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PARISJean dOrmesson was born in Paris in 1925. A writer and philosopher, he received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor in 2014. I spoke to him recently in Paris about the upcoming elections in France and the rise of populism globally.

Do you see a real possibility that Marine Le Pen and the National Front can win the French elections?

The National Front is clearly making steady progress. I remember when the party of the extreme right in France at the time of [Jean-Louis] Tixier-Vignancour reached a maximum of 2 percent of the vote. Later Jean-Marie Le Pens party gained a maximum of 3 to 4 percent of the vote. But now there is a populist wave all across the world I am thinking for example of Brexit, of Trump, of the Dutch elections and today Le Pen is at 26-27 percent.

For several months Le Pen has been the only candidate to be certain of going into the second round; the others, I am not sure. As I said before Le Pen will have approximately 25-30 percent of the votes but I do not think that she can be elected. She will face the Socialist Party led by [Benot] Hamon and the extreme left led by [Jean-Luc] Mlenchon. If they were united they would represent 25 percent, more or less the same percentage as Le Pen.

Anyway, I think that in the end Le Pen will be defeated. In my opinion, [Francois] Fillon if he is still in the race despite the scandal that has engulfed him or Macron will win the elections in the end. I do believe that Le Pen will be elected in the elections of 2022, but even now all possibilities are open. If, unfortunately, there should be a horrible attack two days before the elections, it would be a catastrophe, and in that case Le Pen could win.

Lukas Schulze via Getty Images

Are the French anxious and worried?

France has changed. For many years it was a country organized into two parties: the conservatives and the socialists, the right and the left. Macron has said correctly that bipartisanship is finished and it has been replaced by quadri-partisanship: Le Pen at the extreme right and the extreme left of Mlenchon, and then the traditional left and the traditional right. But it is not only politics that have changed but also the French people, who were once happy and carefree. As Cocteau rightly said they have become like Italians in a bad mood. The democratic system has been threatened and people are tending towards extremes. The victory of the National Front would be an economic catastrophe the return to the Franc, the closing of borders in short a great chaos.

Brexit and the election of Trump seemed to be unforeseeable events. They are, however, things that have happened.

You cannot absolutely trust the polls today, and also for many years people did not dare to admit that they voted for the National Front. Today, this trend has changed, and people are less afraid to say that they vote for the National Front. This could increase the partys vote to 30 percent.

What kind of a country is France today?

Its a country in bad shape. The five years of the Hollande presidency have been disastrous. He has not kept his promises and he was not able to reduce unemployment and increase the standard of living. Today France may seem to be turning the page, but the danger of terrorism and the problem of migrants is strong. Security is one of the main priorities, and with Le Pen there will be no more migrants because the borders will be closed. A large number of Christians vote for the National Front and I do not understand how they can support a political party that wants to close doors. I have to say that Hollande was better on the topic of security than he was on the economic front.

Do you worry about the world of culture, how are things for French culture?

The French language is doing very badly; it is hard to fight against English. It is also true that books and newspapers are in difficulty. Some publishers are doing well, but there is a negative trend and bookstore sales have been reduced by between 5 to 15 percent. Current events have certainly invigorated peoples desire to read newspapers, and for the moment the freedom of the press is total in France.

And if the National Front wins?

It will not only be a disaster for the poor and for the rich, but it will also affect culture, and the freedom of the press will be threatened.

Do intellectuals still have a voice in France today?

I am not an intellectual, I consider myself a humble writer. The left wing intellectuals went further right than myself. All of France is moving to the right. The Communist Party and the Socialists no longer seem to exist in France. However, writers still have a privileged situation. A writer in France still has a voice in society, although the myth of the great writer, such as Victor Hugo or Franois Mauriac or Andr Gide, no longer exists. The people have violently rejected the political class, all politicians are unpopular and the press is not seen in a very good light. Writers do still enjoy a certain respect.

You are a French academician. What is the role of the Academy of France today?

It does not have very much to do with literature, it is more like a meeting place for interesting people. Neither [Jean-Paul] Sartre nor [Andr] Malraux nor [Albert] Camus were French academicians, but the Academy of France definitely has an undeniable prestige, especially abroad, because it represents a certain French esprit. The French esprit prevailing at the time of Voltaire and Descartes.

