Europe is entering a new, more dangerous phase in its development, and with an increasingly weak sense of purpose.
Mr Macron’s one-man political movement, En Marche! is ironically named indeed. The president can be forgiven for feeling a little bewildered as he sits, effectively besieged in the Elysee palace, caricatured by the increasingly militant Gilets Jaunes protesters as if he were some effete Bourbon.
After all, despite his previous adamantine stance, he has caved in to their demands that increases in the duty on diesel and petrol be reversed; he has offered them talks, though with his prime minister Edouard Philippe rather than himself, a move that may presage a certain amount of scapegoating. Mr Macron’s reforms of the French economy have barely registered, and yet the reaction against him has been violent, extreme and seems to have developed an ugly momentum of its own.
For a while, the contrast between a chaotic France and sobersided Germany is enticing. The reality is that both countries suffer from much the same economic and political malaise. Even in Germany, which has enjoyed remarkable export-led success, there is a section of the working class and certain regions that have not fully shared the rising tide of prosperity. In both countries, far-right parties have grown in strength and confidence to a degree that would have been unimaginable even a few years ago, virtually wiping out the socialists and social democrats as a political force. Much the same has happened in Sweden and elsewhere. The prospects for the elections to the European parliament next summer look especially grisly. The EU’s legislature – which has acquired important powers – may soon be transformed into a play pen for fascists, fruitcakes and fantasists, big time.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/ed ... 73101.html
