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Socialist Party in Spain increases its share of the vote to 29%, and emerges as the largest party to form a government with the socialist leaning Podemos party in 2019 elections. It does this by returning to its labour base and working class roots. It pitches a platform of worker's rights, higher taxes on wealthy, environmental roots, issues important to its social democratic roots. The WSJ cites a 57 year old employee of Spain's health service Antonio Benitez, living in Andalusia who says people have a hard time making ends meet, and its about time socialist parties speak of the main pillars of being socialist, without all the deviations to the centre. As free market thinking entered the mindset of leaders in the UK such as Tony Blair and Gerhard Scroder in Germany, Clinton in the U.S., the shift began towards economic efficiency in the tradeoff with equality and social justice. This was aggravated by the effects of international trade and technology in worsening income disparities and unsettling communities in traditional manufacturing. This trend is now being reversed as Socialist parties or Labour allied parties in the UK, Spain,and increasingly in the U.S., take a new position different from the past. A political scientist at the Free University of Amsterdam says its like these parties got hit on the head and now decided to go back to core values around equality, reducing disparities, social justice and the environment. Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour Party in Britain increased Labour's vote in the 2017 elections to 40% up from 30% in 2015. Italy's Socialists won 41% of the vote in 2014 European elections, moved to the centrist positions that made firing workers easier, pension overhauls raising retirement age, leading to losing half its support with 21% ahead of European elections in 2019. Pedro Sanchez of Spain raised the minimum wage by 22% before winning the 2019 elections compared to his predecessor Socialist premier Zapatero who is reported to have said "cutting taxes is left wing." Now workers rights and higher taxes on corporation are on the agenda.  ...

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The first reading of the bill to stop no-deal Brexit clears the House of Commons in Britain with a vote of 329 to 300. This rebuffs prime minister Boris Johnson's plan to push Brexit through by stealth and at any cost by October 31. The bill will delay this to Jan. 2020, and set the stage for a no confidence motion in the minority government of Mr. Boris Johnson.

It now prepares Britain for general elections as early as October with Johnson hoping to unite theBrexit faction, but facing a possible backlash from Conservative moderates, and facing also the lack of support from UKIP Party's Nigel Farage. It is a very different Brexit campaign in very different circumstances than the one that was able to win in the last referendum. It also poses a challenge for Labour party to get its message across about living standards and economic opportunity for all, better than it has before.

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Three tankers held off the coast of Mumbai by India's Cost Guard have been sanctioned for carrying Iranian oil. India stopped buying Iranian oil in DJT's first term 2016-2020. In his second term DJT wanted India to stop buying sanctioned Russian oil as a way to reduce funding for Russia's invasion of Ukraine now in its fourth year. India has stopped buying Russian oil as part of the goodwill effort to reach trade agreements with the US, EU, and Germany. The seizing of the oil tankers is part of a new effort by India to support bringing Russia to the negotiating table to end the Ukraine war. Russia has demanded Ukraine turn over Donetsk region to end the war, which is a major stumbling block as Ukraine says there are Ukrainians living in Donetsk region. Germany's increase in its defense budget and investment in its armed forces has led to Germany+ (Germany plus UK and France) acting as the chief supporter of Ukraine, after the US has taken more of a neutral stand. The US basically wanting to end the war in 2026 so that the US can address the situation in the western hemisphere with drug and migrant trafficking gangs in Mexico, Venezuela and Columbia, and rebuild its economy to bring back manufacturing from China. For India the guiding principle of its foreign policy is Gandhiji's thinking and advice for fairness and peaceful coexistence - it does not believe in a British inspired NATO expanding on the borders of Russia, and at the same time does not see how a war on a neighboring Russian speaking region is in Russia's continued interest for a fourth year with bombing of energy infrastructure to leave Kviv in darkness. Non -alignment was Nehru's not Gandhiji's idea- the ideas of respect and fairness are basic to Gandhiji's thinking and India will remain true to his ideas in world relations. One aspect of this change in world affairs is missed by all and the media, that is that with the EU and US+ Japan, and India+ Indonesia there is a population of 1 billion of western peoples, and about 2 billion of Asian peoples, for a total of 3 billion people. This is a region three times the size of China, which with its access to capital and technology, labour and good governance is in a position to industrialize and reindustrialize, and bring manufacturing/science and technology to the core of this economic region by 2035. An industrialized India with 2X-3X the size of its current GDP will still be governed on Gandhiji's ideas for world relations in 2047. ...

