In this gripping episode of Dialogue Works, former intelligence officer Col. Jacques Baud reveals how the European Union is pushing itself toward collapse — economically, politically, and strategically. 🧠🔥
🇪🇺 EU sanctions backfiring?
Military entanglements with no endgame?
💰 Economic decline fueled by ideological decisions
🎯 Ignoring diplomacy while provoking global powers
Baud's intelligence background gives him rare insight into what’s really going on behind closed doors in Brussels and beyond.
💬 Is the EU sabotaging itself for U.S. interests?
🔔 Subscribe for more fearless, fact-based geopolitical analysis from Dialogue Works!
#JacquesBaud
#DialogueWorks
#EuropeanUnion
#EUCollapse
#Geopolitics
#EUPolitics
#RussiaUkraine
#SanctionsBackfire
#EUEconomy
#NATOCrisis
#TruthUnfiltered
#DeepState
#IntelligenceAnalysis
#CensoredNews
#EuropeAtRisk
#WesternDecline
#GlobalShift
#UkraineWar
#ForbiddenNews
#RealGeopolitics
🇪🇺 EU sanctions backfiring?
Military entanglements with no endgame?
💰 Economic decline fueled by ideological decisions
🎯 Ignoring diplomacy while provoking global powers
Baud's intelligence background gives him rare insight into what’s really going on behind closed doors in Brussels and beyond.
💬 Is the EU sabotaging itself for U.S. interests?
🔔 Subscribe for more fearless, fact-based geopolitical analysis from Dialogue Works!
#JacquesBaud
#DialogueWorks
#EuropeanUnion
#EUCollapse
#Geopolitics
#EUPolitics
#RussiaUkraine
#SanctionsBackfire
#EUEconomy
#NATOCrisis
#TruthUnfiltered
#DeepState
#IntelligenceAnalysis
#CensoredNews
#EuropeAtRisk
#WesternDecline
#GlobalShift
#UkraineWar
#ForbiddenNews
#RealGeopolitics
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00:00Hi, everybody. Today is Wednesday, April 16th, 2025, and our friend Colonel Jacopo is back
00:00:11with us. Welcome back, Colonel.
00:00:13Thank you very much for inviting me again. Thank you.
00:00:17Let's get started, Colonel, with what's going on between the United States and China. And
00:00:25when we talk about the two parties and the new articles in Reuters in Irish Times shows
00:00:32that the United States, one of the main goals of the United States putting tariffs on China
00:00:36and on the European Union is just to separate Europe from China. We talked before coming
00:00:43up to this live, you said that the West is killing itself for the sake of killing the
00:00:50enemy. What's your take on what's going on in terms of the way that the United States
00:00:55is just pushing and trying to separate Europe from China?
00:01:02Well, I think I'm not sure that the US tries to separate Europe from China. But the fact
00:01:09of the matter is that now the West is in a crisis, basically. And it's not a new crisis.
00:01:17I think the crisis started with the Ukrainian conflict when the the West at large and European
00:01:29Union and European countries thought that they could defeat Russia through sanctions and they
00:01:37applied all these sanctions. And that generated a sense of mistrust with the rest of the world.
00:01:46The pressure that was exerted by the West on the rest of the world so that they apply sanctions against Russia and all that.
00:01:58I think this has created a kind of unbalance in the in the whole world. I mean, there were probably signs of unbalance.
00:02:08But that has been the marking moment when the rest of the world, as we call it in Europe, the rest of the world thought, so could see, in fact, that the West was ready to shoot at itself in order to destroy the world.
00:02:19Russia. And they started to severe economic or trade relations with some countries that were sanctioned because they supported or better said, because they didn't want to condemn Russia.
00:02:47Russia. And we had such a sanction on a couple of countries. And that has created a mistrust between the rest of the world and Europe.
00:03:02The problem of Europe, the West at large, with the conflict in Ukraine, you had an apparent, let's say, converging view in the West,
00:03:16the West because there is a traditional historic fear of Russia because it's a huge country because and so on.
00:03:26And that's the reason why you had these attempts to attack Russia in the 19th century, just after World War One.
00:03:34And all the initiatives during the start of the Cold War by France, Germany and the US, of course, but in the UK to destabilize the Soviet Union by promoting, because that's something that nobody talks about.
00:03:56But up to the early 60s, the West started to destabilize the Soviet Union by promoting insurgency in Ukraine.
00:04:12And in fact, they supported and they dropped nightly agents and weapons and all that in order to create this insurgency.
00:04:22And so there is a historic relation or mistrust between Europeans and Soviet Union in the first place and then Russia.
00:04:36So during in 2022, as the conflict started, you had this kind of common understanding, they had a common enemy and everything was more or less fine in that context.
00:04:53Although the rest of the world could see how Europe, especially, should itself by imposing sanctions on the on the on the on the natural gas.
00:05:11As an example, as an example, as an example, as an example, as an example, as a source of energy, of cheap energy.
00:05:15And and you had attempts of the West at large, Europe in particular, because they are taken now in the middle, the US is is produces natural gas.
00:05:29But Europe, I mean, does produce a little bit also, but not enough for their own its own purposes.
00:05:36Therefore, Europe was taken as a hostage.
00:05:41It was taken hostage by itself, if you want, in this conflict.
00:05:46And they tried to pressure other countries in order to have some kind of control of the on the oil and gas price.
00:05:57That was the oil, the price caps that they tried to impose on the on oil and gas.
00:06:07This didn't work, but that created the sense of defiance in the rest of the world towards Europe.
00:06:16As Trump came into in office early this year, he started to impose its sanction.
00:06:27I mean, Trump is has a foreign policy which is ethnocentric or US centric, if you want.
00:06:37And he was elected for that because the whole idea is to reassure industrial capabilities and capacities within the US, even at the expense of the European Union, by the way.
00:06:52So meaning that the allies for against Russia became suddenly enemies when it comes to the foreign policy of the US.
00:07:05And remember that already last year, even before Donald Trump.
00:07:12But we have also to realize that the China, the policy of the US against China is bipartisan.
00:07:19It's not Trump has, let's say, a more extreme way of addressing the problem.
00:07:27But that was started already with Biden. Remember the 100% tax tariffs on EVs, for instance, that he imposed last year.
00:07:39In any case, after Biden imposed tariffs, Europeans did the same.
00:07:45And now, and of course, at that time, Europe was or thought it was part of the same club as the US.
00:07:55And now Donald Trump said, no, no, you're not part of the same club.
00:07:58There is one club, which is the United States.
00:08:01And you are the you are the second, the second class members and America first.
00:08:11That's one thing. And then maybe you.
00:08:14But first, we'll even take jobs from you into United States.
00:08:20So suddenly the Europe finds itself.
