Obama and Putin should be in the same room at Normandy celebrations’ by Pepe Escobar

Obama and Putin should be in the same room at Normandy celebrations’

Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times/Hong Kong, an analyst for RT and TomDispatch, and a frequent contributor to websites and radio shows ranging from the US to East Asia.

Get short URL

Published time: June 04, 2014 14:29

U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)

Share on tumblr

RT:President Hollande plans to dine twice in one night, separately with Barack Obama and with Vladimir Putin. Is this smart diplomacy or exacerbating the awkwardness?The Obama administration is pursuing schoolboy tactics by refusing to sit down with Putin at the same room to discuss the Ukrainian crisis and to try to diffuse existing tensions, Asia Times roving reporter Pepe Escobar told RT.

Pepe Escobar: I’ve been wondering about the menu actually. Who gets the cheeseburger, who gets the stick of foie gras. But this is really very serious because Ben Rhodes, that spectacular mediocrity that acts as one of Obama's foreign policy advisors, leaked to the American press that there was never supposed to be a one-on-one meeting between Obama and Putin. So, the White House actually refused to be in the same room with Hollande and Putin. So the French had to scramble to organize two dinners in a row. This is so ridiculous I cannot find words to qualify it. And coming on the heels of the $1 billion Obama hammer, which is more NATO expansion in Poland and close the Ukrainian border as well, practically giving a blank check to the extremely hysterical Polish government to keep trying telling the world that Russia is going to invade tomorrow, or the day after. It’s completely absurd. And they are in Normandy to celebrate 70 years [since the Normandy landings in WWII]. This is an extremely serious business, the participation especially of Russia. Twenty five million to 30 million people there were dead. In fact, Russia won the war first, and then the West won the war against Nazi Germany. So Obama and Putin should be in the same room, they belong to the same room vis-à-vis the effort of the 70 years ago. Now because of schoolboy tactics of the Obama administration we have these ridiculous two dinners in a row on Thursday in France.

RT: Obama will get the first meal sitting, the Russian president second. That's probably no accident, is it?

PE: The empire first with cheeseburgers and then Putin with borshch and beef stroganoff. Obama doesn’t know how to drink wine and Putin is not a big fan of it, so who is going to drink the big ones? Hollande. We have been diverted into faits de guerre (acts of war - RT) as the French say. Stupidity. When we should be talking about serious business like Obama, Putin and Hollande in the same room at a dinner discussing Ukraine, discussing the expansion of NATO, discussing the BRICS and NATO as opposing camps nowadays and trying to diffuse the international tensions they were stalked up essentially by the Obama administration going back to the putsch in February in Ukraine. And now we have the completely crazy narrative that over 200 or 300 civilians killed in Eastern Ukraine are terrorists. We have the victims being blamed. This is completely crazy. This should be discussed at the presidential level at the same room.

RT: Which of the dinners is likely to prove toughest for Hollande to digest, in your opinion?

PE: I would say more indigestible dinner would be with Obama in fact. French big business, they are not interested in applying more sanctions on Russia. French business wants to stay in Russia and do business with Russia and the Russian sphere. The Americans are more complicated because they are trying to ram over the heads of assorted European governments, the Trans-Atlantic Partnership and the French are absolutely terrified about it. Not only parts of Hollande’s government but the average French citizen. First of all, because of the drubbing that the Socialists got in the European Parliamentary elections, much of it had to do with the Trans-Atlantic Partnership, which is in a nutshell American big business taking over large slates of European industry and markets. This is what Obama is going to be plugging to Hollande on Thursday night: “Please, sign the Trans-Atlantic Agreement.” Obama is on a military trip – Poland, Brussels, NATO – and on a commercial trip, which is this very special meeting with Hollande, trying to convince Hollande to sign this agreement within the next few months. It’s not going to happen, and public pressure in France is going to be enormous against it.

France clueless on Iran By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE 

France clueless on Iran 

By Pepe Escobar 

Here is definitive proof - if any was needed - that the Gallic fit-throwing that burned the possibility of an interim Iranian nuclear deal last week in Geneva was completely pointless. 

The key "concern" expressed by Israel-firster French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius to derail an interim deal was about the Arak heavy-water reactor. 

Well, UN inspectors this week reported that they had detected no


new developments in Arak over the three months since August. [1] 

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Yukiya Amano, was also in Tehran on Monday, and - unusually for his trademark paperboy role for Washington - had nothing to complain about. 

Fabius used the Arak gambit at the last minute in Geneva to derail the talks, provoking the ire of even fellow European diplomats. That was out of pure disinformation; Tehran was already doing what Fabius insisted they were not doing. 

A EU diplomat (non-French) confirmed to Asia Times Online that Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had already informed US Secretary of State John Kerry about these euphemistically defined "confidence-building measures". Kerry was fully aware before he landed in Geneva on his way to sign an interim deal. 

But guess what: the French were clueless. Kerry did not tell anybody else on the P5+1 table (comprising the United States, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany) because he feared any leaks. This proves once again that this infinitely complex negotiation is really between Washington and Tehran. Russia and China are behaving - so far - as sort of quiet (and wary) observers. Yet Kerry, Francophile that he is, should have know better about Gallic peacock instincts. 

Fabius - acting on orders of "popular" (26% and sinking) President Francois Hollande - started to pre-emptively torpedo the negotiations even before Kerry landed in Geneva. Arak was the perfect pretext to shade France's true agenda; to act as an agent of Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and to secure future fat contracts from those paragons of democracy, the Wahhabi-dominated Gulf Counter-revolution Club, aka the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). 

So Fabius was not only totally clueless about privileged Kerry-Zarif information; he felt like a spurned lover (Moliere to the rescue). 

Make no mistake. Kerry - following President Barack Obama's brief - badly wants a deal. But as this is a P5+1 affair, he simply cannot out the French as spoilers. Thus the subsequent tactic earlier this week of "blaming" Iran - as in "they were not ready for a deal yet". 

Assorted European diplomats have been spinning, off the record, that yes, there was a nearly done deal, but the Iranian delegation still had to go back to Tehran to get ultimate approval from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. That's exactly the line that Kerry followed during the week. 

