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      As Europe Piles Sanctions on Russia, Some Sacred Cows Are Spared

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      The European Union has been severing economic ties with Moscow to support Ukraine, but some countries have lobbied to protect key sectors.BRUSSELS — Eight months into the war in Ukraine, and eight rounds of frantic negotiations later, Europe’s sanctions against Russia run hundreds of pages long and have in many places cut to the bone.Since February, the European Union has named 1,236 people and 155 companies for sanctions, freezing their assets and blocking their access to the bloc. It has banned the trade of products in nearly 1,000 categories and hundreds of subcategories. It has put in place a near-total embargo on Russian oil. About one-third of the bloc’s exports to Russia by value and two-thirds of imports have been banned.But even now some goods and sectors remain conspicuously exempted. A look at just a few items reveals the intense back-room bargaining and arm-twisting by some nations and by private industry to protect sectors they deem too valuable to give up — as well as the compromises the European Union has made to maintain consensus.The Belgians have shielded trade in Russian diamonds. The Greeks ship Russian oil unimpeded. France and several other nations still import Russian uranium for nuclear power generation.The net impact of these exemptions on the effectiveness of Europe’s penalties against Russia is hard to assess, but politically, they have allowed the 27 members of the bloc to pull together an otherwise vast sanctions regime with exceptional speed and unanimity.“Ultimately, this is the price of unanimity to hold together this coalition, and in the grander scheme of things the sanctions are really working,” said Jacob Kirkegaard, a senior fellow in the Brussels office of the research group the German Marshall Fund, citing Russia’s diminished access to military technology as evidence.A Lukoil gas station in Priolo Gargallo, Italy, last month. The European Union has put in place a near-total embargo on Russian oil, but some sectors of trade remain conspicuously exempt from sanctions.Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times“We would love to have everything included, diamonds and every other special interest hit, but I am of the opinion that, if sparing them is what it takes to keep everyone together, so be it,” he added.The Ukrainian government has criticized some of the exemptions, with President Volodymyr Zelensky chiding European nations for continuing to permit business with Russia, saying they are skirting sacrifices.“There are people for whom the diamonds sold in Antwerp are more important than the battle we are waging. Peace is worth much more than diamonds,” Mr. Zelensky said to the Belgian Parliament during an address by video link in late March.Keeping Diamonds ComingThe continued success of Belgium and the broad diamond sector in keeping the Russian diamond trade flowing exemplifies the sacred cows some E.U. nations refuse to sacrifice, even as their peers accept pain to punish the Kremlin.Exports of rough diamonds are very lucrative for Russia, and they flow to the Belgian port of Antwerp, a historically important diamond hub.The trade, worth 1.8 billion euros a year — about $1.75 billion — has been shielded in consecutive rounds of the bloc’s sanctions, despite being raised as a possible target soon after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February.The Belgian government has said that it has never asked the European Commission, the E.U. executive body that drafts the measures, to remove diamonds from any sanctions list and that if diamonds were added, it would go along.Diamonds being sorted in Mirny, Russia, at a facility operated by Alrosa, the Russian state-owned diamond company. Russian diamonds have been shielded in consecutive rounds of European sanctions.Maxim Babenko for The New York TimesTechnically speaking, that may be true. But the latest round of penalties, adopted this month, exposed the intensive interventions when a coordination error occurred among the various services in the bloc that are involved in the technical preparation of sanctions.The incident, described to The New York Times by several diplomats involved as “farcical,” shows how the lobbying works. The diplomats spoke anonymously in order to describe freely what happened.The European Commission over the course of September prepared the latest round of sanctions and left diamonds off that list.But the European External Action Service — the E.U.’s equivalent of a foreign service or state department, which works with the commission to prepare sanctions — did not get the memo that diamonds should remain exempted and included in its own draft listings Alrosa, the Russian state-owned diamonds company.Once Alrosa had been put on the draft document, removing it became difficult. Spotting the error, Poland and other hard-line pro-Ukraine countries in the bloc dragged out the negotiations over the package as much as they could on the basis that Alrosa should indeed face sanctions.In the end, the need for unanimity and speed prevailed, and Alrosa continues to export to the European Union, at least until the next round of sanctions is negotiated. In proposals for a fresh, ninth round of sanctions, presented by Poland and its allies last week, diamonds were again included, but formal talks on the new set of penalties have not yet begun.A spokesman for the European External Action Service declined to comment, saying it does not comment on internal procedures involved in preparing sanctions.The Tricastin nuclear power plant in the Drôme region of southeastern France. France is one of several E.U. countries that depend on Russian uranium to operate civil nuclear power facilities. Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesNuclear PowerMost exemptions have not been as clear-cut as diamonds because they have involved more complex industries or services, or affected more than one country.Uranium exported from Russia for use in civil nuclear power production falls under this category. Nuclear power plants in France, Hungary, Slovakia, Finland and other countries depend on Russian civilian uranium exports.The trade is worth 200 million euros, or about $194 million, according to Greenpeace, which has been lobbying for its ban. Germany and other E.U. countries have supported the calls to ban civilian nuclear imports from Russia, making this another issue likely to come up in the next round of sanctions talks.In August, Mr. Zelensky also highlighted the persistent protection of the Russian nuclear exports to Europe just as Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant came under fire.Some supporters of keeping Russian uranium running say that France and the other countries’ ability to generate electricity by operating their nuclear power plants during an acute energy crisis is more important than the political or financial gains that could come from a ban through E.U. sanctions, at least for now.Tankers in the NightOne of the most complex and important lobbying efforts to protect a European industry from sanctions is the one mounted by Greek diplomats to allow Greek-owned tankers to transport Russian oil to non-European destinations.This has facilitated one of the Kremlin’s biggest revenue streams. More than half of the vessels transporting Russia’s oil are Greek-owned, according to information aggregated from MarineTraffic, a shipping data platform.Supporters of the Greek shipping industry say that if it pulled out of that business, others would step in to deliver Russian oil to places like India and China. Experts say lining up enough tankers to make up for a total Greek pullout would not be simple, considering the sheer size of Greek-interest fleets and their dominance in this trade.According to European diplomats involved in the negotiations, their Greek counterparts were able to exempt Greek shipping companies from the oil embargo in a tough round of talks last May