We have the useful phrase virtue signaling to describe a certain hollow but scolding tone implying the speaker's woke state. We need a phrase for what Barnier is doing in France. We see it all the time - a politician almost literally begs the financial markets to help him out by raising interest rates or showing "chaos" in the market, etc. We have the phrase capital flight - which is short for taxing rich people and giving workers more benefits - but this an appeal to capital flight if the on display legislation - lowering taxes on the wealthy, tearing up the social insurance program, cutting medical and education expenditure, etc. - isn't voted through tout de suite. I suppose we could call it money signalling. Sometimes it works - in the UK, every step downhill has been accompanied by VSP saying this or that austerity measure must be put through or there won't be pudding. It always turns out that pudding is only for plutocrats. In any case, France still remembers that the social insurance system - retirement, health, education - was only put in place by violent struggle, and that memory remains in the street, though it is trampled under nightly by rightwing tv. Macron, drunk on non-power, laughed about Barnier's threats - France is a rich country, he said, which is so true that it vitiates his entire economic policy thus far.
So, the censure is happening today. Key question is: has Barnier kissed Le Pen's ass enough that the big Fascist will rescue her fine boy? The funny thing is that the RN is running on a leftward economic policy - keeping the social insurance network strong. Which shows that they actually know why they have been winning. The immigrant bigotry is one thing, but if their voters feel that the RN is taking away their healthcare and their retirement, they will go back to the Left.
The neolib consensus is breaking up in the fascitude that was always the next step. God help us.
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