One thing remains at the Academy that has otherwise disappeared in France I am talking about conversation. Formerly there were literary salons, but they disappeared. In the last 60-70 years, they were replaced by literary cafes, but now even those have disappeared and conversation has gone with them.

Does France still have a leading cultural role in Europe today?

France follows the destiny of Europe. For centuries the dominance of Europe was total, but I would like to say that culture goes hand in hand with a flourishing economy and military power. Both Louis XIV and Napoleon understood this very well. Tomorrow, the most important philosophers will be Indian, Chinese and Brazilian. The advance of populism is due to the weakness of Europe.

What about the United States?

Who would ever have expected four months ago an America with [Donald] Trump as president? And that is the opposite of what the world thinks about America. In both America and Europe today, there is great hostility toward the system. The real victim of all this is democracy.

What kind of a world do we live in nowadays?

It is a difficult period. The world has always changed, but today it is changing with a faster pace. I am not among those who say that it was better before. In spite of the great success of science it is unequivocally important to save a clear concept of humankind, and to reconcile the triumph of science with humanism.

Do you think that there will be new wars?

There should be no more wars, because we have created Europe, but if populism triumphs, things will change. We absolutely must safeguard the idea of Europe. Europe has succeeded in two things: the single currency and the absence of war. Wars will certainly continue in Africa, in Asia, but we must ensure absolute vigilance against populism. Young people have a tendency to be extremist, but we must prevent them from voting for the National Front.

In conclusion, what is your opinion about your country?

It is definitely somewhat anxious and unhappy. The French language, as I said at the beginning, is becoming less important, and France is not the first country in a Europe that is no longer the center of the world. It is wrong, though, to be talking about decline all the time. What I believe is that Africa will have an increasingly important role. The future is Africa.

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The Victim Of Populism Is Democracy - Huffington Post

Is there any party less aptly named than the Liberal Democrats? A truly liberal party would embrace the chance to shape Britains future as a self-governing nation outside the EU, free to trade with the world. And a democratic one would respect what the people voted for in one of the biggest exercises of democracy in modern times. Instead, the Lib Dems want to stop Brexit.

With only nine MPs, the Lib Dems can do little harm in the House of Commons, but there are over 100 of them in the House of Lords, many rashly given peerages by David Cameron to placate his Coalition allies. Those peers are seeking to force the Government to hold a second referendum on the final Brexit deal; they say they will vote against the Bill that will authorise Theresa May to trigger Article 50 unless their scheme for another public vote is written into law.

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The Liberal Democrats should learn to respect democracy, even if they don't like the Brexit result - Telegraph.co.uk

Pax Ahimsa Gethen / Wikimedia CommonsA recent Pew Research report looked into what characteristics Americans feel are essential for a strong democracy to flourish. The survey asked 1,503 American adults how important things such as fair and open national elections are in preserving democracy.

Of those surveyed, 89 percent believed that open and fair national elections were essential for a strong democracy, while 83 percent saw having a system of checks and balances as critical. Seventy-nine percent thought that people having the right to nonviolently protest was important, and 74 percent favored protecting the rights of people who hold unpopular views. Only 64 percent thought that news organizations being free to criticize political leaders was essential.

Breaking the data down along party lines shows little difference between Republicans and Democratsexcept on a two key points.

Sixty-eight percent of Republicans viewed nonviolent protests as important, compared to 88 percent of Democrats.

Republicans' lower propensity to see this right as essential is reflected in a recent push to crack down on the practice. GOP lawmakers in at least 18 states have introduced some form of anti-protesting legislation, according to The Washington Post.

Inspired by the North Dakota pipeline protests, state Rep. Keith Kempenich introduced a bill that would make motorists not liable for unintentionally hitting protesters who are blocking a roadway. A bill sponsored by Iowa state Sen. Jake Chapman would make intentionally blocking traffic on a highway a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. Missouri Rep. Don Phillips introduced legislation to penalize anyone wearing a mask or disguise during an unlawful protest.

Civil liberties groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have called the anti-protesting legislation unconstitutional and an "unlawful infringements on our right to speak." As the ACLU notes, some of the bills have stalled (including the one in North Dakota) or been dropped altogether (including ones in Michigan and Virginia).

A 20-percentage-point difference is nothing to sneeze at, but it pales in comparison to the current partisan divide over the importance of the right of the press to criticize political officials. While 76 percent of Democrats believed a free press was essential, only 49 percent of Republicans felt the same way.

