The world has just become a more dangerous place
This article by Lara Marlowe for the Irish Times may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:
White Americans are traumatised to know they will become a minority within 50 years. The French extreme right believe there’s a conspiracy to replace the European population with Africans and north African Arabs. Like Trump supporters, they hark back to the “good old days” and want France to be “great again”.
Virtually all western democracies appear to be infected with the anger and disillusion that brought Trump to power. An opinion poll published by Le Monde on November 8th showed that close to three-quarters of the French electorate believe their elected officials are corrupt. They believe elections serve no purpose, and that political parties, trade unions and media block the country. Trump’s promise to “drain the swamp” has certain resonance.
During the campaign, Le Pen told the right-wing magazine Valeurs Actuelles: “What Americans like is that he’s a free man. If I were American, I’d choose Donald Trump.”
On Wednesday morning, she tweeted congratulations before final results were in.
This has been a year in which the “perceived wisdom” has been proved not to hold true. The UK voted to leave the EU, the Chicago Cubs won the World Series for the first time in more than a century, the Irish rugby team beat the All Blacks for the first time,(although it was only a friendly) and now a rank outsider has won the US Presidential Election. The question now is whether this trend of surprises and disruptions to the status quo will continue and most particularly in Europe?
The French National Front has been revitalised by Marine LePen and the French Presidential Election is likely to be a substantial source of potential volatility next year. Does the Wall Street leash effect extend to the political realm? It very well might and there is a substantial risk to the Eurozone project if a Eurosceptic president is elected in France.
The French 10-year OATS yield is rallying from close to zero in line with the moves in most other bond markets and is now trading above the trend mean and a break in the progression of higher reaction lows would be required to question supply dominance.
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