Стр. 14 - V

Электронное приложение к журналу «Международная жизнь»
Author : A. Orlov
Director, Institute for International Studies, Moscow State Institute (University) for International Rela-
tions, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation
SIX MONTHS filled with tension and keen apprehension
of the "Trump effect" cropping up on the European soil
separated two victories at the presidential elections: the vic-
tory of conservative Donald Trump in the United States
and liberal Emmanuel Macron in France.
People celebrated the victory in the streets of French cities
and towns; they sang La Marseillaise while highbrow intel-
lectuals were trying to find a link between Macron's victory
and the ideas of the French Revolution of the late eigh-
teenth century.
On May 15, the next day after his inauguration, he went to
Germany to coordinate positions with Chancellor Merkel, whose party had scored a big win in the key
state election in North Rhine-Westphalia on May 14, thus giving her a good chance to become the
chancellor for the fourth time running after the September federal elections. Macron's purpose was ob-
vious: the Paris-Berlin bloc as invincible as ever was and would remain the cornerstone of the European
Union and the locomotive of European integration despite the Brexit and its obvious and so far not
obvious repercussions.
The euphoria raised by Macron's victory among a fairly big share of Europeans and the new French
leader's devotion to the European values are expected to guarantee prosperity to France and the EU;
reality, however, is less radiant. The number of disagreements of all sorts is too big to be sorted out
more or less promptly; the same fully applies to the emerging political solitaire and its possible results.
When threatened by "a-systemic elements," the matrix promptly mobilizes its huge opposition potential.
This can be observed in real time in the United States: having perceived Donald Trump as a threat, the
liberal matrix went into the war at the stage of the election campaign and has not yet lay down their
arms even though the new president spares no effort to demonstrate that he is not a threat to the matrix
but is its inalienable part with bits and pieces of his own opinion.
Macron, in his turn, tries to present himself to the nation as a storm petrel of renovation, a carrier of
new ideas and a vehicle of new hopes. The new "moralization law" pledged by Emmanuel Macron to
clean up French politics following a series of fraud scandals bans members of parliament, local repre-
sentatives and senior civil servants to employ members of their families.
In the parliament, Macron counts on "new people" who have nothing in common with the mossy po-
litical class associated with demagoguery and corruption.
Who rules the world? This is an eternal question that today has become even more important than at
any time before. Many analysts are trying to prove that French society, the French are behind the deep-
cutting changes related to the rotation of political elites. Is this true? Is the people, an instrument of
voting, an object of subtle political intrigue that brought to power the candidate of the omnipotent
liberal matrix?
Macron's Victory as Liberal Revenge