The European torch of discontent has passed to the island of Cyprus, where for the first time Brussels is set to confiscate part of citizen savings. To punish individual depositors for banks’ irresponsible behavior is like taking food out of the mouths of children, and ups the ante on anything done so far by a failing system. (Large sums of Russian money are also involved, and perhaps Russia’s reluctance to help is part of Putin’s announced crackdown on citizens who stash money abroad.) Cypriots are the latest victim of the German-inspired policy of austerity, and their treatment can only cause other Eurozone citizens to wonder whether they will be next.

RT’s Rory Suchet today compared the situation to the French revolution (when Marie Antoinette famously advised peasants lacking bread to eat cake). He wondered aloud whether the fate of Cypriot depositors will fan the flames of discontent across Europe, especially in Greece, Spain and Portugal, but also in France, where President Hollande appears to be struggling against Merkel’s greater Brussels clout.

What I am noticing is the difference between the European and American 99%: the former take to the streets by the thousands over the increased cost of food or education, or loss of jobs, while Americans can muster at best a few hundred on any given occasion.

The difference lies buried in history: Europe has had two major revolutions in the last two hundred years, precisely the French and the Russian. Both were about the rights of the 99% and contributed to a tradition of strong unions (everywhere but in the Soviet Union itself) that endures to this day. Quite differently, the American Revolution was not about the 99%: today it would be called a war of liberation from a foreign power, and it was instigated by the fledgling country’s 1%.  To speak of an American ‘revolution’ is misleading, not only historically, but in terms of contemporary social movements.

In Europe, to march, to demonstrate, to strike, are not decisions of last resort, but workers’ tools of protest always at the ready, while in the United States marches and demonstrations are undertaken by grass-roots movements which do not have 200 years of organized protests behind them.

The sad thing is that because mass action is not part of daily life in the seat of corporate/financial/military power, the European Union may not survive.  If that is the goal, however, the result may be as unintended as those of the Iraq, Afghanistan and Libyan wars.

Americans may not remember the buzzword ‘Finlandization’, and it is certain that they will not be permitted by the mainstream media to witness the extraordinary press conference taking place in Moscow today between Russian President Putin and French President Hollande, which has been going on for half and hour, with the two presidents now taking questions from French and Russian journalists.

This press conference which I’m following on France 24 (France’s English channel available on my local public television station), is strikingly informal, as opposed to strictly regulated White House versions. In response to one of the questions the two presidents explained their differing views on achieving peace in Syria and Hollande defended the French action in Mali. The closing question from a Russian journalist concerned the relationship between the two Presidents. Recalling that during their first meeting, last year, there was no evidence of warmth between them, the journalists wanted to know whether this situation had improved.  President Putin responded that he should just approach, and would ‘feel the warmth’. In response, Hollande noted that the Russian president’s habit of speaking frankly was very a great asset.

How far history has travelled in twenty years! Having lived in France in the eighties, I can testify that the American-invented ‘threat of Finlandization’ (under the threat of tanks rolling across Europe, a  foreign policy of neutrality under the influence of the Soviet Union),  was invoked tirelessly in that country to justify ever-increasing demands for military spending (although France had left NATO), and in particular the installation of Pershing missiles in the neighboring West German republic.

For some time now I have been noticing that Russia is following a very obvious policy of rapprochement with Europe. In my 1989 book ‘Une autre Europe, un autre Monde’ in response to Mikhail Gorbachev’s dream of a ‘Common European Home’, that the Soviet Union was to big to be considered as part of Europe, but that it should cultivate close ties with the European Union, as well as with China and India and the Middle East, the other four major entities of the Eurasian continent.)

This is now coming to pass, notwithstanding the untold billions spent by the United States in an arms race whose principle purpose was to prevent the Soviet Union’s tanks from rolling across Europe and into Paris, ‘crushing freedom’.

