Det imperiale system er ved at smuldre, Macron er nede, hvem er den næste?
Schiller Instituttets webcast med Helga Zepp-LaRouche den 10. september 2025

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HARLEY SCHLANGER: Hej og velkommen til vores ugentlige dialog med Helga Zepp-LaRouche. Hun er grundlægger og formand for Schiller-instituttet. I dag er det den 10. september 2025. Jeg hedder Harley Schlanger og er din vært. Du kan sende dine spørgsmål og kommentarer til Helga via e-mail til questions@schillerinstitute.org, eller du kan skrive dem på chat-siden.
Helga, der er forventninger om, at FN vil indkalde til et ekstraordinært møde i Generalforsamlingen for at drøfte en afslutning på Netanyahu-regimets folkemordspolitik mod palæstinenserne. Det meste af verden anerkender, at dette er folkemord, men Israel har endnu en gang vist sin foragt for international ret med et luftangreb mod Hamas-ledere i Doha, Qatar, i går. Din første reaktion var at sige, at hvis Trump ikke fordømmer dette, er det jungleloven, der gælder. Han fordømte det ikke helt, men vil du sige, at dette seneste angreb fra Israels side måske er gået et skridt for langt?

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Det er selvfølgelig ikke første gang, at Israel har besluttet at dræbe ledende personer i andre lande og dermed åbenlyst overtrådt folkeretten og i grunden begået statsterrorisme. Men dette angreb har særligt store konsekvenser, fordi det var rettet mod netop de Hamas-ledere, der angiveligt var i gang med at forhandle om frigivelsen af de israelske gidsler og mulige andre spørgsmål omkring situationen i Gaza, som er forfærdelig. Qatar var – sandsynligvis – et land, der tidligere har været vært for mange sådanne forhandlinger, og blev takket for denne rolle ved at blive angrebet af et israelsk fly eller missil eller hvad det nu var. Så jeg tror, at Qatars rolle som mægler nu er i fare, for hvorfor skulle man fortsætte med dette, hvis det er det, man får ud af det? Derfor var min umiddelbare reaktion, at hvis præsident Trump ikke kun distancerer sig, men også tager skridt til at forhindre en gentagelse af dette, er det jungleloven, som vi allerede er meget langt på vej mod, i betragtning af at der var forhandlinger med Iran, og så midt i det hele angreb Israel Iran, og kort derefter gjorde USA det samme. Dette har allerede bragt spørgsmålet om tillid og spørgsmålet om diplomati i absolut fare. Hvad kan man stole på, hvis det er det, der sker? Men nu, hvis så ekstremt følsomme og vidtrækkende forhandlinger som dem i Qatar bliver bombet, og hvis USA støtter det, ville det være slutningen på enhver civiliseret adfærd i internationale relationer.

Nu er omstændighederne stadig lidt uklare. Først sagde Det Hvide Hus, at de var blevet informeret, og at de havde informeret Qatar. Men så sagde den qatarske regering, at de først fik advarslen ti minutter efter angrebet. Så vidt jeg kan forstå af de forskellige oplysninger, korrigerede Det Hvide Hus efterfølgende og sagde, at de fik beskeden om angrebet fra israelerne for sent til at kunne informere Qatar i tide. Så det hele er meget uklart. Det ser ud til, at USA først blev informeret, da missilerne allerede var i luften, og da var det naturligvis for sent. Ikke desto mindre er det op til Det Hvide Hus, præsident Trump og den amerikanske regering at sætte en stopper for dette, for det er helt klart, at USA er det eneste land, der kan sætte en stopper for dette, og indtil videre har vi ikke set noget overbevisende i denne retning. Så efter min mening er den internationale orden i fare og kræver en absolut presserende intervention fra det internationale samfund. For uden international lovgivning har man jungleloven, og hvis nogle af disse lande har atomvåben, kan man forestille sig, hvad det kan føre til.

SCHLANGER: I denne uge vedtog Den Internationale Sammenslutning af Folkemordsforskere en resolution, der beskylder Israel for at begå folkemord og krigsforbrydelser. Der er voksende protester og stærke fordømmelser; den spanske regering lukker for eksempel sine havne for skibsfart til Israel. Selv Ursula von der Leyen fra Europa-Kommissionen sagde, at EU vil suspendere bilaterale støtteprogrammer med Israel [Rettere, opfordrede hun EU til at gøre det, men det kræver enstemmighed — red. ]. Men spørgsmålet er – og det var det, du netop kom ind på i slutningen af dit første svar – hvad kan man gøre for at stoppe folkemordet?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I denne uge begynder FN’s Generalforsamling i New York. Vi – det vil sige Schiller Instituttet, den Internationale Fredskoalition og mange andre organisationer – er involveret i forskellige aktiviteter omkring FN. Vi organiserer demonstrationer; andre gør det samme.

