Oh, No! France Is In une Messe Gigantique!

And You Thought We Had Problems?

I know that a lot of you are alarmed about the situation in France, despite having no idea exactly what is going on in France that you should be alarmed about. There’s just this vague feeling of uneasiness.

That’s perfectly OK, because Lewis Grossberger’s Raw Truth Bulletin is here to A. Hose you down and B. Explain the galling Gallic gallimaufry in a way that even you can understand.

HISTORIC OVERVIEW: The roots of the problem can be traced back to 1066 when King William’s Normans (really the French employing a hasty disguise) conquered England. Much ink has been spilled describing the profound changes this wreaked on England, but very little on the shortfall it left in France. Think of it: All the smartest, most powerful, most aggressive Frenchmen were gone! They were frantically grabbing up Anglo real estate and barmaids and promoting themselves from marquises into dukes and earls. France was left to stew in its own juices. Albeit tasty juices, but still. The country never recovered.

CURRENTS OF CONFLICT: Americans are just getting used to the idea that we’re hopelessly split into two implacable political factions whose views are too far apart to allow for any compromise. Yeah, well how about eight implacable factions? How about a country that has had not one but sixteen (just a wild guess; no one is really sure) revolutions? How about a country whose biggest, most famous revolution started with killing the monarch and ended with crowning a new monarch? How about Vichy France, a French Nazi country named after a seltzer? There’s a reason why the word “ungovernable” keeps coming up in articles about France.

WHO’S THIS MACRON GUY? Emmanuel Macron is the president of France, but probably won’t be much longer. He’s another one of these hapless moderates falling victim to that tsunami of far-right racist authoritarian populist neo-fascists rising all over the place. Every time you turn around, there’s another of these tough guys scaring the horses. The French version, the National Rally Party, founded and run by the highly annoying LePen family, won big in the last parliamentary election, so Macron committed what the British newspaper the Guardian called a “hubristic folly.” He dissolved the National Assembly and called a snap election.

WTF IS A SNAP ELECTION? Exactly what it sounds like. SNAP! Everybody run to the polls and vote! The question is, why would the snappy outcome be any better for Macron moderates than the unsnapped election was? It could be worse.

THE MAN IN THE GREEN COAT, WHAT’S HE DOING? I know. He’s not in position to drive that bayonet into the soldier’s heart. He has no torque. He looks like a lawyer to me and this is probably his first revolution. How he wrested that rifle away from a trained soldier I’ll never understand, but now his ineptitude will prove to be his downfall.He can’t push the blade through the soldier’s breastplate, not unless he quickly changes his stance. The power, you see, all-important torsion, must come up from the lower body, the legs, he thighs, the core. And another important question: does he have the will? Not everyone is prepared to carry out this bloody deed. Now observe the soldier. Though badly wounded on the ground, he is about to take a desperate backhanded swipe with his saber that will, I believe, cost the lawyer his head. The lawyer is France. The soldier is the radical elements. I think the man in dark blue brandishing his sword will become Zorro, but that isn’t important.

This will not end well.