and June.Since then, the E.U. has come around to a United States-led idea to keep facilitating the transport of Russian oil, in order to avert a global oil-market meltdown, but to do so at a capped price to limit Russia’s revenues.The Greeks saw an opening: They would continue to transport Russian oil, but at the capped price. The bloc offered them additional concessions, and Greece agreed that the shipping of Russian oil would be banned if the price cap was not observed.The Greek-flagged oil tanker Minerva Virgo. Greek diplomats have lobbied for Greek-owned tankers to be allowed to transport Russian oil to non-European destinations. Bjoern Kils/ReutersEven if the economic benefits of such exemptions are hard to define, from a political perspective, the continued protection of some goods and industries is creating bad blood among E.U. members.Governments that have readily taken big hits through sanctions to support Ukraine, sacrificing revenues and jobs, are embittered that their partners in the bloc continue to doggedly protect their own interests.The divisions deepen a sense of disconnect between those more hawkish pro-Ukraine E.U. nations nearer Ukraine and those farther away, although geographical proximity is far from the only determinant of countries’ attitudes toward the war.And given that the bloc is a constant negotiating arena on many issues, some warn that what goes around eventually will come around.“This may be a raw calculation of national interests, but it’s going to linger,” Mr. Kirkegaard said. “Whoever doesn’t contribute now through sacrifice, next time there’s a budget or some other debate, it’s going to come back and haunt them.” More

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      Elections Approaching, Erdogan Raises the Heat Again With Greece

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      Turkey’s president suggested that troops “may suddenly arrive one night” in Greece. With inflation rampant and the lira sinking, a manufactured crisis might be just the thing he needs.ISTANBUL — Last week at a closed dinner in Prague, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece was addressing 44 European leaders when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey interrupted him and started a shouting match.Before stalking from the room, Mr. Erdogan accused Mr. Mitsotakis of insincerity about settling disputes in the eastern Aegean and blasted the European Union for siding with its members, Greece and Cyprus, according to a European diplomat and two senior European officials who were there.While the others, flabbergasted and annoyed, finished their dinners, Mr. Erdogan fulminated at a news conference against Greece and threatened invasion. “We may suddenly arrive one night,” he said. When a reporter asked if that meant he would attack Greece, the Turkish president said, “Actually you have understood.”The outburst was only the latest from Mr. Erdogan. As he faces mounting political and economic difficulties before elections in the spring, he has been ramping up the threats against his NATO ally since the summer, using language normally left to military hawks and ultranationalists.While few diplomats or analysts are predicting war, there is a growing sense among European diplomats that a politically threatened Mr. Erdogan is an increasingly dangerous one for his neighbors — and that accidents can happen.Mr. Erdogan needs crisis to buoy his shaky standing at home after nearly 20 years in power, a diplomat specializing in Turkey said, requesting anonymity. And if he is not provided one, the diplomat said, he may create one.The rising tensions between Greece and Turkey, both NATO members, now threaten to add a difficult new dimension to Europe’s efforts to maintain its unity in the face of Russia’s war in Ukraine and its accumulating economic fallout.Mr. Erdogan met President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Kazakhstan on Thursday.Pool photo by Vyacheslav ProkofyevAlready, Mr. Erdogan has made himself a troublesome and unpredictable ally for his NATO partners. His economic challenges and desire to carve out a stable security sphere for Turkey in a tough neighborhood have pushed him ever closer to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.Mr. Erdogan has earned some shelter from open criticism by allies because of his efforts to mediate between Russia and Ukraine, especially in the deal to allow Ukrainian grain exports.But he has refused to impose sanctions on Russia and continues to get Russian gas through the TurkStream pipeline, while asking Moscow to delay payment for energy.On Thursday, Mr. Erdogan met Mr. Putin in Kazakhstan, where they discussed using Turkey as an energy hub to export more Russian gas after the pipelines to Germany under the Baltic Sea have been damaged.But it is the escalating rhetoric against Greece that is now drawing special attention.Sinan Ulgen, the director of EDAM, an Istanbul-based research institution, said that of course there was an electoral aspect to Mr. Erdogan’s actions. But there were also deep-seated problems that foster chronic instability and dangerous tensions.“Turkey and Greece have a set of unresolved bilateral disputes,” he said, “and this creates a favorable environment whenever a politician in Ankara or Athens wants to raise tensions.”The two countries nearly went to war in the 1970s over energy exploration in the Aegean, in 1995-96 over disputed claims over an uninhabited rock formation in the eastern Mediterranean, and in 2020, again over energy exploration in disputed waters. “And now we’re at it again,” Mr. Ulgen said. “And why? Because of elections in Turkey and Greece.”Mr. Mitsotakis is also in campaign mode, with elections expected next summer, damaged by a continuing scandal over spyware planted in the phones of opposition politicians and journalists. As in Turkey, nothing appeals to Greek patriotism more than a good spat with an old foe.A Turkish drill in August off Mersin, Turkey. Turkey and Greece nearly went to war in 2020 over Turkish energy exploration in disputed waters.Adem Altan/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHe has sought to appear firm without escalating. Confronted at the dinner in Prague, Mr. Mitsotakis retorted that leaders should solve problems and not create new ones, that he was prepared to discuss all issues but could not stay silent while Turkey threatened the sovereignty of Greek islands.“No, Mr. Erdogan — no to bullying,” he said in a recent policy speech. He told reporters that he was open to talks with Mr. Erdogan despite the vitriol, saying he thought military conflict unlikely. “I don’t believe this will ever happen,” he said. “And if, God forbid, it happened, Turkey would receive an absolutely devastating response.”He was referring to Greek military abilities that have been significantly bolstered recently as part of expanded defense agreements with France and the United States.Mr. Mitsotakis has also taken advantage of American annoyance with Mr. Erdogan’s relations with Russia and his delay in approving NATO enlargement to Finland and Sweden to boost ties with Washington. In May, he was the first Greek prime minister to address Congress and urged it to reconsider arms sales to Turkey.He has said Greece will buy F-35s, while Turkey, denied F-35s because of its purchase of a Russian air-defense system, is still pressing to get more F-16s and modernization kits, using NATO enlargement as leverage.But Mr. Erdogan is facing considerable problems at home, making tensions with Greece an easy and traditional way to divert attention and rally support.Mr. Erdogan is presiding over a disastrous economy, with inflation running officially at 83 percent a year — but most likely higher — and the currency depreciating. Turkish gross domestic product per capita, a measure of wealth, has dropped to about $7,500 from more than $12,600 in 2013, based on Turkey’s real population, which now includes some four million Syrian refugees, according to Bilge Yilmaz, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.Mr. Erdogan is presiding