They did it to themselves, not just President Emmanuel Macron, but the French establishment as a whole. To add injury to insult, especially in the wake of losing colonies in Africa (and their lucrative minerals), the ruling party proved its inability to keep close to the pulse of the French people and their aversion to war, and love of fiery protests. This was especially notable after the suggestion of sending troops to Ukraine, conflict in a “Metropolitan French” region of New Caledonia, other foreign entanglements and the need to keep focus on pressing domestic issues—starting with a failed immigration policy with a slew of political and economic repercussions.

It is as if Macron and his team are oblivious to French history and where the expression heads will roll comes from—likely going back to the French Revolution using the guillotine to even old scores.

In the wake of disastrous European Parliamentary elections for his party, Macron took “a calculated risk” (boy, he must be bad at math) that calling snap elections in France would galvanize his supporters to counteract the risk of a right wing dominated parliament led by Le Pen’s National Rally movement.

The Domino Effect

Those of us old enough to remember, and those with an interest in history, will remember the idea of the domino effect, where US intervention in Vietnam was justified by the concept that a communist victory over the south of the country would result in an unstoppable run of collapses all the way to Australia (never mind the fact that Ho Chi Minh was very pro-American).

The theory has been revived from time to time to justify military action in support of, or against, emerging political movements, such as the collapse of communism and the subsequent “color revolutions”, or the Arab spring, where both covert and open interventions have been carried out by the West.

This was especially the case in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria, as well, I suspect strongly, in the case of Ukraine, where western governments hoped that their successful coup (at the time), the relatively easy overthrow of Yanukovich, like kicking in the door to a rotten house,........

© New Eastern Outlook