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One of the goals of the Northern Ireland deal is closer relations between the EU and Britain putting to rest the tensions from Brexit. The EU sees Sunak as a good faith negotiator and made concessions on the application of EU laws for Northern Ireland. In Britain 60% of people now say in opinion surveys that they see the 2016 vote to leave the European Union as a mistake. A genuine relationship with the EU will happen only after a change in power from the Conservatives to the Labour party in the January 2025 election, says Mark Landler in the NYT.

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26,000 online votes of alumni of Oxford plus 5000 faculty and staff can vote and will determine who gets to be chancellor of a 1200 year old British university. Last election was in 2003 with 8000 voting. The last colonial governor of Hong Kong, and Conservative party chairman, Chris Patten was chancellor for 21 years. It is a post that lacks authority yet is influential. The principals of 2 colleges at Oxford are applying- Elish Angiolinia of St Hughs College and Jan Royall of Somerville College. Peter Mandelson, a Labour minister, and William Hague a former Conservative foreign secretary, are both running for the job.

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The Biden Xi meeting was a momentous event, of great importance and significance setting the tone for next 3 decades of US- China relations. Here is how China's Xinhua agency covered it. Xi's speech emphasized the world and the US and China's need to work on climate change, inclusiveness for benefits to reach all parts of the people. Biden's efforts to support the labor movement are part of the US efforts in this direction, Xi's to bring the benefits to the regions of China and rural parts left behind in three decades of development. Openness and innovation Xi emphasized, on which the US is working to say openness but as China does to support its own solar and EV industries, and for innovation to protect its own technologies. In this way the US is saying we will work with you but without the illusions of the past in which free market thinking was an hindrance and support its own new technologies and industries as China is doing, and protecting its technologies from being transferred. ...

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Claire Gatinois and Soleyn de Royer's interesting essay on the life and times of Emmanuel Macron who started as one who would bring new life to the Fifth Republic but over 7 years sees that he has made poor choices and comes across as brash and inexperienced. His Movement was formed very quickly during the waning days of the Hollande administration of the Socialist Party. By bringing in Macron Hollande did what Blair and Clinton had done for Labour and Democrats thinking they were somehow moving to the centre in tackling the budget, deficit and the economy. Clinton hired as Treasury Secretary Goldman Sach's Robert Rubin and Harvard's Lawrence Summers, Obama hired Timothy Geithner, who like Macron in the Hollande cabinet lacked all conviction for improving the life of workers and the middle class in the US. Clinton setup China's entry into the World Trading Organization without grasping or understanding the economic framework of American manufacturing and thinking of industry leaders who were in that time in the  mood for outshoring everything made in the US with the inflexibility of American labor. Geithner like Cameron's Osborne had little affinity with the working or middle class, and did little to correct the abuses of banking professionals behind the 2009 financial crisis, which in some ways is still with us today, the pandemic being the second hit to workers and the middle class, the migrant surge an addition of mental unease. ...

