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Speaker 1: at well mata dot com slash doing our part. That
Speaker 1: made a lot of rounds. That's went viral. People singing
Speaker 1: outside of Notre Dame Cathedral last night in France. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the terrible fires tragic on a number of different levels.
Speaker 1: It occurs that a really interesting piv a time in
Speaker 1: French history. Uh and Ian Bremer, President, founder of the
Speaker 1: Eurasia Group. Who better to discuss this with the Eurasia Group,
Speaker 1: leading global political risk research and consulting firm on Earth.
Speaker 1: Ian welcome, how are you, sir, gentlemen? Good to be
Speaker 1: with you, so listen. We're we're both international relations freaks
Speaker 1: around here. Um and and have been watching France with
Speaker 1: great interest. The Yellow vest movement and the violence and
Speaker 1: the growing Islamic population and the tension there. I've read Submission, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: and and and then Notre Dame Cathedral burns down in
Speaker 1: the midst of a heck of a lot of unrest.
Speaker 1: How does that fit in? Do you think it will
Speaker 1: have effects? I've read Submission as well. First of all,
Speaker 1: that's a that's a great intro, right, because I think
Speaker 1: we should probably let the audience know about it. Um
Speaker 1: was number one book in France fiction a few years ago,
Speaker 1: and it was about what would happen if France became
Speaker 1: this dystopian government controlled by Islamic radicals. And I found
Speaker 1: the book remarkably subtle in its predictions to it's it's
Speaker 1: it's very matter of fact. Um. But anyway, how does
Speaker 1: that factor in the factors in? Because France is having
Speaker 1: a terrible time of it, even the context of Europe,
Speaker 1: which is not experiencing a lot of economic growth and
Speaker 1: has had all of this populism nationalism, it's been worse
Speaker 1: in France. I mean, you remember that Charlie at Bow killings.
Speaker 1: There's been a lot of terrorist violence since November. Every
Speaker 1: weekend you've had these yellow vest movements on the streets
Speaker 1: in Paris and in other cities, and a lot of violence.
Speaker 1: And you know, I mean, I wish you could say
Speaker 1: that yesterday was the only time we saw Paris and flames,
Speaker 1: but you know, the shops douse A a few weeks
Speaker 1: ago was in flames, and I mean, you know, massive
Speaker 1: amounts of damage being done, and tourism into France has
Speaker 1: taken enormous hit. It's certain the economy. So this has
Speaker 1: been a really challenging time and the President Marcan at
Speaker 1: his approval getings pushed down into the low twenties UM
Speaker 1: as a consequence of it. UM. And and then on
Speaker 1: top of that, yesterday you see, you know, Frances I
Speaker 1: mean most certainly, I mean that the Eiffel Tower, I mean,
Speaker 1: the most recognizable UM monuments in the country, critical to
Speaker 1: national identity and uh and you see the spire coming down.
Speaker 1: So I mean, obviously the collective gut punch to this
Speaker 1: nation was extraordinary. Um. And yet there's actually a real
Speaker 1: surver lining here. Well I want to hear that well,
Speaker 1: which is that it gives him a kron An opportunity
Speaker 1: to be a leader again, to bring the country together again.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's this is not nine eleven for France obviously,
Speaker 1: and thank god for that. But still it's something where
Speaker 1: the people for a moment feel unified. This is something
Speaker 1: that they together are all going to rebuilding. Macran from
Speaker 1: lead that moment and inspiring speech children because thank god
Speaker 1: it was an accident. Um, then everybody can get behind
Speaker 1: that side and nobody died. And by the way, the
Speaker 1: thing is still standing, so I mean they can actually
Speaker 1: rebuilt it. It's not getting raised to the ground. And
Speaker 1: this weekend, I mean, the funny thing is yesterday Macron.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys were following this, but
Speaker 1: Macon is for the last two months been doing this
Speaker 1: grand listening tour where he's literally gone from town to
Speaker 1: town to town and spent hours upon hours at a
Speaker 1: time listening um to the complaints of mostly older French
Speaker 1: citizens but a pretty wide demographic um swath. And then
Speaker 1: he's been responding and he was about to give his
Speaker 1: big speech where he was going to outline where, where,
Speaker 1: what he was going to do, how the country was
Speaker 1: going to move forward, and the yellow vests had already
Speaker 1: before even hearing what he was going to say, had
Speaker 1: already rejected and they were going to have bigger demonstrations
Speaker 1: this weekend. Well, now obviously he canceled that speech, and
Speaker 1: either the Yellow Vests are going to they should cancel
Speaker 1: their demonstrations um, in which case there's some time form
Speaker 1: a crown to actually build some momentum for something constructive
Speaker 1: in the country, because I mean, he's the one with
Speaker 1: a with a positive agenda, whether it's you know, whether
Speaker 1: it's popular or not. The Yellow Vests are just reacting
Speaker 1: and negative and tearing things down, or they decide to
Speaker 1: continue with their demonstrations this weekend and they will lose
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of support. So I mean, either way, frankly,
Speaker 1: this could end up being the kick in the pants
Speaker 1: that the French people and the French president really need.
