Courting a Woman: Has the Art Been Lost?

 

Does a man still have the right to court a woman today without being accused of violence?

Sadly, many men no longer know how to engage in the wonderful tradition of courtship. Even a friendly or suggestive glance can, in today’s climate, be misinterpreted as aggression. This reality is rooted in a broader context: women have historically been, and remain, victims of physical, emotional, and psychological abuse. Protecting women is essential, and measures—especially those heightened during Covid-19—have been crucial in addressing these injustices.

Yet, heightened awareness and legal protections can sometimes lead to misunderstandings or, occasionally, misuse of the system. In my experience as a judicial expert, I have observed cases where claims were not always made in good faith. Thankfully, many judges act with professionalism and fairness, taking context and evidence into account—but this is not consistent across all regions of France.

The result today is a certain instability in how men can express admiration or affection. Compliments that once might have been received as flattering can now be seen as offensive or even abusive. Social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and other international forums amplify this problem, exposing men to public criticism and misinterpretation more than ever before.

External factors further complicate the situation. Global conflicts, such as the war between Russia and Ukraine or the ongoing tensions between Israel and Palestine, have created widespread uncertainty and stress. History shows that societies living under prolonged conflict—from the World Wars to the Cold War—experience increased social anxiety, mistrust, and difficulty forming meaningful personal relationships. Stress and insecurity are powerful disruptors of human connection.

At the same time, popular beliefs about life, success, and happiness—whether from social media, cultural norms, or historical ideals of rational self-control—often add pressure rather than relief. Humans have always sought external validation to define their worth, from the Enlightenment era to today, and this continues to complicate the pursuit of authentic relationships.

Many now turn to dating apps to avoid loneliness. Historically, men bore the financial costs of these platforms, but today women often share expenses, which seems fair. Yet, meaningful human connection remains elusive for many. Why?

1.     Digital conversation cannot fully replicate face-to-face interaction.

2.   Even single women often struggle to form genuine connections online.

3.   Social and emotional education has not prepared us for these new ways of meeting people.

Humanity faces a digital inheritance. The next generation will grow up navigating these complexities, building the future based on the values and habits passed down to them. Much of today’s misunderstanding and emotional struggle is the legacy of previous generations.

The pandemic amplified these dynamics, exposing both societal strengths and weaknesses. Yet, history reminds us of human resilience: after the 1918 Spanish flu, and following the devastation of the World Wars, communities rebuilt social bonds, trust, and intimacy. Crises may challenge us, but they cannot extinguish the human desire for connection.

Despite conflicts, misunderstandings, and evolving social norms, one thing remains constant: humans seek companionship, emotional connection, and love. Courtship may have changed, and digital life has transformed the way we meet and interact, but the fundamental human need to connect endures.

This is my reflection—a synthesis from years of observing modern society, the evolving nature of courtship, and the many historical and contemporary factors that shape human happiness.

SAISI

The Disappearance of €44 Million in France: Political Privileges and Public Accountability

 

France is often criticized for its national debt and public spending, but a far more concrete issue has recently emerged: €44 million has reportedly disappeared, raising serious questions about government accountability and financial oversight.

1. Privileges of Former Presidents

Former Presidents of the Republic (e.g., Hollande, Sarkozy, Chirac, and eventually Macron) continue to cost taxpayers over €1 million per year in post-office benefits, including:

• An official office in Paris, fully funded by the State,
• Several staff members (secretaries, advisers, assistants),
• Chauffeur-driven vehicles,
• Lifetime police protection.

These privileges are permanent and illustrate how a small group of political elites can absorb enormous resources annually.

2. Privileges of Former Prime Ministers

Former Prime Ministers also maintain substantial benefits after leaving office:

• Chauffeur-driven car for life,
• Secretary for up to 10 years or until age 67,
• State-funded police protection, almost automatically,
• Exit indemnity: a one-time payment equal to three months’ salary (~€44,730 gross).

Annual cost per former Prime Minister ranges from roughly €60,000 to over €200,000, depending on individual staff and vehicle usage.

