility.

Broadly, the polls claim that Marine Le Pen will be the victor in the first round, with 29% or so of the vote. But in the second and decisive round, she will be defeated, either by Macron with 66% of the vote, or by Fillon with 58%. These are approximate numbers from an assortment of polls. So all the polls say the NF will not gain the presidency.

However, it's a serious question to ask if these polls are credible. The American pollsters lied outrageously during the 2016 campaign. I hindsight, we can see this was a cross-organizational attempt to create an electoral reality with the use of well-coordinated lying. This stunt was also international and crossed channels. Three weeks before the elections, Paddy Power, an Irish betting firm, "called the election" for Clinton and paid off all the bets on her, saying there was no point in waiting. They paid out a few million needlessly. One can only speculate how Paddy Power was reimbursed, in cash or in more favorable treatment of internet betting,; it's trivial, really. So the manipulation of perceptions is not just a theory, it's a fact.

A history of honesty isn't worth a lot in a very high stakes situation, which is what we have here.

French polls must raise and then answer three questions. First, were citizens really candid with pollsters who represent the establishment ? Second, which people will actually go to the voting urns, and third, how can the pollsters estimate the stay-at-homes ?

At the March, 2014 municipal elections, French voters stayed home in record numbers, causing a tidal wave of losses for the "Socialists". They lost towns they had held for 100 years. The polls were wrong because voters boycotted the "Socialist" Party that ignored the working people. In 2014, the FN only gained 2 or 3 towns and a modest number of seats. But in the last 3 years, as the economic crisis grinds on, the FN has gained voters and more legitimacy. So it's harder to rule out an FN victory.

There's no need to mention Jean-Luc Mélenchon, of the Left Party. Fringe leftists get more coverage than they have electoral prospects.

France's Macron Says He Is Target Of Russian "Fake News" Campaign

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-14...s-campaign

The French learn quick.

Gunning for the anti-Russian sympathy vote, and perhaps anticipating a Hillry-type outcome in the coming presidential elections, French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron who is currently in second place in the polls with a 22% approval rating, behind Le Pen at 27%, said on Monday he was the target of Russian media "fake news" and his campaign is facing thousands of cyber attacks, according to his party chief.

Richard Ferrand, secretary-general of Macron's En Marche! (Onwards!) party, said that Russian state-controlled media Russia Today and Sputnik had spread false reports with the aim of swinging public opinion against Macron.

"These attacks are coming from the Russian border," Ferrand said. "We want a strong Europe. That's why we're subject to attacks on our information system from the Russian state."

"We are in the presence of an orchestrated attempt by a foreign power to destabilize a presidential election candidate," Ferrand said and called on the French government again to take steps to prevent foreign meddling in the French election campaign.

Ferrand said Moscow looked favorably on the policies of far-right leader Marine Le Pen and center-right candidate Francois Fillon - both election rivals of Macron - and both had been "mysteriously spared" from Russian media criticism.

"If these attacks succeeded, the campaign of En Marche would become extremely difficult, if not impossible," Ferrand said in Le Monde online.

Ferrand also said the Macron campaign was being hit by "hundreds if not thousands" of attacks probing the campaign's computer systems from locations inside Russia. Calling for government action to prevent foreign meddling in the election campaigning, Ferrand said: "What we want is for authorities at the highest level to take the matter in hand to guarantee that there is no foreign meddling in our democracy. The Americans saw it but it came to late." He said about half of these thousands of attacks came mainly from Ukraine and had been organized and coordinated by a "structured group" and not by lone hackers.

With President Donald Trump weighing a thaw in relations with Putin, Macron argues that EU nations need to stick together in dealing with their eastern neighbor, Bloomberg added. While sanctions should be lifted in the long term, they must be kept in place if Russia is meddling in Europe's democratic processes or using its energy exports as a form of geopolitical blackmail, the official said.

