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Trump in the wilderness
Trump in the wilderness

New Statesman​

time18 hours ago

  • Politics
  • New Statesman​

Trump in the wilderness

A video showing Donald Trump dictating social media posts to an aide while watching Kamala Harris deliver a speech at the Democratic National Convention in August 2024 offers a glimpse of a magician at work. Seated at a table along with a dozen or so of his campaign team, the presidential candidate – sipping from a bottle of Coca-Cola with what appears to be a plate of chicken nuggets before him – is in charge. His comments are typed up by the aide, corrected and approved, then posted on X and Truth Social. Working as a clairvoyant channelling the American unconscious, he voices the fears that gave him a popular majority. 'We've got to get to the border, inflation and crime,' he says. His tweets may be peppered with exclamation marks and capital letters, but he speaks softly. The mood in the room is calm. The message of the footage – broadcast in October 2024 as part of a documentary series, Art of the Surge, backed by Tucker Carlson – is clear. Trump was the sole author of the regime change that took place with his sweeping victory last November. However, to view him as a mere political thaumaturge, a sorcerer of social media, is to understate his historical importance. If that were so, he would be an anomaly – as liberals would like to believe. But, six months along from his second inauguration, there is no going back to the world as it was before him. Trump, a harbinger of things to come, has released forces that neither he nor the baffled remnants of the liberal order have any idea how to control. In a letter to a friend, Hegel described seeing Napoleon the day before the French emperor crushed the Prussian army in the Battle of Jena in 1806 and recognising him as 'world history on horseback'. Trump on his golf cart has a similar significance – without embodying any emerging rationality of the kind that the windy German philosopher believed was unfolding in history. Driving more erratically than any Napoleon, Trump is unloosing a new logic in politics and history. There will be no restoration of the ancien régime. Another round of liberal lawfare will achieve nothing of substance. The weaponisation of the courts by the Biden administration did not prevent Trump's return to office. Lawfare is a game anyone can play. In his first term, he appointed three conservative judges to the Supreme Court, stacking it in his favour. By making judicial institutions targets for political capture, liberal legalism signed its own death warrant. Trump is eviscerating any institution that could inhibit executive authority. He has shut down the Pentagon's internal think tank, the Office of Net Assessment, a much-respected organisation founded more than 50 years ago, shrunk the National Security Council and downgraded Fema, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He has fired senior intelligence officials, including the heads of the National Security Agency and US Cyber Command. These purges ensure that his successor – Republican or Democrat – will inherit a polity more closely resembling an authoritarian democracy than a constitutional republic. Stale chatter of a rerun of fascism is misguided. The mutation in American democracy is deeper and more enduring. The fascist regimes of interwar Europe and Asia could be decapitated by removing their leaders. But Trump's removal would leave a society too polarised for consensual governance, while the international system in which a liberal superpower could function has imploded. An American-led financial system is already history. In the eyes of the rest of the world, the US is drifting inexorably towards default. As Elon Musk noted after his expulsion from the administration, his Doge department achieved little and Trump's 'big beautiful bill' will add trillions to the spiralling federal deficit. A crisis may have been staved off by the US treasury secretary Scott Bessent, a George Soros associate involved in the 1992 Black Wednesday bet against the pound. But as Musk himself demonstrated, no one lasts long in Trump's inner circle. In recent weeks he has turned his ire on Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve central bank – another institution he aims to gut. The current weakness of the dollar – following its worst year in modern history – is structural, a by-product of chronic American political dysfunction. That does not mean any successor is on the horizon. Attempts by Brics countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) to fashion an alternative have repeatedly failed. China's renminbi is too tightly controlled and illiquid. The president of the European Central Bank Christine Lagarde's suggestion that the dollar could be overthrown by the euro is unworkable. The second-largest global reserve asset, surpassing the euro, is gold. Around a fifth of the world's production is disappearing into the vaults of central banks. Unlike dollar assets, the ancient precious metal cannot be sequestrated in financial sanctions. Unlike crypto, it cannot be hacked. There is mounting pressure to repatriate gold reserves held by the Fed or Western banks closely associated with it. India and Turkey have already repatriated bars from London and New York, and there are influential voices in Germany, France, Italy and Switzerland demanding that they follow suit. A multipolar currency system is emerging, in which Keynes's 'barbarous relic' plays a key role. In domestic terms, Trump's protectionism is a double-edged sword. When properly designed and implemented, tariffs can protect jobs, though always at a cost to the consumer. Trump's