Since that time and true to that spirit, the United States followed the Vietnam debacle by engaging in failed military occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. And yet all of these efforts have merely delayed the inevitable France’s English language channel, France 24, took great pains to point out that France and Russia have been historical allies going all the way back to Catherine the Great and notwithstanding Napoleon’s invasion.

Today, as if the Cold War had been merely a bad dream, the French President was accompanied on his visit to Moscow by a plethora of French industrialists, as well as by the historically pro-Russian French Socialist Jean-Pierre Chevenement who resigned from President MItterand’s cabinet over the first Iraq War. As evidenced by the two president’s statements, France and Russia are drawing closer, as the geography of the Eurasian continent dictates.

Meanwhile, on Eurasia’s Pacific rim, the United States gears up against the latest ‘threat’: however China too is once again a Russian ally….

France, Greece and Egypt vote in second round elections today and tomorrow and none of these polls should leave the rest of the world indifferent. A parliamentary majority in France for Socialist President Francois Hollande will enable him to enact social reforms desired by the French 99%. It will also strengthen his position vis a vis German Chancellor Angela Merkel in their dual over whether to give greater weight to austerity or growth within the Euro zone.

However, the extent to which Hollande will be able to implement his reforms will also depend on the outcome of the Greek parliamentary election, which will determine whether Greece negotiates less painful austerity measures that will enable it to remain in the Eurozone, accepts the draconian measures imposed upon it by the IMF and the European Central Bank in order to remain in the Eurozone, or decides to abandon the Euro and go it alone. The first two alternatives would be extremely painful for the Greek people, the third could render moot the dispute between Merkel and Hollande, as it might lead to the death of the common currency that was intended to further integrate a continent wracked by three wars in less than a century.

This context is fraught with a dual irony, unspoken but lost on no one. Germany was the aggressor in those three European wars, the last of which was launched partly with the stated goal of fulfilling Napoleon’s dream of a European Empire. Though defeated in the latter two conflicts, Germany rose to become the most dynamic European country, now expected to bail out those hardest hit by the global financial crisis. This state of affairs prompts two further considerations: the first is Europe’s failure, in the decades leading up to the introduction of the Euro, to fully unite under a federal system, and the second is the fact that conditions for World War Two were created when after the First World War Germany was saddled with enormous reparations that led to hyperinflation and paved the way for the rise of Hitler.  That hyperinflation of eighty years ago is constantly evoked as the reason for Germany’s insistence on austerity, obfuscating the possibility that the collapse of the Euro, in the most bitter of ironies, could once again turn the countries of an insufficiently united Europe against each other.

Then there is the fact that the Euro is the world’s second reserve currency.  The end of the Eurozone would have cascading repercussions on international finance, hastening the day when the BRIC countries, led by Russia and China, will cease to use the dollar in international transactions.

Moving on now to Egypt, notwithstanding its first truly ‘democratic’ elections, a powerful military has worked to overcome last year’s popular revolution in favor of a new strongman. Three days before the presidential runoff, the Supreme Court ruled that Mubarak’s last Prime Minister could stay in the race, flouting the rule that barred members of the old regime from running. Adding insult to injury, it dissolved the recently elected parliament under another rule which it let stand. Should efforts to defeat the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate fail, he would be deprived of the parliamentary majority won just a few months ago. Whoever the new Egyptian president is, he will rule without stated duties, without a constitution and at first, without a parliament.

The failure of the Egyptian Revolution will have two external consequences. It will signal to the remaining Middle East dictatorships that the Arab Spring can be halted, and it will remove a potential threat to Israel constituted by the widely shared anti-Israeli sentiments of its people that former Presidents have kept in check. Today a high-ranking Israeli official speaking on RT admitted that Egypt, on Israel’s southern border, constitutes a far graver threat than relatively far away Iran. In recent months, other high-ranking Israeli figures have warned against attacking Iran, even as the government increased its threat to do so because of that country’s support for Syria, its northern neighbor that is facing armed opposition. The end of the Egyptian revolution, combined with a deterioration in the Syrian situation, will allow Israel to once again focus on it project to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities.