The whole saga restarts next Wednesday. There is no question Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif made sure the IAEA would be able to attest, from inside Iran, that goodwill is still the name of the game. This is how they controlled their own opposition - the hard line Revolutionary Guards. 

Heavy water Arak is not the problem. Heavy Gallic posturing is. Let's see whether the Fabius reactor will leak again next week, or whether Kerry will be able to contain it. 

Note:
1. IAEA: Iran has not expanded nuclear facilities in last 3 months, RT, November 14, 2013. 

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com. 

Why France is playing 'stupid' on Iran By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE
Why France is playing 'stupid' on Iran
By Pepe Escobar 

PARIS - US Secretary of State John Kerry has famously stated the US "is not blind" or "stupid" in its push to clinch a historic deal over the Iranian nuclear program. [1] So now that the world has been informed, he must, cryptically, have been talking about France. 

The failed Geneva negotiations this past weekend over a temporary nuclear deal at least carried the merit of revealing who is really blocking it: the axis of fear and loathing composed by the Likudniks in Israel, the House of Saud, and the Francois Hollande administration in France. 

Torrents of bytes have already detailed how Israel routinely hijacks US foreign policy. Here's yet one more graphic demonstration of how Wag the Dog works. Last Friday evening, President Barack Obama called Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu asking him not to derail Geneva. Bibi then duly picked up the phone and called, in succession, British Prime Minister David Cameron, Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Hollande and asked them ... to derail Geneva. 

Hollande was the only one who followed Bibi's marching orders. And all this after Kerry himself had been lectured by Bibi at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport on Friday morning. 

Flash forward to the coda, early Sunday morning. Not by accident, Wendy Sherman, the lead US negotiator on the Iranian nuclear dossier, a certified Israeli-firster and borderline racist, [2] flew from Geneva straight to Israel to duly "reassure" her true leader, Bibi, that no deal would be clinched. 

It's no secret that Bibi and the Likudniks also run a great deal of Capitol Hill. Apart from bombing Geneva, Bibi may also rack up another temporary victory, with the US Congress about to add even more sanctions on Iran by attaching them to the National Defense Authorization Act. 

Meet Bandar Fabius 
As far as French behavior is concerned, it is conditioned as much by the formidable Israeli lobby in Paris as hard cash from Gulf petro-monarchies. 

It certainly helped that, according to The Times of Israel, French parliament member Meyer Habib - also a holder of an Israeli passport, a former official Likud spokesperson in France, and a close pal of Bibi's - called French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius to tell him Israel would attack Iranian nuclear installations if the current deal on the table was clinched. [3] 

Call it the AIPAC effect. Habib is the vice-president of the Conseil Representatif des Institutions juives de France, or CRIF - the French equivalent to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The ghostwriter of President Hollande's speeches also happens to be a member of CRIF. 

Fabius, grandiloquent and as slippery as runny Roquefort, invoked - what else - "security concerns of Israel" to derail Geneva. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammed Javed Zarif were always extremely worried about being sabotaged by their own internal opposition, the hard line Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. So their number one directive was that no details of the deal should be leaked during the negotiations. 

That's exactly what Fabius did. Even before Kerry landed in Geneva, Fabius was telling a French radio station that Paris would not accept a jeu des dupes ("fools' game"). 

The role of Fabius was pricelessly summed up by the proverbial unnamed Western diplomat telling Reuters, "The Americans, the EU and the Iranians have been working intensively for months on this proposal, and this is nothing more than an attempt by Fabius to insert himself into relevance late in the negotiations." [4] 

Terabytes of spin have been asserting that Washington and Paris are playing good cop-bad cop on the Iranian dossier. Not exactly; it's more like the Gallic rooster once again showing off. 

Hollande was gung-ho on bombing Damascus when Obama backed off at the 11th minute from the Pentagon's "limited" attack; Hollande was left staring at a stale bottle of Moet. On both Syria and Lebanon, Paris is unabashedly playing a mix of neocolonial hugs and kisses while sharing the bed with Israel and the House of Saud. 

But why, once again, shoot itself in the foot? Paris has lost a lot of money - not to mention French jobs, via automaker Peugeot - because of the Iran sanctions dementia. 

Ah, but there is always the seduction of Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan, aka Bandar Bush, and the Gulf petro-monarchies. In a nutshell; Bandar Fabius was nothing but playing paperboy for the House of Saud. The prize: huge military contracts - aircraft, warships, missile systems - and possible construction of nuclear power plants in Saudi Arabia, a deal similar to the one energy giant French Areva clinched last year with the United Arab Emirates (UAE). 

The ghost of Montaigne must be squirming; France does not do irony anymore. Iran has no right to have its own nuclear plants, but France builds them and operates them for its Wahhabi clients.

The West doing Israel's bidding makes sense; after all Israel may also be interpreted as a Western aircraft carrier in the heart of the Arab Middle East. As for France doing the Wahhabis' bidding, just follow the money - from Veolia building and operating water desalination plants in Saudi Arabia to all those Rafale fighter jets to be unloaded. 

Qatar, that slavery paradise presented by FIFA with a World Cup, has already invested over US$15 billion - and counting - in France, from shares in Veolia and energy behemoth Total to construction firm Vinci, media giant Lagardere, and full control of Paris Saint Germain, home of the new King of Paris, football icon Zlatan "Ibracadabra" Ibrahimovic. Not to mention that Qatar has bought virtually every significant square inch between Madeleine and Opera in Paris. 

Hollande is a joke. This week he's on the cover of the Courrier International weekly (headline: "The Art of the Fall"), with pan-European media judging him "incoherent", "paralyzed" and "incompetent" (and these are the merciful epithets). On the weekend edition of the establishment Le Figaro daily, he was being destroyed because of France's (latest) credit rating downgrade by Standard & Poor's. 

King Sarko The First - aka former president Nicolas Sarkozy - must be beaming; Hollande is now the most unpopular president in French history. Paris remains great - but mostly for hordes of fleeting tourists from emerging markets, not for hordes of unemployed Parisians. 

