May 18, 2020 - 11:53am
While Emmanuel Macron is no stranger to pomp and symbolism aimed at enhancing the dignity of his office, his appearance yesterday at a ceremony in the small Picardie village of Clermont-les-Fermes, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the battle of Montcornet, has infuriated the country’s Gaullist Right.
The 1940 battle, one of the country’s few, brief successes in the Battle of France, saw then-colonel de Gaulle temporarily halt the German Blitzkrieg by deploying French heavy tanks in accordance with his own far-thinking ideas of armoured warfare. As a consequence of his battlefield success, de Gaulle was immediately promoted to Brigadier General, the rank he wore for the rest of his history-shaping career.
For Macron, who has repeatedly employed stirring martial imagery in the gruelling fight against Coronavirus (which has already killed around half as many French citizens as the Battle of France) the contemporary resonances must seem obvious. In his speech, he remarked that: “De Gaulle tells us that France is strong when it knows its destiny, when it stands united, when it seeks the path of cohesion in the name of a certain idea of France.”
For Macron’s critics on the Right, de Gaulle’s ‘certain idea of France’ is antithetical to the vision of a president they scorn as a cosmopolitan globalist, and Macron’s invocation of the father of the Fifth Republic an empty attempt to wrap himself in the mantle of a leader far greater than himself.
But Macron’s adoption of Gaullist symbolism is not new. In 2018 he added the Cross of Lorraine, the symbol of de Gaulle’s Free French forces, to the seal of the Republic. A leather-bound Pléiades edition of De Gaulle’s memoirs sits at his side on his gilded desk — originally de Gaulle’s — in all his pronouncements to the nation, next to a bronze-framed photograph of the great man himself. Even a replica of de Gaulle’s presidential car sits on Macron’s office mantelpiece.
The Élysée has even declared 2020 the year of de Gaulle, in commemoration of the 130th anniversary of his birth, the 80th of his historic June appeal from London to resist German occupation, and the 50th anniversary of his death.
For Macron, increasingly drawn to a neo-Gaullist foreign policy and a need to heal a country struggling, even before Covid, against economic decline, serious civil disorder and an ever-present terrorist threat, de Gaulle’s legacy looms large. “He draws inspiration from it on how a statesman can use dramatic events to reset the nation,” a source close to Macron has claimed to Le Monde, and Macron has stated many times that France “cannot be reformed, it must be transformed.”
Indeed, last year, at the height of the Gilets Jaunes crisis which for a time threatened his grasp on power, Macron allegedly chose the volume of de Gaulle’s memoirs in which the great leader, himself shaken by political dysfunction, dissolved the Fourth Republic as his bedside reading.
No doubt the president recognised himself in his illustrious forebear, when in Sunday’s speech he hailed de Gaulle’s dash and élan as a “promoter of movement and the offensive, capable of creating speed and irruption.” But whether Macron is the great disruptor tasked by history to see France through the great crises of the 21st century, and where the Weltgeist will lead the Hegel scholar-turned president, remains to be seen.
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SubscribeUnHerd. Last year you had about £300 off me. This year nothing. Why? It’s good to get both sides but there are a few trolls on here that are complete poison. I hope you survive but I am done with you. Sorry, but this isn’t good enough.
The fact that the German and larger EU governing classes refuse to counter AfD with argument says they do not think they have the better argument. Resort to force is what people do when they are not confident of their arguments but think they are stronger.
They know the public would reject them if told both sides, so they seek to ensure that only their side is heard. That will work, until it doesn’t.
I thought that JD Vance’s presentations in last week’s meetings was excellent. I think he’s a good, and clear speaker, and would make a good president. He’d bet my vote.
The Dems, in their present form, can only govern and exist if they have a sizeable majority. And then they suck, look at the blue states, especially California. They are masters of ruling through threats, graft, and propaganda. They have the Propaganda sites, er Media, the Federal, State, and local bureaucrats bending the knee for goodies and advancements, and the Uni’s popping out indoctrinated zealots ready to work for these governments, their NGO’s or in politics.
