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Reflections on a French Revolution (Part 2) · John’s Newsletter

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  [music]
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  SPEAKER_00: Good morning,
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  SPEAKER_00: everyone,
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  SPEAKER_00: and welcome back to Around the world in 20 minutes,
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  SPEAKER_00: where we try to make sense of the beguiling new planet we find ourselves on,
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  SPEAKER_00: and I told you we might have an extra today,
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  SPEAKER_00: and we will continue keeping pace with reflections on a French Revolution.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: I thought a part two was necessary where we talk through the politics.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's a good article to commend.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: I've read a bunch of good ones.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's a good one on...
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  SPEAKER_00: Real clear politics,
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  SPEAKER_00: and I've forgotten the guy's name,
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  SPEAKER_00: Jens Heideke,
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  SPEAKER_00: I think,
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  SPEAKER_00: who has a Substack on numbers about these unassimilated second,
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  SPEAKER_00: third generation Muslim citizens of France who don't want to be part of the polity.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes into some detail on that.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's worth reading.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then Unheard has a great piece by I think his first name, his name is Mr. Hussey.
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  SPEAKER_00: He's written an interesting book on France I read before it might be Edward,
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  SPEAKER_00: but it's on Unheard.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it's about some of the political machinations going on.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that got me to thinking that we needed to do absolutely another one to keep you up to speed.
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  SPEAKER_00: As we do here in the community on the politics behind what's going on.
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  SPEAKER_00: We laid out what's going on and then began to see beneath it.
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  SPEAKER_00: But I thought we needed another to make this for real.
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  SPEAKER_00: And to talk a little bit about the politics.
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  SPEAKER_00: So to begin where we ended last time,
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  SPEAKER_00: what you see with these riots,
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  SPEAKER_00: and that's certainly what they are,
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  SPEAKER_00: is not a deep concern for schools that you're burning to the ground,
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  SPEAKER_00: but instead a show of force by unassimilated Muslim migrants
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  SPEAKER_00: and their hard-left revolutionary allies, this red-green war.
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  SPEAKER_00: A coalition in France of unassimilated Muslim migrants and hard left revolutionary allies.
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  SPEAKER_00: They have an awful lot not in common,
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  SPEAKER_00: and this is true in the States and in Britain,
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  SPEAKER_00: certainly socially about women's rights.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is a thing they absolutely disagree on.
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  SPEAKER_00: But they both want to tear down Western civilization.
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  SPEAKER_00: They both don't like it.
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  SPEAKER_00: The revolutionary left despise Western civilization.
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  SPEAKER_00: Christian, capitalistic, bourgeois.
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  SPEAKER_00: They hate all these words.
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  SPEAKER_00: And many,
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  SPEAKER_00: many Muslims coming to these countries loathe Western civilization for
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  SPEAKER_00: the very social libertine,
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  SPEAKER_00: in their view, goings-on that they see, which we would call freedom.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so they have this major thing in common about loathing Western civilization.
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  SPEAKER_00: Then you have Macron under his desk hiding, not defending Western civilization.
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  SPEAKER_00: So there's a vacuum.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that's why we're talking about this in revolutionary terms.
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  SPEAKER_00: What does Melenchon get out of it?
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: if we buy Prime Minister Sebastian Lecourneau's notion
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  SPEAKER_00: that these initial school riots have been totally hijacked
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  SPEAKER_00: by people waving Gazan flags,
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  SPEAKER_00: flags of the Palestinians,
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  SPEAKER_00: waving flags of Algeria, Morocco, that's not about school issues.
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  SPEAKER_00: What is it that Melenchon gets out of this?
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  SPEAKER_00: If the unrest drives rioters to do more and more,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is what he's trying to do, this could well provoke the populist right.
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  SPEAKER_00: The most likely outcome revolutionarily of this is a Le Pen victory,
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  SPEAKER_00: which we were already calling,
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  SPEAKER_00: as everyone who's ever listened to me knows,
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  SPEAKER_00: and was going to be and will be one of our main calls for next year.
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  SPEAKER_00: The bell is tolling for the old Patrick Henry podcast European establishment to jump
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  SPEAKER_00: upon the dustbin of history as it so justly ought to.
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  SPEAKER_00: But now with the riots,
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  SPEAKER_00: it's even more likely that Le Pen wins because people in the The Republicans,
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  SPEAKER_00: Les Républicains,
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  SPEAKER_00: who kind of flirt with Le Penism but don't go the whole way,
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  SPEAKER_00: and moderates in general,
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  SPEAKER_00: independent voters,
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  SPEAKER_00: are likely with all this anarchy and this chaos to vote for Le Pen to say
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  SPEAKER_00: that order is...
