hello and welcome to cross talk where all things considered i'm peter lavelle tressa may survive a no confidence vote but is now a lame duck hard brags that looms angle a merkel has announced a room pending political retirement and emmanuelle mccrone moral legitimacy as president of france is in the balance the three pillars of the e.u. are on shaky ground if the euro project suffering a crisis of confidence. talking

the state of the e.u. i'm joined by my guest we know you're are in paris he's the chief foreign correspondent of the figaro and belfast we have david vance he is a political commentator as well as editor of news media dot net and in edinburgh we cross to john white he is a political commentator and writer all right gentlemen cross talk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate we're now let me go to you first in paris sincere at the least the present day epicenter of what's going on in the e.u. right now the title of this program and what i mentioned in my introduction is is there a crisis of confidence in the e.u. and i just mentioned three. primary events are playing out right now but we could discuss many many other things going on is there a crisis of confidence in the e.u. go ahead. yes of course because. one of the main low you're the main defender of your job who is emanuel president of france

is weakened at home and we can buy a movement and the rest of you know vests that basically thing that europe in the past did not protect them enough and of course. germany you have a leader and get america will always of course a very pro european but she has been weakened also and she had to step down from a role of head of the christian democrat party and of course you have. europe weakened by this rick said story that never ends and with a weakened prime minister of britain and of course also with italy. who has a coalition government with two very different parties but who is fighting

a little bit with the european commission so the main. the main countries of european union have. let's say we can leadership or we can relations relationship with brussels which is of course the case for. great britain and for italy ok david in belfast i mean one of the major criticisms is that the e.u. is basically predicated on an ideology of neo liberalism and they've been willing quite willing to sacrifice the interests of the people that they claim to represent and what has happened in france over the last few weeks is a very good example of that so it really be in the interest of the people are sacrificed on the altar of an ideology that no one in the european union ever voted

on go ahead david. yeah i absolutely agree with you peter and i mean i think what we're seeing across europe is this massive divide between the interests of the ordinary people and the different nation states then the elected bureaucrats and the euro crowds at the heart of the project and so the project as we talk about it seems very divorced from the most fundamental thing which is to look after the interests of the ordinary people and that's why we've seen the on rest in across france we've seen the rise of populism which i'm sure we'll talk about in italy in hungary and elsewhere. of course here in the u.k. we see the u.k. as a country choosing to actually get out of the e.u. so the e.u. project is absolutely tottering on its on its fate isis i suggest that it will eventually as all want to be empires do fall over and collapse and

a good thing to john you know in looking at the media coverage particularly of what's going on in france and and maybe to some degree we're brigs it but with the yellow vests here at least in the anglo speaking world here. in the very beginning there was some sympathy and you know this is part of france's tradition they like to protest they like to demonstrate and then it started to change and you start seeing words like populist neo nazi fascists and things like that. is that a fair characterization of just so many people that are saying enough is enough i mean this is all you have to do is to protest this that is and there's an important caveat here it doesn't excuse anyone committing violence or any kind of crime and they should be held account ok but from what i could see that is not the by far the by any extent measurable the majority experience people are angry go ahead john.

or the violence that you mentioned has been taking place in france or particularly in paris where i was only eight of december on the ground the mass demonstration of two police there that is a child of the even more devastating structural violence wrought by neil liberalism in the form of his bastard child austerity eight million people in france living in poverty nine percent unemployment you have fourteen million people in the u.k. living in poverty one and a half million of those get the truthful million children portie the first richest an economy in the world there's going to be a reaction and it's been a long time coming and you're absolutely right these people are not far right fanatics they're not hard left the masses of the people in the demonstration i encountered were regular people who'd had enough and felt they had no option but to take to the streets and look at the results after four weeks of demonstration in my view mccrone has retreated late oppressions at voe me trying to fool comes in

