By setting up a single database centralizing information on the entire French population behind their backs, France’s Socialist Party (PS) government is giving the state vast repressive powers. Coming amid the state of emergency, it constitutes a fundamental threat to democratic rights, in particular to opposition within the working class to austerity and war.

The database, named “Secure Electronic Titles” (TES), was decreed into existence on October 30. It centralizes the personal and bio-metric data of all holders of passports or national identity cards. It concerns over 60 million people, that is, virtually the entire French population. The official launch of the database took place last Tuesday in the Yvelines area and will be extended across France at the beginning of 2017.

The database was prepared in violation of the law, behind the backs of the population. It was first proposed in 2011 at the National Assembly, during a debate on a secure national ID card, and sharply criticized by the National Commission on Information-Processing and Liberties (CNIL). While recognizing as “legitimate the use of bio-metric information to identify a person,” the CNIL ruled that “bio-metric data must be conserved in an individualized data system.”

The new TES replaces and combines a former TES, which contained passport data, and the National Management Database (FNG), which contained ID card data. It also adds data, including a digital photo of the face, fingerprints, eye data, and physical and electronic addresses. These data are conserved for 15 years (for passports) and 20 years (for ID cards).

The TES database violates legal limits on the use of bio-metric data, moreover, since fingerprints and retina scans are indelible and can be used to remotely identify individuals, and not simply authenticate that an individual presenting himself to the state indeed is who he purports to be. In 2012, the Constitutional Council invalidated an attempt to set up a similar database, ruling that such a database would serve not only to authenticate but also to identify individuals.

Thus, by creating the TES database, the PS government of President François Hollande trampled the recommendations of the CNIL and the Constitutional Council’s veto in 2012.

Having created the TES by decree, the government will find it easy to modify its functioning to increase its powers, as was the case for the national DNA database. According to Guillaume Desgens-Pasanau, a magistrate and lecturer and the National Conservatory of Arts and Professions (CNAM), “once the database of 60 million people is there, one can easily add a search function, for instance. It is quite easy, as it is regulated via a decree and therefore does not require new legislation.”

Beyond the risk that TES data could be pirated, the police, gendarmerie, customs and the intelligence services, as well as Interpol, will have access to tools that reinforce pre-existing surveillance infrastructure.

Speaking to Agence France-Presse (AFP), CNIL President Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin described her concerns regarding the TES: “It is very clear that we are not dealing with a database whose ultimate goal is to struggle against identity theft … This large-scale mechanism raises fears that it can be used for other purposes, not today, but in the coming period.”

The attacks on democratic rights, the police-state measures, and the pervasive domestic spying set up by the Hollande administration constitute an immense danger for the working class. A government even further to the right than the PS, armed with such powerful surveillance tools, could easily go even further than Hollande in repressing workers’ opposition to austerity and war.

The creation of the TES database is part of a far broader installation of a police state by Hollande after the November 13 terror attacks, committed by Islamist networks mobilized by the NATO powers in their war for regime change in Syria.

Police repression of protests against the PS’ deeply regressive labor law, a few months after the imposition of the state of emergency, exposed the more fundamental objectives of the police state crackdown. Hollande used a vast police deployment to detain hundreds of youth, intimidate high school and university student protesters, and physically crush strikes against his anti-worker policies.

The state of emergency went hand in hand with stepped-up attacks by the PS against Muslims and immigrants, with raids on hundreds of predominantly Muslim families in working class areas.

The collection of physical information as well as data on people’s political opinions is aimed at allowing police and intelligence agencies to identify and track existing and potential opponents of state policy. The AGDREF-2 database, which contains bio-metric data, including all ten fingerprints for 7 million non-citizensresiding legally or illegally in France, can also be used to identify individuals.

Given the anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim statements from both official and far-right circles, such a database could serve to identify and deport via detention camps immigrants and Muslims—a possibility mooted by far-right journalist Eric Zemmour after the Charlie Hebdo attacks.

These are all indications that the TES database is part of a broad construction of a police state in France, aiming to crush working class opposition to the austerity and war policies advanced by the PS. This has been broadly discussed in the ruling class and state circles in the European Union (EU).

Writing for the EU Institute for Security Studies, Thomas Ries, the leader of the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, called for the growing recourse to military means in dealing with social problems: “…the percentage of the population who were poor and frustrated would continue to be very high, the tensions between this world and the world of the rich would continue to increase, with corresponding consequences. Since we will hardly be able to overcome the origin of this problem by 2020, i.e., the functional defects of society, we will have to protect ourselves more strongly.”

This points to the deep crisis of capitalist rule, as the ruling class attacks fundamental democratic rights to confront rising social tensions and working class anger against war and social inequality.

The public fury last week in France boiled over into ugly scenes in several cities, with protests spreading across the country, fanning out from the capital Paris. The French public are furious. And they have right to be.

The uproar mounting over several months now is due to the government’s plan to overhaul the country’s comprehensive labor laws. The essential thrust is to re-write the laws in order to make private businesses and companies hire more workers – by making it easier for them to fire workers!

If that sounds contradictory, then it is a fitting epitome of this French government. President Francois Hollande and his ruling Socialist Party led by Prime Minister Manuel Valls claim, at the risk of sounding tautologous, to be «socialists».

Yet the supposed socialist government is embarking on a ruthless project to smash workers’ rights on behalf of capitalist enterprise.

This week premier Valls presented his so-called labor «reforms» to business representatives and to France’s powerful trade unions. Neither were pleased, with the business groups scoffing that the government had caved into public protests over their much-touted reforms, while unions claimed the proposed changes were still an unacceptable assault on workers.

Students and workers are now pushing ahead with even bigger protests, with more nationwide demonstrations reportedly planned over the coming weeks. It appears that Valls’ government has ignited a firestorm that it can no longer douse.

Valls’ economy minister, Emmanuel Macron, is the personification of the French government’s widely perceived betrayal, in the eyes of ordinary Socialist Party members and the wider public. Reports describe the 38-year-old rising star as being seen as «toxic» by many ordinary French. Macron is a former investment banker who worked at Rothschild before being drafted into government. Yes, that’s right, an investment banker for one of the world’s major capitalist enterprises is given the portfolio of economy minister in an avowedly socialist government. Eh, conflict of interest comes to mind.

