The first round of the French presidential election is this weekend, and it has the potential to be as much of a world changer as did Donald Trump's election in the US last year. The big Wild Card will be how well National Front candidate Marine Le Pen does.
The five leading candidates are on this first-round ballot, with the top two going on to the final election ballot next month, assuming no one receives a 50% true majority in this first test. Ms Le Pen is expected to make it to the final round, and that's why much of the western world, and Europe in particular, is holding their breath.
Their unease is because Ms Le Pen is friendly towards Russia, has received campaign financing from a bank close to Putin, and is likely to follow Britain's lead and will try to take France out of the European Union, and perhaps the Euro Zone (the common European monetary system), as well. She isn't too keen on France's NATO participation, either.
Ms Le Pen and her party are anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant (read: anti-Muslim), and ultra-right-wing nationalist. Many say her "France First" theme is a take-off of Donald Trump's "America First". Both she and Candidate Trump slammed international trade agreements (harmful to their economies), NATO (outdated and too expensive), and have questioned sanctions on Russia. Le Pen has even said quite clearly that she would end sanction on Russia if she was elected, and offered no objection to their "annexation" of Crimea.
If Le Pen ultimately becomes the French President, Russia will be the big winner. The thing Russia / Vladimir Putin wants most is to see the West weakened. A European Union without both Great Britain AND France might completely collapse, as might the Euro monetary scheme without the French. Weakened trade relations might see barriers arise again between countries now held tight by their economies, and a NATO without one of its most powerful members may not have the same resolve.
Putin knows he will likely never be able to go toe-to-toe with the power and influence of the United States and a united Europe. He sees that his best chance to restore Russia to its previous glory is to bring his opponents one-by-one down to his level. He likes leaders and countries that he sees as friendly or at least malleable. That's why Putin was so interested in seeing Trump elected President, and why he wants to see Le Pen elected now in France, and a Russia-friendly German candidate win later this year, too. He's been chip-chip-chipping away at us since the day he assumed power, and frankly, he's winning. If he wasn't, I wouldn't be writing this.
Once again, it's an interesting world we live in, and we have a ringside seat to some amazing history in the making.
S
Let me just throw out some random observations regarding what's going on in the world today and then let you connect the dots:
Donald Trump campaigned on "America First", and for better or worse, he's delivering on it. Among his demands is that NATO members should start pulling their weight financially. They had previously agreed to each spend 2% of their GDP on defense, collectively strengthening NATO, but so far all but the US, Greece, the UK, Poland, and Estonia have reneged. The German Foreign Minister recently said it was "quite unreasonable to believe Germany would spend 2% of its economic output on the military."
Last year the United Kingdom voted to separate themselves from the European Union, aka Brexit. And now Scotland is again making noises about separating itself from the UK.
Marine Le Pen, the leader of the French National Front Party, who vows to follow the UK's Brexit lead and get France out of the EU (Frexit?), is on the short list to become the next President of France. She also says she will strengthen French relations with Russia.
Speaking of: The Russia of Vladimir Putin is punching above its weight class. It's expanding militarily, although still for now exhibiting more bluster than true power. At home it's an economic basket case, but Putin still has visions of Russia regaining the glory and prestige it had back in the days of the old Soviet Union. They meddled in the recent US election (fact), and right now are meddling in the upcoming elections of France and Germany. Their cyber-warfare capabilities are immense and expanding, and we don't seem (?) to have a way to counter them.
Russia is leaning heavily on some of their former Soviet Republic neighbors, occupying Crimea, and now actively stirring things up in the Balkans (south-eastern Europe). Meanwhile, back at home, the Putin regime is under pressure to reform, which he isn't about to let happen. Although it's seldom reported in the press, there is considerable public discontent with Putin. And what often happens when a leader wants to deflect attention away from discontent at home?
The leader of Turkey, Recip Erdogan, an avowed Islamist, is consolidating power, slowly but surely dismantling the secular state established there after WWI. He is rapidly filling the power vacuum left by crumbling neighbors Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and others. Turkey is a long-time member of NATO (another eventual nail in NATO's coffin?) , but not a member of the European Union. (They applied, but so far have been rebuffed).
North Korea is perfecting their nuclear arms at a steady pace. So far no one has been able to convince them to cease and desist, not even their benefactor communist neighbor, China. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has shown nothing but contempt for the rest of the world and seems hellbent on seating himself at the Big Table with the major powers. He doesn't seem frightened by the concept of "Mutually Assured Destruction", which for 40 years kept the US and the USSR from attacking each other. We don't seem to have any feasible way to dissuade North Korea.
The United States, traditionally the most stable country in the world, is still stable, but feeling some tremors. We need some truly dependable allies, but they seem to be few and far between (see above).
Our climate is changing. It's getting warmer almost everywhere. Whether this is due to natural cycles or man-made factors, who knows? But instead of playing it safe and being pro-active, we're looking the other way and just chasing the Almighty $$$.
Folks, we need to get our shit together. Look back through history and you'll see we've been in hellacious messes before and gotten ourselves out, and we can now, too, assuming it's part of God's Grand Plan. But just like in those past situations there will be a serious price to pay.
The soft life we've been living for many generations may be coming to an end, which actually isn't a bad thing. To eventually prevail we'll need to stop thinking in terms of "me, me, me" and start thinking of the common good for a change.
And as a personal request, can we please get all this worked out before next football season? *wink*
S
aka Chuckles :)
