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Israel Suspected of Hacking French Prime Minister’s Phone – Reports

Sputnik — 07.07.2016

French authorities suspect that Prime Minister Manuel Valls’ cellphone may have been tampered with during his recent visit to Israel, French media outlets reported Thursday.

Valls visited Israel on May 21-24 for talks with President Reuven Rivlin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a bid to revive the reconciliation process between Israelis and Palestinians.

The prime minister and his staff were asked to submit their cellphones before attending the high-level talks, according to the French newspaper L’Express.

Upon retrieving them, French officials were “shocked” to find that many devices showed signs of an “anomaly,” the outlet claimed. One of the phones later broke down.

The suspicious cellphones were handed over for inspection to the National Agency for Computer Security (ANSSI), which declined to comment on the possibility that they had been hacked. A government official told the outlet the security check was standard procedure.

Israel responded to the accusations, saying it considered France a friendly nation who it would never spy on. It denied having tampered with the phones of the French delegation.

July 7, 2016 Posted by aletho | Deception | France, Israel | 3 Comments

Post-Brexit, Is the EU Flaunting Its Undemocratic Tendencies?

By Joyce Nelson | CounterPunch | July 6, 2016

Stung by Brexit, the EU bureaucrats seem intent on showing just how undemocratic they can be. Here are two examples just in the last seven days.

The Glyphosate License

On June 24, EU member states again refused (for a third time this year) to approve a renewal of the license for the weed-killer glyphosate manufactured by Monsanto and other corporations involved in GMO crop cultivation. That should have meant that the license would expire by the end of June, and Monsanto’s Roundup and other glyphosate weed-killers would have to be withdrawn from Europe by the end of this year.

Instead, on June 29 the European Commission (EC) decided “unilaterally” to extend the glyphosate license for another 18 months. [1]

The decision “drew heavy criticism from the Greens in the European Parliament, who said the decision showed the Commission’s ‘disdain’ for the opposition by the public and EU governments to the controversial toxic herbicide.” [2] Belgian Green Member of the European Parliament Bart Staes said, “As perhaps the first EU decision after the UK referendum, it shows the [EC] executive is failing to learn the clear lesson that the EU needs to finally start listening to its citizens again.” [3]

Many were simply shocked that an unelected body of bureaucrats would cater so blatantly to the corporate sector’s last-minute lobbying.

The EC claims that, because of member nations’ indecision on the matter, its own decision about glyphosate was based on assessments made by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), prolonging the authorisation until a new scientific review is concluded before the end of 2017, but Greenpeace has called the EFSA study “a whitewash.” [4]

Lawrence Woodward, co-director of Beyond GM, has called the EC’s unilateral decision “reckless.” [5] It comes at the same time that dozens of individuals and organizations have signed an open “Letter from America,” urging European citizens, politicians and regulators to not adopt a “failing agricultural technology” and sharing examples of glyphosate and GMO repercussions across North America. [6]

CETA Ratification

At virtually the same time that the EC made this controversial decision on glyphosate, it made another that is even more undemocratic.

On June 28, a German news agency reported that European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told EU leaders the Commission is planning to push through a controversial free trade agreement between Canada and the EU – known as CETA, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement – without giving national parliaments any say in it. [7] According to the German press, Juncker argued that allowing national parliaments to vote on the agreement would “paralyze the process” and raise questions about the EU’s “credibility.” Juncker claimed that CETA “would fall within the exclusive competence of the EU executive” and therefore doesn’t need to be ratified by national parliaments within the 28-nation bloc, sources in Brussels told the Germany news agency DPA. [8]

Most EU members, however, view CETA as a “mixed” agreement, meaning “that each country would have to push the deal through their parliaments.” [9]

In late June 2016, the EC’s Juncker was reported as saying that he “personally couldn’t care less” whether lawmakers get to vote on CETA. [10]

Millions of Canadians and Europeans have fought against CETA for the past six years. Like the TPP and TTIP, it is a draconian agreement that would hand multinational corporations immense power to overrule elected local governments on numerous fronts. In Canada, CETA was supposed to be voted on by every Canadian provincial and territorial government before any ratification could take place, but in September 2014 (during the reign of Stephen Harper) the CETA deal was signed without there having been any public consultation whatsoever in Canada. The 2014 announcement was also the first time people in Canada and Europe were allowed to see the official text, which had been kept secret during the years of negotiations.

Unfortunately, Canada’s International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland is enthused about what the EU is doing. According to The Globe and Mail newspaper (July 3), “The British vote to exit the European Union has refocused

Europe’s attention on the need to send a message to the world that liberalized trade is the path to greater prosperity, Ms. Freeland said.” [11]

She also explained that once the European Parliament approves CETA, “a great deal of the agreement would come into force immediately, more than 90 per cent,” she said, “those portions deemed to be within the European Union’s jurisdiction, those go into force right away.” [12]

Freeland told The Globe and Mail that concerns about CETA’s investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism – which allows multinational corporations to sue governments over regulations that harm their future profits – had been addressed by a rewrite of the treaty’s investment chapter. [13] But according to Council of Canadians, those changes “actually make [the provisions] worse. The reforms enshrine extra rights for foreign investors that everyone else – including domestic investors – don’t have. They allow foreign corporations to circumvent a country’s own courts, giving them special status to challenge laws that apply equally to everyone through a [private] court system exclusively for their use.” [14]

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be in Europe this week for a NATO summit, and officials “say he will lobby hard for other European leaders not to stand in the way of [CETA’s] ratification.” [15]

The Pushback

Reportedly, the pushback in Europe has been immediate, with Germany and France wanting “their national parliaments to be involved” in CETA ratification. On July 5, Deutsche Welle reported that “Juncker appears to be backtracking,” and would propose at a July 5 EC meeting that CETA would require “both the approval of the European parliament and national legislatures.” [16]

The Globe and Mail reported on July 5 that Juncker’s “new recommendation… could call for applying those EU parts of the treaty while the ratification process [by national legislatures] is under way.” [17] That would mean (as Canada’s Chrystia Freeland had earlier explained) more than 90% of CETA could be approved by the EU as part of its “jurisdiction” and needing no national legislative approvals. Such a process would make a mockery of democratic rights on both sides of the Atlantic.

That appears to be what is happening.

Following the July 5 EC meeting in Strasbourg, France, the CBC reported: “Legal opinions advanced by the commission suggest that most of the agreement – perhaps as much as 95 per cent – falls comfortably with the European Union’s jurisdiction… ‘This is an agreement that Europe needs,’ EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said in a statement. ‘The open issue of competence for such trade agreements will be for the European Court of Justice to clarify, in the near future. From a strict legal standpoint, the commission considers this agreement to fall under exclusive EU competence. However, the political situation in the council is clear, and we understand the need for proposing it as a ‘mixed’ agreement, in order to allow for a speedy signature’.” [18]

But as nations gear up to wrangle with the EU (in the European Court of Justice) over what parts of the CETA treaty fall within their jurisdiction, and what parts “fall under exclusive EU competence,” the EC could approve 95% of CETA before elected legislatures even vote.

The Council of Canadians warns on its website (July 5): “One important concern to note, ‘The commission may recommend provisionally applying the EU-parts of the Canada deal while full ratification is pending.’ The French newspaper Le Monde has previously reported that even if CETA is deemed to be a ‘mixed’ agreement, the deal could enter into force ‘provisionally’ even before EU member state parliaments vote on it. It notes, ‘If EU ministers agreed at the signing of the CETA on its provisional application, it could come into effect the following month. Such a decision would have serious implications. Symbolically, first because it would send the message that European governments finally [have] little regard for the views of parliamentarians and thus of European citizens strongly against the agreement’.” [19]

Council of Canadians National Chairperson Maude Barlow stated after the EC meeting in Strasbourg, “Like many Canadians, Europeans are worried about CETA’s attacks on democracy, its weakening of social and safety standards, its contribution to privatization and attacks on public services. After the Brexit vote, policy makers on both sides of the Atlantic would be better counseled to listen to voters, rather than pushing discredited [trade] solutions down people’s throats.” [20]

Global Justice Now director Nick Dearden has called CETA a “toxic deal” and says that the way the EC is acting “reinforces the widely held suspicion that the EU makes big decisions with harmful consequences for ordinary people with very little in the way of democratic process,” he said. “Rather than take a step back and question why there is hostility to the EU, they try to speed up this awful trade deal.” [21]

Union members, environmentalists, social activists and “fair trade” groups say CETA is just as dangerous as the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal between the EU and the U.S., which hands massive power to multinationals and is a direct threat to democracy on both sides of the Atlantic. The way the EC is handling CETA is a stark clue to what’s in store for TTIP.

Footnotes:
[1] “European Commission Extends Glyphosate License without Real Restrictions,” Sustainable Pulse, June 29, 2016.

[2] Frederic Simon, “EU muddling on glyphosate fuelled Brexit populism,” EurActiv.com, July 1, 2016.

[3] Quoted in ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Katie Pohlman, “Neil Young: Say No to GMOs on ‘Behalf of All Living Things’,” EcoWatch, July 1, 2016.

[6] Quoted in ibid.

[7] “EU Commission Seeks to Push Through Free Trade Agreement with Canada (CETA) without Parliamentary Approval,” Deutsche Welle, June 28, 2016.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Reuters, “EU Commission to opt for simple approval for Canada deal: EU official,” June 28, 2016.

[10] “EU Commission: CETA should be approved by national parliaments,” Deutsche Welle, July 5, 2016.