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Labour's executive director of Policy from 2020 to 2022, says steps easy to understand and grasp, and which can be effectively implemented to deliver are needed for Labour party to win confidence of the British people. Claire Ainsley says Australia is doing this under Mr. Albanese. Mr. Scholz is doing this in Germany. "Keir Starmer's embrace of a mission driven approach to government provides opportunity to tackle the root causes of stagnating wages and volatile costs." "Whether this tentative revival can be turned into durable majorities will rest on whether we can deliver on the change that people are crying out for. If voters give the centre left a chance to be in government again, then the changes Labour instigates must make a difference in people's lives." She says centre left governments in the US, Germany, Australia offer a role model of how action can be taken to improve the lives of workers and families. Other centre left governments in Canada, Spain, are striving to do this also. To make simple to understand and quantify pledges to the people and deliver on them step by concrete step. A similar approach is taken in India and in states in India. Germany is an example. Ainsley says Germany made 4 simple pledges to back its bigger visions. Solid delivery on wages, pensions cost of living support, energy, and public services. ...

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After a decade of austerity and the financial crisis of overextended banks, the deep recession starting in 2009, and worsening inequality with lack of infrastructure development, Britain finally shifts to larger government spending. The spending planned by Labour and Conservative parties in Britain charts a different future for health, education and infrastructure development from that of the last decade. The public supports this. Conservatives plan $128 billion of new spending, Labour party plans to spend even more. This comes after centre right parties such as the Republicans under Mr. Trump in the U.S. shifted to heavy spending on infrastructure. The Democrats under Obama failed to push for higher spending in traditional working class areas leaving open a gap that Mr. Trump has since used to attract working class Democrats to his side. In Britain Labour under Corbyn has pushed for larger spending on infrastructure, health and education. This is setting a new trend. This report in the WSJ shows that in this situation it is new politicians who replaced earlier politicians in their parties- Mr. Trump displacing Bush, Johnson displacing Cameron and May, Corbyn and McDonnell displacing Blair and Brown, that are initiating thsi trend. The experts at the IMF and the central banks are only now beginning to say this is a good idea. For a decade the mantra of economic experts at these central banks was in favor of austerity, even in the face of massive misallocation in capital markets.   ...

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The deteriorating business environment in China is shown in this report in the WSJ. An April 2022 survey by the EUropean Chamber of Commerce in China found 23% of companies were considering shifting current or planned investments in China to other parts of the world. This WSJ report says even before the latest covid lockdowns over one third of American companies told the American Chamber of Commerce they would reduce investment in the country due to the policy environment there. WSJ says there are serious question about the future growth of the Chinese domestic market and the stability of the overall policy environment for business. The distinct advantages of India and South East Asia are now becoming clear including growing youthful labor forces, and governments that as in India are part of the Free World democracies allied with America and the European Union says WSJ.

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Sharp swings in attitudes have left America divided in terms of education. A comparable situation exists also in the UK as areas with more education access have separated from areas with less access to higher education. As the WSJ analysis points out at one time social cohesion prevailed in the postwar years till 1970 with educational attainment playing a small part leaving social cohesion intact. Even in the period 1970-1990 when there was a shift for college educated women to prefer Democratic Party and white men without a college degree to prefer Republicans this was not a significant gap. The Democratic Party appealed to less educated union voters in manufacturing industries as well as it did with college educated men and women. This gradually fractured during the Clinton and Obama administrations as the Democratic Party  moved closer to the higher educated and drawing more support from new tech industries than manufacturing. Nowhere is this more evident  than in the way college educated women have shifted to the Democratic Party and white men without a college degree have moved to the Republican Party. Swings of different types are normal in elections and politics. But swings purely based on education are rare in American politics and not healthy for the democratic system of government. As the analysis from WSJ/NBC News shows college educated women favor Democratic Party by 33 percent margin. And the swing is even deeper for white men without a college educated degree who favor Republican by a 42% margin. This is the situation before the 2018 U.S. Congressional elections. The combined group of college educated women and white men without a college degree make up 40% of the U.S. voting public. This makes each group unreachable for the other party, a situation unimaginable for many of America's leaders if they would be living today- from presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. White voters make up 70% of the electorate, and a situation where they would be unreachable for Democrats would be unthinkable or unimaginable for Truman, John Kennedy. And Eisenhower would also find it unimaginable that he would have to writeoff college educated women in his campaign.  By returning the Labour Party to its roots Britain is combatting this tendency for fracturing of social cohesion. In the way the UK's Blair administration moved away from Labour party's roots in manufacturing and the trade unions, the Democratic administrations under Clinton and Obama  moved away from manufacturing industries and the trade unions.   Most of the postwar leaders of the stature of Eisenhower and Kennedy would have seen such a situation as a significant failure in political leadership. ...