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  SPEAKER_00: So if the unrest,
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  SPEAKER_00: if you're Melenchon,
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  SPEAKER_00: if the unrest does this,
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  SPEAKER_00: as I predict it will,
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  SPEAKER_00: and drives voters to the populist right,
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  SPEAKER_00: he can hope to emerge as the leader of the opposition.
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  SPEAKER_00: That the macronistas and the technocratic establishmentarian,
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  SPEAKER_00: good Aspen people,
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  SPEAKER_00: good FT reading,
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  SPEAKER_00: finance kind of industry folks who've run Europe into a ditch over decades.
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  SPEAKER_00: Over a generation without their self-regard being dented in any noticeable way.
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're not cursed with the plague of self-reflection.
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  SPEAKER_00: Let's put it that way.
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  SPEAKER_00: If they're discarded, then there's going to be a leader of the opposition.
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  SPEAKER_00: And as they move to their right,
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  SPEAKER_00: he then can stay on the left and say, I am the logical choice in my movement.
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  SPEAKER_00: La France Insoumise, LFI is the movement to move forward.
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  SPEAKER_00: So you have a much more radicalized and polarized France.
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  SPEAKER_00: So if things go wrong, I mean,
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  SPEAKER_00: that's the worst case outcome for Melenchon,
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  SPEAKER_00: that in this chaos, people move to the right, but then he emerges.
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  SPEAKER_00: He emerges as the coherent voice of the far left,
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  SPEAKER_00: and that makes him the leader of the opposition,
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  SPEAKER_00: and he eviscerates the macronistas in the center,
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  SPEAKER_00: and that would be okay by his standards, I'm sure.
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  SPEAKER_00: If he succeeds in bringing enough boats over, he could be president.
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  SPEAKER_00: Meaning if it gets more polarized by the rioting
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  SPEAKER_00: and people decide they'd rather have the far left than the far right,
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  SPEAKER_00: the old kind of emergency vehicle,
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  SPEAKER_00: because the French establishment,
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  SPEAKER_00: like all these establishments, tilts to the center left.
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  SPEAKER_00: And by that I mean it's corporatist rather than capitalist,
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  SPEAKER_00: state-driven, elite, technocratic social democracy.
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  SPEAKER_00: So if they have to choose between hemlock and strychnine, they may pick him.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because the elite already tend toward the center left.
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  SPEAKER_00: You see this in that there is a firewall to try to keep the far right out.
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  SPEAKER_00: And there isn't such a one in Germany and France to keep the Linke out in Germany
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  SPEAKER_00: or Mélenchon out in France.
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  SPEAKER_00: So he might hope that when pushed, the people in the middle jump his way.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then he's president of the Republic.
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  SPEAKER_00: So if the unrest leads people to flee to order in Le Pen,
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  SPEAKER_00: he emerges as the leader of the opposition.
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  SPEAKER_00: And if it forces a choice that they don't much like,
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  SPEAKER_00: they may just side with him and he becomes president of France.
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  SPEAKER_00: In either case, he has no incentive to lower the temperature.
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  SPEAKER_00: He's talking about a sixth republic.
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean, again,
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  SPEAKER_00: one of the refreshing things about Melenchon,
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  SPEAKER_00: beyond that I do see him trying out for that off-Broadway part in Les Miserables,
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  SPEAKER_00: he is what he is, but he's very clear that he wants a new republic.
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  SPEAKER_00: And this link between,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: hard left revolutionaries and unassimilated Muslim migrants is his last best ticket
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  SPEAKER_00: to it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And he's very clear about that.
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  SPEAKER_00: But he has no incentive politically to lower the temperature as people gathered at
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  SPEAKER_00: a union, radical unions, gather with students, gather with unassimilated Muslims.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's his political calculation.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because Melenchon's coalition,
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  SPEAKER_00: and we have to think differently,
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  SPEAKER_00: we have to think in radical, utopian, revolutionary terms.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thank God for realism again, because I can do that.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm aware of who's a utopian, and I'm aware of who's part of the establishment.
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  SPEAKER_00: Melenchon's coalition is...
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  SPEAKER_00: Isn't for assimilation and some sort of favored position in the present order.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's for destroying the present order.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's what they have in common in the Red-Green Coalition.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's what the two parts have in common.
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  SPEAKER_00: They're very odd bedfellows otherwise,
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  SPEAKER_00: but they both want to destroy the Fifth Republic along with Western civilization
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  SPEAKER_00: as it's constituted.
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  SPEAKER_00: Capitalistic, democratic, a lot of social liberties, bourgeoisie.
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  SPEAKER_00: All the things that both really dislike.
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  SPEAKER_00: However,
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  SPEAKER_00: I think the first of the two calculations of Melenchon is the more likely
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  SPEAKER_00: that people flee to the right.
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  SPEAKER_00: All the more reason that,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: and again,
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  SPEAKER_00: no secret, we've been calling for a while now that she's going to win the election.
