The reader can only wonder at the Palace Gossip of Arthur Beesley and Jim Brunsden in their report from Brussels.

Headline: France pushes for top posts in eurozone reshuffle

Sub-headline: Macron pursues greater economic clout after years of subservience to Germany

Mrs. Merkel and her capo Schäuble might just face a rival for the leadership of the EU? The melodrama unfolds with the help the strategically placed observations of ‘Think Tank’ for-rent policy intellectuals, aided by quotes from ‘anonymous diplomats’. All this hullabaloo about Macron, as his ratings are dropping like Jupiter reduced to a meteor as it plummets toward earth. It makes a spectacular show for just moments!

Mrs Merkel was looking for a political equal and has found a usurper? Should the Merkel/ Schäuble alliance fear the upstart, who threatens the twin myths of German ‘fiscal probity and the EU as a legitimate expression of ‘Federalism’ ? Or will all that protean energy for ‘reform’ of French Labor Law, trumpeted as the cornerstone Macron’s Neo-Liberalism Lite, end in the uniting of the factionalist politics of the French opposition? See Perry Anderson’s essay at the New Left Review of May/June 2017 titled ‘The Center Can Hold: The French Spring‘ for an answer in the negative.

(https://newleftreview.org/II/105/perry-anderson-the-centre-can-hold)

Committed Observer

https://www.ft.com/content/f7b8c4b2-76c8-11e7-a3e8-60495fe6ca71