PRESS RELEASE
Mr. Sarkozy: Pull Down the Tower of Babel; Go for the Europe of the Fatherlands
July 4, 2008 (EIRNS)—This statement was released today by former French Presidential candidate Jacques Cheminade.
The President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, is going to be the President of the European Union (EU) for the next six months. This happens at a decisive point of world history, with the financial and monetary tsunami hitting the coasts of Europe. The tragic dilemma is that the true interest of the Western European states and population cannot be fulfilled and protected by the present institutions of the EU, a tower of Babel already rejected by France and the Netherlands in 2005, and now by the Irish "no" vote to the Lisbon Treaty. The European scene is therefore like a show of handcuffed dwarfs possessed by the delusion to rule an Empire, while their own peoples shout "shame" at them, and the true Empire, in London, laughs at their act and despises their impotence. I feel, given this unbearable situation, that my duty is to say a few heavy words to my President, hoping not to convince him, but to put forward standards of action contributing to inspire a republican outbreak coming from the best aspects of our European and French historical culture of city builders, that culture which produced the Renaissance and the birth of America. It demands that Europe and France see beyond their failed institutions and limited borders, towards the United States on the West side and China, Russia, and India on the East, as "lands of opportunity" for a new world financial and monetary order, the New Bretton Woods of Lyndon LaRouche in the tradition of Roosevelt, De Gaulle, Adenauer, Moro, and all those who inspired what is known in France as the "thirty glorious years" of the European post-World War II recovery.
We are far from such an outbreak, as proven by the silly behavior of the European heads of state at the recent Brussels European Council. This is precisely why I am writing now: "Mr. Sarkozy, pull down the Tower of Babel and go for the Europe of the fatherlands and great infrastructural projects, from the Atlantic to the Urals and the Sea of China," a Europe freed from the financial and political grip of the British Empire, to regain her contribution to the "cause of humanity", as De Gaulle said in his University of Mexico speech of March 1964.
The Insuperable Contradiction of Nicolas Sarkozy
On July 1, the French President declared to a group of French journalists that "we must deeply change our way to build Europe." At the European Council on June 19-20, in Brussels, he had blasted British European Trade Commissar Peter Mandelson, one of Tony Blair's Leporellos, in a very undiplomatic way: "A child dies of hunger every thirty seconds, and we should go and negotiate a 20% cut in the European food production! Honestly, I see only one person sharing such an opinion, and it is Mr. Mandelson." He also attacked the malthusian policy of the Fishing Commissar Joe Borg, and called for a Europe of the producers. The pro-British President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, reacted angrily against Sarkozy, but Sarkozy told him to mind his own business. Sarkozy also blasted the French president of the World Trade Organization, former Rand Corporation and British patsy Pascal Lamy, accusing him and Mandelson of manipulating the Doha round of world trade negotiations, to promote the cause of financiers and merchants instead of producers. The dispute has gone so far that Mandelson, who had participated in the first meeting of the European Commission task force in Paris, refused to "honour" the Elysee Palace diner offered by Mr. Sarkozy. To the French journalists, Sarkozy declared that he "won't approve a trade agreement which would sacrifice agricultural production on the altar stone of liberal globalization." As a result, it is now very likely that the world trade conference on the Doha round, called by Lamy on July 21 in Geneva, is going to be an utter failure.
The French position on the world food crisis has been better than that of most European states. French Agriculture Minister Michel Barnier has called for a "Global New Deal" for world agriculture and for the "organized markets and developement policies" of the Common Agricultural Policy to be taken as an example for all nations. Sarkozy referred to a right of state protectionism when crucial economic matters are at stake. He asked the Commission to approve a French proposal to intoduce a measure to compensate for the increase of gasoline and fuel prices and to protect the professions based on the consumption of such fuels. A big fight ensued, the Brussels bureaucrats declaring that such a measure would be "a distortion of competition" and even asking the French fishermen to reimburse past subsidies obtained for the same reason. Sarkozy shouted in private against the "Brussels a**-holes," and the whole affair is going to be discussed again at the Oct. 15 European Council meeting. The French Presidency also wants to put "energy" as a priority on the European agenda, and has called for nuclear energy to be an absolute priority in French foreign relations.
In his July 1 Paris press conference, Sarkozy also attacked the policies of Jean-Claude Trichet and the European Central Bank (ECB). He pointed out that such an institution should "first ask itself the question of economic growth and not only that of inflation.... The point is to control the price of raw materials and speculation. You are not going to tell me that in the fight against inflation the only weapon is to increase interest rates."
