Headline: Macron, the bodyguard and the May Day scandal

Sub-headline: French president battles biggest political crisis of his tenure

The latest Macron Scandal is told by Harriet Agnew of the Financial Times:

At the centre of the incident is Mr Benalla, who was caught on camera almost three months ago punching a male protester and tackling a young woman during the May Day riots. Mr Macron and his team were aware of the incident but failed to inform judicial authorities. Mr Benalla was initially suspended for two weeks but was kept on the payroll and accompanied the French football team on their World Cup victory drive down the Champs-Élysées last week. The affair only came to light after a video implicating Mr Benalla was widely circulated online and published in Le Monde newspaper.

The scandal has united opposition parties across the political spectrum, which are preparing to submit a motion of no confidence against the government.

As reported in an earlier part of this essay, this is Macron’s response:

“Let them come and get me.”

In a political contest where 36.5 % of voters abstained from casting a vote for Macron, this defensive bravado is utterly misplaced, or should the reader call it more blundering by the utterly obtuse Macron? Jupertarian Politics is highfalutin re-description for  ‘rule-by-decree’ that is the Macron Trademark. In short, Macron is a bully-boy, with a degree from one of the Grandes Écoles.

Thomas Guénolé  sums up quite adroitly The Macron Problem:

“It’s unthinkable that Mr Macron should taunt his opponents with ‘come and get me,’” said Thomas Guénolé, a political analyst and member of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far-left Unbowed party. “It’s a provocation by a child king, not a statesman. The head of state has a behavioural problem — he expresses provocations but refuses to answer questions.”

Mr Guénolé said the affair is “a French Watergate . . . the main problem is not what Benalla did but the cover-up by the highest officials in Macron’s team. The accumulation of lies and the different versions of events are absolutely spectacular.”

Macron is what? A few answers provided by Harriet Agnew in this collection of brief revelatory passages :

…’“president for the rich” who is arrogant and out of touch with the lives of ordinary French people.’… . A €26,000 bill for three months of make-up,… a public dressing down he gave to a teenager who called him Manu,… Mr Macron recently ordered €500,000 worth of new banqueting plates ,… his staff posted a video of him lashing out at the “insane amount of dough” pumped into social benefits,… that Mr Macron’s support had dropped to 32 per cent, down four points since June and the lowest level since September 2017.

But never fear here is the Financial Times’ defense of  Macron:

Some say Mr Macron’s reign is as much about his style as his ambitious reform agenda, which is aimed at rebooting the eurozone’s second-largest economy.

That ambitious reform agenda is Neo-Liberalism a la francaise. The fact that the Neo-Liberal Theology was catestropnic in both America and Britain, and its Austerity for the 99%, and the free reign for Robber Capital is the ‘why’ of the Financial Times’ Macron enthusiasm. The reason why the comments section on this ‘new story’ were not opened: there is nothing that the editors of The Financial Times fears more than the disdain of its loyal readership! Thomas Guénolé describes Macron with devastating accuracy, as a ‘child king’!

Old Socialist

https://www.ft.com/content/a4452e7a-91a6-11e8-b639-7680cedcc421