President Macron's audacious letter to the EU28 published by fawning newspapers, presumably a free opinion piece, should count as election spending, it was his pitch for a fast track federal Europe that very few want.
It was his free election leaflet ahead of the EU elections in May.
It was also his pitch to be crowned the new leader of the EU, as a wounded Merkel stands down.
He attacks his nearest neighbours, Italy. Not content with a diplomatic row which saw him recalling France's ambassador to Italy back to Paris, he openly seeks fights with them over borders and what he describes as ‘turning inwards' and ‘fighting these people with force' (using an EU army?).
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In France, this jibe is against the hard left and Marine Le Pen, whose party is again expected to top the poll in the EU elections.
It's an attack on Brexit, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Spain, Sweden and all those countries with right-wing sovereign parties on the rise.
He is framing the contest between so-called nationalists and federalists, the stitch up of the old bloc of Merkel's EPP and the socialists because Macron's pitch was centrist change. The trouble is, he allies himself with Merkel but his few MEPs sit with the liberals and Guy Verhofstadt, who are all facing wipe-out at the elections.
He is right in his central message that the EU is in trouble but is in complete denial that it is precisely his politics and of those like him, who are to blame.
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He is not endearing himself to the Commission as he wants to take power away from them. He calls for a re-thinking of the Schengen free travel area. It's all about control — for him.
He wants a European border force, single asylum policy and the compulsory resettlement of migrants. That means no country has control over their borders and the people who legally settle in those countries. His solution is more central control and loss of sovereign power. These ideas are not new, they have been proposed by the Commission and rejected by national governments.
He, like the Commission and most of the EU Parliament, wants a national minimum wage — set in Brussels. Again, loss of sovereignty and control over nation state economies. That experiment didn't work very well for the Finns who abandoned the universal income experiment after it failed to get unemployed people into work. When you consider the high unemployment across the Eurozone, it isn't going to work with a one-size-fits-all approach to economies shackled to the euro and in massive debt to the IMF, the Germans and the EU's policies.
He wants a common European defence force — with the UK — he includes us because of our commitment to NATO. Of course he does, in addition to NATO, the UK contributes 16% to the Common Foreign and Security Policy. Yet at the same time with Merkel, he supports an EU army. Ever more control.
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Given the above, I'm not sure who he is pitching this letter to.
It seems Macron has no friends, apart from Guy Verhofstadt and the one remaining UK Lib Dem MEP who sits in ALDE, the group they all belong to. He doesn't understand how to forge individual relationships nor the art of diplomatic relations.
He picked a fight with President Trump, saying he isn't a "classical politician". Macron clearly doesn't understand that Trump won because he wasn't a "classical politician". The world had had enough of them — Renzi, Blair, Cameron, Macron, Rutte, Trudeau, Obama — all blue Paul Smith sharp-suited clones, but without the style and panache or intelligent design. The electorate, dressed in Yellow Vests, are voting them out.
He picked a fight with President Putin at their first meeting, blaming Russian interference through RT and Sputnik (when has Sputnik or RT ever tried to muzzle me or put words into my mouth?).
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He blames ‘fake news' and wants to shut down free speech by curtailing his opposition's thoughts and actions. How will he contain the Gilets Jaunes? Through the judiciary he is trying to criminalise Marine Le Pen for sharing the truth about IS. By denying these images of barbarism that Le Pen shared that is fake news too. It is also a vindictive act ahead of the EU elections. The people see through it.
The "classical politicians" are seeing an end to their rule. They work hand in hand with the legacy media, the state-funded broadcasters, our education systems, our judiciaries and supra national unelected bodies to control our lives.
He calls the Patriots ‘anger mongers'. My friends and I — and the right in general — are happy and optimistic. The anger is pretty one-sided, he's like a petulant child not getting his way.
The people are fighting back. We will not be told what to think, feel and worry about. We are rejecting ever higher taxes on vanity projects. We are rejecting transgender ideology being taught to our primary school kids as normal behaviour. We are rejecting more central control over national governments, uncontrolled borders, forced migration and involvement in illegal wars.
I wonder if France's electoral watchdog and media will look into his election spending and his interference in other countries' elections?
The views and opinions expressed by the contributor do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.