Category: VIEWS

Mr Putin has just played against his country and, incidentally, shot himself in the foot. Mr Putin is definitely losing his hand, he panics and blinds himself because what did he do when the European Union sent him the head of its diplomacy to try to prevent the Navalny affair from jeopardising any joint action by the 27 and the Russians on their common grounds of interest?

The worst cannot be ruled out. Let us imagine for a moment that the funds of the European recovery plan take even longer to be allocated, that industrial and commercial bankruptcies stifle trade, and that a crisis, a real crisis, sets in with its cohorts of unemployed and its stock market collapse. Let us imagine that, at the same time, for fear of weakening his Senate majority, Joe Biden wastes too much time seeking a compromise with the Republicans, that, as a consequence, the recovery of the American economy is compromised and that the loss of confidence in this new president ends up paralysing his team.

It is like the Bolero. At first, the tune is barely audible, then, as it returns again and again, it hooks, fills up and soon deafens the ears. We are still only halfway through the piece when the melody becomes insidiously overpowering, but this little music, which rises to the glory of dictatorships and their supposed superiority over democracy…

He wants to act quickly. Starting on Wednesday, the first day of his mandate, Joe Biden wants to tackle, through presidential decrees, the crises of the Covid epidemic, the climate, the economy, interracial relations in order “to put our country back on its feet”, says his entourage, and “to restore America’s place in the world”.

The gravity of the situation is elsewhere. The gravest concern is not that a few hundred morons were able to force their way into the Capitol and that five people lost their lives. Many newspapers and prominent American figures saw this as an “attempted coup d’Etat”, but where were the forces – regiments, police or armed militias – ready to take power by substituting a dictatorship for American democracy?