Various French politicians are acknowledging the EU’s failure – “No one, with a minimum of clear-sightedness, could go down the corridors of Brussels without having the sincerity to recognize that it doesn’t work,” said former French minister for European affairs Laurent Wauquiez – but their own solutions seem unworkable:
For Montebourg, the European Union “is like a bankrupt company. If it is not restructured, it will die.” He suggests a return to real national borders, the reduction of the number of European bureaucrats by 97 percent, the ending of the tendency to regulate the cocoa content of chocolate or the market for goat’s cheese, the return of money-issuing powers to the various countries’ central banks (while keeping the Euro), and an alliance of the grasshoppers (France, Spain, and Italy) against the great wicked ant, Germany. What a wonderful way to promote peace and harmony between France and its neighbor across the Rhine!