Länge leve det fria och självständiga Sverige!

 

Vi behöver en fransk general på tronen! En som *inte* allierar sig med Ryssland...

Franska jättefartyget i Sverige

Men Charles de Gaulle hade rätt...

 

Den här idioten vet inte hur man använder svenska idiom, och tydligen kan ingen på redaktionen tala om det för honom. Det idiom han använder ("tiden har sprungit ikapp X") betyder *raka motsatsen* till vad han tror! Pinsamt. 

Men...

Han verkar ha rätt i sak. 

"Tiden tycks ha sprungit ikapp Frankrike"

Gaullism in outer space

 

Germany has been funding a French alternative to Elon Musk´s Starlink, which provides Ukraine with intelligence on Russian troop movements. Since Musk has threatened to cut off Ukraine from his satellites, an alternative has to be found...and it seems that one exists (although not as efficient - yet).

Gaullism in outer space?   

Germany funds French satellite network as Musk tensions grow

Tjena

 

Kämpade för fransk självständighet?

Fria Tiders bisarra hyllning till Jean-Marie Le Pen, Nationella Frontens grundare och Führer. De skriver att Le Pen kämpade för "Frankrikes självständighet" och att han blev "förråd" av dottern Marine (den nuvarande partiledaren).

Är detta något slags subtil ironi? I själva verket var Le Pen nynazist eller pro-nazist, och hade garanterat förrått Frankrike á la Pétain i en liknande situation. Men det vill Fria Tider (en pro-rysk publikation registrerad i det självständiga Estland) inte säga.

Och att det egentligen är Marine Le Pen som motsvarar Charles De Gaulle är det ingen som vågar säga heller...  

Jean-Marie Le Pen är död

Högerextremism?

 

Wikipedias artikel (på engelska) om Marine Le Pens politiska positioner. Förklara gärna på vilket sätt de är "högerextrema". Eller på vilket sätt de skiljer sig från, säg, Charles De Gaulles politiska positioner...

Nä, just det.

Political positions of Marine Le Pen

So it was the taxes after all

What has Donald Trump managed to accomplish after 4 years as POTUS? Nothing, of course. Except lowering the taxes, which may win him reelection, thereby ironically proving the point of his most bland and colorless opponents: "What we need to be discussing is the taxe rates, not immigration, foreign policy and such distractions". 

Why, oh, why didn´t you listen? Not to basic bitch libertarian Ron Paul in 2012, but to his fellow Texan Ross Perot in 1992. Ross had some *really* interesting ideas. Of course, they didn´t sound very constitutional, libertarian or even American, let alone Texan.

They sounded...French. 

So I say the good New World barbars of Murica have two choices in the next decade. Either go full Fifth Republic. Or continue sperging about the tax levels. If you pardon my French. 

From Charles Guevara to Che De Gaulle

Régis Debray is a French left-wing intellectual, mostly known for his participation in Che Guevara's failed guerilla campaign in Bolivia in 1967. Debray's life was saved by the intercession of French president Charles De Gaulle, a man Debray (and the rest of the French left) loved to hate. Years later (1993, to be exact), an older, wiser(?) but just as pseudo-intellectually talkative Debray penned an article in defense of his old nemesis, published in English as “Charles De Gaulle: Futurist of the Nation”. Most of the little book is frankly unreadable due to the babbling style of the author. Or is it some kind of ironic Paris café humor I just don't understand? The translator's footnotes don't help much either, although I suppose it's a good thing to get esoteric cultural references to “Monsieur de Lapalisse”, “Diderot's paradox” and “the Mourousi game” explained once and for all. And yes, the Hexagon is a reference to Marianne herself.

Somewhere among the verbal debrise, Debray does say something interesting, so interesting in fact that I first heard about “Futurist of the Nation” from a rather awkward Swedish blog situated somewhat uneasily to the political right of Genghis Khan (or is it Pétain).

Despite his vaunted leftism, Debray argues that war, nations and nationalism are forever with us, and that history is a never-ending cycle of progress and regress, the “progress” often leading to surprising regresses. Some of his examples (this was written in 1993, remember) are prescient: more democracy in the Arab world breeds more Muslim fundamentalism, more capitalism in Russia will simply breed an authoritarian reaction further down the road, and the stronger the European Union becomes, the more nationalist and regionalist will her people's become…

To Debray, this means that Realpolitik is the order of the day. France needs a nuclear deterrence. A European *union* might be desirable, but actual European *unity* is a pipe dream due to the necessary balance of power between France, Germany and Britain. As traditional class conflicts á la Marxism become less important, nationalism and foreign policy conflicts will become more so. Charles De Gaulle wasn't the last man of the 19th century, but rather the first man of the 21st, while the “modern” Miterrand (“leftist” French president 1981-1995) is really a complacent fossil.

