Category: VIEWS

The French industry will survive this. It is even possible that the inconsistency of the United States and its manner of treating its allies will bring it new clients, but what is being damaged today, really, seriously, gravely, is the solidarity of the great democracies, because for Europeans, for all Europeans and not only for France, the message is clear.

These Russian elections will be like no other. They will of course have nothing to do with a democratic election, the results of which are always uncertain. Nor will they be comparable to the distorted competitions of “democratorships” which, like Hungary, can muzzle the press but must nevertheless submit to the verdict of the ballot boxes. Nor will next weekend’s Russian elections be comparable to those of Soviet times, which fully guaranteed the triumph of the forecasters, but then what?

It is a slow poison, a little tune in our ears that would like to convince us that, in the end, no, the aspiration to freedom might not be universal. Many peoples, we hear more and more often, the majority of them no doubt, would prefer servitude to democracy, and the triumphant return of the Taliban would be proof of this.

Let’s say it out loud, coldly, but it is how it is. The frantic flight of the French from Algeria had been far more atrocious than these moments of horror in Kabul. In Saigon, the United States was losing the battle to the Communist bloc, and attacks like those of Thursday have been beyond count since September 11. There is nothing really new in Kabul except that the world suddenly sees there what it already knew without having wanted to realize it.

I understand Joe Biden’s reasons, I do. He has an economy to revive. He has to convince the middle classes not to give control of Congress back to Donald Trump in 2022. His priority is to meet the Chinese challenge and should he get even more involved in Afghanistan, where the Taliban already control more than three quarters of the territory?