Secret behind Crisis in France

Article by Abdelhak Azzouzi

CAIRO, Jan. 21 (SEE) - Three years ago, Emmanuel Todd, one of the most prominent French sociologists in the intellectual, academic, political and media circles, published a book that caused stir entitled "Who is Charlie? Sociology of a Religious Crisis". In return, The French Prime Minister Manuel Valls replied to Todd in an article published in "Le Monde" newspaper under the title "Against the prevailing pessimism and those who want to forget the 11th of January".

The book describes, intelligently and with unique sociological approach, the control of the privileged class in the country and its institutions, inpiduals and the rest of the classes. This same privileged group opposed, in the past, the French Revolution and its principles, sticking to traditional Catholic background roots.

This sense generates some of the justifications that bear the seeds of violence. Sometime back, Charlie Hebdo's editor-in-chief wrote: "We drew a cartoon of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in defense of absolute freedom principle, this can be done to any other person." We still believe in the right to criticize all religions, however under the leadership of this privileged group that is dominating the society, we condemn the criticism of our values and our civilized beliefs, and we resort to the (“Ochlocracy”) to create a right that permits violence against others ».

The basic meaning of this analysis is that this class superiority and contempt for the disadvantaged groups and its wide presence in state's institutions, sociologically signify that "Anti- Islamic bias is an attempt to humiliate the least vulnerable minority in society", purporting that Muslims are in the lower class of society and drawing a cartoon of their Prophet is part of this underestimation process in an alliance with the extremist academic movement that sees a Muslim from the angle of terrorism and extremism.

The same can be said today about the yellow jacket protestors in France. If we study carefully these demonstrations, we detect that French people are angry because of class superiority and contempt for the disadvantaged groups who consist of great numbers in France.

Because of this ideological, social and social superiority, France is no longer faring well; today it suffers from a series of intractable problems: the euro crisis, public debt, consequences of economic crises, serious societal stalemate, a leadership crisis and institutional problems.

These were the same signs written by the scholars of history during the French Revolution of 1789,. The Monarchy in 1787 suffered from serious economic crisis that led to the lack of primary consumption goods and skyrocketing prices. On 14 July 1789, the price of bread reached its highest levels. While in this circumstance, France attempted to import primary consumption goods but its coffers were empty. The French state has always regarded itself as a strong state, hence spending more than its revenues. This policy led to negative consequences.

France was, in that period and before two centuries ago, heavily indebted since it was distributing rents to her lenders; the state by then was under customary law: there were tax exemptions, distribution of interests … putting wealth in the hands of a class of aristocrats and spiritual men. The Finance Minister Jacques Necker, at that time, had financed the French-American War and secured loans from some Dutch and English banks. During the debt repayment phase, the interest weighed heavily on the state budget …

Britain suffered, at that time, the same problems, but George III cooperated with his Prime Minister William Pitt and supported him with austerity policies until they solved the crisis, unlike King Louis XVI, who did not lend a hand to his Finance Minister for fear of the reaction of the aristocrats bearing in mind the number of people in Britain (8 million people) in comparison with 22 million people in France during that period. Financial reforms bore its fruits easily in Britain, unlike France, which faced a serious political impasse.

The state in that period, as it is today, can no longer balance the situation financially with the simple difference: at that time the state was at the mercy of the beneficiaries of renting economy who fed the state treasury, but today, the state is politically subjected to political elite.. According to many analysts, , Macron's government is not in the right political dynamic and it is immersed in a quagmire of self-defense which inevitably undermines the community peace within the country.