The president, speaking before ministers at the Élysée Palace, said the country was at a “tipping point” and faced a difficult winter, and a new era of instability caused by :
1) The EU Brussels bureaucrats climate measures, such as, not signing long-term natural gas contracts with Russia, because it would look bad for Europe being serious about the wind/solar/battery, etc., parade
2) The back-firing sanctions imposed on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.
NOTE: Macron should have added, the back-firing sanctions have turned the European economy into the worst of the Western world.
NOTE: Marine Le Pen, the leader of right-wing National Rally parliamentary group, has accused French President Emmanuel Macron of “lying” about the causes of the ongoing economic problems in the country. Earlier, Macron warned of the impending “end of abundance” and said sacrifices are to be made.
“The economic crisis that has hit France does not date from this summer. It does not date from the war in Ukraine. Emmanuel Macron lied by hiding the truth from the French and now he announces austerity. Many measures must be taken to protect the French,” Le Pen wrote on Twitter.
His cautionary and somber speech, came after a summer of extreme temperatures, widespread wildfires, drought and storms.
His speech was immediately criticized by opponents as ill-judged, and a snub to the country’s out-of-work and poor, who had already made sacrifices,
Macron said France and the French felt they were living through a series of crises, “each worse than the last”.
“What we are currently living through is a kind of major tipping point, or a great upheaval … we are living the end of what could have seemed an Era of Abundance … the end of the abundance of products of technologies that seemed always available … the end of the abundance of land and materials, including water,” he said.
He thanked “our firemen, elected representatives and farmers who faced the fires and drought”.
Macron added that France, Europe and the world had perhaps been too “insouciant” (easy-going) about threats to democracy and human rights, and the “rise of illiberal regimes, and strengthening of authoritarian regimes”.
“This overview that I’m giving, the end of abundance, the end of insouciance, the end of assumptions – it is ultimately a tipping point that we are going through that can lead our citizens to feel a lot of anxiety.
Faced with this, we have a duty, duties, the first of which is to speak frankly and clearly without doom-mongering,” he said.
Comments from the Opposition
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“When we talk about the end of abundance, I think of the millions of unemployed, the millions of those in a precarious situation. For many French people, times are already hard, sacrifices have already been made,” Martinez said.
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The leader of the French Communist party, Fabien Roussel, a presidential candidate earlier this year, expressed astonishment at Macron’s speech.
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“Unbelievable! It’s as if the French people have had no worries and been over-indulging themselves.
We have 10 million poor in France, because of President Macron’s carelessness and the predatory behavior of the rich"
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Macro's warnings came as it was revealed that the dividends paid out by major French companies reached a record €44 BILLION in the second quarter of 2022, as a result of what were described as exceptional profits.
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The economic newspaper, Les Echos, said the dividend payout was almost 33% up on the previous year and was the result of a "post-Covid economic catchup", such as by laying off workers and increasing prices.
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Macron, who was re-elected for a second five-year term in April, but lost his parliamentary majority in the subsequent general election, and his government are facing a rocky rentrée, the traditional September return to work and school after the long summer break in France.
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After months of successive election campaigns, his newly appointed government had little time to establish itself before the holidays, putting this year’s return to parliamentary business under particular scrutiny.
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The president, who leaves for a three-day visit to Algeria on Thursday, has told ministers that measures to tackle the climate emergency, and its consequences, as well as those focusing on renewable energies, must be a priority this autumn, and he has urged a “general mobilization” to address it.
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NOTE: This is an expensive diversionary tactic to get people to stop focussing on their many problems and poor prospects, and instead make more sacrifices, as imposed by bureaucrats in government, to "save the world". See Appendix.
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The prime minister, Élisabeth Borne, is expected to give details on new measures at the annual conference held by Medef, the French employers’ federation, next Monday.
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Earlier this month, while attending a commemoration ceremony for Operation Dragoon, the allied invasion of Provence in 1944, Macron said this autumn and winter would be a difficult one for the country, with a risk of energy shortages and high prices, as a result of back-firing sanctions imposed due to Russia’s war on Ukraine, and that this was “the price to pay for freedom”.
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NOTE: Macron expects the French people to swallow this?
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Critics have accused the president of giving no clear goal for his second and final mandate. His government will need to make alliances to ensure its 2023 budget passes through a divided parliament, another rentrée priority.
Bernard Sananès, of the opinion pollsters Elabe, said Macron was preparing the French for bad times. “It’s a kind of political anticipation. If things really become difficult, the president needs to have called it beforehand to avoid giving the impression that events have taken him and his government by surprise,” Sananès told AFP.
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APPENDIX 1
Regarding increasing natural gas prices in Europe:
In 2021, naive/misguided/tooth-fairy EU bureaucrats ordered EU members not to sign long-term natural gas contracts with Russia, because it would look bad regarding Europe being serious about its "Climate-Fighting" wind/solar/battery, etc., parade.
That meant much more natural gas was bought on the EU SPOT markets AT MUCH HIGHER PRICES
Then came the Ukraine events, which were primarily due to:
1) The US/UK-led NATO advancing its infrastructures and manpower to the border of Russia (after promising Gorbachev not to expand "one inch" beyond East Germany in 1991), and
2) NATO turning Ukraine into a highly armed, proxy-warrior-nation to “weaken Russia”, with the major benefit of having not a single NATO casualty; the Ukrainians are doing the dying and suffering "for freedom".
Russia’s response to poorly conceived/back-firing EU sanctions, which made the Euro and US Dollar useless to Russia, was to reduce natural gas flows to “unfriendly countries”, which caused the European natural gas prices to increase from $10/million Btu in 2021, to $70/million Btu, and the US prices from $3/million Btu in 2021, to $10/million Btu, by August 23, 2022.
Predictions are, prices will increase another 60% by winter, i.e., over $110/million Btu!!!!
The US increase of fuel prices was entirely due to Biden's posse of teleprompter controllers urging US companies to send OUR DOMESTIC natural gas, oil, and coal to Europe.
Europe's economy, having a major drought, with wind power underperforming, as it did in 2021, is in a major downdraft.
Barge traffic on the Rhine River has come to a near-halt, because of low-water, which means no supplies to German industries.
Norway stopped exporting hydro electricity, because its reservoirs are too low.
Many of France's nuclear plants are closed, because of a lack of cooling water.
Germany's gas-consuming industries and chemical plants had to shut down, and workers were sent home, because their expensive production with high electricity and materials prices, became uncompetitive in world markets.
However, in 1540, Europe had a far worse drought, and much higher temperatures than this Summer, while at the same time CO2 in the atmosphere was THIRTY PERCENT LOWER.
This appears to be in violation of the so-called "Establishment Climate-Science"
The worldwide Little Ice Age was from 1450 to 1850.
Can you image a drought, and very high summer temperatures, during a Little Ice Age, WHILE ATMOSPHERIC CO2 STAYED THE SAME AT THAT TIME, AND NO FOSSIL FUELS WERE USED?
What does that reveal about so-called "ESTABLISHMENT CLIMATE-SCIENCE"?
See articles for information
There Is No Climate Crisis: History Shows the Earth has Seen Far Worse, even when CO2 was 30% less than at present.
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/there-is-no-climate-cr...
New Surface Stations Report Released – It’s ‘worse than we thought’
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/new-surface-stations-r...
Grid-Scale Battery Systems in New England to Counteract Shortfall of One-Day Wind/Solar Lull
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/grid-scale-battery-sys...
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