Whereas National Front leader Marine Le Pen has called EU sanctions on Russia "completely stupid" and Republican candidate Francois Fillon has repeatedly opposed them, Macron was part of a government that helped impose the measures and has labeled Fillon a "Putinopile" or Putin fan. "I don't believe in French people saying that great-power France should be speaking to great-power Russia -- good luck with that," Macron said in January in Berlin. "Russia is indeed in Europe geographically and historically speaking. We have lot of passions together, literature. And Russians live as Europeans. But you have Russian leaders who don't share our values and our views."

Macron has jumped in campaigning for the French election and opinion polls make him favorite to win election in May. Ferrand said that Macron, as a staunch pro-European, was a Russian target because he wanted a strong united Europe that had a major role to play in world affairs, including in the face of Moscow. Sputnik earlier this month ran an interview with a conservative French lawmaker accusing Macron, a former investment banker, of being an agent of "the big American banking system".

"Two big media outlets belonging to the Russian state Russia Today and Sputnik spread fake news on a daily basis, and then they are picked up, quoted and influence the democratic (process)," Ferrand said.

Similar accusations were lobbed at US media outlets by the losing Clinton campaign shortly after the election, accusing most websites who did not support Hillary Clinton of being distributors "fake news."

Russia Today said it rejected allegations it spread fake news in general and in relation to Macron and the forthcoming French election. "It seems that it has become acceptable to level such serious charges at Russia Today without presenting any evidence to substantiate them, as well as to apply this 'fake news' label to any reporting that one might simply find unfavorable," the news channel said in a statement.

As Reuters adds, Russian newspaper Izvestia has also reported comments from Wikileaks founder Julian Assange who said his organization had "interesting information" about Macron, who opinion polls say would easily beat far-right leader Marine Le Pen in a May 7 runoff.

Soon after the accusations, the Kremlin denied that it was behind media and internet attacks on Macron's campaign. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, replying to a question on a daily conference call, said charges made on Monday by Macron's party chief, Richard Ferrand, were absurd.

"We didn't have and do not have any intention of interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, or in their electoral processes in particular," Peskov told reporters. "That there is a hysterical anti-(President Vladimir) Putin campaign in certain countries abroad is an obvious fact."

Well, in a world of "he said, she said" fake media accusations, there is nothing to lose by stating something that can not be disproven, and at best, can lead to some marginal sympathy by anti Russian voters.

Meanwhile, Sputnik, in a comment on Tuesday, said Ferrand's accusations were false and lacked any evidence, and represented an attempt at spinning public opinion.

"By citing various opinions expressed by people involved in the election campaign, Sputnik always covers events as they are," it said. Alas, these days any time news emerges which hurt's ones political agenda, the response is rather generic: accuse it of being a source of "fake news", as has now happened first in the US, then in Germany, and now in France.

[Paul Rigby]

Emmanuel "Rothschild" Macron: The Globalists' Response to Trump, Putin, and Le Pen

Ruslan Ostashko, LiveJournal - translated by J. Arnoldski

February 14, 2017 - Fort Russ

http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/02/emmanue...lists.html

The situation surrounding the French elections clearly shows what kind of clever and experienced opponents we are dealing with. The supranational oligarchy and bureaucracy are genuinely dangerous opponents that are not so simple to deal with even if Putin and Trump will agree to cooperate against them.

The most dangerous feature of this supranational oligarchy and bureaucracy which Putin mentioned at Valdai is not its financial resources or its access to the levers of power - although this is very important. The most dangerous aspect is the capability of the Soroses and Kagans to learn. The supranational elites that until only recently completely controlled the US and are now decisively influencing European policy are no decrepit and inadequate late Soviet Politburo. They are a group of clever and experienced businessmen and politicians who can still spill a lot of blood.

Look at what is now happening in France and you'll see just how subtly, effectively, and prudently they've fooled French voters and manipulated their emotions in their favor.

