French neofascist candidate Le Pen denounces Franco-German alliance
German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived yesterday in Washington for talks with US President Joe Biden amid signs of deepening divisions between the major imperialist powers. Tensions in particular between Berlin and Paris, the central powers in the European Union (EU) but who have also fought three bloody wars over the last 150 years, are mounting rapidly.
Marine Le Pen
In Paris, the right-wing daily
Le Figaro ran an article yesterday titled “Among Europeans, Washington picks Berlin over Paris.” It wrote, “For several months, an invisible power play was on in diplomatic circles, in Paris and Berlin, to get the first slot. France, knowing it was the underdog, for a time hoped that Joe Biden would choose the Franco-German tandem for his first bilateral European meeting.”
As European governments demand population “live with” COVID-19 surge, workers must take up a socialist strategy
The pandemic in Europe has already led to over 1.1 million deaths and almost 50 million people infected. It is set to drastically worsen as a new COVID-19 wave sweeps the continent.
The rampant spread of the virus in the UK portends events across the continent. There are dire predictions that millions more will be infected in Britain in a matter of weeks, where the more infectious Delta variant already accounts for almost all cases
Dr. Michael Ryan (left) at a conference in 2020 when the WHO declared the pandemic a Public Health emergency of International Concern [Credit: Fabrice Coffrini]
France ends Covid-19 restrictions on businesses as Delta variant spreads wsws.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wsws.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
After British and Russian forces nearly clashed in Black Sea waters off the Russian coast, bitter conflicts over relations with Russia erupted at the EU summit in Brussels.
Workers Revolutionary Party
FRENCH bourgeois democracy, and with it French capitalism, is ‘sick’, and both are in a huge existential crisis. On Sunday, a record two-thirds of voters refused to turn out and take part in the first round of the French Regional and Departmental elections.
The turn-out collapsed by a massive 16 points compared to the last regional election held six years ago. Attempts to blame the coronavirus epidemic have already been dismissed after 17 per cent of respondents to an IFOP poll said the pandemic played no part in their decision not to vote.
The slap in the face for the French ‘bourgeois democratic’ set-up followed on from the physical slap in the face that was delivered to President Macron just a week before the voting began. This new ‘French disease’ has been described under the press headlines that ‘French democracy is sick’.