The front men for the European War Party are gathering in Brussels this week against a backdrop of unrest in France just thirty five miles away from where I write this weblog here in Rye on the English Channel Coast. The reporting in the English press focusses on the new Contrat Première Embauche (CPE)…a new French job contract that allows employers to hire and fire at their leisure. But French unrest is never simple. The French tradition is for unrest to become riots and for riots to become revolutions…or at least force governments to flee the country.

The change of job law…actually an addition to seven hundred different pieces of job legislation…is being seized upon by the unions, students and the left as an ultra-capitalist outrage…an attempt to smuggle wicked globalist Anglo-Saxon attitudes into France by the back door. After a slow-burn for three weeks the revolt has exploded in the last ten days to campus sit-ins, mass demonstrations and some scattered battles with the riot police.

But at the heart of the French unrest is the fact that at each election in the past 25 years voters have clamoured for change, governments have bounced from left to right and plus ça change plus c’est la même chose. Governments always get in. There have been one or two faint-hearted attempts at real reform but this has then been opposed by street protest…and street protest in France normally wins the day.

In England the middling classes are the swing voters that the political parties woo for their election victories. Not so in France. Thirty five miles away the middle classes are regarded by the politicians as the obstacle to change. There is a large block of the French electorate…a kind of lumpenbourgeoisie…which benefits from the present system and fears reform. This group includes public sector workers but also many white-collar private sector workers. They see no reason to weaken their job protection and welfare benefits for the sake of vague promises of benefits to come from more economic dynamism. They see such promises as trojan horses for a shift in privileges from Us…the ‘ins’…to Them (whoever they may be)…the ‘outs’.

Meanwhile the students at the heart of the protests straddle the economic and social divide. They understand and support the anti-globalist, anti-markets, anti-American, anti-EU agenda of the European Peace Parties…ideas which helped to win the EU referendum and deliver a resounding ‘non’ vote a year ago…but they are middle class kids: the sons and daughters of middle class parents. Simmering in the wings is a new round of riots in France’s poor multi-racial suburbs. So far there is little sign that anyone in power has much idea what to do…and even less indication that they actually care that much. Expect more rioting in France as the weather gets warmer.

Thames Water has drained seven reservoirs so private houses can be built on them. Last year the directors of Thames Water received bonuses of £ 700 000. This year they are imposing a hosepipe ban...70 000 days is the time a hosepipe ban would have to run to save as much water as Thames Water loses every day from leaks. A company spokesman explained in impeccable English that Thames Water would not have taken out these facilities if they were needed. What he failed to mention is why taking them out was necessary. Thames Water is not who they seem but a subsidiary of the Essen-based German giant RWE. And ever since a series of acquisitions in the United Kingdom a year or two ago the Board of RWE has been desperately searching around for as many ways as possible of generating cash to bolster its balance sheet and bail-out its failed German Nuclear Power programme.

The Ministry of War is giving we the people back some of the land it forgot to return when the Hitler War ended. It’s only 240 000 hectares but it’s a start. And they’re not actually giving it back. They are making it accessible. But let us be thankful for small mercies. From tiny acorns do mighty oak trees grow...click here for full details.