Just one month ago, the majority of experts preferred the candidate Francois Fillon who was liked by the French public, had a high approval rating, high party support, and could take advantage of the fact that voters are sick and tired of the existing political establishment and Francois Hollande in particular. Fillon's candidacy completely suited Russia and it seemed like all would be well. But no.

The supranational oligarchy and bureaucracy inflicted a double blow. First, they found dirt on Fillion which even by European standards is ridiculous and, given total media promotion, effectively collapsed his approval rating. Now even his fellow party members have demanded that he forfeit his candidacy.

Secondly, the supranational oligarchy has clearly demonstrated that it has learned from Trump's victory in the US and has quickly arranged the appearance of a supposedly independent and anti-system candidate who will chip away at the same protesting electorate that is tired of boring and corrupt politicians.

Meet Emmanuel Macron - a French politician, the ex-minister of the economy, and former investment banker for the Rothschilds. However, of course, intelligence services employees would like to clarify that there are no "former" bankers.

The history of Macron's emergence in the presidential race shows the ease with which investment bankers, PR spin doctors, and the media are able to craft an anti-system candidate. He's not running for election for the boring parties, but has out of nowhere formed his own movement that is considered neither left nor right, but which can take the maximum number of dissatisfied voters from all ends of the political spectrum. His program is titled no more nor less than "Revolution!" and promises voters to be good in everything and against everything bad - without much specifics.

The image of a revolutionary banker appears to me to be a little moronic. But, judging by surveys, some voters do not see any contradictions in this. Even if we allow for the possibilities of these surveys deliberately raising Macron's rating, the results of his PR campaign are still impressive.

Macron's PR workers have for now managed to combine two incompatible things in his image: it is as if he is for soft economic neoliberalism, but for the common man and against the establishment. In addition, he is also in favor of Europe and multiculturalism, but they're trying to make these aspects not stick out, since you never know when the next terrorist attack or mass rape could take place and harm his approval rating.

It is very likely that the next round of elections in France will pit Marine Le Pen and Macron. It bears recognition that this former Rothschild's banker has a large chance of winning since all the media and establishment parties will agitate for him. His victory could be thwarted only by a very serious scandal in the likes of exposing Hillary Clinton's secret correspondences, or an unprecedented mobilization of French Eurosceptics. In general, all hopes are pinned on Russian hackers and Julian Assange.

Finally, I've told you all of this not because this and following the French elections is very interesting, but to emphasize that Macron's victory would be nothing tragic - we will certainly survive it. But in observing how his public image is being built and what messages he is promoting in his election campaign, it cannot be overlooked that our geopolitical opponents are certainly preparing their own Macron for presidential elections in Russia. They even have several potential Macrons who they'll dress up in the clothes of revolutionaries, populists, truth-tellers, and fighters against corruption and the establishment. Work in this direction is already underway.

Look at how Navalny, Kasyanov, and even Roizman's images are built, the latter of whom's candidacy is already actively being whispered about by Moscow political strategists. But I'd like to say that it is good that Russia is not France. There is no candidate here who has such chances, and this is very good.

[Paul Rigby]

France: Another Ghastly Presidential Election Campaign; the Deep State Rises to the Surface

by DIANA JOHNSTONE

FEBRUARY 17, 2017

http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/02/17/f...e-surface/

As if the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign hadn't been horrendous enough, here comes another one: in France.

The system in France is very different, with multiple candidates in two rounds, most of them highly articulate, who often even discuss real issues. Free television time reduces the influence of big money. The first round on April 23 will select the two finalists for the May 7 runoff, allowing for much greater choice than in the United States.

But monkey see, monkey do, and the mainstream political class wants to mimic the ways of the Empire, even echoing the theme that dominated the 2016 show across the Atlantic: the evil Russians are messing with our wonderful democracy.