over a disastrous economy, with inflation running officially at 83 percent a year.Yasin Akgul/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Erdogan has kept cutting interest rates against conventional economic advice. “We need to reverse monetary policy,” said Mr. Yilmaz, who is touted as a likely finance minister should Mr. Erdogan lose the election. “A strong adjustment of the economy will not be easy.”There is also growing popular resentment of the continuing cost of the refugees, who were taken in by Mr. Erdogan as a generous gesture to fellow Muslims in difficulty.Still, Mr. Erdogan is thought to have a solid 30 percent of the vote as his base, and government-controlled media dominate, with numerous opposition journalists and politicians jailed or silenced.In a report on Wednesday, the European Union criticized “democratic backsliding” and said that “in the area of democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights, Turkey needs to reverse the negative trend as a matter of priority with addressing the weakening of effective checks and balances in the political system.”Still, at this point, analysts think Mr. Erdogan could lose his majority in Parliament and might just lose the presidential election itself.That is an analysis firmly rejected by Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, the AKP, said Volkan Bozkir, a former diplomat and member of Parliament, who says flatly that Mr. Erdogan and his party will be re-elected.Constantinos Filis, the director of the Institute of Global Affairs at the American College of Greece, believes that Mr. Erdogan is trying to keep all options open, “casting Greece as a convenient external threat and creating a dangerous framework within which he could justify a potential move against Greece in advance.”As for Washington, he said, they are telling Mr. Erdogan: “Thank you for what you did in Ukraine, of course you haven’t imposed sanctions on Russia, but OK, you’re in a difficult position, strategically, diplomatically, economically — but don’t dare to do something in the Aegean or the Eastern Mediterranean that will bring trouble to NATO.”Migrants at the border between Turkey and Greece in March 2020. There is growing popular resentment of the continuing cost of the refugees in Turkey, who include four million Syrians.The New York TimesMore likely, Mr. Filis said, Mr. Erdogan would again send migrants toward Europe, or launch another energy exploration in disputed areas off Cyprus or Crete, which produced near clashes in 2020, or intercept a Greek ship transporting military equipment to one of the Aegean Islands.Mr. Ulgen also does not expect armed conflict but would not be surprised. “It could happen; it’s not something we can rule out anymore,” he said. “But if it happens, it will be small-scale.”Niki Kitsantonis More

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      Lessons From Liz Truss’s Handling of U.K. Inflation

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      The sharp policy U-turn by Liz Truss, Britain’s prime minister, reveals the perils of taking the wrong path in the fight against scalding inflation.Government leaders in the West are struggling with rising inflation, slowing growth, and anxious electorates worried about winter and high energy bills. But Liz Truss, Britain’s prime minister, is the only one who devised an economic plan that unnerved financial markets, drew the ire of global leaders and the public and undermined her political standing.On Friday, battered by savage criticism, she retreated. Ms. Truss fired her top finance official, Kwasi Kwarteng, for creating precisely the package of unfunded tax cuts, billion-dollar spending programs and deregulation that she had asked for.She reinstated a scheduled increase in corporate taxes to 25 percent from 19 percent, a rise she had previously opposed. That announcement came on top of backtracking last week on her proposal to eliminate the top 45 percent income tax on the highest earners. The prime minister, in office a little over five weeks, also promised that spending would grow less rapidly than proposed, although no specifics were offered.The drama is still playing out, and it’s unclear if the Truss government will survive.In the United States, President Biden, while waging his own political battles over gas prices and inflation, has not proposed anything like the kind of policies that Ms. Truss’s government attempted, nor have any other leaders in Europe.Still, for European governments whose economies are suffering greatly from shocks and energy price surges caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine, there are timely lessons from the debacle playing out in London.One of the strongest was delivered early on by the International Monetary Fund: Don’t undermine your own central bankers. The I.M.F., which usually reserves such scoldings for developing nations, on Thursday doubled down on its message. “Don’t prolong the pain,” Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director, admonished.How to blunt the impact of inflation on the most vulnerable without further stoking inflation is the dilemma that every government is confronting.The Bank of England in London has aggressively tried to slow the sharp rise in prices by slowing the British economy.Alberto Pezzali/Associated Press“That is the question of the hour,” said Eswar Prasad, an economist at Cornell University who was attending the annual meetings of the World Bank and I.M.F. in Washington this week.Tension between the fiscal spending policies proposed by a government and the monetary policies controlled by central banks is not unusual. At the moment, though, central bankers are engaged in delicate policy maneuvers in the fight against a level of inflation not seen in decades. With the rate in Britain nearing 10 percent, the Bank of England has moved aggressively to slow down climbing prices through a series of interest rate increases aimed at crimping consumer and business spending.Any expansion of government spending is going to interfere with that aim to some degree, but Ms. Truss’s plan was far too big and too ill defined, Mr. Prasad said.“Measures to help households hit hard by energy increases, by themselves, would not have created that much of a stir,” he said. Many other countries have proposed exactly that. And the European Union has proposed a windfall tax on energy profits to help finance those subsidies.Ms. Truss, instead of coming up with a way to pay for energy assistance, pushed to eliminate a corporate tax increase and cut income taxes for the wealthiest segment of the population. The result was a reduction in government revenue and a ballooning of Britain’s debt.“Overall, the package did not have much clarity in terms of how it would support the economy in the short run without raising inflation,” Mr. Prasad said.By contrast, Claus Vistesen, chief eurozone economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, cited the way governments and central banks worked in tandem when the pandemic struck in 2020 to keep economies from collapsing, issuing vast amounts of public debt.“Central banks printed every single dollar, euro and pound that governments spent” to support households and businesses because of the Covid crisis, Mr. Vistesen said. But now the circumstances have changed, and inflation is setting economies aflame.The actions of the Federal Reserve in the United States illustrate the switch central banks have made: In the harrowing early weeks of the global outbreak of the coronavirus, the Fed embarked on an extraordinary program to stimulate the economy and stabilize markets. This year, the Fed has been swiftly raising interest rates in a bid to slow growth.Both the United States and eurozone countries have somewhat more wiggle room than Britain, because the dollar and the euro are much more widely used around the world as currencies held in reserve than the British pound.Kwasi Kwarteng, Britain’s former chancellor of the Exchequer, left 11 Downing Street after Ms. Truss fired him on Friday.Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated PressEven so, European governments can help households and businesses get through an energy crisis, Mr. Vistesen said, but they can’t embark on an open-ended spending spree.They also need to take account of what is happening in other economies. The richest countries that make up the Group of 7 are essentially part of the same “monetary and fiscal convoy,” said Will Hutton, president of the Academy of Social Sciences. By championing a Thatcher-era blend of steep tax cuts and deregulation, he said, the Truss government strayed too far from the rest of the flotilla and the economic mainstream.The adherence to 1980s-era trickle-down verities also revealed the risks of sticking with outdated policies in the face of changing circumstances, said Diane Coyle, a ​​public policy professor at the University of Cambridge.“The situation in 1979 was very different,” Ms. Coyle said. “There were sclerotic high taxes and an overregulated economy, but not anymore.” Today, taxes in Britain are lower, and the economy is less regulated than the average member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a club of 38 major economies.“The character of the economy has changed,” she said. “Public investment in research and skills are more important.”In that sense, what was missing from Ms. Truss’s economic plan was as important as what was included. And what Britain is lacking, said Mariana Mazzucato, an economist at University College London, is a visionary public investment program like the trillion-dollar climate and digitalization plans adopted by the European Union or the climate and infrastructure program in the United States.A rate of Inflation nearing 10 percent in Britain has affected the price of groceries and how people spend their money.Alex Ingram for The New York Times“If you don’t have a growth plan, an industrial strategy innovation policy,” Ms. Mazzucato said, “then your economy won’t expand.”Both Ms. Mazzucato and Ms. Coyle emphasized that Britain had some specific economic handicaps that predated the Truss administration, including the 2016 vote to exit the European Union, a stubborn lack of productivity, anemic business investment, and lagging research and development.Still, Ms. Coyle offered some advice that referred pointedly to Ms. Truss. “I think the main lesson is: Don’t shoot yourself in the foot.” More

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      French Refineries Strike May Presage a Winter of Discontent for Europe

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      Bitten by inflation, workers are demanding a greater share of the surging profits of energy giants. It’s the kind of unrest leaders fear as they struggle to keep a united front against Russia.LE HAVRE, France — The northern port city of Le Havre is less than 25 miles away from two major oil refineries. But on Friday, the pumps at many gas stations were wrapped in red and white tape, the electric price signs flashing all nines. Little gasoline was to be had.Across France, a third of stations are fully or partly dry, victims of a fast-widening strike that has spread to most of the country’s major refineries, as well as some nuclear plants and railways, offering a preview of a winter of discontent as inflation and energy shortages threaten to undercut Europe’s stability and its united front against Russia for its war in Ukraine.At the very least the strike — pitting refinery workers seeking a greater share of the surging profits against the oil giants TotalEnergies and Exxon Mobil — has already emerged as the first major social crisis of Emmanuel Macron’s second term as president, as calls grow for a general strike next Tuesday.“It’s going to become a general strike. You will see,” said Julien Lemmonier, 77, a retired factory worker stepping out of the supermarket in Le Havre on a gray and rainy morning. He warned that if the port workers followed suit, “It will be over.”Striking employees of the Total refinery on Thursday.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesThe widening social unrest is just what European leaders fear as inflation hits its highest level in decades, driven in part by snarls in post-pandemic global supply chains, but also by the mounting impact of the tit-for-tat economic battle between Europe and Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.Economic anxiety is palpable across Europe, driving large protests in Prague, Britain’s biggest railway strike in three decades, as well as walkouts by bus drivers, call center employees and criminal defense lawyers, and causing many governments to introduce relief measures to cushion the blow and ward off still more turbulence. Airline workers in Spain and Germany went on strike recently, demanding wage increases to reflect the rising cost of living.For France the strikes have touched a long-worn nerve of the growing disparity between the wealthy few and the growing struggling classes, as well as the gnawing worry about making ends meet in the cold winter ahead.Workers at half of the country’s eight refineries are continuing to picket for higher wages in line with inflation, as well as a cut of the sky-high profits their companies made over recent months, as the price of gasoline has surged.“The money exists, and it should be distributed,” said Pascal Morel, the regional head of Confédération Générale du Travail, or CGT, France’s second-largest union, which has been leading the strikes. “Rather than laying claim to the striking workers, we should lay claim to their profits.”Pascal Morel, the regional head of Confédération Générale du Travail, one of France’s largest unions, which has been leading the strikes. Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesSlow to notice at first, the country was rudely awoken to the strike’s effect this week, when pumps across the country ran out of fuel, forcing frustrated motorists to hunt around and then line up — sometimes for hours — at stations that were still open. Nerves quickly frayed, and reports of fistfights between enraged drivers buzzed on the news.In Le Havre, as in the rest of the country, residents revealed mixed feelings about the strikes. Some expressed solidarity with the workers, while others complained about how a small group was holding the entire country hostage. On both sides of the divide, however, many feared the strike would spread.The State of the WarA Large-Scale Strike: President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia unleashed a series of missile strikes that hit at least 10 cities across Ukraine, including Kyiv, in a broad aerial assault against civilians and critical infrastructure that drew international condemnation and calls for de-escalation.Crimean Bridge Explosion: Mr. Putin said that the strikes were retaliation for a blast that hit a key Russian bridge over the weekend. The bridge, which links the Crimean Peninsula to Russia, is a primary supply route for Russian troops fighting in the south of Ukraine.Pressure on Putin: With his strikes on civilian targets in Ukraine, Mr. Putin appears to be responding to his critics at home, momentarily quieting the clamors of hard-liners furious with the Russian military’s humiliating setbacks on the battlefield.Arming Ukraine: The Russian strikes brought new pledges from the West to send in more arms to Ukraine, especially sophisticated air-defense systems. But Kyiv also needs the Russian-style weapons that its military is trained to use, and the global supply of them is running low.“It’s going to bring France to a standstill and I assure you it doesn’t need that,” said Fatma Zekri, 54, an out-of-work accountant.On Thursday, workers echoed the call for a general strike next Tuesday originally issued by the CGT and later supported by three other large unions. And a long-planned protest by left-wing parties over the rising cost of living scheduled for Sunday threatens to become even larger.For Mr. Macron, the strike holds obvious perils, with echoes of the social unrest of the Yellow Vest movement — a widespread series of protests that started as a revolt against higher taxes on fuel. The movement may have dissipated, but its anger has not.In Le Havre, residents revealed mixed feelings about the strikes. Some expressed solidarity with the workers, while others complained about how a small group was holding the entire country hostage.