The values that shape France’s relations with its former colonies (let’s include Algeria) are probably the same as the values that shape France’s relations with Russia and China. The difference doesn't lie in whether France deals and comes to arrangements with despots or not - it does and has for years - but rather their power and strength relative to France. Aren’t the values consistent?
My second comment is about something called TracFin which came up in your conversation. TracFin for those Americans who may have heard of FinCen is basically the French equivalent of FinCen. There are however what I consider two broad problems with FinTrac. One is shared by basically all Financial Intelligence Units worldwide including FinCen in the US, FinTrac in Canada, TracFin in France, etc. in that they are all really focused on what you might call blatant criminal activity and criminal use of the financial system. So for example a drug dealer who deposits a large amount of cash gained from the sales of illegal drugs or closer to the context you were discussing say a government procurement officer who receives a large wire transfer to their personal account just before they award a government contract to the exact same entity that wired them the money(i.e. a bribe). None of these agencies are that great at what you might call more "grey area" transactions, where the end parties are several times removed on paper for each other, and the actual illegality is more nebulous. Say a former French politician who has a consulting contract with a French think tank that receives donations from what looks to be private Russian company controlled by an oligarch close to Putin. Never mind the task of actually linking all of the parties to each other, is this type of arrangement actually illegal and if it isn't the odds of TracFin or FinCen doing much about it are actually pretty low.
The second issue is unique to France and other EU countries in that you have a single currency and basically a single integrated financial and banking system yet you still have 27 different Financial Intelligence Agencies for each member state. Now to be fair to Macron and his Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire they have been at the forefront of efforts to have an EU level agency at least take over some of the responsibilities of TracFin and the other national FIU's but again like everything with the EU this is a very slow plodding effort(although one Bruno Le Maire claims at least will make will progress THIS YEAR)
I want to make note of the subject of Eurobonds that came up during the podcast. While Eurobonds might seem like "inside baseball" I do think their importance should not be understated. Both of Macron's two immediate predecessors fought pretty hard to get Eurobonds and both failed so while not all the i's and t's may not yet have been dotted and crossed I think in all likelihood Eurobonds are going to come into effect well before the French election and be a pretty big success for Macron. I guess the question is whether Eurobonds are "worth it" compared to Macron's other policy failures and to what degree are Eurobonds finally happening now is a consequence of the pandemic and not Macron but I feel eventually there will have to be whole books written on these tradeoffs.
I think the two big things I take away from the Eurobond project are that there are strong reasons to believe those opposing them or downplaying their significance are receiving Russian funding so obviously, Russia and Putin do not like this particular idea although to be fair Putin doesn't like much of anything associated with Liberal democracy or the European Union. Second Eurobonds are more a medium to long-term project i.e. Eurobonds aren't going to help Ukraine or Alexei Navalny tomorrow or even next year. Eurobonds are much more about building a stronger European Union in the medium to long term.
And like clockwork as of this morning, it looks Eurobonds are a done deal given the German Constitutional Court has allowed ratification of the own funds' decision to go ahead. Something I will note again with relevance to my previous comment is the plaintiffs in this German Constitutional Court case discussed in the link below are largely believed to be receiving funding from Russian sources.
The values that shape France’s relations with its former colonies (let’s include Algeria) are probably the same as the values that shape France’s relations with Russia and China. The difference doesn't lie in whether France deals and comes to arrangements with despots or not - it does and has for years - but rather their power and strength relative to France. Aren’t the values consistent?
My second comment is about something called TracFin which came up in your conversation. TracFin for those Americans who may have heard of FinCen is basically the French equivalent of FinCen. There are however what I consider two broad problems with FinTrac. One is shared by basically all Financial Intelligence Units worldwide including FinCen in the US, FinTrac in Canada, TracFin in France, etc. in that they are all really focused on what you might call blatant criminal activity and criminal use of the financial system. So for example a drug dealer who deposits a large amount of cash gained from the sales of illegal drugs or closer to the context you were discussing say a government procurement officer who receives a large wire transfer to their personal account just before they award a government contract to the exact same entity that wired them the money(i.e. a bribe). None of these agencies are that great at what you might call more "grey area" transactions, where the end parties are several times removed on paper for each other, and the actual illegality is more nebulous. Say a former French politician who has a consulting contract with a French think tank that receives donations from what looks to be private Russian company controlled by an oligarch close to Putin. Never mind the task of actually linking all of the parties to each other, is this type of arrangement actually illegal and if it isn't the odds of TracFin or FinCen doing much about it are actually pretty low.
The second issue is unique to France and other EU countries in that you have a single currency and basically a single integrated financial and banking system yet you still have 27 different Financial Intelligence Agencies for each member state. Now to be fair to Macron and his Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire they have been at the forefront of efforts to have an EU level agency at least take over some of the responsibilities of TracFin and the other national FIU's but again like everything with the EU this is a very slow plodding effort(although one Bruno Le Maire claims at least will make will progress THIS YEAR)
I want to make note of the subject of Eurobonds that came up during the podcast. While Eurobonds might seem like "inside baseball" I do think their importance should not be understated. Both of Macron's two immediate predecessors fought pretty hard to get Eurobonds and both failed so while not all the i's and t's may not yet have been dotted and crossed I think in all likelihood Eurobonds are going to come into effect well before the French election and be a pretty big success for Macron. I guess the question is whether Eurobonds are "worth it" compared to Macron's other policy failures and to what degree are Eurobonds finally happening now is a consequence of the pandemic and not Macron but I feel eventually there will have to be whole books written on these tradeoffs.
I think the two big things I take away from the Eurobond project are that there are strong reasons to believe those opposing them or downplaying their significance are receiving Russian funding so obviously, Russia and Putin do not like this particular idea although to be fair Putin doesn't like much of anything associated with Liberal democracy or the European Union. Second Eurobonds are more a medium to long-term project i.e. Eurobonds aren't going to help Ukraine or Alexei Navalny tomorrow or even next year. Eurobonds are much more about building a stronger European Union in the medium to long term.
And like clockwork as of this morning, it looks Eurobonds are a done deal given the German Constitutional Court has allowed ratification of the own funds' decision to go ahead. Something I will note again with relevance to my previous comment is the plaintiffs in this German Constitutional Court case discussed in the link below are largely believed to be receiving funding from Russian sources.
https://www.politico.eu/article/german-court-rejects-bid-to-block-eu-recovery-fund/