[11] Robert Fife, “Despite Brexit vote, key EU powers vow to ratify CETA deal,” The Globe and Mail, July 3, 2016.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Council of Canadians, “CETA changes make investor-state provisions worse,” February 3, 2016.

[15] Fife, op cit.

[16] “EU Commission: CETA should be approved by national parliaments,” Deutsche Welle, July 5, 2016.

[17] “EC set to scrap plans to fast-track CETA deal: report,” The Globe and Mail, July 5, 2016.

[18] “Canada gets clarity on how Europe will ratify trade deal,” CBC, July 5, 2016.

[19] Council of Canadians, “CETA to be considered a ‘mixed’ agreement, now more vulnerable to defeat,” July 5, 2016.

[20] Council of Canadians, “CETA vulnerable to defeat: Council of Canadians,” July 5, 2016.

[21] Lamiat Sabin “Brexit ‘Might Not Stop Awful Ceta’,” Morning Star, July 5, 2016.

Joyce Nelson is an award-winning Canadian freelance writer/researcher working on her sixth book.

July 6, 2016 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Economics | Canada, CETA, European Union, France, Glyphosate, TPP, TTIP | Leave a comment

Frexit: Debate Over EU Membership May Decide France’s Presidential Election

Sputnik – 04.07.2016

France has two candidates who are openly calling for exiting the European Union while another wants major overhauls sending chills down the backs of the status quo establishment.

Britain’s historic vote to abandon the European Union sparked renewed calls by French nationalist Marie Le Pen, a leading candidate for the country’s presidency, for Paris to step away from what she deemed an undemocratic and failed experiment.

The candidate took to the editorial pages of the Western press blasting the pro-EU establishment of Francois Hollande for fettering away the country’s sovereignty to an unknown cabal of bureaucrats in Brussels who can override any aspect of French law including the constitution.

Le Pen’s National Front Party is just one of many populist rightwing forces across Europe now clamoring to escape the European Union citing sometimes xenophobic concerns about the influx of Syrian refugees and a lack of political self-determination as their rallying cry against the crumbling EU.

Declared “Madame Frexit” the candidate has made her rallying call for French liberation the focal point of her candidacy promising to hold a referendum on EU membership within six months if she attains power in next year’s election.

“The People’s Spring is now inevitable!” declared Le Pen in a New York Times editorial. “The only question left to ask is whether Europe is ready to rid itself of its illusions, or if the return to reason will come with suffering.”

Marie Le Pen’s Eurosceptic platform is not unique among the country’s presidential candidates with far-left Front de Gauche (FG) party leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon also calling for France to leave the European Union citing the specter of undemocratic trade deals that risk poisoning the country’s citizens, undercutting its agricultural industry, and stripping its workers of basic protections.

Another presidential hopeful, Bruno Le Maire, a former secretary of state for European Affairs, has also demanded a referendum on redefining the European project but has not gone so far as to say that the European Union is broken beyond repair.

The emergence of two, possibly three leading presidential candidates in France demanding a so-called Frexit suggests that the issue will be front and center during the election season, but many analysts remain skeptical that any of these candidates will gain the traction needed to win.

However, recent public opinion polls show that selling the idea of the status quo may ultimately prove fatal to President Francois Hollande or former President Nicolas Sarkozy’s respective campaigns.

More than 60% of French voters view the EU unfavorably according to a recent Pew Research Center poll while another survey by the University of Edinburgh found that 33% would vote to leave versus 40% who would remain, while 22% are undecided.

The National Front’s position on French independence from the European Union grew following the Paris attacks, but the real litmus test may be how well Britain weathers the storm of their own referendum.

July 3, 2016 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Economics | European Union, France, Frexit | Leave a comment

How the EU pushed France to reforms of labour law

Corporate Europe Observatory | June 27, 2016

The current struggle in France over labour law reforms is not just between the Government and trade unions – a European battle is waged. The attacks on social rights stem in no small part from the web of EU-rules dubbed ‘economic governance’, invented to impose austerity policies on member states.

Strikes and actions across France against reforms of the country’s labour protections, known as the El Khomri Law, demonstrate the immense unpopularity of the measures proposed by the French Government. Chiefly among them, to give preference to local agreements on wages and working conditions, when the conditions in those agreements are less favourable than the national norm inscribed in national law. This is an open attempt to undermine collective bargaining and roll back the influence of trade unions.

Ultimately, the French Government has formal responsibility for the weakening of labour protection. But there is no denying that the European Union is playing an important and perhaps decisive role in the attacks on labour rights. What we see is the EU throwing its rulebook in the French workers’ faces. Practically all the new rules on so-called ‘economic governance’ adopted following the eurocrisis have been applied, and make France look like an EU test-case. The European Commission, with the backing of the Council, has used the rules on member states’ deficits to exert pressure, threatening with sanctions, should the French Government not give in and seriously reform its labour laws. Simply put, France has been required flat out to ensure higher profitability for businesses by driving down wages.

How does all of this work?

Sanctions more likely today

First and foremost, the reforms in France are related to the country’s deficit. Like most other EU member states, the state’s finances looked pretty bad in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. In 2009, a case was opened against France for breaching EU rules which stipulate that its deficit must be no higher than 3 per cent of GDP. If taken to the extreme, this ‘excessive deficit procedure’ can result in a fine of billions of euro, and – not least in the case of France – a severe loss of face to its EU partners.

The ‘excessive deficit procedure’ was given more teeth with the so-called ‘Six-Pack’ set of EU rules in 2011 – a key part of the austerity-focused economic governance package – which introduced a reverse majority vote in the Council: if the Commission does decide to fine a member state, like it has threatened to do to France, there will have to be a qualified majority against the measure from other member states to block it. Good reasons for the French Government to be slightly scared – and a weapon to be used in its attempt to convince parliamentarians. The likelihood of sanctions for not meeting the budget deficit targets is much bigger than in the past, when both Germany and France escaped humiliation. But how to meet the Commission’s strict targets, and how to behave to the satisfaction of the Commission, is what clearly links the El Khomri Law in France to the austerity regime being rolled out from Brussels.

Enabling demands of ‘structural reforms’

Being ‘in the procedure’, means you’re under close surveillance by the Commission, and with regular intervals, the case of the French deficit has been brought up at meetings with member states ministers, who have assessed if France (in this case) has made sufficient efforts to remedy the problem. Specific recommendations have been made, though until 2013 the labour law was hardly mentioned. The recommendations stuck to the development of the deficit, whether it went down at the required pace. But in 2013, there was a new tone in the Commission’s recommendations. France was asked to meet its deficit targets “by comprehensive structural reforms” in line with recommendations from the Council “in the context of the European Semester”. Structural reforms are no small matter. They are defined as changes that affect “the fundamental drivers of growth by liberalising labour, product and service markets”. Such ambitions were starting to be pushed on France at the European Semester.

But what is the European Semester? It is a procedure involving the Commission and the Council that ends with a set of recommendations for reforms to each and every member state, based on a proposal from the Commission. At the beginning in 2011, the recommendations were non-binding, but in 2013, a new set of rules went into force under the so-called Two-Pack, another part of the economic governance package intended to enforce austerity. One of the regulations of the two in the package was about measures to ensure deficits were corrected, and among other things, it made a link between the deficit procedure and the European Semester. If a member state is under the deficit procedure – like France – it would have to draw up an ‘Economic Partnership Programme’ that includes the recommendations from the Council –typically the kind of structural reforms that would have a clear impact. If the programme is not followed, then it will have a bearing on the Commission’s decision to initiate the final phase of the deficit procedure: sanctions in the form of a fine worth billions.

So, when the Two-Pack entered into force in early 2013, the tone of the messages to France on its deficit changed. France was now asked to implement “comprehensive structural reforms” of its labour law and the pension system. This had a bearing on how France would be treated under the deficit procedure and whether it would come in for sanctions, and for that reason, recommendations started looking more like demands.

In other words: whereas earlier country specific recommendations adopted under the European Semester were just that, with the Two-Pack from 2013, non-compliance could lead the Commission to take the next step towards sanctions.

“Slash wages now!”

There’s more.

In the early stages of the eurocrisis another procedure was introduced that was to work in parallel to the deficit procedure: the ‘Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure’. This procedure allows the Commission to monitor the development of member states’ economies based on a predefined set of indicators. One of them – perhaps the most important one – measures how high the labour costs are developing (unit labour costs). If wages are not kept at bay, competitiveness suffers, and measures have to be taken, so the logic goes.

The ‘Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure’ is also a potent weapon, as it can lead to a fine if a Eurozone member state crosses the line repeatedly and for a long time. And France has been in the crosshairs of the Commission for quite a while. Commission staff have investigated French labour law and identified what factors contribute “to limiting the ability of firms to negotiate downward wage adjustment”, and the French Government has been warned – as have many other member states – about developments in wages. In 2014, the Commission said “unit labour cost growth is relatively contained but shows no improvement in cost competitiveness. The profitability of private companies remains low, limiting deleveraging prospects and investment capacity.”

The calls for action to improve the profitability of private companies have been sent to France from Brussels on numerous occasions over the past couple of years, and have gained in strength. Thus far, the climax was in February 2015, when the Commission stepped up the procedure and singled out Bulgaria and France as the most pressing cases. The decision put France only a small step from the last stage of the imbalance procedure, the dreaded ‘excessive imbalance procedure’ which entails – exactly like the deficit procedure – a massive fine. If all fines are put together – from the deficit procedure and the imbalances procedure – they could amount to 0.5 per cent of GDP, or in the case of France, approximately €11 billion.

