The Duran Podcast - France and Germany economic troubles, press on with Ukraine policy

Episode Date: January 14, 2024

France and Germany economic troubles, press on with Ukraine policy

All right, Alexander, let's talk about Germany and the farmer's strike. We can talk about Olive Schultz's dismal approval ratings. They seem to get lower with each passing week. And now he's got this farmer's strike while at the same time he is calling on Germany to spend more money on Ukraine. So go figure. And then we have trouble in France. as well. The Prime Minister has resigned and there's going to be a reshuffle in the Macron cabinet.

So the situation in Europe is not going well at all. Where should we begin? Germany or France? Well, let's start with France because the most interesting thing is that we now have statements from the French finance minister saying that the situation is becoming increasingly bleak and that France might have to look forward to a period of austerity. So this decision to basically sack the Prime Minister because, of course, she resigned, but it was quite clear that Macron wanted her out, that Macron has lost confidence in her. It is a sign that, again, things economically are not going well in France. And that Macron's own position is becoming more brittle. and what he's now trying to do is he's trying to find some means to strengthen his government because he senses that the whole thing is now slipping slowly.

Power is slipping away from him. He's finding it increasingly difficult to govern France. One senses that his popularity there is falling and the economic situation, as I said, is bad. But you talked about Schultz, more money for Ukraine. Macron is going to supply Ukraine with 85 more scalp missiles, the French equivalent of the storm shadow. So you can see that even as in France, Macron understands that things are not going well, he won't take any step to try, he won't take. any overt step, any public step, to break with the European consensus, the EU consensus.

And instead, he's going to press on and continue the policy. He's just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic as the ship crashes into the iceberg, because that's exactly what this new government reshuffle is all about. which is no different than the rumors from build about swapping out Schultz for the defense minister Pistorius. Exactly. It's exactly the same thing that we're seeing. It is exactly the same.

And you can understand why they're talking about this, because as you absolutely rightly say, Schultz's popularity is crashing. I mean, it's falling all the time. There's an immersive loss of support. We have the farmers now protesting in Berlin. There's farmers' protests spreading to the Netherlands. Bear in mind the farmers in Poland have been protesting for a very long time, no. But all of this is now starting to come together. There's reports of shortages starting to emerge in German supermarkets. There's a budgetary crisis in Germany as well. But what you do, you swap Schultz for somebody. who's even more hardline and is even more determined to stick with the EU consensus on Ukraine. What they're basically trying to do is they're trying to keep the Ukraine project afloat,

and they are, you know, they're jettisoning ballast, Schultz, the French Prime Minister, people like that, just to keep the thing floating. and that's the entirety of European policy at this particular time. You know, the dumping of the French government, the potential, in fact, likely dumping of Olaf Schultz, is that it is jettisoning ballast. It is nothing more. There is no real change of direction. Charles Michel is also going, notice, but he's going to cling on for a few more months.

You can't allow Orban to take over leadership of the European. European Council, not for the next couple of months. So Charles can see that this isn't working. So he's going to run simultaneously for the European Parliament, whilst remaining president of the European Council. Clear conflict of interest there, by the way, clear division of responsibilities. How can he do two things like that at one and the same time?

That's what he intends to do. But he's not going to resign now. He's going to cling on, keep all done, out and then of course he's gone and he's safe in the European parliament he's elected there and when things really begin to turn ugly well he's no longer going to be there at the presidency of the European Council to be politically targeted as he might otherwise have been but it's all political games none of this addressing the underlying problems and you see this now all across Europe, a determination to keep this project, project Ukraine, going, despite

growing economic problems, growing political unrest across Europe, bringing in even more hardline figures to replace the less successful previous hardline figures, Boris Restorius, Quite plausibly, the French foreign minister, the man who said that France's objective when they supported the sanctions, this is what he said back in March, is to smash the entire Russian economy. I mean, he's a very hardline figure, but it's likely that he will be brought in. It's quite plausible that he might be the next prime minister in France. So you bring hardliners in, you dump the others, but you keep Project Ukraine alive. Yeah. In the case of Germany, it's really interesting that Ola Schultz, he must realize that he's on the way out. He sees that there's this huge farmer's protest. He sees that his country's a complete mess. It's being deindustrialized. It is deindustrialized. Businesses are closing down. But he has no problem. While all of this is going on, he has no problem. urging Germans and the entirety of the EU to pour more money into Project Ukraine.