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesThe protests paralyzed France for months in 2018 and 2019, led by lower-middle class workers who took to the streets and roundabouts, raging against a climate change tax on gas that they felt was an insulting symbol of how little the government cared about them and their sliding quality of life.The current strikes illustrated a longstanding question that continues to torment many in the country, said Bruno Cautrès, a political analyst at the Center for Political Research at Sciences Po University — “Why do I live in a country that is rich and I am struggling?”Speaking of the president, Mr. Cautrès said, “He has not managed to answer this simple question.”After winning his re-election last April, Mr. Macron promised he would shed his reputation as a top-down ruler and govern the country in a more collaborative way.“The main risk is that he will not succeed in convincing people that the second term is dedicated to dialogue, to easing tensions,” Mr. Cautrès said.But even as he faced criticism that his government had allowed the crisis to get to this point, Mr. Macron sounded defiant on Wednesday night, saying in an interview with the French television channel France 2 that it was “not up to the president of the republic to negotiate with businesses.”The Total refinery, shuttered during a strike by workers.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesHis government has already forced some workers back to a refinery near Le Havre and a depot near Dunkirk.“I can’t believe that for one second, our ability to heat our homes, light our homes and go to the gas pump would be put at risk by French people who say, ‘No, to protect my interests, I will compromise those of the nation,’” he said.Still, Mr. Macron is treading a very fine line. The issue of “super profits” has become a charged one in Parliament, with opposition lawmakers from both the left and right demanding companies reaping windfalls be taxed, to benefit the greater population.Over the first half of the year, TotalEnergies made $10 billion in profit and Exxon Mobil raked in $18 billion. Western oil and gas companies have generated record profits thanks to booming energy prices, which have risen because of the war in Ukraine and allowed Russia to rake in billions in revenues even as it cuts oil and gas supplies to Europe. A recent OPEC Plus deal involving Saudi Arabia and Russia to cut production is likely to further raise prices.Earlier this week, Exxon Mobil announced that it had come to an agreement with two of four unions working at its sites, “out of a desire to urgently and responsibly to put an end to the strikes.” But the wage increase was one percentage point less than CGT had demanded, and half the bonus.In its own news release, TotalEnergies said the company continued to aim for “fair compensation for the employees” and to ensure they benefited “from the exceptional results generated” by the company.On Friday, two unions at TotalEnergies announced they had reached a deal for a 7 percent wage increase and a bonus. But CGT, which has demanded a 10 percent hike, walked out of the negotiation and said it would continue the strike.To date, Mr. Macron has been loath to tax the oil giants’ windfall profits, worrying it would tarnish the country’s investment appeal, and preferring instead that companies make what he termed a “contribution.”However, last week the government introduced an amendment to its finance bill, in keeping with new European Union measures, applying a temporary tax on oil, gas and coal producers that make 20 percent more in profit on their French operations than they did during recent years.On Thursday, France’s Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire also called on TotalEnergies to raise wages for salaried workers. And he announced that 1.7 billion euros, about $1.65 billion, would be earmarked to help motorists if fuel prices continued to rise.“It is a company that is now making significant profits,” Mr. Le Maire told RTL radio station on Thursday. “Total has paid dividends, so the sharing of value in France must be fair.”The pumps at gas stations were wrapped in red and white tape, the electric price signs flashing all nines. Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesThe tangle of pipes and towering smokestacks of the hulking Total refinery in Gonfreville-l’Orcher, just outside of Le Havre, were eerily silent on Thursday, as union members burned wood pallets, hoisted flags and voted to continue the strike.Many believed their anger captured a building sentiment in the country, where even with generous government subsidies, people are struggling financially and are increasingly anxious about the winter of energy cutbacks. Inflation in France, though lower than in the rest of Europe, has surpassed 6 percent, jacking the prices of some basic supplies like frozen meat, pasta and tissues.“This era must end — the era of hogging for some, and rationing for others,” François Ruffin told the protesters on Thursday. Mr. Ruffin, a filmmaker turned elected official with the country’s hard-left France Unbowed party, rose to prominence with his satirical documentary film about France’s richest man, Bernard Arnault, and the loss of middle-class jobs to globalization.If anything should be requisitioned, it should be the profits of huge companies, not workers, many said at the protest sites.David Guillemard, a striker who has worked at the Total refinery for 22 years, said the back-to-work order had kicked a hornet’s nest. “Instead of calming people,” he said, “this has irritated them.” More

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      Algeria Is a Reliable Gas Partner for Crisis-Facing Europe

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

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      in US Politics

      Pentagon spokesperson tamps down concerns over nuclear ‘armageddon’

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      Pentagon spokesperson tamps down concerns over nuclear ‘armageddon’ John Kirby says Biden’s warning about threat of a nuclear attack from Russia were not based on specific new information The US military’s top spokesperson tamped down concerns of an imminent nuclear threat from Russia, days after Joe Biden warned of a potential nuclear “armageddon”.Speaking at a Democratic fundraiser this week, Biden talked bluntly about the threat of a nuclear attack from Russia. “We have not faced the prospect of armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis,” the president said. He added that Russian leader Vladimir Putin was “not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming” after invading Ukraine earlier this year.Echoing comments from the White House earlier this week, top Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said Biden’s comments were not based on specific new information.“His comments were not based on new or fresh intelligence or new indications that Mr Putin has made a decision to use nuclear weapons,” Kirby told Martha Raddatz in an interview on ABC News’ This Week. “Quite frankly, we don’t have any information that he has made that kind of decision. Nor have we seen anything that would give us pause to reconsider our own strategic nuclear posture.”U.S. has not “seen anything that would give us pause to reconsider our own strategic nuclear posture” following Putin’s threats in Ukraine, NSC spokesman Kirby tells @MarthaRaddatz. “We don’t have any indication that he has made that kind of decision.” https://t.co/OpYwwOBhrk pic.twitter.com/RHNNlj06Ar— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) October 9, 2022