The final countdown

Such a prospect must be terrifying for the French Government, and in 2015, then, it would have to come up with something of substance to appease the European Commission and its partners in the Council. In March France was given two more years to bring its house in order, and if there was any doubt over the way to get there, the message to France in July was clear. Country Specific Recommendation number 6 to France under the European Semester, includes a call to “reform the labour law to provide more incentives for employers to hire on open-ended contracts. Facilitate take up of derogations at company and branch level from general legal provisions, in particular as regards working time arrangements.” In other words, the very reforms now at the centre of dispute with the El Khomri law.

The recommendation was copy-pasted from a Commission proposal; one that struck a chord among business lobby groups. In the annual ‘Reform Barometer’ of BusinessEurope, a procedure set up to influence the European Semester, the French employers association MEDEF was enthusiastic about the move, and dubbed it “extremely important” in its contribution to the Reform Barometer 2016.

End game

Who exactly has done what since the summer of 2015 is the subject of intense debate. French media outlet Mediapart suggests the German Government might have played a big role in designing the French reforms, while others believe the specifics were entirely homemade. In any case, there is no denying that the reforms were pushed heavily by the European Union, more specifically by the Commission and the Council. And the push was based on the web of rules on member states’ economic policies, sometimes called ‘economic governance’, that has been spun thread by thread since 2010. The strengthening of the deficit procedure, the European Semester, the Two-Pack, and the macroeconomic imbalance procedure have all been used for the purpose they were invented: to exert maximum pressure on member states to adopt austerity policies.

There are other similar examples in Europe at the moment. In Italy and Belgium too, you see the effect of the new tools handed over to the European Union since 2010. But France is special for its size and its power in the EU. The ongoing struggle in France can be seen as a major test case for European economic governance. If a big, powerful EU member state can be pushed to attack fundamental traits of its labour protection law, then the risk of new and stronger measures are much more likely in the future. Even if French workers are unaware of it, they’re fighting a European battle.

July 3, 2016 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Economics | El Khomri Law, European Union, France, Human rights | 2 Comments

Ancillary Lessons from Brexit

By Evan Jones | CounterPunch | July 1, 2016

Apart from the substantive issues for the European elites of the Brexit referendum victory, two ancillary lessons have been thrust upon us, if we were not already wise to them.

One, the contemptible character of the mainstream media. Two, the crucial importance of historical understanding.

The mainstream media

One, the elite mainstream media, especially the financial media, is intolerable. Tabloids of and for the opinion makers. If one has been inclined to put a peg on the nose and tolerate the smell for the odd bit of useful information, the Brexit coverage should surely show that the daily sacrifice is not worth the candle.

Universal hysteria has reigned. It has been a tsunami of shit.

This from the super smug Financial Times :

“Britain takes a leap into the dark. … Britain’s decision to leave the EU is the biggest shock to the continent since the fall of the Berlin Wall.”

The bloody dismantlement of Yugoslavia and the financial coup d’État in Greece were apparently of minor significance.

The Economist, if at times sober, declaimed:

“After the vote, chaos. … June 23rd will be a landmark in British and European history.”

John Lloyd (a contributing editor at the Financial Times no less) blesses Reuters readers with a condescending inconsequential piece titled “… the chaos that will be felt around the world”. Well no it won’t.

Said the Guardian, now running on empty:

“Britain was heading into a period of unprecedented political, constitutional and economic crisis on Saturday night as European leaders stepped up demands for it to quit the EU as soon as possible.”

Beyond ground zero, other countries’ MSM joined in the shock horror clamor.

This from France’s L’Obs (formerly Le Nouvel Observateur), just before the vote:

“Après le Brexit, l’apocalypse?”

And on 24 June:

“Un suicide économique: après le Brexit, la City se réveille en panique”

France’s MSM is now overwhelmingly the plaything of the mega-rich. L’Obs could do well to hone in on the economic suicide perpetrated on its own turf.

Down under, in the colonies, The Sydney Morning Herald (deteriorating by the week with large-scale retrenchment of seasoned staff), dutifully reproduces whatever Anglo-America is saying. Thus the Washington Post appears, with:

“Brexit vote raises global recession fears”

Tabloid-style front page graphics inform us of:

“Anarchy in the UK … Broken Britain as the world reels”

The pot has been simmering, suppressed

Broken Britain indeed. The geographical distribution of the voting patterns highlights a predictable disparity that wasn’t generated the day before yesterday.

The afore-mentioned John Lloyd, from his Oxonian watchtower, declaims (of Scotland and Northern Ireland, but of general application):

“London and the southeast region generate the surplus they help to spend.”

What? As the City funnels its lucre to tax haven satellites (the Channel Islands aptly named), the regions will be appreciative of Lloyd setting the record straight on their mendicancy.

Here is the fundamental problem of the frenzy. The Brexit vote merely reflects a pre-existing condition. Why the supposed shock reaction?

The shock is because ‘the masses are revolting!’ They are supposed to know their place. We, the quality MSM, tell them what’s what, we set the agenda. That we report selectively, that we lie to them as a matter of principle, this is none of their business. It’s their role to take their medicine and be grateful. The universal franchise has been a problem from the beginning; we thought we had it under control, and these wretched people don’t know the rules. Non-stop propaganda not entirely successful, disenfranchisement here we come.

MSM failings have led to the birth of media watch outfits like the British Medialens and the French Acrimed. And now, praise the Lord, we have Off-Guardian, product of the precipitous decline of that once admirable masthead. Off-Guardian nails the MSM’s hysteria:

“You’d be forgiven for thinking that the referendum had been for turning off the sun, banning talking, or killing the first born son of every family in Britain…rather than a return to a state of affairs that has existed for all but the last 40 years of human history. Such is the level of the destruction.”

Thank you and goodnight to the ‘quality’ MSM.

Washington to the rescue?

Before moving on, there appeared an instructive piece emanating from the colonial cringe-worthy political culture in Australia, courtesy of a local academic ‘defense expert’, Stephen Fruehling. We discover that the evil Putin, everybody’s anti-Christ, is the major beneficiary of Brexit: The cad!

“Brexit is a great setback for the security of the Western world … [Fruehling] branded the successful exit vote a victory for Russia, which under Vladimir Putin has been trying to drive wedges into Europe. For Russia, this is a great win as it demonstrates that the institutions that hold together the West are cracking, and can be prised apart … Russia … will be encouraged to step up its corrosive and subversive influence on domestic debates in the EU member states.

Critically for Australia, it would leave Washington less time to focus on its ‘pivot’ to Asia. The turmoil to come can only reinforce the recent tendency of US re-engagement with Europe on the security front. Washington now has yet another crisis to manage in Europe, and will have even less time for allies in Asia.”

‘Washington now has yet another crisis to manage in Europe’? Has our expert let something out of the bag here?

(Real) history matters

But on to issue two – the importance of historical understanding.

Escaping from harsh reality, I was recently watching a re-run of the BBC B-grade copper sitcom, New Tricks, and there was handed down a word of advice from a petty crim to an honest- ex-cop trying to reclaim his integrity from a murky past.

“The past is a foreign country. It’s not a tourist destination. I should leave well enough alone if I were you!”

Quite. And an elitist catechism of general applicability. Leave history to your betters. Control the past and it’s easier to dictate the present.

It’s true that the European Union has been a scapegoat for what Conn Hallinan calls ‘a very British affair’. But the palaver confidently handed down from the MSM over Brexit has universally steered clear of the disaster that is the European Union. A few minor problems, slow to recover after the GFC blah, a refugee tide coming from a whacko sectarian bloodbath nothing to do with us, plebeian xenophobes thrusting for attention, etc.

The strategic myopia, the dishonesty regarding the stench emanating from Brussels is comprehensive. And that’s before TAFTA is promulgated.

The conventional wisdom is that (Inigo Thomas, LRB): “The European Union was formed with the idea of diminishing the power of any country to wage war; the nation state was believed to be part of the problem.” In this regard, Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman are credited as key visionaries and progenitors of economic integration, the ‘fathers’ of the European Union.

The New York Times’ Roger Cohen, long time European correspondent, has been an ardent expositor of this line, allowing him to blithely ignore the trajectory of Europe’s damnable flaws.

But the creation of the European Union didn’t prevent war; it merely pushed it elsewhere, with the connivance of the EU’s leadership. This neglected point has been recently highlighted by Joseph Richardson on this site. Europe’s integration into NATO, and its subservience to US imperatives therein, guarantees the institutional artillery for endless aggression. A collectivity of states can wage war as well as a single nation state, indeed with more intemperance, especially under a belligerent hegemon.

What price the conventional wisdom?

A century down the track from World War I has prompted re-examination of its origins and after-effects. Recent cathartic events within Europe (the debacle of Greece, the refugee influx, Brexit) provide the incentive for a re-examination of the origins of the EU.

By coincidence, I happen to be reading Alexander Werth’s France: 1940-1955 (published in 1956). Werth, a Russian-born English journalist, long-time Moscow correspondent, was by then living in France. He is an unjustly neglected author. Werth’s account of post-War French politics is minutely detailed and iconoclastic.

Monnet’s Plan of December 1945 was designed to engineer faster French re-industrialization. It was integrally dependent on German coal (and incidentally German prisoners of war/peace), which involved simultaneously limiting German re-industrialization. In effect, Versailles redux. The results were paltry, not least because Monnet’s ideas (especially regarding French agriculture) were fanciful.