Notable recipients in 2023 included:

• Bernard Cazeneuve: ~€200,000 (staff + transport),
• Dominique de Villepin: ~€197,540,
• Lionel Jospin: ~€153,620,
• François Fillon: ~€140,039.

3. Former Ministers

Unlike Prime Ministers, most former ministers (Education, Justice, Culture, etc.) receive minimal post-office benefits:

• Transitional allowance: three months of gross salary (~€30,000 total),
• Privileges: almost none—no official car, staff, residence, or free travel,
• Police protection: only if their former role exposed them to threats.

Their cost to the State is negligible compared to former Presidents and Prime Ministers.

4. The Missing €44 Million

Amid these lavish privileges, reports indicate that €44 million have disappeared from public funds. Questions naturally arise:

• Where did this money go?
• Was it mismanaged, lost, or embezzled?
• Did it disappear through government budgets, public contracts, or corruption?

The scale of this missing sum highlights the contrast between public oversight and elite privileges. While millions are guaranteed annually to a few political figures, other large amounts can vanish without immediate explanation.

5. Summary Table: Approximate Annual Costs to the State

Position	Post-Office Benefits	Approx. Annual Cost to State
Former Presidents	Office, staff, chauffeur, police	€1,000,000
Former Prime Ministers	Chauffeur car, secretary, police	€60,000–€200,000
Former Ministers	3-month severance, optional police	€30,000 or less

Conclusion

France’s political elite enjoy lifelong benefits that cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands to over a million euros annually, yet €44 million can disappear, raising urgent questions about transparency, accountability, and public trust. Understanding the scale of these privileges alongside missing funds demonstrates why greater scrutiny of government spending is essential.

Saisi

Did you know that the CAF "notes" the recipients?

 

A very interesting article from La Quadrature du Net on the CAF algorithm used to "predict" who is likely or not to cheat among the beneficiaries (!).

Thus, CAF employees are no longer subject to moods when they have to deal with fraud: it is the algorithm that tells them who they should target.

Except that, as La Quadrature du Net rightly points out, the algorithm only processes data according to the program with which it was designed by human beings. So there is no such thing as a neutral, impartial, objective algorithm....

“This algorithm is interesting from this point of view since it was trained 'in the rules of the art', see the references above, starting from a database resulting from random checks. there is therefore no sampling bias a priori, as in the case of facial recognition algorithms. That being said, the algorithm repeats the human biases linked to the checks carried out on these randomly selected files (severity with people on social minima, difficulty in identifying complex fraud…) But above all, as explained in the article, it reflects the complexity of the rules for access to social benefits, which is a purely political subject that the algorithm only reveals.

La Quadrature du Net purely and simply requests the withdrawal of this discriminating algorithm from the CAF.

If you want to know more, you can contact La Quadrature du Net directly (which always does excellent, very serious work) here: contact@laquadrature.net

CAF: digital at the service of exclusion and harassment of the most precarious

Posted on October 19, 2022

For almost a year now, we have been fighting within the collective “Stop Controls” in order to oppose the effects of dematerialization and the use of digital technology by administrations for the purposes of social control. After having discussed the situation at Pôle Emploi, we are interested here in the case of the Family Allowance Funds (CAF). We will soon come back to the consequences of this fight in which we wish to fully engage in the coming months.

"Between CAF and you, there is only one click". This is what we could read on a CAF poster at the start of the year. And the subtitle leaves you dreaming: “Access to all CAF services 24 hours a day”. Vain promise of a digital facilitating access to social benefits, at any time of the day and night. Sinister slogan masking the reality of excessive computerization, a vector of calculated social exclusion.

While the generalization of online procedures is accompanied above all by a reduction in physical reception capacities, a mode of contact that is essential for people in precarious situations2, it is to an algorithm that the CAF leaves the care of predict which recipients would be “(un)trustworthy” and need to be checked3. Responsible for giving a score to each beneficiary, supposed to represent the “risk” that they benefit unduly from social assistance, this scoring algorithm serves a policy of institutional harassment of the most precarious

The Shame Algorithm

Fed with hundreds of data that CAF has on each beneficiary5, the algorithm continuously assesses their situation in order to classify and sort them, via the assignment of a score (“risk score”). This note, updated monthly, is then used by the teams of CAF controllers to select those to be subject to in-depth control6.