Speaker 1: Ian Bremer, president and founder of Eurisia group on the line,
Speaker 1: tell us a little more about the Yellow Vest movement.
Speaker 1: I've heard you say that they're not in favor of anything,
Speaker 1: they're just kind of generalized complaining. But do they have
Speaker 1: an animating cause of particular issue. I was going to
Speaker 1: ask if you could put the France is whatever they
Speaker 1: got going on right now in any context that we
Speaker 1: understand in America, it's like the conservatives and liberals or
Speaker 1: legal immigration are just some contexts we get. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: can if you remember back when we had the old
Speaker 1: w t O meetings in Seattle and there were these
Speaker 1: massive anti globalization protesters that remember they were, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of destroying Starbucks servings like that, right, But I mean,
Speaker 1: so it was this big group of angry, mostly young people.
Speaker 1: There were save the whales types, there were anti nuclear
Speaker 1: weapons and anti nuclear power types. There were hard committed anarchists.
Speaker 1: There was anti free trade movement. I mean, there were
Speaker 1: a list of grievances as long as your arm um.
Speaker 1: But there was no leadership and there was no agenda
Speaker 1: that they particularly agreed on. And they were from the
Speaker 1: fringes of both the far left, the far right, and
Speaker 1: frankly a bunch of Neilists too. And that's kind of
Speaker 1: what the yellow vest movement is like. They're people that
Speaker 1: are deeply upset at the establishments, such as you can
Speaker 1: define them. Would imagine if you took AOC and Bernie
Speaker 1: Sanders and Donald Trump and then Alex Jones and a
Speaker 1: bunch of others for good measure, and just threw them
Speaker 1: all together and say, let's let's see what we get. Um,
Speaker 1: but one thing they're not going to get is they're
Speaker 1: not going to be very successful in European elections, which
Speaker 1: they're standing for UM in May. And mccron already looked
Speaker 1: like he was probably going to pick up a little
Speaker 1: bit as a consequence. Boy, it's interesting. I was reading
Speaker 1: about the French Revolution last night, just coincidentally, uh, in
Speaker 1: a different book, and UM, you know the history around
Speaker 1: the world of people just being angry at what is
Speaker 1: in just angry. I'm gonna tear stuff down and I
Speaker 1: want things to be different, And particularly in France, it's
Speaker 1: there's a little troubling about where it could go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the society also has a lot more history and
Speaker 1: a lot more tolerance of significant social demonstrations. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, anyone that tries to travel by plane to France,
Speaker 1: UM has on several occasions over the last twenty years,
Speaker 1: had to deal with nationwide pilot strikes and and and
Speaker 1: workers strikes. Um. You go back to the sixties and
Speaker 1: I mean the the real the violence before it came
Speaker 1: to the US, before it came to the UK. Um,
Speaker 1: it was the Sorbonne. I mean that this this is
Speaker 1: where you had UM, serious grassroots street protests that broke
Speaker 1: into UM broken to riots. UM. And you know, as
Speaker 1: I said, over the course of the past months, I
Speaker 1: mean you, frequently you would see lots of cars being
Speaker 1: set on fire, and the kind of thing that brings
Speaker 1: us back to the la riots in the United States
Speaker 1: not not really considered all that exceptional or unusual. In France.
Speaker 1: It's kind of the way people protests. So I mean
Speaker 1: in that regard, there's a lot of resilience in France.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of institutional capacity to accept things that
Speaker 1: we would consider to be revolutionary and sort of move on.
Speaker 1: If you if I were going to be opening a
Speaker 1: subsidiary in France, and I said to you, Ian Bremer, listen,
Speaker 1: I've heard there's a lot of tension between Muslim immigrants
Speaker 1: and and other French people in the government. What's going
Speaker 1: on there? How would you describe it to me? Um,
Speaker 1: It's certainly true that the anti immigrant sentiment in France
Speaker 1: is very high. Um. About six percent of the population
Speaker 1: is Muslim, which is quite high in the context of
Speaker 1: a quot unquote Western society the United States more like one. UM.