tariffs risk inflaming inflation with little benefit to employment. As living standards fall, voters may swing leftwards – not back to Bidenite progressivism, but to more radical versions of Trumpism, which in many respects resembles a reprisal of Argentine Peronism. A premonitory tremor can be detected in the adoption in the New York mayoral primary of Zohran Mamdani, who promises redistribution, rent freezes and welfare spending. Musk has proposed founding a new 'America' party with fiscal conservatism as one of its central themes. But would American voters support the savage reductions in federal entitlements – social security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, food banks – that would be necessary to get anywhere near sustainable levels of federal debt? A time may come when the Argentine president Javier Milei's agenda of slashing the state could marshal majority support, but only after a terrifying brush with national bankruptcy. Whatever comes to pass, pre-Trump America is irretrievable. The future is a foreign country; they do things differently there. [See also: There is one man that Donald Trump fears] Just as Juan Perón courted labour unions and the poor, Trump has mobilised the cast-offs of the neoliberal era. As in Argentina, their hopes may be destined to be disappointed. Visiting Buenos Aires in the Nineties, I asked a former Peronist minister what the next development in world politics would be. Without hesitation, he replied: 'The decadence of market power.' A generation later, the old man's prophecy has been fulfilled. Western capitalism has become a self-undermining system. Great concentrations of wealth exist in China and Russia, but they are subordinate to the objectives of government. Billionaire business leaders who display too much independence are swiftly disciplined. In China they may be charged with corruption and executed, or like the founder of Alibaba, Jack Ma, spend years in obscurity and disgrace before they are rehabilitated in a demonstration of Xi Jinping's power. In Vladimir Putin's Russia, wayward plutocrats have a habit of falling out of high windows or suffering fatal indigestion. Neoliberal capitalism allows its oligarchs to locate their businesses in countries that are not necessarily friendly to the West, as Musk has done with his Tesla gigafactory in Shanghai, while allowing the same countries into critical parts of national infrastructure. A faction of Maga led by Steve Bannon seeks to break the hold of corporate power and prioritise the interest of workers. Mainstream opinion discounts Bannon as an inconsequential, marginal figure. But as Joshua Green showed in Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump and the Storming of the Presidency, Bannon was crucial in rescuing the languishing 2016 campaign. It was he who provided the ideological script – an anti-modernist, ethno-nationalist narrative of Western decline – that opened up Trump's path to power. Trump's rise was political blowback against globalisation. Combined with offshoring production, free trade devastated America's manufacturing capacity. But protectionism cannot revive the patterns of industry and employment that free trade destroyed. Absent an industrial strategy and an educational system that steers young people into science and engineering rather than law and finance, the US will be locked in economic decline. The world-changing technologies that came out of Silicon Valley will be used for financial engineering rather than building new industries. Through his podcast War Room, Bannon continued to shape the current direction of travel in the administration. At the end of May, he described the Department of Justice's decision to close the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein as 'a catastrophic mistake' that could cost the Republicans up to 26 seats in the 2026 midterms, and possibly even the presidency in 2028. Bannon was correct: following the revelation in the Wall Street Journal that Trump is himself named in the Epstein files, the president is facing the biggest revolt of his political career – from within his own base. Having led his supporters into the looking-glass world of fake news and boundless conspiracy, Trump finds himself trapped in it. Unless the populists prevail, Bannon predicts, there will be no fundamental change in the ruling American regime. The casualties of globalisation will be abandoned. The rich will retreat to their gated enclaves, and the post-industrial wastelands will spread. [See also: Donald Trump, the king of Scotland] In 'Gerontion' (1920), TS Eliot wrote of: 'These with a thousand small deliberations/Protract the profit of their chilled delirium,/Excite the membrane, when the sense has cooled,/With pungent sauces, multiply variety/In a wilderness of mirrors.' Eliot's image – the 'wilderness of mirrors' – was invoked by James Jesus Angleton, head of counterintelligence at the CIA from 1955 for nearly two decades, to describe the labyrinthine world of espionage. A lifelong poetry-lover who knew Eliot, Angleton co-founded a quarterly journal of verse in 1939 when a student at Yale, publishing ee cummings, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens and WH Auden. Traumatised by his betrayal by the British double agent Kim Philby, a long-time drinking companion whom he seems to have trusted implicitly, Angleton launched a mole hunt that came close to wrecking the CIA, from which he was forced to resign in December 1974. He died in 1987 of lung cancer, taking his secrets – and his paranoid delusions – with him. But his borrowing from Eliot was prescient about both modern America and a larger fracturing across the West. One school of thought has Trump as a Manchurian