France’s Macron: EU in Civil War Over Democracy

French President Emmanuel Macron has warned that “there seems to be a European civil war” between liberal democracy and rising authoritarianism.

He urged the EU to renew its commitment to democracy, in a passionate speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, BBC reported.

“I don’t want to belong to a generation of sleepwalkers that has forgotten its own past”, he said, recalling how the EU arose after World War Two. He is launching debates with voters, aimed at re-engaging them with the EU. In his speech he condemned what he called “a fascination with the illiberal” in Europe.

Last year Macron and his new liberal party, La République en Marche (LREM), triumphed in French elections with a strongly pro-EU platform. His second-round rival in the presidential election was National Front (FN) leader Marine Le Pen, a nationalist and fierce critic of the EU.

Macron was also hitting back at the Euroskeptics who drove the vote for Brexit in the UK. As Brexit will leave a big hole in the EU budget he said there should no longer be budget rebates for some member states. He added that France was prepared to increase its contribution.

Macron’s set-piece speech in Strasbourg set out his vision for democratic renewal in the EU, at a time of growing nationalism in the 28-nation bloc. This month Hungary’s right-wing leader Viktor Orban, another arch-critic of EU policies, won a new two-thirds majority in parliament.

Members of European Parliament applauded Macron when he said democracy “is a word with meaning, which emerged from the battles of the past”.

He faces a big challenge ahead of the 2019 European elections as his LREM party does not belong to any of the main groups in the European Parliament.

 Outreach to New Generation

President Macron used some memorable phrases as he sought to reinvigorate European democracy.

The divisions in Europe were like a “civil war… where there is an increasing fascination with illiberalism”.

And was he referring to Brexit when he said that, in response to problems, some proposed a yellow brick road, to take their people off on an adventure somewhere else?

There was some policy amongst the poetry—support for a temporary digital tax that could become permanent, a new fund for communities that take in migrants, copyright laws to protect European culture and a call for a roadmap for euro zone reforms, which are controversial in Germany and northern Europe.

Most striking was his heralding of a new generation that did not experience World War Two and saw Europe in a different way. But will next year’s elections for the European Parliament usher in a wave of MEPs who want to strengthen the EU, or to rip it apart? That’s the test.