Headline: French PM hails 2-month national debate but warns of high hopes

Sub-headline: Edouard Philippe says 500,000 took part in exercise held in response to ‘gilets jaunes’ protests

Its easy to see that Macron is a complete political amateur, a canny pol would have led with the Great Debate proposal in his initial campaign, allied to the notion of necessary reforms: the usual Neo-Liberal gambit of platitudes in service to political obfuscation. Reform is a term of art for Neo-Liberalization. But the manipulation must be carefully disguised: Obama is the perfect example of this genre of political manipulation. He passed himself off as a ‘Progressive’, with the help of fellow traveler Arianna Huffington and her platform of The Huffington Post.

What got in the way of Macron was his arrogance: Jupertarian Politics and his initial rule by decree. The 36.5 % of voters, who rendered their ballots spoiled or otherwise uncountable, didn’t register as potential threat to his reform agenda. Another politically clueless énarque? The thought occurs , how would Thatcherite François Fillon have waged his campaign?

As reported in the pages of The Financial Times, Macron’s English language propaganda headquarters. A selection of quotations:

But Mr Philippe admitted it would be hard to meet popular expectations after the debate, which was launched by President Emmanuel Macron in January as a response to weeks of gilets jaunes demonstrations in towns across France.

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Mr Macron said the debate would allow the creation of a “new contract for the nation”, and guide the policies of the government and legislators at home and abroad.

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Although derided by some gilets jaunes as a pointless distraction, the national debate has so far been a political success for Mr Macron, whose standing in the opinion polls has recovered to about where it stood before the first protest in November.

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Mr Philippe said the proposals centred on four main issues: “an immense exasperation over taxation”; a sense of isolation and abandonment in parts of France with less access to public services; a demand for more democracy; and a realisation of a global “climate emergency”, for which people were prepared to change their behaviour.

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“We must lower taxes and we must lower them quicker,” Mr Philippe said.

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https://www.ft.com/content/e3aca7bc-59ee-11e9-939a-341f5ada9d40

The central dogma of Neo-Liberalism is the destruction of the Welfare Sate by means of Austerity. The expression of a political nihilism, that places the welfare of The Market, as the sine qua non of a redefined State Capitalism.

Old Socialist