So it's Bandar Fabius to the rescue! Gulf petro-monarchy cash is the salvation. In thesis, this show of "independence" should translate into billions of euros in contracts and investments. It also helps that "incompetent" Hollande is on an official visit to Israel in the next few days. 

That pivot to Persia
Forget about finding details of the real reasons for this "show of independence" in French mainstream media, apart from Le Monde Diplomatique's Alain Gresh in his blog. [5] 

Explanations are absolutely pathetic. France is "alone against all"; it has shown "responsibility"; it has "reaffirmed its independence". And of course all the blame lies on Kerry, who allegedly "came up with a text that nobody ever saw before". Every shill has scrambled to cast Israeli-firster Fabius as savior. And yet the Elysee Palace has stressed that Fabius was just following Hollande's orders - which, in thesis, meant renegotiating the "weak points" of the deal. Call it, essentially, "incompetent" Hollande showing Obama he's got balls. 

Paris has spun that the problems with the deal concern Tehran's heavy-water reactor in Arak and its stock of medium-enriched uranium. US and Iranian diplomats had been working hard towards a compromise; Tehran would keep building the reactor over the six-month period of the interim agreement, but tests would be with dummy fuel rods and ordinary water. 

Kerry was working on it until Fabius unleashed his peacock act in a long session that only finished late into Saturday morning. This led Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif to note, wryly, that the P5+1 (the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China plus Germany) needed to negotiate with each other before negotiating with Iran. 

The P5+1 internal mess could seriously compromise the next round of negotiations next week in Geneva. Yet Kerry, if he noticed it, managed to change his narrative to something even more theater of the absurd; he's now blaming Iran for the non-deal. [6] It's as if, after reading the French papers, he decided to atone for his sins. 

Arguably Iran has proved to the whole, real, flesh and blood "international community" that it wants a deal and it is willing to negotiate. But then there are the sanctions to be approved by the US Congress - a de facto internal American sabotage. Yet these are third-party sanctions - where other countries are "punished" by the US for trading with Iran. No one will take these seriously, starting with the Asian powers, Turkey and Russia. 

For the moment, no deal may seem better than a bad deal. It might happen at the next meeting, in Geneva on November 22. Most likely, a full interim deal will happen in a few months. The Obama administration wants a deal. France, for all its posture, is irrelevant. 

Worse. Paris is being "blind" and "stupid" - to adapt Kerry's words - by alienating French companies, in the energy sector, nuclear energy and manufacturing, from the fabulous possibilities unleashed by a normalized relationship between Iran and the West. If the Hollande gang believes they will be "saved" by the Wahhabis, they must be on mescal. 

It may take years - and it will. But Washington will inevitably find some sort of accommodation with Iran. US corporations want it. The energy-starved West wants it. Even the US hyperpower complex wants it - as it will give it way more leeway in Southwest Asia and beyond. The axis of fear and loathing of Israel, the House of Saud and France may play spoilers - but not for long. "Pivot to Asia"? Not before a pivot to Persia. 

Notes:
1. Iran nuclear talks: US 'not stupid' - John Kerry, BBC News, November 10, 2013.
2. The DNA of Iranians and Under Secretary Sherman, Counterpunch, November 4, 2013.
3. Israel will attack Iran if you sign the deal, French MP told Fabius, Times of Israel, November 10, 2013.
4. Iran nuclear deal unlikely as split emerges in Western camp: diplomats, Reuters, November 9, 2013.
5. Click here (in French).
6. Iran balked at Geneva nuclear deal, says John Kerry, The Guardian, November 11, 2013. 

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com. 

On Sarkozy and Gypsies - The French Problem

Is this a Jewish joke or a Gypsy joke?

What do you get when a Jew and a Gypsy go into business together? A chain of empty stores.

About fifteen years ago, a friend of mine opened a shop selling fabrics and other household staples in a Tuscan town. She was English, beautiful and an innocent in the world of commerce. The other shopkeepers adored her, because she and her daughters charmed them and brought a lot of trade to the cobbled main street. Whenever Gypsy caravans camped outside the town walls, Roma women in brightly colored gowns would stroll casually from shop to shop. Keeping wary eyes on them were robust Tuscan women shopkeepers. When the Gypsy matrons went into my friend’s shop, the other lady shopkeepers followed them inside and guarded my friend’s stock until the women left. No one said anything. It was clear the Italians protected her because they suspected she was not canny enough to prevent the transfer of baubles into bags without money changing hands. If the assumption was that the Gypsy women would shoplift if given a chance, they did not get the chance.

My friend’s husband hired some Gypsy laborers from Romania a few years later to do some building work on his house. The workers lived with him for months, worked hard and never stole anything. They loved beer, but were not drunkards, and spent most of their money on telephone calls to their families. When the job was complete, they took enough pay back to Romania to restore their own houses (which had no electricity, part of Romania’s official neglect of them) and perhaps open a small business. I have never seen a British builder work as hard or with as much good will as they did.

Berlusconi praised “Franco-Italian convergence” on what he called “the Roma problem.” The Roma problem? Is that like the “Jewish problem” of 1930s Germany?

My old friend, the late Anthony Sampson, wrote a biography of his paternal grandfather who led a second, secret life as a Gypsy. The Scholar Gypsy: The Quest for a Family Secret tells the story of John Sampson, a respected philologist who died in 1931 when Anthony was five. The elder Sampson wrote the definitive dictionary of the Romani language as spoken in Wales in the late 19th century, The Dialect of the Gypsies of Wales. While living as a respectable late Victorian gentleman with his wife and three children (one of them Anthony’s father), he had a secret Gypsy wife named Gladys Imlach. She gave him a Gypsy daughter, whom he adored and whom Anthony knew as Aunt Mary. The Gypsies called him the Rai, meaning a “gentleman Gypsy.” His grandson, who wrote best-selling books on corporate malfeasance in the global economy, was regarded by his colleagues as the “gentleman journalist.”

Clover Stroud, an engaging and popular British reporter, wrote recently in the Spectator of her lifelong love affair with the Gypsies who roam the English countryside. Her envy of Gypsy children’s freedom began in her school days. While regretting English “Gypsy-bashing,” she observed that “there’s a part of us that will always hunger for a caravan and camp, for the lyrical romance of the open road.”