      Biden’s remarks invoking Armageddon drew a sharp rebuke from former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, a member of the Donald Trump White House’s cabinet who is mulling a 2024 presidential run.“Those comments were reckless” and “a terrible risk to the American people”, Pompeo said on the Republican-friendly Fox News network.Kirby on Sunday also declined to weigh on a recent explosion on the Kerch Bridge linking Russia and Crimea, the Ukrainian territory under Russian control.The explosion dealt a blow to Russian military logistics and embarrassed Putin, for whom the bridge had symbolic personal importance. Ukraine has not yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but it has been celebrated by senior leaders in the country.“We don’t really have anything more to add to the reports about the explosion on the bridge,” Kirby said. “I just don’t have anything more to contribute to that this morning.”Kirby also addressed Biden’s comments last week that the US was trying to find where Putin could get an “off ramp” to the war on Ukraine.“Mr Putin started this war and Mr Putin could end it today, simply by moving his troops out of the country,” Kirby said. “He’s the one who chose to start this conflict again and he can choose to end it.”Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February. But Ukraine’s defenders in recent weeks have taken back some of the territories it had lost control of during the invasion.With its hold on Ukraine weakening, Putin recently ordered the mobilization of reservists to reinforce the invasion, which ignited protests in dozens of cities across Russia and has led to long lines at its land borders with other countries.TopicsUkraineJoe BidenVladimir PutinRussiaUS politicsUS militaryEuropenewsReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      Petraeus: US would destroy Russia’s troops if Putin uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine

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      Petraeus: US would destroy Russia’s troops if Putin uses nuclear weapons in UkraineFormer CIA director and retired army general says Moscow’s leader is ‘desperate’ and ‘battlefield reality he faces is irreversible’ The US and its allies would destroy Russia’s troops and equipment in Ukraine – as well as sink its Black sea fleet – if Russian president Vladimir Putin uses nuclear weapons in the country, former CIA director and retired four-star army general David Petraeus warned on Sunday. Petreaus said that he had not spoken to national security adviser Jake Sullivan on the likely US response to nuclear escalation from Russia, which administration officials have said has been repeatedly communicated to Moscow.He told ABC News: “Just to give you a hypothetical, we would respond by leading a Nato – a collective – effort that would take out every Russian conventional force that we can see and identify on the battlefield in Ukraine and also in Crimea and every ship in the Black sea.”The warning comes days after Putin expressed views that many have interpreted as a threat of a larger war between Russia and the west.Asked if the use of nuclear weapons by Russia in Ukraine would bring America and Nato into the war, Petreaus said that it would not be a situation triggering the alliance’s Article 5, which calls for a collective defense. That is because Ukraine is not part of Nato – nonetheless, a “US and Nato response” would be in order, Petreaus said.Petreaus acknowledged that the likelihood that radiation would extend to Nato countries under the Article 5 umbrella could perhaps be construed as an attack on a Nato member.“Perhaps you can make that case,” he said. “The other case is that this is so horrific that there has to be a response – it cannot go unanswered.”Yet, Petreaus added, “You don’t want to, again, get into a nuclear escalation here. But you have to show that this cannot be accepted in any way.”Nonetheless, with pressure mounting on Putin after Ukrainian gains in the east of the country under last week’s annexation declaration and resistance to mobilization efforts within Russia mounting, Petreaus said Moscow’s leader was “desperate”.“The battlefield reality he faces is, I think, irreversible,” he said. “No amount of shambolic mobilization, which is the only way to describe it; no amount of annexation; no amount of even veiled nuclear threats can actually get him out of this particular situation.“At some point there’s going to have to be recognition of that. At some point there’s going to have to be some kind of beginning of negotiations, as [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelenskiy has said, will be the ultimate end.”But, Petreaus warned, “It can still get worse for Putin and for Russia. And even the use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield won’t change this at all.” Still, he added, “You have to take the threat seriously.”Senator Marco Rubio, the ranking Republican member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee told CNN that Putin was down to two choices: established defensive lines or withdraw and lose territory.Rubio said he believed it “quite possible” that Putin could strike distribution points where US and allied supplies are entering Ukraine, including inside Poland. The senator acknowledged the nuclear threat, but he said most worries about “a Russian attack inside Nato territory, for example, aiming at the airport in Poland or some other distribution point”.“Nato will have to respond to it,” he said. “How it will respond, I think a lot of it will depend on the nature of the attack and the scale and scope of it.”But as a senator privy to Pentagon briefings, Rubio resisted being drawn on whether he’d seen evidence that Russia is preparing to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine.“Certainly, the risk is probably higher today than it was a month ago,” Rubio said, predicting that Russia would probably take an intermediate step.“He may strike one of these logistical points. And that logistical point may not be inside … Ukraine. To me, that is the area that I focus on the most, because it has a tactical aspect to it. And I think he probably views it as less escalatory. Nato may not.”TopicsUkraineUS politicsRussiaEuropeVladimir PutinnewsReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      Seven Years of Trump Has the Right Wing Taking the Long View

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      Could there soon be an American counterpart to Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, a right-wing populist who in 2018 declared, “We must demonstrate that there is an alternative to liberal democracy: It is called Christian democracy. And we must show that the liberal elite can be replaced with a Christian democratic elite”?Liberal democracy, Orban continued,is liberal, while Christian democracy is, by definition, not liberal: it is, if you like, illiberal. And we can specifically say this in connection with a few important issues — say, three great issues. Liberal democracy is in favor of multiculturalism, while Christian democracy gives priority to Christian culture; this is an illiberal concept. Liberal democracy is pro-immigration, while Christian democracy is anti-immigration; this is again a genuinely illiberal concept. And liberal democracy sides with adaptable family models, while Christian democracy rests on the foundations of the Christian family model; once more, this is an illiberal concept.Or could there soon be an American counterpart to Giorgia Meloni, another right-wing populist and admirer of Orban, now on course to become the next prime minister of Italy?Meloni’s platform?Yes to natural families, no to the L.G.B.T. lobby. Yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology. Yes to the culture of life, no to the abyss of death. No to the violence of Islam, yes to safer borders. No to mass immigration, yes to work for our people.Donald Trump’s entrenched refusal to accept the outcome of the 2020 election and his deepening embrace of conspiracy theory, particularly its QAnon strain; the widespread belief among Republican voters that the election was stolen; and, as The Times reported on Sept. 18, the fact that “six Trump-backed Republican nominees