the open election aid from Europe for French President Emmanuel Macron is as understandable as it is dangerous. First, a few days before the election on Sunday, random allegations by the EU anti-fraud agency “OLAF” became public, according to which Macron’s right-wing extremist antipode Marine Le Pen is said to have embezzled around 600,000 euros during her time as MEP.
Now Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his counterparts Pedro Sánchez from Spain and António Costa from Portugal have created a mood for Macron and against Le Pen ahead of the runoff election.
“The French citizens are facing a critical choice – for France and for each and every one of us in Europe,” says the guest article of the three in the newspaper “Le Monde”.
It is “the choice between a democratic candidate who knows that France’s strength is increasing in a powerful and independent European Union,” it says, but on the other hand is “a candidate from the extreme right who openly shows solidarity with those who attack our freedom and democracy.” The interjections are more likely to mobilize Le Pen’s fans than the undecided of the left-wing scene, for whom Macron is at best a half-right.
France is currently one big ghost train at the political fair. The audience remembers that most didn’t think either a US President Donald Trump or Brexit was possible, but that’s exactly what happened.
Now the ghost train customers shudder before the skeletons of the Rassemblement National darting out of the darkness and masks like that of Marine Le Pen. Our weekend report tells us that the EU could pack up with the bourgeois populist.
Economically, it is also clear that our neighboring country did a good job under Macron, if one disregards debt excesses. What the president lacks is the knack for social balance and a minimum of closeness to the people.
20 years ago, the French stood together in the middle and to the left of it and didn’t give Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine’s father, the slightest chance in the runoff. But Macron is not Jacques Chirac, and 2022 is not 2002.
Oh, if only it were as simple as Émile Zola says: “We need books, more and more books! By the book, not by the sword, mankind will conquer falsehood and injustice, conquer final brotherly peace among the peoples.”
Top jobs in the new war economy Russia are anything but secure. You can see that in the example of Vagit Alekperov, 71, who has resigned as head of Russia’s second largest oil company Lukoil.
The energy company he founded in 1991 did well alongside the state-owned companies Rosneft and Gazprom. In terms of Putinism, however, Lukoil was off track when an immediate end to the military operation in Ukraine was called for: “We are committed to the immediate end of the armed conflict and fully support its solution through the negotiation process and through diplomatic means.”
Oligarch Alekperov, the tenth richest Russian with assets of around $10.5 billion, was placed on a sanctions list by Britain a week ago. This fact and the distance to Putin may be the reason for the withdrawal.
There is a turning point in Berlin. There, the red-green-red government coalition has agreed with the FDP parliamentary group to lower the voting age to 16 years. “Young people deserve a vote,” said SPD faction leader Raed Saleh. And FDP parliamentary group leader Sebastian Czaja spoke of a “sign of lived intergenerational justice”.
The generation of 16-year-olds will later have to take over and take responsibility for the decisions that are currently being made. The fact that the teenagers are very committed is shown by their commitment to better education policy.
Together with the FDP, the red-green-red coalition in Berlin has the necessary two-thirds majority for a constitutional change, without which the 16-Plan will not work. So far, the lowering of the voting age had failed because of the CDU. But it no longer has the big say in individual federal states.
When politicians still believed in Keynes and in a “global control” of all economic and political problems, they came into the arena with a magic cloak and presented the “Magic Square”.
In 1967, the national goal of “macroeconomic balance” was packed into a law with four goals: stable prices, high employment, steady and reasonable economic growth and external balance.
At the latest when Germany was producing high export surpluses for years, the crisis management theory of the then Economics Minister Karl Schiller was de facto done away with. Handelsblatt professor Bert Rürup calls for a “new magic square” in his column “Der Chefökonom”.
What is meant is a “course that is as growth-friendly as possible, which at the same time takes into account climate protection, energy security, monetary stability and the aging of the population.” All of this is difficult enough in view of the climate catastrophe and geoeconomic upheavals. Rürup’s advice: orient yourself less to Schiller and more to Joseph Schumpeter and his theory of “creative destruction”.
When established corporations also want to be successful as software houses, it becomes difficult. VW boss Herbert Diess can sing a song about it. At the Cariad subsidiary, which was overloaded with the best hopes and wants to contribute a lot of software for the car operating system and autonomous driving, schedules had to be postponed. According to our report, the first top managers and software specialists have already left.
Allianz has already drawn consequences in its IT strategy. The “Süddeutsche Zeitung” reports that the insurance group is abandoning its plan to offer its own “Allianz operating system” (ABS) software to other insurers in the future.
The property rights fell to a foundation, were generally accessible and the alliance started the software company Syncier for the paid adaptation to special user needs. Microsoft still holds three percent of it, it used to be ten percent. The disillusionment that Allianz boss Oliver Bäte experienced is still to come.
My culture tip for the weekend: “The Dropout” on Disney+the definitive series about the rise and fall of one-time Silicon Valley legend Elizabeth Holmes, brilliantly played by Amanda Seyfried.
Holmes wanted to revolutionize health diagnostics with her company Theranos and a true blood-drawing miracle machine, but the technology was far more complicated than the start-up’s PR brochures.
Under Mrs. Holmes, the young company stuck to the philosophy of “fake it till you make it” until there was nothing left to do – apart from the task of organizing a good defense in court.
This smoothly told story does not offer a happy ending. The Theranos founder, portrayed as a female Steve Jobs, is convicted of fraud and faces 10 years behind bars. credits
And then there is the London football club Chelsea FC, which the anti-Putin sanctions policy wrested from the oligarch Roman Abramovich. A bizarre bidding war has ensued around the club.
Tennis star Serena Williams and Formula 1 hero Lewis Hamilton have both agreed to join investor Martin Broughton’s offer with a contribution of ten million pounds each. The US Ricketts family, owners of the Chicago Cubs baseball team, has also agreed to pay around 2.5 billion euros for the club, which has been in deficit for years.
Chelsea FC is currently under the auspices of the English state, and the British government wants Abramovich not to benefit from the sale either. The money should go to a charitable organization or at least to one of Abramovich’s frozen accounts.
Marie Curie has the final word: “There is nothing to fear in life, you just have to understand everything.”
It greets you cordially
Her
Hans Jürgen Jakobs