The aping of the U.S. system began with "primaries" held by the two main governing parties which obviously aspire to establish themselves as the equivalent of American Democrats and Republicans in a two-party system. The right-wing party of former president Nicolas Sarkozy has already renamed itself Les Républicains and the so-called Socialist Party leaders are just waiting for the proper occasion to call themselves Les Démocrates. But as things are going, neither one of them may come out ahead this time.

Given the nearly universal disaffection with the outgoing Socialist Party government of President François Hollande, the Republicans were long seen as the natural favorites to defeat Marine LePen, who is shown by all polls to top the first round. With such promising prospects, the Republican primary brought out more than twice as many volunteer voters (they must pay a small sum and claim allegiance to the party's "values" in order to vote) as the Socialists. Sarkozy was eliminated, but more surprising, so was the favorite, the reliable establishment team player, Bordeaux mayor Alain Juppé, who had been leading in the polls and in media editorials.

Fillon's Family Values

In a surprise show of widespread public disenchantment with the political scene, Republican voters gave landside victory to former prime minister François Fillon, a practicing Catholic with an ultra-neoliberal domestic policy: lower taxes for corporations, drastic cuts in social welfare, even health health insurance benefits accelerating what previous governments have been doing but more openly. Less conventionally, Fillon strongly condemns the current anti Russian policy. Fillon also deviates from the Socialist government's single-minded commitment to overthrowing Assad by showing sympathy for embattled Christians in Syria and their protector, which happens to be the Assad government.

Fillon has the respectable look, as the French say, of a person who could take communion without first going to confession. As a campaign theme he credibly stressed his virtuous capacity to oppose corruption.

Oops! On January 25, the semi-satirical weekly Le Canard Enchainé fired the opening shots of an ongoing media campaign designed to undo the image of Mister Clean, revealing that his British wife, Penelope, had been paid a generous salary for working as his assistant. As Penelope was known for staying home and raising their children in the countryside, the existence of that work is in serious doubt. Fillon also paid his son a lawyer's fee for unspecified tasks and his daughter for supposedly assisting him write a book. In a sense, these allegations prove the strength of the conservative candidate's family values. But his ratings have fallen and he faces possible criminal charges for fraud.

The scandal is real, but the timing is suspect. The facts are many years old, and the moment of their revelation is well calculated to ensure his defeat. Moreover, the very day after the Canard's revelations, prosecutors hastily opened an inquiry. In comparison with all the undisclosed dirty work and unsolved blood crimes committed by those in control of the French State over the years, especially during its foreign wars, enriching one's own family may seem relatively minor. But that is not the way the public sees it.

Cui bono?

It is widely assumed that despite National Front candidate Marine LePen's constant lead in the polls, whoever comes in second will win the runoff because the established political class and the media will rally around the cry to "save the Republic!" Fear of the National Front as "a threat to the Republic" has become a sort of protection racket for the established parties, since it stigmatizes as unacceptable a large swath of opposition to themselves. In the past, both main parties have sneakily connived to strengthen the National Front in order to take votes away from their adversary.

Thus, bringing down Fillon increases the chances that the candidate of the now thoroughly discredited Socialist Party may find himself in the magic second position after all, as the knight to slay the LePen dragon. But who exactly is the Socialist candidate? That is not so clear. There is the official Socialist Party candidate, Benoît Hamon. But the independent spin-off from the Hollande administration, Emmanuel Macron, "neither right nor left", is gathering support from the right of the Socialist Party as well as from most of the neo-liberal globalist elite.

Macron is scheduled to be the winner. But first, a glance at his opposition on the left. With his ratings in the single digits, François Hollande very reluctantly gave into entreaties from his colleagues to avoid the humiliation of running for a second term and losing badly. The badly attended Socialist Party primary was expected to select the fiercely pro-Israel prime minister Manuel Valls. Or if not, on his left, Arnaud Montebourg, a sort of Warren Beatty of French politics, famous for his romantic liaisons and his advocacy of re-industrialization of France.

