we are losing our sense of humor we're losing our guts and our spine we're losing who we are we're losing our personality so keep it up comics keep it up you'll be out of a job in six months lots around the news file be back around thirty minutes with more headlines but do stay tuned for cross talk. president trump indeed has has he's way of communicating but you have to hand it to him but sometimes it's better to try and shake up the established way of doing things in order to come to a different conclusion i think what's worrying is this focus on the you know fake

news and junk news because one of the foundations of a democracy has to be the trust in news facts and information and if that trust is fundamentally shaken and the independent media criticized then i think that that's a problem from a communications perspective. hello and welcome to cross talk we're all things considered i'm peter lavelle 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 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 are in paris he is 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 crosstalk 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 or 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 mention 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. is of course because. one of the main low you know the main defender of europe who is emanuel president of france is weakened at home and we can buy. movement and the rest of you know vests that basically thing that europe in the past did not protect them enough of course. germany you have a leader and get america always of course 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 left us 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 in years of december on the ground the mass demonstration into place there that is a child of the even more devastating structural violence wrought by emile 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 mobile mccrone has to treat it like the prussians of army 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 there just a few weeks ago lapping up against the door of the elisi powerless and this year of best movement peter gives me great hope because this is not a localized event this is not localized issues we're dealing with yes it was a specific issue regarding fuel tax in france that sparked this said this this spontaneous grassroots movement but it's part of the overarching depredations of neo liberalism is that as they say austerity so this has little potential and we've already seen of estancia and you can believe in the key word there is potential

only we're going to have to or 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 that 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 eight 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 of the go to a very famous avenue of new dishes and 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 you 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 have also paul's that say that. mccall. the universe moved as quite a lot of support. within the the contrie and

yes this 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 no let me be on your world on a little bit more about mclean i want to go to narita i wanted going to david before we go to the. break because i know you want to jump in go ahead yeah i mean i think that the the reason peter to answer your question that micron 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 this level would be emperor you know jupiter and self saw saw that the people were rising up against them and this is the fundamental issue that afflicts the european union the ordinary peoples of the nation states have had enough of these for these globalists i dispute the use of the word new liberalism by the way this is globalism micron sought to impose the globalists.

and look what it's done so i think there is great comfort and the fact that people are actually saying north of these politicians living in their little gilded palaces totally removed from our lives in the tribulations that we face the massive on. that we face right across the european union on the rising up on as we know from history in france. always and well not always then well said i don't know we're 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. . you know i work with potential school shooters for a period of twelve years and none of the students who we work with an artist still of the syllabi ever 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 but they can come out of the crisis. there's a saying. look there on the cheek. and then through all the countries let's ideas they're right let's go through this country he said to me give them everything to. this country. this is what we don't understand how we are in such a country. as a result of the month of the same time. it was a monumental. similar similar. good one. because if you feel if the minutes of kong were not there got

to meet lisa again with the phone the computer with the plane. would come back to the place story it was to see. secure. but. you. most people think to 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 raid in truth to stand out of the lose business you just need to ask the right questions and demand the right answer. questions.

ok. welcome back to cross talk where all things considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing the state of the e.u. . ok i think go back to john and borrow. slightly more than four weeks ago emmanuelle mccrone was. being given or taken or claimed to be the new leader of the

free world. stepping into the the shoes of angola merkel of course the the liberal neo liberal order doesn't like donald trump so he doesn't count anymore. but this is but 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 spend a lot of pain creating on a world stage some self as a lord and no paul the an asshole is described spend 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 you 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 in the back of the two thousand and eight financial crash an 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 are 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 the rwanda mice who were 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 is 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. so let's go let's go back to let me go back to paris here i mean yeah i agree go ahead please go on because 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. do you have this this to you have unrest in paris also or some kind of unrest in spain or you had some verses in germany. it doesn't mean that this neoliberal world as you say that do not exist elsewhere. and it exists also in china and in russia where you have already got. very

very near 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 bend it simply not true i named there who had just come there i had not all of the time i love the i mean i dream of doing it i just may not know any of 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 disparities 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 position if it otherwise is the very interesting 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 know are you ok so i. say 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 the industry 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 rich and readier to also not to upset the

american pretension to impose us there. their loads like the way they ordered the unit then company european to leave to get a chance to protect their like a tap dance to washington's two and 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 early incarnation the european cool and still community was not a triumph for beautiful diplomacy after the second water water was a triumph of us 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 saw its new liberalism is a us economic model and it's the extent to which russia has resisted more don't we understand it tradition that russia went through in the one nine hundred ninety s.

on the back of this mass experiment and 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 little economic model has a capitalist model of course but it 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 that i don't really have a clue that american i don't i don't what i can hear peter here you know i know you've got to let me go to me i want to go to perry is going on but i want to go in and out if i let it go let's go to. you guys that have equal time let's go to belfast here i mean just that i'll go 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 the issue is that the european and late or divorced from the european people that's why for example the e.u. assume many e.u. 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 until 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 micron themself is finally from his perch it could be madame le pen who are you ok david mr allen here 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 an 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 your opinion 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 brought taked to prod thanked to protect to protect. the european citizens an industry for too much free trade you cannot have competition with china funded which is not loyal in competition would make ok gentlemen i have a giant a child playing here it is we are on an all time take i just hope the harder you see are also looking at its own side is 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

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