It has been Macron’s ministerial brief to push through «business-friendly reforms». Speaking at the Davos summit earlier this year – the annual confab for global capitalists – Macron told his audience that France’s «bloated» labor laws would be stripped. He particularly mocked the country’s statutory limit of a 35-hour working week, vowing that company management would henceforth be allowed to set their own limits.

Macron has also talked about smashing other «glass ceilings», such as relatively strict rules against firing workers and onerous financial compensation for employees who claim they have been unfairly dismissed by bosses. Another target for Macron is to do away with collective bargaining by trade unions, and to permit firms to negotiate terms of pay and conditions with individual workers.

From the capitalists’ point of view – and evidently it is a view shared by premier Valls and his economy minister – the root problem for France’s sluggish growth and high unemployment is that workers have too many rights. By making it easier for private companies to fire workers or make their employees clock up longer hours – so the argument goes – the bosses will be inclined to take on more staff, which it is assumed will result in higher macroeconomic growth for the country.

France wants to follow the Anglo-American model. Britain and the US appear to have better economic performances than France and lower official unemployment rates. The US jobless rate is reported at around 5 per cent, whereas the French unemployment figure is 10 per cent, with the rate rising among youth to 25 per cent. But in Britain and the US, workers are notoriously stressed from much longer working weeks up to 48-60 hours. They also suffer from so-called «in-work poverty» from being underpaid, with less legal protections against hire-and-fire bosses and «zero-hours contracts».

In other words, Britain and the US are more nakedly capitalist models where workers are mere profit-making inputs to be cast aside when no longer required. Britain and the US may be sought after as destinations for unemployed migrants who are desperate for any form of income. But that is no endorsement from a humane viewpoint.

What we have here are fundamental questions of ideology and morality. Are workers and the rights they have won over centuries of labor struggles to be discarded like human chattel?

Compared with the Anglo-American model, France’s relatively more civilized culture for workers should be seen as a virtue to be staunchly defended, not sacrificed on the altar of insatiable profit-making.

Another fundamental ideological difference is that the French government is following the official British and American prejudice that scapegoats workers for low economic growth. In this logic, economic growth can only be revived by making workers toil harder and longer. The more insecure the workers are made to feel, then the harder they will work and the more bosses’ profits will be boosted.

This is a fallacious – not to say immoral – way of looking at contemporary economic conditions. Since the global economic crash in 2008, what needs to be understood is that the problem of low growth in France, Europe, and even the seemingly better UK and US, is not really an issue of worker productivity. It is a much bigger question about a fundamental, historic breakdown in the capitalist system. This is reflected in the record level of inequality between a tiny elite and the vast majority of society. Chronic poverty and austerity wages are why consumption and growth have become stagnant. The systematic injustice needs to abolished, not appeased.

The French government, as in so many other Western countries, has become nothing more than a lobby for the capitalists and their financial oligarchy. Bailouts for the bankers and bosses, but buckets of misery for the masses. What governments should be doing is defending the rights of the vast majority and pushing an agenda that radically redistributes justice in the form of much higher taxes on corporations and the rich, while bringing banks under public control. In a word, socialism is required, not more draconian capitalism.

It looks like the French population at large have finally run out of tolerance for the pseudo-socialists ruling in Paris. Shamelessly, this government is attacking basic rights and mocking touchstones of civility, such as a cap of 35 working hours per week. It truly is Orwellian when such a basic benchmark of human decency is blithely despised by those who claim to be «serving the people».

In a more rationale society why shouldn’t workers’ hours be reduced to 25 hours and let the firms take on more staff to maintain output. Oh, it reduces profits and rich dividends for directors, they might say? Well, too bad, let the exploiters take a cut. Better still, let workers and the public take ownership of companies and banks.

One irony in French politics is that Manuel Valls and his de facto capitalist administration have become hysterical about the popular rise of Marine Le Pen’s National Front. Valls and others on the pseudo left deprecate Le Pen’s party as racist, extremist and even fascist. It is arguable that the National Front has gained popular support, as with other similar parties across Europe, precisely because of increasing economic insecurity among workers and society generally. That insecurity, in turn, feeds into anti-immigrant hostility among some sections who see their livelihoods threatened by foreigners.

Ironically, perhaps the biggest recruiting agency for the National Front in France is the pseudo-socialist government of Manuel Valls and his president Francois Hollande. These charlatans are not only attacking workers on behalf of private profit, they are fueling social strife, breakdown, hatred, xenophobia and, in its worst manifestation, fascism.

The danger of a fascist state is not hyperbole. France’s emergency laws deployed since the terror attacks last November in Paris forbid all public demonstrations – in the interest of «national security». As public protests over the coming weeks rightly and legitimately challenge the reactionary French government’s attack on workers, it is only a matter of time before riot-police squads begin to implement mass detention of these same demonstrators, under the pretext that they are threatening national security.

That raises a grim and not inconceivable scenario. French workers and students clubbed off the streets by armed police and thrown into prison without due legal process. Because they oppose an authoritarian government shredding their legal rights? No wonder echoes of 1968 are in the French air.

France is in the throes of a «secret war» in Libya – in audacious violation of international law. But to report on this criminality is an offense! Welcome to the Orwellian world of double-think that the French state has entered.

A report in French newspaper Le Monde this week lifted the lid on France’s clandestine operations in the North African country. It said that French special forces were conducting covert missions to set up air strikes against the Islamic State terror group.

The mission has been authorized by French President Francois Hollande, according to Le Monde. The special forces are being deployed for «discreet action» to prepare strikes on Islamist targets.

Immediately, France’s Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian came down on the publication like a ton of bricks, alleging that the newspaper may have «compromised» national state security.

State-owned news channel, France 24, quoted a spokesman for Le Drian as saying: «When secret operations are taking place, the goal is they are not revealed for the security of the men and the operations».

