Norris McDonald | Emmanuel Macron and his French poulet dance

French President Emmanuel Macron has angered America and her European allies by warning them not to allow America to draw them into a war with China over Taiwan.

“Europe must not be a vassal to America’s US-China conflict,” Monsieur ‘Le Poulet Napoleon’ Emmanuel Macron said.

France is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), whose military doctrine requires all members to defend each other in a military conflict. But here we have Monsieur Macron jumping the South China Seas ship; leaving his other bewildered warmongering colleagues to face this potential battle alone.

President Macron was in cash-rich China for a state visit and had a series of meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

America political leaders were very angry at what they regarded as a French backstabbing in support of China, one of their potential enemies.

Why this new ‘anti-American vassal’ French song and ‘poulet dance’ before President Xi Jinping?

CHINA’S INVESTMENT

My friends, these remarks have caused shockwave, consternation, and anger amongst France’s colleagues in NATO and within the EU.

President Macron appeared to be gleaming in Chinese money heaven, as President Xi Jinping greeted him shortly before he signed $50-billion worth of projects in nuclear energy, aerospace, and finance.

China has become one of France’s biggest sources of foreign direct investment since 2019, news reports say. Therefore, while America was telling the developing nations, including Jamaica, “to steer clear of China”, France, one of its key allies, was sucking in billions of dollars of Chinese investment.

Over the past few years, France has emerged as a key partner with China in the building of major “infrastructure projects worth US$1.7 billion in Africa, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe”, Deutsche Welle’s Jo Harper says in a February 24, 2022 news report.

FRENCH POLITICAL CRISIS

Meanwhile back at home, France under Emmanuel Macron is in flames, with mass riots and demonstrations everywhere in angry protests – like in the rest of Europe.

Some French protesters have been demanding that France pull out of NATO. They blame the NATO proxy war against Russia as the main cause of rising prices and increased hardship.

Pension reforms have been a key target of angry French workers. They have been rioting and burning buildings to protest the reform.

The statutory retirement age is 62 in France for persons born after 1955, but President Macron pushed through new changes, to increase the retirement age to 64 years.

The French Constitution allows the president to act like a Napoleonic dictator, especially on critical financial issues such as this pension reform plan.

President Macron never had to do this but he, nevertheless, chose to do so, much to the anger of the French populace. Some options he had, political analysts say, was to get rid of “corporate tax breaks”.

He could have also increased taxes on the wealthy and on corporations, or make both workers and employers pay more money.

President Macron pooh-poohed the idea of taxing the rich or getting rid of tax breaks for the wealthy. France, therefore, is in political turmoil, with Monsieur Macron seeking all kinds of distractions in his act of political survival.

At least that’s what I think. Hence this hasty chicken dance in China! Word!

What do you think?

Macron was re-elected last year over a more unpopular right-wing opponent, Madam Marine Le Pen. But acts of ‘bad faith’ appears to be his middle name, or in his DNA.

His first term had almost daily ‘yellow jacket’ demonstrations. There have been continuous, widespread anger at his policies, but no apparent real political-savvy opponent to replace him.

HAITI’S DEBT

A clear example where President Macron appears to show his outright hypocrisy, in my opinion, is on the issue of Haiti and France’s obligation to pay back Haiti money that France extorted in 1825.

France owes Haiti US$21 billion in today’s money for the treacherous levy, or indemnity, extracted as compensation for recognizing the 1825 Haitian independence.

In 2015, Francois Hollande promised to pay Haiti what he called a “moral debt”. But his successor, Monsieur Le Petite Napoleon Emmanuel Macron, has neither honoured this debt to Haiti, nor acknowledge France’s global ignominy over the years.

Haiti has been robbed. And no French leader is willing to resolve what Jean-Paul Sartre would perhaps have called an ‘act of bad faith’.

Francois Hollande called it a “moral debt”. But he never gave Haiti back her money.

Jean-Paul Sartre, the great French philosopher, once condemned France’s racism and genocidal, political, immoral acts under colonialism. He condemned, too, what he called the pretentious “willful ignorance” of French leaders and society, who act self-righteous even as they do grave acts of injustice to others.

This “willful ignorance” appears to typify French leaders’ political behaviour.

We saw it play out in the Rwanda genocide in which French troops just stood by while millions of people were murdered.

France’s brutality in Algeria and other neocolonial areas revealed outright genocidal tendencies and practices.

But here we have Macron hypocritically lecturing the world about democracy, human rights, and moral values without either giving compensation or doing what is necessary to help people whose lives France destroyed.

Well, how be it that Emmanuel Macron can discern right from wrong when it comes to a war against China? Yet, he refused to acknowledge, as Francois Holland did, that France plundered Haiti of US$21 billion in today’s money and must repay the Haitian people?

“Cock mouth kill cock” is a wise Jamaican saying.

The French national symbol is a strutting cock, a true Napoleonic poulet!

My friends, let’s hope Monsieur Le Petite Napoleon will find the courage to repay France’s unjust and immoral debt to Haiti.

That is just the ‘bitta’ truth!

Norris McDonald is an economic journalist, political analyst, and respiratory therapist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and miaminorris@yahoo.com.