Again, surprise. The winner was a colorless, little-known party hack named Benoît Hamon, who rode the wave of popular discontent to appear as a leftist critic and alternative to a Socialist government which sold out all Holland's promises to combat "finance" and assaulted the rights of the working class instead. Hamon spiced up his claim to be "on the left" by coming up with a gimmick that is fashionable elsewhere in Europe but a novelty in French political discourse: the "universal basic income". The idea of giving every citizen an equal handout can sound appealing to young people having trouble finding a job. But this idea, which originated with Milton Friedman and other apostles of unleashed financial capitalism, is actually a trap. The project assumes that unemployment is permanent, in contrast to projects to create jobs or share work. It would be financed by replacing a whole range of existing social allocations, in the name of "getting rid of bureaucracy" and "freedom of consumption". The project would complete the disempowerment of the working class as a political force, destroying the shared social capital represented by public services, and splitting the dependent classes between paid workers and idle consumers.

There is scant chance that the universal income is about to become a serious item on the French political agenda. For the moment, Hamon's claim to radicality serves to lure voters away from the independent left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Both are vying for support from greens and militants of the French Communist Party, which has lost all capacity to define its own positions.

The Divided Left

An impressive orator, Mélenchon gained prominence in 2005 as a leading opponent of the proposed European Constitution, which was decisively rejected by the French in a referendum, but was nevertheless adopted under a new name by the French national assembly. Like so many leftists in France, Mélenchon has a Trotskyist background (the Posadists, more attuned to Third World revolutions than their rivals) before joining the Socialist Party, which he left in 2008 to found the Parti de Gauche. He has sporadically wooed the rudderless Communist Party to join him as the Front de Gauche (the Left Front) and has declared himself its candidate for President on a new independent ticket called La France insoumise roughly translated as "Insubordinate France". Mélenchon is combative with France's docile media, as he defends such unorthodox positions as praise of Chavez and rejection of France's current Russophobic foreign policy. Unlike the conventional Hamon, who follows the Socialist party line, Mélenchon wants France to leave both the euro and NATO.

There are only two really strong personalities in this lineup: Mélenchon on the left and his adversary of choice, Marine LePen, on the right. In the past, their rivalry in local elections has kept both from winning even though she came out ahead. Their positions on foreign policy are hard to distinguish from each other: criticism of the European Union, desire to leave NATO, good relations with Russia.

Since both deviate from the establishment line, both are denounced as "populists" a term that is coming to mean anyone who pays more attention to what ordinary people want that to what the Establishment dictates.

On domestic social policy, on preservation of social services and workers' rights, Marine is well to the left of Fillon. But the stigma attached to the National Front as the "far right" remains, even though, with her close advisor Florian Philippot, she has ditched her father, Jean-Marie, and adjusted the party line to appeal to working class voters. The main relic of the old National Front is her hostility to immigration, which now centers on fear of Islamic terrorists. The terrorist killings in Paris and Nice have made these positions more popular than they used to be. In her effort to overcome her father's reputation as anti-Semitic, Marine LePen has done her best to woo the Jewish community, helped by her rejection of "ostentatious" Islam, going so far as to call for a ban on wearing an ordinary Muslim headscarf in public.

A runoff between Mélenchon and LePen would be an encounter between a revived left and a revived right, a real change from the political orthodoxy that has alienated much of the electorate. That could make politics exciting again. At a time when popular discontent with "the system" is rising, it has been suggested (by Elizabeth Lévy's maverick monthly Le Causeur) that the anti-system Mélenchon might actually have the best chance of winning working class votes away from the anti-system LePen.

