Philippe Olivier: “The European Union is a wavering empire”



To more than a year from the deadline, the National Rally already has its eyes riveted on the next – and only – national elections of the five-year term: the European ones. To prepare them, the nationalist party is intensifying its ideological reflections and sharpening the vision that will underpin the future project carried by the list, probably led by the president of the RN, Jordan Bardella.

During a symposium on December 9 at the Maison de l’Amérique Latine, MEP and special adviser to Marine Le Pen, Philippe Olivier, will present his reading grid opposing nations and empires. A cleavage which, according to him, is likely to feed the next European electoral confrontation and which he accepts exclusively to detail at the Point.

Point : You have been instructed by the new president of the National Rally, Jordan Bardella, to reflect on the ideological debate that will animate the next major electoral event, namely the European ones. Where are you ?

Phillip Olivier: There is a constant in the history of the world: the confrontation between empires and nations. This reading grid makes it possible to understand today the state of the world and more particularly the state of Europe. In Europe, two traditions compete. French, national culture, that of Philippe Le Bel. And German culture, which has always been an imperial vision. After the Holy Roman Empire, there was German reunification with Bismarck and the imperial vision of William II which led to war. Like, later, the IIIe Reich. It is always empires that cause war and nations that restore peace.

I am not saying that the European Union, which is of German inspiration, is the successor to the IIIe Reich. But it ticks all the boxes of empire: a superior, centralized authority that supplants the nations that make it up with vertical, top-down power. Empires only hold together through submission or pressure. The Soviet Union sent its tanks, the European Union uses the budgetary weapon of economic sanctions, against Italy or Hungary in particular.

Another characteristic is the propensity for permanent extension. When an empire stops growing, it dies. The European Union is perpetually seeking to expand through two means: accessions and free trade agreements. Its advantage is that it has no geographical limit, it is a merchant empire. But there is no imperial affection. There is no European people, no demosso no democracy.

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Do you contradict the axiom dear to François Mitterrand, according to which “nationalism is war”, and the European Union, peace?

Nationalists are promoters of the nation. However, nations are not the causes of wars but on the contrary those which restore peace. This was the case during the war of 1870, that of 1914-1918 or that of 1939-1945. Behind this false accusation, the idea of ​​the founding fathers of Europe was to dismantle the nations. This is what one of them, Richard Coudenhove, wrote very clearly in his 1923 book, Pan Europa. People have to understand that the European Union is not a space of cooperation but of submission. It dreams of an above-ground and centralized federalist state. Moreover, it already has everything of a state: an anthem, a flag, a government, a currency… All that remains is for it to equip itself with a foreign policy and an army.

The risk, for France, is that the European Union seizes French nuclear weapons. This would carry a certain number of practical consequences, given the imperialist will of the Union and the mind-blowing warmongering speeches of the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. Britain’s exit was not “an accident”. Historically, she never accepted that a continental empire existed. It’s in his DNA. The European elections will take place in a year. The French must understand the choice before them: submit to a centralized supranational authority or remain a sovereign nation.

An exit from the European Union would be useless today. Its change from within is at hand.

However, the project of European federalism seems far from being unanimously accepted within the Union. Is it really still relevant?

Think again ! The inclinations, of Emmanuel Macron in particular, to abandon the rule of unanimity in the European Council to adopt decisions by majority is proof of this. It is neither more nor less a renunciation of national sovereignty. Tomorrow we will be offered a President of Europe. Emmanuel Macron may be a candidate to become this incarnation of a dominating power, of a superstructure, which crushes everything that exists below it.

Today, the real power is in the hands of the European Commission. We discover every day monopolization of its share of State competences, a nibbling of treaties, thanks to a system of small steps. Ursula von der Leyen, for example, had no mandate to speak on Ukraine. Nor the Commission to take an interest in forests as it has done recently.