The little information available reveals that the algorithm deliberately discriminates against the precarious. Thus, among the elements that the algorithm associates with a high risk of abuse, and therefore negatively impacting the score of a beneficiary, we find the fact7:

– To have low income,

– To be unemployed or not to have a stable job,

– To be a single parent (80% of single parents are women)8,

– To dedicate a significant part of its income to housing,

– To have many contacts with CAF (for those who would dare to ask for help).

Other parameters such as place of residence, type of housing (social, etc.), mode of contact with CAF (telephone, email, etc.) or being born outside the European Union are used without that we do not know precisely how they affect this note9. But it is easy to imagine the fate reserved for a foreign person living in a disadvantaged suburb. This is how, since 2011, CAF has been organizing a veritable digital hunt for the most disadvantaged, the consequence of which is a massive over-control of poor people, foreigners and women raising a child alone.

Worse, CAF brags about it. Its director qualifies this algorithm as being part of a "constant and proactive policy of modernizing tools to fight against fraudsters and crooks". The institution, and its algorithm, are also regularly presented at the state level as a model to follow in the fight against "social fraud", a theme imposed by the right and the far right in the early 2000s.

How can such a profoundly discriminatory device be publicly defended, moreover by a social administration? It is here that the computerization of social control takes on a particularly dangerous character, through the technical alibi it offers to political leaders.

A technical alibi for an iniquitous policy

First of all, the use of the algorithm allows CAF to mask the social reality of the sorting organized by its control policy. Exit the references to the targeting of social minima recipients in the “annual control plans”. The latter now report “datamining targets”, without ever explaining the criteria associated with the calculation of “risk scores”. As a CAF controller said: “Today it is true that data makes things easier for us. I do not have to say that I will select 500 RSA beneficiaries. It's not me who does it, it's the system that says it! (Laughs). »12

The notion of “risk score” is also used to individualize the targeting process and deny its discriminatory nature. A CAF control officer thus declared in front of deputies that “More than populations at risk, we are talking about profiles of beneficiaries at risk, in connection with data mining”13. In other words, CAF argues that its algorithm does not target the poor as a social category but as individuals. A large part of the "risk factors" used to target recipients are, however, socio-demographic criteria associated with precarious situations (low income, unstable professional situation, etc.). This rhetorical game is therefore statistical nonsense, as the Defender of Rights reminds us:14 "More than a targeting of 'presumed risks', the practice of data mining forces the designation of populations at risk and, in doing so, leads to instil the idea that certain categories of users are more inclined to cheat”.

Finally, the use of the algorithm is used by CAF leaders to shirk responsibility for choosing the criteria for targeting the people to be controlled. They transform this choice into a purely technical problem (predicting which files are most likely to present irregularities) whose resolution is the responsibility of the institution's teams of statisticians. The only thing that counts then is the effectiveness of the proposed solution (the quality of the prediction), the internal workings of the algorithm (the targeting criteria) becoming a simple technical detail that does not concern politicians15. A director of CAF can thus say publicly: “We [CAF] do not draw up the typical profile of the fraudster. With datamining, we don't draw conclusions,” simply omitting to say that CAF delegates this task to its algorithm.

Early over-control of the most precarious

This is our response to officials who deny the political nature of this algorithm: the algorithm has only learned to detect what you have decided to target. The over-control of the most precarious is neither a coincidence nor the unexpected result of complex statistical operations. It is the result of a political choice of which you knew, even before the deployment of the algorithm, the consequences for the precarious.

This choice is as follows16. Despite CAF's communication about its new "fight against fraud" tool (see for example here, here or here), the algorithm was designed not to detect fraud, which is intentional, but indus (overpayments) in the broad sense17, the vast majority of which result from involuntary declarative errors18.