Trust in the media has been declining, as noted by Gallup, so it's no wonder both Democrats and Republicans feel journalists' role in preserving democracy is less vital than the role of things like checks and balances. But you still have to wonder at the extent to which President Trump's ongoing feud with the media and the anti-Trump protests of recent months seem to be shaping the views of GOP supporters. It's also hard not to think the results might be flipped if Democrats were still in power.

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How Important Are Nonviolent Protests and Media Criticism in Preserving Democracy? Depends Which Party You ... - Reason (blog)

Either we own political technologies, or they will own us. Illustration by Ellie Foreman-Peck Illustration: Ellie Foreman Peck

Has a digital coup begun? Is big data being used, in the US and the UK, to create personalised political advertising, to bypass our rational minds and alter the way we vote? The short answer is probably not. Ornotyet.

A series of terrifying articles suggests that a company called Cambridge Analytica helped to swing both the US election and the EU referendum by mining data from Facebook and using it to predict peoples personalities, then tailoring advertising to their psychological profiles. These reports, originating with the Swiss publication Das Magazin (published in translation by Vice), were clearly written in good faith, but apparently with insufficient diligence. They relied heavily on claims made by Cambridge Analytica that now appear to have been exaggerated. I found the story convincing, until I read the deconstructions by Martin Robbins on Little Atoms, Kendall Taggart on Buzzfeed and Leonid Bershidsky on Bloomberg.

None of this is to suggest we should not be vigilant. The Cambridge Analytica story gives us a glimpse of a possible dystopian future, especially in the US, where data protection is weak. Online information already lends itself to manipulation and political abuse, and the age of big data has scarcely begun. In combination with advances in cognitive linguistics and neuroscience, this data could become a powerful tool for changing the electoral decisions we make.

Our capacity to resist manipulation is limited. Even the crudest forms of subliminal advertising swerve past our capacity for reason and make critical thinking impossible. The simplest language shifts can trip us up. For example, when Americans were asked whether the federal government was spending too little on assistance to the poor, 65% agreed. When they were asked whether it was spending too little on welfare, 25% agreed. What hope do we have of resisting carefully targeted digital messaging that uses trigger words to influence our judgment? Those who are charged with protecting the integrity of elections should be urgently developing a new generation of safeguards.

Already big money exercises illegitimate power over political systems, making a mockery of democracy: the battering ram of campaign finance, which gives billionaires and corporations a huge political advantage over ordinary citizens; the dark money network (a web of lobby groups, funded by billionaires, that disguise themselves as thinktanks); astroturf campaigning (employing people to masquerade as grassroots movements); and botswarming (creating fake online accounts to give the impression that large numbers of people support a political position). All these are current threats to political freedom. Election authorities such as the Electoral Commission in the UK have signally failed to control these abuses, or even, in most cases, to acknowledge them.

China shows how much worse this could become. There, according to a recent article in Scientific American, deep-learning algorithms enable the state to develop its citizen score. This uses peoples online activities to determine how loyal and compliant they are, and whether they should qualify for jobs, loans or entitlement to travel to other countries. Combine this level of monitoring with nudging technologies tools designed subtly to change peoples opinions and responses and you develop a system that tends towards complete control.

Already big money exercises illegitimate power over political systems, making a mockery of democracy

Thats the bad news. But digital technologies could also be a powerful force for positive change. Political systems, particularly in the Anglophone nations, have scarcely changed since the fastest means of delivering information was the horse. They remain remote, centralised and paternalist. The great potential for participation and deeper democratic engagement is almost untapped. Because the rest of us have not been invited to occupy them, it is easy for billionaires to seize and enclose the political cyber-commons.

A recent report by the innovation foundation Nesta argues that there are no quick or cheap digital fixes. But, when they receive sufficient support from governments or political parties, new technologies can improve the quality of democratic decisions. They can use the wisdom of crowds to make politics more transparent, to propose ideas that dont occur to professional politicians, and to spot flaws and loopholes in government bills.

