Paris, July 15, 2023 (EIRNS)—On January 19, 2023, the Schiller Institute and its leader Helga Zepp-LaRouche were heavily slandered at the French National Assembly in the context of an investigative commission set up to examine the influence of foreign powers in France.
The “Investigative Commission on political, economic and financial meddling by foreign powers (States, organizations, companies, groups of interest, private persons) with the aim of influencing or corrupting opinion makers, leaders and French political parties, was run, under the chairmanship of RN Deputy Jean Philippe Tanguy. Originally a sovereignist, Tanguy has been in the meantime “Melonised” of “Marinated” as the phenomenon of totally abandoning one’s values for a bit of power, could be called it in France.
Jean Philippe Tanguy questioned many actors concerning Russian political meddling into France, but he also questioned Paul Charon, Director of an intelligence department in the l’Institut des Recherches Statégiques de l'École Militaire (IRSEM—War School Institute for Strategic Research), expert on China’s meddling. According to military sources, the IRSEM is run by the Defense Ministry and reflects their orientations.
At the end of his National Assembly testimony, Charon accused the Schiller Institute of outright “complicity” with the Chinese meddling : “…some think tanks decide to cooperate with Chinese players. In our report (Oct. 2021, see link below), we drew up an analysis grid for these cooperative ventures, ranging from one-off cooperative ventures to more systematic cooperation as occasional allies on common themes, such as anti-Americanism. The final stage is that of complicity. This includes the Schiller Institute, whose views converge even more closely with the Party’s values, and which adopts a revisionist stance on international institutions.”
This slander was preceded by one in a long report published in October 2021, on the IRSEM website, on the same subject, with Paul Charon as co-author along with Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer. The report was entitled: “Chinese Influence Operations—A Machiavellian Period” (https://www.irsem.fr/rapport.html). Paul Charon is currently director of the “Intelligence, Strategy Foresight and Influence Department” at IRSEM. Jeangène Vilmer left the IRSEM in 2022 and is now French ambassador in Vanuatu.
This 2021 report takes aim at a number of French think tanks (including the Schiller Institute), categorized according to whether they are China’s “occasional partners,” such as Institut de Relations Internationales et Stratégiques (IRIS), which has organized three forums on the New Silk Roads with the Chinese Embassy, “occasional allies” such as the Fondation Prospective et Innovation of former French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, or outright “accomplices” who share a common vision of the world with the Communist Party of China (CCP) and whose interests converge, such as the Schiller Institute. Five pages are devoted to the Schiller Institute, to its international founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche, and to their relations with China, particularly with regard to its New Silk Roads project. Jacques Cheminade is scratched in the process.
On Sept. 3, 2021, even before appearance of the IRSEM report, Le Monde published an article by Brice Pedroletti et Nathalie Guibert, picking up on the slanders against the Schiller Institute. According to Le Monde, “Chinese think-tanks spread out to serve Xi Jinping’s way of thinking. Many of these new relays operate under the banner of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the sprawling ‘New Silk Roads’ project enshrined in the Chinese Constitution.
“In addition to these sometimes naive intermediaries, Chinese organizations can also count on complicit structures—because they share with the CCP a common vision of the world. Among the latter is the Schiller Institute, founded in Germany in 1984 by Helga Zepp-LaRouche. Its mission: ‘to expose the excesses of international financial institutions’ and ‘to promote a Eurasian Land-Bridge.’ Over the years, Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche has become a fierce defender of Beijing’s positions and the ‘New Silk Roads’ project. Pampered by the Chinese media, she defends China against its Western detractors and castigates the ‘misinformation’ reigning in the West on Xinjiang or human rights….” (https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2021/09/03/ces-think-tanks-chinois-qui-essaiment-au-service-de-la-pensee-de-xi-jinping_6093245_3210.htm )
