Macron laments the EU-s nosedive like he-s not one of the pilots

After another climbdown to Washington, Macron is blaming everyone but himself as France’s economy, energy security and authority unravel
So, big bad US President Donald Trump just successfully strong-armed French President Emmanuel Macron and the EU into their precious ‘rainy day’ diesel from strategic reserves.
Why? Because Trump, threatening a disastrous cutoff of diesel exports to Europe altogether, wanted to keep domestic gas prices looking perky ahead of next month’s American midterms.
We have decided to release strategic reserves of diesel and crude oil, under the coordination of the International Energy Agency – which will meet in the coming hours or days to organize this… This process will begin by prioritizing diesel, Macron declared.
Wait, aren’t those the exact same strategic reserves that have given Brussels a collective nervous breakdown over imminent winter shortages? Oh well, what’s a leader to do when he’s just a helpless, innocent little cog in a grand G7 multilateral machine? It’s not like Macron is directly engineering this self-inflicted disaster in any sense, right?
Oh, hang on. He’s not done digging yet.
In any case, France will make this effort regarding its own reserves, which also reflects a desire to send a clear signal to the market, Macron added. Yeah, the signals are about as subtle as a flare gun to the face.
Visionary European leaders like Macron have long since handed the wheel to Washington because they apparently thought that it was a better look in the eyes of their Ukrainian girlfriend, Zelensky, than dealing with Russia and its cheap gas.
And now we get yet another Macronian capitulation to a more recent bogeymen that he’s been whining about on the global stage: Trump.
All this drama peaked amid a state visit to Madrid, where Macron dropped by a local university to jam out some avant-garde thoughts on Europe alongside prominent Spanish cultural figures. A local writer teed up a softball right across the center of the plate, Trump and the global rise of populism in the same breath as fascism to frame them as an existential threat to democracy. Which, of course, was the ultimate cue for Macron to explain whose fault this mess actually is. And the short answer is: absolutely, unequivocally not his.
The great blow for France was the 2008–2012 crisis. And who paid the bill? The middle classes. Even in countries that were less affected, some categories have still not fully recovered in terms of purchasing power and living standards they had before that crisis. And this has been a betrayal, he said.
The same guy who’s been running the joint for nearly a full decade has to time-travel back 15 to 20 years to find someone responsible for the fact that French middle class is currently on economic life support. Because obviously, he couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with it despite holding the royal scepter for the past ten years.
Read more He chalks up current reality to the 2010 European debt crisis as though he were just an innocent tourist snapping selfies outside the Elysee Palace rather than the captain of the ship.
A key factor in European competitiveness was very cheap gas coming from Russia. That ended in 2022, Macron pontificated. But our great export market was China. That is over too. Europe now has a trade deficit with China. Today, every day, we lose €1 billion in trade with China.
You’ve got to admire the poetry – if not the gall – of the passive tense there. It ended in 2022. Like a rainstorm! It just happened to end. Totally out of his hands. What can a mere mortal do? Same with selling things to China. Poof, it’s over now! Who knows why? A total mystery. Bleeding a billion euros a day while standing there and shrugging.
Never mind his other brilliant policy hits, like trying to flatline French nuclear power before panicking and awkwardly resurre