00:08:24caught in a fight it was not prepared for.
00:08:29Even if since last year, we know exactly what would happen if Donald Trump would be elected.
00:08:36And since October, we know that Donald Trump is elected.
00:08:40But the European Union didn't react to that.
00:08:44And so we have a very much unprepared European Union, which is focused.
00:08:53And that's very interesting when you live here in Europe, when you talk about foreign policy and all that.
00:08:59And everything you read in Europe regarding foreign policy is always related to Russia.
00:09:06It's almost as if foreign policy or diplomacy has totally disappeared.
00:09:15And everything is what we do is part of a security is security driven against Russia.
00:09:27But there is no foreign policy.
00:09:28And and Europe has got caught into this kind of or trapped into this approach to the problem.
00:09:39Now, Europe, as you have seen in the various conflict, we have now a couple of crises, I would say, for major crises, I would say.
00:09:52You have, of course, Ukraine, you have Palestine, and then you have China, which is another crisis at another level, but another crisis.
00:10:04And Iran, which is another crisis or a potential crisis.
00:10:10In none of those crises, you have European Union.
00:10:16Every time you have a problem.
00:10:19I mean, you want to have an agreement with Israel or with Iran or whoever.
00:10:25Everybody looks back at the US, including in Europe.
00:10:30But nobody even think about having Europe being involved in that.
00:10:36Europe has not has totally focused on the conflict in Ukraine, has never been even able to solve diplomatically the problem.
00:10:48It's the on the only effect or impact of foreign policy was to provide weapons and ammunition to Ukraine.
00:10:58But there is no attempt to solve the problem diplomatically.
00:11:03And the same for other conflicts.
00:11:06You can talk about Palestine, Iran and all.
00:11:09As we discussed before this program, when we talk about a GCPOA, for instance, that we had that the Obama administration sponsored in in 2015-16 with Iran.
00:11:26You had the U.S. and Iran as partners.
00:11:30That's clear.
00:11:31But you had also European Union as European Union and you had France, Germany, UK and China.
00:11:38Now, today, there is an attempt from the Trump administration to revive some form of GCPOA.
00:11:47But you see the negotiation you have between the U.S. and Iran through Oman and things like that.
00:11:57But nobody talks about the European Union.
00:12:00They are totally absent of the picture.
00:12:03And when we talk about Ukraine, we have exactly the same picture.
00:12:08We talk about Case Kellogg, Steve Witkoff, Zelensky, Trump, Putin.
00:12:16But nobody mentioned any European.
00:12:19I mean, the Europeans, the only contribution is who will provide the troops in case we want to deploy peace.
00:12:27And then you have Case Kellogg and Emmanuel Macron who try to put on their uniform of generals to put troops.
00:12:38But there is absolutely no impact of the UK, British or French diplomacy in that.
00:12:47They are not invited. They are not a part of the talks.
00:12:52They are not part of the resumption of a dialogue.
00:13:00So we see and I think that's something that the whole world has no witness.
00:13:08This is this essential weakness of the West and Europe in particular.
00:13:15that is able only to act on a very limited range of activities, namely provide weapons.
00:13:25But it's totally unable and not even unable.
00:13:29But even if it would be on the diplomatic scene, nobody would even listen to them.
00:13:35And that's that's very interesting.
00:13:39We could see that after you had these declarations of J.D. Vance in the Munich conference in February.
00:13:49And then you had this I don't know if it's sad or funny or tragic episode in the Oval Office.
00:13:59You had the European countries who tried to reassemble and find a common reaction to that and find a way to solve the Ukraine crisis.
00:14:16They were not even able to gather all the Europeans.
00:14:23In fact, when we talk today about sending troops, you have only one EU country, France, and one non EU country, which is UK, who are ready to deploy forces.
00:14:41Even the Poles, who are very strong supporters of the European Union because they are net recipients of the EU aid, therefore they are very much in favor of the EU.
00:14:53They are not ready to provide troops to solve or to have any kind of influence on the Ukraine conflict.
00:15:05So we see that European Union has not even managed to be united in this conflict.
00:15:12There was this tacit, I would say, tacit agreement among them at the beginning of the conflict that Russia is the country that attacked Ukraine and therefore has to be punished, sanctioned and all that.
00:15:31But very soon we have seen even within the Europeans themselves that they realized that the policy that was applied to Russia was completely disregarding the interests of the Europeans themselves.
00:15:46And that's the reason why you had Fitsou in Slovakia and an Orban in Hungary, who clearly showed their another position towards Russia.
00:16:05And as a response, you have more and more kind of dictatorial approach of Europe.
00:16:15First of all, they start sanctioning Hungary, for instance, because of its support or because it didn't want to sanction Russia.
00:16:25So they were sanctioned within the European Union.
00:16:28And now you have because some leaders in the world have been invited to the the ceremony of the 18th anniversary of the end of the World War Two in Moscow.
00:16:48Now the European Union decide to sanction those leaders who accept the invitation of Vladimir Putin.
00:16:55So we are in a very strange type of situation where we start to, first of all, sanction has become the main tool of foreign policy for Europe, apparently, because they are not able to act diplomatically.
00:17:11So they just sanction people.
00:17:13And in addition to that, you don't exactly understand why this, why are they so upset because the leader of a country wants to have a good relation with Russia.
00:17:33After all, it would be probably a possible start for an exit strategy.
00:17:45But you don't see any exit strategy in Europe.
00:17:49They haven't figured out how they would get out of the conflict.
00:17:55They provide weapons and they declare that they want to continue supporting Ukraine.
00:18:02But for which goal, for which purpose?
00:18:09This has never been defined.
00:18:12What happens if what we see today on the battlefield continues?
00:18:17I mean, that Ukraine gets slightly but constantly and systematically destroyed.
00:18:25Europe will simply provide weapons.
00:18:28And how will it prevent Ukraine to be defeated?
00:18:34What is the definition of defeat for Ukraine or for Russia?
00:18:41What would be the meaning of a victory for Ukraine or for Russia?
00:18:47These are these kind of questions are totally absent from European thinking.
00:18:56And you see that Europe was able.
00:19:00And that's probably the reason why you had Emmanuel Macron on the 5th of March.
00:19:06making an address to all its fellow citizens in France, saying that France must be ready for war because after Ukraine, Russia will continue its progression.
00:19:21Meaning that, notabene, they didn't even consider the fact that Ukraine could stop that.
00:19:28They said, well, after Ukraine will be ourselves.
00:19:32So they even imagined that, in fact, Ukraine is already defeated.
00:19:39I mean, what what Macron said is it was conceding the victory of Russia.
00:19:45But in addition to that, he portrayed a vision of the future, which is, in fact, World War Three.