Manufacturing Consent

But the pro-European Union, pro-NATO, neoliberal Establishment is at work to keep that from happening. On every possible magazine cover or talk show, the media have shown their allegiance to a "New! Improved!" middle of the road candidate who is being sold to the public like a consumer product. At his rallies, carefully coached young volunteers situated in view of the cameras greet his every vague generalization with wild cheers, waving flags, and chanting "Macron President!!!" before going off to the discotèque party offered as their reward. Macron is the closest thing to a robot ever presented as a serious candidate for President. That is, he is an artificial creation designed by experts for a particular task.

Emmanuel Macron, 39, was a successful investment banker who earned millions working for the Rothschild bank. Ten years ago, in 2007, age 29, the clever young economist was invited into the big time by Jacques Attali, an immensely influential guru, whose advice since the 1980s has been central in wedding the Socialist Party to pro-capitalist, neoliberal globalism. Attali incorporated him into his private think tank, the Commission for Stimulating Economic Growth, which helped draft the "300 Proposals to Change France" presented to President Sarkozy a year later as a blueprint for government. Sarkozy failed to enact them all, for fear of labor revolts, but the supposedly "left" Socialists are able to get away with more drastic anti-labor measures, thanks to their softer discourse.

The soft discourse was illustrated by presidential candidate François Hollande in 2012 when he aroused enthusiasm by declaring to a rally: "My real enemy is the world of finance!". The left cheered and voted for him. Meanwhile, as a precaution, Hollande secretly dispatched Macron to London to reassure the City's financial elite that it was all just electoral talk.

After his election, Hollande brought Macron onto his staff. From there he was given a newly created super-modern sounding government post as minister of Economy, Industry and Digital affairs in 2014. With all the bland charm of a department store mannequin, Macron upstaged his irascible colleague, prime minister Manuel Valls, in the silent rivalry to succeed their boss, President Hollande. Macron won the affection of big business by making his anti-labor reforms look young and clean and "progressive". In fact, he pretty much followed the Attali agenda.

The theme is "competitiveness". In a globalized world, a country must attract investment capital in order to compete, and for that it is necessary to lower labor costs. A classic way to do that is to encourage immigration. With the rise of identity politics, the left is better than the right in justifying massive immigration on moral grounds, as a humanitarian measure. That is one reason that the Democratic Party in the United States and the Socialist Party in France have become the political partners of neoliberal globalism. Together, they have changed the outlook of the official left from structural measures promoting economic equality to moral measures promoting equality of minorities with the majority.

Just last year, Macron founded (or had founded for him) his political movement entitled "En marche!" (Let's go!) characterized by meetings with young groupies wearing Macron t-shirts. In three months he felt the call to lead the nation and announced his candidacy for President.

Many personalities are jumping the marooned Socialist ship and going over to Macron, whose strong political resemblance to Hillary Clinton suggests that his is the way to create a French Democratic Party on the U.S. model. Hillary may have lost but she remains the NATOland favorite. And indeed, U.S. media coverage confirms this notion. A glance at the ecstatic puff piece by Robert Zaretsky in Foreign Policy magazine hailing "the English-speaking, German-loving, French politician Europe has been waiting for" leaves no doubt that Macron is the darling of the trans-Atlantic globalizing elite.

At this moment, Macron is second only to Marine LePen in the polls, which also show him defeating her by a landslide in the final round. However, his carefully manufactured appeal is vulnerable to greater public information about his close ties to the economic elite.

Blame the Russians

For that eventuality, there is a preventive strike, imported directly from the United States. It's the fault of the Russians!

What have the Russians done that is so terrible? Mainly, they have made it clear that they have a preference for friends rather than enemies as heads of foreign governments. Nothing so extraordinary about that. Russian news media criticize, or interview people who criticize, candidates hostile to Moscow. Nothing extraordinary about that either.