Or, to put it more accurately: when criminal, unlawful violations against other country’s sovereignty and international law are taking place, the goal is they must not be revealed to the public. Otherwise the authors of such crimes will be seen for what they are: rogue-state criminals. No wonder Monsieur Le Drian has been photographed this week looking more grumpy than usual.

The repercussions could be severe for Le Monde, or any other news outlet, reporting on the matter. The French government says it is probing if there has been a «leak of classified information» over the report. Violation of French «defense secrecy rules» carries a penalty of up to three years in prison and a fine of €45,000 ($50,000).

So let’s get this straight. French elite military forces and agents belonging to the state intelligence service, DGSE, are present in Libya and are ordering in air strikes against jihadist targets, according to Le Monde. Yet, to report on this French state-sponsored lawlessness is potentially «a crime», according to those who are responsible for the bigger crime of violating a country’s sovereignty.

The chilling effect on independent journalism is no doubt fully intended. Government commits crimes, don’t report it, seems to be the watchword.

Le Monde is not the only news outlet disclosing the Western ratcheting up of war – again – in Libya. In the past week, the New York Times reported that American, British, French and Italian special forces were operating in Libya. It is understood that these combined covert forces do not have any legal mandate for conducting their activity. There is no UN mandate for such operations, and there are no Libyan authorities worth talking about to give approval. This is simply unmitigated lawlessness writ large.

Since the US and other NATO forces bombed the hell out of Libya for seven months in 2011, resulting in up to 30,000 Libyan deaths and the overthrow of the government of Muammar Gaddafi, and his murder by NATO-backed jihadists, the country has been in a state of utter chaos, riven by feuding militias.

Any central authority that existed in Libya has been pulverized – by NATO. The French government in particular under former President Nicolas Sarkozy bears heavy responsibility for turning the once-prosperous Libya into this failed abject state.

Since then, the Americans and their Western allies have been able to bomb Libya at will. Last November, a US air strike reportedly killed an Islamic State commander, Abu Nabil, in the east of the country. Last week, another US air strike hit an alleged IS training camp in Sabathra, west of Tripoli, killing more than 40.

Following that latest strike, the so-called «unity government» of Libya, based in exile in Tunis, which the Western powers have been trying to cobble together, even condemned that action as a violation of Libyan sovereignty.

The NATO powers have destroyed Libyan sovereignty, and yet even a shell of governing semblance, which the West endorses, has raised objection to Western military interference.

This is Orwellian beyond words. Bombed state, failed state, jihadist chaos, the West then bombs to allegedly defeat terror groups it helped install in this failed state, and there is no national authority to properly object, because NATO obliterated such authorities; and then when a news organization reports on the latest twist in this state-sponsored criminality it is threatened with «compromising» state security.

There is no other way to assess this. France, as with its other Western accomplices led by the US, is descending into full-blown fascism. Lawlessness is the norm. Bombing countries has become a preordained, god-given right. And if reported on, then prosecution follows.

And why should we be surprised? France embraced fascism 75 years ago when the Vichy state became a willing, zealous collaborator with Nazi Germany and its genocidal program. Tens of thousands of French citizens were shunted off in trains to be exterminated in fascist death camps by their French rulers.

Today, under the rubric of «combating terrorism» – terrorism that Paris fomented in Libya and Syria – the French authorities have imposed a state of emergency on their citizens. French President Hollande and his shrill prime minister Manuel Valls declare that «France is at war» against the Islamic State terror group – a network that came to life through illegal French sponsorship of jihadists to overthrow the governments of Libya and Syria.

French state «emergency powers» have permitted thousands of French homes to be raided without warrants in recent months since the terror attacks in Paris on November 13. The French rulers give themselves fascistic powers against citizens over a case of terror blow back – blow back that they have largely created through their international lawlessness in the first place.

Now the state sponsors of terrorism who destroyed Libya are giving themselves carte blanche to go back into Libya – under the pretext of «fighting terrorism» – to maraud and bomb that country with special forces.

Step back and see it for what it is. We are on a path of wanton lawlessness, fascism and perdition. The very people in government who should be held to account and prosecuted for international crimes are committing more such crimes under their own self-referencing criminality. And when the public ought to know about this, the rogues in government then throw up their spurious self-justifying claims of «national security» and threaten to lock-up «violators».

The conceited French notions about «free speech» and «human rights» are so overblown. So, so overblown. Meanwhile, despicable history of actual participation in fascist crimes are so overlooked and pushed down the memory hole. Well, we might know why the latter is. Because the same French ruling establishment is once again embracing the vile darkness of the past.

Orwell, bienvenue – encore!

Mr Putin started his address by calling the concluded meeting “frank and substantive” and naming “the issue of jointly combating international terrorism” as its primary objective. 

“Russia and France know what it means to act in the spirit of alliance; we have come together more than once throughout our history. Today, we agreed to step up our joint efforts on the anti-terrorist track, to improve the exchange of operational information in the fight against terrorism and establish constructive work between our military experts in order to avoid overlapping incidents and to focus our efforts on ensuring that our work in fighting terror is more effective, avoiding any strikes against territories and armed forces that are themselves fighting terrorists. Mr Hollande and I are looking at this kind of cooperation as concrete and practical input towards forming a broad anti-terrorist coalition, a broad anti-terrorist front under the auspices of the United Nations. I will note that the number of nations sharing this initiative is growing.” – noted the President.

Following the opening speech delivered by Vladimir Putin President Hollande stated: “Last week, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution that all countries in the world should take the necessary measures to coordinate their efforts to eliminate the “Islamic State”, and we should pursue this process.

…Since 2011, the chaos in Syria has created a huge wave of refugees, and over 300,000 people have been killed, and so now we need to find a political solution to this crisis, but there are requirements for this that should be followed.

We believe that the following conditions should be met if we are to ensure a political transition process. A coalition government, an independent government, should be formed during a transition period.

… it is imperative that Russia should play the main, one of the main roles in this process. I’ve told Mr Putin that France is ready and willing to work with Russia hand in hand towards our common objective, which is to fight terrorist groups, above all ISIS. It is for this reason that I believe our meeting today to be of outmost importance. Mr Putin and I have agreed on three main points.

