Europe at a Dark Crossroads

In June, Sarko was ushered out of office with the same popular cries oí dégage (beat it) that attended last year's ouster of his former North African clients, Tunisia's corrupt tyrant Ben Ali1 and Libya's unspeakable Gaddafi2. [...]that very week Le Monde had headlined Hollande's proposed budget: hire 65,000 teachers to fill France's overcrowded classrooms and break through Sarkozy's famous "fiscal shield" protecting the rich by raising the top tax bracket to a whopping 75 percent. Clearly, Socialist France has chosen to cleave to German capital at whatever cost to France's social structure. [...]Chancellor Merkel seems to be succeeding in imposing Chancellor Bismarck's dream of German hegemony over Southern Europe, using peaceful means where the bellicose Kaiser and Hitler both failed.14 If the old Russian Empire was righdy known as the "prison-house of nations," the German-dominated Euro-zone may soon be accurately described as the "debtors-prison of nations."