The French Connection

The French Connection

By: Erreh Svaia

“A lost battle is a battle one thinks one has lost.”

Jean Paul Sartre

Face it, if Mexican elections have always been used as a lab for USA politics, the USA elections were a successful exercise in political chaos for Russia, the DNC server and Podesta mails hacking, the wrecking of Hillary Clinton image, the intervention of intelligence agencies (CIA and the FBI), and if that wasn't enough, Julian Assange intervention in the middle of a cyber storm of fake news and disinformation, for those expecting a focused cyber-attack, the real dirty war took place on the social networks, and the "soldiers" were the blossoming alt-right and the new yellow journalists.

If the USA was the first triumphant roar of the national-populist propaganda machine, the continuation is taking place in France, just in time for the April 23rd election, where media chaos is already set in motion, the Kremlin already made its move months ago by lending money thru an associated Russian bank to fund Marine Le Pen, National Front Party, if intelligence agencies weren't able to find hard elements to link the Kremlin to Donald Trump's campaign, here it is no secret, Kremlin's money is running thru the NF populist xenophobic anti-globalization and anti-migration base.

Although Le Pen would be the easy link to the  Trump's phenomena, another correlation could be established with Emmanuel Macron "black swan" campaign, a darling of the media, Macron came out of nowhere, alien to traditional parties, the former Economy Minister in Hollande's government decided to take the freeway towards the presidency, but not everything is as easy as it looks, Macron close ties to the media have been questioned, linking him to them so called "millionaire gay lobby" by Russian propagandist media like Sputnik and Russia Today (RT), connecting a severe blow to Macron's En Marche! allegedly non right wing, non-left wing movement, even the bizarre appearance of cyber mercenary Julian Assange announcing the leaking of information linking Macron to Clinton is unparalleled, in a strategy non seen before in a French presidential campaign.

Uncertainty grew as actual French president Francois Hollande (Part of the Socialist Parry) declined to be part of the next presidential campaign, opening the road to prime minister Manuel Valls who at first looked like the obvious Hollander successor, but Valls was defeated during the Socialist Party internal elections by the more radical candidate Benoit Hamon a former Education Minister, who will have to walk and uphill road in order to fix the Socialist damaged reputation, but again, surprises were not only appearing on the left side of the political specter but also on the right, were formerly center right former president Nicholas Sarkozy made an unexpected movement more to the right in order to appeal to more hard line far right voters, but neither Sarkozy nor right wing favorite Alain Juppé were able to defeat "out of nowhere" candidate Francois Fillon, a hard line conservative (and another admirer of Russian president Vladimir Putin) who had no trouble in winning the internal elections of The Republicans Party and becoming the definite favorite for the April elections, but again, in an unexpected low blow, Fillon, a former prime minister was accused of creating fictional high salary jobs for her wife during his administration, an accusation that has inflicted several damage to Fillon, who looks along with Macron as the only candidates strong enough to prevent Le Pen to recreate the "Trump effect" in France and igniting the "anti-Euro, anti-systemic revolution" to sum to the disruptive Brexit in the UK.