First, we intend to step up the exchange of intelligence and any other information between our respective forces.

Second, we will intensify strikes against ISIS and coordinate them so as to enhance their efficiency.

Third, as Mr Putin has also pointed out, we need to make sure that our air strikes concentrate on the “Islamic State” and terrorist groups.

Let me tell you that Europe is about to mobilise its forces to combat terrorism. I would like to ask defence ministers from across Europe to take the necessary decisions for coordinating their actions. The United Kingdom will also participate. I spoke with Mr Cameron about this. I also discussed a number of issues with Ms Merkel yesterday. Mr Putin and I have also agreed that we will exchange information and specific actions as regards another important issue – the developments in eastern Ukraine. We will continue to work on that within the Normandy format.

Our fight against terrorism in Syria does not affect France’s commitment to find a political solution to the Ukrainian crisis.

We must fully implement all the measures that are stipulated in the Minsk Agreements. This is why I wanted to come to Moscow today to meet with Mr Putin. Mr Putin will come to Paris on Monday to participate in the climate change conference. I think the current situation and the fight against terrorism required my visit to Moscow today.” 

Answering a question about the role of President Assad in the future of Syria, President Putin replied: “I believe that the fate of the Syrian president should be entirely in the hands of the Syrian people. This is the first point.

Second, we all believe that successfully fighting terrorists in Syria is impossible without ground operations, and today the only force that can conduct ground operations against ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra, and other terrorist organisations, is the Syrian government army.

In this regard, I believe that President Assad's army and he himself are our natural allies in fighting terrorism. There may be other forces that claim they are willing to fight terrorists. …We have already established such contacts with some of them, and … we are willing to support their efforts in fighting ISIS and other terrorist groups, just as we support the Assad army.

We …will exchange information with France about the areas that are being held by healthy opposition, not terrorists, and will refrain from delivering air strikes at them. We will also exchange information, when we – France and Russia – know for sure that certain areas are captured by terrorist organisations, and we will coordinate our efforts with regard to those areas.” 

When asked about the incident that took place on Tuesday as a result of which a Russian bomber was shot down by Turkish jet fighters and possible implications of the incident, Vladimir Putin stated: “…we considered Turkey to be a friendly state and simply didn’t expect an attack from that side. This is why we regard this attack as treacherous.

Now we see what’s possible, and our people were killed. We’re duty bound to ensure the safety of our air force. This is why we’ve deployed the modern S-400 system there. It’s a long range air-defence system and is one of the most effective such systems in the world.

However, we won’t limit ourselves to this. If necessary, we’ll support our air operations with fighter jets, and any other means, including electronic warfare systems. We have plenty of alternatives, and now we’ll use them.

This is not in conflict with what we’re doing with the US-led coalition. We exchange information with them, but now we’re very worried about the nature of this exchange and the results of this cooperation.

…The American side, which leads the coalition, to which Turkey is also a party, knew about the location and time of our operation. And this is precisely where we were hit.

…We considered Turkey not just a neighbour, but a friendly nation, almost an ally. It is very sad to see this being destroyed in such a thoughtless and reckless manner.

… It’s highly regrettable that instead of seriously analysing this issue and making sure that such incidents never happen again, we are hearing inconclusive explanations and statements that they don’t have anything to apologise for. Anyway, this is Turkey’s choice, not ours.”

Mr Hollande also offered his comment on the issue: “This is a very serious incident, and I regret that it happened. It is perfectly clear that it is necessary to avoid any risk and any possible repetition of this sort of thing at this time and place. It is critical that we refrain from escalating the situation. The only goal that we should all set for ourselves is the fight against ISIS and the elimination of the terrorists. We have no other goals. We must enhance coordination between our countries so that the armed forces present in the region and the aircraft capable of conducting air strikes do not interfere with each other so as to prevent any encounters leading to deplorable consequences and collisions. We need to do our outmost to prevent this from happening again.

…we have agreed on the need to carry out strikes against terrorists only, only against ISIS and jihadist groups. It is crucial in this respect that groups that are also combating terrorists are not targeted by air strikes. It is in this area that we intend to share information with each other, as was discussed during the meeting.

We have to understand who can fight and who can’t, who should or should not be targeted. Consequently, our current objective is to try to avoid any incidents of this kind between the countries that are engaged in counter-terrorist efforts in Syria. Second, we must identify goals that would be clear to everyone.”

The trips to meet US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin would be made in the context of action by the international community in the struggle against the Islamic State and the effort to handle the situation in Syria. The meetings are to be part of international efforts to combat Islamic State militants and resolve the situation in Syria.

The inclusion of Russia into the itinerary an international coalition shows a shift in Paris’s stance after the deadly terrorist attacks. The French leader spoke with Mr. Putin on November 17 to prepare his visit to Moscow and coordinate efforts against the Islamic State (IS). Hollande earlier called on the US and Russia, both of which lead a separate effort to eradicate IS, to join forces. Moscow said a broad coalition was needed to defeat the terrorists, but the US said it would only agree if Syrian President Bashar Assad steps down. «Bottom line is, I do not foresee a situation in which we can end the civil war in Syria while Assad remains in power», Barack Obama told reporters in Manila on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

On the night of terror in Paris, French President Francois Hollande declared that the attacks were «an act of war» executed and planned by the Islamic State. 

In the days following the attack, France enhanced its counterterrorism activities in Syria. French fighter jets are conducting more airstrikes against terrorist targets.

A French naval group led by Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier has moved to is leading to the Syrian coast to boost French forces already deployed to the region.

On November 18, Hollande called for the creation of a broad coalition, which would see the US, Russia and other stakeholders join efforts to destroy the terrorist group.

Should it be created, it would truly be a global collective defense against a common threat to all humanity.

NATO: more words than deeds

The Paris tragedy prompted many to say that the French President could then invoke Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which stipulates that an attack on one country should be treated as an attack against all NATO members. Such an invocation would call on the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and others to assist in the effort to «restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.» It has not happened.

«This is clearly an act of war and an attack on one of our NATO allies, and we should invoke Article 5 of the NATO agreement, and bring everyone together to put together a coalition to confront this challenge», Republican Senator and presidential candidate Marco Rubio said on ABC’s This Week.