By mid-1948, the agenda was essentially being set by the US, and Monnet fell into line. The priority was to bring what was to become West Germany into the Western camp – vehicle for the West’s own Iron Curtain. The scene was set with the March 1948 Treaty of Brussels which established the Western European Union (France, Britain, Benelux). France’s attempt to appropriate and/or dominate the German coalfields permanently (the Ruhr, the Saar) could no longer be tolerated.

In mid-1949 the US government instructed Schuman, then French Foreign Secretary, that he had to come up with a plan to deal with the German coal problem. Schuman handed the job to Monnet, who handed it to his bureaucrats. Thus was devised the so-called Schuman Plan, which appeared in ‘bare skeleton’ form in May 1950. This was the beginning of the coal-steel pool, to become the European Coal and Steel Community. There appeared for the first time the idea of a federalist Europe and of the creation of supra-national authorities.

The mis-named ECSC was compromised from the start, as Britain (major coal miner and steel maker) declined to join it. Some French envisaged the creation of a ‘third force’ industrial powerhouse that would balance the US and the Eastern bloc. That idea readily succumbed to US interests and British concerns for its sovereignty.

Schuman and Monnet consulted no-one in the French government, and parliament had no idea. The government, parliament and the public were hostile to the plan. Schuman and Monnet themselves were out of their depth. With the US in Korea, the Schuman Plan soon became integrally linked to US pressure for Western European re-militarization through the creation of a supra-national European army, to include German troops.

In late 1950, the US was even considering incorporating Spain into defense of the ‘free world’. The cynics quipped: “If Syngman Rhee, why not Franco?”.

France was naturally opposed, for economic as well as security reasons. ‘Neutralism’ (the then buzz word) was France’s ‘sound instinct of self-preservation’. West Germany at that stage preferred emphasis on the return of its sovereignty and on re-industrialization. So much for facilitating Franco-German cooperation.

Werth reproduces an excerpt from the French press in April 1948, foreshadowing this trajectory:

“The transformation of the Marshall Plan into a Holy Alliance against Communism means that priority is to be given to military aid, and that the European countries will also be expected to increase their military expenditure, thus adding to their inflation. Secondly, it means the intensification of the Cold War. … What its advocates represented a few months ago as America’s way of saving peace at the lowest possible price has now become one of the greatest war dangers since the Liberation.”

But France was broke, thankful for Marshall Aid, bogged down in Indochina (hoping for American support there), and the US and Britain were relentless. In September 1950, President Truman and Secretary of State Acheson announced that Europe had to have sixty divisions, ten of them German. British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, speaking for Britain, immediately fell into line. Ditto Schuman, speaking for himself.

The Pleven Government buckled in its proposed 1951 budget, with a planned 75 per cent increase in military expenditure, to the detriment of civil infrastructure. The Radical Party deputy Pierre Mendès-France was excoriating of the government. He noted, citing the truncated original Monnet Plan, that industrial robustness was a precondition for military preparedness and to prioritize military spending would entrench France’s then economic fragility.

By 1953, the French leadership thought that the idea of a European army was dead. The Americans thought otherwise. In January Life magazine brutally lampooned French politics (the American media has been doing it ever since). The incoming Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, known on the continent as ‘Europe’s Bully No 1’, exclaimed (Werth):

“The USA had already spent thirty billion dollars in Europe since the war, and this money had been ‘invested’ in the hope that Europe would achieve unity. But if it was found that France, Britain, and Germany were each to go their own way, it would be necessary to ‘give a little re-thinking’ to America’s policy in Europe.”

In October, a speech by Churchill to the Party faithful, drippingly condescending to the French, claimed that Germany would be rearmed, with or without the proposed European Defence Community.

As the French noted, Britain refuses to be integrated in Europe but wants to dictate, with its US masters, the terms on which France has to do so. The clip from Yes Minister currently doing the rounds has substance behind the farce.

De Gaulle responded in a November speech, contemptuous and prescient:

“Since victorious France has an army and defeated Germany has none [he parodied Monnet] let us suppress the French Army. After that we shall make a stateless army of Frenchmen and Germans, and since there must be a government above this army, we shall make a stateless government, a technocracy. As this may not please everybody, we’ll paint a new shop sign and call it ‘community’; it won’t matter, anyway, because the ‘European Army’ will be placed at the entire disposal of the American Commander-in-Chief.”

On the contrary, de Gaulle considered that it was time to revive the Franco-Russian alliance, given that they remained formal allies. That recommendation went down like the proverbial …

At the December 1953 Bermuda Conference, the French Prime Minister Laniel and Foreign Minister Bidault were profoundly humiliated by Churchill. Eisenhower demanded that the EDC be ratified by 15 March. More, just when finally France wanted to sue for peace in Indochina, the US insisted that it was moving in there itself. Following the Bermuda Conference:

“The demand that EDC be ratified without delay became increasingly peremptory. The agitation against EDC in France became correspondingly more violent. …

“… despite assurances, promises and other ways of keeping the United States in an at least relatively good humour, all the French governments from the end of 1950 (Pleven Plan) till the actual rejection of EDC in 1954, knew that at no time was there a majority in the National Assembly or in the country, to sanction EDC.

“If finally, in 1955, German rearmament was agreed to in a different form, it was only because of two years of ever-growing American and especially British pressure and threats, which, it was thought, could no longer be ignored.”

Mendès-France became Prime Minister in June 1954. By now he feared for France’s isolation from the Atlantic Alliance and sought a compromise proposal in August from his Cabinet on the EDC. Bitter conflict resulted in a series of protocols qualifying the original, which Mendès-France took to the Six-Power Conference in Brussels. Mendès-France was confronted by “a general Anglo-American-German gang-up”, supported by the Belgian Conference Chair Paul-Henri Spaak and the Dutch Foreign Minister Johan Beyen. The protocols were laughed out of court. Spaak concluded the conference (at. 2.35 am) with:

“The failure of this conference is a catastrophe. France will be completely isolated. There will be an EDC without her. Western Germany will rearm … We must, must make Europe. The military side isn’t everything. What matters more is the integration of Europe. EDC is only a step in that direction, but if there is no EDC, then everything falls to the ground …”

Mendès-France defied the will of the Conference gang and immediately took the EDC issue to the Assembly, which chucked the whole thing out again “in a stormy and highly emotional debate”.

There was more fury from the foreign press. Churchill told Mendès-France that Germany would be rearmed within NATO if necessary.

Instructive is the fact that the Nazi General Carl Oberg, supreme overseer in France of Jewish deportations and repression of the Resistance, already condemned to death by a British court, was being tried again in October 1954. If the trial’s disclosures reinforced French public hostility to German rearmament, it was of no interest to Britain or to the US. Earlier in 1954 the British Foreign Office, via the Lord Chancellor, had attempted to prevent the publication of Bertrand Russell’s The Scourge of the Swastika. This skirmish was part of a propaganda battle being waged in Britain over official attempts to forge West Germany as an ally amongst civilized nations.

In June the Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz was overthrown by a US-engineered coup. Le Monde, in September, likened Mendès-France to Árbenz and France as a United Fruit Republic.

In October, the Paris agreements were signed over France’s ‘head’, legitimizing the rearmament and sovereignty of West Germany. On Friday 24 December, Mendès-France took the ratification bill authorizing a German army to the Assembly, which the Assembly promptly rejected. With more fury from London and Washington. Noted Werth, the British Foreign Office “had gone off the deep end”. The Assembly’s Foreign Affairs Committee also rejected the bill.

During the next week, the Assembly debated for three days. A wise voice said that rearmament was now by the by; the priority henceforth was to stop the bomb! By that stage, exhaustion and resignation had set in. Mendès-France got his ratification bill passed by a bare margin. Having got France out of Indochina, Mendès-France couldn’t bridge the massive gulf between France and its dictatorial ‘allies’. He was out of office within two months.

The EU a Cold War project

In short, the European Union has its origins not in the mutual thrust for economic cooperation and harmonization of interests but as an American-Anglo Cold War project.

West Germany was to be the core of Cold War Europe, and France was to become frankly irrelevant. West Germany (later a unified Germany) became an Atlantic Alliance satrap but in return obtained carte blanche to become, by whatever means, the industrial and economic powerhouse of the Union. More, it would dictate the terms on which closer economic integration took place. France got, as consolation prize … the Common Agricultural Policy.

And sixty years later? For all its evolution, the EU remains a Cold War project. The ex-Soviet satellites – Eastern Europe and the Baltic states – were incorporated into the Union within that ambit. NATO, the replacement for the ultimately unachievable EDC, dictates military and even foreign policy imperatives. Europe bowed to, facilitated, the dismantlement of Yugoslavia. Europe kowtows to US dictates regarding sanctions on Russia over the Magnitsky Affair and then over the Russian response to the coup in Ukraine.

To European subordination to ongoing American-Anglo Cold War against Russia is added its subordination to American-Anglo (plus Israeli) imperatives in the Middle East. Thus Europe signs up for the sanctions against Iran.

The economic cost to European national economies of these sanctions has been significant. For example, it has been estimated that France’s cancellation of the Mistral carriers that it was building for Russia will cost it ultimately losses of the order of €2 billion. France’s loss of markets (especially for autos) in Iran has been significant.

Then there’s the refugee tidal wave, mostly courtesy of those same imperatives. This is the cost of Europe’s subordination, and it is incalculable. And its leaders have yet to put 2 + 2 together.

Out of the blue, the German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has broken ranks, and said, ‘enough is enough’. Is there a sign of a rare rationality amongst the European leadership in the wings?