Debray has a contradictory view of the nation. On the one hand, he makes the typically French distinction between a nation based on a shared republican philosophy and a “tribe” based on blood-ties, preferring the former. Indeed, Debray says that the choice facing France is between De Gaulle's nation and Le Pen's tribe – another prescient prediction. (The “Le Pen” of his book is Marine Le Pen's father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the Front National.) However, Debray also says that the nation is an old, almost primordial and very resilient idea, which somehow survives beneath all the political and economic transformations. But this, surely, *is* Le Pen's “tribe”, not the “elective nation” of modern French nationalism! What “nation” does Debray want the left to come to terms with?

Sometimes, I get the feeling that Debray hasn't left the revolutionary hero-worship of his youth very far behind. He says that the left was looking for great leaders in China, Cuba and elsewhere, somehow not noticing that another great leader (i.e. De Gaulle) was available right at their doorstep. De Gaulle, of course, was often criticized by the leftists and liberals for his autocratic, “Bonapartist” tendencies. To Debray, support for this French strongman isn't all that different from venerating revolutionary leaders in the Third World, making me wonder what he *really* saw in, say, Che Guevara or Fidel Castro.

It would be unfair to accuse Debray of “fascism”. Many of his points are salient, after all. Nor does he call for the formation of camelots-du-roi (or camelots-de-Gaulle). Still, I cannot help wondering whether Debray has read his Sorel, the chapter on “myths”, and decided to throw in his lot (at least in retrospect) with the old general (or the charismatic Conducator) who in Debray's feverish mind embodies the Futurist Myth of the Nation…

Did I say it was badly written?

The discarded image

Written when Gaddafi was still in power in Libya.

"My vision" is a book by French professor Edmond Jouve, who is personally acquainted with both Gaddafi's daughter Aicha and his son Saif al-Islam. He has also met Gaddafi himself on a number of occasions, and could be considered an admirer or "fellow traveller". "My vision" contains both reflections on Libya by Jouve himself, an interview with Gaddafi, and Gaddafi's entire "Green Book" as an appendix. Some material on the African Union, in which Libya aspires to a leading role, has also been included.

On one level, "My vision" is a remarkably silly book. Jouve comes across as a fat, frivolous and naïve scholar, dazzled by the dictator's propaganda and hospitality. He calls Gadaffi "The Guide", claims that Libya is a direct democracy, and attempts to paint a romantic picture of its leader, claiming that Gaddafi is a "son of the desert", a Sufi mystic who found the Path, a deep political thinker, and what not. Jouve is also incredibly vain, constantly informing the reader about his sumptuous meals and desserts at various Tripoli five-star hotels. The author boasts that Aicha Gaddafi has been his student, that his briefcase is a gift from Blaise Compaore (the president of Burkina Faso), and that he actually saw Ahmed Ben Bella during a visit to one of the previously mentioned luxurious hotels. When Gaddafi gave an interview to Jouve, he apparently let Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak wait longer than usual for his turn.

In other words, I think "My vision" is a book by the Libyan lobby!

On another level, however, the author gives a more sinister impression. I don't think Jouve is a left-winger, since he seems to admire Charles De Gaulle and other Gaullist presidents of France. At one point, he asks Gaddafi why Libya hasn't joined the Francophonie! The real point of "My vision" is to promote Libya's turn towards the West, and here, the good professor shows his true colours. Jouve mentions Libya's payments to the victims of the Lockerbie bombing, but never discuss the obvious implications (that Libya used to be a rogue state). He points out that Gaddafi is "realist", has abandoned the IRA and aided British intelligence to uncover IRA's secret networks. The author freely admits that Gaddafi at one point wanted to create an African empire, together with shadowy characters such as Bokassa and Mengistu Haile Mariam (quite a combination), but seems fascinated rather than repelled by this fact. Nor is Jouve unaware of Libyan racism against Black Africans or the spread of Muslim fundamentalism in the country (even Aicha has began to wear the veil). Indeed, Jouve actually asks The Guide about this during the previously mentioned interview. He does let Gaddafi get away with evasive responses, but clearly the author knows exactly what is really going on in Tripoli.

Who or what is Edmond Jouve? I don't know, but my guess is that the seemingly naïve fellow traveller is actually an ultra-Gaullist who wants France to collaborate with Libya rather than compete with it (the usual French policy), thereby creating a geopolitical Franco-Arab Grossraum in Africa. For all I know, the guy might actually be a French intelligence operative! His remark about the briefcase is telling. Blaise Compaore took power in Burkina Faso by overthrowing and assassinating Thomas Sankara, a left-wing radical who took strongly anti-French stances. Compaore seems to be on good terms with both France and Libya. Small wonder Jouve loves the occasional chit chat with this banana republic president.

"My vision" doesn't say much about Gaddafi, but it does give us a glimpse of Edmond Jouve's visions. What a pity Nicolas Sarkozy isn't a true Gaullist. As we know, France participates in the US attack on Libya and recently recognized...the rebels.

It seems Jouve's visions have been discarded. For now.