However, CAF knew that the risk of error is particularly high for people in precarious situations, due to the complexity of the rules for calculating social benefits concerning them. Thus, as early as 200619, a former director of the fight against fraud at the CAF explained that "the undus are explained […] by the complexity of the services", which is "all the more true for the services linked to precariousness (hear the social minima). He added that this is due to taking into account “numerous elements of the user’s situation which are very variable over time, and therefore very unstable”. Concerning isolated women, he already recognized the “difficulty of grasping the notion of “marital life””, a difficulty in turn generating errors.

Asking the algorithm to predict the risk of undue payment therefore amounts to asking it to learn to identify who, among the recipients, is dependent on social minima or is a victim of the conjugalization20 of social assistance. In other words, CAF officials knew, from the start of the targeting automation project, what would be the “risk profiles” that the algorithm was going to identify.

Nothing is therefore more false than to declare, as this institution did in response to the Defender of Rights' criticisms, that "the controls to be carried out" are "selected by a neutral algorithm" which obeys "no presupposition »21. Or that “the controls […] resulting from datamining […] leave no room for arbitrariness”.

Discriminate to profit

Why favor the detection of errors rather than that of fraud? Errors being more numerous and easier to detect than situations of fraud, which require the establishment of an intentional character, this makes it possible to maximize the amounts recovered from the beneficiaries and thus to increase the "yield" of controls.

To quote a former head of CAF's anti-fraud department: "We CAF, quite honestly, on these very big frauds, we can't be the leader because the stakes are beyond us, in a way." And to point out a little further on his satisfaction that in the last "objective and management agreement", a contract binding CAF to the State and defining a certain number of objectives,22 there is a "distinction between the rate recovery of undue fraud and undue non-fraud […] because the efficiency; is still more important on non-fraud industrials which, by definition, are of lesser importance”.

This algorithm is therefore only a tool used to increase the profitability of the controls carried out by CAF in order to feed a communication policy where, throughout activity reports and public communications, the harassment of the most precarious becomes a evidence of "good management" of the institution

Dehumanization and digital exposure

But digital has also profoundly changed the control itself, now turned towards the analysis of the personal data of the beneficiaries, whose right of access given to the controllers has become sprawling. Access to bank accounts, data held by energy suppliers, telephone operators, employers, traders and of course other institutions (employment center, taxes, national social security funds …)24: control has turned into a real digital stripping.

These thousands of digital traces are mobilized to feed a control where the burden of proof is reversed. Much more than the interview, personal data now forms the basis of the controllers' judgement. As a CAF controller said: “Before, the interview was very important. […] Now the control of information upstream of the interview takes on much more importance. »25. Or even, “a controller when he prepares his file, just by going to see the partner portals, before meeting the beneficiary, he has a very good idea of ​​what he will be able to find”.

Refusing to submit to this transparency is prohibited under penalty of suspension of benefits. The “right to digital silence” does not exist: opposition to total transparency is equated with obstruction. And for the most reluctant, CAF reserves the right to request this information directly from the third parties who hold it.

The control then becomes a session of humiliation where everyone must agree to justify the smallest detail of their life, as this beneficiary testifies: “The interview […] with the CAF agent was a humiliation. He had my bank accounts in front of him and went through every line. Did I really need an Internet subscription? What had I spent these 20 euros drawn in cash on? »26.