Among the best uses of online technologies it documents are the LabHacker and eDemocracia programmes in Brazil, which allow people to make proposals to their representatives and work with them to improve bills and policies; Parlement et Citoyens in France, which plays a similar role; vTaiwan, which crowdsources new parliamentary bills; the Better Reykjavk programme, which allows people to suggest and rank ideas for improving the city, and has now been used by more than half the population; and the Pirate party, also in Iceland, whose policies are chosen by its members, in both digital and offline forums. In all these cases, digital technologies are used to improve representative democracy rather than to replace it.

Participation tends to be deep but narrow. Tech-savvy young men are often over-represented, while most of those who are alienated by offline politics remain, so far, alienated by online politics. But these results could be greatly improved, especially by using blockchain technology (a method of recording data), text-mining with the help of natural language processing (that enables very large numbers of comments and ideas to be synthesised and analysed), and other innovations that could make electronic democracy more meaningful, more feasible and more secure.

Of course, there are hazards here. No political system, offline or online, is immune to hacking; all systems require safeguards that evolve to protect them from being captured by money and undemocratic power. The regulation of politics lags decades behind the tricks, scams and new technologies deployed by people seeking illegitimate power. This is part of the reason for the mass disillusionment with politics: the belief that outcomes are rigged, and the emergence of a virulent anti-politics that finds expression in extremism anddemagoguery.

Either we own political technologies, or they will own us. The great potential of big data, big analysis and online forums will be used by us or against us. We must move fast to beat thebillionaires.

Twitter: @GeorgeMonbiot. A fully linked version of this column will be published at monbiot.com

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Big data's power is terrifying. That could be good news for democracy - The Guardian

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman is in over his head.

Few had high hopes for Liberman when he was appointed to his post, but most observers on the political Right were willing to swallow the pill of having a man with an understanding of military and strategic affairs that began and ended with applause lines because his appointment solved two pressing political problems.

Libermans appointment to serve as defense minister brought his Yisrael Beitenu party into the government, which increased the size of the coalition from its razor-thin 61-seat majority to a more healthy 66 seats. Moreover, by appointing him, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was able to remove Moshe Yaalon from the Defense Ministry. Yaalon had become unacceptable to Likud voters due to his rush to convict IDF Sgt. Elor Azaria as guilty of criminal wrongdoing last March when Azaria killed a downed terrorist who had stabbed a fellow soldier in Hebron.

Monday morning Liberman showed that concerns about his suitability for his position were spot on.

Speaking to reporters at the Knesset, Liberman said that growing discussion among leading members of the coalition about applying Israeli law to parts of Judea and Samaria must stop.

Anyone who wants to apply Israeli sovereignty to Judea and Samaria needs to understand that such a step will bring immediate repercussions from the new US government, Liberman alleged.

He added, We received a direct not indirect message: Apply sovereignty and you will be cutting ties with the new administration.

Libermans statement was both ignorant and damaging.

It was ignorant because it critically misrepresented how decisions are made in US administrations.

It isnt hard to guess which Trump administration official is threatening Israel and trying to force the government to abide by the failed and damaging policy of surrendering Jude and Samaria to Palestinian terrorists.

As defense minister, he speaks to his counterpart, US Defense Secretary James Mattis. Mattis is no friend of Israels.

During his confirmation hearings in the Senate, when Senator Lindsay Graham asked him what the capital of Israel is, Mattis replied Tel Aviv.

Mattis also said that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a vital [US] interest.

After being fired from his command of Central Command in 2013, Mattis claimed that the US alliance with Israel harms the US. In his words, I paid a military security price every day as the commander of CentCom because the Americans were seen as biased in support of Israel, and... moderate Arabs who want to be with us... cant come out publicly in support of people who dont show respect for the Arab Palestinians.

In the same address, Mattis argued that if Israel continues to allow Jews to assert their property rights in Judea and Samaria, it will risk becoming an apartheid state.

When President Donald Trump appointed Mattis, supporters of Israel in the US were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and hope that his statements were the product of his service in the anti-Israel Obama administration and that once liberated from its intellectual straitjacket, he would abandon his preposterous positions on Israel. Concern over Mattis was abated by the fact that he opposed president Obamas Iran policy.

But last week Mattis made clear that he actually shares Obamas worldview when he decided to appoint Anne Patterson to serve as his undersecretary of defense for policy. Patterson, who served as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs under Obama, is a harsh critic of Israel and an apologist for the Palestinian Authoritys support for terrorism.

In testimony before Congress in April 2014 for instance, Patterson defended the PAs practice of paying salaries to Palestinian terrorists and their families. The payments are legitimate, she told lawmakers, because they need to provide for the families.