Article 5 of the NATO charter – the collective defense provision – has been invoked only once in the NATO’s 66-year history: after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. Should the collective defense clause be invoked by France or any other member, and ratified by NATO’s governing body, the North Atlantic Council, it could prompt some European armies that have so far played little if any role in the anti-IS campaign to get directly involved. It could also push President Barack Obama, who has been reluctant to involve large numbers of US forces in the conflict, to step up American involvement – which now includes air strikes in both Iraq and Syria; roughly 3,500 U.S. troops training and advising Iraqi forces; and the newly announced deployment of roughly 50 special forces troops into Syria.

Invoking Article 5 would require a full consensus among all member states – and there are prevailing pressures pushing in multiple directions. A number of NATO countries, particularly newer members that joined after the Cold War, may not view the IS as the top threat to European security. A more robust NATO role in Syria or Iraq would also likely require cooperating with Russia. 

«That’s really where the rubber meets the road. I don’t think there is any more appetite [among NATO nations] to use military force than there was yesterday or the day before. I don’t see that changing by invoking Article 5. You could argue that invoking Article 5 may be a feel good measure that leaves people off the hook from doing more», said Ivo Daalder, who served as the US ambassador to NATO from 2009 to 2013.

He said a number of NATO countries, particularly newer members, that joined after the Cold War, may not view the IS as the top threat to European security and still see Russia as enemy number one. «Let’s not forget that there are many NATO allies who think the threats in the east are at least as large as the threats in the south and would be worried that too much attention to the south would divert attention from the east», said Daalder, who is now head of the Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs.

«NATO is not going to solve this problem», said Rep. Steve Israel, a New York Democrat and member of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee. It needs to be modernized to deal with non-conventional threats that are operating in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere», He noted adding that «We need a new NATO to fight asymmetric terrorism», Israel added, to include «new allies to create a stronger intelligence capacity on the ground in Syria and Iraq».

«NATO is neither a member of the international coalition against ISIL nor does it have a mandate to play a coordinating or facilitating role in the fight», wrote Andreas Jacobs and Jean-Loup Samaan, research advisers at the NATO Defence College in Rome. 

Former NATO commander in Europe retired Admiral James Stavridis, currently dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University, believes that that disagreements among the NATO partners in the past have hampered its ability to act in unison and that it has struggled in recent years to identify its primary role in global security. 

Actually, Article 5 can be invoked only if it was determined that the attack was perpetrated by a foreign actor, and not an incidence of domestic terrorism. Many NATO member states have suffered from domestic terrorism over the years, but it does not fall under the collective defense provisions of the Treaty. In a way, it was domestic in the case of France. A NATO mission based on Article 5 would likely be dominated by the United States, particularly given that NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander (SACEUR) is an American. Some in France may see it as an encroachment on national sovereignty. But Paris cannot efficiently fight the IS alone. France has asked for European solidarity and wants the US and Russia to cooperate in the endeavor. 

Experts said that France is unlikely to officially call on NATO, because the United States may oppose such a move. A NATO presence in the region also could do more harm than good in building an international coalition. 

In his speech at G20 summit US President Barack Obama cautioned that it would be a mistake to have full-scale ground force operations against the Islamic State instead advocating for a measured approach that seeks to prevent repeating errors made in other recent US wars. 

The introduction of these measures may be expedient, but it’s not clear how it’s going to work if barbarians did not come from across the borders. The attack was carried out by the criminals mixed with local Muslim diaspora.

Is François Hollande aware of the fact that the “death industry” is an established business that the Islamic State leaders and some circles in Saudi Arabia and Qatar have interest in? Does he not know that there are financial flows coming to provide funds for ideological brainwashing, recruitment and operations of suicide bombers? Does he not know this evil could be eradicated only by cutting off financial flows coming to the Islamic State?

Does the French President know that only the United States can put an end to this deadly cycle as the actor capable of influencing Turkey used by the Islamic State as a transition country for oil exports? Does he not know that the United States is the only country that could bring to reason the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Qatar?

Doesn’t François Hollande know that terrorists cross Turkey on their way to Europe? Does he not know that Washington has all the aces to enable it to call Turkey to order, if need be? Does the French President understand that the France’s vibrant activities aimed at routing Libya and the popular support for profaningthe Quran by Charlie Hebdo have turned the French into prime targets for terrorists?

He, probably, understands all these things being unable to refuse the policy of solidarity with the United States and interpreting freedom as permissiveness. Otherwise, he would not be a Frenchman. 

Today, terrorists and those who represent them say they will not limit their activities with the territory of France. They will move on to Rome, London and Washington. It brings up the question posed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in his address to the United Nations General Assembly. Heasked, “Doyourealizewhatyouhavedone?”

The results of the recent meeting on Syria held by almost 20 countries in Vienna show that the West reluctantly cedes some ground to Russia making very small concessions. It hopes to protract the process. The parties to the talks have only agreed on some general outlines of Syria’s crisis management during the next 18 months. Actually, therearenopracticalresults. A year and a half is too long. Too many things may occur during this period of time to bring any accords to naught. The war can go on forever until all the parties join together in the effort to defeat the Islamic State. It’sacrucialissue. Noprogress,whatsoever, has been reached so far. It’s hard for the United States to refuse manipulating countries and peoples through controlled chaos. The Moscow’s calls for uniting efforts in the fight against the Islamic State fall on deaf ears in Washington. Sometimes it offers fatuous excuses.

Moreover, Western politicians try to make Russia a rogue state. They continue to grab sanctions stick. They have raised ballyhoo about Russian athletes allegedly using doping. They use all the means at their disposal in their anti-Russian drive. In his UN address Vladimir Putin said they are confident of their impunity. That’s what made Washington put forward the marasmatic demand for Moscow to forgive the Ukraine’s sovereign debt. Probably, it wants it to make life easier for Kiev regime being an instrument used for anti-Russia activities.

