France Takes Another Hit. Ian Bremmer talks to Armstrong & Getty

made a lot of rounds. That's went viral. People singing outside of Notre Dame Cathedral last night in France. Yeah, and the terrible fires tragic on a number of different levels. It occurs that a really interesting piv a time in French history. Uh and Ian Bremer, President, founder of the Eurasia Group. Who better to discuss this with the Eurasia Group, leading global political risk research and consulting firm on Earth. Ian welcome, how are you, sir, gentlemen? Good to be

with you, so listen. We're we're both international relations freaks around here. Um and and have been watching France with great interest. The Yellow vest movement and the violence and the growing Islamic population and the tension there. I've read Submission, right, yeah, and and and then Notre Dame Cathedral burns down in the midst of a heck of a lot of unrest. How does that fit in? Do you think it will

have effects? I've read Submission as well. First of all, that's a that's a great intro, right, because I think we should probably let the audience know about it. Um was number one book in France fiction a few years ago, and it was about what would happen if France became this dystopian government controlled by Islamic radicals. And I found the book remarkably subtle in its predictions to it's it's it's very matter of fact. Um. But anyway, how does

that factor in the factors in? Because France is having a terrible time of it, even the context of Europe, which is not experiencing a lot of economic growth and has had all of this populism nationalism, it's been worse in France. I mean, you remember that Charlie at Bow killings. There's been a lot of terrorist violence since November. Every weekend you've had these yellow vest movements on the streets in Paris and in other cities, and a lot of violence.

And you know, I mean, I wish you could say that yesterday was the only time we saw Paris and flames, but you know, the shops douse A a few weeks ago was in flames, and I mean, you know, massive amounts of damage being done, and tourism into France has taken enormous hit. It's certain the economy. So this has been a really challenging time and the President Marcan at his approval getings pushed down into the low twenties UM

as a consequence of it. UM. And and then on top of that, yesterday you see, you know, Frances I mean most certainly, I mean that the Eiffel Tower, I mean, the most recognizable UM monuments in the country, critical to national identity and uh and you see the spire coming down. So I mean, obviously the collective gut punch to this nation was extraordinary. Um. And yet there's actually a real

surver lining here. Well I want to hear that well, which is that it gives him a kron An opportunity to be a leader again, to bring the country together again. I mean, it's this is not nine eleven for France obviously, and thank god for that. But still it's something where the people for a moment feel unified. This is something that they together are all going to rebuilding. Macran from lead that moment and inspiring speech children because thank god

it was an accident. Um, then everybody can get behind that side and nobody died. And by the way, the thing is still standing, so I mean they can actually rebuilt it. It's not getting raised to the ground. And this weekend, I mean, the funny thing is yesterday Macron.

I don't know if you guys were following this, but Macon is for the last two months been doing this grand listening tour where he's literally gone from town to town to town and spent hours upon hours at a time listening um to the complaints of mostly older French

citizens but a pretty wide demographic um swath. And then he's been responding and he was about to give his big speech where he was going to outline where, where, what he was going to do, how the country was going to move forward, and the yellow vests had already before even hearing what he was going to say, had already rejected and they were going to have bigger demonstrations

this weekend. Well, now obviously he canceled that speech, and either the Yellow Vests are going to they should cancel their demonstrations um, in which case there's some time form a crown to actually build some momentum for something constructive in the country, because I mean, he's the one with a with a positive agenda, whether it's you know, whether

it's popular or not. The Yellow Vests are just reacting and negative and tearing things down, or they decide to continue with their demonstrations this weekend and they will lose a tremendous amount of support. So I mean, either way, frankly, this could end up being the kick in the pants that the French people and the French president really need. Ian Bremer, president and founder of Eurisia group on the line, tell us a little more about the Yellow Vest movement.

I've heard you say that they're not in favor of anything, they're just kind of generalized complaining. But do they have an animating cause of particular issue. I was going to ask if you could put the France is whatever they got going on right now in any context that we understand in America, it's like the conservatives and liberals or

legal immigration are just some contexts we get. Yeah, I can if you remember back when we had the old w t O meetings in Seattle and there were these massive anti globalization protesters that remember they were, you know, sort of destroying Starbucks servings like that, right, But I mean, so it was this big group of angry, mostly young people. There were save the whales types, there were anti nuclear weapons and anti nuclear power types. There were hard committed anarchists.

