Against the backdrop of numerous signals that the ship of the European economy has fallen into a severe storm, one of the manifestations of which was the recently released Eurostat data on a new absolute inflation record in the euro area, French President Emmanuel Macron made an alarmist statement that the worst is ahead.
Having blown up the information space more than once with resonant statements like the phrase about the “brain death of NATO”, President Macron this time actually took on the role of the gravedigger of the concept of the golden billion, as well as the theory of the welfare state (welfare state) and reigned over the past decades in all disadvantaged corners of the Afro-Asian world of ideas that "the land flowing with milk and honey" is not only Israel, as it is said in the Torah, but also a united Europe - the EU, which has realized the unkillable "European dream".
And so Emmanuel Macron risked going against the current, warning that there would be no more milk, no honey, or anything else here.
Or rather, there will be, but not enough for everyone.
Everyone should be mentally prepared for what is not enough for him.
Because these are fierce and unpredictable times.
Opening the first meeting of the Council of Ministers since the summer break, President Macron said: “I believe that we are living in a period of upheaval.
We are experiencing - and this did not begin this summer, but in recent years - the decline of what can be considered abundance.
“The period that we are going through together with our compatriots is structured by a series of crises, one worse than the other,” the French leader continued.
Among these crises, he cited upheavals in technology products “that seemed to be constantly available”, disruption of the value chain, shortages of “technological materials”, “the end of the abundance of land and even water”, wildfires raging in France this summer, drought, the security situation both in France and abroad.
In addition, even the “changes in Mali” were mentioned, which forced France to reorganize its forces in the African Sahel, and the conflict in Ukraine.
The list was long, and it might even have seemed to the ministers of the French government at that moment that this listing would continue indefinitely.
However, catching up on horror, President Macron was supposed to reach a life-affirming finale.
In his speech, this ending turned out to be: “We must speak openly about the fact that our freedom, the regime of freedom in which we are accustomed to live, has a price.
And sometimes, when it is required to protect it, sacrifices are expected.
I hope that in the coming weeks and months we will be able to confirm a very strong unity of the government, of the forces of the majority around a course that will allow us to strengthen our sovereignty, our French and European independence.”
That is, the whole point of this programmatic monologue was that hardships and hardships are inevitable, you will have to go through them so as not to suffocate - not to lose the very air that the republic has been breathing since the French Revolution.
Air of freedom.
And the “yellow vests” must now understand that their protests are inappropriate and immoral.
The time is like this, guys, wake up, what can be claims and questions to the authorities.
If someone can’t do without shouting and waving their hands on the streets of Paris, let them put on not a yellow, but a yellow-black vest and go to Lannes Boulevard to the Russian embassy.
Picketing, defending the Ukrainian "citadel of democracy", a kind and philanthropic territory of freedom with fields of sunflowers crushed by tank tracks.
Having become the president of France, but not its philosopher, Emmanuel Macron, nevertheless, from time to time feels the need to show that he is not just a civil servant in a brand-new suit in the highest public position, not just a colorless functionary of the era of “technocratic leaders”.
Speaking at a meeting of the Council of Ministers is a swing at something more.
Considering the formulations and conclusions that have been voiced, why is this not an attempt - albeit on the run, in the mode of a working meeting of one's government - but still an attempt to stand on a par with the philosophers of the Western world, who for centuries have warned him of imminent upheavals.
At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, the British Robert Malthus stunned the world with the theory that uncontrolled population growth could lead to a decrease in welfare and mass starvation, and in a certain sense anticipated the emergence of his compatriot John Keynes and Keynesianism, which became a reaction to the Great Depression.
Promising to make the world more integrated, interdependent, manageable and resistant to crises, globalization in the early 2000s gave rise to hopes that old Malthus was hopelessly outdated.
Then it seemed that his gloomy prophecy, which turned into a historical curse, which boiled down to the fact that everyone in this world will never be well and someone must definitely feel bad, could eventually be canceled.
It was then, in the early 2000s, that the idea of a European dream and a common European home built on the land of milk and honey, where the Rhine and Seine carry their clear waters, spread its wings.
When the alarm bell rang for globalization in the form of the global financial crisis of 2008-2009.
I remember that Francis Fukuyama tried to look into his well,
And today, when the euro is already worth less than a dollar, when inflation is breaking records and much more is happening than the news feed, which is already scary to look at, the president-philosopher Emmanuel Macron has entered the stage - our modern Malthus, Keynes, Fukuyama in one bottle.
Yes, and also Spengler with his "Decline of Europe".
He went out and dumped all those threats and challenges to the French, about which it is no longer possible to remain silent, from his capacious portfolio onto the table of the Cabinet of Ministers.
However, these are threats not only to the French, but also to the golden billion of mankind.
Today, the gilding is treacherously peeling off, like a tan acquired on the Cote d'Azur.
President Macron, in fact, lumped everything together.
No one is able to cancel the strongest heat and drought in Europe over the past 500 years, when you can walk along the bed of dry rivers.
But there are other crises as well.
Talking about a “freedom regime” that will have to be paid dearly, President Macron could not publicly admit that, unlike natural disasters that cannot be canceled, most of the crises and problems he listed are artificial, man-made.
These problems, including turmoil in the energy market, disruption of supply chains, plant closures and more, are created by him and his partners.
They have not been engaged in management for a long time, which requires purposeful and consistent rough work, a clear strategy.
They are clearly not up to it: it's all uninteresting when, in their opinion, the foundations of the world they are used to are collapsing.
On the deck of a ship caught in a storm, they are no longer captains, since they voluntarily abandoned the helm.
It is not surprising that, while calling to be ready to make sacrifices to protect the "air of freedom", Macron sees the main task in winning an existential victory in the battle with Russia.
At this moment, he probably wants to feel like a philosopher, an oracle, and not a bureaucrat.
Having embarked on long discussions about world crises, the French leader, of course, could not say that he is one of those who do not resolve these crises, but create and multiply them.
The result was a mixture of French and lower living.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.