US President Barack Obama expressed condolences to France in the aftermath of the Paris tragedy. The world did not hear anything from him, except empty words about being adamant in his desire to punish the enemy. Are the Americans serious about sitting it out being separated by the ocean? Do they really believe, that such terrorist acts, as the one just occurred in France, cannot take place in the US?

Why do US politicians not realize that the times when the United States could thrive at the expense of others are over? Do they need the cancer of terrorism to spread around the United States to understand this simple truth? The continuation of this game will give rise to a wave of terrorism to hit the country.

President Hollande says the terrorists have declared war on France. But it’s important that his belated admission does not become another empty figure of speech. To really fight terrorism one must join together with those who pursue the same goal instead of trying to use it for one’s own selfish interests. 

The government did not release any concrete details as to the targets of the strikes or the casualties they caused. The Elysée communiqué declared that the bombing mission was “based on intelligence collected during aerial operations launched over two weeks ago, respecting our autonomy of action and in coordination with our coalition partners.”

In an apparent threat to attack Syrian government forces, the communiqué declared that the air campaign aimed to protect civilians not only from IS, but “also against the deadly bombings of [Syrian] President Bashar al-Assad.”

France’s bombing of Syria, a former French colony, is an act of war that comes amid a broad intensification by all the major imperialist powers of the proxy war for regime-change they launched in 2011, utilizing Islamist militias which they armed and financed. The escalation will increase the bloodshed in Syria and heighten the desperate crisis facing millions of Syrian refugees fleeing to countries in the Middle East and Europe.

The arguments presented to the public by France’s Socialist Party (PS) government to justify this aggression, claiming it is part of a “war on terror” against Al Qaeda-linked Islamists in Syria, are a pack of lies. Referring to IS by its Arab acronym, Daech, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls declared: “We are striking Daech because this terrorist organization is preparing strikes on France from Syria… We are therefore acting in self-defense.”

The argument that France is exercising its right to self-defense in bombing Syria, a country whose government has not attacked France or any French ally, is false on its face. As for the claim that France is fighting terrorism in Syria, it is directly contradicted by the official positions of the French government, which has used Islamist terrorist militias in pursuit of its broader agenda: to topple Assad and install a neo-colonial, pro-NATO regime in Syria.

Last year, as France bombed IS positions within Iraq, French officials refused to target IS forces in Syria, claiming that damaging IS in Syria would reinforce the Assad regime. The inescapable conclusion from this statement is that Paris, in line with the Persian Gulf oil sheikhdoms and influential policy circles in Washington, was backing IS as a proxy force to destroy the Assad regime.

French officials have switched to targeting IS forces within Syria after last month’s foiled terror attack on a Thalys train in northern France by a reportedly IS-trained gunman. But Paris continues to support Islamist terror groups in Syria. Yesterday, Le Monde cited off-the-record official assurances that though French jets will now attack IS positions, they will not bomb the al-Nusra Front, which Paris and Washington view as an ally despite its having been classified by the US government as an Al Qaeda-linked group.

On September 18, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian made clear that France would accept strikes on IS targets only as long as this did not harm the PS’ broader agenda of regime-change against Assad. He said air strikes on IS could be considered, as “the perimeter controlled by forces loyal to Bashar [al-Assad] has shrunk and today, striking Daech no longer means militarily aiding Bashar.”

The proposals for a renewed military escalation in Syria by European and US officials testify to the callous disregard of the ruling elites for the suffering of millions of Syrian refugees and the recklessness of the major imperialist powers, which are risking all-out war in the Middle East.

In February, Hollande warned that France and its NATO allies risked a military clash and “total war” with Russia. At that time, he backed a peace deal championed by Germany between the NATO-backed government in Ukraine and Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine. Despite this warning, which raised the specter of a nuclear Third World War, Hollande finds himself only a few months later pursuing a policy that threatens to provoke a military conflict in Syria with Russia, the Assad regime’s main international backer.

Moscow has been reinforcing an air base near the Syrian port city of Lattakia, reportedly deploying at least 30 fighter jets and preparing to carry out its own air strikes against IS targets in support of the Assad regime. With the Assad regime reportedly continuing to carry out air strikes against IS targets near Raqqa, it appears that French jets will be fighting in air space patrolled by Syrian and Russian warplanes.

Hostilities could easily erupt between Russian planes and jets from France, the US or other imperialist powers that are bombing Syria. At the same time, both NATO and Russian forces have escalated their military strength and alert level across Eastern Europe since the eruption of the civil war in Ukraine triggered by last year’s NATO-backed coup in Kiev.

In this explosive international context, French officials and media are taking aggressive positions threatening Russian and Syrian forces. Speaking to Le Monde yesterday, Defense Minister Le Drian pledged that there would be no exchange of information between French, Russian and Syrian officials regarding actions by the French Air Force in Syria. Le Monde commented, “Russian, like Syrian, fighter jets will not be selected as targets as long as they do not carry out attacks against anti-IS coalition aircraft.”

The implications of this statement are staggering. With the support of its NATO allies, France is launching military operations knowing they could lead to combat between French fighters and Russian and Syrian aircraft. No one has asked the PS government whether French fighter jets are prepared to start a war with Russia by firing on their aircraft, or how far French and NATO officials anticipate the resulting conflict with Russia would go.

In recent weeks, there have been a series of high-level discussions between US, European, Russian and Israeli officials in an attempt to coordinate their policies and avoid firing on each others’ forces as they all intensify their military operations in Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who will hold talks with US officials at the United Nations today and visit Paris for talks on Syria and Ukraine later this week, has signaled that Russia may consider a peace deal with Syria’s Islamist opposition that would see Assad ultimately step down.

Such cynical talks provide no assurance against the eruption of a catastrophic conflict. In 1999, when Russian and NATO troops jointly intervened in Kosovo during the NATO bombing of Serbia, the NATO commander, US General Wesley Clark, ordered an attack on Russian forces arriving at the Pristina airport. Only the decision of Clark’s European subordinates to disobey his order averted a war in the Balkans between the major powers. As Hollande’s statements show, it is far less clear that European officers would refuse such an order today.

Alex Lantier, WSWS.org

The BBC reported that Merkel, Hollande and Putin were “upbeat” on the latest tripartite peace efforts succeeding. Well, “upbeat” may be a bit premature, if the Americans have anything to do with it.

