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TOTAL & the Man who would be King



A bizarre panoply of propaganda here in Paris is now poised to upstage the
national controversy in the french press as it spins in ecstatic delirium
propelled by the current takeover fight between energy giants TOTAL and
ELF. Both presidents have conceded that their offers are more or less
poised toward the same objective, the fusion of these two giant french
energy groupes which will inevitably create the world's fourth largest oil
and gas company. However, its blatantly obvious if you try to see that the
french press is toying over an exaggerated  issue of voting power of the
employees to determine the outcome, as though it were actually true that
they had the influence to do it. And that's just plain silly. Clearly they
do not stand a chance to sway this thing and that's not a pill easy for
them to swallow here in a nation that  once enjoyed the clamor of labor to
defend its rights in this so-called democracy of the V Republic. While the
capitalists have the upper hand, the rank and file of french workers know
that it just wouldn't be French lay down low and let the almighty barons of
finance cut them out of the deal.  So the french press in a last gasp of
worker solidarity pretends  to play out its rôle in the battle between two
corporate empires, two men, and hundreds of billions of dollars. But do not
be fooled. As TOTAL's president Thierry Desmarest knows, this deal between
Elf and TOTAL is no clash of corporate cultures. Its virtually a done deal.
All that remains to be set is the price.

As the national press rallies in bewildered astonishment as though suddenly
awaken from their summer holiday sleep, editors and journalists eager to
perpetuate the myth of popular revolt and even a little outrage, provoked
by the heroic audacity of TOTAL's friendly raid on Elf ( more
hero-worshipping by the french, a national pastime), find at the same time,
standing oddly out of the spotlight, the certain all-prevailing figure of
presidential authority, Jacques Chirac himself, who despite any unsettled
uncertainty, finds these preexisting conditions quite convenient for his
own purposes. Perhaps because there is so little at risk in this megadeal
of national priority where foreign policy and national interests coincide,
that it is not even necessary for Jacques Chirac to appear openly
concerned. Thierry Desmarest, despite all his faults and treachery in
defending the indefensible Yadana pipeline and Burmese junta at the cost of
democracy and innocent lives, while the French refuse to admit it (while
secretly they admit it for how else could it be in such an affair), clearly
has Jacques Chirac's tacit approval to go ahead with the deal. Nothing
less. And Desmarest has chosen the perfect time since the spring to make
the hostile takeover bid. So, in these upcoming few weeks, as the French
leave their vacation hamlets to return to work, Desmarest and TOTAL wait
for the corporate and legal formalities to unfold, wrapping up the show, on
the upswing of Labor Day in the US, confident of a logic that finds Chirac,
that irreproachable embodiment of the national will, true to his heart, and
in his pocket. Or is it the other way around...Meanwhile, Chirac
continues to enjoy high ratings in the polls which is pretty wierd when even
in the midst of scandals, his ratings soar, part of the eternal king
nostagia leader-worship syndrome here.

Beware of Desmarest. He is artful, shrewd, cunning and deceitful. A model
of administrative and executive authority, the new corporate hero of his
generation of modern french capitalism. A man in a hurry who can afford to
wait but refuses to do so. Patience may be an elegant French custom, once.

The Free Burma movement ever since the beginning has had a formidable foe
in the personality and disposition of Thierry Desmarest. He is not friend
of Burmese democracy. He is an ally of the dictators who in fact he may
despise while refusing to admit it, and he lets President Chirac handle the
national economic and foreign policy interests while the Chirac gang of
business leaders privatise and consolidate the emerging global French
economy. Chirac is his friend and ally. In fact, he is doing just what
Chirac would want him to do, in perfect Gaullist tradition. This is why,
together, French national leaders appear impervious to criticism of their
Yadana pipeline and even refuse to seriously discuss it in any length or
detail as something adverse to the state or "general " will.

In the current uproar abounding in national and international headlines,
Chirac is standing quietly at the sidelines away from harm's way. Perhaps
his rôle will someday be known when the true story comes out - if ever. And
that is why  you will hear rhetoric of worker outrage and solidarity, labor
stretching out its head, waving its hands in the air, but not to take away
those millions from shareholders. What else is thereto do  in a deal, apart
from all the rhetoric and profits, then to watch the national show and be
slightly amused as the French take democracy down another notch. 

Dawn Star
Euro-Burmanet
Paris