They still have the propaganda sites, whose credibility is being torn down brick by brick by self-inflicted zealotry by educated idiots. The Uni’s are still popping out, at least through this year, uber progressive automatons who will have NO federal jobs to infect, and maybe the same story at the NGO’s. Fed Bureaucrats, the great majority, are toast and no NGO’s to go too to pay their salary.
I don’t like one party rule, and I believe this is a good thing for the Dems to come back to reality and actually try to do what is right for their constituents, not for “Globalization Elites” and the politicians/Bureaucrats/Media/NGO folks they bought to do their bidding. How do to think Samantha Power is worth a cool 30 million? It is the tip of the iceberg.
We will see, the Elites stand to lose a LOT of money and it might take time. If they don’t, we are going to have a Repub party that certainly could be in power for the next 12 years. They have a great shot at being totally in charge for the next 8 years. It all depends on the Dems recruiting younger, more pragmatic leaders who know how to compromise. We will see.
Labour was in part established to enhance the position of blue-collar industrial workers, at the time organized by strong manual and craft trade unions…with a light top-dressing of idealistic upper class Fabians. In consequence it represented a very large proportion of the people as a whole, cared about all of them and greatly enhanced their material and social well-being.
However, those industries and unions are long gone…so it’s union paymasters are now solely the idle, greedy and feather-bedded payroll vote of overwhelmingly taxpayer funded bureaucrats…and the only “welfare” the state now offers is to it’s own employees…from the train-drivers to the endless roster of civil-service, local government and NHS employees. Mostly (not actually) “working from home” or signed-off with “work-related stress”…as in, being expected to do some.
As anyone honest who ever worked in one of those organizations knows perfectly well. Even if they tried to earn their money…which some of us did.
He’s right. But hush… don’t interrupt the enemy when it’s making a mistake.
Which is basically what Vance said at the Munich conference.
Left? What is this ‘left’ today? Just corporate and ngo globalism underwritten by taxpayers with dragqueens and double mastectomies for confused teenage girls added. The working class do not obtain.
“You’re not allowed to say, ‘This isn’t working,’” Karp explained. “And when people aren’t allowed to speak, they turn to whoever will listen.”
Read and heed. When liberalism enforces conformity, it is no longer liberal.
It’s remarkable to watch Democrats argue for things they vociferously hated 15-20 years ago, all the while being completely oblivious to the fact that their heads have been turned 180 degrees.
This trend actually reflects the post-economic identity of the Left that we see in today’s Labour government as they go about enthusiastically wrecking the British economy. They don’t have ideas, just the usual patrons – the unions, the public sector – entailing that they can be just a much if not more loyal to identity groups upon which they focus in their overwhelming if not predominant focus on cultural politics. The social takes massive emphasis over the economic then, and as modern day Maoists they actually view the cultural as the path to socialism, with new figures of the revolutionary proletariat, such as the non-binary transperson and the intersectional post-colonial subject.
The political left’s focus on issues like identity politics over fundamentals like security is both trivial and not trivial. Don’t lose sight of the fact that the end game of all this ridiculousness is control and money.
What DOGE has exposed is what many of us who worked in the public sector have seen with our own eyes, its a grift for votes and cash. Money is funnelled to ideologically aligned causes through organisations which heavily reward their leadership and as a quid pro quo support the people sending them the money.
Wow. Well said, sir. And I definitely agree with the far-seeing Palantir CEO Alex Karp. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and people must be allowed to speak their thoughts aloud. We can have no ideological purity tests. Wounds hidden from the fresh air and sun fester.
Wow. Well said, sir. And I definitely agree with the far-seeing Palantir CEO Alex Karp. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and people must be allowed to speak their thoughts aloud. We can have no ideological purity tests. Wounds hidden from the fresh air and sun fester.
Just another creepy tech bro with a god complex- of course you guys love him!