It really tells you a lot about the interchangeability of these EU leaders and how you can swap one guy out for another guy and the person that has just been replaced almost seems to have an understanding, perhaps an agreement of sorts, that if, you know, he just lays low for couple of months, they'll find another position to place this person at. That was formerly that the Chancellor of Germany, sit tight, don't worry, we'll take care of you. But just no matter what, stay on track with Project Ukraine. That's exactly. It's, you would think, just, I mean, you would think if this person was, any normal person would not be sitting there saying, give money to Ukraine while there's a farmer's protest going on in his own country.

No, of course not. It doesn't. It doesn't compute. But I'm going to make a guess. I think that Olaf Schultz is clever enough to understand perfectly well that his position politically is becoming untenable. And what he's probably doing at the moment is he's negotiating the terms of his exit. So that's what he's probably actually doing at the moment in Germany now. And in order to to negotiate good terms for his exit, he needs to reassure the people that he is negotiating with, that he remains completely loyal to them over project in Ukraine. So that's why he's coming up and making these statements at the moment. So the way he goes, he's not going to be subjected to too many investigations about the wires card scandal and other problems in Hamburg. Now, that's

there's a nice job for him. Maybe, maybe when Charles goes, who knows, maybe president of the European Council. There's a nice, a vacancy opening up there. Maybe that is why Charles is going. Just saying,

actually, I don't think so. I think the French would not want to jump at the presidency of the European Council at this time. But, you know, I mean, I'm just saying, I mean, you know, you can see all the various They'll find somewhere for you. Yeah.

Yeah, they'll find some for him. Real quick, how are things in Germany to wrap up the video? Bad. There's bad. I mean, we have more, the economy continues to contract. Processes of de-industrialization are intensifying. And there is, continues to be a budgetary crisis. More talk now about tax increases, which this is not. what Germany needs at this particular time. And even starting to have some complaints from people like Christian Lindner, who is the finance minister, that half of EU money that goes to Ukraine comes

from Germany. Therefore, we know we're not going to scale back on money for Ukraine, but other European countries must start to contribute even more to this project. Because, you know, Germany's doing all this heavy lifting than the others should start doing it also. So it's a bad situation in Germany. It's a bad situation in France. You'd struggle to find anywhere in Europe where things are really getting better. I mean, pretends that, you know, things are getting better in Italy and Greece. Nobody, I think, who lives in these countries really thinks that. But, you know, you can pretend that. But, you know, that's the fiction. In northern Europe, it is. It is a very, you know, it is a very much. It is a is impossible any longer.

In Germany, in the Netherlands, in France, it's impossible to go on pretending this. So the situation deteriorates. Europe is trapped in a stagnation crisis. It turns out that the gas from Russia didn't just provide Germany with stable and low prices for gas. for gas, they also were essential for sustaining Germany's chemical industry, which is by far the biggest of Europe and one of the biggest in the world. And that whole chemical industry is

gradually starting to implode on itself because it doesn't have the cheap gas from Russia that it depended upon. You know, the smart leaders in the EU are going to be the ones that get out now find another job find another position the lucky the lucky and the smart ones are going to be the ones that that are removed now before the collapse you don't want to be sitting in that seat when everything goes bust no absolutely not but you know full steam ahead you mustn't look back you know ukraine remains this it's all about values of course we must continue to support ukraine we can't pull back now we've got to keep

this operation Ukraine going and you know anybody who dares to speak out of turn on this you know Victor Orban Robert Feizor people of that kind

you freeze them out of decision making to the extent that you can and you see how Charles Michelle is doing precisely that he's going to simultaneously run for the European Parliament and remain president of the European Council, simply to stop Orban from taking charge. Oh, boy. They bet everything on Project Ukraine.

They bet it all on Project Ukraine. Without the U.S., the EU can't do anything. Absolutely. Absolutely. But, you know, I will qualify that with one thing. You're absolutely right. Project Ukraine has been an absolute appalling disaster. But, you know, with the EU, as it is set up now,

if it had not been Project Ukraine, it would have been something else. I mean, the whole way in which the EU is structured now makes it absolutely all but certain that they would do something unsustainable and ridiculous and completely counterproductive to themselves. It just happens that Ukraine came along and was the one. And they listened to what Biden and Newland and all of those people were saying. But at some point, in one year's time, two years time, five years time, they would have done something else every bit as ridiculous and ill-conceived and stupid.

And they would have persisted in it in exactly the same one. All right. We will leave it there. The durand.com. We are on Rumble, Odyssey, bitch shoot, telegram, rock fin, and Twitter X. and go to the DRAD shop, 15% off all T-shirts. Take care.