Guest post by Maike Gosch, originally published in NachDenkSeiten, an independent German political news and commentary website.
In late September, MEP Raphaël Glucksmann announced his candidacy for the French presidency. Reactions were mixed. Whilst the mainstream media in France and Germany largely applauded the move, representatives of independent and alternative media outlets mostly voiced criticism and derision regarding the candidacy of “Gluglu”, as he is known to some.
“The man who wants to save France from the radicals”, was the headline used by the once-respected and formerly left-liberal German weekly DIE ZEIT for its article on Glucksmann’s candidacy. Further down, it states: “Glucksmann is a left-winger… and a moderate left-winger at that”.
Time for some context: we live in times when the distortion of language is reaching ever more extreme heights. Here we see some wonderful examples of this once again. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a classic left-wing politician, is described as “radical” (he is, alongside Marine Le Pen, one of the radicals from whom Glucksmann is supposed to save France), whilst Glucksmann’s position is described as “moderate”. These words are not neutral: “radical” has a clearly negative connotation, whilst “moderate” implies something positive.
Just as was once the case with the German Greens, where one wing of the party was labelled “Fundis” (i.e., “the fundamentalists”) and the other “Realos” (i.e., “the realists”). In this context, it was deemed “fundamentalist” to advocate pacifist positions, as well as those critical of capitalism and the system, and to fight for more grassroots democracy. It is only in the case of environmentalist positions — some of which worked towards deindustrialisation — that this approach might perhaps be described as “fundamentalist”. By contrast, those who were prepared to work within the existing system and neither tackle economic and political malfeasance within the system nor oppose US wars of aggression and interventions were portrayed as “realistic” and thus “mature”, “level-headed” and “reasonable”. We can observe the same manipulation in the reporting on Glucksmann’s candidacy.
But who is Raphaël Glucksmann, and why can he be described as another “bluff” by the Empire? Glucksmann is a French politician, journalist and documentary filmmaker, who self-identifies as a “social democrat”. From 2008 to 2012, he advised the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. In 2018, he founded the pro-European, environmentalist party Place publique, of which he is now co-president.
He is also the son of André Glucksmann, a French “star philosopher” and one of the most staunch advocates of American military interventions, who, following the attacks of September 11, 2001, was one of the co-founders of the pro-American think tank Cercle de l’Oratoire, whose stated aim was to defend US foreign policy in the French public sphere.
His son, too, has so far found no US regime-change operation or colour revolution that he has not enthusiastically supported. Whether as an adviser to Saakashvili in Georgia (the neoliberal and authoritarian President of Georgia, who received massive support from the US and NGOs such as the Open Society Foundation and USAID), as a supporter of the Euromaidan movement or as a speechwriter for the Ukrainian politician Vitali Klitschko: Glucksmann has repeatedly found himself on the side of Western-backed regime-change activities.
Even as a Member of the European Parliament, he eagerly supported every US regime-change propaganda campaign. For instance, in a speech in the European Parliament, he spread unsubstantiated rumours that the Communist Party of China was harvesting “halal organs” from executed Muslim Uyghurs in order to sell them to wealthy clients in the Gulf regions — a rumour that even the “Uyghur Tribunal” in London, funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) via the World Uyghur Congress, had already classified as unsubstantiated a year earlier (2021).
But even more interesting is Glucksmann’s role as a Member of the European Parliament: from 2020 to 2022, he chaired the European Parliament’s Special Committee on “Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the European Union, including Disinformation” (INGE), and subsequently chaired its successor committee, ING2, until 2023. Under his chairmanship, the committee became one of the parliamentary driving forces behind the call not only to combat so-called “foreign disinformation” publicly, but also to impose sanctions on its originators and disseminators. As early as January 2022, the European Parliament unambiguously titled its communication on the committee’s final recommendations: “EU should build a sanctions regime against disinformation”.
