In Historic Speech, Macron Makes “Radical” Appeal For United Europe, Calls For “Military Intervention Force”
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Sep 26, 2017
Just two days after the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won a larger-than-expected 13% of the vote in Germany’s federal elections over the weekend – dealing a staggering defeat to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat-led coalition which suffered its worst electoral showing since 1949 – French President Emmanuel Macron delivered a lesson in contrasts when he gave what the Financial Times described as “the most integrationist speech by a French leader since the creation of the euro.”
Speaking to students at the Sorbonne in Paris, Macron said that “the challenge is vital: the sea walls behind which Europe has thrived have gone,” adding that “we need to trace the only path ensuring our future; it is the refoundation of a sovereign, united and democratic Europe.”
In other words, a United States of Europe.
The dissonance between Macron’s words, and the expression of defiance by German voters, who elevated a right-wing party to Parliament for the first time since World War II, is remarkable considering the unprecedented showing of France’s own nationalist party, the Marine Le Pen-led National Front, in parliamentary elections earlier this year, according to the Financial Times.
Put another way, while voters on the content are expressing serious reservations about further integration, Macron is proposing that the EU develop a joint “military intervention force”, a shared military budget, and a common budget funded by aggregated tax receipts and supervised by a single finance minister, along the lines of what last week’s “State of the Union” speech by Jean-Claude Juncker proposed.
“Among the French president’s numerous proposals were the creation of a “military intervention force” and a common military budget by 2020, a European agency to deal with counter-terrorism intelligence and another to drive “radical innovation” in the economy.