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Arwa Mahdawi writes in The Guardian about issues facing the Democratic party in the US, and Labour in the UK, of turning their backs on the working class. And to the roots of their parties in the working class and rising middle class under FDR, Truman and Clement Attlee in the 1930's 40's and 50's. Woman's issues are about men's issues and issues of the people as a whole, of fairness in the economy, about correcting grossly poor misallocation of capital away from education, health, infrastructure and children, when seen in this larger and very real context.

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David Smith, Economics Editor of The Times, says history is repeating itself now that the Labour Party thinks it should not have abolished Clause 4 of its constitution under Tony Blair ( the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange). Now that Labour's policies for renationalisation of water, transport and other basic services are popular, it appears that we are seeing a response from people fed up with market failure and greed in the way the private companies in these services are run.  Profits should go to taxpayers for basic public services and that salaries of management should be moderate, services efficient, and borrowing of capital done at lower rates, is the idea behind this. The Times You.Gov poll on renationalisation for rail shows 56% supporting, only 22% opposing, renationalisation of energy companies supported by 45%, 29% opposed, water companies 50% supporting and 25% opposed. In addition to this other Labour policies of 45% tax rate for incomes above 80,000 pounds, and 50% at 123,000 pounds, as well as wealth tax are also popular. Workers on company boards with ownership of a portion of company equity are also popular. This adds to the mystery about Labour's lack of strong support going into the election. Support for renationalisation comes from the thirst for change, says The Times. Market failures, greed, inequality and poor delivery of essential public services, severe cuts in the last decade, all play a role in the thirst for change. There is also the idea that when it comes to essential services there is no room for profit or owners and managers with huge pay running into millions. When trains are overcrowded or unreliable run by private companies economic arguments remain for the textbooks, its daily experience that counts. Going back to a time in the past when it worked, where economic structures were based on fairness, and people cared, is seen as an alternative to a dysfunctional period.     ...

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Sir Keir Starmer is elected leader of the Labour Party in Britain with 56% of the vote. Starmer 57 years old, is a human rights lawyer who was director of public prosecutions from 2008 to 2013, and elected Labour leader just 5 years after being elected to parliament. Angela Rayner, shadow education secretary won the deputy leadership race with 52% of the vote. 

The new shadow chancellor is the MP for Oxford East since 2017 Ms. Anneliese Dodds. She is a former academic and member of the European parliament. Jo Stevens the MP from Cardiff East is the new shadow foreign secretary. He resigned from the Corbyn team in 2017 to oppose Brexit.

Corbyn sceptics swept the elections to the National Executive Committee. Starmer supports EU freedom of movement to continue, public ownership of services such as post, rail and energy, and raising income tax on the top 5% of earners.

 

 

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A look at the role that David Cameron played in the Brexit vote. Cameron did this by promising to hold a referendum to assuage hard line Tories within his Conservative Party in Britain who feared that the right wing Independence Party of Nigel Farage would cut into the Tory vote and hand the 2015 election over to the Labour Party. Cameron made the pledge in 2013. The Brexit vote referendum happened in June 2016 with a slight margin for the "Leave" vote as voters shifted to an anti-establishment vote, and a wave of immigration from Africa and Arab countries in conflicts into Europe created fears of uncontrolled immigration. Both were factors that had little to do with Britain's place in Europe over decades in post war Europe, and not permanent shifts in sentiment. Cameron agreed because he thought the would lead to a result favoring the Remain Vote to stay in the European Union. Cameron badly miscalculated leading to the mess Britain is in today with no clear path forward and negative effects on the economy of Britain. The Labour Party now favors a second referendum as voter sentiment again shifts following the failure of the Theresa May Conservative government to lead in the way forward, and splits in the Conservative Party. Immigration from Arab countries and Africa is now restricted and down to a small trickle. The problems generated by Brexit for the economy, Northern Ireland, business uncertainty, and second thoughts among pro-Brexit supporters, are leading to a rethink of the course set by the referendum based on a temporary shift in sentiment. ...