It is difficult to believe that the United States and Israel have been standing on the sidelines since the start of the Arab Spring in late 2010.  If Wikileaks manages to continue its work notwithstanding the probable extradition to the United States of Julian Assange to face charges of terrorism, the international community will eventually learn of their respective roles, but given the increasing speed with which events unfold, it will not have the leisure to wait for the historical narrative to be revealed.

The Security Council could soon be confronted with a situation that is eerily reminiscent of the Cuban Missile Crisis, as relations between Washington and Moscow veer toward a new standoff. In response to a strident accusation by Hillary Clinton that it was supplying arms to Syria, Russia this week stated that helicopters destined for Syria are refurbished machines repaired under a previous contract. Today it denied reports that a ship is carrying weapons and troops toit naval facility in the Syrian port of Tartus. The Cuban Missile Crisis was sparked when U.S. reconnaissance planes photographed the construction of underground missile sites being built by the Soviet Union along Cuba’s coast in retaliation for the stationing of American missiles in Turkey and Italy. The thirteen day standoff between Nikita Khruschev and John F. Kennedy ended with the Soviets repatriating their missiles and the U.S. agreeing not to invade Cuba. However, the current situation is very different: the U.S. has openly touted completion of contingency plans to invade Syria, and there is no quid pro quo that the Russians could offer in return for American backtracking. The two sides can only move forward toward confrontation.

These are just the most obvious stakes in this week-end’s elections, far from American shores, but crucial to a world in which it can still do much harm.

Back in the 9th century, the Empire of Charles the Great, known as Charlemagne, included France, Northern Spain, most of Italy, Germany, and parts of modern day Yugoslavia and Hungary.  In the course of his forty-seven year reign, the French-born leader who became Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, implemented sweeping economic, educational, military and administrative reforms, which prefigure twentieth century efforts to achieve a united Europe. The division of his empire among his heir’s children returned Europe to a microcosm of relatively small, warring states.

Eight hundred years after Charlemagne’s death, the Ottoman Turks took over the eastern half of Europe, creating a multinational, multilingual empire that stretched from the southern borders of today’s Germany to the outskirts of Vienna, from modern Slovakia and Greece in the south to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the north; from Algeria in the west to Azerbaijan and modern-day Yemen and Eritrea in the east.

The countries of Central and Eastern Europe did not retrieve their independence until 1923, when the Ottoman Empire collapsed, and then it was short-lived. Soviet domination after the Second World War brought modernity to an area that five hundred years of Ottoman rule had kept in a near-feudal state. After the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the countries of Eastern Europe were gradually welcomed into the European Union after meeting stringent political and economic criteria.

The twenty-seven member European Union, officialized by the Treaty of Maastricht in 1993, is the culmination of decades of incremental steps to tame the nationalism of Europe’s individual states which had been the cause of so many wars.  In 2002, the union introduced a common currency, the Euro in twelve of its member states.  Today the Euro is used in seventeen countries and is the second largest reserve currency after the dollar.  But the world financial crisis of 2008 hit the countries of southern Europe with a vengeance, and now there is a very real possibility that Greece will have to abandon the common currency, causing turmoil in the rest of the Euro zone, with knock-on consequences worldwide.

There is more than one irony in this tale. The main incentive to 20th century European integration was the desire, especially on the part of France, to prevent Germany from ever attacking its neighbors again.  Subsuming Germany within a larger economic community has worked admirably until now.  But no one considered what would happen when Germany-as-economic-powerhouse would insist on dictating conditions to less disciplined neighbors.

The administrative center of the European Union is Brussels, not far from where Charlemagne is thought to have been born, but Frankfurt is its economic capital. And although France has a new European champion in Francois Hollande, when Germany calls the shots, it inevitably revives memories of its military occupation.  Regrettably, one has to wonder whether Charlemagne’s dream can no more become a permanent reality now than it could 1200 years ago.

Americans know little about French political life, and many readers may be to young to have been aware of the 1981 French Presidential election which brought the socialists to power for the first time since the the late nineteen fifties.