a desperate attempt to failure guard action against the kind of you to peon army he did not visit when he put the call it for one just a few weeks ago lapping up against the door of the elysee palace and this year of best movement peter gives me great hope because this is not a localized event this is not local like the issues we're dealing with yes it was a specific issue regarding fuel tax in france fits but this said this this spontaneous grassroots movement but it's part of the overarching depredations of neo liberalism and as i say say austerity so this has little potential and we've already seen yellow vest and cash and you can believe the key word there is potential for any we're going to have to watch as there were no let me go back to you in paris i think i sometimes i think it's quite clear and we saw express my opinion of these elites are really out of touch i mean you have the crawl talking about global warming and then and then and that necessity to deal with it so we as

working people to pay for a while ago. it's tax cuts to the rich i mean what kind of sense is that what kind of political responsibility even moral responsibility is that go ahead in paris yeah it's true it was all a bit clumsy. on the ground i mean basically is a right to say that diesel is much more polluting normal petrol but maybe it could be more skillful doing like in germany where they simply said ok within six or eighty years diesel car will be forbidden in germany and you have to change your car but that people maybe would have understood. better but it's true also that. he's personally thora he. was you know diminished because of blunders that he made. during the

last eighteen months it's true also that this you know vets movement you know is quite well known through through the world because of the magnifying glasses of television and you know and you have like five hundred violent demonstrators go to a very famous avenue of new dish or see one of the most famous avenue of france and you think that everybody in france is yellow vests it is not true i mean the demonstrators were quite a number but not not that many i mean in in sixty eight for instance in falls we had demonstrations with much more people in on the street well on one side and down the aisle of the ancillary let me ask you the question of gold let me go i'm going to see and we will see of the as i like i said if it wasn't so or if it wasn't so many people then why did mccrone cave into their demands so quickly. it's

true also yes so we'll see if they go some of this year of it say that they would run for the european elections that will come next prince will see what is their program what is the score it's true also you have a right to point to you you made me a right point you have a point saying that because it's true that you we have also polls that say that. mccall. the universe movement as quite a lot of support. within the the country and yes the support is declining but still quite a lot and it's true also that himself and is prime minister have very low ratings on the slip or now let me jump in on your well done a little bit more about mcclellan i want to go to greater learning and david before

we go to the. break because i know you want to jump in go ahead. yeah i mean i think that the reason peter to answer your question that mark crone crumble so quickly was he saw the writing on the wall this is a guy whose popularity as we've just heard is heading you know somewhere south of zero. you know that this level would be emperor you know jupiter and self so he saw that the people were rising up against him and this is the fundamental issue that afflicts the european union the ordinary peoples of the nation states have how enough of these for these globalists i dispute the use of the word evil liberalism by the way this is globalism micro-loan sought to impose the globalist and look what it's done so i think there's great comfort and the fact that people are actually saying i'm off of these politicians living in their little gilded

palaces totally removed from our lives in the tribulations that we face the massive unemployment that we face right across the european union and the rising up and as we know from history in france of all was and well you know we said i'm going to end this we're going to end this part of the program and go to a break here after a short break we'll continue our discussion on the state of the e.u. stay with r.t. . prosecution. this should. desire. for you to push. the threat of fines come on somebody down on the ship do. political pressure on the. security generation and sort of bundled up business models used by american corporations jackals was

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welcome back to cross talk we're all things considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing the state of the e.u. . and i think go back to john and borrow. slightly more than four weeks ago. being given or taken or claimed to be the new leader of the free world. stepping into the the shoes of anglo merkel of course the liberal neo liberal order doesn't like donald trump so he doesn't count anymore. but this is what he was anointed he was anointed by the pope the political classes in france he was anointed by the liberal. media and he was anointed globally by these elites here