00:19:55And we have we are back to what we had in 2022, where you had leaders in Europe with poor popular support,
00:20:10with relatively poor strategies.
00:20:14There were Emmanuel Macron was a point in case, a case in point,
00:20:20where he was contested, violently contested.
00:20:25We the the Europe was just getting out of the Covid crisis,
00:20:33where none of those governments, European governments, has performed well.
00:20:39They were unable to adapt or adopt strategies that would prevent the disease.
00:20:49They tried something, but they were never a real consistent approach to problems.
00:20:56And therefore, the conflict in Ukraine came at the right point to have some kind of gung-ho effect.
00:21:03So, you know, when you are attacked.
00:21:05And so now we have to to all be together fighting against Russia.
00:21:10Russia is is putting the international world order in danger.
00:21:17And therefore we have to react.
00:21:19But now with with after three years, people have understood that what we said was wrong.
00:21:28All these countries, Western leaders promised to defeat Russia through sanctions.
00:21:35It didn't happen.
00:21:37They promised to develop economy and that Russian economy was failing.
00:21:43It's exactly the opposite that happens.
00:21:47Europe is the industrializing while Russia is industrializing.
00:21:54And therefore the trust between the population in Europe towards their leaders has is fading away.
00:22:06And we have seen that in various elections that we had in France, in Germany, in the UK and everywhere,
00:22:13where people have a lot of mistrust against their leaders.
00:22:19So today I think Trump is the final nail in the coffin, if you want, because it shows that the US, good or bad, right or wrong.
00:22:36But that's the policy of Donald Trump.
00:22:38And that's the mandate on which or the program on which it was elected.
00:22:44It's to make America great again.
00:22:48But nobody has realized in Europe that making the US great again is, of course, at the expense of the rest of the world.
00:22:57And even if Marco Rubio acknowledged that the time for unipolarity is gone and now we are entering or we are in an era of multipolarity.
00:23:16Notice that unipolarity or multipolarity is not a policy.
00:23:23That's very important to understand, by the way, that multipolarity is a state of the world.
00:23:32So it's a fact, it's given.
00:23:34It's the result of the evolution, international relations, trade and all that.
00:23:40It's not a policy.
00:23:42The policy would be exactly what we have seen recently applied by Donald Trump, for instance.
00:23:50In fact, it's the hegemonic behavior that is back.
00:23:57It takes other forms than under Biden or Obama or even other US presidents.
00:24:07It's a little bit more brutal.
00:24:10But it's the same policy in essence, meaning that the US has a leading role in the world to fulfill.
00:24:22And it is on the right path.
00:24:26It has democratic institutions.
00:24:28It has a liberal economic system.
00:24:31It's the system that can generate the most success, opportunities and all that.
00:24:39And therefore, this is a good system.
00:24:42And this good system is worth being propagated and advertised and adopted by other countries as well.
00:24:56So we are in this situation today that the US is applying a US-centric policy.
00:25:06But the EU in that context is completely disarmed because it didn't prepare itself for that.
00:25:16So it was it was fine to fight against Russia.
00:25:21But now it is taken in between different current or trends.
00:25:31It cannot it cannot it does not the same competition issue with China.
00:25:42It cannot cut from the US because it's an ally.
00:25:46And it has not all the capacities that have other competitors.
00:25:55I mean, Europe has only limited resources, natural resources, energy resources.
00:26:04China, Russia, the US is more or less has also access to a lot of resources.
00:26:14And Europe is is let alone in that without foreign policy, without a real consistent approach to the world.
00:26:28the world, we can say, without any consistent approach to how should Europe develop into something.
00:26:40And therefore, now the the the losers of all this conflict.
00:26:46They might be other losers. I mean, again, I'm not suggesting that the policy applied by Donald Trump will be extremely successful.
00:26:55But that's another. This is another issue.
00:26:58But at least that's the policy they want to apply that they decided to apply.
00:27:03And OK, they take the risk. But the Europe here in between has decided nothing.
00:27:11They have not been deciding on the future. They have they have no leverage on Russia.
00:27:18They have almost no leverage on Ukraine.
00:27:21They have no leverage on the rest of the world and have no leverage on the US.
00:27:26So the the the geopolitical loser of this of this situation is is Europe.
00:27:34And probably the positive aspect of that is probably shows the limits of the European project.
00:27:43You know, as at the end of World War Two or better said at the beginning of the Cold War.
00:27:52The US realized that it needed a strong Europe to face the Soviet Union.
00:28:02And that's the reason why the US, in fact, sponsored the European unity and the creation of the European institutions,
00:28:14because it wanted to to have a united Europe against the Soviet Union.
00:28:22There was a concern in the US that communism and remember that in during World War Two communists,
00:28:30especially in Italy and France, were instrumental in resisting against the Germans.
00:28:38And therefore, the communist parties in both Italy and not just in in in Italy and France, by the way,
00:28:47you had the same thing in Germany, you had the same thing in other countries in Europe,
00:28:52where the Communist Party had a lot of support because it was part of the winners.
00:29:01And that's the reason why the US started to be involved in the creation of the European Union.
00:29:09But the European Union we have now is not exactly the one that was designed by the the US,
00:29:19even if some Americans at that time had this idea of the United States of Europe,
00:29:25which is something that still some Europeans have in mind, by the way.
00:29:34But I don't think it can take a ground because Europeans are too diverse.
00:29:43But the Europe that was created by the US was a trade union, basically,
00:29:50basically what we used to call call the common market of which you had.
00:29:56I mean, all the big countries of Western Europe today, France, Germany, Italy,
00:30:03UK, Belgium, Netherlands and all that, Luxembourg.
00:30:09And this was the core of this trade market, the trade European market.
00:30:20And later the Europeans had this idea of coming into one state and starting to have a common foreign policy,
00:30:28a common security policy and that started to go wrong because the French have or had their own foreign policy.
00:30:38towards Africa, especially because they were traditionally related to Africa.
00:30:47Spain had these ties with Latin America, the same with Portugal and Brazil, for instance.
00:30:57And other countries that we see today, even Estonia, for instance, has as a focus Russia.
00:31:10I mean, that's everything that the Estonians do is related to Russia, period. Nothing else.
00:31:18So how do you accommodate those sort of this diverse concerns that you have in Europe together into one foreign policy?
00:31:31It's almost impossible.
00:31:33And I think European Union made a mistake by having Kayakalas as the foreign minister.
00:31:46I mean, it's not technically it's not a prime minister, but it's the leader of the European External Action Service,
00:31:54which is some kind of foreign ministry of the European Union.
00:31:59In any case, she's in charge of shaping the foreign policy of the European Union.
00:32:09But look at this. She comes from one of the smallest countries in the European Union, which is Estonia.
