Dear French friends
It’s Brussels’ fault…. From the beginning of the current mandate of the European Commission, the 27 Heads of State wished, with great wisdom or crazy ambition…, that the European Union be exemplary in the control of climate change, and the least we can say is that France is not the less proactive in this ecological crusade. One witness is the zeal deployed by our administration to add 3 layers of binding measures to European standards whenever it is possible to afford it. In any case, Mrs Ursula von der Leyen, as a good student, in charge of translating the European Council’s guidelines into reality, has concretised this strong will of the Heads of State by building a “Green Deal” that would allow Europe to be totally decarbonised by 2050. And on December 13, 2019, the European Council unanimously approved the continuation of this project, with the exception of Poland. Have you heard that the French President has slipped away in an “Hungarian style” ?
No, he was there in the place that protocol reserves for him at the table of the European Council… But here’s the thing… Under the pressure of the farmers’ demonstrations, our politicians suddenly realised that this ecological ambition was igniting the powder keg in our countryside… And now they are throwing themselves headlong into a frenzied haro on the Green Deal and more specifically on the “Farm to Fork” which proposes to concretely translate into the consumer’s plate the happy sobriety advocated by the ecological ideology. Of course, it’s Europe’s fault… Ah! These diktats of the European Commission are unbearable….! How can these Brussels “techno-bureaucrats” be so ignorant of the expectations of their fellow citizens? What an incredible inability to understand their congeneres… They dramatically demonstrated it in the negotiations with Mercosur, unable of grasping the importance of the normative handicap!
This is a delightful illustration of the doublespeak of our leaders in Brussels who rush towards ecology, ignoring its punitive aspects and who, in France, stigmatise a disembodied Europe, which defies peasant common sense. It is a trial of intent that finds its explanation in the dramatic fear of the future that has taken hold of our fellow citizens and which is reminiscent of their derisory panic in the face of the threat of the Polish plumber or the fantasized threat of Canadian cattle opened up by an abhorred CETA.
Our farmers know that putting the cart before the horse, even in the age of SUV tractors, is pretty wrong and our leaders would do well to ensure that the main orientations of the European Union will be accepted by the populations, rather than giving them enthusiastic support from the outset, that they must then denounce, by blaming a European Union which cannot do anything. Brussels is an easy scapegoat and in this election year, we will often hear this little music… Let’s not succumb to its charm, even if it is nocturnal and Mozartian…
Jacques Favin Lévêque
EuroDéfense France
