MACRON IN LOVE
Mirosław Piotrowski
He went to Berlin, to Bundestag. – France loves you – he said. It is not known why particularly France, but he is its president and represents the country. Years ago the kind of France Ludwik XIV said about himself: ‘The country is me’. So, why couldn’t Macron be?- We must go beyond our taboo – he was appealing in Germany. Having the election for the European Parliament next year in his mind, he used a threat of nationalism reappearing in the membership countries of the EU. Clearly referring to the last world war, he said that nationalist movements are ‘deprived of remembrance’. Whereas he, with the chancellor of Germany certainly, is going to bring ‘more modern and progressing’ movements opposite to them, so that ‘the world would not get into a chaos’. Words, words, words…And in practice? Nearly two weeks earlier Macron justified his decision about commemorating the French marshal Philippe Petain who was collaborating with Hitler’s Germans during the Second World War. He was severely criticized for it. For aforementioned Petain, being at the helm of the Vichy regime, was responsible, among the others, for deportation and death of French Jews. So, not only was the chairperson of the Representative Council of Jewish French Institutions outraged but also politicians and the so-called public opinion. Petain, raised up to a pedestal by Macron, was sentenced to death penalty in 1945 in France, which was later changed by gen. Charles de Gaulle into life-imprisonment. What was decisive was an argument that despite that all his predecessor ‘saved a national substance’. But what price at? – one would ask. And one would think that mainly historians would be looking for an answer to these and other questions till now, if it was not for French Emmanuel. He insist on saying that Petain was ‘a great soldier’. Whereas the situation was to be liberal and modern. And, by the way, when Macron was making up scenarios in Berlin concerning Sanation of the European Union, building a separate European army (which was supported by Władimir Putin), a separate budget for the euro sphere, etc., so the atmosphere in France was tense. Citizens of France, the substance of the nation, went out into streets to protest against the increase of prices of petrol. The government is introducing ecological tax connected with emission of carbon dioxide. Well, socialist ideas cost a lot. About 280 people protested in over 2 thousand French towns. At that time their president admitted love, in Germany. The problem is that the German chancellor did not respond with such a fervent feeling. Well, he even appreciates some suggestions but without haste. We will think over it and we will see. First, next May, when there are going to be important elections for the European Parliament. Undoubtedly, their result will have a great influence on the temperature of German-French feelings.
Translated by Aneta Amrozik
Niedziela 48/2018 (2 XII 2018)