00:32:16She used to be prime minister of Estonia. Estonia has one point five million inhabitants, by the way, a decreasing population,
00:32:26because people are flying away of Estonia.
00:32:31This country is a country that is, in fact, recipient, net recipient of economic aid from the European Union.
00:32:46If you look at the map of the European Union, if you look at those who are the donors and those who are receiving aid from the European Union,
00:32:58you will see that, in fact, the whole eastern part of Europe is a net recipient of EU aid.
00:33:06That's the reason why those countries are so vehemently in favor of Europe, by the way, because they receive aid.
00:33:17I mean, these countries are not even able to have a sustainable economic system.
00:33:30They live based on European aid, which is paid by the western part of Europe.
00:33:38So, meaning that you have Estonia, this very tiny country, Kayakala, coming from this country, with a focus exclusively on Russia.
00:33:49And just to show the mood in Estonia, just last week, the parliament adopted a law in Estonia that prevents the Russians,
00:34:05I would not even say citizens, because they are non-citizens, because they have special rules for ethnic Russians in Estonia.
00:34:16But now they adopted a law that prevents those Russians to vote in local elections in the country.
00:34:23So this is a country that is talking about values, democratic values and all that.
00:34:32But in fact, within this country, you have a divide, a legal divide, based not on what people do, but based on what they are.
00:34:46And we are exactly back.
00:34:49And we are exactly back.
00:34:50I mean, this is not surprising because Estonia has a history of support of the Germany of the 30s.
00:34:57But this is this is reminiscent of the laws that you had in 1935 in Germany, the so-called Nuremberg laws that are granted rights to the population, not based on what they do, but on what they are.
00:35:18In 1935, the Germans were obviously targeting the Jewish population, but it shows that you have countries even today, even 80 years after World War Two, you still have countries that have a legal system that is based on ethnicity in Europe and not based on what these populations are doing, but on what they are.
00:35:47And now the external or the foreign policy of the EU should be shaped or defined or led by this person who has her view exclusively on Russia.
00:36:06How can she address the concerns of, let's say, the Spanish, the Greeks or the Italians whose problems are mostly illegal immigration from Africa, for instance, because that's their that's the main concern they have.
00:36:26And of course, there are many different type of issues related to the Mediterranean area.
00:36:33So, you see, that illustrates the problem that you have in the EU trying to accommodate objectives, vision, even vision of the world.
00:36:52What you say in German under the word of Weltanschauung.
00:36:57This is the perception of the world, essentially, that are fundamentally different.
00:37:03And when you see, when we talk about Ukraine and all that, you see, the Portuguese are not very interested about what's happening in Ukraine.
00:37:15They are not concerned.
00:37:16And even the the Hungarians have a different view on Ukraine.
00:37:24And why?
00:37:25Because you have Hungarian minorities in Ukraine who are suffering under Zelensky's rule there.
00:37:32And therefore, you have even if they are very close and probably the closest to Ukraine, they have a different view from Brussels because they know what Ukraine is about when it comes to their own minorities.
00:37:48So, we see within Europe this this this differences among countries that are now coming to the surface.
00:38:02And that explains also why you have the rhetoric that is that amplifies in Europe of a possible war in Europe.
00:38:13Because again, we are back to the same dynamics that we had in 2022.
00:38:19At least we had a real enemy to be that would gather all Europeans together.
00:38:28And we, in fact, Europe is in charge of an enemy.
00:38:33Now, we have to say that Trump has provided another enemy in another area.
00:38:40And we see that in Europe, the perception of Donald Trump is extremely negative.
00:38:48It was negative during its first mandate.
00:38:53And now it's even more because obviously European Union will be affected by these tariffs.
00:39:00So the problem here is that Europe has not been able to define its own path.
00:39:09It is subject to what happens, what others have decided, what Trump decided, what Putin decided, what Xi Jinping decides, what Netanyahu decides, and so on.
00:39:25But they are not able to...
00:39:27You mean a reactionary policy?
00:39:29Exactly.
00:39:30I mean, it's not even reactionary because they are not able to react.
00:39:39But they are subject to that.
00:39:42They are subject to decision of others and not even being able to react on that because they don't know how to react.
00:39:52You see, when it comes to China, which was your question at the beginning, a lot of people in Europe think that we should not antagonize China.
00:40:04Because as it is for the US, it is our main economic partner and it's probably better to be in good terms with China than antagonizing.
00:40:19Because especially with the trend of deindustrialization that we have now in Europe, it's probably not the best moment to antagonize China.
00:40:31But a lot of people, and you can listen to what Mark Rutte, the Secretary General of NATO said, he tends to adopt the enemy of the US.
00:40:44You see?
00:40:45And you have a lot of people saying the same thing.
00:40:48Because China is not democratic, China is in dictatorship, blah, blah, blah, and they help Russia for his war and so on and so forth.
00:40:58And therefore, even there, you don't have a real, let's say, common understanding of the situation.
00:41:08You have those who would prioritize human rights and things like this.
00:41:17Others would prioritize economic objectives and things like this.
00:41:22So you don't have a common vision of all that.
00:41:25And the interesting thing in all that is that regardless of what you may think about China, Russia, US and so on, the main concern of the European leaders should be their own interests.
00:41:46What is our interests?
00:41:48What is our interests?
00:41:51And nobody does this.
00:41:53I mean, with the exception of people like FITSO and Orban, who repeatedly said, well, I'm fighting for the national interests of Hungarian or Slovaks and so on.
00:42:06So they are consistent with the mandate they received from their own people and they work in order to fulfill or to satisfy the national interests of their own population.
00:42:25But when you hear Annalina Baerbock, for instance, when she was questioned about the role in Ukraine and all that, she said, I don't care about what the Germans want.
00:42:38I have values and I decide that it must be like this.
00:42:44But whether or not it affects the interests of the Germans, this is irrelevant to me.
00:42:53By the way, the new chancellor of Germany is the same.
00:42:56Yes, absolutely.
00:42:57Exactly.
00:42:58Yes.
00:42:59But Baerbock studied explicitly and that's that's that was very, very interesting because she used to be the foreign minister.
00:43:08And therefore, you could expect that she would defend the interest of the German population in developing international relations and and addressing other countries.
00:43:21But no, they just she just worked towards fulfilling her own objectives, not the objectives of the population.
00:43:33Well, that's probably the reason why you have this a spectacular increase of influence and interest for the AFD in Germany.
00:43:46That's the right wing party, because precisely they feel abandoned by their own government.
00:43:53And Marx is essentially the same.
00:43:57But I'm not aware he said it so explicitly as Annalina Baerbock.
00:44:02That's the reason why I quoted her.
00:44:05So we have this problem in Europe that we don't know exactly for which interest we are working on.
00:44:13You have discordant voices.