As an example of this shocking interference, which allegedly threatens to undermine the French Republic and Western values, the Russian news agency Sputnik interviewed a Republican member of the French parliament, Nicolas Dhuicq, who dared say that Macron might be "an agent of the American financial system". That is pretty obvious. But the resulting outcry skipped over that detail to accuse Russian state media of "starting to circulate rumors that Macron had a gay extramarital affair" (The EU Observer, February 13, 2017). In fact this alleged "sexual slur" had been circulating primarily in gay circles in Paris, for whom the scandal, if any, is not Macron's alleged sexual orientation but the fact that he denies it. The former mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe, was openly gay, Marine Le Pen's second in command Florian Philippot is gay, in France being gay is no big deal.

Macron is supported by a "very wealthy gay lobby", Dhuicq is quoted as saying. Everyone knows who that is: Pierre Bergé, the rich and influential business manager of Yves Saint Laurent, personification of radical chic, who strongly supports surrogate gestation, which is indeed a controversial issue in France, the real controversy underlying the failed opposition to gay marriage.

The Deep State rises to the surface

The amazing adoption in France of the American anti-Russian campaign is indicative of a titanic struggle for control of the narrative the version of international reality consumed by the masses of people who have no means to undertake their own investigations. Control of the narrative is the critical core of what Washington describes as its "soft power". The hard power can wage wars and overthrow governments. The soft power explains to bystanders why that was the right thing to do. The United States can get away with literally everything so long as it can tell the story to its own advantage, without the risk of being credibly contradicted. Concerning sensitive points in the world, whether Iraq, or Libya, or Ukraine, control of the narrative is basically exercised by the partnership between intelligence agencies and the media. Intelligence services write the story, and the mass corporate media tell it.

Together, the anonymous sources of the "deep state" and the mass corporate media have become accustomed to controlling the narrative told to the public. They don't want to give that power up. And they certainly don't want to see it challenged by outsiders notably by Russian media that tell a different story.

That is one reason for the extraordinary campaign going on to denounce Russian and other alternative media as sources of "false news", in order to discredit rival sources. The very existence of the Russian international television news channel RT aroused immediate hostility: how dare the Russians intrude on our version of reality! How dare they have their own point of view! Hillary Clinton warned against RT when she was Secretary of State and her successor John Kerry denounced it as a "propaganda bullhorn". What we say is truth, what they say can only be propaganda.

The denunciation of Russian media and alleged Russian "interference in our elections" is a major invention of the Clinton campaign, which has gone on to infect public discourse in Western Europe. This accusation is a very obvious example of double standards, or projection, since U.S. spying on everybody, including it allies, and interference in foreign elections are notorious.

The campaign denouncing "fake news" originating in Moscow is in full swing in both France and Germany as elections approach. It is this accusation that is the functional interference in the campaign, not Russian media. The accusation that Marine Le Pen is "the candidate of Moscow" is not only meant to work against her, but is also preparation for the efforts to instigate some variety of "color revolution" should she happen to win the May 7 election. CIA interference in foreign elections is far from limited to contentious news reports.

In the absence of any genuine Russian threat to Europe, claims that Russian media are "interfering in our democracy" serve to brand Russia as an aggressive enemy and thereby justify the huge NATO military buildup in Northeastern Europe, which is reviving German militarism and directing national wealth into the arms industry.

In some ways, the French election is an extension of the American one, where the deep state lost its preferred candidate, but not its power. The same forces are at work here, backing Macron as the French Hillary, but ready to stigmatize any opponent as a tool of Moscow.

What has been happening over the past months has confirmed the existence of a Deep State that is not only national but trans-Atlantic, aspiring to be global. The anti-Russian campaign is a revelation. It reveals to many people that there really is a Deep State, a trans-Atlantic orchestra that plays the same tune without any visible conductor. The term "Deep State" is suddenly popping up even in mainstream discourse, as a reality than cannot be denied, even if it is hard to define precisely. Instead of the Military Industrial Complex, we should perhaps call it the Military Industrial Intelligence Military Media Complex, or MIIMMC. Its power is enormous, but acknowledging that it exists is the first step toward working to free ourselves from its grip.

[Paul Rigby]

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