FRENCH IMPERIALIST COLLABORATION

Moscow enjoyed fairly good relations with Paris at the time, so the deal seemed poised for success. The contract was supposed to be the biggest arms sale by any NATO country to Russia ever. The shipyard in Saint-Nazaire on the French Atlantic coast worked non-stop to have the first carrier delivered to Moscow in the fall of 2014. The second one was due to be handed over a year later. That all came crashing down in the wake of the 2014 coup in Ukraine, after Crimea voted to rejoin Russia and civil war broke out in the Donbass. The EU decided to slap Moscow with sanctions. France jumped on the bandwagon, with then-president Francois Hollande halting the delivery of the Mistrals indefinitely.

GEORGE DUROCHER—Gil Taïeb, hailing from Tunisia, for his part is the vice president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF), the country’s notoriously powerful, liberticidal, and well-connected Jewish-Zionist activist organization. Taïeb has reason to be pleased: even as this new law is being passed to crack down, notably, on native French ethno-nationalists, the Macron regime is also moving to criminalize anti-Zionism.

WILFRED BURCHETT—With the minute attention to detail that I found later was so characteristic of this great leader of the Vietnamese people, he had called shortly after my arrival with another journalist, to assure himself that we had survived the rigours of the journey and were in good health. It was difficult to believe that within a few hours of arrival we should be sitting opposite this legendary revolutionary leader. But there he was, the unmistakably kindly face, the twinkling depthless black eyes, the thin straggling beard…

RAMIN MAZAHERI—he French government is under fire for continually giving low estimates of turnout for Yellow Vest demonstrations. Multiple groups consistently put the number of Yellow Vests at 3 to 4 times the official figures. Ramin Mazaheri has more on this story from Paris.  This is a PressTV report I did with the Union of Angry Policemen – (Syndicat France Police policiers en colère) it is a real cop union, the 5th largest, despite the goofy name. They are permanently angry, it seems. This  is all about how totally undercounted the Yellow Vests are – this union has pegged the Vesters’ numbers at 3-5 times the ministry’s numbers, which are total bullshit.

RAMIN MAZAHERI—Denationalising the airport would have the same costly effect for the average Frenchman. It will have the same effect the UK experienced after denationalising their railways: a season ticket is now 5 times higher than on the Continent, with time-keeping, safety and comfort all worse, too. In the US you have headlines like this one last year from St. Louis: Lambert (airport) privatisation looks like Chicago’s parking meter disaster.