The lyricism of the open road, however, has eluded French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Sarkozy nearly went to war with the European Union last week in defense of his decision to deport Gypsies en masse to Romania and Bulgaria. The EU justice commissioner, Viviane Reding, had threatened him with prosecution under EU laws forbidding the punishment of people based on their ethnicity. Mme. Reding reminded Sarkozy that Europe had turned its back on mass deportations of racial minorities after the Second World War. Sarkozy went to an EU summit last Thursday to scream about what he called “an insult, a humiliation, an outrage.” His language echoed then-mayor of Chicago Richard J. Daley’s indignation against the press forty years ago: “They have vilified me. They have crucified me. They have even criticized me!”

The EU was not alone in daring to criticize Sarkozy and his interior minister for actions that, as stated in a French government directive to local prefects, was a clearly racist policy of collective punishment. Among those condemning the practice of herding people onto planes without indicting any of them for criminal offenses are the United States and the Vatican, neither of which is without sins of it own, the United Nations, every human rights group in the western world and most of the world’s press.

Lining up with Sarkozy, inevitably, is Silvio Berlusconi of Italy. The former crooner’s latter day brownshirts burned a Gypsy encampment in October 2007 and expelled its inhabitants, following the murder of an Italian woman. The culprit, whether a Gypsy or an Italian or someone else, was never caught. If there was any evidence, it disappeared in the police conflagration that reminded some people of fascist destruction of Europe’s Jewish ghettos two generations back. Berlusconi praised “Franco-Italian convergence” on what he called “the Roma problem.” The Roma problem? Is that like the “Jewish problem” of 1930s Germany? Or the “Negro problem” of 1960s America? Or the “Indian problem” of America in the 19th century? Or, indeed, Russia’s “Chechen problem” in our time?

The problem is not the Roma, who have been abused and mistreated throughout Europe for centuries. European Union money earmarked for improving their lives in Romania, so that they would not have to emigrate to find work and live in houses without rats, disappeared into the post-Ceaucescu kleptocratic pockets. Gypsy life in Bulgaria, the other EU member state to which Sarkozy is deporting them, is little better. The problem in Europe was never the Jews or the Gypsies. It was the Europeans who were suspicious of the Other in their societies. The Negro and Indian “problems” in America can be defined as the “white problem” for people whose lives were marginalized and were uppity enough to demand fair treatment. Russia has no Chechen “problem.” There is a Russian problem in Chechnya, whose population demanded independence from the post-Soviet empire.

Mme. Reding is right. Sarkozy’s squalid selection of Gypsies for special, collective treatment is beneath contempt. It is a populist measure designed, as a few French officials have admitted and as leaked documents have shown, to divert attention from the Bettancourt scandal. That sorry tale involved post-prandial passing of white envelopes stuffed with Euro notes for Sarkozy’s party regulars. Sarkozy may stem the dive in his popularity with attacks on defenseless Gypsies that are proving popular with much of his electorate. Then again, Maréchal Pétain’s policy of turning Jews and Gypsies over to the Germans was popular among his supporters in Vichy. Mayor Daley, who distracted voters from corruption alegations with swipes at African-Americans who demanded their rights, would have been proud.

A crazed ethnic cleanser world leader has his finger on the nuclear button

He has been linked to instigating terrorist arson attacks in his own country to beef up his popularity before elections, he has been attacked by former Cuban President Fidel Castro who said he is "going crazy" and cannot be trusted with his finger on the nuclear button, he is ethnically-cleansing his country of people he despises, he is embroiled in a scandal involving receiving illegal campaign contributions from a billionaire heiress,he has been cited as an agent for a foreign intelligence service, he has verbally attacked a tiny neighbor that is half the size of Delaware, and he has openly sparred with the President of the European Commission.

We are not talking about some dictator in the Middle East or Northeast Asia but the president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy. Sarkozy has been systematically deporting Roma (gypsies) from France and has questioned the "Frenchness" of French citizens who are Muslim and of Arab descent, which has galled many in France considering the fact that Sarkozy is of Hungarian-Jewish descent. French media have reported that Sarkozy is a long-time intelligence asset for the Israeli Mossad and the French president is the recipient of the American Jewish Committee’s “Light Unto The Nations” prize for his strongly pro-Israeli policies. Sarkozy's only real ally in Europe is the mercurial neo-fascist Prime Minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi.

Sarkozy, who is self-conscious about his short height and lack of sexual prowess, fits the profile of someone who uses his presidency, jumbo jet presidential airplane, and nuclear weapons to make up for his shortcomings in Napoleonic fashion.

As rumors swirl that Sarkozy's arch-rival, former French Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, the leader of the new political party, Republique solidaire, has even attracted the romantic eye of Sarkozy's model wife, Carla Bruni, the megalomanic French President is capable of just about anything. De Villepin, who has called Sarkozy a "dwarf," "midget," and suggested that his divorce from his first wife Cecilia and his recent reported marital problems with Carla Bruni are because Sarkozy has nothing in his trousers that would interest any woman, has also criticized Sarkozy's participation in the NATO war in Afghanistan. While Foreign Minister, de Villepin, lobbied the UN Security Council not to approve the Iraq war resolution. De Villepin instantly became a prime target of the neocons in France and abroad.

UN observers have noted that when Sarkozy has visited the UN, he stands on his toes when he around other world leaders. Sarkozy canceled a planned press conference at the UN General Assembly summit this week.

In Hitlerian fashion, Sarkozy has threatened to hang de Villepin from a butcher's meat hook. De Villepin said that he could not understand how anyone as beautiful as Bruni could be married to such a "buffoon." Sarkozy's lawyer, Thierry Herzog, promised Sarkozy that he would deliver de Villepin's head on a plate.

As Sarkozy's political future in France plummets, the danger exists that he may completely fly off the handle and egage in threatening other countries with France's nuclear "force de frappe" or strike force. Sarkozy has his finger on the button of the world's third largest nuclear arsenal, behind the United States and Russia. The French nuclear triad is based upon land-based missiles, nuclear submarines, and bombers. Sarkozy is one of the backers of military action against Iran, supporting his equally-fanatical allies in Jerusalem.