What has probably galvanised the European leaders to push the diplomatic envelope is the reckless proposal from Washington earlier in the week to send more military weapons to the Kiev regime. Notably, Berlin and Paris said they were against supplying any more arms into the Ukraine crisis. Even the British government, normally a stalwart ally of Washington, voiced objection to the latest American weapons proposal. Moscow also warned Washington of the gravity, saying that if the US were to step up its military support for Kiev, that would result in “colossal damage to relations”.

Everyone except the gung-ho Americans and the swivel-eyed neo-Nazi Kiev junta realise that a stepwise increase in US weapons to Ukraine would mark a rubicon moment, where the US is piling into open war on Russia’s vital interests.

While Merkel and Hollande were earnestly endeavouring to find a peaceful way out of the impasse with Putin, it was apparent that a significant divergence between Europe and Washington had emerged.

The absence of US Secretary of State John Kerry from the meetings between Merkel, Hollande and Putin was a glaring sign of this divergence. The Western media were trying to spin a sort of American association with the peace effort, saying that Kerry welcomed the latest peace initiative as “helpful”. The New York Times ran this hollow headline: ‘US and Europe Working to End Ukraine Conflict’. But Kerry’s absence from the Moscow meeting between Merkel, Hollande and Putin told another story.

Back in Munich, American Vice President Joe Biden seemed to be doing his best to provoke Russia with more outrageous slander. Biden was telling delegates that “Russia was escalating the conflict” and “Ukraine was fighting for its very survival”. He also said European questioning of US-led sanctions against Russia were “annoying and inappropriate” and that Europe must stand firm against Russian threats to “redraw the map of Europe”.

John Kerry, meanwhile, was provocatively saying that “Russia must end the bloodshed or we will send arms to Ukraine”. He described Russia as “the biggest threat” to Ukraine.

This is the Americans delivering a self-fulfilling ultimatum to Moscow. Russia has no control over the violence in Ukraine because, despite NATO propaganda, it is not involved, beyond diplomatically supporting the ethnic Russians of eastern Ukraine in their fight against the Western-backed Kiev regime. It is the Kiev regime that controls the violence. It launched the war in the first place and has refused to enter into a mutual dialogue with the separatists in order to bring an end to the violence, which has claimed over 5,400 lives in the past 10 months.

Kerry’s stated refusal this week to meet with the leaders of the self-declared people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk is grist for the Kiev mill of continuing hostility. So, from the US-Kiev dynamic, the violence will continue, unfortunately, and Washington will present that as further “proof” of “Russian-backed insurgency”, which will be used to justify supplying more American weaponry, which will lead to more violence, and so on.

The threat of American military escalation is being articulated as “keeping all options on the table”. The US State Department earlier this week said that proposals from various Washington officials, including John Kerry and incoming Defence Secretary Ashton Carter, for increasing military supplies to Kiev were being considered. “We reserve the right to keep a range of options on the table,” said Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman.

The same formula of threatening words was reiterated by NATO Supreme Commander General Philip Breedlove at the Munich Security Conference. The American four-star general told France 24 in an interview that “all options” of using military force must be kept open with regard to the Ukraine crisis and defending against “Russian aggression”.

Breedlove’s choice of words and policy shows how much NATO is really an instrument of Washington, and not “the alliance” between America and Europe that its grandiloquent name pretends.

Of course, Breedlove, like his political colleagues in Washington, was saying that his priority was for diplomacy. But it is clear that the Americans, despite their words of support for dialogue, are pushing a military confrontation with Russia over Ukraine.

“Keeping all options on the table” with regard to whether it was going to send lethal military equipment to the Kiev regime is an aggressive ultimatum.

In the same breath, Washington says it doesn’t want a proxy war with Russia and that it is giving priority to diplomatic means to resolve the nearly year-old conflict in Ukraine. No-one can possibly believe the weasel words that habitually come out of Washington. A proxy war is exactly what the Americans are pushing – for all intents and purposes, whatever the cynical rhetoric about “diplomatic solutions”.

But here’s the thing: the Europeans seem to be waking up to the fact that they stand to lose far more than Washington if the latter’s agenda for escalating violence continues.

An all-out war on the European landmass is an obvious calamity for the European Union. But even as it is, before an all-out war erupts, the EU is suffering far more from US-led hostilities than America would ever incur. With EU-Russia trade standing at ten times the volume of US-Russia trade, the Europeans have much more to lose. And are losing already –painfully.

Germany is the biggest EU loser from the confrontation with Russia over Ukraine. German exports to Russia are projected to fall by 20 per cent this year compared with the previous year. That amounts to a gaping shortfall of €8 billion to the Germany economy. And what’s bad for Germany is equally bad for the economic prospects of the whole EU, mired as it is in recession and increasing unemployment across the 28-member bloc.

Eckhard Cordes, Chairman of the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations, said of the deteriorating impact on the Germany economy from the US-led trade sanctions on Russia: “We estimate that in Germany 300,000 workers work for Russian exports. As exports have gone down by almost 20 percent…in this respect [we] lost 60 000 jobs. So we expect a further decrease of exports with a negative impact on jobs in Germany,” added Cordes.

American politicians may be talking peace out the side of their mouths, but their full-throated bellicose “all options” threat to Russia speaks of a very different agenda – one of escalating hostilities.

Like the American self-righteous license to endlessly print worthless dollars and run-up trillions of unpaid national debt, Washington expects the rest of the world to bear its insufferable recklessness over Ukraine and toward Russia and Europe. There are growing signs, however, that the Europeans are at last beginning to wake up to the cataclysmic danger of kowtowing to Washington.

The latest peace bid from Merkel and Hollande engaging Putin without the Americans involved is a clear sign that Europe is becoming increasingly wary and despairing of Washington’s drive for war.