and then we find out that well he's not really the right stuff if i can use that term what does this tell us about what we're told about politics and who's on top and who's not go ahead john. well it shows as the you are little establishment is completely out of touch with reality of living in a bubble of unreality and you're trying to hang on to the better tease of the past in the form of triangulation and neal liberal nostrums trying to use the hand of raising tired of anger and discontent which we've had eloquently described by the other two guests in the course of this short and so matter on spent a lot of pain put it in on a world stage he saw myself as a low rent poorly an asshole he's described he spent more time trying to appeal to the summit's bask in the glory of the international lame i think he clearly modeled himself after tony blair who likewise is despised politician and yet he keep

presenting these people to the masses as as if they're going to try and solve the problems in boat with an illegal liberal economic model it's good it's a cost to all intents it died in two thousand here on the back of the two thousand and eight financial crash and in suing economic recession and it's the extent to which the elites are trying to breathe life into a keep on life support via these draconian and barbaric austerity programs that exacerbating the very crisis that they're trying to avoid and they have no understanding that the the author of their doom is not russia we're see more and more desperate russell for big trucks being peddled to try and explain what's going on bexar trumps election even the yellowjackets of me wait at the door of the kremlin would you believe all they have to do is look in a mirror and you see that they are the authors of their own demise oh no we're going to reflect upon that because of i'm sorry the point of the program it's a jump in go ahead david in belfast. yeah yeah just to follow on from what john

just said i mean one of the things i think that would concern a lot of people is that we've had marco on and merkel explained on the importance of having a european union army you know allegedly to fight the threat of russia or china or america and what did we see on the streets of paris we saw those vehicles with the e.u. will eat you you know go on them deployed against the french people and that's what i think many people are very concerned about that the purpose of the european union army is to put the voices be they in france or be they in catalonia or wherever that dissent from the almighty in brussels and so there's a fundamental. malaria's at the heart of the rotten heart i would call it of the european union and this has to be dealt with let's go now let's go back to let me go back to paris here i mean yeah i. agree go ahead please go here is i disagree with the very things that have been said that i disagree number one you have to go

into yes you have to have like. this brigs it you have unrest in paris also or some kind of unrest in spain or you had some dresses in germany. it doesn't mean that. this is a neo liberal world as you say that do not exist elsewhere. and it exists also in china and russia where you have already got. very very liberal and very big different differences of salaries the point is that in china or in russia workers it's much more difficult for workers to demonstrate than in western europe so yes thank you and now you bet it's simply not true i named there that i had just come there are not all of the time and i rush i love the me i

dream of doing it i just know one is the night the right to protest ok so let's be clear all right they don't have their reasons ok ok ok the french have right now ok that is the difference here doesn't mean. you're right i don't think i'm going to finish it and it doesn't mean there is income disparity say in russia there are and it is a concern ok i don't deny that but people are not going out on the street protesting it so i just want to get the facts out there i'm sorry to interrupt you please continue. continuos of course they're not going in the streets but they used to go in the streets and it was not that easy because the government of course is stronger in france in russia than in in fact and i want to say also something i'm sorry not to be able to be mainstream a reputation if it otherwise is the very very thing and you know how can you can i

go and say what i want liberals do you have problems you deny that your the problem in your look for somebody else to blame you just put it to a different topic we're talking about the social problems in the european union we're not talking about russia and its social problems because it does have them but the topic of this program is is there a lack of competence in the e.u. so let's stay on point continue in paris yeah you are yeah ok so i. see also i still saw that yes there is a deep feeling in european union that number one european union does not protect. the people from two phenomenons invasion by chinese manufactured goods that destroys. industries in your office and number two for us immigration that's for sure and but also i think that the maj auriti of european

citizens and a stand that if you don't have a strong united europe no way that you can resist so. you're saying you need more of europe right more brussels i don't i think that we have to have a united europe ready to resist yes to that so there's a matter of probably shoes to the chinese and radio to also not to upset the american pretension to impose us there. their loads like the way the. company european to leave them it is like to tap dance to washington's two they've been doing it for decades in this is what you get from a crown wants to privatized everything on the american model and look at those results here john in edinburgh jump in. we have to understand what the utopian