The score assigned by the algorithm acts in particular as proof of guilt. Contrary to what the CAF wants to believe, which reminds anyone who wants to listen that the algorithm is only a "decision-making tool", a degraded risk score generates suspicion and severity during controls . It is up to the beneficiary to answer for the algorithmic judgment. To prove that the algorithm is wrong. This influence of algorithmic scoring on control teams, a recognized fact referred to as "automation bias", is even better explained here by a controller: "Given the fact that we are going to control a situation strongly scored, some told me that, well, there is a kind of – even unconsciously – not an obligation of results but to say to themselves: if I am there, it is because there is something so it is necessary that I find »

Dramatic human consequences

These practices are all the more revolting as the human consequences can be very serious. Psychological distress, loss of housing, depression28: the control leaves significant traces in the lives of all controlled. As a director of social action explains29: “You have to imagine that the undue payment is almost worse than non-recourse”. And to add: “You are in a mechanism for recovering undue payments and administrations which can also decide to cut you off all access to social benefits for a period of six months. Really, you find yourself in a black situation, that is to say that you made a mistake but you pay extremely dearly for it and this is where an extremely strong degradation situation begins which is very difficult behind to recover ” .

Requests for undue reimbursement can represent an untenable burden for people in financial difficulty, especially when they are due to errors or omissions that cover a long period. Added to this is the fact that overpayments can be recovered via deductions from all social benefits.

Worse, the numerous testimonies30 collected by the Defender of Rights and the Stop Control and Changer de Cap collectives report numerous illegal practices on the part of CAF (non-compliance with adversarial proceedings, difficulty of appeal, abusive suspension of aid, failure to provide the report investigation, no access to findings) and abusive re-qualifications of situations of involuntary error as fraud. These improper qualifications then lead to the filing of recipients identified as fraudsters31, filing reinforcing à in turn their stigmatization during future interactions with CAF and whose consequences may extend beyond this institution if this information is transferred to other administrations

Digital, bureaucracy and social control

Admittedly, digital technologies are not the root cause of CAF practices. As the “social” side of the digital control of public space by the police institution that we document in our Technopolice campaign, they are the reflection of policies centered around logics of sorting, surveillance and general administration of our lives32.

The practice of scoring that we denounce at CAF is not specific to this institution. A pioneer, the CAF was the first social administration to set up such an algorithm, it has now become the "good student", to use the words of a LREM MP33, which should inspire other administrations. Today it is thus Pôle emploi, health insurance, old-age insurance or even taxes which, under the impetus of the Court of Auditors and the National Delegation for the Fight against Fraud34, are working to develop their own scoring algorithms.

At a time when, as Vincent Dubois35 says, our social system is always tending towards "fewer social rights granted unconditionally [...] and more aid [...] conditional on individual situations", which "logically calls for more control », it seems legitimate to question the major projects for the automation of social assistance, such as that of « solidarity at the source » proposed by the President of the Republic. Because this automation can only be achieved at the cost of an ever-increasing scrutiny of the population and will require the establishment of digital infrastructures which, in turn, will confer ever more power on the State and its administrations.

Fight

Faced with this observation, we ask that the use of the scoring algorithm by CAF be put to an end. The search for undus, the vast majority of which are of the order of a few hundred euros36, can in no way justify such practices which, by their nature, have the effect of throwing precarious people into situations of immense distress.

To the remark of a CAF director saying that he could not "answer precisely as to the biases" that his algorithm could contain - thus implying that the algorithm could be improved -, we answer that the problem is not technical, but political. Since it simply cannot exist without inducing discriminatory vetting practices, it is the scoring algorithm itself that must be abandoned.

We will soon come back to the actions we want to take to fight, at our level, against these policies. Until then, we will continue to document the use of scoring algorithms in all French administrations and invite those who wish, and can, to organize and mobilize locally, like the Technopolice campaign run by La Quadrature. In Paris, you can find us and come and discuss this fight within the framework of the general meetings of the Stop Controls collective, whose press releases we relay via our website.

This fight can only benefit from exchanges with those who, at CAF or elsewhere, have information on this algorithm (the details of the criteria used, the internal dissensions that its implementation may have provoked, etc.) and want us to help combat such practices. We encourage these people to contact us at contact@laquadrature.net. You can also drop documents anonymously on our SecureDrop (see our help page here).

Finally, we would like to denounce the police surveillance to which the Stop Controls collective is subject. Making telephone contacts on the part of the intelligence services, allusions to the actions of the collective with some of its members in the context of other militant actions and over-presence of the police during simple towing operations in front of CAF agencies: as many of police measures aimed at the intimidation and repression of a social movement that is both legitimate and necessary.