Lessons from Brexit

This story is removed from the Brexit front line, but it is a large elephant in the room.

Which particular European Union does the Remain coalition and its Continental supporters have in mind when they imply that the European status quo is the greatest thing since sliced bread? And with what conception of Europe will they fight to overturn Brexit?

The Brexit catharsis provides the ideal opportunity to re-examine the history and character of the European Union. No whitewashes this time around please. With this prospect, the mainstream media, on its wretched record, has automatically disqualified itself from the job.

Evan Jones is a retired political economist from the University of Sydney. He can be reached at:evan.jones@sydney.edu.au

July 1, 2016 Posted by aletho | Deception, Economics, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | BREXIT, European Union, France, NATO, UK, United States | Leave a comment

“Free Marwan Barghouthi” banner returns to Paris-area city hall after legal victory

marwanbanner2

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – June 30, 2016

The Administrative Court of Montreuil in France rejected on Tuesday, 28 June an appeal by the Seine-Saint-Denis prefecture (representing the central French state), demanding the removal of a banner supporting Palestinian prisoner and leader Marwan Barghouthi from the front of the city hall of Stains, in a victory for supporters of Palestinian political prisoners and Stains’ mayor Azzedine Taibi.

The court found that the prefecture’s arguments were inadmissible and invalid, despite an earlier temporary order that the banner must be removed. Azzedine Taibi, the mayor of Stains and a representative of the French Communist Party, said that “This is not a personal victory but a collective victory! … Marwan Barghouthi will remain an honorary citizen of our city and I know that one day, he will be on our side, here in Stains, the city of popular resistance! The struggle and the mobilization will only grow for the liberation of Marwan Barghouti and all Palestinian political prisoners…”

The prefect – representing the government of Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who has urged prosecution of BDS activists and the suppression of the movement to boycott Israel – argued that the banner was “not of local interest” and likely to lead to a “disturbance of public order.” Manuel Valls, as Minister of the Interior, previously intervened in the case of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah – after intervention from US Secretary of State and now presidential candidate Hillary Clinton – to block the release to Lebanon on parole of the Lebanese Communist prisoner and struggler for Palestine who has been imprisoned in French jails for 32 years.

The prefect’s case was dismissed, as was a complaint filed against the mayor by the BNCVA, a pro-Zionist organization that nominally combats anti-Semitism but in practice focuses on attempts to suppress Palestine solidarity and the boycott of Israel, which accused Taibi of “public apology for terrorism” for his support of Barghouti.

Stains is one of a group of 23 French municipalities who have named the imprisoned Fateh leader and Palestinian Legislative Council member an honorary citizen. A delegation of 16 French mayors was prohibited from visiting Barghouthi in Gilboa prison in Palestine by the Israeli occupation on 14 June; the mayors participated later in a press conference in support of the campaign to nominate Marwan Barghouthi for a Nobel Peace Prize, a campaign supported by Belgian parliamentarians, Desmond Tutu, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, and the Tunisian winners of the 2015 Peace Prize.

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Taibi hosted a ceremony outside the Stains City Hall on Wednesday night, 29 June, celebrating the victory and the official unveiling and replacement of the “Free Marwan Barghouthi” banner to the front entrance of the Stains city hall.

The Stains victory is one of several in France against attempts to criminalize or suppress the Palestine solidarity movement or the boycott of Israel. A court in Créteil dismissed a prosecution for “incitement to discrimintion” against Jean-Claude Lefort pursued by the Association France-Israel and “Lawyers Without Borders” on 24 June, because he had called for a boycott of Israeli products; the court noted that this was a matter of expression on a “debate of general international interest.” In addition, the municipality of Bondy voted on Thursday, 23 June to refuse to purchase goods made in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Today, 30 June, 4 BDS activists will face a trial in Toulouse; they are accused of “obstructing the normal exercise of economic activity of three stores” for distributing leaflets in public squares in support of the boycott of Israeli goods. The prosecution was initiated by LICRA, a French pro-Israel advocacy organization; activists are mobilizing outside the courthouse at 1 pm in support of the 4 accused organizers.

June 30, 2016 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | France, Hillary Clinton, Human rights, Israel, Marwan Barghouthi, Palestine, Zionism | Leave a comment

When Haiti Defeated the British Empire

Thought Merchant | June 26, 2016

In the wake of the BREXIT vote which has the world reeling after Great Britain decided to abandon the European Union, much has been said about the historical scope, power, and influence of the British Empire throughout history. At its apex the British Empire was the most powerful geopolitical force on earth. What many neglect to realize is that one of the occurrences that helped the United Kingdom rise to such a position was The Haitian Revolution, which thoroughly defeated Britain’s only serious hegemonic competitor, Napoleonic France.

Much is discussed and written about Haiti’s defeat of Napoleon and how it opened the door for the Louisiana Purchase that fostered the expansion of the United States into the nation it has since become. However, few realize how the defeat of Napoleon by the brave former African Slaves in Haiti opened the door for the dominance of the British Empire. Furthermore, as Americans always pride themselves on their Revolutionary accomplishment of defeating the great British Empire and gaining their freedom, few give full acknowledgment to the superior military feat of The Haitian Revolution in its not only vanquishing the French Napoleonic Empire, The Spanish Empire of the time, but also thoroughly defeating the mighty British Empire to the point of leading the United Kingdom to agree to cease the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and any further importation of Africans into the Western Hemisphere officially. So while Americans celebrate their independence victory in defeating the greatest of European Empires, The British, recognize that former African slaves in Haiti did the seemingly impossible and defeated all three of the major European empires of that day to obtain their freedom, including the one beaten by the Americans:

“Yet it cannot be denied that both the government and British public had
learned a lesson from [Britain’s] disastrous attempt to conquer Saint
Domingue/Haiti, restore slavery, and subdue Toussaint L’Ouverture. In 1796
nearly three years after the first British forces landed in Saint
Domingue/Haiti, the [British] administration sent off one of the greatest
expeditionary forces in British history. Before the end of the year Edmond
Burke received news that 10,000 British soldiers had died in less than two
months! It was reported in the House of Commons that almost every Briton
had a personal acquaintance that had perished in the [Haitian]
Campaigns.” – “The Impact of The Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World,”
David P. Geggus.

In the end the British lost over 50,000 soldiers in their attempt to bring slavery back to Haiti. This had a direct influence on the British decision to end the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

June 29, 2016 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular | France, Haiti, Human rights, UK, United States | 1 Comment

France wants sanctions on Russia lifted soon – foreign minister

RT | June 29, 2016

Sanctions against Russia should be lifted as soon as possible, France’s Minister of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday following a meeting with his Russian counterpart, while insisting that implementation of the Minsk agreements still remain key to the process.

“Sanctions is not a goal in and of itself,” Jean-Marc Ayrault said in Paris, adding that his country looks forward to scrapping the restrictive measures against Moscow.

The process of lifting the Western sanctions on Russia is still related to Minsk agreements that aim to put an end to the crisis in southeastern Ukraine, Ayrault added, saying that “Russia should play a positive role” in their implementation.

Moscow and Paris have been closely working together “in the Normandy format,” Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after the meeting. The countries’ foreign ministries have been “closely cooperating” and their aides have been involved too, Russia’s top diplomat said. The Normandy format includes Russia, France, Ukraine, and Germany.

“The most important condition for the progress, as stated in the Minsk deal and in UN Security Council resolution, is establishment of direct dialogue between Kiev and Donbass,” Lavrov stressed.

Russia has repeatedly said that it’s doing everything in its power to facilitate the implementation of the Ukrainian peace deal, while Kiev has been hindering the process. The West should work with its “allies” in Kiev, President Putin has said, adding that direct dialogue between the parties to the conflict should be promoted.

Russia’s European partners should not hold Moscow solely responsible for fulfilling the Minsk agreements, Putin said at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) earlier this month, adding that there are “issues that are beyond our abilities.”

A number of the 28 countries in the European Union have expressed strong disapproval of the bloc’s restrictive measures on Russia. Italy has repeatedly called for a debate on the issue, rather than the automatic prolongation of sanctions.

In France, both the Senate and the lower house of Parliament, the French Assembly, have previously voted in favor of a resolution designed to lift the sanctions imposed by the EU in 2014 because of the crisis in eastern Ukraine and the reunification of Crimea with Russia.

Time to send ‘strong signal’ to Russia and gradually lift sanctions – Austrian FM

Anti-Russian sanctions should be lifted ASAP – leader of Saxony, Germany

June 29, 2016 Posted by aletho | Economics | European Union, France, Russia, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Faurisson risks jail for 60-word summary of his research during Tehran conference

By Alison Chabloz | June 26, 2016

A brief resumé of the hearing held last week in Paris, by Alison Chabloz.

In contrast to the Court of Appeal hearing given last March, this latest bout of Ziocon persecution of revisionist, Robert Faurisson, was held in the 17° Chambre Correctionelle of the High Court at the Palais de Justice in Paris, ensuring that numerous members of the public who’d gathered there to support the professor were able to witness the proceedings from the court room’s spacious gallery.

Starting an hour late owing to the morning session having overrun the allocated time-slot, magistrates initially dealt with several other cases, lasting for almost another hour, before it was the turn of the world’s foremost ‘Holocaust’ revisionist to defend himself against three separate charges. There was no apology forthcoming from the court for this delay which of course had the negative effect of reducing valuable debating time as well as causing magistrates to rush the proceedings.