Vi forsøger at tale med så mange FN-missioner som muligt. Der er en fælles indsats for at få vedtaget FN-resolution 377, kaldet »Forene for fred«, som først blev defineret i 1950. Det er grundlæggende en bestemmelse, hvorved man kan flytte beslutningsmagten fra FN’s Sikkerhedsråd til FN’s Generalforsamling, hvis FN’s Sikkerhedsråd ikke fungerer. Og nu fungerer det åbenbart ikke på grund af vetoretten hos en af de fem permanente medlemmer [USA-red]. I så fald kan et flertal på to tredjedele af FN’s Generalforsamling træffe en række beslutninger.
Francesca Albanese [FN’s specielrapportør for mennedskerettigheder i de besætte palæstinensiske områder], og en gruppe af hendes samarbejdspartnere har udarbejdet en række foranstaltninger, der skal træffes, herunder en FN-deployering, der skal sikre uhindret adgang til alle grænseovergange, så alle humanitære forsendelser kan nå frem uden hindringer, samt en række andre humanitære foranstaltninger.

Men jeg tror, at der også er behov for flere foranstaltninger. For eksempel at sende FN’s blå hjelme, for hvis man forsøger at sende en mere robust gruppe til regionen, vil det ende med en krig mod Israel og USA. Så det fungerer naturligvis ikke. Men hvis man havde en stor kontingent af blå hjelme, der repræsenterede det store flertal af verdens lande, der fordømmer dette folkemord, ville det gøre det klart. Og det ville forhåbentlig påvirke samvittigheden hos en del af den israelske befolkning, der i stigende antal demonstrerer for at få afsluttet krigen. De har nu også fordømt dette angreb på Qatar og sagt, at det bringer gidslernes liv i umiddelbar fare, som måske allerede har lidt under konsekvenserne af det.

Men jeg tror, at der er behov for en hel række foranstaltninger, herunder at indstille al handel med Israel foreløbig og muligvis fratage dem deres plads i FN foreløbig på grund af dette folkemord, der finder sted. Men der må træffes nogle foranstaltninger for at stoppe dette, for det er nu en total katastrofe for palæstinenserne. Det er dem, der lige nu bliver udslettet i et holocaust. Men det er i virkeligheden hele den menneskelige civilisation, der bliver dømt, for hvis vi ikke kan stoppe et folkemord, der finder sted for øjnene af hele verden, betyder det, at vi vil kollapse som civilisation. Vi vil vise os at være så brutale, at vi ikke kan opretholde nogen form for international lov.

Så hvis du er bekymret over situationen, så kontakt os; Schiller Instituttet, den Internationale Fredskoalition. Vi mødes hver fredag via YouTube og Zoom for at diskutere situationen og høre førende eksperter fra Mellemøsten og andre områder. Så slut dig til kampen, for vi har brug for en international stemme, der er høj nok til at have indflydelse.

Fortsættes på engelsk:

SCHLANGER: We just got a message in from Steve Kahler, one of our contacts, who says, “Turkiye also is ending all related aid to Israel.”

Now, in terms of the broader picture, what the Schiller Institute is doing is circulating a statement as a follow-up to the events last week in Eurasia with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, and so on. What’s going on is the establishment of a new security and development architecture which is something that you have been supporting for some time. The statement itself is available on the Schiller Institute website—“The Nations of the West Must Cooperate with the New World Economic Order.”

I received questions from people who asked about this. They said, “What is it that we should do to ask our elected officials to do? What should they do so that the West would be brought into coherence and cooperation with this new order?”