Saisi

January 23 / 2022 Fake riot in Brussels

 How the Antifas*, the media and the police organized themselves to stage a fake riot in Brussels on January 23, 2022 and blame the peaceful protesters.

 After the morning press conference, and as speakers from all over Europe and the United States were preparing to take the podium to speak in front of a huge crowd (approximately 300,000 people according to journalist Senta Depuydt ), incidents broke out at the entrance to the park and police demanded that Reiner Fuellmich who was speaking to stop immediately. Perfect timing....!

But the troublemakers were caught on camera. This reveals their identity and their connivance with the media and the police.

Who is George Soros, the billionaire hated by the fachosphere?

Remember that the next time the Soros-funded liberals say you're a racist, fascist, or Nazi!”)

Multi-billionaire, genius speculator and zealous advocate of democracy, Soros has become the perfect scapegoat for populists, nationalists and demagogues of all persuasions.

This man with an extraordinary destiny survived the Nazi and Communist regimes. Born György Schwartz in Budapest, his daily life as a toddler was turned upside down by the Nazi occupation, “the formative experience of his life”. Tivadar, his lawyer father, then obtains false Christian papers for his family, and finds him a hiding place to hide. Tivadar teaches his son the art of survival, while saving dozens of other Jews.

In 1947, as the Communists consolidate their power in Hungary, Soros flees the “red wave”. He immigrated to London to study, before flying to the United States nine years later. There, he becomes a Wall Street virtuoso, earning billions on the stock market. In 1984, the golden boy escaped his fate as an amoral financier by dedicating his personal fortune to his ideas. He then launched in Hungary the Open Society Foundations (OSF), a network of foundations intended to promote human rights and democracy.

A “statesman without a state”

Since then, his "deep desire to influence history" has led him to invest $32 billion in the OSF. Transformed into a “super-foundation”, this organization is present on five continents, in more than 100 countries. It is now the second largest philanthropic organization in the world – after that of Bill and Melinda Gates. But unlike the creator of Microsoft, Soros has been very involved in political affairs, campaigning for migrants, LGBT +, alternatives to the criminalization of drugs, or the right to die with dignity. After having largely supported the democratic transition of the countries of the Eastern bloc, it is now committed first to the United States (19% of OSF donations), then to Africa (14%) and Europe. Europe (10%).

The one who defines himself as a "statesman without a state" is the object of all fantasies, accused of secret projects to overthrow Western civilization. He is the one who would have orchestrated the violence in Charlottesville, planned to kill 100,000 Haitians, paid for the demonstrators of the women's march launched after Trump's inauguration. He would also be behind the Ebola epidemic and the Ferguson riots in 2014.

(“George Soros and ‘Bill and Melinda Gates’ are behind the Ebola outbreak”)

“This novel character crystallizes in his person all the sad passions of the Old Continent: xenophobia, anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism, hatred of liberalism”, writes Rudy Reichstadt, director of the Conspiracy watch site. However, this 87-year-old man with incredible ambitions is the cantor of tolerance, haunted by an idea: to advance “open societies”.

Genius speculator or “American leech”

In 1992, Soros became the target of conspiracy theorists as "the man who ruined the Bank of England", a caricature of the misdeeds of liberalism. Sensing the weakness of the pound sterling, he bet against the British currency, forcing the Bank of England to devalue it and leave the European monetary system. He pockets a billion dollars, via his investment fund, which has become a legal money machine. 1000 dollars invested in 1969 would be worth 4 million dollars in 2000. While he was a sacred financial guru, he also attracted his first critics, who gave him the sweet name of ““American leech”:

(“George Soros is not the best financier, he is like the mafia thug, without a real conscience!”)

Yet George Soros himself “feels no need to defend speculation,” going so far as to criticize the laissez-faire theory of markets. Far from the image of the lawless speculator, the billionaire also dreams of changing the world and “having a platform to make his ideas heard”. He defends body and soul the ideal of “open society”, developed by the philosopher Karl Popper, of whom he was a student. If he himself considers himself a “failed philosopher”, he repeats many times the arguments of Popper, for whom no philosophy or ideology holds the absolute truth – hence the importance of defending democratic societies.