Two charges for contesting a crime against humanity (one of which brought by former Justice Minister, Pascal Clément) and a third for racial defamation brought by the LICRA – Ligue contre le racisme et l’antisémitisme.

All three complaints targeted a speech made by the professor in 2006 at a conference on the ‘Holocaust’ in Tehran, Iran. A star witness in the person of Lady Michele Renouf who had travelled from London for the hearing would testify after the initial debates. For once, the number of lawyers on the accused benches seemed to outnumber those of the prosecution by five to two (five to three, if we include the state prosecutor). In reality, however, Robert Faurisson’s defence was assured by Maître Damien Viguer alone. Three immense dossiers were produced and placed on the judge’s desk almost completely hiding the magistrate himself. Cue: hushed, slightly amused tittering from the public benches.

The defence’s principle argument rested on the fact that Faurisson’s speech in Tehran had been delivered in English and had lasted only ten minutes. As his speech had been given outside French territory, French law would not apply. In this case, however, it was the professor’s written essay The Victories of Revisionism, published in Tehran then distributed on the Internet, that had led to the three charges. The article details the major successes of Robert Faurisson’s revisionist career and, in particular, confessions of his adversaries which substantiate the professor’s outright technical and moral victory over his detractors. It is this same article which Maître Viguer uses consistently in defence of his client during the many trials brought by a judicial system which is plainly rotten to the core.

The judge, a man in his forties with curly, dark ginger hair and a beard, began by reading Faurisson’s article (see Part 1 and Part 2). The longer the reading went on, the more the judge seemed to be taking in Faurisson’s words. Towards the end, the judge’s face had completely disappeared behind the hand-held, stapled bundle of A4 sheets.

Faurisson’s counsel, Maître Viguer, asked that the two complaints for contesting crimes against humanity be nullified because of legal non-compliance. After a short break for deliberation, the court reserved its ruling in relation to this matter until September 27. Thus, only the third charge of ‘racial defamation’ would be deliberated on this humid afternoon in the centre of the French capital.

The charge of defamation brought by LICRA concerned the following passages of Faurisson’s article:

“President Ahmadinejad (then head of the Islamic Republic of Iran) used the right word when he said that the alleged Holocaust of the Jews is a myth: that is to say, a belief maintained by credulity or ignorance.

“The alleged Hitlerite gas chambers and the alleged genocide of Jews form one and the same historical lie, which allowed a gigantic political and financial swindle whose main beneficiaries are the state of Israel and international Zionism and whose main victims are the German people – but not their leaders – and the Palestinian people in their entirety.”

The accusation’s charge of defamation lay solely on the ‘argument’ that, by these statements, Faurisson was clearly targeting the Jewish community. The judge asked Faurisson to explain.

Faurisson’s retorts were confident and unrelenting: citing Israel and international Zionism is not the same as citing “the Jews”. The public as well as the officers of the court present were then treated to an hour and a half’s exposé by the man himself. Unlike orthodox historians who merely repeat the given narrative, he would actually go out on the job, tape measure in hand. The 60-word phrase, he explained, is the summary of his lifetime’s work in the field of revisionism. As he advised his students, the key to success when researching any subject is the ability to resume this work in a phrase of approximately 60 words. The enormous body of work he carried out began in the 1950s when he first asked:

“Show me a photo, an architect’s plan or even a drawing of a gas chamber.”

Faurisson continued his testimony with an explanation of Rudolf Höss’ witness statement at the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal, gained via torture, in particular sleep deprivation. Then, a brief lesson on the explosive quality of Zyklon-B with analysis of actual execution chambers which employ this same gas (no longer used) in the USA. In the 187 pages of court transcripts from Nuremberg concerning Auschwitz, practically nothing is dedicated to the subject of gassing.

The professor went on to expose the lies of Elie Wiesel in his book Night as well as other fabrications concerning execution by boiling water at Treblinka which also feature in the Nuremberg transcript. So many false witnesses: only last week we learned of yet another in the news.

The judge, at this point, interjects with “You’ve therefore not modified your proposals after all this time..?” The female magistrate present appears to have fallen asleep! Such is the contempt for Faurisson’s indisputable strength of character, as apparent and all the more humbling here and now, at the grand old age of 87, as when he started his research more than six decades ago. Faurisson’s conclusions are based on fact, documented evidence, repeatable scientific experiment and, above all, are the fruit of a lifetime’s study and research. What reason other than insanity would make him change his proposals “after all this time”?

Faurisson elaborates on the magical six million number. In August, 1944, Wilhelm Hötll, friend of Eichman, gave a witness statement purporting that the sensational sum could be reached by adding the four million in Auschwitz ‘extermination camp’ to another two million slain Soviets. This was the first time the phrase extermination camp was used in place of concentration camp. However, Hötll was never called to testify at Nuremberg.

The prosecution declines the opportunity to grill Faurisson; Maître Viguer invites the professor to talk about the conference in Iran.

Contrary to media reports, the 2006 conference was inclusive of all opinions concerning the ‘Holocaust’. The professor remembers one adversary challenging him to go to the National Archives in Washington where he would see the evidence that his findings were erroneous. The poor fellow hadn’t bargained on the professor already having been to these very same archives where, amongst other clues, he uncovered documents relating to the 32 RAF sorties over Auschwitz, none of which had succeeded in showing smoke billowing out from the crematoria chimneys.

Maître Viguier questions the professor further on the origin of all these lies surrounding the “Holocaust”. Faurisson replies that it’s impossible to say; the rumour runs and runs. The CICR had also heard rumours of gas chambers at Auschwitz, yet their investigation team was unable to find anyone confirming these rumours. Even Eric Conan in French weekly, L’Express, said of the gas chamber exhibit at Auschwitz “Tout y est faux” – everything is false. 1.7 million people visit Auschwitz annually.

At this point, the judge decides to call Lady Renouf to hear her witness statement. As this will be in English, the court has arranged for an accredited translator to be present. After giving her name and details, Lady Renouf first congratulates Maître Viguier for his bravery in accepting to defend the professor. Her witness statement follows in short phrases which are immediately translated for the benefit of the court. We hear confirmation that Faurisson’s speech was an impromptu affair which lasted only ten minutes and Lady Renouf makes reference to the professor’s English-spoken heritage, owed to his mother being a Scot. She repeats Faurisson’s anecdote, often used to introduce himself to an English-speaking audience, that his French ear should not listen to his Scottish ear because, whereas Scottish law permits inquiry and research into the “Holocaust”, French law does not.

Linguistic confusion arises when Lady Renouf speaks of guidelines (in French, “les consignes”) on how the “Holocaust” should be taught in schools, published in Stockholm in 2000. The translator is unable to translate the word for guidelines, using “guides” instead. Whether or not the greffière recorded a corrected version is uncertain; perhaps the court thought that Lady Renouf was talking about “tour guides”, at Auschwitz or elsewhere?

The Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust where the ‘Holocaust’ education guidelines were first announced was also the site of two physical attacks on Faurisson by Jewish terrorist organisation LDJ (Ligue de Défence Juive or Jewish Defence League). These guidelines instruct all public and private schools worldwide not to give a platform to revisionists. Lady Renouf summarises, stating that historical debate and rational argument do not seem to be part of educational guidelines on this subject. There are no questions from the court.

Maître Viguier promptly urges the professor to talk about a case dating back to 1983 when he was accused of “falsifying history”. Faurisson explains that this was the catalyst which led to creation of the 1990 Fabius-Gayssot Act. He also recalls the work of British historian and semi-revisionist David Irving, along with the fact that neither Churchill nor de Gaulle ever mention any gas chambers. In fact, during WW1 already, UK national newspaper the Daily Express had written about enemy gas chambers as early as 1914. An investigation after the war ended in 1918 proved that the story was a propaganda lie. Again, in 1943, the same story about gas chambers appears in the Daily Express. This time, however, there was no similar post-war investigation. Another piece of vital evidence is the documented case of Marinka in Russia where the local mayor was shot dead by the German army for killing a Jewish woman. Many such examples exist yet are suppressed from public knowledge.

The professor then relates his victories over Raul Hilberg and Jean-Claude Pressac; cites Valerie Igounet’s book of smears Histoire du négationnisme en France and tells us that Ariane Chemin didn’t know who Hilberg was when she interviewed the professor in Vichy for Le Monde newspaper. Faurisson also names the director of Yad Vashem 1953-1959, Ben-Zion Dinur, who resigned after coming to the realisation there were far too many false witnesses.

Change of tone as Mâitre Christian Charrière-Bournazel representing LICRA comes to the bar. He’s clearly unhappy about having been forced to listen to Faurisson for two hours (in reality Faurisson had only spoken for an hour and a half), although it’s doubtful Charrière-Bournazel will be complaining quite so much when he receives his fat fee. The only accusation is restricted to the same, tired refrain: when Faurisson mentions the state of Israel and international Zionism, Faurisson means Jews. Faurisson is a racist. Faurisson has already been prosecuted and convicted, etc., etc.

The state prosecutor raises even more eyebrows as she tries to stabilise her microphone (no working mic and a dodgy translator suggest the French judiciary can’t afford to run their courts properly?). Diabolical smears regards Faurisson’s personality as well as the obligatory jibe about using the court room as a platform from which, according to Madame la Procureure, Faurisson would take immense gratification. Perhaps the most telling phrase amongst all the outright lies and smears (paid for by the French tax payer, of course) is when the prosecutor states Faurisson should no longer be given the possibility of further court appearances.

