French Letter

 Stealth taxes going up, French gdp going down, a broadening opposition to EU globalist trade deals, and a rival across the Channel showing no sign of bending to the will of the ‘Vrai Dur’ in the Elysée Palace. It’s all going terribly well for President Macron.

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This little selection to your left comprises the July crop of attempts by Robbin Macron and his merry men to empty my pockets: a fine imposed because I hadn’t submitted a form to prove I’m not a money-launderer, a fine imposed because my taxe foncière payment was late, a speeding fine, and notice that a shovel has been thrust into my bank account to remove tax I already paid in the UK.

Taking each in turn, I don’t have a business trading in France, the foncière payment was late because the demand arrived late, no camera had flashed at me, and I’m paying double-tax because telling the HMRC every year since 2014 that I had jumped off the sinking SS Blighty has had no effect.

Macron introduced the new 80 kph limit, he said, to reduce road deaths. I am informed, however, that the new cameras do not use flash – so the driver is unlikely to slow down on having been caught because, er, he doesn’t know he’s been caught. On the bright side, he is thus likely to get caught more often. Follow the munnneeeee.

The money-laundering scam-scam letter arrived with no address and no date, but a warning to pay up within fifteen days or else. I had to engage a solicitor to intercede, because (rather like Kafka’s K) it wasn’t clear what I’d done wrong.

This frenzy of upside-down citizen turning has been at it pretty much since Manny came to power. He came to power because the banks paid for him to be elected. They did so because Berlin had been on the Elysée’s back for years about the perpetually illegal deficit France, as a euro member, is running. All this plus the petrol-tax ripoff (and motorway tolls rising like a caniculed thermometer) was what evoked the rise of the Gilets Jaunes….that’s to say, to stop “les injustices fiscales”.

Of late, the GJ’s have been joined by Leftist elements during urban demonstrations. And now, in rural areas, farmers and their representatives have joined some GJ elements in defacing Mairies and other government buildings with graffiti and splashed paint.

The flashpoint on this occasion was the ratification by the National Assembly of a Macron-backed free trade deal between the EU and Canada eight days ago. Opponents of the deal in my region arranged a meeting last Sunday with Parliamentarians representing Aquitaine constituencies. One MP turned up. The citizenry was less than impressed.

The recent ratification of a trade deal with South American bloc members is also a concern, particularly among French meat farmers.

But there will be no let-up in the “reform” drive: as early as June 2018, the 35-hour week of the National Assembly was requiring nearer to 80 hours of work to cope with the mountain range of money-collecting legislation being drafted by the Macronies. As quickly as he introduces new tax ideas, however, the tax income is hit by economic reality. Last week, the French office of national statistics revealed the country’s economy stagnated in the second quarter of 2019. (This is yet another fact that Remainoids on Facebook continue to insist I “made up”….the other was the German deficit, confirmed last weekend to be at record levels. But of course, only Leavers tell lies).

Emmanuel Macron is in a deep hole, but unless the formal Opposition in France gets its act together, there is every chance he will be reelected. He needs the Brexit stage on which to perform his tough-guy routine. Thus, he invites Boris Johnson to Paris for talks as soon as possible, but this is caveated by endless press releases “warning” the PM “not to provoke us”.

Talking of provocation…..

“Provokin’ is as provokin’ does,” as Forrest Gump would probably observe.