"En marche", towards the precipice

EU politicians and the international markets have received with enthusiasm the result of the first round of the presidential elections in France.

"Look at how the flags of France and the EU praise the result obtained by Emmanuel Macron", Federica Mogherini, vice-president of the European Commission, on her Twitter account. Her joy is explained by the fact that "Macron is the hope and the future of our generation".

But this flagrant interjection in the French elections was nothing but the beginning of a disgusting show. Czech PM Bohuslav Sobotka said that Macron is "a great hope for all those who have had enough of nationalism, extremism and populism", according to the BBc News website.

But who is to blame for the large number of citizens of European states taking "refuge" in nationalism, populism and extremism? And why doesn't anybody on the highest levels of the European authorities take any responsibility?

Pierre Moscovici, the European commissioner for economic and financial affairs, had to be present on this list of statements as well, as he described the presidential elections "a referendum on the EU membership" and he said that "Europe must do everything for Marine Le Pen to obtain as many votes as possible in the second round".

Desperation must be really high, if they don't even care enough to keep up appearances. Who really are the extremists in Europe?

The circus arena couldn't have been complete without the François Hollande the clown, who begged his citizens, in a televised intervention, to vote for Emmanuel Macron.

But maybe Hollande isn't a clown at all, more like an animal trainer. Jonathan Miller, the author of the book "France, a Nation on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown - Amazon.com" who has been living in France since 2000, wrote in The Spectator that "the true winner of the presidential elections is François Hollande", because "he has installed Macron as his successor, with the help of the press, the magistrates and of less than 25% of the voters".

Miller thinks that Hollande is a well-versed politician, even though he has proved to be a disastrous president, and accuses him of having orchestrated the launch of the investigation against François Fillon, by sending the relevant tax documents, with the "help" of the Finance Ministry, to the judicial system.

"It seems that the French are ready to elect a president whose continuity with the Hollande regime would lead to five more years of social, economic and political stagnation", the British author concludes.

Beyond the euphoria in the European press, Wall Street Journal wonders if Macron will be capable to lead France, given that the parliamentary elections are coming in June 2017, and the options of the electorate in the presidential elections seem to hint that the National Assembly will be extremely fragmented.

Such a scenario is also being discussed by Aline-Florence Manent, a researcher with t he Institute of Advanced Studies of University College London, in an article in The Spectator. Manent describes the requirements for the Republicans and Socialists to cooperate in the parliament, in order to provide Macron with a comfortable majority.

But is such a collaboration likely, when a law proposed by Macron for the liberalization of the labor market, back when he was a minister of the economy, divided even the socialist majority into several factions, and François Hollande had to resort to emergency ordinances to avoid the opposition of its own party members?

But these are just "details". Handelsblatt writes about "a new chance for Europe", provided Macron were to win again two weeks from now, amid an exuberant rise of the stock market indexes and of the unified currencyB.

But the comments around the article are far more skeptical. "It doesn't matter who comes into power, because the EU and the Euro cannot be saved, because the death sentence of these elitist structures has been signed through the Maastricht Treaty", one reader writes.

"Electing Macron represents the option of continuing the socialist policies", another opinion states, and he will be nothing but "a new face for France's economic and social decline".

Does anybody think that Macron is a center independent candidate rather than just the candidate of the Rothschild group in the French presidential race?

Regardless of whose candidate he is, the economic program of Emmanuel Macron will not take France out of its slump, and the program of his rival is equally "sick".

The economic structural reforms are simply not possible in the European Union through the will of the government alone, regardless of their ideological orientation, unless they are ready to commit political suicide.

Unfortunately for the European authorities, the status-quo, supported with so much effort by the ECB through printing money, cannot be preserved for much longer.

Earlier this month, American analyst Martin Armstrong wrote on his blog something that should get the European "elites" to think. In his opinion, "the failure of Madam Le Pen in the elections will be devastating for the EU". How is such a scenario possible, when all the recent propaganda presents her victory as a catastrophe?

According to Armstrong's reasoning, a victory of the Front National candidate in the elections would create the premises of a "soft landing" for the EU, as "Brussels would be forced to return to a customs union, instead of continuing the march towards a political union, in which the sovereignty of nations would disappear", and thus "political reform would be possible in Europe".

But the main argument is the economic one. "The economic situation of the EU is degrading, and this proves that despite the efforts of the people in Brussels, disintegration is not far", the American analyst further writes.

In a number of recent analyses, Patrick Artus, chief economist of investment bank Natixis, writes that France has all the premises for a high degree of unemployment, which includes high social security contributions, high employee protections, the low degree of workforce skills and the chronic budget deficit.

"France's economic and social situation since the crisis that began in 2008, characterized through de-industrialization, high unemployment among youth, the low quality of new jobs and the erosion of purchasing power has led to the results of the current elections", Artus further writes, who expresses his skepticism over the ability to resolve these problems, regardless of who the new president will be.

For the chief-economist of Natixis, "this perverse economic model has reached its limits and the structural adjustments have to begin".

It is hard to believe, however, that Macron will be the "savior", when "his platform is typical for a bureaucrat, who offers a little something to everyone", according to Martin Armstrong.

On the contrary, "a victory of Macron would sentence the EU to a complete collapse and a hard landing in 2018", is the verdict of the American analyst, because "Brussels will celebrate the end of populism and will continue down the same path, without reforms".

The cynicism of another American, Bill Bonner, the author of the books "Empire of Debt" and "Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets" and former French resident in France for 18 years, is heading towards an aspect that more is closer to the daily concerns of the French.

"It is not a matter of whether the voters will be robbed or not, the question is by whom", Bonner writes.

At its inflection points, history has the "good" habit of invalidating even the best laid plans, and what remains is just "pain and suffering, instead of the promise joy", as Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote.

Could the irony of history be so bitter for the defenders of the European union, that silencing the potential "savior", Marine Le Pen, would be the catalyst towards the precipice?