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: It’s very simple. I think if parliamentarians or government officials would simply issue statements welcoming the formation of the BRICS, welcoming the formation of the SCO and their announcement that they want to establish a just economic world order, that would be sufficient. Because the mainstream media have completely misrepresented what is going on; they say this is the autocracies against the democracies, this is a threat to the West. It is nothing of that sort! All the countries which met with the BRICS in Brazil and recently in Tianjin in China with the SCO, have stated repeatedly and loudly that it is not a bloc against NATO; it is not a bloc against the West. It is open for cooperation for every country that wants to do so. Given the fact that this is a counter-reaction against a lot of things, but against 500 years of colonialism, the countries of the Global South for the first time because of the rise of China, have the chance to overcome their neo-colonial condition and have the prospect of becoming middle-range income countries in a relatively short period of time by industrializing; by no longer exporting raw materials, but having the value chain in their own country and in that way creating wealth and making life livable for their people. For that, they need cooperation, they need science and technology, they need know-how, they need capital goods, they need machine tools, they need infrastructure. I think the best thing that would happen is that rather than trying to suppress this, the Western countries in Europe and the United States would basically say it’s a good thing that colonialism ends. They have their own historic burden to do some justice to these countries; and that they want to cooperate in helping them to fulfill what they want to accomplish. It would immediately create a basis to solve all problems on the planet. I’m not saying that lightly; I know for a fact, that the people in Brazil, in Indonesia, in India, in Egypt, in South Africa, and many other countries—China naturally, even Russia—they all would welcome such a shift. It just would mean to give up this neo-colonial arrogance that we are living in a garden and the rest of the world—which is a jungle—must not be allowed to grow into it. That’s Josep Borrell, former Vice President of the European Commission. Now, that garden doesn’t look so nice if you look at what is happening in France, among other places.

But I think that this arrogance has to stop, and we have to recognize that the countries of the Global Majority have a legitimate reason to demand equal rights and a prospect to develop. We should organize a majority of people who support that. So, ask your parliamentarian, your Congressman, your Assemblyman or—woman to issue such statements in the name of their party, their faction, or as individuals. I think that we need such a debate, and we absolutely must not miss that historic opportunity.

SCHLANGER: You can use the statement which is available on the Schiller Institute website.

So, we’re listening to Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and chairwoman of the Schiller Institute. Helga, you mentioned the vote in France. This was pretty much a bit of a shocker, I think; the no-confidence vote. This is, I believe, the fourth time in two years that the French Prime Minister has been voted out of office. François Bayrou is out, but Macron seems to be sticking to the same policy that ended up with the vote of no-confidence; preparing for war with Russia, austerity in France. He seems to be continuing on the same policy with the leaders of the so-called E-3—Merz in Germany and Starmer in England. What’s your sense of this potential for what happened in France to spill over into Germany? And by the way, there were demonstrations on the street, the so-called Block Everything movement in France; and they’re going to continue until austerity has stopped. Can something like this happen in Germany?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes, I think we are not very far from that. But the situation in France is pretty much out of control; so much so that the French government today is deploying an additional 80,000 troops and armored vehicles into the streets, anticipating riots and unrest. That is just the prelude, because in a few days there will be a general strike called by the trade unions. That could potentially bring the whole country to a standstill. There is no easy solution, because what happened was, Bayrou wanted to cut the budget by €44 billion, and eliminate two holidays. Practically all the four blocs of the political system violently opposed that. Normally, when a government falls for such reasons, the easy thing to do would be to devalue the currency. But given the fact that France is part of the euro system, that cannot be done. So there is now a big debate to move to Europeanize the debt. That is obviously extremely unpopular in Germany and Italy and all the other countries. They say why should German, Italian, Danish taxpayers pay for the militarization in France? So, I cannot see how that situation can be easily solved; Macron now has 17% in the polls, that’s not exactly popular. He immediately appointed his former Defense Minister Lecornu, a young person 39 years old, who is supposed to carry on this program of Bayrou. It is quite questionable whether he will get the support of the majority of the National Assembly and the population. In any case, this could be very short-lived, and it’s open-ended. You could see the same thing happening in Germany, because even though the German situation up to now has been the most controlled of anywhere in the world—talk about autocracies, I think we can claim to be an autocracy in Germany given the control of the mass media and many other aspects. But I think there is an explosion looming under the surface, because the German economy is in a freefall. You have insolvencies everywhere—machine tools, the steel sector, the chemical industry, among many agricultural areas, vineyards. The country is just experiencing a complete explosion. And it will get worse in the next weeks and months, so the possibility that we will enter something much larger than we had ten years ago with the euro crisis could happen. There is an open discussion even in the European Parliament that the EU may not survive this crisis, because the Coalition of the Willing is only called that because the others are not willing. The E-3 you mentioned—Germany, France, Great Britain, Poland, the Baltic countries, and the Scandinavians. But it is definitely not the East Europeans, not the Balkans, not the South Europeans, so the EU could actually break apart. I think that would not be anything to be sorry about, because I think the whole argument that you need a strong European Union to be in a strong position against other big players like the United States, Russia, and China, has become a laughingstock ever since von der Leyen met with Trump in Scotland, delivering all of Europe on a silver platter to Trump and his tariff policies. She completely sold out any interests of Europe, and that’s a big topic of discussion. So, if the EU dissolves, and instead you would go to any kind of Europe of the Fatherlands, you can work together as sovereign nations having a joint European position, but without a supranational bureaucracy. You could just have strong sovereign nations working together, and that would be much better than having an over-bloated bureaucracy which is incredibly expensive, using up taxpayers’ money for nothing; not representing the interests of the participating members. I think we are in for some major changes in the not-too-distant future, and we should try to ensure it goes in the direction of sovereignty and interests of the people involved, not some oligarchy.

