Ultranationalist appeasers: Le Pen, Mélenchon & Zemmour side with Russia: a discussion with Nidra Poller by Jerry Gordon
On the cusp of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, there were disturbing revelations about this issue in the French Presidential election campaign in this our fifth monthly discussion with Nidra Poller, on February 18th There were statements by ultranationalist candidates on both the far left and far right dismissing the looming threat of Russian President to the Western alliance and world order.
President Macron shifted into high gear in diplomatic initiatives having an audience with Putin in Moscow and on the eve of Russia’s invasion Macron made a 105-minute phone call with Putin followed by one with Ukraine’s President Wolodymyr Zelensky, who promptly announced that he would meet with Putin. Zelensky made a sudden trip to the Munich Security Conference the same day, chastising Western appeasement of Putin pressing for immediate imposition of sanctions. He remarked:
“Ukraine is longing for peace, Europe is longing for Peace, the world is saying it doesn’t want any war, while Russia claiming she doesn’t want to intervene – someone here is lying.”
Zelensky got his answer that evening. Backed by Russia’s Duma, Putin signed treaties with the unelected leaders of the two breakaway Ukrainian provinces recognizing their “independence.” Brushing aside last-minute calls for diplomatic initiatives, Putin used the pretext of “false Flag” Ukrainian actions to send in so-called “peacekeepers” followed by tanks, vehicles and more. The reaction was a salvo of world critical of Putin’s demarch followed by a veritable fusillade of economic and financial sanctions directed at key Russian Banks and oligarchs close to Putin announced by US President Biden, the UK, EU, Japan, South Korea. Even China’s Xi-Jinping urged “caution” to his erstwhile geo-political partner. Ukrainian President Zelensky announced a State of Emergency mobilizing his 250,000 troops to oppose the 190,000 Russian forces surrounding his country on three sides. We knew what would come of this Russian action given Putin’s precedents in the 2008 War against The Republic of Georgia, which resulted his seizure of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and in 2014 seizure of the Crimea and sending in troops to support the rebels in the breakaway eastern Donetsk and Luhansk region. French philosopher and activist Bernard-Henri Lévy penned a Tablet op ed, “The Rape of Ukraine.” His dour forecast: “Taking Putin’s grievances seriously would be nothing more than a death wish for a return to the terrible 20th Century.”
French President Macron’s other diplomatic effort – the decade long fight in Operation Barkhane against Jihad in former French colonies in Africa Sahel has faltered. The cause has been as previously discussed, the fall of Sahel governments to military coups in Chad, the Central African Republic, Mali. That has forced the cutback of French and Swedish-led EU special forces in the Takuba Task Force in Mali and their re-deployment to Burkina Faso and Niger. That vacuum has been filled by the mercenary force of Putin’s little green men of The Wagner Group to provide security of coup perpetrators tying payments to acquisition of important mineral rights in these countries. Meanwhile, the Islamist takeover of the Sahel continues unabated. Moreover, so does the continuing slave trade of Black Africans, estimated at over 800,000, in both North Africa and the Sahel.
Among other topics we address are the trans-Atlantic trucker “freedom convoy protests,”, the issue of anti-Semitism in France and the US, the role of France and Israel contending with the looming Iran nuclear agreement, the critical reaction to Amnesty International ‘s report calling Israel an “apartheid state.”
What follows is our discussion with Nidra Poller.
Jerry Gordon: This is Jerry Gordon, a Senior Editor of The New English Review. I’m here with Nidra Poller. This is our fifth monthly discussion about developments, not only in France but, as it turns out, more dramatically in Eastern Europe. And let’s start with that. Nidra, French President Macron had a 105-minute conversation with Putin followed by an immediate conversation with Ukrainian President Zelensky, during which the result was an appeal by Zelensky to Putin for an immediate ceasefire in Eastern Ukraine followed by the reconvening of the Trilateral Contact Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. What is going on now?
Nidra Poller: We seem to be on parallel tracks: If you look at the question from the American side–based on intelligence, not just speculation– Russia is ready to attack at any moment… Putin has made the decision. From the European perspective, the Europeans, united, with Macron in the lead have managed to stave off the attack and get Russia’s approval to continue on an accelerated diplomatic path. We can only see what happens in the coming days. There’s no way I can judge, by myself, which view is right. It’s like a stage drama: the two possibilities for handling conflict are in front of you, and someone is going to choose. You know that Europeans hate to have war here. It’s not like the United States, where wars are always at a distance. Here, the war is next door, it’s hitting places and people that are in our reach. It’s too close for comfort for everyone in Europe. So, it’s normal, Europeans always favor the diplomatic approach. But war comes when diplomacy fails.
We’ll see in the coming days, what the Russians are asking for. There is going to be a meeting between Lavrov and Le Drian, the French Foreign Minister. And a meeting between Lavrov, Blinken, and Le Drian. We’ll see, in the coming days, if there is any progress on that side. At the same time, we know what’s happening in Donbass, where the Russians are evacuating civilians and there have been 115 attacks in the last few days, in violation of the Minsk Agreement.
Opinion is divided here in France. There’s a sort of national union in support of Macron’s efforts to negotiate and reach a diplomatic solution. Of course, the opposition parties are uncomfortable with the possibility that the president will take advantage of this to help in his re-election campaign. But it’s low-key because, obviously, you want the President to do what’s best for the country and for Europe. If he draws an advantage from it, that’s only fair.
There’s a difference of opinion on the causes of the conflict. And that casts light on our ongoing conversation, because three of the candidates commonly labeled as extreme–Eric Zemmour and Marine Le Pen on the right, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon on the left–are taking a pro-Russian position.
They want France to leave NATO’s joint command. They see NATO as aggressive, and they claim this crisis is caused by Ukraine’s intentions to join NATO. The three ultranationalists are hostile to the United States and favorable to Russia. Marine Le Pen said the European Union has been “brutal” to Russia. None of the three make a distinction between relations with a democratic country and with a tyranny. They think it’s to France’s advantage to be on equally good terms with both Russia and the U.S. It’s quite shocking, frankly. Marine Le Pen says we should pull out of NATO, Zemmour says we should pull out of the Joint Command, and all three ultranationalists say France is weakened by its membership in these collective organizations.
France should somehow be so sovereign and powerful in and of itself and, consequently, would be in a stronger position to negotiate. They consider NATO to be under the control of the United States. Zemmour, only a short while ago, said that NATO was obsolete because it was set up to counter an aggressive Soviet Union. That threat, he said, no longer exists. Now he’s dropped that detail but maintains his anti-NATO stance. Le Pen says that it’s aggressive to threaten Russia with NATO countries on its border. Zemmour compared the current situation to the Cuban Missile Crisis. In other words, NATO– which is a defense system set up to counter Russian aggression, which continues to this day–is equivalent to the Soviet Union in its conflict with the United States during the Cold War. Zemmour paints the United States and NATO aa the bad guys. By its membership in NATO, says Zemmour, France is a handmaiden of NATO and Washington.
I think this might be surprising to some people who are following the French Presidential campaign from a distance and don’t realize this geopolitical aspect.
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