Notre Dame fire: "accidents" and agendas
Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral is a symbol not just of Paris, but of France. The tragic fire that has torn through it has drawn the minds of all French people to their national identity and to the words of their President, Emmanuel Macron, with a promise to rebuild, as well as offers from well-heeled individuals and corporations to donate millions of Euros towards reconstruction.
Investigators have stated that it is impossible to declare the incident an accident, but this does not mean that it was not accidental. Nevertheless, the image of such a powerful symbol of France in flames ironically parallels images of Parisian landmarks, such as the Eiffel Tower, obscured by smoke from Yellow Vest protests mixed with tear-gas.
Regardless of the cause of the blaze, the temptation for Macron to present this as an opportunity for the country to draw together must have been too strong to resist. Significantly, given the pro-democracy (and therefore anti-integration) position of the gilets jaunes, the BBC reports that European Council president Donald Tusk is calling on EU states to rally round France. The reconstruction of Notre Dame would therefore become a metaphor in stone, wood and labour of the European integration project's reconstruction after having been burnt so badly by pro-democracy movements, and of the French government's reputation faced with extreme violence against pro-democracy demonstrators.
Here we come to the devil in the detail. Yellow-vest protests have reached Toulouse, which was independent of France as a semi-independent part of the Languedoc until the thirteenth century. It seems a long time ago, but nations subsumed into others as into a mini-empire do not go away: fast-forward to WWII and you will see that the borders of Vichy France roughly follow those of the Languedoc. When nationalism is suppressed it does not disappear but festers until the wounds reach the surface.
What better time, therefore, for the country's and the world's attention to be drawn to a symbol of France in need of help? At one fell swoop the member-nations of the European Union are exhorted to pull together at a time of rising demands for democratic validation or otherwise of integration, meaning that same attention is diverted from a part of the country which was and to an extent still is an unwilling party of the plurinational polity of France. And what's more, the Yellow Vest movement is
Regardless of whether the conflagration was deliberate, the uses to which its iconography have been put are by no means accidental. The Yellow-Vest protests are creeping inexorably south-east towards the southern pyrenées, at whose other side lies Catalonia, which has already seen miles-long traffic jams caused by its own Yellow Vest movement, aided by French free-thinkers. So whether anything comes of the probe into the renovation of Notre Dame by Le Bras Frères (le Bras brothers) headed by Julien le Bras, we must keep the incident's extreme utility to the French and European Establishments in mind and watch out for scapegoating.
Pray for Notre Dame and its communities if you wish. Contribute towards its construction if you want. But whatever you do, remember that this incident is being used to further the dead hand of European integration in the teeth of democratic sentiment.
Investigators have stated that it is impossible to declare the incident an accident, but this does not mean that it was not accidental. Nevertheless, the image of such a powerful symbol of France in flames ironically parallels images of Parisian landmarks, such as the Eiffel Tower, obscured by smoke from Yellow Vest protests mixed with tear-gas.
Regardless of the cause of the blaze, the temptation for Macron to present this as an opportunity for the country to draw together must have been too strong to resist. Significantly, given the pro-democracy (and therefore anti-integration) position of the gilets jaunes, the BBC reports that European Council president Donald Tusk is calling on EU states to rally round France. The reconstruction of Notre Dame would therefore become a metaphor in stone, wood and labour of the European integration project's reconstruction after having been burnt so badly by pro-democracy movements, and of the French government's reputation faced with extreme violence against pro-democracy demonstrators.
Here we come to the devil in the detail. Yellow-vest protests have reached Toulouse, which was independent of France as a semi-independent part of the Languedoc until the thirteenth century. It seems a long time ago, but nations subsumed into others as into a mini-empire do not go away: fast-forward to WWII and you will see that the borders of Vichy France roughly follow those of the Languedoc. When nationalism is suppressed it does not disappear but festers until the wounds reach the surface.
What better time, therefore, for the country's and the world's attention to be drawn to a symbol of France in need of help? At one fell swoop the member-nations of the European Union are exhorted to pull together at a time of rising demands for democratic validation or otherwise of integration, meaning that same attention is diverted from a part of the country which was and to an extent still is an unwilling party of the plurinational polity of France. And what's more, the Yellow Vest movement is
Regardless of whether the conflagration was deliberate, the uses to which its iconography have been put are by no means accidental. The Yellow-Vest protests are creeping inexorably south-east towards the southern pyrenées, at whose other side lies Catalonia, which has already seen miles-long traffic jams caused by its own Yellow Vest movement, aided by French free-thinkers. So whether anything comes of the probe into the renovation of Notre Dame by Le Bras Frères (le Bras brothers) headed by Julien le Bras, we must keep the incident's extreme utility to the French and European Establishments in mind and watch out for scapegoating.
Pray for Notre Dame and its communities if you wish. Contribute towards its construction if you want. But whatever you do, remember that this incident is being used to further the dead hand of European integration in the teeth of democratic sentiment.
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