While the world is constantly treated by the corporate and neocon media to the nuclear threats posed by Iran, Pakistan, and North Korea, little is heard about the world's third-largest nuclear force being in the hands of an individual who has verbally attacked tiny Luxembourg, is ethnically-cleansing his nation of people he considers undesirable, and who tried to vanquish his arch-rival in matters of politics and sexual prowess, de Villepin, with a failed lawsuit.

If Sarkozy uses election fraud to win another term in the Elysee Palace in 2012, as he did in his last race against Socialist leader Segolene Royal, the world should forget Iran, Pakistan, and North Korea and seek the military seizure of French nuclear weapons from someone who fancies himself as a reincarnated Napoleon.

If de Villepin's RS party, the true successor to Charles de Gaulle's political legacy, succeeds in ousting Sarkozy from the Elysee Palace, the neocons will no longer enjoy Paris as a base of operations. France, along with Russia, Turkey, Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, and other like-minded nations, can begin the process of checking the neocons globally and roll back their power in the United Nations, NATO, Washington, London, Ottawa, and Berlin. WMR endorses Dominique de Villepin for President of France and his Republique solidaire party. The Elysee Palace should be returned to an actual person of France who believes in "liberte, egalite, et fraternite" and not stock neocon racism and fascism. Vive la France sans Sarkozy!

Don't mess with my burqa, monsieur By Pepe Escobar

When it comes to Islamophobia, good old Europe - which after all invented the Crusades - certainly has nothing to envy the United States.

I'm already making plans to arrive at Terminal 2 of Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris in the spring of 2011 sporting my burqa. The cruel doubt is, which one? Shall I deplane swathed in the classic light blue I used to cross to Talibanistan? Or the slick black number I once used to cross to the tribal areas? The ultra-chic dark green I got at Peshawar's bazaar, perhaps?

The mere thought of the possibilities once I disembark from Air France business class - where they won't dare tamper with my burqa - and hit immigration, gives me such a thrill. Will they fine me 150 euros (US$195) right away? Will they dispatch me to a "civic education" course? Will they simply denounce me to the fashion police? Better yet - will they call a Chanel representative and book me a show?

And what if I tell them that my wife made me do it? Will they throw her in jail and fine her 30,000 euros? Will they deport me on the first flight to Dubai and its burqa-congested duty free? Well, since I'm a man, and also a journalist, I can always tell them that I'm trying to infiltrate evil al-Qaeda cells in Europe, and this was a counter-insurgency burqa approved by General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Afghanistan. In this case, would I be able to walk away scot-free?

All these feverish considerations are taking place because the French Senate - with a momentous 246 to 1 vote - has just approved the motion for banning the Islamic veil all across the land, despite serious criticism by the State Council, Amnesty International and leaders of the Muslim community, who insist that the law "risks stigmatizing Islam" (that hefty 30,000 euro fine, by the way, applies to men guilty of forcing their women to wear the burqa).

Well, that's exactly what minute French President Nicolas Sarkozy ("Sarko", as the multitudes call him) always wanted; for Sarko the "veil is not welcome in the republic's territory". As for his justice minister, the uber-bourgeois, always impeccable coifed, and certified member of the Chanel-Hermes set, Michelle Alliot-Marie, she could not be more graphic, "The republic must be lived with an open face." Sounds like a bad Lancome commercial.
Eminent jurists duly note that France risks being condemned by the European Court of Human Rights. Anyway, now the premier Muslim community in Europe, comprising up to 6 million people, amongst whom only 2,000 wear a burqa or a niqab, is part of the first European state to censor the burqa. And it will not be the last; Belgium is considering a follow-up, and the truculent cripto-fascists of the Lega Nord in Italy are already extolling its cultural and security merits.

But it's not just about the burqa. This being advanced, militarized capitalism, it's about "dissimulation of the face in a public space". And that also means all those suspicious hoods in anti-government demonstrations. Beat the dissenters - and when in doubt, deport them. It remains to be seen whether the law will be equally applied to those who when on a Maserati convertible resort to a Hermes scarf in order to prevent the wind from messing their coiffure.

All roads don't lead to Roma
Quelle horreur. Over 221 years after the French Revolution gave the world the Declaration of Human Rights, France is being accused of a serious violation of human rights. And the plot thickens - it's not about the burqa.

The righteous Viviane Reding, vice president

of the European Commission (EC) responsible for Justice and Human Rights, has said it in plain English (being from Luxembourg, she's also fluent in French): "This is a disgrace."

The disgrace in question is the dodgy behavior of French ministers vis-a-vis the commission. Reding was fuming - according to legendary European parliamentary Danny Cohn-Bendit, former "the rouge", now "the green" - because those suave French ministers lied to her straight-faced about the mass expulsion of Roma, gypsies from Romania and Bulgaria (15,000 of them live in France). Sarkozy fought tooth and nail for this deportation en masse - subcontracted to mayors via an avalanche of ministerial memos.

As virtually nothing of value can be learned by reading or watching the cowardly, Sarko-co-opted, bling-bling, trash-saturated French media, it was up once again to the invaluable satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaine to reveal that a crucial memo by the Ministry of Interior expressly calling for systematic "important operations in priority against the Roma" came out of a meeting in Paris in early August. The Immigration Ministry had flatly denied it. The commission found out about it on the Internet.

For Reding, that was the straw that broke the camel's back. She had to stress that the role of the commission as "guardians" of the European Union (EU) treaties was being sabotaged by Immigration Minister Eric Besson and European Affairs Minister Pierre Lellouche. And she went straight to the point, "There's no place in Europe for discrimination based on ethnic origins or race." As much as any legal procedure by the commission may take months, France was in fact politically condemned, and reminded that the country is not above EU laws.

Obviously, the Sarko bling-bling brigade reacted with fury, starting with His Master's Voice, who with trademark politeness suggested the Roma should be deported to Reding's own Luxembourg instead of Romania. The deportation is in theory "voluntary". But there are not that many takers, even with a sendoff gift of 300 euros.