candidate. In Richard Condon's 1959 novel of that name, an agent of a foreign power is manoeuvred into the presidency to pursue policies inimical to American interests. Some speculate that the current occupant of the Oval Office may be acting under duress – threats of blackmail relating to financial or sexual impropriety, perhaps. It is true that he appointed figures like Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence, who have echoed Kremlin talking points on the Ukraine war, and shut down State Department centres for countering disinformation. Yet Trump has publicly dismissed Gabbard's claim that Iran is not building a nuclear bomb, excluded her from meetings and ridiculed Tucker Carlson's opposition to entering the war against Iran as 'kooky'. Announcing his intention to destroy the country's nuclear programme, he suggested God may have spared him from death by the assassin's bullet for this very purpose. If this reveals the man within, he is moved by epiphanies and emotions as much as by calculation or subterfuge. Global politics is not a maze of secret stratagems and knowing deceptions, as Angleton believed, but a phantasmagoria of reflections and projections. When Trump looks at other world leaders, he sees replicas of himself as he would like himself to be – a hard-headed dealmaker. Putin is a ruthless practitioner of realpolitik; but he is also a neo-tsarist political mystic, aiming to resurrect a fabulous imperial realm. Xi is careful to avoid being drawn into any conflict in which he cannot see strategic advantage; but he is also determined to restore China to what he regards as its rightful place as the Middle Kingdom. Iran's leaders are cautious in their strategies; but they are also possessed by millenarian myths of martyrdom and a messianic saviour. History is driven by impulses more visionary and sanguinary than the pursuit of profit and survival. When liberals look at humankind, they see imperfect specimens of themselves. Some sections of the species – the despised deplorables – may be so retrograde that there is no future for them. A progressive society is best off letting them fade away and die. The rest of humankind yearns to join the ranks of the enlightened bourgeoisie. That was the phantasm of globalisation, and its concomitant – mass immigration. Instead, immigrants have brought with them their ancestral faiths, identities and enmities, while pre-existing populations – including previous generations of immigrants – recoil from the political caste that launched the experiment. Even the progressive nomenklatura are beginning to suspect their future may be cloudy. Strangely enough, an idea of truth survives among the tyrants as a domain of fact that must be unceasingly denied. Putin may be wedded to fantasies of a restored 'Russian world'. In advancing them he continues the Bolshevik practice of vranyo – telling lies he and everyone else know to be lies, but which dictate the terms in which war and politics are understood. For Xi, deception is the heart of the art of war. It is the post-truth West that cannot bear very much reality. Trump's strike on Iran illustrates this interplay of illusions and realities. The Iranian nuclear project has likely not been ended, only delayed for a few years. The US finds itself in the same bind it has been locked in since the collapse of British and French power in the Middle East after Suez and the fall of the shah in 1979. Trump's outburst against Israel and Iran at the breach of his ceasefire – 'They don't know what the fuck they are doing' – was a telling moment. Like many American presidents before him, he can neither dominate the region nor extricate himself from its intractable conflicts. Trump is trapped in a 21st-century version of the Great Game, the shifting imperial rivalries that preceded the Great War of 1914. There is reason in history, though not of the Hegelian variety. When liberal ideologues enabled Trump's rise, an irreversible process was set in motion. He and the defunct progressive ruling class are mirrors of one another. Trump's economic nationalism is the perfect inversion of an unfettered global free market. A seemingly immovable economic orthodoxy has been upended to prioritise the well-being of those injured by globalisation. Will this revolution amount to anything more than political rhetoric? The deep cuts in Medicaid and funding for treatment of opioid addiction made in the 'big beautiful bill' suggest that the collateral human damage of neoliberalism is being quietly written off. But is this politically sustainable? Before they fade away, America's deplorables may exercise their right to vote – chiefly moved by a worsening economy, but possibly rallying round the Epstein deceit. The former middle class may not accept their descent into endemic insecurity. Millennial professionals will struggle to avoid obsolescence, the nemesis of surplus elites. The figures who channel the fear and anger of these sections of the population – whether JD Vance, Bannon, Mamdani – will shape post-liberal America. Trump's most lasting inheritance will be a hodgepodge of populisms more radical than any he intended or imagined. On the global stage, Trump's 'realist' geopolitics is releasing forces – mystical imperialism, millenarian fervour, ungovernable impulses of hatred and revenge – that are derailing his would-be deals. His transactional schemes are as unreal as the progressive utopias he has casually brushed aside. Liberal rationalists avert their gaze from the world they have unknowingly made. Trump conjures with chaos, while a fateful logic unfolds around him. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe [See also: Trump's gangsterism towards the EU is working] Related