Of course, fighting 2,000 years of national history is difficult. This federal Europe can only be established gradually. But, in seventy years, a lot of damage has already been done. As a nation, we already have less power than the American states. The will of the peoples is thwarted by a higher idea: the empire must be made with or without their consent. This idea of ​​empire was first used by Europeanists. Bruno Le Maire published a book in 2019, The New Empire: Europe in the Twenty-First Century. The word empire may seem rewarding for a Frenchman. It evokes Napoleon. The result of the first Empire, it is all the same the consumption of 100,000 men per year and a story that ends badly.

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Even if it means replaying the village of indomitable Gauls against the armies of Julius Caesar, why no longer defend, as in the past, an exit from the “empire” rather than staying there?

An exit from the European Union would be useless today. Its change from within is at hand. But the analogy with the Gauls is interesting. They were an extremely solid and warlike people. They are beaten, then are absorbed by the Roman Empire. Once in the Empire, they debase themselves. To the point that when the barbarians arrive, they cannot resist them. The vitality is in the nation. The empire dries up the creativity of the people.

I have a very specific example: the invention by a Frenchman of the Minitel at the end of the 1970s. We had felt the digital revolution coming. Today, we missed it, to a point that is difficult to recover. We have not even succeeded in protecting our data and are witnessing the plundering of what is the raw material of the 21e century. The European Union carried a promise of peace and progress. None were held. The Americans created the Gafam, the Chinese the BATX, and there is no European equivalent. There is not even a European GPS. We have been working for twenty-three years on the Galileo project, which is still not operational. The European Union is an economic and technological collapse, because it is driven by an imperial, distant and disembodied vision.

To change the European institutions from within, you need powerful allies and a majority in the European Parliament. However, the negotiations to form a large sovereignist group there have failed…

Alongside Poland and Hungary, 14 countries are already in secession and reject the imperial vision of the European Union. If France refuses it in turn, we will take the lead in this dispute. Other countries will join us. Peoples want to remain peoples. The European Union thinks of itself as immortal, like the Soviet Union in its day. The USSR lasted seventy years. It sank because it failed to bring prosperity. The European Union has existed for seventy-two years.

In the European Parliament, we work very well with the Spanish party Vox. We also have very good relations with the Hungarians of Fidesz. Obviously, it is not easy to sit within the same group the Italians Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini, as to push the Poles of the PIS to overcome their historical resentments. But it is on the right track. This large group will come in the dynamics of the European elections.

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After her first months in power in Italy, the nationalist Giorgia Meloni turns out to be more pro-European than you are, even showing some convergence on the subject with Emmanuel Macron…

Italy is crushed by its debt, it cannot do anything without European money. Giorgia Meloni is obliged to take into account the economic situation of her country and the need for certain European subsidies. We understand that. It defends the national interest of Italy. France is in a different situation. We are net contributors to the European Union budget. We pay, so we have to weigh in the decisions. French voters do not realize how much all European peoples expect them to free them from the yoke. This fight is ours.

One of the challenges for the National Rally during these Europeans risks being an unprecedented number of sovereignist lists: Michel Onfray, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, Florian Philippot, François-Xavier Bellamy, not to mention the candidacy of Reconquest!. Aren’t you afraid of a dilution of votes?

We are going to federate a certain number of them. Florian Philippot is incompatible, since he is in favor of a “Frexit”. Reconquest!, there is a method problem. We cannot forge an alliance with a formation that makes controversy its main mode of operation. On the other hand, we share many analyzes with Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, François-Xavier Bellamy or Michel Onfray. We have every interest in joining forces.

This would create great momentum against a European Union which can no longer make people believe [que] globalization [est] happy nor that immigration is a chance. It cannot be said that the three anniversaries of the Union, that of Schuman’s declaration, the creation of the European Parliament or that of the euro, were celebrated with a bang. Their track record is bad. The empire is wavering but he doesn’t know it yet. Like the Soviet Union in the 1980s.




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