France

A problem has emerged for France's anti-immigrant, anti-Euro presidential frontrunner, Marine Le Pen, and it has little to do with being behind in the polls ahead of the 2017 presidential elections, far from it. It has, however, everything to do with something far simpler: money, as the National Front leader is suddenly struggling to raise the €20 million ($21 million) she needs to fund the French presidential and legislative campaigns in 2017 after the party’s Russian lender failed, the party treasurer said.

Marine Le Pen said that NATO exists only ‘to serve Washington’s objectives’, and that she plans to hold a Brexit-style referendum. In an explosive interview with a Greek newspaper, the French presidential candidate, who is leader of France’s National Front, called for many of the leading nations of the EU to call time on Brussels’ hegemony of the continent. She also supported closer ties with Russia as she blasted what she saw as NATO meddling in eastern Europe.

Tens of thousands of French soldiers and police officers will be patrolling the streets and transport hubs during Christmas and New Year in France. The French interior minister has announced that the security measure is a general response taken in the face of a ” high” terrorist threat level and comes in the wake of recent attacks.

Shortly after the Berlin truck terrorism suspect Anis Amri was killed in a shoot out with Milan police, railway tickets found on Amri's body showed he had traveled from Chambery in south-eastern France to Turin and then on to Milan, according to Italy's Ansa. Which is strange because while he kept ticket stubs, he had virtually nothing else on him: Milan police said Amri was carrying few personal belongings, had no cell phone and no other arms apart from a small knife in his backpack. He had several hundred euros but no documents.

Submitted by Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk via Bawerk.net,

A new world order is coming of age and the transition is painful to accept for a Western middle class with a deep-seated sense of entitlement.