for governor and the Senate in midterm battlegrounds would not commit to accepting this year’s election results, with another six Republicans ignoring or declining to answer a question about embracing the November outcome” — all suggest, to say the least, that all is not well with democracy in America.There are many other signals pointing to the vulnerability of the liberal state.A 2020 study, “Global Satisfaction With Democracy” by the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge, found that dissatisfaction with democracy has grown rapidly in developed nations since the recession of 2008, and that one of the sharpest increases in discontent has been in the United States:Now, for the first time on record, polls show a majority of Americans dissatisfied with their system of government — a system of which they were once famously proud. Such levels of democratic dissatisfaction would not be unusual elsewhere. But for the United States, it marks an “end of exceptionalism” — a profound shift in America’s view of itself, and therefore, of its place in the world.It is a reflection of just how remarkable this shift in sentiment has been that a presidential candidate — Donald J. Trump — could arrive at the White House after a presidential campaign that denounced American political institutions as corrupt, and promised to step back from promoting democracy abroad in favor of putting “America First,” treating all countries transactionally based on a spirit of realism, regardless of their adherence to or deviation from democratic norms.Along similar lines, Joshua Tait — a contributor to the volume “Key Thinkers of the Radical Right: Behind the New Threat to Liberal Democracy” — argued in a Q. and A. posted at George Washington University’s Illiberalism Studies Program that “we face potentially massive disruptions over the coming decades as we feel the impacts of climate change, aging populations, and automation.”Tait went on:The right, both in the United States and elsewhere, has the sort of rhetorical and intellectual tools to craft a compelling argument to certain segments of the population in the face of insecurity and transformation. The combination of disruption, transformation and pain creates the conditions where right-wing, often illiberal discourses of heroism, golden age and the threatening Other creates real meaning for some, even as it draws boundaries around communities.In an email response to my follow-up inquiry, Tait wrote:The 2016 election, Trumpism in the United States, Orban, Law & Justice in Poland, and to a lesser extent Brexit in the United Kingdom have validated the intellectual right in the America that long held some or all illiberal positions. Moreover, Trump in particular obliterated right-wing respectability politics and revealed the conservative and Republican establishments had no capacity to discipline views that had previously been beyond the pale — the result of changes in the way the right-wing media ecosystem worked, and the nature of party primaries.The end of the Cold War, Tait contended, prompted the right to shift from an international focus to domestic issues:Without an external ideological foe in global communism, the right faced up to its domestic and in many ways real enemy, progressive liberalism. The right imported its existential and apocalyptic view domestically. The Culture Wars, antipathy toward multiculturalism and so on are part of this, and the great demographic sort (the coming minority status of white Americans) has intensified it dramatically.Many leaders of the social and cultural right in this country are treating Trump’s presidency and his continuing hold on a majority of Republican voters as an opportunity to further mobilize conservatives.The National Conservatism project, created in 2019 by the Edmund Burke Foundation, has taken up this challenge, joining together an array of scholars and writers associated with such institutions, magazines and think tanks as the Claremont Institute, Hillsdale College, the Hoover Institution, the Federalist, First Things, the Manhattan Institute, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and National Review.On June 22, 75 supporters of the National Conservatism project issued a 10-part statement of principles. The signatories include Rod Dreher, senior editor of The American Conservative; Jim DeMint, a former senator from South Carolina and a former president of the Heritage Foundation; Mark Meadows, a former chief of staff to President Trump; Christopher Rufo of the Manhattan Institute and the venture capitalist Peter Thiel.The principles include a strong commitment to the infusion of religion into the operation of government: “No nation can long endure without humility and gratitude before God and fear of his judgment that are found in authentic religious tradition.” Thus the “Bible should be read as the first among the sources of a shared Western civilization in schools and universities, and as the rightful inheritance of believers and nonbelievers alike.”Perhaps most strikingly, the principles declare that:Where a Christian majority exists, public life should be rooted in Christianity and its moral vision, which should be honored by the state and other institutions both public and private. At the same time, Jews and other religious minorities are to be protected in the observance of their own traditions, in the free governance of their communal institutions, and in all matters pertaining to the rearing and education of their children. Adult individuals should be protected from religious or ideological coercion in their private lives and in their homes.The principles argue for a restoration of traditional family values combined with a rejection of the sexual revolution and of feminist calls for self-actualization in defiance of family obligation:We believe the traditional family is the source of society’s virtues and deserves greater support from public policy. The traditional family, built around a lifelong bond between a man and a woman, and on a lifelong bond between parents and children, is the foundation of all other achievements of our civilization.Their authors warn thatThe disintegration of the family, including a marked decline in marriage and childbirth, gravely threatens the well-being and sustainability of democratic nations. Among the causes are an unconstrained individualism that regards children as a burden, while encouraging ever more radical forms of sexual license and experimentation as an alternative to the responsibilities of family and congregational life. Economic and cultural conditions that foster stable family and congregational life and child-raising are priorities of the highest order.I asked Yoram Hazony, the chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation, to expand on this phrase in the statement in the principles: “Where a Christian majority exists, public life should be rooted in Christianity and its moral vision.”Hazony replied by email that the statement is intendedto permit a public life rooted in Christianity and its moral vision in those parts of the United States in which a majority of voters support such a public culture. This is in keeping with our endorsement of the federalist principle in Clause 3. There are many states in the United States where no such majority exists, and the Statement of Principles does not envision using the national government to impose such a public life on those states. The point is to return “church and state” issues to the states to be resolved through the democratic process.In her March 2022 paper, “Illiberalism: a conceptual introduction,” Marlene Laruelle, a professor of international affairs and the director of the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University, provides a four-part definition of the term:Illiberalism is a new ideological universe that, even if doctrinally fluid and context-based, is to some degree coherent; it represents a backlash against today’s liberalism in all its varied scripts — political, economic, cultural, geopolitical, civilizational — often in the name of