Last year, when Mahmoud Shalan, a Palestinian terrorist with US citizenship was shot by soldiers at a checkpoint after he tried to kill them, and later died of his wounds, Patterson demanded an explanation from Israel for his death.

As Steven Flatow, father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza in 1995, noted in an article at JNS news service, Patterson did not demand that the PA provide an explanation for why Shalan, who was a resident of the PA, was engaged in terrorism against Israelis.

Before being appointed to head the State Departments Near East bureau, Patterson served as Obamas ambassador to Egypt from 2011 to 2013, during tumult that saw two leaders outed in so many years.

Patterson supported the overthrow of longtime US ally then-president Hosni Mubarak.

She supported the Muslim Brotherhood regime that replaced him.

She urged Christians and others who were being persecuted by the Muslim Brotherhood regime not to demonstrate against it. She supported Morsis moves to seize tyrannical power and transform Egypt into an Iranian-allied Islamic state.

After the military overthrew Morsi and his regime, Patterson supported cutting off US military assistance to the regime of President Abdel Fattah Sisi.

For her pro-Muslim Brotherhood positions, Patterson became one of the most hated people in Egypt and a symbol of the Obama administrations abandonment of Egypt.

Mattiss decision to appoint Patterson was rejected by the White House, on the basis of Pattersons record in Egypt and at the State Department.

The Patterson episode shows that Mattis continues to embrace Obamas policy of supporting Islamists and opposing US allies. The White Houses rejection of Patterson shows that Mattis is not in charge of policymaking, the White House is.

The fact that Liberman has represented Mattiss threats to Israel as the official policy of the Trump administration indicates that he doesnt understand either who Mattis is, or how decisions are made in US administrations generally or how they are made in the Trump administration in particular.

Moreover, by claiming that Mattiss positions are US policy, Liberman insulted Trump, attributing policymaking powers to Trumps appointed adviser that belong to the president alone.

Trump, for his part, has clearly not made a determination of where he stands on the disposition of Judea and Samaria. But he has made clear that he has no intention of striking out at Israel. He similarly made clear that he has no intention of maintaining Obamas position, which Patterson communicated to Congress, of supporting payoffs to Palestinian terrorists.

If this werent reason enough to be appalled by Libermans deeply destructive statement, the fact is that this isnt the main problem with it.

Libermans argument that Israel must maintain allegiance to the failed and destructive policy of empowering the PLO lest it wreck its ties to America is most destructive because it undermines Israeli democracy and Israels international position. Libermans statement invites indeed begs for a foreign government to threaten Israel in order to cow elected officials and the public into accepting a policy they rightly reject and abandoning discussion of an alternative path that advances Israels strategic interests.

In behaving in this manner, Liberman is adopting the anti-democratic practice of Israels political Left. Incapable of winning the publics support for their obsessive agenda of giving land to Palestinian terrorists, for years, leftist politicians like former justice minister Tzipi Livni have threatened the public and her fellow elected officials that if they dare step away from the disastrous policy, Israeli officials and citizens will face war crimes indictments in international courts.

To his great discredit, Prime Minister Netanyahu began engaging in this sort of behavior recently as he warned that passage of the Settlements Regulation Law would expose Israel to war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court.

Netanyahu was substantively ridiculous. There is no international legal basis for such charges. On its own, the ICC would be unlikely to initiate such proceedings, given their legal weakness. But by arguing that action by the ICC would be a reasonable response to the law, Netanyahu created the political opening for anti-Israel lawfare by the ICC.

After all, if the prime minister himself is saying such charges will ensue, far be it for ICC prosecutors to disagree with him.

This practice of alleging foreign opposition and so inviting foreigners to attack Israel in order to prevent Israels elected officials from loyally performing their duties in accordance with the wishes of their constituents has always been harmful to the country.

Libermans false statement regarding the purported policies of the Trump administration brings this practice to a new low.

Liberman should issue an immediate clarification.

Prime Minister Netanyahu should reject Libermans statement. And both men should affirm their commitment to Israeli democracy and the power of elected officials to determine the course of the nation in accordance with Israel law and on basis of their assessments of Israels national interests.

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Our World: Avigdor Liberman vs. Israeli democracy - Jerusalem Post Israel News