THE U.S. AND EUROPE APPEAR TO BE HEADED IN OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS

…The now famous Macron-Trump hand shake

 

As with Hillary, Russian intelligence tried but failed, to undermine Macron’s legitimacy in the recent French presidential election.

 

I received a number of interesting responses to my previous background article on conservatives.  One statement that I thought was very interesting and well stated, was from one of my readers that had formerly called them self a “conservative”, but today says they have chosen to be an “Independent”.

 

When asked why they made the change to an Independent, the response was: “Well, social conservatives and neoconservatives have taken over the Republican Party. This change has caused an increase in authoritarian thinking and behavior.  That is why we now have a President Trump in the White House.  True conservatism is very cautious and prudent, authoritarianism is rash and radical.  Our American democracy had seriously benefited from true conservatives such as myself, but authoritarian leaders like Trump only offer serious trouble for the American democracy.  I could no longer relate my politics to someone like Donald Trump and today’s Republican Party.

I have to say that’s a hard explanation to argue against.

 

And apparently the Europeans, particularly the French, also agree with that thinking.  That explains why there was such a landslide win for the new, very liberal French President, Emmanuel Macron.  It should also be noted that Vladimir Putin, and his Russian intelligence operation, did more than any other foreign nation in trying to undermine Macron’s legitimacy in the recent presidential election.  Putin had even met with Macron’s far-right opponent in the middle of the election campaign.

 

But the French President Macron still invited the Russian leader to France to hopefully reset a relationship that had turned increasingly sour.  However, from the start of the meeting, Macron delivered a scaling greeting to Vladi­mir Putin criticizing the use of chemical weapons by Syria’s ­Russian-backed government, and blasting Putin’s two Russian state-owned media organizations as “organs of influence and propaganda.”

 

Macron’s meeting with Putin came just days after Macron had also made his mark on the world’s TV stage by welcoming President Trump with an aggressive handshake.  The French leader later explained that the handshake was intended to show that he Macron, “wouldn’t make any small concessions.”

 

Leading up to the election, Putin had expressly and outwardly backed ­Macron’s opponent, Ms. Marine Le Pen, the conservative leader of the anti-immigrant National Front. On the eve of the vote, Macron’s campaign suffered a massive cyberattack, similar to the hacking of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, but Macron still had a very big win.  The US intelligence agencies have blamed that cyber operation on the Russian government as the cybersecurity analysts quickly detected Russian digital fingerprints behind the hacking of the Macron campaign’s emails and internal communications.

Of course, the Kremlin denied any involvement, and Putin only reiterated that Russia never meddled in the French election. He did, however, defend his decision to receive the pro-Russian Ms. Le Pen in Moscow, one month before the first vote in the two-round French election.

 

It seems that Putin and Macron could not agree on how they both felt about the cyber hacking of the French elections.

 

Putin’s comments were: “We are quite capable of trying to move forward together in terms of the so-called Russian interference in the elections.  The issue has not been raised [in their discussions]. The French president did not show any interest, and I even less.”

 

However, Macron’s comments were, in referring to the Russian TV network and news agency: “I have always had an exemplary relationship with foreign journalists, but they have to be real journalists. Russia Today and Sputnik are organs of influence and propaganda that had spread counterfeit truths about me.”  

Please note: Both of these media outlets are wholly owned by the Russian government.

 

“It is not for me to comment on Madame Le Pen’s visit” to Moscow, Macron said, in response to another question about the vote. “Elections are the decisions of sovereign people.”

These two presidents’ meeting was held at the 17th-century Chateau de Versailles, one of Europe’s most elegant palaces.  It came at a time when relations between Paris and Moscow have reached one of their lowest points in decades, mostly because of the war in Syria.

 

France has been highly critical of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whom Putin and the Kremlin have backed for years. Last fall, Putin abruptly canceled a visit to France after Macron’s predecessor, François Hollande, referred to the Russian bombings in the Syrian city of Aleppo as a “war crime.”

Macron said that the use of chemical weapons in Syria constituted a “red line” for France and “would result in reprisals and an immediate response, at least where France is concerned.” But Syria has been accused again of using chemical weapons, including chlorine gas and much-deadlier nerve agents.  You will recall that President Obama had also pledged strong action against Syria if it crossed a “red line” by using chemical weapons. But a year later, Obama was widely criticized for holding off on military action against Syria.  However, in the US, Obama was unable to obtain congressional approval for such a strike in the wake of the chemical-weapons attack. The US government subsequently worked with Russia on a deal that was supposed to rid Syria of such weapons.  

 

 

As to the US response to the latest chemical attack by Assad on his own people that killed over 100 civilians, including children, Trump ordered a missile attack on a Syrian air base in the Idlib province.  (This was the air base from where the chemical weapon airplanes originated.)  Russia protested that the US retaliation violated international law and said it would ruin bilateral relations.  (However, today there are no bilateral US-Russian relations.)

 

France and Russia are also divided over the Putin administration’s support for pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine and Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, which led to the Russian sanctions by Europe and the United States.

 

Macron said France and Russia would pursue further dialogue in the “Normandy format”.  What that implies is that the dialogue will include: France, Germany, Russia and the Ukraine.

 

Standing next to his Russian counterpart, France’s new president also pledged to defend “all people, and all minorities.” He explicitly mentioned workers employed at Western-backed nonprofit groups in Russia who are often referred to as “foreign agents” by the Russian government.  Macron also stated that France will defend against the reported abuse of gay people by the authorities in Chechnya.

 

“I will be constantly vigilant on these issues,” Macron said.  That is way more commitment than any comments from President Trump.

 

Both the new French president and the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel appear to be more in support of the average civilian individual than the current leader of the United States.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2017