Speaker 1: And when you ask the French what the percentage is,
Speaker 1: they respond, it's a herd, and I mean, which is
Speaker 1: traces like where would you keep these people? Right? But
Speaker 1: there is this sense, and this is what came from
Speaker 1: this book submission, Right, there's this sense that the Muslims
Speaker 1: are everywhere they lived together, they don't integrate, they don't
Speaker 1: speak proper French, they don't make proper baguets, they don't
Speaker 1: understand French culture, and we don't want them. And they've
Speaker 1: been coming over very large numbers, right. Um. And you know,
Speaker 1: some of this is the response to France's colonial past,
Speaker 1: where they, you know, sort of took over a lot
Speaker 1: of the a decent swath of Africa. Um and uh.
Speaker 1: And now those a lot of those citizens have the
Speaker 1: opportunity to come to France and live and work, some
Speaker 1: of them very successfully, a lot of them not very successfully.
Speaker 1: How Uh. Final question is we run out of time?
Speaker 1: How active is the fake news business or the conspiracy
Speaker 1: world there in France? As in, is there a chunk
Speaker 1: of the population that will believe it was Yellow vestors
Speaker 1: no matter what the authorities say, that set a fire
Speaker 1: in the cathedral, or is there a chunk of the
Speaker 1: population that believe the government did it to make Muslims
Speaker 1: look bad? Or whatever, you know, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: I would say, it's no worse than the United States,
Speaker 1: and that's not a very kind thing to say. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I get it. But at the same time, I mean,
Speaker 1: most Americans are not predisposed to conspiracy theories. It is
Speaker 1: not like Egypt, it's not like Russia. But I would
Speaker 1: also not India, where they think you get a phone
Speaker 1: call in your testicles are gonna fall off, or whatever
Speaker 1: that rumor was. I think that story un from you
Speaker 1: guys can't take two. I already gave one to capitalism.
Speaker 1: But but um, you know, when when you asked, when
Speaker 1: you ask where the friends are going? Let's also recognize
Speaker 1: the Russians have played a very significant role in disinformation
Speaker 1: and funding um of the Yellow Best movement and of
Speaker 1: the National Front and France, and that is something people
Speaker 1: in America don't talk much about. Wow, that is a
Speaker 1: great final note and one to follow up on at
Speaker 1: some point in the future. Ian Bremmer, President, founder of
Speaker 1: the Eurasia Group. Ian, Hey, thanks a million for the time.
Speaker 1: We know how busy you are, stay intact and yours.
Speaker 1: That's a good I might put that at the bottom
Speaker 1: of my emails from here. On that. Wow. So a
Speaker 1: couple of thoughts to recap if you two boys are
Speaker 1: done with your little jokes. UM. The Russian note at
Speaker 1: the end is absolutely worth pointing out. Putin is trying
Speaker 1: as hard as he can to help France disintegrate. UM.
Speaker 1: A second note on the whole six percent. But you
Speaker 1: ask a lot of French people how many Muslims are
Speaker 1: there are and they say that would be easil easy
Speaker 1: to UM to say that's paranoia or anti immigrant, um
Speaker 1: bias whatever. I would make the counterpoint, and this may
Speaker 1: not necessarily be true, but it's worth considering that that
Speaker 1: six percent has an outsized influence and has caused change
Speaker 1: beyond their numbers. Sure, absolutely absolutely, as it has in
Speaker 1: this country with introducing a different language and everything. Right,
Speaker 1: you can you can talk about the percentages, or you
Speaker 1: can talk about, for instance, just a legal immigration in
Speaker 1: the United States. The change that it's done in your
Speaker 1: school or your e er, right, is beyond the percentage
Speaker 1: of the population, right, Yeah, exactly. UM. So yeah, that
Speaker 1: that whole six is really really interesting. But I don't
Speaker 1: think it's as simple as some people might. Do you
Speaker 1: recommend do you recommend the book submission? I do to anybody.
Speaker 1: I think it's so damned interesting. Absolutely, it's it's great.
Speaker 1: It wasn't what I expected it to be. It's incredibly reasonable.
Speaker 1: My guy named Welbeck spelled with an H and look
Speaker 1: it up. You'll find it blot al beck. Um, you're
Speaker 1: listening to the Armstrong and Getty shilling the conscience of
Speaker 1: the nation.