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Ms. Esken the new leader of the Social Democrats (SPD) party in Germany says SPD will withdraw from the coalition government of chancellor Merkel as its demands for more spending on education and transport were not met. Ms. Esken says the coalition "is crap for democracy." Both the partners in this coalition the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, parties that ruled in the post war years, have seen their support drop to the low twenties and thirties percent in recent elections with votes shifting to the Greens and the far right the AfD, and other parties. The disenchantment among voters with Merkel's immigration policies grows and the SPD is seen as failing to stand up for workers rights against decade long austerity policies of Merkel. Labour party in Britain faced a similar situation as it lost its focus on workers and ordinary people and is only now shifting its stand under Corbyn to workers rights and spending for education, infrastructure and health. ...

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This article in the Economist points out that 84% of Britons want the 3.5 million existing immigrants to stay in Britain, even though the government of Theresa May has not given a clear commitment. May wants a reciprocal commitment for 1.2 million Britons living abroad in the EU. In 2015 330,000 immigrants came to Britain, with close to half from the EU. The Conservative government has not been able to reduce the number- a result for the most part from 10 Eastern European countries entering the EU in 2004 and 2007, says the Economist. Brexit negotiations are not likely to lead to results in migration partly because of the long negotiations with the European Union needed for changes. Other issues are that the food processing, farming and hospitality industries need low cost labor from Eastern Europe.

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Elections in December in Britain are rare, with this election in 2019 in Britain being the first in one hundred years. It also poses big risks. There is the flu season, the National Health Service being stretched to provide services, the weather, and voter turnout.  It poses risks for Tories and Labour, and Boris Johnson's bid for Leave seats held by Labour is a bold one that could turn out either way. Labour plans to run on a positive program of change and not just the Brexit issue. Johnson will campaign without being able to have Brexit behind him. The close association with Mr. Trump and Mr. Cummings brash style could also play a part in the election creating another level of uncertainty. Mr. Hammond, a leading Tory rebel says he is not sure if he wants to see the Tories win, adding another level of uncertainty. The SNP in Scotland hope to take Tory seats in this election and the Lib Democrats are campaigning on canceling Brexit altogether to get Tory Remain seats. ...

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Quentin Letts writes this exceptional and humorous account in the Daily Mail of the events that unfolded in the weeks after the Darling-Salmond debate on the Scottish referendum for independence, and after the first polls showed Alex Salmond's Scotland Independence Party ahead in the vote. Here he describes in good humored as well as insightful detail -the moves, maneouvring and efforts of London politicians, the media, and the elites, during the days leading to the referendum as alarm grows about a breakup of Britain. Cameron, Clegg, Miliband, 100 Labor MPs rushing to Edinburgh to plead with the Scots, and the clever Alex Salmond who had a flair for old style political haranguing, all figure in what Letts says was a worthwhile topic for a Shakespearean tragedy, showing Britons in uncharacteristic passionate terms. Lets does not mince words about the motivations of the actors- Labor Party seeing damage to its own prospects in the next elections by losing its Scottish base will do everything to avoid the prospect of dissolution. Cameron of the Conservatives looking to energize the English vote with a promise of devolution for all including Englishmen to improve his own prospects, when the UK Independence Party and Nigel Farage were threatening the Conservatives from the right. One actor Letts does not mention is Britain's former Labor prime minister Gordon Brown, who is from Scotland. Brown may have saved the day by his passionate plea to fellow Scottish voters to stay with Britain, the only truly credible voice from London in Edinburgh and the countryside. As it turned out Glasgow went to the Independence Party, but Edinburgh went to the "Stay Together" alliance with over 60% of the vote, and prevented any last minute surge for the independence vote. Brown pointed out in an oped in the WSJ that Scotland had gained on almost equal terms with England and the rest of Britain in terms of average incomes as a result of efforts in recent decades, truly important bedrock considerations....

