to co-opt French farmers, the so-called Common Agricultural Policy was established. Its purpose? To secure the farmers' consent to a European free trade zone by handing over to them a chunk of the cartel's monopoly profits.

No one can deny that, when it comes to semiology, the French are unbeatable.

de Gaulle was stuck in a morass of uncontrolled inflation and rising discontent

after France and a reunited Germany agreed by the Maastrict Treaty to create the euro. The French conservative daily Le Figaro had this to say on its front page: 'In the 1920s it was said that Germany would pay reparations. Now Germany is paying. The Maastrict Treat is a Versailles Treaty without war!'

on the morning of 15 September 1978, they had signed a bilateral agreement to create the European Monetary System (EMS)--the Euro's precursor

High interest rates are wonderful for those living on unearned income, so-called rentiers, but not so good for manufacturers, who see their investment costs skyrocket and the purchasing power of their customers plummet.

Workers were financialized, too, forced to take increasing risks in the housing market and with their pensions. A new mantra--'There is no alternative' or TINA--was born

Financialization, as we now call this process, was the critical by-product of maintaining and enhancing US dominance on the back of increasing trade imbalances and in the interest of financing America's ever-expanding twin deficits.

the libretto of France's defeat had been written back in 1983

convince German voters that monetary union was Germanizing France and exporting Teutonic discipline to Latin Europe, turning grasshoppers into ants rather than importing French sloth into Germany