00:44:16I mean, like Macron, who said, who says something one day and another thing the other day and things like that, because he's trying to balance the interest of France and about the interest of the European Union.
00:44:32And it may not be the same because obviously this is logic that European Union, because it's a supranational institution, it has other view, another
00:44:47Weltanschauung, another understanding of the world than France, which is which has traditional interest zones and area of interest.
00:45:04So that's that's the problem.
00:45:07And you see that in France, for instance, now the foreign ministry, by the way, is the foreign ministry, not just of France, but also for the European Union.
00:45:17So it's also a minister that takes the credit of the European Union when you see Emmanuel Macron or French ministers addressing the people.
00:45:26You always have the European Union flag with that.
00:45:30And in some institutions and most institutions, I think ministers, you always have the flag of the European Union and France, meaning that basically they have to balance between the interests of European Union and the interests of France, which might be contradictory in some.
00:45:53And that's exactly what we are seeing in France.
00:45:57And that's that's one of the explanations for what you are for the for for this kind of, let's say, erratic approach to foreign policy that you have in Europe at large and in countries such as France or Germany.
00:46:17Well, that's that's that's a little bit the problem.
00:46:20Now, the the issue of tariffs, we have no pause on tariffs.
00:46:27But the problem here that we see and that's also the same issue we have addressed when talking about Ukraine.
00:46:38We know since last year, since Donald Trump entered in the presidential race last year, that if he would be elected and there were good chances he would, that he would try to negotiate the end of the conflict in Ukraine and that he would apply tariffs on everyone to to reassure the industry.
00:47:07So everything was on the table since last November, we know that this will come because Donald Trump has been extremely consistent in everything is promised or said.
00:47:23And he said and he said that so we knew since November, it's almost six months now that this policy would be implemented.
00:47:38In some form.
00:47:39In some form, but still, you have absolutely no plan at European level to, let's say, to cope with the situation, to find to bypass these tariffs, to find alternative solutions, to have another, let's say, a reaction plan.
00:48:03And all right, you have nothing.
00:48:04So when coming back to your question, they are not even able to react because they don't know how to react.
00:48:15And we have exactly the same thing about about Palestine.
00:48:19Palestine, we have discussed that several times.
00:48:22Everybody understands that Israel is not abiding by the international humanitarian law or the law of war.
00:48:35Everybody knows that.
00:48:36Everybody knows that.
00:48:37This is, I think, unchallenged.
00:48:42But still, we are unable to apply a policy.
00:48:46I can understand to some extent, to some extent, the US because somehow they are connected to Israel.
00:48:56And OK, personally, I would say they could react differently.
00:49:02But let's assume they can't and they cannot do otherwise.
00:49:10But it's not the case of the Europeans.
00:49:13They are not, they have, they are not involved in this conflict in any way.
00:49:19They, and that's exactly the same situation we have discussed many times about Ukraine.
00:49:25US has been promoting this conflict, has been behind the conflict in Ukraine, has been helping actively Ukrainians.
00:49:34Through intelligence and all that, we have seen this article of the New York Times recently that just confirms things that we knew before.
00:49:44In any case, there is a direct involvement of the US since 2014.
00:49:49OK, that's a foreign policy of the US.
00:49:52Again, I think it's a wrong policy, but that's their policy.
00:49:57The problem is, if you look at it from the European point of view, it's not our policy.
00:50:04We have nothing to do with that.
00:50:06So, how, why should we accept something we haven't decided at all?
00:50:13We are not really involved in it.
00:50:16Well, now the European has been, has in fact decided to be involved by providing weapons and support and things like this.
00:50:24But he was not obliged to.
00:50:26Europe could have been instrumental in pressuring Zelensky to implement the agreement, the Minsk agreement, for instance.
00:50:38It never did that.
00:50:39So, the Europeans, we see, are not able to have an independent foreign policy.
00:50:48They are outsiders everywhere.
00:50:51They are never involved in any type of diplomatic initiative or negotiation or all that.
00:50:58So, they are completely outsiders.
00:51:01And the only way of trying to influence events is by putting oil on fire.
00:51:11And that's extremely strange.
00:51:13Again, this is, this is something I, I, I was definitely against the US intervention in Iraq in 2003.
00:51:25But that was their policy.
00:51:29That's, that's, they decided and they did and they lied for that.
00:51:33And, okay, that's consistent.
00:51:34There is a, a consistent, consistent approach with their policy.
00:51:39We can criticize the policy.
00:51:42We can criticize the policy.
00:51:43Definitely I do.
00:51:44But at least there's a consistency.
00:51:46We have the same problem there.
00:51:51Why then would European countries go along with the US?
00:51:56There was absolutely no reason for that.
00:51:59None.
00:52:00Zero.
00:52:01But they still get along with, got along with, with the, with the US, with the exception of, of the French resisted under Jacques Chirac and said, no, we are not going to support you in this adventure.
00:52:18And you remember this fantastic speech of Dominique de Villepin, the French foreign minister in the Security Council, just weeks before the, the US intervention in Iraq.
00:52:35But by the way, since then, in 2014, the French joined the US in Iraq.
00:52:45By the way, that's triggered the terrorism.
00:52:48They, they were, that, that came in France in 2015 and 2016 and 17.
00:52:57But what I mean is that there is, we have in Europe, we lack people who know what they want.
00:53:09In fact, I think the prototype of such politician or leader is probably the Finnish prime minister.
00:53:20It was this young lady, Marine was, I don't remember the name, by the way, and she was caught in some kind of a scandal involving powder and things like this.
00:53:34In any case, she was not reelected and she had to leave.
00:53:38But what, what, what is interesting is that after she left a position as prime minister of Finland, she was interviewed in a, in a Finnish magazine and they asked him, her, why did you engage into politics and as a prime minister?
00:54:02She was one of the youngest prime minister, she was one of the youngest prime minister of Finland, by the way, she was in the early thirties or something like that.
00:54:08So extremely young.
00:54:09And she said, well, I was just looking for, for an experience.
00:54:14That's it.
00:54:17Leading a country was for her just having an experience.
00:54:21She could have sold ice creams in, in Italy or things like that.
00:54:30It's also an experience.
00:54:31I mean, prime minister, there is no, and we have no longer these politicians who are willing to take care of the interest of the population, who take care of the national interest of the population.
00:54:51Who are ready to confront even European Union and all that, in order to make the interest of the population a priority.
00:55:06And now we have young people who are just seeking an experience.
00:55:13And if you look at the nature of the ministers that you have in Europe, in a European level, I mean, in France, but also to some extent in Germany, you have young people with no experience, no real experience, no life experience, who are not even elected.
00:55:41Because at the end of the day, many ministers, typically in France, they don't need to be elected, they are nominated by the prime minister.
00:55:52But even the prime minister doesn't need to be elected.
