The Duran’s Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris take a quick look at French President Emmanuel Macron's comparison of the Yellow Vests movement to the times of King Louis XVI who, as Macron rationalizes, met his tragic fate by refusing to embrace reforms.
Emmanuel Macron told 150 corporate executives gathered at Versailles (including Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, JPMorgan Chase CEO James Dimon, and Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey), that “a lot of people thought that it was not a good date to gather here,” referring to the execution of French King Louis XVI, who was guillotined on January 21, exactly 226 years ago on Monday...“but when you look at French history, if at the end they ended up like that, it’s because a lot of leaders decided not to reform.”
The meeting held by Macron was called together in part to alleviate investors’ fears after 10 weeks of Yellow Vest protests throughout France and spreading across Europe.
According to RT (https://www.rt.com/news/449388-macron... the nationwide protests have sometimes turned violent, and according to Macron’s office, have caused concern among foreign investors hoping to cash in on Macron’s business-friendly reforms.
Notably, Macron reassured his CEO guests that he would “not roll back what we have done in the past 18 months” – unpopular labor and tax reforms that have been cited as sparking the Yellow Vest protests.
Macron also said that the Yellow Vest movement had been spurred by middle-class anger over globalization, arguing that similar sentiments have given rise to Brexit and populist governments across Europe.
The EU is slowly unravelling.
[Posted at the SpookyWeather blog, January 25th, 2019.]
