This last visit to Paris in early June was a total contradiction: on the one hand it shows that the mechanisms for promoting tourism are still working perfectly and the rate of tourist visits to the beautiful city not only remains at the usual level, but the increased security measures and the intelligent deflection of demonstrations and protest events by union members and university students are failing to reflect the reality of the serious problems facing France and most European countries.
Although the May rains in Paris caused heavy flooding on the banks of the river Seine, and the Louvre and Orsay museums were closed to the public and traditional boat trips across the river were suspended because boats could not could pass under the bridges due to the massive rise in water levels, tourist inflows to the historic center of Paris increased and the commercial sales areas in numerous malls, restaurants and shops of all kinds were still completely full.
There is, however, a sense of a kind of suppressed tension in Parisians as if they are waiting for dangerous events, or as if their lives and the lives of their children were going to change for ever. Parisians seem confused about their fate and the fate of all of Europe. The new generations no longer believe in the workings of the current political model, its public service institutions, education systems, social services, universities, etc., nor do they know what could be the new paradigms of their family life, their domestic world and their model of social and political coexistence in the new digital world.
Although it is very difficult to determine the changes that will happen in the short term, it is obvious that not only France but the vast majority of European countries are now going through a very deep crisis, with the most visible being the migration problems, the considerable increase in the cost of everyday living and increased racial hatred. It is clear that the cause of these problems has been declining jobs and wages across Europe, which cannot be corrected in the short term and which may lead to the breakup of the European Union and the creation of conflicts similar to those that occurred in the early twentieth century.
While all major Western powers are trying to hide that reality using most of the mass media under their control, the facts are showing that the model of so-called republican democracy in most Western states is disappearing and giving rise to new policing and dictatorial systems that enable the owners of economic and political power to develop new laws and new measures to perpetuate their dominance and growth.
Perhaps the key factor in the restructuring of the new world order has been the massive growth of China and the unexpected change this has created in global trade routes and financial systems. This has had a disastrous effect on the development of Western economies which have witnessed a decline in their exports to the rest of the world. The systems of financing and commercial exchange without the use of conventional currencies in worldwide use have been putting an end to the old Western trick whereby private banks in the US and England – for more than one hundred years – have been printing money at will and distributing it according to their own interests, exchanging it for goods and services with real value, and then collecting it whenever they please, after charging a sizable interest.
Everything suggests that the reconstruction of a new world order in peaceful terms is imminent. The world’s two most important demographic areas, China and India, are reluctant to participate in a global conflagration, because their experience has shown them that in a war no one wins and that this is the reason why the vast majority of Western powers are totally bankrupt.
Addendum: It is likely that the nerve centers of the new world order may have to gradually reduce their military spending and begin to direct their investments to the field of new technologies in media, health, ecology, anthropology, neurology, education and art.
The facts have proven of that the old passion for material goods is reaching the limit and healthier dreams are appearing in individuals of the new generations in old nations of Western Europe, such as France, Germany, England, Holland, Switzerland, Denmark and the three Baltic countries.
In the meantime, there is no sign in the United States that the country will once again become the West’s most productive democratic republic like it was in the second half of the twentieth century.