Francois Mitterrand’s election was greeted with the same euphoria as Francois Hollande’s, and the bouquet of red roses presented to Hollande upon his victory was a clear reference to the symbol of the Socialist Party under Mitterrand.

Although Mitterrand served two seven year terms, during which many social programs were enacted, his presidency is remembered as the caviar left.

If Francois Hollande is to garner a different reputation, he will have to continue as Mr. Normal, his chosen nickname. That shouldn’t be too difficult: until now he has zipped around Paris in a three-wheeled scooter, and is reported to never have worn smart suits, even when he was a graduate student at the posh National School of Administration.

Hollande’s three degrees – administration, politics, economy – having made him a policy wonk, they should serve him well as he launches his campaign to bring Europe back from the brink, opposing German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s insistence on austerity.

Francois Mitterrand was elected at the end of the growth period known as the Thirty Glorious Years. For sure, life for his socialist successor will not be a bed of roses.

Francois Hollande who tonight won the French presidency seventeen years after the end of the Mitterrand presidency, has been a party insider for his entire career.  A graduate of three major post-graduate schools – political, business and administration – he has never held high elected office, but is in the words of the French English language channel a household word in France.

The fact that Hollande had four children with another French Socialist leader, Segolene Royale without marrying her, shows that at least on a personal level, he lives his convictions.  He is expected to continue his current relationship while inhabiting the Elysee Palace, something the American right will surely seize upon.

Astonishingly, the well-known Washington Post columnist and winner of two Pulitzer Prizes for international commentaries confessed tonight that he has no idea who Francois Hollande really is.  For someone who spent considerable time in France, this is either shocking – or an illustration of American indifference to socialist leaders.

For the rest of the world, the most significant thing about Hollande’s election is his determination to re-roll back the center-right rollback of Francois Mitterrand’s social measures, and to work on better integration of France’s Muslim population. Significantly,  the flags of France’s ex-North African colonies, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, can be seen floatingat the post-election rally in Place de la Bastille, where one could hear the typical throaty celebratory cry.

With Europe in full-blown economic crisis, Hollande will confront German Chancellor Angela Merkel on her determination to impose more austerity measures than pro-growth policies.  Already, on France 24, pundits are criticizing his agenda, especially those associated with British or American institutions.

One French commentator noted that he and President Obama have similar social agendas, which isn’t doing the American President any favors.

What happens in the coming months in a country where the extreme right-wing National Front received 18% of the vote in the first round of this election should be of particular interest to the American Occupy Movement: Having finally succeeded in bringing American labor to celebrate May 1st as the internationally recognized workers’ holiday, its next task will be to make the French battle to reinstate the left’s social policies an example to its followers.

The world is alive with revolts, regime change and revolutions – but also presidential elections.  Russia just had one, Egypt is trying to organize one, France will vote in a runoff this Sunday, May 6.  As America finally joins the rest of the world in celebrating the workers’ holiday on May 1st, and the Occupy movement picks up steam again, the French presidential election in which a socialist is tipped to win provides a unique occasion for voters to become aware of the benefits they can only aspire to, but which have been available to the French and other Europeans since the end of World War II.

Before reviewing Hollande’s’ platform, readers need to know that there are twelve political parties represented in the French Parliament:

• Union for a Popular Movement (313) Socialist Party (186) New Centre (22) Radical Party (18) French Communist Party (17) Radical Party of the Left (8) Europe Écologie–The Greens (3) Democratic Movement (3) Left Party (3) Movement for France (2) Arise the Republic (2) National Centre of Independents and Peasants (2) Citizen and Republican Movement (1)

The existence of so many parties is considered a disadvantage. In the case of France has led to a sometimes dizzying succession of Prime Ministers, and half a dozen constitutions since the Revolution of 1789.  But it can be argued that at any given moment, the political landscape is more in synch with society than one which is hemmed in by a 200 year old constitution that has been amended only 27 times.

