April 2022

Europe and the World in search of reference points! (Texte of a presentation to the Demi-Siècle – Cercle de Bruxelles on April 27th 2022) Dear friends of the Demi-Siècle,        When two months ago our President asked me to speak to you this evening, I agreed, noting that it was impossible for me to be specific about the subject, as the horizon seemed to be so cloudy. The military operations in Ukraine had not started, the outcome of the French elections was uncertain, the health crisis was mutating, inflation was threatening, and so on. While some of these threats are now a fact, the future remains just as unpredictable and in some ways even more frightening. Rather than commenting on current…

In the current situation, abstention is a denial of democracy and a culpable abandonment of responsibility. In a tense climate where the majority of voters are torn between “rejection” and “refusal”, it is very tempting to give one’s preference to go fishing! Those who choose to abstain, however they express it – blank vote, neither-nor or abstention – are cowards. They knowingly abandon to their compatriots the privilege, dearly acquired by our elders, sometimes at the price of heavy sacrifices, of determining who will govern France for the next five years. If the result of the poll did not have such existential consequences for the Nation, involving the challenging of fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution, of democracy itself or…

It would also allow Vladimir Putin to reach immediately his objective of restoring Russia’s imperialist power. The results of the first round of the presidential elections reveal the deepening fracture in the French electorate. The extremist forces jointly represent a majority of the votes cast, even if their internal divisions favor, in principle, the re-election of the outgoing president. Unless there is a dramatic turnaround in the legislative elections to follow, the country risks being ungovernable and unable to implement long overdue reforms.  This unprecedented state of the French political landscape needs to be addressed with pertinent arguments that take into account the current national and geopolitical context; one should abandon hopes that rely on the outdated recipes of demonization…

It is imperative to respond positively to Ukraine’s request. In light of the escalation of the abuses committed by the Russian army in the theatre of operations in Ukraine, the scale of the humanitarian crisis requires the international community to considerably strengthen the sanctions taken against the aggressor. The discussions concerning the embargo on the purchase of hydrocarbons by the European Union have stalled for lack of unanimity. It is urgent to respond to Ukraine’s request by other means and to take sanctions capable, if not of hindering military operations in the short term, at least of offering a perspective that strengthens the hopes and the spirit of resistance of the martyred nation. The efforts being made on the ground,…

The European Union must urgently expand the Eurozone to the 27 to assert its interests! The IMF Deputy Director, Gita Gopinath, in a much-publicized speech, indicated that currencies, other than the dollar, would play a more important role in the foreign exchange reserves of nations. I had already drawn attention to this phenomenon in my article of 17 March entitled “Financial sanctions against Russia” to which I refer you. Ms Gopinath makes a very pertinent distinction between the use of the dollar as a reserve currency, which she sees diminishing significantly in favor of other currencies to allow for diversification of exchange rate risks (in value and freedom of access), and its role as the transaction currency of choice, which…