A “public enemy, destroying the lives of millions of Europeans”

In 2015, the migration crisis in Europe put the speculator in the spotlight. Known for generously supporting associations helping migrants via his foundation, in September 2015 he published a column urging the European Union to accept at least one million refugees per year – before reducing this figure to 300,000 in 2016. Even if his recommendations have not been followed, they have stirred up the ire of the leaders of the “illiberal” democracies of Central and Eastern Europe, who accuse him of all the evils.

(“Arrest George Soros, the godfather of the Islamization of Europe”)

 According to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Soros would represent a “risk to national security”, a “public enemy”, “attacking Hungary”, “having destroyed the lives of millions of Europeans”. Ironically, Orban is one of 3,200 Hungarians who have been able to study abroad thanks to OSF scholarships. The foundation has invested more than $400 million in Hungary since 1984, but is no longer welcome in its native country.

The return of the “Protocol of the Elders of Zion”

In 2017, Orban spent 100 million euros on a vast government propaganda campaign against George Soros, full of false information. In advertisements, on posters and in a national immigration consultation, the billionaire is attacked for an alleged secret plan, dubbed the “Soros plan”, to welcome at least one million immigrants to Europe each year.

(“Anti-Soros government propaganda [‘Don’t let Soros have the last laugh!] in the Budapest metro last year. Very subtle”)

(“The new government propaganda says that George ‘Soros would like to settle millions of migrants from Africa and the Middle East in Europe’. Nowhere can you escape these posters.”)

Already at the beginning of the 20th century, public opinion fantasized about the “Protocol of the Elders of Zion”, an imaginary secret program established by a council of Jewish sages to become “masters of the world” after having destroyed Christian civilization.

In Hungary, a government campaign against Soros

In Hungary, the campaign against the financier-philanthropist is terribly reminiscent of the “two minutes of hatred” sessions against the “traitor Emmanuel Goldstein”, imagined by George Orwell in 1984. Especially since Orban's propaganda worked well , while "most Hungarians did not know George Soros three years ago", observes Corentin Léotard, editor-in-chief of the Courrier d'Europe centrale.

The historic OSF branch in Budapest was thus forced last May to move to Berlin, following “Stop Soros” legislation, imposing even more restrictions on NGOs. A blow for the billionaire, when the Central European University of Budapest, which he founded in 1991, is also threatened by a new law on higher education. “We still don't know if we will be able to stay in Budapest next year, worries Eva Fodor, pro-rector of the university. We are awaiting government approval.”

The Complosphere's Favorite Scapegoat

In this witch hunt, Soros is attacked from all sides, from Vladimir Putin to Donald Trump, from the American alt-right to the French fachosphere. "He's one of the favorite scapegoats of the conspiracy," says Rudy Reichstadt:

Especially since the businessman is not only attacked because he is a patron. On the contrary, “he crystallizes several conspiratorial fantasies on him, observes Reichstadt. Coming from a Jewish family, he is seen by some as a kind of ‘Zionist’ agent, while his network of foundations supports several pro-Palestinian, even anti-Zionist structures.

A puppeteer at the heart of the “reptilian plot”

His commitment against Israeli colonization even earned him the target of an anti-Semitic cartoon, shared on Facebook by the son of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Taking up the classic codes of Judeophobic drawing, George Soros is depicted there as a puppeteer, manipulating political life.

But above all, George Soros directs a reptile-humanoid over it, an allusion to the reptilian plot. According to this theory, the greats of this world (like Barack Obama, Angela Merkel or Queen Elizabeth II) would be alien-reptilians, made up as humans to rule the planet. George Soros would therefore lead the reptilians of this Earth, unless he is a reptilian himself, as some believe.