What drove the Sarko gang really ballistic was Reding, no holds barred, saying what many do not dare articulate; that these expulsions were eerily reminiscent of what had happened in Europe during World War II - when Vichy France collaborated with Nazi roundups of Jews and gypsies. Sarkozy as new Vichy is not exactly a sexy campaign slogan.

Guilty on two counts
Ever since his intolerant speech late July on security and immigration

, the "incredibly shrinking" Sarko (The Economist got it absolutely right has been ridiculed across the European board. For the millions of Frenchmen and women who really cherish the myth of this being the nation of human rights, it's a serious blow - worse than opening a tanked bottle of Petrus. Imagine the shame of France facing charges at the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg on two counts (violation of law governing behavior toward an ethnic group; and not providing Roma deportees with judicial appeal in accordance with EU regulations).

But what did they expect? Sarko has the mentality of a provincial cop. Forget the glories of Voltaire, Montaigne, Flaubert, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Sartre; under his reign an ageing, fearful, reactionary, increasingly unemployed, increasingly trashy and manic-depressive France has been wallowing in a mire of hate and bling-bling. To top it off, it was Sarko himself who framed his mass deportation scheme as a top security priority even as his government remains embroiled in a maze of political scandals.

Woody Allen has used insanely glamorous Sarko wife Carla Bruni - which wackos in Iran have defiled as an "Italian

prostitute" - in his latest movie, Midnight in Paris. Pity Woody didn't clad Carla in a burqa - just to spice up the debate. Or he could have played her as a Roma - deported to Rome ... A constantly fuming Sarko simply can't get over the fact that his wife is taller, cuter, and infinitely more desirable than him. And on top of it she does not expel people living in France - well, as long as they buy her latest CD. Anyway, I'm definitely looking forward to my burqa face off next spring at the immigration counter at Charles de Gaulle airport.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

El caballo de troya estadounidense en Francia: la French American Foundation por Pierre Hillard *

Hoy por hoy, la oposición política se materializa fundamentalmente entre aquellos que apoyan un gobierno unipolar del mundo bajo la autoridad de Estados Unidos y quienes preconizan un equilibrio de poderes regido por el Derecho Internacional. A ese nivel, la tradicional visión francesa que opone derecha e izquierda ya no es relevante, ya que tanto en uno como en otro bando, existen los partidarios de la Pax Americana. Una organización sin ánimo de lucro pero con cuantiosos fondos a su disposición, la French American Foundation (Fundación Franco-Americana), lleva treinta años dedicada a reclutar jóvenes líderes destinados a convertirse en dirigentes algún día para formarlos sobre el mantenimiento de la política atlantista. Entre ellos se cuentan miembros de la UMP, del PS y también integrantes del equipo de campaña de José Bové.


7 DE AGOSTO DE 2007

Desde
París (Francia)

Con motivo de su visita oficial a Estados Unidos, Nicolas Sarkozy pronunció un discurso el 12 de septiembre de 2006 en la French American Foundation (FAF en sus siglas en inglés, la «Fundación franco-americana»). Recordando la necesidad de «erigir nuevamente la relación trasatlántica (...) y de favorecer la constitución de una Europa políticamente fuerte e influyente en la escena internacional» [1], las palabras del aspirante al Elíseo han debido de hacer las delicias de los dirigentes de esa Fundación por lo general poco conocida.

El estudio de la misma es no obstante de gran utilidad a la hora de comprender mejor los vínculos —y hasta qué punto estos son estrechos—, entre las élites francesa y americana.La FAF tiene sus orígenes en las acciones de tres estadounidenses eminentes [2]: James G. Lowestein, miembro entre otros del Council on Foregin Relations (el CFR) [3] en el seno del cual se elabora la política exterior de Estados Unidos y que equivale al Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA, también conocido como Chatham House); James Chace, redactor jefe de Foreign Affairs, la revista del CFR, y Nicholas Wahl, catedrático de Ciencias Políticas y gran conocedor de la clase dirigente francesa, lo que le permitió establecer contactos con el general de Gaulle y Michel Debré [4] en particular.

En la década de los 70, esos tres hombres pusieron en común sus redes de contactos [5] entre los que se encontraban personalidades francesas de la política, la economía y los círculos universitarios, y que incluían entre otros a Olivier Chevrillon (uno de los fundadores de la revista Le Point), Pierre Jouven (presidente de Péchiney), Jean-Louis Gergorin (futuro miembro el comité ejecutivo de EADS) y Thierry de Montbrial (futuro presidente del Instituto Francés de Relaciones Internacionales, el IFRI, que en su día codirigió el Centro de Análisis y Previsión del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores). Uniendo sus esfuerzos, estos hombres consiguieron el apoyo oficial del Presidente de la República, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, quien —de común acuerdo con su homónimo estadounidense, Gerald Ford, y el

Secretario de Estado Henry Kissinger [6]-, anunció la creación de una doble fundación franco-americana durante el transcurso de una cena celebrada en la embajada de Francia en Washington, el 18 de mayo de 1976.Se decidió que la French American Foundation tendría una sede en Nueva York y otra en París y, tal y como se expresaba en los textos oficiales, «el objetivo de la Fundación franco-americana era reforzar la relación franco-americana considerada como un elemento esencial de la alianza trasatlántica» [7]. Para conseguir dicho objetivo, magos de las finanzas, los principales medios de comunicación, y personalidades del ámbito de la universidad y la política se reunieron en torno al recién creado instituto desde un principio y, a lo largo de los años, las dádivas han sido particularmente abundantes: la rama estadounidense ha disfrutado de apoyos particularmente importantes.

La impresionante lista de participantes es tan extensa que no resulta posible reproducir en su integridad los nombres de todos los dirigentes y donantes. No obstante, sí pueden mencionarse algunos de los más destacadas miembros (antiguos y nuevos) a fecha de 2007. Para empezar, John D. Negroponte [8], varias veces embajador y gobernador de Irak, responsable del conjunto de servicios de inteligencia de Estados Unidos y número 2 del Departamento de Estado. El siempre omnipresente John Negroponte ocupó en su día la presidencia de la FAF de Nueva York. También cabe mencionar a los miembros del consejo de administración, el antiguo presidente de los patronatos francés y europeo (el MEDEF y el UNICE), Ernest-Antoine Sellière y antiguo embajador de Estados Unidos en Francia, Félix G. Rohatyn y su homólogo en Washington, François Bujon de l’Estang [9].