All this may raise intersting issues, but there is an absolute fallacy of composition in the French President's approach. He does not want to challenge the generating principle that is distroying Europe's nation-states and populations, what Jose Manuel Barroso himself has called an "imperial self-imposed, democratically organized principle," the principle of the European treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice, and Lisbon. Sarkozy is, in fact, distroying himself and his credibility, by trying to change some rules of the game, within the rules of the game. He is caught in the dilemma of having been elected and put into power by financial interests allied to the City of London, and he is supposed to behave as a British agent. But at the same time, as a good populist and opportunist, he feels the pressure of the population and the French state institutions, which are traditionally opposed to economic liberalism and anti-national sovereignty supra-nationalism. So, the more loudly he shouts, the more he has to do the contrary of what he says; hence his permanent, quasi-pathological state of tension.
My advice would be: "For the sake of France, Europe, and the cause of humanity, as well as for your personal reputation and mental health, you should get out of your straightjacket, and pull down the British Tower of Babel."
What Has To Be Done
The way to do it would be for the French President to arrive in Ireland on July 11 and tell the Irish people "Je vous ai compris": I understood what you meant, beyond the apparently contradictory reasons of your "no." A no is a no, and I am not going to ask you to vote once again. It would be a dishonor for us all, and to try to change the people when the people resist never leads to good results for the leaders, as proven by the example of East Germany. So, Sarkozy should say, I am fed up with trying to impose reason in a house of fools, and therefore we are going to change the house. No more Babels or babblings; the game is over, and we are going to start a new one. The Poles and the Czechs are also going to say no, and even in my own country, France, the polls show that my peole would vote the same way as you did. The German people, and almost all the peoples of Europe, would say no.
So, because we need Europe, we are going to build the one that responds to the will and interests of the peoples, the Europe of the Fatherlands and great projects. We don't want a European Central Bank which prevents the financing of great projects, we don't want treaties that prevent the Central Bank from directly financing great projects, we don't want to abandon the creation of money for private banks and insurance companies, we don't want states to have to borrow from them and pay continously such amounts of interest that we end up paying more than what we have borrowed. So, we are going to dump Article 123 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, in order to free the energy to invest at low interest rates for long-term projects, with the money of national banks betting on the future—betting to be reimbursed by the benefits of the projects themselves. Some of you would remember that this was the key to the success of the Marshall Plan. So, the cause of Europe should be the conception and the financing of such great projects; but it can only be done within the context of an alliance of state national banks. Let's therefore go back to what has been so successful in the past, and drop what has failed in the last 40 years, drop a euro that has brought the prices up and the wages down. But this could not be possible within the present economic and monetary system; it needs a New Bretton Woods among the community of world nations, to reestablish fixed parities, ban speculation, ban all the financial structures that have destroyed the real economies. This is my New Deal for Europe, as a pivot between America and Asia, the Irish people being an embodiment of this new and just cause of Europe.
The Months To Come
Unhappily, Nicolas Sarkozy won't say such words, because he is tied to the British Empire, as he has proven during his recent trip to London. So, he is going to try to slyly change certain things, while submitting to the orders of his masters: ask the Irish people to vote again before the European elections of June 2009; never endorse a New Bretton Woods; don't challenge the order of Brussels, Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice, and Lisbon. Speak as much as you wish about the control of immigrants, global warming, and the reduction of the rate of the Value Added Tax for restaurants and coffee shops. The house is burning, they say, but that is our plan. So as long as you take care of the furniture and don't call the firemen, we the British arsonists like it.
Probably two decisive arguments may convince the Europeans in general, and Sarkozy in particular, if not now, then sooner than they themselves expect. The first one is that the arsonists are good at setting the fire, but very bad at stopping it. The fire of the financial collapse would therefore very soon spread into the very houses of the friends of Sarkozy in London and Wall Street, and we can then expect a survival reaction, if not a true compassion for fate of the others. The second one is that the American people, organized by us, and the Russian, Indian, and Chinese leaders, are already taking firewall measures. The initiative to change is not going to come from Western Europe, but if the door for escape is open, we can expect some hosts to fly away to security. Mr. Sarkozy, my last word would be: "Echappez le premier, les autres suivront"—Escape first, the others will follow.