Napoleon breaks silence on family rumors, Akshaya's return video ends speculation, Actor's celebration video goes viral
Napoleon breaks silence on family rumors, Akshaya's return video ends speculation, Actor's celebration video goes viral

Time of India

timea day ago

  • Entertainment
  • Time of India

Napoleon breaks silence on family rumors, Akshaya's return video ends speculation, Actor's celebration video goes viral

Actor Napoleon recently hosted a celeb-only get-together at his home. Seeing that only his elder son Dhanoosh was present at the gathering, netizens asked, "Where is daughter-in-law Akshaya?" Meanwhile, many rumors were circulating on social media. It all started with the idea that Akshaya, who had gotten married in Japan, had not come to Napoleon's house. Family settled in US; wedding held in Japan Speaking about Napoleon's family, he lives with his wife, Jayasudha. They have two sons, Dhanoosh and Kunal. The family moved to the US for their eldest son Dhanoosh, who is suffering from a rare disease, for his treatment. In November last year, Dhanoosh married Akshaya in Japan. After the wedding, many celebrities visited Napoleon's house to see them off, but the rumors started when Akshaya was not seen in the videos. Napoleon's video confirms Akshaya's return To put an end to these rumors, Napoleon has now posted a video directly on his social media. In it, Dhanoosh's wife Akshaya happily shared that she is back home and the family is united. The video clearly shows Napoleon and his family celebrating Akshaya's return to home like a festival with loaded happiness. This video is currently being shared widely on social media. Netizens are welcoming the video with joy. Overall, this video released by Napoleon has answered many doubts about his family and put to rest rumors. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Libas Purple Days Sale Libas Napoleon shined in cinema, politics, and Hollywood Actor Napoleon carved a niche for himself in Tamil cinema in the 1990s, playing both villainous and character roles. His films, including 'Seevalaperi Pandi', 'Ettupatti Rasa', 'Kizhakku Cheemayile', 'Ejamaan', 'Pudhu Nellu Pudhu Naathu', and 'Pokkiri', were critically acclaimed. Apart from cinema, he was also active in politics and later acted in foreign films, including the Hollywood film 'Devil's Night: Dawn of the Nain Rouge'.