democratic principles; it proposes solutions that are majoritarian, nation-centric or sovereigntist, favoring traditional hierarchies and cultural homogeneity; and it calls for a shift from politics to culture and is post-post-modern in its claims of rootedness in an age of globalization.Laruelle argues that there are significant differences between illiberalism and conservatism as it has been traditionally understood:The key element that dissociates illiberalism from conservatism is its relationship to political liberalism. Classical conservatives — such as the Christian Democrats in Europe or the Republican Party in the U.S. before Donald Trump — are/were fervent supporters of political rights and constitutionalism, while illiberalism challenges them. For classical conservatives, the political order is a reflection of the natural and family order, and therefore commands some submission to it. For illiberals, today’s political order is the enemy of the natural order and should be fought against.In a 2021 Wall Street Journal op-ed, “Why America Needs National Conservatism,” Christopher DeMuth, president from 1986 through 2008 of the mainstream Republican American Enterprise Institute and now chairman of the National Conservative Conference, reinforces Laruelle’s point: “When the American left was liberal and reformist, conservatives played our customary role as moderators of change. We too breathed the air of liberalism, and there are always things that could stand a little reforming.” But, DeMuth continued, “today’s woke progressivism isn’t reformist. It seeks not to build on the past but to promote instability, to turn the world upside-down.”The doctrines of progressivism have resulted, DeMuth argues, inmayhem and misery at an open national border. Riot and murder in lawless city neighborhoods. Political indoctrination of schoolchildren. Government by executive ukase. Shortages throughout the world’s richest economy. Suppression of religion and private association. Regulation of everyday language — complete with contrived redefinitions of familiar words and ritual recantations for offenders.How deep is the reservoir of support that national conservatism can tap into? The striking pattern in polling data shows that over the years from 2017 to the present, Trump, despite all his liabilities, has retained a consistent favorability rating, ranging from 41 to 46 percent of the electorate, a base that appears virtually immovable.Arlie Hochschild, a professor of sociology at Berkeley and the author of “Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right,” has been interviewing voters in Eastern Kentucky’s Appalachia since 2018, exploring the reasons behind this unwavering loyalty.I asked her about the prospects of illiberalism in this country and she replied by email: “We should keep a close eye on the sense of grievance stored up almost as a springboard within the word ‘stolen.’ ” The background to this, Hochschild argued,is that blue-collar, rural/small town — especially white and male — have since the l970s been the “losers” of globalization, and the two parties now represent two economies. To this demographic, economic loss is compounded with a loss of fallback sources of honor — gender, sexuality, race — for white heterosexual males these, too, seem under attack. This is the “deep story” of “Stop the Steal,” and they see reality through that story.The story does not end there. Hochschild continued:The right believes that it is the left, not the right, that is moving toward fascism. Inside the right wing mind today freedom is threatened “by the left.” Political correctness a form of “thought control.” The left controls the media. The F.B.I. is scanning Facebook to hunt down patriots in Washington. So, ironically, they see themselves as brave upholders of freedom, democracy, civil liberties. They aren’t saying we want strong totalitarian control so we get to impose our values on others. They see themselves as the victims of this control and Trump as their liberator from that control.Still, national conservatism faces significant hurdles. For example, Hochschild pointed out, this country recently saw a dramatic change in the Kansas electorate: “In the days after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision leaked, Kansans turned out in record numbers in the primary and delivered a victory for abortion rights, a win fueled by Democrats out registering Republicans by 9 points since the Dobbs decision was announced, with a staggering 70 percent of all new registrants being women.”How dangerous, then, is America’s current right populist movement?Tait, the historian of conservatism, is cautious in addressing this question, noting that national conservatism seems to “represent something new in that it seems to explicitly depart from liberalism instead of reproducing it in a compromised, conservative way.” He described the Edmund Burke Foundation’s Statement of Principles asan effort at a mature, sanitized post-Trumpism. But a great many of the guardrails of constitutional liberalism and fusionist conservatism have been undermined and we may see a politics less constrained by liberal constitutional norms and rules. Likewise, the actors prominent in this space are less constrained by right-wing respectability politics, including Ron DeSantis and Josh Hawley.Damon Linker, a senior fellow at the Niskanen Center, sees a strong parallel between trends in the United States and the illiberal developments in Europe. Referring to the recent election in Italy, Linker posted “What just happened in Italy?” on his Sept. 26 substack, Eyes on the Right, arguing thatWe’re left with a picture of a country in which the center-left is supported mainly by the educated, secular, and professional classes, while the right appeals to a cross-section of the rest of the country — the working class as well as the middle and upper-middle classes, along with the religiously pious and the large numbers of Italians who treat religion as a symbol or identity-marker without actually believing in or practicing it.If that sounds familiar, Linker continued,that’s because similar things have been happening in many places over the past decade. The precise political results of these shifts have varied from country to country as they’ve interacted with different electoral systems, but the underlying trends in public opinion can be seen to a greater or lesser extent in France, Great Britain, the United States, and other countries. In each case, the center-left has gone into decline with the center-right and anti-liberal populist right rising to take its place. Until the center-left figures out a way to win back the working- and middle-class, as well as the nominally religious, it will continue to lose precious political ground to the populist and nationalist right.William Galston, a senior fellow at Brookings, points out in an essay, “What Is National Conservatism? The movement could be the future of the American right,” that “Two of illiberalism’s most important intellectuals, political theorists Yoram Hazony and Patrick Deneen, have mounted a frontal attack on the entire individualist, rights-based liberal political tradition that they trace back to John Locke.” In Eastern Europe, this critique resonates, Galston continued, but “it does create a problem for the United States where, historians inspired by Louis Hartz have argued, political liberalism is our tradition.”National conservatives, Galston argued,do not distinguish between the liberal political tradition and the excesses of today’s liberal culture. They see the focus on individual rights — and on the conceptions of equality and liberty that flow from them — as corroding traditional beliefs and practices. They are convinced that they must sacrifice the liberal baby to get rid of the progressive bathwater, and they are all too eager to do so. Embracing unfettered majoritarianism in the pursuit of virtue is no virtue. It is hard to overstate the danger to pluralism and liberty that lies at the end of this road.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More