It was also reported that French President François Hollande specifically did not invite Netanyahu to Paris but that the Israeli Prime Minister appeared nevertheless just so he could insult his French hosts and politicize the memorial service for the 17 victims for his own selfish political purposes. Netanyahu’s antics in Paris were followed by a visit to French Prime Minister Manuel Valls by members of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish American Organizations, which represents 50 national Jewish groups in the United States, to urge France to withdrawal its recognition of Palestine in the wake of the attacks on the «Charlie Hebdo» offices and the Hyper Cacher Jewish supermarket in Paris.

The entire «Charlie Hebdo» affair has laid bare the inner workings of a newspaper that began as a left-wing counter-culture mocker of the establishment in the aftermath of the Paris Spring uprising of 1968. «Charlie» is a reference to French President Charles De Gaulle who was forced out of office as a result of the Paris student riots of 1968. 

The assassination by two Franco-Algerian brothers, Said and Cherif Kouachi, of «Charlie Hebdo» chief editor Stephane Charbonnier, known as «Charb» to his readers, and three of his top cartoonists, was no surprise to Henri Roussel, the magazine’s founder and original editor whose pen name is Delfeil de Ton. In an interview with «Nouvel Observateur,» Roussel said he warned Charb against provoking Muslims with repeated cartoons, some gratuitously sexual, of the Prophet Mohammed. Roussel said that one of the slain cartoonists feared that the cartoons would come back to «haunt» the newspaper, which suffered an arson attack in 2011. The attack came after the magazine published a Mohammed cartoon on its front cover. Roussel said of the 2011 cartoon: «He [Charb] shouldn’t have done it, but Charb did it again a year later, in September 2012.»

Roussel also accused Charbonnier’s predecessor, Philippe Val, of turning «Charlie Hebdo» into a Zionist and Islamophobic publication. Roussel cited Val’s firing in 2009 of longtime «Charlie Hebdo» cartoonist Maurice Sine for drawing a cartoon lampooning Jean Sarkozy’s marriage to the heiress of a Jewish electronics store chain and his subsequent conversion to Judaism. The cartoon suggested that the son of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy married the heiress of the Darty store chain in order to further his political career. The cartoon bore the notation: «The lad will go far.» Val considered the cartoon to be «anti-Semitic.» Sine told Val that he would «rather cut off [his own] balls» than accede to Val’s demand for an apology to Jewish groups that were offended by the cartoon. Sine began his own publication «Sine Hebdo» with the money he was awarded by a French court for wrongful dismissal by «Charlie Hebdo.» «Hebdo» is the French word for «weekly.»

«Charlie Hebdo’s» new editor, Gérard Biard, told NBC News that «Charlie Hebdo» was an «atheist» publication and that religion should stay out of politics. However, based on the revelations of Roussel and Sine, it appears that «Charlie Hebdo» is far from atheist but a periodical that defames Islam and Christianity while avoiding any real criticism of Judaism. This modus operandi is mirrored by the feminist pressure groups Pussy Riot and FEMEN, the latter largely underwritten before its move from Kiev to Paris by Jed Sunden, the wealthy American Zionist and former publisher of the «Kyiv Post.» While both groups have committed heinous acts at Orthodox Christian and Roman Catholic cathedrals and Islamic mosques they have never conducted protests at misogynistic Orthodox Jewish and Hasidic synagogues. FEMEN and Pussy Riot have never criticized Israel even though domestic Israeli feminist groups have condemned Judaism’s misogynistic practices at Jerusalem’s Western Wall among other locations.

Bare-breasted FEMEN activists have tried to steal the baby Jesus figurine from a Christmas nativity scene at St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, urinated on the altar of La Madeleine Catholic church in Paris, masturbated with crucifixes on St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, physically assaulted the Roman Catholic archbishops of Brussels and Madrid, vandalized property inside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, and sawed down a Christian cross in a park in Kiev. FEMEN also staged a topless protest at a mosque in Stockholm. Pussy Riot conducted an obscene prayer ceremony at Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow. Amina Sboui, a Tunisian feminist, quit FEMEN after suggesting the group is financed by Israel. Sara Winter, the Brazilian organizer of FEMEN, later charged that the group was largely corrupt. Through his byzantine network of non-profit organizations and non-governmental fronts, George Soros’s financial largesse eventually ends up in Pussy Riot’s coffers.

Muslims protesters in the main Muslim city of Marawi in the Philippines obviously saw a connection between «Charlie Hebdo» and Israeli interests when they burned posters of «Charlie Hebdo’s» front page bearing a photograph of Netanyahu and the headline of «Zionist Conspiracy.» The first issue of «Charlie Hebdo» after the massacre at its headquarters bore a cartoon of Mohammed with the comment «Je suis Charlie» («I am Charlie») and that «all is forgiven» («Tout est pardonne») .

The aftermath of the «Charlie Hebdo» attack also resulted in another professional casualty within the ranks of the corporate news media, the ever-diminishing ranks that are not beholden to Israeli propaganda and diktats from the Israel Lobby.

A Twitter message from CNN’s longtime international correspondent Jim Clancy about «Charlie Hebdo» depicting the Prophet Mohammed in a manner that was meant to mock those Muslims who distort his teachings resulted in an exchange of tweets between the veteran newscaster and an operative of the neo-conservative and pro-Israeli Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD). When Clancy suggested that the operative was a «hasbara» troll, that is, an online Israeli propagandist, the CNN reporter became the subject of a character assassination campaign by the same Israel Lobby career-destroying buzz saw that claimed the careers of CNN’s Octavia Nasr and Rick Sanchez and almost capsized that of CNN’s Middle East correspondent Ben Wedeman. All three journalists were attacked for their critical views of Israel’s policies. The same attack mechanism was used against the doyenne of the White House Press Corps, Helen Thomas, who was fired by Hearst Newspapers for her views on illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. She subsequently lost her senior position in the White House Press Briefing Room.

There is little doubt that what Messrs. Roussel and Sine have called the Zionist editors of «Charlie Hebdo» and the tramps, trollops, and whores of FEMEN and Pussy Riot are working hand-in-glove to attack and mock two of three Abrahamic tradition religions: Christianity and Islam. Meanwhile, the third, Judaism, hides its «anti-Gentilism» behind such facades as «Charlie Hebdo» and FEMEN and other groups while proclaiming the importance of free speech.