Brad Pitt's ‘F1' races past $500 million mark, becomes Apple Studios' biggest box office hit
Brad Pitt's ‘F1' races past $500 million mark, becomes Apple Studios' biggest box office hit

The Hindu

time3 days ago

  • Entertainment
  • The Hindu

Brad Pitt's ‘F1' races past $500 million mark, becomes Apple Studios' biggest box office hit

After just over a month in theaters, F1 — the Formula One-themed drama starring Brad Pitt — has crossed $509 million at the global box office, making it one of the most successful original films of the last decade. Directed by Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick), the film is now poised to challenge Pitt's all-time highest-grossing film, World War Z ($531 million). F1 has earned $165 million domestically and $344 million from international markets. With a reported production budget of $300 million — a figure Kosinski has disputed — the film stands as Apple Studios' most profitable theatrical venture to date. It has outperformed the studio's previous releases, including Napoleon ($223 million) and Killers of the Flower Moon ($158 million). The film opened in late June with a $146 million global debut and has maintained momentum despite strong summer competition. Its premium screen rollout and strong overseas response, especially in racing-obsessed markets, helped drive box office success. F1 has been granted an additional theatrical run in China, likely pushing its total even higher in the coming weeks. This is only the second time Pitt has crossed the $500 million threshold in his career, a notable milestone given his selective approach to large-scale franchise films. F1 now ranks among his top five highest-grossing titles. Also starring Kerry Condon, Damson Idris, and Javier Bardem, discussions about a sequel are reportedly underway, and rumors of a crossover with Tom Cruise's Days of Thunder have begun circulating.

Tiny Italian island set to be ‘turned into oasis' to escape hoards of tourists
Tiny Italian island set to be ‘turned into oasis' to escape hoards of tourists