This year, the French Socialist Party and the Radical Party of the Left jointly held the first ever open primary, in which participants were required donate at least one Euro and sign a pledge to the values of the Left to be eligible. The audacity of commitment!

Before we look at Francois Hollande’s platform, let me mention a few of the benefits that I have been familiar with living in France for a total of 28 years, beginning in 1947 and ending in 1999, (with extended periods in several other countries):

1) Near free health care: a modest co-payment for doctors’ visits, hospital, rehab (including medical massages.  Reasonable co-pays for dental and eye care.

In 1981, I had emergency surgery.  A social workers visited me in hospital to inquire whether my two teen-age children needed to be taken care of, and offered me a three week stay in a convalescent facility at no charge.

2) Workplace benefits: Did you ever wonder how there can be so many restaurants in France? This is partly thanks to the fact that companies which do not have a cafeteria must provide restaurant vouchers so that employees can eat out at low cost.  The arrangement not only makes for a pleasant break in the daily routine, but keeps restaurants in business.

3) Family benefits: Regardless of income, all French families with school-age children receive a monthly benefit, depending on the number of children and their ages. This was instituted after the Second World War in order to boost the birthrate. The lack of an income ceiling has been the subject of fierce debate, but France’s upper classes  are determined to hang on to this benefit, which allows them to increase the percentage of the population having the ‘right’ ideas.) Families receive an extra benefit before the start of the fall term to help with supplies.  Francois Hollande promises to raise this amount by 25%.

Now to some of the highlights of the Socialist candidate’s platform:

With respect to health insurance, Hollande would again make hospitals public service institutions, reversing their assimilation to the private sector under Sarkozy. Hollande also intends to institute greater access to medical care in the provinces, with the goal of making travel to the nearest facility take no more than half an hour. Hollande promises to limit the amount doctors can charge for their services when operating outside the standard fee system, and to encourage lower prescription prices.  He will also propose that terminally ill patients suffering physical or psychological pain that cannot be alleviated be allowed to die with dignity. These are good examples of the way alternations in power between left and right affect everyday life.

The Socialist candidate also promises to create a public investment bank, and a special savings account whose assets would be used to encourage small business.

In another move that would be unheard of in the United States, Hollande promises not to privatize the electric company, trains, or post office, and to call for a European directive to protect the public sector; he promises to protect small farmers vis a vis industrial food distribution channels, and to promote the modernization of the fishing industry.

France has a large pubic sector, and Hollande intends to protect it, reversing Sarkozy’s policy of not replacing every other retiree.

In terms of income and taxes, French revenues above 150 000 Euros (about 175,000 Dollars) will be taxed at 45%. Those who have accumulated 42 years of social security taxes will again be able to retire at 60, instead of 62, as under Sarkozy.

Hollande will also propose that companies limit remuneration disparities to 1-20. He promises to combat racial profiling, and to hire 60,000 people in the education sector, for which he proposes many reforms.

If they win the election, the socialists will reinstate rent control, and promote construction of low income housing, making state-owned land available to local communities.

With respect to finance, they will forbid banks to trade with customer money and create a tax on financial transactions.  (This latter, known as the Toobin Tax, has been in discussion in France since the early nineteen eighties…) Hollande also proposes to review the value of the Euro vis a vis the dollar and the Yuan, and calls for a new international monetary policy.

The socialist presidential candidate wants to reduce French nuclear energy from 75% to 50% by 2025 and promote renewable energy solutions, as well as instituting progressive rates for electric gas and water consumption so that basic needs can be met without bankrupting low income families.

This is a typical social democratic platform, not unlike those of socialist candidates in other European countries, which come in way ahead of the United States on quality of life indices.

It’s true that most people work for the state for about half a year (as a self-employed translator I calculated that my earnings went to the state until about July 10th).  And while it is not a good idea to get behind in one’s payments, when all is said and done, most French working people feel that the security they get for their taxes is well worth the burden. That security includes the knowledge that even when the 1% are in power, they can only nibble away at long accepted benefits for the many.