Maître Viguier once again stands to contest the accusation’s claims. That the professor’s words in Tehran constitute ‘defamation’ is a fraudulent lie. The professor’s work is that of an historian. Viguier protests his colleague’s conflation of Israel and Jews, defiantly and correctly stating that conflict in the Middle East could be seen as one direct result of the lies of the Shoah. Faurisson’s work, he insists, will last as long as does this mensonge (“lie”). Viguier deplores the moral order inflicted upon revisionists in the name of war and war crimes, and which effectively prevents revisionists from doing their job.

The judge invites Faurisson to have the last word. Faurisson is finally able to respond to Charrière-Bournazel’s earlier attacks by comparing the lawyer’s attitude and manner to that of an enflure (in the sense of over-exaggerated, self-important, turgid). This warrants an admonishment of Faurisson by the judge, who then fails to chastise Charrière-Bournazel for leaving the court in a show of brazen pomposity whilst Faurisson is still speaking.

Faurisson finishes with another couple of examples of dubious witness statements and mistranslations which have been used by propagandists to bolster the case for a presumed genocide of countless Jews. We’re told of the wildly varying death toll estimates and asked why those who revised the official Auschwitz death toll – down from four to one-and-a-half million – were not punished in the same atrocious manner which Faurisson has been subjected to throughout his career.

The prosecution is demanding a month’s prison sentence and a 3,000 euro fine in the event of a guilty verdict. We shall now have to wait to September 27 to hear the court’s ruling.

Europeans Contest US Anti-Russian Hype

By Joe Lauria | Consortium News | June 27, 2016

A significant crack has been unexpectedly opened in the wall of Europe’s disciplined obedience to the United States. I’m not only referring to the possible long-term consequences for U.S.-European relations in the wake of Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, but the unlikely blow against Washington’s information war on Moscow delivered by Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who a week ago shockingly accused the North Atlantic Treaty Organization of “war-mongering” against Russia.

German FM Frank-Walter Steinmeier

Since the Bush administration’s twisting of events in the 2008 Russia-Georgia war, which the E.U. blamed on Georgia, Western populations have been subjected to the steady message that Russia is a “threat” to the West and is guilty of “aggression.” This reached a peak with the false narrative of events in Ukraine, in which blatant evidence of the West’s complicity in a violent coups d’état was omitted from corporate media accounts, while Russia’s assistance to eastern Ukrainians resisting the coup has been framed as a Russian “invasion.”

The disinformation campaign has reached the depths of popular culture, including the EuroVision song contest and sports doping scandals, to ensure widespread popular support for U.S. hostile intentions against Russia.

The Russian “aggression” narrative, based largely on lies of omission, has prepared the way for the U.S. to install a missile-shield in Romania with offensive capabilities and to stage significant NATO war games with 31,000 troops on Russia’s borders. For the first time in 75 years, German troops retraced the steps of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.

U.S. Designs on Russia

The U.S. is eyeing a post-Putin Russia in which a Wall Street-friendly leader like Boris Yeltsin can be restored to reopen the country to Western exploitation. But Vladimir Putin is no Yeltsin and has proven a tough nut for the U.S. to crack. Washington’s modus operandi is to continually provoke and blame an opponent until it stands up for itself, as Putin’s Russia has done, then accuse it of “aggression” and attack in “self-defense.”

In this way, Washington builds popular support for its own version of events and resistance to the other side of the story. Unfortunately it is not a new trick in the U.S. playbook.

“The statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception,” wrote Mark Twain.

So suddenly, after many years of an air-tight, anti-Russia campaign believed unquestioningly by hundreds of millions of Westerners, comes Steinmeier last week blurting out the most significant truth about Russia uttered by a Western official perhaps in decades.

“What we shouldn’t do now is inflame the situation further through saber-rattling and warmongering,” Steinmeier stunningly told Bild am Sontag newspaper. “Whoever believes that a symbolic tank parade on the alliance’s eastern border will bring security is mistaken.”

Instead Steinmeier called for dialogue with Moscow. “We are well-advised to not create pretexts to renew an old confrontation,” he said, saying it would be “fatal to search only for military solutions and a policy of deterrence.”

In keeping with the U.S. propaganda strategy, the U.S. corporate media virtually ignored the remarks, which should have been front-page news. The New York Times did not report Steinmeier’s statement, but two days later ran a Reuter’s story only online leading with the U.S. military’s rejection of his remarks.

NATO General: Russia is No Threat

Just a day after Steinmeier was quoted in Bild, General Petr Pavel, chairman of NATO’s military committee, dropped another bombshell. Pavel told a Brussels press conference flat out that Russia was not at a threat to the West.

“It is not the aim of NATO to create a military barrier against broad-scale Russian aggression, because such aggression is not on the agenda and no intelligence assessment suggests such a thing,” he said.

What? What happened to Russian “aggression” and the Russian “threat?” What is the meaning then of the fear of Russia pounded every day into the heads of Western citizens? Is it all a lie? Two extraordinary on-the-record admissions by two men, Steinmeier, the foreign minister of Europe’s most powerful nation, and an active NATO general in charge of the military committee, both revealing that what Western officials repeat every day is indeed a lie, a lie that may be acknowledged in private but would never before be mentioned in public.

Two years ago I was in a background briefing with a senior European ambassador at his country’s U.N. mission in New York and could hardly believe my ears when he said talk about Russia’s threat to Eastern Europe was “all hype” designed to give NATO “a reason to exist.” Yet this same ambassador in public Security Council meetings would viciously attack Russia.

But the hype is about more than just saving NATO. The fear campaign feeds the American and European military industries and most importantly puts pressure on the Russian government, which the U.S. wants overthrown.

Were these remarks made out of the exasperation of knowing all along that the Russian threat is hype? Were they made out of genuine concern that things could get out of hand under reckless and delusional leaders in Washington leading to a hot war with Russia?

Neither man has been disciplined for speaking out. Does this signal a change in official German thinking? Will German businessmen who deal with Russia and have opposed sanctions against Moscow over Ukraine, which were forced on Germany by the U.S., be listened to?

Were Steinmeier’s remarks a one-off act of rebellion, or is Germany indeed considering defying Washington on sanctions and regime change in Moscow? Is the German government finally going to act in Germany’s own interests? Such a move would spark a European defiance of the United States not seen since the days when Charles de Gaulle pulled France out of NATO in 1966 to preserve French independence.

The last time European governments broke with Washington on a major issue was the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Then France and Germany joined Russia on the U.N. Security Council in blocking the war’s authorization (although Britain supported it). But France and Germany then voted for a resolution several months later that essentially condoned the invasion.

It’s Up to the European Public

One has to ask whether a conditioned German public is ready to see through the lies about Russia. Last November, I flew from St. Petersburg to Berlin and discussed this very question with a number of well-educated Germans.

I had visited Russia for the first time since 1995, 20 years before to the month. Those were the days of the Yeltsin-Jeffery Sachs Russia, of the unbridled neoliberal capitalism of the Wall Street-oligarch alliance that plundered the country leaving millions of Russians destitute. Outside train stations I saw homeless encampments replete with campfires. Policemen were stopping motorists for bribes. I ran from two men intent on robbing me until I lost them in a Metro station. That’s the Russia the neocons in Washington and the knaves and buccaneers on Wall Street want to see again.

The Russia I saw in St. Petersburg and Moscow, 20 years later, was orderly and prosperous, as modern as any European city. It is a testament to Russia’s resistance to American attempts to restore its political and financial control. Russia is a capitalist country. But on its own terms. It is fully aware of American machinations to undermine it.

In Berlin I met several Germans, educated, liberal and completely aware, unlike most Americans, of how the United Sates has abused its post-World War II power. And yet when I asked them all why there are still U.S. military bases in Germany 70 years after the war and 25 years after the Cold War ended, and who the Americans were protecting them from, the universal answer was: Russia.

History shows European fears of Russia to be completely overblown. Germany and other Western powers have invaded Russia three times in the last two centuries: France in 1812, U.S., Britain and France in the 1918 Russian Civil War, and Germany again in 1941. Except for Imperial Russia’s incursion into East Prussia after war was declared on it in 1914, the reverse has never been true.

In his memoirs Harry Truman admitted that false fear of Russia was the “tragedy and shame of our time” during the Cold War that he had much to do with in part to revive the U.S. post-war economy with military spending. George Kennan, the State Department official who advised a non-military containment of the Soviet Union, conceded as early as 1947 that Soviet moves in Eastern Europe were defensive and constituted no threat. In the 1990s, Kennan also decried NATO’s expansion towards Russia’s borders.

With its vast natural resources, Russia has been the big prize for the West for centuries, and is still today in neocon-driven Washington. But Germany, especially, has benefited from trade with Russia and has no need to join the U.S. imperial project.

The British voters’ decision, days after Steinmeier’s extraordinary remark, could herald significant change in Europe, which may be approaching an historical junction in its relationship with the United States. Growing anti-E.U. sentiment has spread across the continent, including calls for similar referenda in several countries.

British voters evidently saw through the hype about the Russian “threat,” as a majority did not buy British Prime Minister David Cameron’s scare tactic ahead of the vote that Brexit would make it harder to “combat Russian aggression.”

Britain has been called Washington’s Trojan horse in the E.U. The thinking is that without Britain, the E.U. would be freer to chart its own course. But as Alexander Mercouris explained here, Obama bypasses London to call Merkel directly with his demands. Still, removing Britain’s voice from the E.U., though more crucially not from NATO, opens space for more independent voices in Europe to emerge.

