Tag: Marion Le Pen

Marion Le Pen bowed out

Blog, Politics

Marion Maréchal-Le Pen (27) declaration of stepping down closes the chapter of the Front National history. In spite of her young age, Maréchal-Le Pen represented the conservative wing of the party, very much associated with it founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, the grand-father and family’s patriarch. The elections showed the limits of the ‘Le Pen’ brand, unanimously cursed by the French left-wing and centrists for almost half-a-century. Emmanuel Macron received two-thirds of votes as a protest against a perspective for Le Pen family ascendance to power, not due to high opinion of his programme.

The structural changes are ahead of the Front National, led by Maréchal’s aunt – Marine Le Pen: the union with the other right-wing patriotic movements, following the successful alliance with Nicolas Dupont–Aignan. The change of name, and further shifting to the political centre are imminent.

However impressive personal talents, charisma and presence of Marechal  are, her departure will have a positive effect of the party, allowing to switch from a Medieval congregation around one family into modern form of gathering, based on meritocracy.

Generally speaking French electorate is tired of nepotism, flourishing in ranks among French elite of the entire political spectrum, representing  a modern version of Roman nobiles, ruling in name of people, but in reality being a closed self-serving cast.

French ‘Revolution 2017’

Blog, Politics

Marion et Marine

The major conclusion of the first round of the French presidential election is the marginalizing of the two major political parties: centre left and centre right – the Socialists and the Republicans – sharing power through the history of the V Republic. The period  of their reign came to the end, closing the whole chapter of the post WWII political development, which is a revolutionalry change as such.

The other crucial outcome of the elections is the evolution of the Front National from a marginal force into a main stream and, moreover, number one political party, because En Marche! of Emmanuel Macron is a rather broad movement, but not a classical political congregation one can regard as a party with an ideological core.

En Marche! is a young movement, which is captivating the protest moods of the French youth, disappointed in the major political forces, however there is no classical political congregation behind him. En Marche! is not represented in the Assemblée Nationale – the parliament, so even elected, Macron would find himself in a difficulty to deal with the other experienced political forces like Republicans, Socialists, and now, very likely, the Front National. This difficulty would be only aggravated by his lack of experience in dealing with the French political system.

On contrary to En Marche! Marine Le Pen leads a solid and well-defined political force, with a comprehensive plan for governing  the country.  One of her strongest points is a programme of defeating terrorism through curbing mass-migration, ending the system of double citizenship, revoking French citizenship from involved in terrorism, etc.

Till now Macron did not explain how he is going to addressed the security concerns of the French citizens, while keeping open door policy. This is one of the multiple inconsistencies in his programme. In case he will not be unable to guarantee the security, and the terroristic acts will continue to devastate public life, the position of Marine Le Pen will be solidified, and she will continue to raise in ranks.

The  failure of a big experiment called ‘Emmanuel Macron’, will not resurrect the Republicans or Socialists, who had a chance to govern the country already, and in case of the Republicans for a long period of time, but bring the electorate to a conclusion, that the only political force that had not had a chance to show its capabilities to ‘save France’ is Front National.

In the next presidential election the frustration in ‘Macron experiment’ might lead to the necessity to continue the experimental way.  If French are so disappointed in politics that they turned to unjustified belief in a miracle of Macron ‘The Savor’, what will prevent them to put their trust in Marion Marechal Le Pen as ‘The Maid of Orleans’?..

Anna van Densky

#Barroso: Demons and Temptations

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barroso

Raised this week by OLAF chief Emily O’Reilly issue of former president of European Commission Jose-Manuel Barroso employment at Goldman Sachs is much broader ethical problem than it seems at first glance. It can hardly be resolved just by formal application of Commission’s Code of Conduct as it is not a unique case, but rather typical for men at power.

The phenomenon of former presidents and prime ministers eager for employment is relatively new. Clearly in times of Pompidou and Mitterrand, when senior figures were seen as the most appropriate for positions of leadership the issue of a new job after the term was not existent. Moreover the physical condition didn’t always allow to serve until the end of mandate, ending in ostentatious funeral.
Nowadays the situation has drastically changed, as politicians end term too young to enjoy calm of domestic environment behind geranium, like German chancellor Schroder, who left office of at age of 54 or British PM Blair, leaving office the same age, and this year PM Cameron even younger at 50.
Clearly just scorning those as Schroder who couldn’t resist temptation and accepted employment at Russian state company Gazprom, or Blair working as adviser for Kazakhstan president, – will not help much in preventing the others to follow their path. A lot of ink has been spilled on shaming Blair for deal with ‘despot’, selling his ‘unique personal experience and insights’ for 5 million pounds a year to demons. In vain.
However a petition of protests launched by European Commission staff denouncing Barroso’s engagement with Goldman Sachs has been rapidly attracting signatures reaching 80 000 in a few weeks. The indignant Europeans disagree with continuation of payment  of 15 000 euro a month pension for a ‘fat cat’ serving US bankers interest. It looks the former president of EC will face dilemma, but would simple annulation of pension to Portuguese eurocrat serve a lesson for the others in future?
The issue of ‘after life’ of high ranking civil servants will become even more pertinent in upcoming decade with a new wave of strikingly young politicians like Austrian foreign minister Sebastian Kurz, assuming office at age of 27 or Marion Le Pen, entering French National Assemble as MP at age of 22.
 
If not engaging in broader public debate to work out new rules for young generation of politicians to set clear framework of ‘life after life’ the repercussions might come  in the most primitive form of rejection of young for positions in power, returning to old good gerontocracy Brezhnev-Juncker style.
Something to contemplate about: is the only life style for youth to sing about love? 
AMOREM CANAT AETAS PRIMA!