Yesterday, a video of a French mayor bringing down an EU flag from the council office went viral on the internet. The mayor in question is Clément Fevez and he is mayor of a village called Èvres in the north-east of France.
He removed the flag in support of farmers protesting against the EU-Mercosur agreement.
The viral action by Clément Fevez is an excellent example of what mainly underscores the latest emerging anti-EU political trends driven by the far-right. The rise of the far-right in Europe is being supported and backed by Russia and now also the US.
The online promoters of Clément Fevez, who are mainly the far-right, don’t know what he stands for. Anti-EU sentiment doesn’t need logic or reason, and it’s mainly being driven by grift and lies, such as the latest disinformation campaign by the US government stating that the EU’s fine against Elon Musk is about censorship: it is not.
Up to a quarter of the EU’s total budget goes to farmers and two-thirds of this funding goes to direct subsidies to farmers: including to purchase heavy-machinery such as tractors. Indeed, many of the tractors you see on TV protesting against the EU were subsidised by the EU. Clément Fevez may have legitimate grievances about EU agricultural policy, but exiting the EU would be the worst possible outcome for French farmers who would be the hardest hit among the French people. Of course, facts don’t matter to Clément Fevez: what matters is the online virality, and the current theme, boosted by online propaganda machines, is anti-EU sentiment.
In fact, we don’t need to speculate. After Brexit, subsidies to British farmers went down, and agriculture exports to EU countries also went down along with overall farm profitability. After all, British farmers were better off in the EU.
The line between good and evil in politics today is much clearer than it was during the decade when Mitt Romney and Barack Obama faced each other in presidential debates. Today we are not engaged in political debates, but rather in a war against disinformation and lies peddled by the far-right and their allies. Jointly, the US and Russia are producing on a daily basis voluminous amounts of disinformation and lies aimed at destabilising the EU and destroying trust in its institutions.
Europe is threatened from the east by Russia but it is also being threatened by the US direct political attacks and intervention into European politics – this US intervention in Europe is also benefitting Russia. The US is being very transparent in its attacks against the EU and European leaders should have no delusions. The rise of the far-right in Europe is being fueled by disinformation and political subversion sponsored by two main foreign actors: Russia and the US. China also benefits from Europe’s weakness.
The irony is that the European far-right of today isn’t even standing up for its own imperial ambitions, but is rather defending the imperial ambitions of Russia at the expense Europe, taking a very treasonous posture with regards to Europe’s enemies. Even on immigration, which is the far-right’s anchor in political discourse, it is failing to deliver the truth. The EU has strengthened “Fortress Europe” policy in the Mediterranean cutting down on immigrant boat arrivals and migrant expulsions are now being conducted by mainstream parties-in-government in Germany and the UK.
There rarely has ever been such a grift-like and foreign-interest driven political movement in Europe that has come this far. Even the Italian communists under Enrico Berlinguer were in favour of NATO membership. There is really no historical comparison to another political movement that vehemently defended the interests of foreign powers at the expense of Europe.
The road to fascism at home, the collapse of the international rules-based order, and the rise of imperial powers such as Russia and China are being paved by long and extensive disinformation campaigns. In these perilous times, as fascism rears its ugly head, safeguarding an independent press is more important than ever.
Website Editor
Historian and Publisher
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