union is it's it's early incarnation the european cool and still community was not a triumph of you to pin them or do diplomacy after the second water water was a triumph of u.s. the coolness is an american project designed to create markets for u.s. exports on the back of a booming u.s. economy in the wake of the second world war and so it's near liberalism is a us economic model and it's the extent to which russia has resisted up more don't we understand it depredations of russia went through in the one nine hundred ninety s. on the back of this mass experiment in free market despair that the people were subjected to that russia has been able to recover so it's not true to say that russia has a new liberal economic model has a capitalist model of course but that was the extent to which led to me putin restored a train a seal of the state over blank economic forces that enabled russia to recover from that dark so the european union is as you say peter it's an american project and

the european countries are. consider themselves to be our eyes of washington are in truth really client states of washington and that is the problem at the heart of the cauldron of europe problem has never been russia europe problem well i don't really have a clue that american i don't i don't what i can hear peter hey i know you got plenty out of me i want to go to perry and i don't hang on to it i want to go in and out if i let it go let's go to belfast odds are you guys that have equal time let's go to belfast here i mean just that i'll be out of order hang on david i mean the united states is dictating europe's energy policies right now making it pay for more expensive american energy so i wonder who is running the security policies of the european union it doesn't seem to be the europeans here david go ahead and belfast. yeah i'd like to make several points first of all that the fundamental issue that the european union has is the european union the problems lie within to

try and deflect it to russia to america is absolutely irrelevant means nothing that the difficulty of the issue is that the european and late or divorced from the european people that's why for example the e.u. so many you countries have just signed up to the un global migration pact which will also lloyd even further emigration into the e.u. now how is that going to work when you've got countries like greece and spain for example with on employment youth on employment and the thirty and forty percent what you have is this is a corrupt toxic empire that's what we need to understand and the solution is not more of it the solution to it is much much less of it and that's why whether people like it or not the rise of populism i feel across the european landmass and countries like italy and hungary etc is pretty much unstoppable and even in france

even in france when the little emperor markram self is finally from his perch it could be madame le pen who were ok david is a missionary in the air so all the time the young let me jump in because i want to be fair to renault in paris i'm going to give in the last forty five seconds of the program go ahead sir in paris. number one i don't think at all that european union is and american project european union is a project born when french and germans that i mean fighting like more than twenty was the last center is decided to be partners to make peace and then came other countries to the the netherlands and all the eastern country and and so on i think that european union in the past fifty years brought us peace and a lot of economic prosperity it has got problems yes because in your opinion not

all no doubt by you have taked to prod taked to protect to protect. european citizens an industry for too much free trade you cannot have competition with china funded which is not. competition with me i can gentlemen i have the giants your child playing here is we're i'm running out of time today i just. say to saying so you came out that's all the time we have many thanks to my guests in paris belfast and in edinburgh and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at r t c a next time and remember. you know i work with potential school shooters for a period of twelve years and none of the students who we work with in our facility

the seller they have or went on to commit a school shooting so that gives me hope that if you catch the students early enough and provide the kind of support and mental health treatment that they need that they can come out of the crisis. yes there is a saying. i think there could be chief justice and then you went through all the countries let's idea the right to go to us come to that he said if we give them everything slip to the best. leave this country. this is what we don't understand how we have to walk in such a country. that's until the month that i think. it was

a monumental. mazumdar one of the lose similar. one i guess about the us if you feel if the minutes of on board not that god can we believe again with the phone about the couple that with the plane. would come back to the place story you do have to see. the best the. jews would do for. the. most people think just stand out in this business you need to be the first one on top of the story or the person with the loudest voice of the biggest race in truth to stand down to lose the sense you just need to ask the right questions and demand the right answer.

question. was. was. i. the predatory practices pursued by china and russia a significant threat to u.s. national security and washington unveils a new strategy in africa to counter russia and china's influence on the continent the u.s. national security adviser branding america's previous approach ineffective.