SCHLANGER: Your description of France with 80,000 troops in the street brings up the whole question of the militarization that’s going on in the so-called trans-Atlantic countries. President Trump deployed soldiers in the streets in Washington, DC and in California. There have been mass arrests in the United Kingdom to try and stop the demonstrations; censorship. Your husband pointed out, right around the time of 9/11, that these kinds of geopolitical conflicts are used as an excuse to crack down on police state measures to impose austerity. Is that what you think we’re seeing today? Is that part of the game plan of the establishment to try and save their system through militarization?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, if you look at the approval rates of these governments, it is already abysmal. Merz’s government has 22% in the polls; Macron, 17%; Starmer is also around the same numbers. That’s less than one-fifth of the population supporting the policies. The reason is very obvious. If this Coalition of the Willing—or Coalition of the Brain Dead, Ray McGovern’s favorite name for them; and given the fact that they are committing policies which really put at risk the existence of their nations, I can only agree with that. If they are pursuing a military build-up, Rearm Europe, von der Leyen says, she has a program of €800 billion for the next several years. In Germany, they lifted the debt brake without limit to potentially rearm. All of this will not be enough, because what is it for? Is it against Russia? If the United States backs out of it, which still despite all difficulties it seems that Trump is committed to doing and get the relationship with Russia on a course towards normalization, the so-called Coalition of the Willing countries fighting against Russia? That’s completely absurd. The demonization of Russia is only in the media and some of the corrupt politicians who would rather pursue the interests of the military-industrial complex than the safety of their citizens. So, the situation is one where this armament policy will only lead to a potential war. But it will not lead to a possibility to defeat Russia in a confrontation. Furthermore, all the competent militaries in many countries—Germany, France, the United States, Italy, and elsewhere—all say there is cui bono for Russia to attack a European country.

Now, the media today are full of this supposed drone accidental or not accidental incursion in Poland. That needs to be clarified. The Russian Defense Ministry immediately said that they had no order out for any such attack. There are reports that maybe these drones were coming from Ukraine, maybe being misguided by accident. In any case, apart from such fluff which is being created out of this non-incident, I think what these military men argue is that there is no motive; there is no capacity. Why would Russia, which has the largest country on the planet, 11 times zones, more raw material resources than they can possibly develop—that’s why they are inviting other countries to join them in the Far East in Siberia; they don’t need anything from the West. They have enough trouble to keep their very large country coherent with only a small population of 150 million or so. But it’s completely thinly populated, so why would Russia want to do that? There are many reasons to say that Russia did not want to take over all of Ukraine, but that they were willing to negotiate a settlement was already clear in March 2022 in Istanbul. This is a whole narrative which is absolutely not … people are too credulous. I think if people would start using their own minds and keep a memory which is longer than that of a grasshopper, they would remember all of these things which we keep notice of. And naturally, we are publishing our publications which helps to keep track of these developments.

People should really stop falling for these narratives, because we need peace. There is no peace possible without Europe. It’s high time that sanity returns to politics.

SCHLANGER: Helga, I have to ask you this question, because it’s been thrown at me multiple times in the last two days, about the number of deaths Alternative for Deutschland candidates in North Rhine Westphalia. I think there are now seven who have died. There’s an upcoming election. This is a huge statistical anomaly, and of course people are very suspicious given that there’s a continuing move to try to ban the AfD. The Social Democrats and the Greens are pushing it. Do you have any comments on this?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Naturally, it is a statistical improbability, but as long as the AfD themselves are not making an issue, I don’t want to feed speculation. It is quite possible that there was some power play involved, but I don’t want to speculate on something I have no facts on to discuss it one way or another. If the AfD is not making it an issue, I want to not comment on it further.