Obviously everything he says is utter garbage. For example, Biden took really strong measures on border security last year – he seems to have missed that, as did the drooling Fox News viewers.
No-one is labelled a bigot for bringing up migration. We call you bigots when you say bigoted things about migrants. There’s always a conversation to be had, just try not to be blatantly racist.
But we are in a post-truth age, for now anyway, so the people with the loudest voices are able to convince the simple minded that up is down and white is black and that the likes of Trump and Musk actually care about anything other than themselves. Sad.
If I didn’t know better I would take this as irony.
You don’t know better, chum. I mean, you people think Donald Trump is smart! How dumb is that?!?!
All you achieve on here is to further push people to those you appear to hate. You are a loser running a losing strategy. Are you really a false-flag troll? Surely nobody can actually be as horrible, irrelevant, frequently wrong and contradicted deliberately could they? Are you the actual village idiot in real life?
Surely LW ”progressives” loved tech bros up until about 5 minutes ago
”bigoted things about migrants” = it’s possible for immigration levels to be too high, and illegal immigrants have no automatic right to be in the country
“Surely LW ”progressives” loved tech bros up until about 5 minutes ago”
Um, surely not. Peter Thiel, the super creepy Blake Masters, this weirdo Karp, Musk obviously. All creeps. Looks like Zuckerberg and the Amazon guy have gone from just being oddballs to part of the Trump fan club so, no, the left does not love the tech bros, bro.
And of course they all think that Trump is a complete buffoon but they know they can easily manipulate him for their plans for world domination or whatever it is that they want. They are the modern equivalent of press barons and hopefully will go away very soon, although I fear not…
Oh, no, here we go again, CS …..
What’s up Sammy? You having another one of your episodes?
TDS is a brutal disease.
No doubt RFK jnr, Joe Rogan and Aaron Rodgers will have a cure for it in no time. Something usually used for treating pig bladder infections or the like no doubt!
There might be some psychological stuff happening with ‘The Left’, I’ve begun to think…….
You are literally in a cult, fella. The psychological stuff is all going on in your head!
Pot kettle me thinks
You are literally, in a literal cult, fella. Try drinking less Prosecco – you might think a bit more clearly.
Be quiet cypher.
The urge to control is a psychological and emotional flaw in many humans. The rest is just madness.
Sunk costs, someone else mentioned
As a wise man from round my way once put : “We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.” C. S. Lewis
The Left believes in Utopia writ large and fabricates whatever ideology it needs to get there. However, nothing that they propose is practical or constructive or addresses fundamental needs of the population. They are in effect fantasy-makers…even formulating their own religion (Wokeism) an language (pronouns etc). Which is why they expect everyone to goose-step to their vision, otherwise their utopian bubble pops, which is why they can be observed nowadays ranting and raving about all the Trumpian changes taking place. They are literally losing it.
Germany is lucky to have the AfD, just as the UK will be lucky to have Reform, because otherwise the concerns of the electorate will not be heard and discussed.
A democracy where some debates are ‘forbidden’ is not a true democracy.
The political cost of the ‘Conservative’ parties paralysis and avoidance of truth and reality will be the same as it was in Weimar Germany – the coming to power of a violent and malevolent leader offering ‘renewal’.
In practical terms. Germans, vote AFD or you will soon get far worse.
Germany perhaps, but he’s very much describing the UK.
I suspect this week’s meeting between the commissars of Europe, post-Vance speech and with the Ukraine talks starting in Saudi will just be a re-inforcing of their diminishing world view, and no lessons being learnt. Today’s Unherd article suggests as much. Have we ever had such dim-witted ‘leadership’?
All eyes next on the German elections, and their aftermath.
In the US (the main focus of this essay) the Dems are completely dumbfounded. They really don’t seem to be able to ‘get it’, hence their silence but at least Karp is trying to wake them up. If you consider yourself Woke though, how can you possibly awaken?
All the Left and Establishment Parties bought into the comprehensive UN Sustainability Agenda. Sunk cost. Pretty hard to back out now even if they wanted to.