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  SPEAKER_00: It will be one of our major calls for next year.
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  SPEAKER_00: But we've been ahead of the game as anybody who follows me notices a recent poll in Figaro.
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  SPEAKER_00: Found that 78% of French people thought that La France Insoumise was aggressive
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  SPEAKER_00: and fully 70,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is a huge majority,
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  SPEAKER_00: anything over 60 we share with you,
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  SPEAKER_00: think that Mélenchon and his ilk are actively dangerous.
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  SPEAKER_00: If 70% of those polled think you're actively dangerous,
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  SPEAKER_00: they may flee to anybody who talks about order.
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  SPEAKER_00: And sure enough, Le Pen is talking about order.
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  SPEAKER_00: She's, unlike Macron, not hiding behind her desk.
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  SPEAKER_00: She's come out and said there need to be new laws to punish the most destructive rioters.
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  SPEAKER_00: She's going hard for the Gaullus notion of law and order.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so people are fleeing Dorian with Macron hiding under a desk and the center going away.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is going to be very attractive to these 70 percent of voters
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  SPEAKER_00: who are worried La France Insoumise is actively dangerous.
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  SPEAKER_00: Let's remember.
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  SPEAKER_00: Finally,
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  SPEAKER_00: to make a historical point,
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  SPEAKER_00: let's remember that the 1968 riots that eventually wounded de Gaulle very badly,
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  SPEAKER_00: him leaving office shortly thereafter,
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  SPEAKER_00: didn't lead to some glorious socialist utilitarianism.
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  SPEAKER_00: Utopia, as all these awful baby boomers talk about while they're,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know, pretending they don't like capitalism.
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  SPEAKER_00: What a useless generation.
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  SPEAKER_00: I can't think of anything used in a faux revolutionary French person from the 1970s.
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  SPEAKER_00: The 68ers are dreadful human beings who aren't remotely aware of their place in history.
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  SPEAKER_00: Let's look at what happened after 1968.
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  SPEAKER_00: Gaulism was in real trouble.
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  SPEAKER_00: He'd been in since 58.
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  SPEAKER_00: But after the 68 riots, Gaulism makes it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Continues, flourishes afterwards with Pompidou and Giscard de Stang.
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  SPEAKER_00: And after the 1968 riots,
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  SPEAKER_00: when the students seem,
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: let's face it, it's absolutely what they're talking is verbal gobbledygook.
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I just want them all to take a nap and lay off the drugs.
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  SPEAKER_00: The 68 revolt led to right-wing governments dominating France for the next 14 years
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  SPEAKER_00: until Mitterrand came in in 1982.
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  SPEAKER_00: So the 68ers didn't have any more than the American Vietnam protesters,
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  SPEAKER_00: some sort of glorious success.
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  SPEAKER_00: They just moved the silent majority in France, as Nixon would call it.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: And Joe, that's for you and our Nixon maxing.
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  SPEAKER_00: They just moved them into the Republican camp.
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  SPEAKER_00: In this case, the Gaullist camp.
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  SPEAKER_00: So Gaullism basically dominates France between 1958 and 1982,
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  SPEAKER_00: but from 68 to 82, this is due to the hysterical Manson-like ramblings of the 68ers.
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  SPEAKER_00: Who still in the French arts act like they won some glorious victory when
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  SPEAKER_00: the only glorious victory they won was for the right.
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  SPEAKER_00: And they all still talk about it.
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  SPEAKER_00: I want to roll my eyes while they live off the benefits of their children
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  SPEAKER_00: and their grandchildren.
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  SPEAKER_00: What an odious group of people.
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  SPEAKER_00: France went right when confronted with chaos, Manson-like hysteria.
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  SPEAKER_00: If this continues,
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  SPEAKER_00: if firemen are set on fire and unassimilated migrants take pictures of them,
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  SPEAKER_00: if teachers are beaten coming out, if ladies who beg people...
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about the first part.
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  SPEAKER_00: We have to think this through.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: As the leader of the opposition,
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  SPEAKER_00: he's certainly going to take that gamble and not turn down the temperature.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: At the moment in the polling,
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Melenchon would sit a very close third, which is perennially where he is.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: He does well, but not quite well enough to make the two-person race.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: He has nothing to lose.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: He has everything to gain by moving forward and keeping the riots going.
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  SPEAKER_00: It might take him to that second position where he emerges as the head president.
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  SPEAKER_00: The far left emerges as the voice of opposition to Le Pen.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: But in either case,
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  SPEAKER_00: whether he acquires that position as leader of the opposition for his hard right,
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  SPEAKER_00: red-green movement, or the establishment takeover, they're handing the election.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thanks very much.
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  SPEAKER_00: Very happy to update you on this.
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  SPEAKER_00: We will keep them coming.