At the beginning of the week, Macron announced that Patrice Strzoda, the former chief of staff of PS Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, would be his own chief of staff.
Strzoda organised the brutal police repression of protests against Hollande, including the systematic and deadly use of “flash-ball” rubber bullets. As prefect in Brittany from 2013 to 2016, he oversaw the police operations and the use of assault grenades that in 2014 cost the life of ecological protester Rémi Fraisse. His nomination is a sign that Macron and Philippe will stop at nothing to repress the explosive opposition that their policies will provoke.
Jean-Yves Le Drian (PS) is France’s new minister of foreign affairs. As defence minister under Hollande, he played a critical role in French imperialism’s aggressive policy in Syria and Africa, and against Russia as part of the NATO alliance. He also supervised the deployment of the army on French soil in the context of the prolonged state of emergency, which suspends basic democratic rights.
According to press reports, Le Drian worked closely with Hollande to identify and approve targets of the PS’s “homicide operations.” These extra-judicial murders, “targeted assassinations,” including of citizens, were carried out by the French state abroad in flagrant violation of the French constitution, which forbids the death penalty. His chief role in a new government will be to carry out the reorganisation and remilitarisation of European foreign policy, carried out in close collaboration with Berlin
(Source: wsws.org)