Scottish Sun

time6 days ago

  • Scottish Sun

Tiny Italian island set to be ‘turned into oasis' to escape hoards of tourists

Plus, Expedia's top 10 holiday islands across the globe ISLE GO Tiny Italian island set to be 'turned into oasis' to escape hoards of tourists Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) A TINY Italian island could be turned into an 'oasis' for locals to be able to find somewhere quieter, away from holidaymakers. A group of local activists have raised around €460,000 (£401,000) in funds to win the lease for Poveglia - a tiny uninhabited island just off of Venice. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 5 Poveglia is a tiny unhabited island just off of Venice Credit: Alamy 5 And a local group of activists are hoping to transform it into an urban oasis Credit: Alamy The activist group Poveglia per Tutti (Poveglia for Everyone) will take over the island next month and intend to turn the island into a small haven. This includes regenerating the northern part of the island "transforming it into a lagoon urban park open to citizens and ­respectful of the ecosystem and the landscape elements that characterise the lagoon", the University of Verona said, according to The Times. However, there will be some challenges in transforming the island, as it currently has no electrical or water supply. And there is also no pier with access for boats either. One of the main parts of the island is the kitchen garden, which used to grow a variety of peaches, but has now been left to run wild. One of the founders of Poveglia for Everyone, Patrizia Veclani, told The Times: "Nature has reclaimed it. But with the advice of botanists we are considering what appropriate plants can be reinstated." She added that it is important that the island is returning to the city, "rather than becoming the umpteenth luxury hotel". The group will pay just over €1,000 (£871) a year for the island on a six-year lease. The island itself is split by two canals and according to National Geographic, over 1,000 people died on the island over the centuries and were buried in plague pits. Later, it was turned into a mental hospital that eventually closed in 1968 - with the island being vacant since. 7 TOURIST DESTINATIONS - EVERGREEN LISTICLE Few buildings remain on the island, and even fewer fully intact. A church still stands, as does the hospital, asylum, a bell-tower, housing and some administrative buildings. The bell-tower is the most visible and dates back to the 12th century. It used to belong to the church of San Vitale - which was demolished under Napoleon's orders in 1806. The tower was then re-used as a lighthouse. As a result of this extensive history, the island is often featured on paranormal shows as well. The island was then first put up for lease over a decade ago when the Italian state auctioned a 99-year lease of Poveglia. 5 The only remaining buildings on the island include the church and hositpal Credit: Alamy 5 The group of activities will pay just over €1,000 a year for the lease Credit: Getty The island was to remain as state property, to raise revenue and the hope was that the buyer would transform the hospital into a luxury hotel. At the time, the highest bid came from Italian businessman Luigi Brugnaro for €513,000 (£447,000). Initially, the businessman planned to invest €20million (£17.4million) in a restoration plan but the lease did not go ahead as his project did not meet all the conditions for the island. Whilst Brugnaro decided to fight the cancellation of the lease, he eventually dropped this and all intentions for developing the island when he became Mayor of Venice. Then in 2015, Poveglia for Everyone emerged and hoped to raise €25-30million (£21.8-£26.1million) to develop the island to include a public park, a marina, a restaurant, a hostel and a study centre. Around 30million people visit Venice each year and a €5 (£4.36) charge was introduced last year to deter visitors. Cruise ships were also banned in 2021, and now dock on the mainland at Marghera or at Ravenna. Expedia's top 10 holiday islands across the globe HERE are 10 top islands to consider for your next getaway, according to Expedia's 'Hot List'. Paros, Greece: A Greek paradise praised for its beautiful beaches, traditional villages, and buzzing nightlife, also offering delicious seafood and party boats. Sardinia, Italy: This large Italian island boasts a rugged coastline, charming hilltop villages, and over 1,000 miles of beaches, including Spiaggia di Piscinas, nicknamed 'Little Sahara of Italy'. Aruba, Caribbean: Known as 'One Happy Island', Aruba is celebrated for its white sand beaches, including Flamingo Beach where you can see pink flamingos, and is considered one of the safest islands in the Caribbean. Koh Samui, Thailand: Thailand's second-largest island offers incredible beaches, impressive temples, and vibrant nightlife, gaining further popularity from the TV series White Lotus. Jersey, UK: This Channel Island is experiencing a rising interest, particularly among British travelers. Crete, Greece: A popular Greek island with a growing appeal to visitors. Malta: This Mediterranean island nation is seeing increased interest from travelers. Madeira, Portugal: This Portuguese island is a rising star on the travel scene, particularly for Brits. Naxos, Greece: Part of the Cyclades Islands, close to Paros, and a destination worth exploring. Milos, Greece: Another beautiful island in the Cyclades chain, known for its unique landscapes. There is also an Italian town set to be the new Amalfi thanks to new British Airways flights. Plus, the little-known Italian town dubbed the 'city of ice cream' has sandy beach and £15 UK flights.