Otro nombre al azar: el del actual presidente de la FAF de Nueva York, Nicholas Dungan [10] que ha desarrollado su actividad profesional en el seno de la muy atlantista Chatham House [11]. Entre los numerosos contribuidores financieros, pueden destacarse nombres de tanto prestigio como los de David Rockfeller, fundador de la Comisión Trilateral y presidente honorífico del CFR; el antiguo subdirector de la CIA y el antiguo Secretario de Defensa del presidente Reagan, Franck Carlucci [12], que posteriormente a ocupado el cargo de director del poderoso grupo Carlyle, la compañía vinculada a las familias Bush y Bin Laden, así como al sector de la defensa [13].Y en cuanto a los contribuidores a la la FAF de Nueva York, cabe citar nombres como EADS, l’Oréal USA [14] o incluso la Société Générale [15].La FAF francesa, por su parte, no tiene nada que envidiar a su gemela neoyorquina: dirigida en sus orígenes por el presidente de Péchiney, Pierre Jouven, desde 1997 preside la Fundación Michel Garcin [16], director general de Hervé Consultants (especialistas en asesoría de empresas).

El Consejo Supervisor [17] reúne a entidades de la talla de EADS France, BNP Paribas y la Caisse des dépôts así como a nombres tales como Yves de Gaulle (secretario general de Suez), Jean-Louis Gergorin (vicepresidente de coordinación estratégica de EADS, pese a que ha cesado en sus actividades a raíz del caso Clearstream) o Marwan Lahoud, director general del líder europeo en el sector de los misiles MBDA, participada por EADS en un 37,5% y cuyo hermano, Imad Lahoud [18], ha tenido algún que otro encontronazo con la justicia en relación a Jean-Louis Gergorin y el caso Clearstream.También cabe añadir que la FAF francesa cuenta con el apoyo del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, el de Educación Nacional y el Instituto de Estudios Políticos de París [19].

La clave del sistema de influencia de la Fundación Franco-Americana es su capacidad para reclutar a personas destinadas a ocupar altos cargos; su gran punto fuerte lo constituye el acoger en su seno a representantes políticos venidos de corrientes ideológicas oficialmente opuestas: de socialistas a miembros de la UMP pasando por el gaullista Dupont-Aignan y el responsable de comunicación de la campaña presidencial de José Bové, Bernard Loche.

Para evitar emitir juicios precipitados, téngase en cuenta que las personas con las que la Fundación se ha puesto en contacto y que han aceptado frecuentarla, sin embargo no han aceptado los servicios que se les han ofrecido posteriormente.La verdadera selección se produce en el marco de un programa denominado Young Leaders (Jóvenes líderes) del que los textos oficiales de la fundación dicen: «El programa insignia de Young Leaders, gestionado por las dos entidades (Nueva York y París) tiene por objetivo crear y desarrollar vínculos duraderos entre jóvenes profesionales franceses y estadounidenses de talento que muestran el potencial de ocupar puestos clave en uno u otro país en el futuro». [20].
Los textos oficiales precisan que la selección se lleva a cabo en 3 fases:

1. «La primera fase consiste en la preselección de candidatos. Dicha preselección se realiza por medio de la red de la Fundación Franco-Americana, y de antiguos Young Leaders o miembros del Consejo Supervisor en la actualidad. Además, recientemente se ha emprendido un esfuerzo para diversificar el origen social y profesional de los candidatos, en particular a través de la identificación de perfiles prometedores en la prensa.

2. La segunda fase es la recogida formal de candidaturas y la subsiguiente confección de informes que contienen la biografía del candidato y una carta de recomendación. Entonces se organizan unas entrevistas para profundizar en la cuestión de la motivación.

3. La última fase del procedimiento es la selección final de los candidatos.

Tras recibirse los informes de cada candidato, el Comité de Selección se reúne. Dicho comité está formado por 10 miembros, la mayoría de los cuales son antiguos Young Leaders. Los candidatos que obtienen más puntuación son los que resultan seleccionados». Como puede verse, en la FAF no entra quien quiere sino quien puede: los miembros seleccionados forman una verdadera «élite» cuyo objetivo oficial es «reforzar la relación franco-americana considerada como elemento esencial de la alianza trasatlántica», lo que hace sumamente interesante conocer quiénes son: encabezando la lista se encuentra el profesor estadounidense de ciencias políticas y miembro del CFR, Ezra Suleiman, quien fuera responsable de reclutar Young Leaders en Francia entre 1981 y 1984, y después de 1994 a 2001 [21].

Tras una rigurosa selección, sólo 125 estadounidenses y 126 franceses forman parte de los Young Leaders desde de 1981. En el caso de la FAF de Estados Unidos, pueden citarse los siguientes nombres junto con la fecha de admisión: Antony Blinken (1998, antiguo consejero de política extranjera del presidente Clinton), Ian Brzezinski (2001, encargado de asuntos de defensa de la OTAN, hijo del célebre geopolitólogo Zbigniew Brzezinski), el general Wesley K. Clark (1983, ex-comandante en jefe de las tropas de la OTAN en Europa), el presidente Clinton (1984) y Hillary Clinton (1983, senadora) [22].

