According to Thierry Meyssan, Sarkozy is the preferred choice of neocon apparatchiks. “Saudi Arabia … will finance the next electoral campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy in France so that the neoconservatives can get rid of Dominique de Villepin. Similar measures were taken with respect to each and every big state of the European Union,” Meyssan writes. In Germany, Angela Merkel was nominated to the post of Chancellor at the 2005 federal election and it appears Merkel will become Chancellor in a Grand coalition with the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Merkel’s ascension is important because she has championed “a strong transatlantic partnership and German-American friendship,” in other words cozying up to the neocons. Recall how vehemently the neocons accused the French and Germans of “pro-Arab appeasement” and the standard threadbare canard, antisemitism, primarily due to the fact Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder opposed the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq. If the neocons and their yahoo operatives (think the dirty trickster Donald Segretti’s understudy, Karl Rove) can fix elections in the United States, it should be a piece of cake in Europe. A bit of violence blamed on Muslims sure the heck doesn’t hurt.

Investigative researcher and writer Wayne Madsen speculates: “As is the case with other European countries where fascist and Islamist fundamentalist forces have joined forces, there is increasing evidence that the riots that have swept France for a week and a half have been far more than spontaneous reactions to the electrocution at a Paris electrical sub-station of two Muslim teens who were escaping police.” Nicolas Sarzoky, or “Sarko,” as his friend and enemies alike call him, according to Madsen, is “a confirmed neo-con in the tradition of fellow travelers in Italy, Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands, Israel, and Spain… Sarkozy has strong links to the Likud Party in Israel and the neo-cons in the Bush administration and the Blair government in London.” Madsen continues:

What is happening in France has all the signs of yet another possible neo-con “false flag” operation in the same category as the Niger fraudulent uranium documents, the provocative actions of Israeli agents in New Jersey who were dressed up as Arabs during the morning of 9-11, unexplained Spanish and British government activities surrounding the train bombings in Madrid and London, and recent deadly bombings in Delhi during Hindu and Muslim holidays attributed to a previously unknown Kashmiri group…. The French politician who benefits the most from this explosion of violence in a country where Muslim citizens constitute a significant minority is Sarkozy. The losers stand to be de Villepin’s faction of the Gaullist RPR party and a newly-resurgent Socialist Party, which rejects the neo-con international agenda. It is not coincidental that the rioting is mainly plaguing cities and towns governed by Socialist and Communist mayors—leaders who are now caught between addressing the social problems that helped spark the violence and responding to calls for a return to law and order.

All of this suspiciously harks back to the Italian strategy of tension, also known as Operation Gladio. “The name ’strategy of tension’ indicates the period roughly from 1969 to 1974, when Italy was hit by a series of terrorist bombings, some of which caused large numbers of civilian deaths,” writes Claudio Celani. “The authors were right-wing extremists maneuvered by intelligence and military structures aiming at provoking a coup d’état, or an authoritarian shift, by inducing the population to believe that the bombs were part of a communist insurgency.” In 1992, the Italian prosecutor Guido Salvini and the Parliament Committee on the Failed Identification of the Authors of Terrorist Massacres determined the strategy of tension was indeed attributed to Italian neo-fascists and elements within a secret freemasonic lodge, called Propaganda Due (P2).

As previously noted here, the primo neocon, Michael Ledeen (resident scholar in the “Freedom Chair” [sic] at the American Enterprise Institute), a proponent of “universal fascism” (a sort of Mussoliniesque fascist derivative), was allegedly tied to the Italian P2 Masonic Lodge. “In the late 1970s, while P2 was doing its dirty work, Ledeen was working as a consultant to Italian intelligence [SISMI] on terrorism issues,” writes Bechir Saadé. Ledeen was a visiting professor of history at the University of Rome between 1975-1977. “Ledeen’s right-wing Italian connections—including alleged ties to the P-2 Masonic Lodge that rocked Italy in the early 1980s—have long been a source of speculation and intrigue,” notes the journalist Jim Lobe. In addition, it is rumored Ledeen is connected to the fraudulent Niger yellowcake documents produced by Italian intelligence.

Madsen again:

The possibility that neo-cons and their fascist allies are manipulating the violence in France to their own advantage has the net result of bringing France into the neo-con’s oft-stated goal of a “Clash of Civilizations” between the West and the Muslim world. The likes of Mark Steyn are already insidiously referring to the Frankish-Muslim 732 Battle of Tours between a Moorish army and the forces of Charles Martel. Other neo-con propaganda outlets are echoing the words “Vichy” for the French government. It is all very transparent who is behind instigating the violence now sweeping France.

Indeed, it does seem transparent. However, it remains to be seen if the French people will rally behind the miscreant and Muslim-baiter Nicolas Sarkozy or like-minded individuals who have signed on to the “Clash of Civilizations” demagoguery. The French government may go over to the dark side. But the French people (and in fact most people in Europe) are steadfastly against the neocon plan for total war and “reshaping” of the Muslim Middle East. Of course, it would not be a historical milestone for the people of France and Germany to be dragged kicking and screaming into the deadly machinations of the neocon master plan. In fact, it was only 70 years ago the German people embraced fascism and there was very little kicking and screaming, save by those carted off into the night to the torture chambers and death camps by the Gestapo.