00:55:55Only the president is elected.
00:55:56So these ministers who are not elected, but just selected by some, they take decisions that are not based on a solid life experience, a solid professional experience, a solid world wide experience.
00:56:21They haven't traveled, they haven't lived in other countries, they don't know the world, they don't even know their own countries, because very usually these are people who have studied and they were probably brilliant at school, but that's the world they know.
00:56:39It's schools, high schools, academies and things like that's all.
00:56:45They don't know who lives outside of these institutions.
00:56:50And suddenly they are parachuted as a minister somewhere and they take decisions that are totally disconnected from reality.
00:57:02And that's I think this is the tragic situation that we have in Europe at large.
00:57:11And if you look, look at the profile of the people we have in the rest of the world.
00:57:18You have people who are much older, which much more experienced, but who take decisions that are based on thinking, based on discussion with others.
00:57:35Look at the difference between Annalena Baerbock, as an example for foreign minister and Sergey Lavrov, as an example of Wang Yi, the Chinese.
00:57:45This is a world of difference.
00:57:48You have on the one hand, young people, ambitious, who are just eager to be treated as minister, arrogant, want to impose their view on others.
00:58:04And on the other hand, you have those people who have experienced different worlds, so to say, because Sergey Lavrov has also experienced the communist world at that time.
00:58:18Look, the Cold War, the relations, a time in which we were we had a Cold War, but we were still talking to each other.
00:58:27Very important to remind people of that.
00:58:32And today we are in this world of.
00:58:37I mean, they they know this world of dialogue and that's they developed with Iran, with China, with the breaks and all that.
00:58:46And that's this world that is taking precedence today.
00:58:54These are this is the world, this alternative or rest of the world, if you want, that gets important.
00:59:01Everybody talks about this, the collapse of the West.
00:59:06Failing strategies.
00:59:09Today, most of the patents in the world are made.
00:59:18Yes, made in China, for instance.
00:59:22So China is no longer this country that produce cheap stuff based on cheap labor.
00:59:31They are innovative.
00:59:32They are creative.
00:59:33They develop new technologies, technologies that we are not even able to develop in our countries.
00:59:41They find innovative solutions at home, not just in terms of technical and technology, technological engineering, but also in social engineering.
00:59:56So we have here and I think what Trump has made apparent here.
01:00:03I mean, what in essence the Ukrainian conflict has made apparent and Trump is not just underlining that.
01:00:13Is the fact that the rest of the world today is the future and what we have in the West, unless we realize that we start to restructure, rethink ourselves, rethink our approach to the world, rethink our approach to international relations.
01:00:38Start to have international relations based on sanctions, war and oppression.
01:00:47What we have seen when we talk about Greenland, when we talk about Panama and all that.
01:00:54What do we have this kind of gunboat policy of the US that when you don't agree with me, I will come with my boat and I will gun you until you accept.
01:01:06You see, this is exactly that.
01:01:08By the way, this is slowly.
01:01:11I mean, hopefully it will not go to that point.
01:01:14But this is a little bit what we are hearing from Donald Trump since he's not achieving the success he expected in Ukraine and now is threatening everybody with sanctions.
01:01:26So we sanctions force or use of force have become the base of the foreign policy today.
01:01:38And that's typical from the West because the rest of the world doesn't do like this.
01:01:45I mean, we had last year these discussions between India and China to resolve their border disputes.
01:02:00We have that on several crises.
01:02:05We could see the result of the rest of the world diplomacy when you saw Iran and Saudi Arabia shaking hands and having Iran reintegrated in the Conference of Islamic State and so on.
01:02:24So we we see that what is effective is not threatening people with sanctions.
01:02:35It's dialogue.
01:02:37It's trying to understand the other, trying not trying to impose what we think are our values.
01:02:46By the way, what are our values when we see that Israel is bombing civilians?
01:02:52Everybody knows that UN has explained and condemned that, but not a single European countries.
01:03:01So where are our values?
01:03:04We practice torture.
01:03:06We practice extortion.
01:03:08We steal resources of others.
01:03:11What are the values, basically?
01:03:15Where are they?
01:03:17What are they?
01:03:18We talk about those values.
01:03:20We talk about them.
01:03:21But we never define them.
01:03:24Because we could probably, it would be very hard to define them exactly.
01:03:30Even when we talk about democracy, I've said many times, I come from a country, Switzerland, which has its own view on democracy.
01:03:40But when I see France, for instance, and when I say that French pretend being a democratic country, seeing with my Swiss eyes, this is just another type of dictatorship.
01:03:56Same as if I look at the European Union, when you start to sanction people because they want to go to Moscow.
01:04:05I mean, what's that?
01:04:07When you prevent people from traveling?
01:04:08When you prevent people from traveling?
01:04:09When you prevent people from traveling?
01:04:10I mean, that's exactly what we condemned with the Soviet Union 40 years ago.
01:04:19And we are doing exactly the same.
01:04:22We ban the media we don't like.
01:04:26We ban the media in China, the Chinese, Russian media in Europe.
01:04:34And OK, you could see probably the Russians do the same.
01:04:39But after all, we are the ones who pretend to have values.
01:04:44Our value is democracy.
01:04:46Democracy is accepting all the views, understanding and accepting all the different point of views.
01:04:54This is democracy.
01:04:56Even those who are against democracy would have a place in democracy.
01:05:03That's the paradox.
01:05:04When you start banning people from the democratic dialogue, that means that you are not secure.
01:05:12That means that you don't trust your own democratic value.
01:05:17Otherwise, what would be the problem?
01:05:20I mean, during the Cold War, I have said that many times.
01:05:23We could buy the Pravda, Literaturne Gazeta.
01:05:27You could buy these papers, Soviet papers, Communist Party papers, in almost every paper outlet in the West.
01:05:43Because we were confident that we were on the right path.
01:05:48So we were not afraid having the Soviets making propaganda in Europe.
01:05:54Because we were confident that our system was better.
01:05:58Therefore, why should be afraid of something we know is inferior?
01:06:05Or not as effective or things like that.
01:06:09Maybe a lot of communists today could probably object that it's another.
01:06:15What I mean, you understand what I mean, is that if you are confident in your system, then you can accept the view of others.
01:06:23Because you are confident that what you think is the right thing.
01:06:29When you start doubting of that, then you have to ban others to talk.
01:06:35Because obviously you don't want to create additional challenge to something you think and it's already challenged by nature.
01:06:45I don't know if you have watched the Emmanuel Macron, this video that he's just feeling that he's Napoleon.
01:06:56Here is the video call.
01:06:57Here is the video call.
01:07:11You look at him, you feel like you're watching Zelensky.
01:07:15This is an actor.
01:07:19You've mentioned Jacques Chirac.