(“The disguise of the homo-capensis species deteriorates with age to reveal their true dragon-reptilian form: the Duchess of Alba, the Pope, Soros, Rockefeller.”)

By being one of the largest donors to the Democratic Party in the United States, the philanthropist has also been portrayed as the "puppet master" of Obama or Clinton, in ever more inventive montages. A virulent critic of Presidents Bush and Trump, the businessman invested millions of dollars in Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2016, while supporting opponents of Donald Trump.

(“Soros, Satan’s puppet master, must be convicted for election tampering.”)

(“George Soros controls so many liberal hate groups that I would need ten pages to print all their names. […] Most Democrats are his puppets, all trying to discredit President Trump with lies. But they lose the battle.")

(“Soros is preparing for war with Trump because the Illuminati witch has lost. Neo-Nazi George Soros should be arrested for crimes against humanity.”)

The Avatar of the International Jewish Conspiracy Myth

Soros could not better embody the new trend of Judeophobia, fueled by the myth of the international Jewish conspiracy, led by stateless financiers. “Born Hungarian, Soros is also an exile and many of his detractors see him as the embodiment of the cosmopolitan globalist, without borders or homeland”, confides Rudy Reichstadt. The financier admits it himself: “If ever there is a man who corresponds to the stereotype of the Jew-plutocrat-Zionist-Bolshevik, it is me”.

This rampant anti-Semitism does not stop at the borders of France. Last May, the weekly Current Values became an ambassador for conspiracies on the philanthropist, headlining “Soros, the man who plots against France”. Jumbled up, the ultra-right newspaper denounced “the Soros machination”, before incriminating him as a “militant of migratory submersion and Islamism”, “artisan of uprooting”.

(“Orban’s Hungary: EU and ‘Soros mafia network’ seek to ‘Islamise Europe’”)

Soros, “the man who plots against France”?

But contrary to the claims of Current Values, neither George Soros' foundation nor the businessman himself has "sprawling influence in France" - nor does it have an office there. Western Europe is not the priority of the Open Society Foundations. “We spend the most money in Eastern and South Eastern Europe,” confirms Jordi Vaquer, Regional Director for Europe at OSF. In France, as in other Western countries, the foundation is committed against racial profiling, to “put it on the political agenda, and make the voices of the victims heard”, explains Jordi Vaquer.

Despite conspiracy theories, OSF is also interested in France in much less politicized issues, such as access for all to publicly funded biomedical research. And contrary to all the rumors about “migratory submersion”, the migration crisis is not the priority of the foundation in Europe, even less in France. “We work mainly in the countries of first arrival (Spain, Italy, Greece)”, rectifies Jordi Vaquer.

On the Old Continent, Soros' organization has become the private organization giving the most money to the Roma cause. With 10 to 12 million people in Europe, they are the largest ethnic minority on the continent, and live “in a situation of extreme marginality”, Jordi Vaquer takes offense. In France, Hungary, Italy, Sweden and Romania, OSF finances a number of associations defending their rights.

(“When the Roma take power, this is what equality and prosperity look like”)

At 87, no retirement in sight

While some claim that Soros rules the world, accounts of his founding do not live up to those theories. With an annual global budget of $1,005 million in 2018 (approximately €850 million), OSF spends as much as a medium-sized European city, such as Lyon or Valencia in Spain. But at almost 88 years old, the billionaire does not intend to retire from philanthropy. In addition to running his investment fund Soros fund management, he still works and travels for OSF, increasingly assisted by his son Alexander.

When he leaves this world, the foundation will survive him, “because the problems persist”, tells us Annette Laborey, former director of the former Paris offices of OSF. Last year, George Soros bequeathed to OSF 18 billion dollars, an exceptional sum. His foundation does not intend to stop investing in Hungary either. “Soros has always preached that you have to know how to fight for lost causes, recalls Annette Laborey. If he hadn't taken all these actions, the world might be worse off."

 * Many people will be surprised to learn that Antifa is a movement funded by billionaire George Soros. Militants who engage in a legitimate fight against fascism should inform themselves well so as not to be exploited.

Saisi