Monsieur Macron.

Welcome to the newest star in the EU firmament, M. Macron,
'Not yet 40' drooled the BBC's latest roving philosopher Jim McNaughty. 'Merkel and Macron will dominate the scene (in Europe) for years together.' McNaughty is not alone in his ringing admiration since Macron has won a substantial majority in the French parliament, which is now full of Macronite representatives who 'feel the excitement of the coming battles' and 'who are off on an adventure.' (All quotes from Today BBC news programme 26 June.)

On what is this adventure based? Why, Macron has cut France's Gordian knot. He has 'turned politics from the right and the left, upside down!' A slightly dubious sign of this Gallic triumph is Macron's association with one Alistair Campbell, a Blairite political fixer who tells us that he has often spoken to Macron and who clearly believes that Macron might be even better than Blair!  Macron, according to Campbell,
'Really feels he is made for this (presidential) role.' Macron has more self-confidence than Blair it seems. And Macron, according to an increasingly awe-filled Campbell, 'is just this side of arrogance.' Well, that's alright then.

Many French commentators and news outlets are more thrilled. France it seems has a new identity and sense of purpose. We are told by French polls that 80% of the French now see Macron offering a new hope and direction for France.

The French Republic, created by the mighty French Revolution in the 1780s, has made 5 attempts so far to recreate itself, as its ruling classes have either successively failed to destroy its insurgent and radical foundations and thereby brought themselves to dictatorship, or equally failed to lead its defence against external reactionary efforts to bring it down and expunge its experience from European history. Or both - at the same time. (See 1870 and the Paris Commune.) France is still on its fifth Republic, founded by DeGaulle in 1958, but the argument in Le Ecole des Hautes Etudes (France's most prestigious social science research body) was that, before Macron, the fifth was already over.

But, however shiny, nothing, especially in a sinking social system, is ever genuinely new.
'First as tragedy, then as farce' was Karl Marx's comment about Napoleon III's seizure of power in 1848. Since the multi-faceted Napoleon 3, a quick march takes us through to 1936 and the Popular Front, led by Blum, whose main efforts were to still the French labour movement, producing Petain, who unleashed savagery, albeit French savagery, to a chauvinist, imperialist DeGaulle, to Mitterand's 14 years, creating a spurious 'common ground' between antagonistic social classes, pacifying working class leadership and thereby whittling away its initiative. Tragedy, farce, working class defeat, followed by savagery, paralytic chauvinism, concessions and now, M. Macron. Mitterand (and his hopeless political children including Hollande) give way to a new force. This new force proposes to return to defeat; defeat of the French working class. Indeed the whole of the EU's dominant classes believe that only through taming of European labour - at least down to the levels available in the EU's Eastern bloc - will they succeed.

Succeed in what? Succeed in mastering the key aim of the EU in the first place; to create a third pole of capitalism, between Asia and the US. The EU is organised to allow Europe to claim its place in the onward march of globalisation.

Macron's project in essence is simple; to defeat French labour, its benefits, its legal rights, its returns in wages for its labour. French political leadership had (after previous failures) to thoroughly reorganise its parties, its representatives and its political momentum to get to that purpose. And the 5th Republic is facing its last throw of the historical dice.

The 'great men' of the French Republics - and between them - (there have been no 'great women' yet) have all been created for the requirements of the period that they must master. Macron is not some Prometheus landing from the Gods, ready to save the 5th. He is a thoroughly trained bureaucrat and politician, with an impeccable background, with enormous (largely hidden) resources, who now seeks to renovate French capitalism. His emergence, and the manufactured excitement around his arrival (remember the 40/60% parliamentary vote off) is just another turn of the wheel in French history and spurred entirely by the need to 'adapt' to globalisation.

Underneath Macron's 'triumph' are the shadows. There are the abstainers, who did not vote, not because they were happy already with a regime which does not yet exist, but because they do not believe in Macron's goals.  A large part of that abstention came from those who are preparing to defend themselves against Macron's intended 'battle.' Macron won no votes in in the banlieus, few in the factories or schools, very few among France's people of colour. And after the fight to come stands the only alternative remaining to to the French right (and the German and the Dutch and the Italian right.) If the traditional right in France has been swept away to open the door to Macron's offensive, and if Macron fails to win his battle with labour in France, the rulers of France will (nervously, hesitantly, dishonestly) 'help' the french people to turn to the neo-fascists - because their fear of an insurgent movement lead by labour is much greater than their distaste for Marine LePen.