There was anti free trade movement. I mean, there were a list of grievances as long as your arm um. But there was no leadership and there was no agenda that they particularly agreed on. And they were from the fringes of both the far left, the far right, and frankly a bunch of Neilists too. And that's kind of what the yellow vest movement is like. They're people that are deeply upset at the establishments, such as you can

define them. Would imagine if you took AOC and Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump and then Alex Jones and a bunch of others for good measure, and just threw them all together and say, let's let's see what we get. Um, but one thing they're not going to get is they're not going to be very successful in European elections, which they're standing for UM in May. And mccron already looked like he was probably going to pick up a little

bit as a consequence. Boy, it's interesting. I was reading about the French Revolution last night, just coincidentally, uh, in a different book, and UM, you know the history around the world of people just being angry at what is in just angry. I'm gonna tear stuff down and I want things to be different, And particularly in France, it's there's a little troubling about where it could go. Yeah, but the society also has a lot more history and

a lot more tolerance of significant social demonstrations. I mean, you know, anyone that tries to travel by plane to France, UM has on several occasions over the last twenty years, had to deal with nationwide pilot strikes and and and workers strikes. Um. You go back to the sixties and I mean the the real the violence before it came to the US, before it came to the UK. Um, it was the Sorbonne. I mean that this this is where you had UM, serious grassroots street protests that broke

into UM broken to riots. UM. And you know, as I said, over the course of the past months, I mean you, frequently you would see lots of cars being set on fire, and the kind of thing that brings us back to the la riots in the United States not not really considered all that exceptional or unusual. In France. It's kind of the way people protests. So I mean in that regard, there's a lot of resilience in France.

There's a lot of institutional capacity to accept things that we would consider to be revolutionary and sort of move on. If you if I were going to be opening a subsidiary in France, and I said to you, Ian Bremer, listen, I've heard there's a lot of tension between Muslim immigrants and and other French people in the government. What's going on there? How would you describe it to me? Um, It's certainly true that the anti immigrant sentiment in France

is very high. Um. About six percent of the population is Muslim, which is quite high in the context of a quot unquote Western society the United States more like one. UM. And when you ask the French what the percentage is, they respond, it's a herd, and I mean, which is

traces like where would you keep these people? Right? But there is this sense, and this is what came from this book submission, Right, there's this sense that the Muslims are everywhere they lived together, they don't integrate, they don't speak proper French, they don't make proper baguets, they don't understand French culture, and we don't want them. And they've

been coming over very large numbers, right. Um. And you know, some of this is the response to France's colonial past, where they, you know, sort of took over a lot of the a decent swath of Africa. Um and uh. And now those a lot of those citizens have the opportunity to come to France and live and work, some of them very successfully, a lot of them not very successfully. How Uh. Final question is we run out of time? How active is the fake news business or the conspiracy

world there in France? As in, is there a chunk of the population that will believe it was Yellow vestors no matter what the authorities say, that set a fire in the cathedral, or is there a chunk of the population that believe the government did it to make Muslims look bad? Or whatever, you know, that sort of thing. I would say, it's no worse than the United States, and that's not a very kind thing to say. Um, yeah, I get it. But at the same time, I mean,

most Americans are not predisposed to conspiracy theories. It is not like Egypt, it's not like Russia. But I would also not India, where they think you get a phone call in your testicles are gonna fall off, or whatever that rumor was. I think that story un from you guys can't take two. I already gave one to capitalism. But but um, you know, when when you asked, when

you ask where the friends are going? Let's also recognize the Russians have played a very significant role in disinformation and funding um of the Yellow Best movement and of the National Front and France, and that is something people in America don't talk much about. Wow, that is a great final note and one to follow up on at some point in the future. Ian Bremmer, President, founder of the Eurasia Group. Ian, Hey, thanks a million for the time. We know how busy you are, stay intact and yours.

That's a good I might put that at the bottom of my emails from here. On that. Wow. So a couple of thoughts to recap if you two boys are done with your little jokes. UM. The Russian note at the end is absolutely worth pointing out. Putin is trying as hard as he can to help France disintegrate. UM. A second note on the whole six percent. But you ask a lot of French people how many Muslims are there are and they say that would be easil easy to UM to say that's paranoia or anti immigrant, um

bias whatever. I would make the counterpoint, and this may not necessarily be true, but it's worth considering that that six percent has an outsized influence and has caused change beyond their numbers. Sure, absolutely absolutely, as it has in this country with introducing a different language and everything. Right, you can you can talk about the percentages, or you can talk about, for instance, just a legal immigration in

the United States. The change that it's done in your school or your e er, right, is beyond the percentage of the population, right, Yeah, exactly. UM. So yeah, that that whole six is really really interesting. But I don't think it's as simple as some people might. Do you recommend do you recommend the book submission? I do to anybody. I think it's so damned interesting. Absolutely, it's it's great. It wasn't what I expected it to be. It's incredibly reasonable.

My guy named Welbeck spelled with an H and look it up. You'll find it blot al beck. Um, you're listening to the Armstrong and Getty shilling the conscience of the nation.