SCHLANGER: Given the unwillingness of the German government to investigate the Nord Stream pipeline, I think people are skeptical, but I think what you’re saying is absolutely right.

One final question for you, and this gets to something a little bit different. There seems to be, because of the Chinese investment in Africa, the nations of the Global South demanding that their resources be used for their own development, there’s an enormous potential for Europe instead of becoming cut off, to actually work with China and Russia in Africa. I understand the Schiller Institute is producing a report on this; can you say something about that?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes. We have already at our recent Schiller conference in Berlin presented a draft report which is still being worked on, for tripartite cooperation among China, European nations, and African nations for the industrialization of Africa. That would solve the refugee crisis, because if we help the African nations to develop and industrialize, then the people have no reason to run away from their home country. So, it would be in the real self-interest of Europe to help to do that. There is one fantastic example, which was opened yesterday; namely the Grand Renaissance Dam in Ethiopia. It’s a gigantic project which involves actually several dams and a basin of 172 kilometers. It will give annually 6000MW of electricity not only for Ethiopia, but also for export to neighboring countries. So, it’s a huge game-changer in the potential of Ethiopia to industrialize and develop as a country.

That project was announced by the CEO of the Italian firm which was the crucial engineering firm together with some French and Chinese involvement. He said this is a model for the kind of cooperation between China, Europe, and Africa; and it’s a tremendous engineering masterpiece. There has been some effort by British media and others to say this will now cause conflict with Sudan and Egypt over the water supply. The reality is, that water is not being wasted, it’s just coming a bit more slowly, and it’s coming through the management of that dam. But not one drop less water comes to Sudan and Egypt. So, all these arguments are bogus arguments.

Let me just mention one other thing which I think is important in this context. In the context of the SCO summit, President Xi Jinping issued the fourth of his Global Initiatives called the Global Governance Initiative. This is a document which is incredibly important. I read it and looked at it, and it is a complete counter-design to the idea of a unipolar world which has one dominant power and all the other ones are colonies. This is a design whereby all countries big and small participate in a system of governance of equality, total respect for the sovereignty of the other, non-interference in internal affairs, respect for different social systems, cooperation, not voting on anything without the interests of the affected countries being consulted and taken into account, no change of the rules against the will of the affected countries, etc. It’s a whole huge catalogue, and I’m really very happy to say, it is the very concrete formulation of what I have been asking for for more than three years; namely the new global security and development architecture, for which I wrote Ten Principles. What the Global Governance Initiative does is to break it down into a very practical discussion of how to actually organize the participation of all countries in the realization of what I say in the Ten Principles, and what the other initiatives of China have outlined with the Belt and Road Initiative and similar things.

So, it is a very concrete proposal on how to bring back order to the world system. Naturally, it incorporates the UN Charter; it emphasizes the whole of the UN and the UN Charter and other existing international treaties. But it adds something which has been completely missing so far, and that is a framework like in the Peace of Westphalia in Münster and Osnabrück, people were sitting down for four years agreeing on principles and then fleshing it out in terms of all the details. What the Global Governance Initiative is, is a blueprint for the representatives of the different countries to sit down exactly like in the Peace of Westphalia at the negotiating table and sort things out according to these proposals and rules in great detail. So, I think this is exactly what would be the framework for the global security and development architecture, and for the idea for the Western nations to join with the Global Majority in the formation of a new system.

So, I would urge all of you listening and watching, to really pay attention to that. Because I’m absolutely certain that the countries of the Global South will absolutely be in favor of that, because it gives them the long-expected and long-desired equal rights in the world system. So, I think we should circulate this widely and have discussions about it; because it is an alternative for how the world can be brought back into order.

SCHLANGER: And I assume this will be part of the discussion at the International Peace Coalition Zoom call this Friday. Can you say something about that?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes. We will have several spokesmen from the Global South discussing the outcome of the SCO and the Global Governance Initiative. And naturally, we will have people from the Middle East; from Israel, from Palestine. Because this is the week of the UN General Assembly, and I’m pretty sure we will also cover predominantly the crisis in France, because as these mass demonstrations unfold and the general strike, I think the situation will get hotter and hotter. So, the need to change the system will become more clear, and that is naturally the topic for this coming Friday.

SCHLANGER: You can find a link for that at schillerinstitute.com. Helga, thanks for joining us today; this has been very interesting. People have to say on top of things, because things are moving so quickly.

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes; join us, become active. This is not a time to sit on the fence.