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05/18/2021

France is searching its new Napoleon

France is searching its new Napoleon

Is France’s Fifth Republic, established by General Charles De Gaulle, poised to be destroyed at the hands of military generals once again?

Is there a threat of a coup d’état in France?

Do the statements one after the other by both active and retired officers target only the Macron government or the political regime as a whole?

The questions above might sound like an overstatement for those who fanatically believe that “Western democracies” will live forever, and those who do not see the dead-end governments connected to the Atlantic system have come to.

However, such questions are sure to arise if we take an unbiased look at the cradle of the western civilization, France…

Right now we are looking at a country where anti-neoliberal demonstrations and strikes have come in waves from numerous social sectors since October 2018, where a large part of the society has fallen into the poverty as a result of economic crisis, where the social structure has severely deteriorated, where the law enforcement forces have completely lost control over suburban areas, and now, where military officers have issued some anti-government statements.

Reports from Paris show a picture of a city on fire, something reminiscent of Charles Dickens’s novel “A Tale of Two Cities.”

And yet, the Western media continues to broadcast the situation as if things were normal, as is required to show loyalty to their masters. If these events were happening in another country, the media would be broadcasting the situation 24 hours a day in expectation of major change.

Let us rewind to the beginning, and seek answers to the questions above.


French tradition of coup d’etats

Quite contrary to popular belief, France is not immune from potential military coup d’états, especially when assessing the political reflexes of the officers who have issued anti-Macron statements.

Military officers, who played a critical role in the establishment of the Fifth Republic, have been involved in politics since the Coup of 18 Brumaire led by Napoleon Bonaparte against the French Revolution of 1789.

Louis Bonaparte continued his family tradition and attempted another coup in 1852. Karl Marx describes this process in detail in his essay called The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.

In 1958, a group of officers in Algeria led by General Raoul Salan and General Jacques Massu took power, describing the government’s policies as “weak” in relation to the independence movement in the former French colony Algeria. The coup plotters took control of the island of Corsica, and were on their way to Paris to overthrow the government.

Desperate in the face of these pressures, the French political elite were forced to hand over government to General De Gaulle, who was backed by military officers, and thus a new era began in France.

Just three years after De Gaulle came to power, the same generals plotted a new coup, this time to overthrow De Gaulle after some concessions were made for the Algerian independence movement, but it was repelled in April 1961.

Although much time has passed since then, soldiers have managed to remain a shadow power in France, especially in regard to foreign policy.

The Name Behind the Scene: General de Villiers

The first signals of potential anti-Macron military reactions came in July 2017 with the resignation of the former Chief of Staff General Pierre de Villiers, who had a disagreement with the government over the military budget.

After his resignation, General de Villiers wrote two books Service and What is a Leader?, while working for an American management consulting firm called the Boston Consulting Group.

It is worth noting a phrase used by the Consulting Group that General de Villiers works for: “Globalization is not in decline, but it is changing“.

It is well known that the general is linked with a group of military officers, including some officers that are still on duty, who issued anti-Macron statements on various occasions, who were not afraid to use the phrase “we are ready to do our duty if necessary“.

The media outlets closer to the Atlantic alliance have also recently accelerated their efforts to portray General de Villiers as “the savior of France”.

The newspaper Le Figaro claims in its own polls that “more than 20% of the French people” would vote for the general if he ran for the 2022 presidential election.

Too scared to miss the great opportunity, the leader of the National Front Marine Le Pen was quick to announce her support to the officers who issued the anti-Macron statement, and invited the signatories to unite in her party.

The Same Play Returns to the Stage

A project to destroy the concept of the social welfare state in the country has been ongoing since the “Socialist” François Mitterrand era, who was the French analog of Reagan and Thatcher. This continues with the current president of international corporate trusts, Emmanuel Macron.

On the other hand, France still continues to define itself as a nation-state, despite that it is no longer able to integrate new migrants from former colonies and or the third-generation children of these migrants in its “melting pot”.

The system, which began to limp in the 1960s, has now all but collapsed.

The deepening economic crisis has triggered the endless civil disorders from workers, farmers, artisans and students, and especially the demonstrations of the middle-class-protestors called the Yellow Vests…

The former Prime Minister Edouard Balladur, who had been a key figure in the French administration, said that these protests had gone far beyond the movements of 1968, while adding that: “I’m deeply concerned, things could end up very badly. In 1968, there was an optimism and a belief in favor of the future of France. Today, those dreams have been turned into dust. (…) In 1968, the problem was much easier than it is today.

Liberal globalists such as Bernard Henri Levy continue their mission to push the masses onto the streets and towards the soldiers, while accusing protestors for being “coup plotters.”

Time for the guillotine

Evaluating the situation with the concrete data available; those who brought Macron to power have also noticed that the government’s approval rate has fallen to 18%, and they have already started to look for alternatives.

In this context, it is possible that international capital, which hopes to maintain the established order just as they did before World War II, would allow the overthrow of Macron and his allies in favor of a new, more authoritarian and right-wing globalist government.

This is the truth that lies behind the fact that General de Villiers is being presented as a “savior” to the large but unorganized masses, who have been protesting the system.

Therefore, the masses who take to the streets demanding social rights and policies will still be kept within the system and be absorbed by the NATO-backed and globalist structures under the cover of “nationalism”.

However, history says the order and its protectors cannot always be the victors. A movement that can bring together Gaullists and Communists in France – just like in World War II – that are against the NATO can take down this fascism disguised as “globalization”.

The guillotine blade is already coming down…

As Albert Camus wrote: “I could see that the trouble with the guillotine was that you had no chance at all, absolutely none.”

Onur Sinan Güzaltan
Onur Sinan Güzaltan was born in Istanbul in 1985. He had his Bachelors's degree in Law, from the Paris-Est Créteil Val de Marne Universty /Paris XII and a Master's degree in International and European Law. He got his certificate of diploma equivalence at Galatasaray University. Later, he got a Master's degree in International Trade Law, at the Institut de Droit des Affaires Internationales, founded jointly by the Sorbonne Universty and the Cairo Universty. In this process, he had served as the Cairo representative for the Aydinlik Newspaper. He has several articles and television streams within the international press, in such as People's Daily, Al Yaum, Al Ahram, Russia Today FranceAl Youm Al Sabea. In addition to being the author of the Tanrı Bizi İster Mi?, a work that studies the 2011-2013 political period in Egypt, he had also contributed to the multi-author study titled Ortadoğu Çıkmazında Türkiye, with an article that focused on the Turkish-Egyptian relations. While currently working as a lawyer, he also writes a weekly column for Aydinlik Newspaper on the subject of international politics and geopolitics.

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