01:07:22I remember him and the way that he was leading France.
01:07:28He was a real leader in my opinion.
01:07:31He wanted something for France.
01:07:33He wanted to achieve something.
01:07:35But you see the new leaders.
01:07:37The new chancellor of Germany, Macron, Olaf Scholz, there is no...
01:07:46I would separate the United Kingdom from the other countries.
01:07:51Because they feel much more connected with the United States.
01:07:54I don't know what is the agenda on their part.
01:07:57But in the other countries in Europe, I'm not talking about the United Kingdom.
01:08:02France, Germany, and go ahead, and all the Western Europeans.
01:08:07And you don't see a leader.
01:08:09You don't see an option on the table to people to vote for.
01:08:14This is...
01:08:15It's not just about Kayakalas.
01:08:17It's a...
01:08:19Somehow it's...
01:08:20I don't know who's supporting them.
01:08:22What is this establishment?
01:08:24The same establishment in the United States that's running the show in Europe.
01:08:29Because if you change Olaf Scholz and getting Merz, this is even worse than Olaf Scholz.
01:08:36Nothing is changing.
01:08:38You're just worsening.
01:08:40Well, of course, if you talk about Germany, you have institutional setting that explains the way the system works.
01:08:48And that explains the reason why you have some kind of continuity there.
01:08:55You have to remember that France is an exception in that.
01:09:02Because the system in France is probably closer to the one you have in the US.
01:09:08But Germany typically is a coalition type of government.
01:09:13And therefore, it's built for continuity somehow.
01:09:17It's not a system that is built for sharp changes.
01:09:22And that's probably the result of the experience of World War Two.
01:09:28I am not a very strong expert in German politics and the history of the politics.
01:09:39But I would assume that the experience of World War Two or pre-World War Two explains a little bit this idea of having coalition systems.
01:09:49If you look at Switzerland, for instance, you also have a coalition system, which is extremely stable and provide a very stable decision making as well.
01:10:01You don't you cannot have sharp changes in Switzerland because in the government you will have automatically two socialists to right wing or mid right wing and so on and so forth.
01:10:18So the combination is is more or less given.
01:10:21It's not given by law, but it's given by practice and people don't want to change this.
01:10:27What we used to call the magic formula.
01:10:30And therefore, you have this this system that provides continuity.
01:10:35The problem is that we have in our societies people who can suddenly emerge from nothing and being considered as leaders.
01:10:49Simply because they have a lot of there is a lot of marketing behind them.
01:10:57That's what's exactly what what happened to Emmanuel Macron before he was first elected in 2016, 17.
01:11:06And there was a huge effort of marketing because he was because I don't know the reason.
01:11:14We assume the reason is that he was the guy of the finance system.
01:11:21He was very much related to the Rothschild Bank and things like that.
01:11:28And therefore, that probably explains why you had kind of a oligarchy who wanted to have this guy in this position, although he officially said that he was socialist.
01:11:42But it has obviously no socialist.
01:11:46I'm not sure he knows exactly what socialism is.
01:11:50In fact, that's probably just a way of seeing something.
01:11:56And so it's a multifaceted person.
01:11:59He says something, but is something else.
01:12:01So he please everybody please those who are happy with the picture and he please those who are happy with the content.
01:12:11It's a little bit that if you want.
01:12:14But the reality is that we have in Europe people who are not, let's say, professional politics.
01:12:29I mean, it's not a question of professional or not.
01:12:32These are people who have been promoted to the position they have through this marketing rather than people who have emerged after years through, let's say, through their achievements.
01:12:53I mean, if you look at Francois Mitterrand, for instance, who was a socialist president and we can agree or not with him.
01:13:05This is a guy who had extensively changed his views.
01:13:11I mean, he was very young during World War Two, where he was part of the government that was in favor of the Germans.
01:13:23Then he changed sides.
01:13:25He became part of the resistance.
01:13:27Then he became and these these guys have changed sides many times.
01:13:33They are extremely pragmatic, opportunistic even.
01:13:37But at the same time, these were people with a huge amount of experience.
01:13:44And when he became president in 1981, again, we can agree or not with his policy and his ideas.
01:13:56But the fact of the matter is that he had a very strong experience of political life, having been through different conflicts in different positions in different parties, going from right to left.
01:14:15But these were people who had at least an experience.
01:14:19When you say Emmanuel Macron, for instance, nobody knew him before he was elected president.
01:14:26I mean, he was an obscure.
01:14:29He has been selected as minister by someone.
01:14:32But he had no previous political life, had no achievements.
01:14:38Nobody can say he has done this as taking part to this.
01:14:43He has such experience.
01:14:45I talked about the Finnish prime minister.
01:14:48To Kayakala, same thing.
01:14:50To all these people, there are people without previous experience.
01:14:54So people, they are selected because.
01:14:56Because probably.
01:14:59And here we have also to be honest, because the voters don't care anymore.
01:15:08You had probably 30, 40 years ago, 50 years ago, you had.
01:15:17Very prominent political figures, characters, personalities, and they had.
01:15:26They were people with charisma somehow.
01:15:28And people selected them because they achieved something.
01:15:33They have done something.
01:15:34They knew them.
01:15:36Today, it's very easy to be known just through Twitter and all that.
01:15:41You see that you don't need to have been to have achieved a lot.
01:15:45And that's that probably explained that that's the the voters are not demanding enough.
01:15:53They they they don't really care.
01:15:57And they know that when when a president is is elected in France, typically, of course, a lot of promises.
01:16:05But I mean, they make promises because they don't fulfill them.
01:16:12So you can promise everything because at the end, it's no no problem.
01:16:16You will not fulfill them and nobody fulfilled.
01:16:18And there is no accountability for that.
01:16:23And therefore, my feeling is that because also the institutions don't allow for the people to say to someone, no, that's that that's that's the wrong way.
01:16:41You promised this.
01:16:42You have to fulfill that because that's the reason why we elected you.
01:16:46And since you don't have the institutional process that that allows to dismiss someone, for instance, then, of course, the name of the game is just being elected.
01:17:02Once you are elected, you can do whatever you want.
01:17:04You don't care.
01:17:05You don't care.
01:17:06And people don't care either.
01:17:08If you go into Switzerland, where we decide for everything, for every we decide for every law, we even decide we even decided to keep the Swiss Army, because at one point it was asked whether or not we should disband.
01:17:23At the end of the Cold War, the people were asked whether or not we should keep the army because there was no Cold War, so no threat and therefore we could disband the army.
01:17:35Well, the people decided to keep the Swiss Army.
01:17:38And that's the reason why we still have a Swiss Army.
01:17:41But what I mean with that is that in Switzerland, we decide for everything.
01:17:47We decide on our own taxes.