Two months later, the Parliament adopted the report. It called for sanctions against actors behind foreign influence operations and disinformation campaigns; in the case of organisations deemed to be disseminators of foreign state propaganda, the withdrawal of broadcasting licences should even be considered.
Glucksmann also led delegations to both the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence in Riga and the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats in Helsinki, a point of contact between the EU and NATO. In Riga, his committee collaborated, amongst others, with representatives of the EEAS East StratCom Task Force and the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy.
Anyone wishing to gain an insight into his views and convictions in this regard can watch this informative interview with Glucksmann for the StratCom podcast from October 2022, in which he states that the Ukrainians are the true democrats and the true Europeans who are teaching Europeans the meaning of freedom, and that the heart and soul of Europe now lie in Kyiv.
So, if one sometimes wonders how the EU could have resorted to such extreme measures to restrict freedom of expression and freedom of the press — such as the draconian sanctions against the Berlin-based journalist Hüseyin Doğru or the Swiss political analyst Jacques Baud: Raphaël Glucksmann was one of the key figures who drove this development forward at EU level — a development that culminated in those regulations and decisions of the Council of the EU on the basis of which such sanctions can be imposed (see, for example, here).
Glucksmann is therefore neither a “left-winger” (in the traditional sense) nor a moderate. Nor is he the moderate way out of the dilemma facing the French, who are forced to choose between the two “radicals”, Le Pen and Mélenchon. He is — au contraire — a neoliberal, business-friendly, interventionist and authoritarian servant of the Western empire. Just like Emmanuel Macron before him, with whom he shares many similarities and a network. It is therefore no surprise that many of Macron’s allies and associates have already switched to Glucksmann’s camp, such as Sacha Houlié and Aurélien Rousseau (former Minister of Health under Macron, subsequently Glucksmann’s campaign director) or Marguerite Cazeneuve.
If my colleagues in the mainstream media were to dig a little deeper, they could easily have uncovered this. But that is probably not what they want at all. This is old neoliberal imperialist wine in new wineskins, labelled “left” or “right”, without these words actually meaning anything anymore. And anyone who openly criticises the excesses of the system they represent and fundamentally questions it is labelled “radical”.
Glucksmann is simply — like Macron and many others before him — yet another pretty face intended to sell an agenda of the powerful that is becoming increasingly unpopular amongst the population. His candidacy is clearly intended to split the votes of left-wing voters in France and take them away from the anti-imperialist and socialist candidate Mélenchon. Let’s see how many more rounds of this same game we have to endure before the majority of the population sees through it. In any case, Glucksmann must first win the joint social-democratic primary in October in order to enter the race as this camp’s joint candidate.
Incidentally, anyone looking for a bit of a laugh in these gloomy times might want to watch this amusing and insightful conversation (in French) between the independent French journalists Alexis Poulin, Yohan Pavec and Félix Marquardt about Glucksmann’s time in Georgia. Here, a former colleague and acquaintance of Glucksmann recounts his inglorious behaviour as an adviser to President Saakashvili and provides interesting insights into his character and career — like the time he busted the leg of the Georgian ambassador to France while jet-skiing drunk on the black sea or the time he allegedly pushed the female head of an NGO into Saakashvili’s hotel room and closed the door behind her, after having promised he wouldn’t leave her alone with him.
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Thomas Fazi
Website: thomasfazi.net
Twitter: @battleforeurope
Latest book: The Covid Consensus: The Global Assault on Democracy and the Poor—A Critique from the Left (co-authored with Toby Green)
*Bravo Thomas, a brilliantly written and revealing article that will NEVER be read by the vast majority of the french population of which I'm one, as the french medias, of course, were bought and paid for and PADLOCKED decades ago and this kind of informed information must be silenced.
*In the past, Youssef Hindi exposed this wolf in sheep's clothing, of which there are many, but Mr Hindi has been silenced and can only communicate on substack and other alternative medias that interest very few easy to manipulate french citizens🥺🥴.
Bonne continuation,
CY🇫🇷