“I worry that we will have less clout on our own,” former British Ambassador to the United States Peter Westmacott told The New York Times. “In the future, we won’t have as much influence on Europe’s response to Putin’s transgressions, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, or the E.U.’s foreign and security policy. … And we will be less able to ensure it is U.S.-friendly.”

But that could be a good thing. If German leaders conclude the United States is pushing Europe into a disastrous war with Russia, could we see a Charles de Gaulle moment in Berlin? Merkel doesn’t seem to have it in her. Three days after Steinmeier’s remarks, she told a news conference she favored increased German spending for NATO to counter Russian “threats.”

Instead it will require a revolt by an awakened citizenry against the E.U. and elected European governments that refuse to stand up to Washington, mostly because it benefits their own class interests, to the detriment of the majority.

The Future of the EU

European social democracy had been probably the best social and political system ever devised on earth, maybe the best that is humanly possible. Europe could have been a model for the world as a neutral power committed to social justice. As late as 1988, Jacques Delors, then president of the European Commission, promised the British Trades Union Congress that the E.U. would be a “social market.”

Instead the E.U. allowed itself to be sold out to unelected and unaccountable neoliberal technocrats now in charge in Brussels. European voters, perhaps not fully understanding the consequences, elected neoliberal national governments slavishly taking Washington’s foreign policy orders. But Brexit shows those voters are getting educated. Unity is a great ideal but E.U. leaders have refused to accept that it has to benefit all Europeans.

The E.U.’s Lisbon Treaty is the only constitution in the world that has neoliberal policies written into it. If it won’t reform — and the arrogance of the E.U.’s leaders tells us it won’t — it will be up to the people of Europe to diminish or dismantle the E.U. through additional referenda. That would give liberated European nations the chance to elect anti-neoliberal national governments, accountable to the voters, which can also chart foreign policies independent of Washington.

The danger is that the right-wing sentiment that has driven a large part of the anti-Establishment movements in Europe (and the U.S.) may elect governments that grow even closer to Washington and impose even harsher neoliberal policies.

That is a risk that may need to be taken in the hope that the anti-Establishment left and right can coalesce around shared interests to put an end to the elitist European project.

Joe Lauria is a veteran foreign-affairs journalist based at the U.N. since 1990. He has written for the Boston Globe, the London Daily Telegraph, the Johannesburg Star, the Montreal Gazette, the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers. He can be reached atjoelauria@gmail.com and followed on Twitter at @unjoe.

June 28, 2016 Posted by aletho | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | European Union, France, Germany, NATO, Russia, UK, United States | Leave a comment

Ten Worst Acts of the Nuclear Age

By David Krieger | Waging Peace | June 22, 2016

The ten worst acts of the Nuclear Age described below have set the tone for our time. They have caused immense death and suffering; been tremendously expensive; have encouraged nuclear proliferation; have opened the door to nuclear terrorism, nuclear accidents and nuclear war; and are leading the world back into a second Cold War. These “ten worst acts” are important information for anyone attempting to understand the time in which we live, and how the nuclear dangers that confront us have been intensified by the leadership and policy choices made by the United States and the other eight nuclear-armed countries.

1. Bombing Hiroshima (August 6, 1945). The first atomic bomb was dropped by the United States on the largely civilian population of Hiroshima, killing some 70,000 people instantly and 140,000 people by the end of 1945. The bombing demonstrated the willingness of the US to use its new weapon of mass destruction on cities.

2. Bombing Nagasaki (August 9, 1945). The second atomic bomb was dropped on the largely civilian population of Nagasaki before Japanese leaders had time to assess the death and injury caused by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima three days earlier. The atomic bombing of Nagasaki took another 70,000 lives by the end of 1945.

3. Pursuing a unilateral nuclear arms race (1945 – 1949). The first nuclear weapon test was conducted by the US on July 16, 1945, just three weeks before the first use of an atomic weapon on Hiroshima. As the only nuclear-armed country in the world in the immediate aftermath of World War II, the US continued to expand its nuclear arsenal and began testing nuclear weapons in 1946 in the Marshall Islands, a trust territory the US was asked to administer on behalf of the United Nations. Altogether the US tested 67 nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958, with the equivalent explosive power of 1.6 Hiroshima bombs daily for that 12 year period.

4. Initiating Atoms for Peace (1953). President Dwight Eisenhower put forward an Atoms for Peace proposal in a speech delivered on December 8, 1953. This proposal opened the door to the spread of nuclear reactors and nuclear materials for purposes of research and power generation. This resulted in the later proliferation of nuclear weapons to additional countries, including Israel, South Africa, India, Pakistan and North Korea.

5. Engaging in a Cold War bilateral nuclear arms race (1949 – 1991). The nuclear arms race became bilateral when the Soviet Union tested its first atomic weapon on August 29, 1949. This bilateral nuclear arms race between the US and USSR reached its apogee in 1986 with some 70,000 nuclear weapons in the world, enough to destroy civilization many times over and possibly result in the extinction of the human species.

6. Atmospheric Nuclear Testing (1945 – 1980). Altogether there have been 528 atmospheric nuclear tests. The US, UK and USSR ceased atmospheric nuclear testing in 1963, when they signed the Partial Test Ban Treaty. France continued atmospheric nuclear testing until 1974 and China continued until 1980. Atmospheric nuclear testing has placed large amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere, causing cancers and leukemia in human populations.

7. Breaching the disarmament provisions of the NPT (1968 – present). Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) states, “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament….” The five nuclear weapons-states parties to the NPT (US, Russia, UK, France and China) remain in breach of these obligations. The other four nuclear-armed states (Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea) are in breach of these same obligations under customary international law.

8. Treating nuclear power as an “inalienable right” in the NPT (1968 – present). This language of “inalienable right” contained in Article IV of the NPT encourages the development and spread of nuclear power plants and thereby makes the proliferation of nuclear weapons more likely. Nuclear power plants are also attractive targets for terrorists. As yet, there are no good plans for long-term storage of radioactive wastes created by these plants. Government subsidies for nuclear power plants also take needed funding away from the development of renewable energy sources.

9. Failing to cut a deal with North Korea (1992 to present). During the Clinton administration, the US was close to a deal with North Korea to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. This deal was never fully implemented and negotiations for it were abandoned under the George W. Bush administration. Consequently, North Korea withdrew from the NPT in 2003 and conducted its first nuclear weapon test in 2006.

10. Abrogating the ABM Treaty (2002). Under the George W. Bush administration, the US unilaterally abrogated the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. This allowed the US, in combination with expanding NATO to the east, to place missile defense installations near the Russian border. It has also led to emplacement of US missile defenses in East Asia. Missile defenses in Europe and East Asia have spurred new nuclear arms races in these regions.

David Krieger is a founder and president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

June 24, 2016 Posted by aletho | Militarism, Nuclear Power, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | France, Israel, Russia, UK, United States | Leave a comment

Brexit Raises Necessity for France’s EU Membership Referendum – EU Lawmaker

Sputnik — 24.06.2016

The decision of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union raises the necessity to hold a referendum on EU membership in France, Jean-Luc Schaffhauser, a French member of the European Parliament from the Europe of Nations and Freedom group, told Sputnik on Friday.

“It raises the necessity to make also a referendum in France,” Schaffhauser said in the wake of the Brexit vote.

On Thursday, the United Kingdom held a referendum on its EU membership, with Prime Minister David Cameron calling on the UK nationals to vote to remain. Earlier on Friday, it was announced that 51.9 percent of voters supported Brexit.

“It is a big opportunity to rebuild Europe on new basis and this basis would be Europe of nations, Europe of freedom and Europe of cooperation. For me it is not the end of Europe, it is an end of institutions [that] always want to have more power on top,” the lawmaker added.

Earlier, Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s National Front party, known for its eurosceptic rhetoric, reiterated her demands to hold a referendum on the country’s EU membership after UK nationals voted to leave the bloc.

The British decision came at a time when anti-EU sentiment is on the rise. According to a survey issued by the Pew Research Center earlier in June, 47 percent of respondents in 10 European states have an “unfavorable view” of the European Union.

June 24, 2016 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | BREXIT, European Union, France, UK | Leave a comment

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Conspiracy Denial

Lies are Unbekoming | January 27, 2026

In honour of Michael Parenti (1933–2026), who passed away on 24 January 2026 at the age of 92. He spent his life naming what power prefers to leave unnamed.

In 1837, Abraham Lincoln remarked: “These capitalists generally act harmoniously, and in concert, to fleece the people.”

Today, he would be dismissed as a conspiracy theorist.

That dismissal—reflexive, automatic, requiring no engagement with evidence—is not a mark of sophistication. It is a tell. The question worth asking is not whether conspiracies exist (they are a matter of public record and a recognised concept in law) but why acknowledging their existence provokes such reliable hostility. What work does the label “conspiracy theorist” actually do?

The late political scientist Michael Parenti spent decades answering that question. His conclusion was blunt: “’Conspiracy’ refers to something more than just illegal acts. It serves as a dismissive label applied to any acknowledgment of ruling-class power, both its legal and illegal operations.” The term functions not as a descriptor but as a weapon—a thought-terminating cliché that protects the powerful from scrutiny by pathologising those who scrutinise them.

Conspiracy denial, in Parenti’s analysis, is not skepticism. It is the opposite of skepticism. It is credulity toward power dressed up as critical thinking. As he wrote in Dirty Truths: “Just because some people have fantasies of conspiracies does not mean all conspiracies are imaginary.” … continue

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