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The Dutch government of prime minsiter Mark Rutte resigned on January 14, 2021, after a parliamentary report showed that 26,000 families were wrongly accused by the tax authority of claiming child allowance since 2012. 10,000 families were asked to repay the amount leading to bankruptcies, divorces. Mr. Rutte admitted that there wa a breakdown "at all levels of the state." The opposition Labour Party social affairs minister at the time in the government resigned over the affair. The parliamentary investigative committee chairman says that the problem was pervasive at all levels of the government, including civil servants, bureaucrats and judges. There was he says systematic racism as people with foreign sounding names were singled out. Experts from think tanks say there is little political cost to Rutte and  ministers from his People's Freedom and Democracy Party. New elections are to be held soon and Rutte will continue with a caretaker government. Polls show he has 30% support twice that of the next party the anti-Islam Freedom party of Geert Wilders.  The government has set aside 500 million euros in compensation, 30,000 euros for each family. ...

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The Supreme Court of the US lets stand the ruling of lower courts and the National Labor Relations Board that says unions can organize and represent workers on the docks in container terminal at South Charleston. The Charleston terminal is in right-to-work state South Carolina. It is the fourth largest container terminal on the East Coast after NY NJ Terminal, Port of Savannah Terminal, and Port of Virginia. A new terminal is being built at Savannah on 395 acres to handle addition 2 million containers per year. Savannah, Georgia is another right-to-work state. Georgia Ports Authority now says it is talking to the ILA and the decision for union labor will not affect its plans for expansion. The Biden administration has supported cost of living action through increase in workers wages and helping workers organize through unions after a long period when labor was not able to push for a fair wage and the relationships between labor and employers were excessively drifting against workers. Rail strikes were settled with an agreement, auto strikes were settled with Biden on the picket lines in Detroit for the United Auto workers. International Longshoremans Association labor efforts at NLRB are part of this story of Biden and the changing face of labor in the US.   ...

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Imagine UK general elections July 4, France now set for June 30 July 7 for National Assembly, and the US on November 5. The French election is now set after EU elections showed a now unpopular Macron party losing badly to Marine Le Pen's National Rally party in EU elections. Macron created En Marche in 2017 as his way of renergizing French parties by bringing in younger people that contested and won 2 presidential elections. On economic issues of fairness for workers and dignity France is deeply divided as working class has suffered as in the US with some of the disaffected moving to Le Pen and some to Socialist parties led by Melenchon. Melenchon supporters helped Macron win in the last presidential elections even though his policies have veered to continue policies that did not favor the working class. Macron hopes to bring the Republican right party back into French politics for the Assembly election. France has a presidential system so the July 7 assembly election would give Macron a chance to appoint a prime minister from the Republican party of Nicholas Sarkozy. A similar situation exists in the UK after Conservatives failed and a big shift to Labor is seen for July 4th. ...

