Emmanuel Macron’s government has made the French nation irrelevant on the world stage. Day by day, horrendous internal and external policies transform a once irreplaceable nation and culture into nothing more than a tourist attraction and playground for elites.
Early this morning, I saw a share on Facebook of the French ironclad Redoutable in dry dock. The photo from 1875 showed the sleek outline of the first warship in the world to be built in steel. The French created so many world-changing innovations in her history. Most people don’t know that cinema, as we know it, would not exist had Louis Le Prince not applied the principles of Chronophotography created by Étienne-Jules Marey.
Hydrogen may not have been discovered until decades later has Antoine Lavoisier not found it in the late 1700s. Great French scientists like Pierre and Marie Curie (Radium), Georges Claude (Neon lighting), Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard (Pasteurization), Blaise Pascal (calculator), Henri Becquerel (radioactivity), Jean-Baptiste Denys (blood transfusion), Nicolas Sauvage (the taxi), and hundreds of other Frenchmen innovated and invented to create everything from the first automobile to the parachute. The helicopter, the seaplane, the ramjet, the Jacquard loom, and even Louis Réard’s bikini bathing suit are but a few other meaningful things France brought to the world in the past. We shouldn’t forget the pencil sharpener or the first sonar.
Of course, we must remember that most of these significant innovations came during the French Colonial Empire, which provided the booty for thousands of projects. From the 16th Century, France was arguably the wealthiest country in the world (trading spots with Britain on and off). This being the case, we cannot leave off Jules Ferry’s declaration:
“The higher races have a right over the lower races, and they have a duty to civilize the inferior races.”
France’s greatness was always linked to conquest and imperialism. Though no one addresses this now, Robert Aldrich once claimed the last “vestiges of empire held little interest for the French,” ended in the 1960s. He argued:
“Except for the traumatic decolonization of Algeria, however, what is remarkable is how few long-lasting effects on France the giving up of empire entailed.”
For decades France has been forced to practice forms of economic neocolonialism in place from Algeria to Morroco. Now, the African nations want France out of their business altogether. The Guardian’s Nabila Ramdani wrote recently, “The Niger crisis shows France’s quasi-empire in Africa is finally crumbling.” The cries of “Down with France” by Nigerians outside the French Embassy there are the last alarm. Meanwhile, back at home, French pensioners have had to take to the streets to keep their hard-earned retirement net.
When Macron tried to push pension reform past legislators even with millions of protesters in the streets, it signaled the beginning of the end of the Rothschild puppet’s reign. The only thing French still intact, besides the monuments in Paris and the French Riviera, is the spirit of rebellion against tyranny. And revolution is fueled by poverty, taxing the people, and pressing the citizens into a corner. The wealth of France, like many European nations, was built with the blood and resources of people around the world. And the new move to a multipolar world scares Macron and his benefactors to death. The reason is simple.
France and other European nations could only have been so self-sufficient, rich, and powerful with the wealth they took from overseas. And now the French produce much of nothing. Some cars with funny names, bad engines, plastics, and perfumes are not enough to prop up 68 million people. The contraction on the world stage is killing France. The wringing out of the people will undoubtedly end in chaos if Macron and the elites continue. Some experts say France is in the process of what’s known as “Third Worldization.” In 2010 historian Alain-Gérard Slama claimed the whole of Europe is undergoing the same phenomenon.
It’s all coming apart. Now it’s abundantly clear why the Western alliance is hell-bent on propping up Ukraine’s Zelensky. If Russia were to ever emerge to her rightful place as the strongest nation of Europe, France and the rest indeed would be just tourist attractions. At least, this is what the Washington, London, Brussels, and Berlin club of elites fear. It’s sad they cannot envision the bigger picture. It’s sad for the elderly Frenchman or Greek who must suffer the whole EU mess going broke. My only question is, will it be Macron and France that light the final bonfire?
Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books. He writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.