The yellow jackets versus the European empire

So yes, perhaps we should consider the tumult in France as just a window into the nature—and fate—of the European Union. And that’s fitting for Macron, in an ironic way, because he has avidly promoted himself as the champion of a United States of Europe.

In fact, from the beginning, the EU set itself up as an efficient collective enterprise—the very thing that Macron, a onetime investment banker, would love. It was to be, in other words, a consciously rationalistic and capitalistic entity in the manner of Locke and Rousseau. Thus the 28 member-states agreed to put aside their national and ethnic differences in favor of the new technocratic empire.

There was just one problem: nobody asked the people of Europe. Oh sure, at one time or another, officials in countries won an electoral mandate for bits and pieces of the “EU project.” Yet as everyone knows, the Eurocrats—clustered in Brussels, never elected to anything—went far beyond any mandate, taking the EU to dizzying heights of non-accountability. That’s why the words “democracy deficit” are so commonplace. And that’s why the 28 members of the EU might soon be 27, if the UK follows through on Brexit—though admittedly, that’s a muddled situation. (Note to the EU: would you really be happier with a disgruntled England still in? Careful what you wish for!)…

Still, as sage observers have argued, the dream of a united Europe will always endure, at least in the minds of would-be Charlemagnes. Of course, such an imperium requires a fist—the more mailed, the better.

So as with the fate of Macron’s government in France, the future of the EU might well depend on the willingness of its rulers to get tough—that is, converting the democracy deficit into an outright tyranny surplus.

Could they? Would they? The only thing we know for sure is that it’s happened before.