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Under Mette Frederiksen immigration which reached 21,000 in 2015 was down to a little over 1000 a year. She is a strong fighter for workers and families and labor rights and yet tough on illegal immigration. She has been proven right about this as Britain and the US under Biden are seeing illegal immigration as a threat to workers and labour, are seeing the risks of distraction from illegal immigration doing a serious disservice to workers and families by making it hard to fight for workers and families on wages, cost of living and other issues.  Even with a strong record of fighting for workers and families, Frederiksen was one of the first European leaders to see the dangers of illegal immigration to society. It gave parts of the political spectrum that had no interest all along in workers and families doing well, an issue to run on that would come to cause grave harm to workers and families. This turned out to be the error of Angela Merkel a CDU leader brought up in Communist East Germany, who had no idea of the risks of her approach for open immigration. As Merkel let this chapter unfold it created fissures in Europe, with Tories and Nigel Farage taking Britain out of the EU and laying waste to its economy for 5 years till Labour's Starmer adopted a tough immigration policy and became prime minister in 2024. That danger then spread to the US in 2016 which also suffered as Republicans and Trump did the same in the US around rhetoric but without serious action on immigration till the Lankford- Biden legislation.  That bill would have closed the border with Mexico and ended immigration as an issue forever if passed into law in December 2023, as Senator Lankford says would have happened. Ending immigration as an issue forever alongside foreign wars as an issue, so that a concentrated effort could be made on improving badly damaged lives of workers and families. And on rebuilding badly damaged manufacturing in the US, rebuilding collapsing infrastructure, and competing with better education and healthcare with the large Asian countries China, Japan/ South Korea, India. ...

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Germany faces a huge shortage of workers. Even without the current loss of workers in sectors such as restaurants, hotels, airports, elderly care and other sectors, the Germany economy loses 350,000 people every year a the baby boomer generation born after World War II retires. Today there are 1.7 million open jobs in Germany. By 2035 there will be seven million fewer workers, according to labor experts.  No longer can Germany depend on Eastern European countries to fill shortages of workers. Incomes are growing in these countries and there are demographic changes in these countries. Some say the party is over. Skilled labor is in short supply. In 2020 a law was passed to get  the 400,000 foreign workers Germany needs each year to come and stay in Germany, says this report in DW.com. The number attracted? Only 30,000 which officials called a "disappointment." The law will be changed to open up the labor market to those with a contract but no recognized certification for the job, so that companies could train employees after they join. ...

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After the German election the next election in France in 2022 will provide new direction for Europe. As in Germany with Olaf Scolz of the Social Democrats, in France an alternative is emerging with Xavier Bertrand of the Les Republicains. Like Scholz Bertrand was Labor Minister working to tackle difficult problems of increasing employment in the French economy going back a decade. In recent elections the party French president Emmanuel Macron created as a member of Francois Hollande's government has floundered. Macron hastily put together the En Marche in Amiens on April 16, 2017, when he was minister of Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs in the government of president Hollande. During the eight year period in which the centre right Christian Democrats CDU and center left Social Democrats SPD had ruled in a coalition government in Germany some version of centrist politics and government had also prevailed in France. After the Sarkozy years 2007-2012 under the centre right Les Republicains party  France turning to the centre left Socialists under Francois Hollande. As a young minister 39 years Macron lacked experience, and the initial enthusiasm that helped him win the 2017 presidential election is now missing. As in Germany voters are looking for change not just in slogans but in substance in a new Trans Atlantic partnership of US, Germany and France to tackle the may problems that were neglected in the last two decades of changing administrations in US and France and the Merkel administration in Germany- problems of social cohesion, of income inequality, division of country into rural and urban, eastern and western in Germany, southern and northern in the US, neglect of infrastructure, and failure to invest in the future.  France is now turning to the Les Republicains party in recent elections, and away from Le Pen's far right party and Macron's party.  Both Macron and Le Pen did very poorly in recent regional elections. This report in FR24 points out that the candidate for the Les Republicains party will be chosen at a convention, and not at a primary as happened in 2017 leading to the elimination of former Republicains president Nicholas Sarkozy. The president of the Haute France regional council Xavier Bertrand is the leading candidate from the regional election results. Bertrand was Sarkozy's minister of Labor and Solidarity from 2007 to 2009, and Minister of Labor, Employment and Health in 2009. Today Olaf Scholz, winner of the German elections in September 2021 was also Minister of Labor- in the Social Democrats/ Greens government under Gerhard Schroeder 1998 to 2005. Voters now realize that it is important to value experience, stability, combined with humility and a determination to get things done, compared to charismatic leaders with little to show in results, and tangible improvements in the quality of life, in national renewal.      ...