This Is Hell! | France, Macroneconomics and the triumph of the neoliberal project

It's one thing to give up some of your sovereignty for a common set of policies that helps the majority of people - but they didn't do that. In the Eurozone, they gave control of their most important macroeconomic policies to people who had a project that nobody voted for - a regressive project to hack away at the European welfare state. And that's what they've been doing since the world financial crisis and recession.

Economist Mark Weisbrot explains why Marine Le Pen's electoral defeat is not a victory for the French left, but of the neoliberal order that creates the conditions for far-right politics, and digs into the political economy of France and the Eurozone to explain why new French president Emmanuel Macron's policies are guaranteed to fail, and just might provide an opening for the actual left, if the EU doesn't collapse first.

Mark wrote the articles Curb Your Enthusiasm: Macron Is Just The Beginning Of A New Fight For France And Europe for Huffington Post and How the Eurozone Damaged French Politics—and This Year’s Presidential Election for The Nation.