France's new prison rules for kingpins spotlight possible Macron successor

time24-07-2025

  • Politics

France's new prison rules for kingpins spotlight possible Macron successor

PARIS -- They are France 's most dangerous drug kingpins, according to the country's justice minister — prison inmates so wealthy and powerful that even behind bars, they can continue to order assassinations, run narco-trafficking operations and launder money. Flexing his powers as minister in charge of the French penal system, Gérald Darmanin's solution to the problem is contentious. He is moving 100 inmates — men he describes as 'France's biggest criminals' — into an austere maximum security penitentiary in the country's north that critics say has echoes of tough U.S. prisons. The move is also possibly vote-catching for Darmanin, who has joined a growing field of possible successors to President Emmanuel Macron after the next election, less than two years away. In the newly reinforced Vendin-le-Vieil prison, the selected inmates will be locked in individual cells for 23 hours on most days. Largely cut off from the world, Darmanin argues they will no longer be able to fuel drug-related violence, which has become a political issue ahead of the 2027 presidential election. 'We are here to guarantee that they don't speak to the outside, that they don't continue their trafficking outside, that they don't corrupt prison officers, magistrates, police officers and gendarmes," Darmanin said on primetime evening television after the first 17 inmates were transferred this week to Vendin-le-Vieil from other, less secure facilities. France has had a long history of both notorious prisons (the Bastille) and prisoners — both real (Napoleon) and fictional ("The Count of Monte Cristo"). Still, Vendin-le-Vieil's lock-up conditions are exceptional, similar to the ultra-secure 'Supermax' prison in the United States and Italy's tough 'carcere duro' incarceration rules for Mafia members. Vendin-le-Vieil already houses some of France's most infamous prisoners — including Salah Abdeslam, lone survivor of a team of Islamic State extremists that terrorized Paris in 2015, killing 130 people in gun and bomb attacks. To make way for the specially selected 100 inmates — some already convicted, others in pre-trial detention — many other Vendin-le-Vieil inmates were moved out. The newcomers will be grouped together in the prison's new 'Section for Combatting Organized Crime,' with reinforced security and regulations, and equipped with systems to block mobile phone signals and drones. Among those on the list for Vendin-le-Vieil is Mohamed Amra, nicknamed 'The Fly," who staged an escape last year that killed two guards and then fled to Romania before he was captured and returned to France. The newcomers will have just one hour a day in a prison exercise yard, in groups of no more than five. The rest of the time, they will mostly be confined to individual cells fitted with holes so prison guards can handcuff them before moving them and with ratchet systems so inmates can't yank the doors open or shut when they have to be unlocked. They will be guarded by 250 wardens — elsewhere, the ratio is usually 20 guards to 100 inmates, Darmanin told French broadcaster TF1. Instead of unlimited calls with family members from prison phones, they will be limited to a maximum of two hours, twice a week — a restriction that Darmanin says will make monitoring their conversations easier. Prison visiting rooms have also been equipped with security glass dividers, to prevent physical contact between inmates and visitors. Darmanin says this will prevent mobile phones and other contraband from being smuggled in. The new Vendin-le-Vieil inmates also won't have the rights accorded in other prisons of intimate time with partners and family members. Darmanin said the conditions will be 'extremely hard" but are necessary because France risks 'tipping into narco-banditry' in the absence of tough decisions. Critics say Darmanin is taking a gamble by grouping together so many inmates he describes as dangerous. 'From what I know, even when they're placed under the strictest isolation, they're so smart that they always find ways to communicate with each other," said May Sarah Vogelhut, an attorney for one of the 17 prisoners transferred this week. "It's almost more like a networking club for billionaire narco-traffickers." She and others also say the tough conditions could inflict an unacceptable toll on the prisoners' mental health. Vogelhut said her 22-year-old client was a major drug dealer in the southern French port city of Marseille and was convicted and sentenced to 25 years for torturing his victims. He is appealing his sentence. Held in isolation in another prison before his transfer to Vendin-le-Vieil, his biggest concern was the glass barrier that will prevent him from hugging his mother and touching other visitors, Vogelhut said. 'What shocks me the most in this new detention center is that the visits happen through a security glass intercom — you know, like what we French see in American movies, when the person is behind a glass and you talk through a phone,' she said. 'I find that inhumane. I mean, imagine that a guy spends 10 years there — for 10 years, he can't hug his mother?" she said. 'I think it's going to dehumanize them." First as a minister for public accounts, then as interior minister and since last December as justice minister, Darmanin has proven to be one of Macron's most loyal lieutenants. His close ties with the unpopular president, who can't run again, could work against Darmanin if he runs in 2027. But his government experience and tough-on-crime rhetoric could work in his favor with voters. Darmanin has announced plans for at least two other high-security prison units for convicted and accused drug traffickers, one of them in the overseas territory of French Guiana. Vogelhut accuses Darmanin of angling for votes and playing on "French people's fears and anxieties.'

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