En cuanto a la rama francesa de la Fundación Franco-Americana, cabe destacar en particular los siguientes nombres:
Philippe Auberger (1989, diputado de la UMP, partido político francés de derecha), Yves Censi (2003, diputado de la UMP), Jérôme Chartier (2003, diputado de la UMP), Nicolas Dupont-Aignan (2001, diputado de la UMP, Debout la République), Alain Juppé (1981, diputado de la UMP), Éric Raoult (1994, diputado de la UMP), Valérie Pécresse (2002, diputada de la UMP), Jacques Toubon (1983, diputado de la UMP), François Hollande (1996, diputado socialista francés), Arnaud Montebourg (2000, diputado socialista), Pierre Moscovici (1996, diputado socialista), Alain Richard (1981, socialista, antiguo ministro de Defensa), Henri de Castries (1994, director general del grupo asegurador AXA), Emmanuel Chain (1999, periodista), Jérôme Clément (1982, presidente de Arte), Annick Cojean (2000, periodista de Le Monde), Jean-Marie Colombani (1983, director del diario Le Monde ), Matthieu Croissandeau (2002, redactor jefe adjunto del semanario Nouvel Observateur), Jean-Louis Gergorin (1994), Bernard Guetta (1981, periodista de France Inter), Erik Izraelewicz (1994, redactor jefe de Échos), Laurent Joffrin (1994, director general del diario Libération), Jean-Noël Jeanneney (1983, presidente de la Biblioteca Nacional de Francia), Sylvie Kaufmann (1998, periodista de Le Monde), Yves de Kerdrel (2005, periodista de Échos), Marwan Lahoud (1999), Anne Lauvergeon (1996, presidenta de Areva), François Léotard (1981, antiguo ministro de Defensa), Alain Minc (1981), Laurent Cohen-Tanugi (1996, Sanofi-Synthélabo y miembro del consejo de administración del think tank «Notre Europe» creado por el antiguo presidente de la Comisión Europoea Jacques Delors [23]), Christine Ockrent (1983), Olivier Nora (1995, presidente de Éditions Grasset), Denis Olivennes (1996, presidente de la FNAC)... [24]

Semejante representación pone de manifiesto la importante influencia que ejerce la Fundación Franco-Americana en las relaciones franco-estadounidenses [25].
Se celebran múltiples encuentros entre representantes franceses y estadounidenses con objeto de debatir cuestiones relativas a defensa, política, periodismo, sindicalismo... De hecho, de trata de «limar» las aristas con objeto de llegar a un consenso que favorezca la alianza trasatlántica. Todas esas reuniones oficiales y oficiosas permiten crear una comunidad de pensamiento entre los principales miembros de la FAF pertenecientes a los más variados sectores.

Esta fundación organiza así mismo diversos coloquios sobre defensa, periodismo, educación y salud. Entre los participantes, además de los nombres ya citados, se encuentran personalidades muy conocidas tales como François Bayrou, Bernard Kouchner (éste político del partido Socialista francés acaba de pasarse al bando del nuevo presidente Sarkozy quien lo ha nombrado como primer ministro de su gobierno), Jean-François Copé (portavoz del gobierno de Chirac en 2007), Michel Barnier (asesor político de Nicolas Sarkozy en 2007), Nicolas Beytout (director de redacción de Figaro), el general Henri Bentegeat (jefe de estado mayor del ejército) etc. [26].
Por supuesto todos esos coloquios persiguen como máximo objetivo el servir mejor a los intereses de la humanidad.

Pierre Hillard
Última obra publicada: La Décomposition des nations européennes: De l’Union euro-Atlantique à l’État mondial (La Descomposición de las naciones europeas: de la Unión euro-atlántica al Estado mundial. Editor: François-Xavier de Guibert, Francia.
Los artículos de esta autora o autor



[1] http://www.u-m-p.org.

[2] http://www.frenchamerican.org/board.

[3] «Comment le Conseil des relations étrangères détermine la diplomatie US», Red Voltaire, 25 de junio de 2004.

[4] http://www.frenchamerican.org/

[5] http://www.frenchamerican.org/

[6] http://www.frenchamerican.org/

[7] http://www.frenchamerican.org/

[8] «John Negroponte bientôt à Bagdad», por Arthur Lepic, Red Voltaire, 20 de abril de 2004.

[9] http://www.frenchamerican.org/

[10] http://www.frenchamerican.org/

[11] http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/

[12] «El honorable Frank Carlucci», Red Voltaire, 18 de julio de 2005.

[13] «El Carlyle Group, un negocio de iniciados», Red Voltaire, 27 de junio de 2005.

[14] «Histoire secrète de L’Oréal» Voltairenet, 3 mars 2004.

[15] http://www.frenchamerican.org/

[16] http://www.frenchamerican.org/

[17] http://www.frenchamerican.org/

[18] Contrariamente a lo que se ha publicado en la prensa francesa, Marwan y Iman Lahoud no son familia del presidente de Líbano Émile Lahoud.

[19] http://www.frenchamerican.org/

[20] Rapport d’étude pour le ministère des Affaires étrangères (Estudio confeccionado para el Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores), análisis del proceso de selección de los Young Leaders franceses durante el periodo 1981-2005, Fundación Franco-Americana, Paris y Nueva York, p. 4

[21] Ibid., p. 6.

[22] http://www.frenchamerican.org/

[23] http://www.frenchamerican.org/

[24] http://www.frenchamerican.org/

[25] Dicha comparación también se produce en el terreno de lo económico. De hecho la FAF ha organizado un coloquio titulado « Économies européennes et américaines, l’impossible divorce» (Las economías europeas y americanas, el divorcio imposible) bajo la dirección de Joseph P. Quinlan, autor de un documento aparecido en 2003 con el título Drifting apart or growing together? The primacy of the transatlantic economy (¿Caminos que se separan o que confluyen? La primacía de la economía trasatlántica). Joseph P. Quinlan es así mismo coautor junto con Daniel S. Hamilton de la obra de referencia en materia de mercado trasatlántico sin barreras Deep integration (Integración profunda), cuyo valor tanto ponderó el presidente de la Comisión Europea, José Barraso, en la School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), el 18 e octubre de 2005.

[26] Informe anual 2003-2004, Fundación Franco-Americana.

Esta fundación concede cada año el Premio Benjamin Franklin «a una persona que, con su vida, haya contribuido a mejorar las relaciones entre Francia y Estados Unidos», tal y como menciona el informe de la FAF. Entre los galardonados con dicho premio se encuentran: el embajador C. Douglas Dillon, el embajador Walter J.P. Curley, Médicos sin Fronteras, Bernard Arnault (grupo LVMH del sector del lujo), Michel David-Weill (antiguo presidente de Lazard Frères), la familia Forbes y Maurice Lévy (presidente de la Junta Directiva de Publicis Groupe), op. cit. p. 30.