01:17:50We decided on what we spend our money, a new fighter, a new tanks, a new way.
01:17:57That's that's the people who decide that.
01:17:59That has drawbacks.
01:18:01That has advantages.
01:18:02The advantage is that there is some kind of some hook, some kind of accountability of the government,
01:18:10because if he wants to do something and the people doesn't want it, it has institutional means to tell the government, no, we don't want that.
01:18:20And that's that's a guarantee of democracy.
01:18:23And that's explains a little bit why Switzerland goes a little bit better than than France.
01:18:32But in most countries, you don't have those institutional tools to demand accountability and therefore people don't demand it.
01:18:45And I think the the people is also to be blamed on the on this way to address.
01:18:55There is no interest for public life.
01:18:58We see that more or less and less, depending on how you see it.
01:19:03But, for instance, in Switzerland, I see that the same in in Belgium, for instance, that people parties, political parties have a lot of problems recruiting new people because nobody has interest to find to to to to engage into political life because they don't see the interest.
01:19:24There is no real interest for public life.
01:19:28So and that goes along with this way of life that if you look around when you go on the street, everybody is just looking.
01:19:37It's not looking at others, not smiling at others, not talking to others.
01:19:41They just speak or look at their their phone, their smartphone.
01:19:47That's that's that's the way it is.
01:19:50We are self centered and we are no longer interest about about others.
01:19:55And that's that's the that's a massive change from the society I knew when I was young as the one I have now.
01:20:05And of course, I have other points of reference and other views on who political life should be conducted.
01:20:14But that's probably everybody on my age has almost the same reaction, regardless of what are the political views.
01:20:24But so we have a societal problem here.
01:20:29And this this idea that because you have no interest for the national life, then you tend to say, oh, we give that to Europe and Europe has to take care of that.
01:20:42And this is this is something we see in in in Europe very strongly that there is kind of we pretend to delegate problem to the Europe with the problem.
01:20:58Then that we have mentioned before that Europe acts in a way that is not tailored for individual countries,
01:21:07but just based on another assumption of how the world should run or be around.
01:21:14So that's that's a little bit the situation we have.
01:21:18And I think this is a little bit sad.
01:21:21But at the end, we receive what we asked for.
01:21:27And we are if we are not demanding enough, we'll receive what we and I think it's a pessimistic view, because I think we will have to have a severe crisis in order to realize the need of having competent leaders.
01:21:50And probably we are heading towards this.
01:21:53I don't know.
01:21:54Again, I don't have a crystal ball.
01:21:56I hope it's not now it will be after me.
01:21:59But but we are heading towards this and we will have big changes.
01:22:14We will need to have those big changes and probably some.
01:22:19That's why somehow, even if I'm not sure the the trade war launched by Donald Trump is extremely wise, but probably we need such impulse, such inputs to provoke change and make us think about what
01:22:44what can we do better.
01:22:47And I think that what's what we have seen, especially in the wake of the European, the Ukraine crisis with this gradual collapse of European industry.
01:23:04And again, I'm not hoping I'm sorry for all the victims of that collapse.
01:23:13But at the same time, we need probably something that makes us realize that we are on the wrong path.
01:23:21And probably this is a shock therapy somehow that Europe needs in order to realize that we are on the wrong path.
01:23:32So somehow, I think the problem here is Ukraine will pay the price for this.
01:23:40And that's extremely sad.
01:23:42But at the same time, that's probably the price to have people thinking a little bit deeper about what our policies, the lack of foreign policies, the art of diplomacy that we have lost.
01:24:02And if I don't want to be too pessimistic and have a touch of optimism in that, I would say if we all these collapse and catastrophes and disasters that we have created can help us or show us a better way of dealing with problems, then probably it's worth it.
01:24:30I don't know.
01:24:32I don't know.
01:24:33Again, this is probably almost it's almost a philosophical question.
01:24:37But again, I think the discrepancy that we see today in Europe between the European population and its leaders is fantastic.
01:24:53I've never seen that before.
01:24:55Leaders are hated.
01:24:56You mentioned Macron.
01:24:57I don't know who likes Macron.
01:24:58He's become the president by default.
01:24:59I know who likes Macron.
01:25:00It's Zelensky.
01:25:01He's in Ukraine.
01:25:02Well, probably.
01:25:03But you know, you were talking about that actor.
01:25:04Remember, I mean, Zelensky was an actor.
01:25:05That's very clear.
01:25:06But the wife, again, we don't know if it's a wife, but the wife of Emmanuel Macron used to be her art teacher.
01:25:15So she teach him acting.
01:25:18Well, even when he he is in Ukraine and he's going to actually go on and forth.
01:25:20He's become the president by default.
01:25:21I know who likes he's in Ukraine.
01:25:24Well, probably, but you know, you were talking about that.
01:25:27The wife of Emmanuel Macron used to be her art teacher.
01:25:33So she teach him acting.
01:25:36So he is an actor and he plays that.
01:25:40And probably this was during the first mandate when he was in his first presidency.
01:25:49Emmanuel Macron used to visit the military units, of course.
01:25:55And he used to put the uniform of it.
01:26:01So when he went in submarine, he had the uniform of a submariner.
01:26:05And when he went to visit the Air Force, he had the fly suit of the.
01:26:13You know, this is like a small kid who wants to play with.
01:26:18I want the tools of the soldiers.
01:26:22I want the gun.
01:26:23I want this a little bit like a child somehow.
01:26:28And today he plays this role.
01:26:32And when you mention Napoleon, it's interesting that you mention Napoleon with the sequence you showed.
01:26:40Because we have seen, we have those pictures of Napoleon reviewing the troops with the color of the coat, which is up like this.
01:26:58You see, it's exactly, it's just, the hat is just missing.
01:27:03This is the only thing that is missing here.
01:27:06But he has exactly the same attitude.
01:27:09And somehow it's a posture.
01:27:12That's something that you have when he talks about engaging troops in Ukraine and all that.
01:27:23You see that it has no depth.
01:27:25There is no thinking behind this.
01:27:28There is no real strategy behind it.
01:27:30He just wants to do something to show that he does things.
01:27:34And again, we are back to the same problem.
01:27:37The problem here is not so much that he says so and he acts so.
01:27:45But the problem is that nobody tells him so.
01:27:50Nobody tells him, well, but guy, you're completely beneath the problem.
01:27:55I mean, this is not the issue.
01:27:58You know, nobody tells him that.
01:28:00And therefore, he feels comfortable acting and doing that.
01:28:07And, well, the French will pay the price for this also.
01:28:12But that is their problem.
01:28:16Yeah.
01:28:18Thank you so much, Colin, for being with us today.
01:28:22Great pleasure, as always.
01:28:24My pleasure.
01:28:24Thank you very much for inviting me.