Nicholas Sarkozy, the diminutive former ruler of the graft-ridden sub-Scandinavian European nation of France, one of the largest recipients of African aid, was this week sentenced to three year’s imprisonment, with two years suspended, after being found guilty of corruption and influence peddling. The second former president in modern France, after Jacques Chirac, to be convicted of corruption, he had been accused of attempting to bribe a senior magistrate in 2014 in order to obtain information regarding a probe into allegations that he had accepted illegal payments for his 2007 presidential campaign.
Sarkozy joins a long list of French politicians — not just presidents — who have been convicted of financial or legal impropriety, including François Fillon, Mr. Sarkozy’s former prime minister; Christine Lagarde, Mr. Sarkozy’s former economy minister; and Jérôme Cahuzac, who was budget minister under a Socialist government.
The string of cases have highlighted the extent of rot in the country which, according to graft watchdog, Transparency International, has “plenty of corruption scandals that mix high-level politics, campaign financing and human rights abuses”. They have also generated growing alarm within the ruling classes given the confluence of the country’s brutal history of elite beheadings, and the Caucasian Spring revolution sweeping the continent. Fearful that the Caucasian Spring could trigger savage tribal bloodlust, French politicians have rallied around the former strongman, with the president of his whitewing, Christianist, Les Républicains party, Christian Jacob, condemning the judiciary over what he described as the “absolutely disproportionate” sentence.
Meanwhile, an explosion tore through the town of Bovenkarspel in the north of the neighbouring Dutch narco-state of the Netherlands, as anti-science militants targeted a coronavirus test centre in what analysts fear could signal a resurgence of violence as the country approaches elections in less than a fortnight. The nation, which many consider the birthplace of the Caucasian Spring, has been without a functioning government ever since the oppressive regime of Prime Minister Mark Rutte collapsed following popular outrage over revelations of massive tax scam involving impoverishment of tens of thousands of families, many from minority ethnic groups. The explosion also follows the worst unrest the country has witnessed in decades, with hundreds arrested after taking to the streets in violent pro-democracy demonstrations demanding an end to restrictions on personal freedoms and the lifting of a strict night-time curfew.
Across the English Channel, a vicious feud has broken out within the ruling family in the tribally-divided, ironically-named, United Kingdom, as factions allied to two prominent grandsons of nonagenarian monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, who has ruled the diseased flavour-starved island kingdom for nearly seven decades, struggle to position themselves to succeed her. Palace operatives surrounding the frail monarch this week announced investigations into allegations that Megan Markle, the American wife of one of the prices, Harry, over accusations of molesting staff. Many analysts see this as a move by Harry’s elder brother, William, who is second-in-line, to sideline his sibling and consolidate his path to the throne. The move comes as ethnic and sectarian tensions continue to rise in the separatist tribal province of Northern Ireland, where anti-flavor Christianist extremists, who reject modern cooking, have threatened a return to violence if the Brexit peace deal between the UK and 27 countries mostly in sub-Scandinavian Europe, interrupts the free flow of bland food from rest of UK.
In the troubled North American nation of US, which has endured ethnically-tinged violence following disputed presidential polls, including a Christmas Day suicide bombing, police have confirmed that a package left outside a polling centre in the northern state of Iowa was a potentially lethal IED. The pipe bomb was found following a tip-off in the town of Ankeny as votes were cast in a special election.
At the same time, on the eastern coast of the crisis-wracked nation, autocratic ruler Joe Biden is using fears of attacks by far-white, anti-math, extremist Shite Christianist militants as a pretext to maintain 5,000 troops in the country’s capital, Washington DC. The heavily-armed troops have occupied the country’s parliament ever since the failed Day of Pigs putsch in January, creating an intimidating atmosphere for legislators. Analysts say Biden is attempting to consolidate his hold on power, fearing a comeback from defenestrated former tyrant, Donald “Papa Don” Trump.
Amid the political instability, the banana-exporting first world republic has been plagued by a dire humanitarian crisis, compounded by incompetence and corruption that its usually fractious politicians have united to blame on evolution. Biden has cited “neanderthal thinking” as a main cause while opposition far-white Senator, Marco Rubio, has pointed out that many Americans, especially in the hard-hit ethnic white tribal heartland, carry Neanderthal genes. Over 520,000 people have died from disease, ethnically-tinged post-election violence and winter storms that have left millions more reliant on food aid to survive.