ПРЕСТУПЛЕНИЕ, которое ПОТРЯСЛО автомобильный МИР

What could you do for an idea? We know the answer perfectly. Everything. You could do everything for your idea. It depends of the level of your fierce and frantic belief in something. In our world, ideas are modern deities. People talk about ideas, someone lives with ideas, and someone thinks of ideas like of some sacred temple you may not encroach in any case. Some people believe in healthism And try to prove to everyone how sinful and deadly it is to begin your morning with a cigarette and a cup of coffee. And if you don't meditate and

are not in the aware moment to acknowledge yourself, you would definitely burn in hell. And some people don't give a shit about it. About healthism, about meditations, about being in the moment. You could actually shit in smoothie, too. Some people frantically believe in different -isms. Communism, feminism, socialism, sexism, and so on. And always, in all those ideas, some bright future is waiting for us. But only if we join our forces and defeat those enemies that we hate. As soon as we mop up the floor with everyone who doesn't fit with our opinions and who doesn't

agree with them; as soon as communists mop up the floor with all the capitalists; as soon as feminists mop up the floor with all cis-gender and patricarchal scum, then we will be in heaven right away. And all of us will be sated, infinitely happy and carelessly jumping on the green grass in nightieswith teddy bears. Although, I think that even There would be activists who pity trampled grass or who would be insulted by a nightie with teddy bears. Because teddy bear on a nightie is a symbol of human domination over helpless animals that, since childhood, implants

a dominant position of humans over dejected and helpless creatures. And so, let's shoot down everyone who wears nighties with teddy bears. No, at first, we make them bend the knee, and then we shoot them down. No, first, we make them bend the knee, and then they should kiss us in the... But here's the thing. Our generation of humans isn't unique. The mankind lives with ideas through all its life and history, and as a kind, from generation to generation, we live with ideas about better future and how to live the right way and how not to

live the wrong way. Depending on the country, constitution of society and cultural background, ideas are different in every time period. But actually, they are all the same. About some mythical bright future. And I have a question. Why don't we still live in that bright and better future? On the one hand, our modern life is a paradise for every human being of XVIII or XIX century. No joking. We're living in paradise. We have hot water, central heating, medicine, social security and tik-tokers. Isn't it a paradise? If you're born in V century, you're living in the middle

of nowhere' you have only your family or some Residents of your commune or village, that's all. And those 15, 20, even 200 people are most likely all the people you would see through your whole life. The only new contacts you could have are those bunches of alien men with bows and swords that could ride upon you at any moment, and slaughter or sell in slavery all of you. And even in the X or XV century, life didn't differ dramatically. The matters of medicine were even simpler. If you have an ache, you have two ways out.

First, do not pay attention and pray for you not to die. Second, cut it off. And you wouldn't necessarily live after that. But that was the matter of what you believe more, in our dear Lord or in the wood saw. That's the perfect tool to work with my ex, you know. Today, we live in the world where you have a grocery store in your house, and if you're too lazy, the delivery guy would bring it all. Everything you could be in need of is always accessible. You could earn money while sitting in your kitchen in

your underwear. You can drive a car or fly a plane, we have actual trains riding underground every minute so that you could reach your favorite places in the city with comfort. And if something is wrong, You always have phone numbers of social services; you can reach them, and they will help you. Actually, we live such a life that our grandparents couldn't even imagine. As well as our stories about our travels. Today, all of us are like, who's on Bali, who's in Thailand, who's in Turkey, who's in Europe. And 80 years ago, the travel was like,

I went to the neighboring village, and I saw a cow udder that was that large! And if you look closely around you, you couldn't notice many People who are perfectly happy. Only a few are really happy, I'd say. And they'd rather tell a fucking lie. And if a person is too joyful and happy, just like that, by themselves, that's not a reason to be jealous. That's some suspicious shit and a strong reason to call an ambulance because that person is obviously going nuts. They're up to some joy! In our times, hello, do you copy!? We're

permanently depressed, permanently tired, and hardly anything could bring us joy. Instead of enjoying life with our loved ones together, we often want to be alone so that no one could bother us. We are afraid to tell about our feelings. We don't know what we're living for. And so, we live our ground-hog day year after year, deadening inner pain with TV-series, scrolling social media, impulsely buying of some useless shit in the Internet and watching porn. And yes, some delivery guy with sushi can't help you with those problems. Even if he brings you a gift set for

your repost. And so, on the one hand, we have visible progress. And on the other hand, things seem to have gotten worse. Why is it so? Because we are not fierce and frantic enough while following the right ideas about bright future? Or perhaps, all those ideas could go to hell, and we could begin to live, finally? Although, refusing an idea and living - that's also a fucking idea! It turns out, there's no other way for us. We are forced to defend and fight for those ideas we believe for some reason, through the whole life. And

we believe that's the only way of arranging progress; and that we're actually getting close to that bright future. Or could it be that we're just digging our grave even deeper with all this fuss? You hardly expected such words in this video. Perhaps, some of you are like, why are you so philosophical, Bottled? This is a car channel! Hello, hunk-hunk! Give us an interesting story about those cars riding here and there and engineers inventing them, not all of this stuff. What did I open my chips for? Why do you spoil my evening? Fair enough. Fair point.

But here's the question. Do you think that the car world that is made up of exactly The same people like you and me is living by some other rules? And no one of those people fights for their ideas inside the car world? And there are never any conflicts or intersection of interests? And it's never the case that someone comes to a fine pass? And it's never the case that someone could pay with his life for some idea? Everything I can say at the moment is that I definitely have an interesting Rolling R Story for you

today. And after watching it, you would see this world a bit different. I promise you that. And honestly, humanwise, I look at you with admiring envy. And I don't want to rain on your parade so much that there Won't be any standard preview, like "today you'll know". Today, you'll get a buzz.This matters the most. Happy diving! Asafiev. Rolling R Stories Divine Integration Yes, everything is ready. Yes, parts are already here, alright. You may come. I'm waiting. Hello... Hello, I'm Yuri. Yuri Moneykin. Vegetarian, numismatist, and I don't like the purple color. I have an appointment in

your service. Yes, that's right, you have an appointment for today. Volkswagen Tiguan. Maintenance, replacing of brakes and the wheel. Right? Yes, yes, I remember. But first, let us settle the transaction. There's no need, that would be after we finish all the repair... ...work. What is this? My payment. I counted everything. Everything we will do. I checked in the Internet, that would be 30 rubles and 40 kopecks cheaper than in other services. And what does the kopeck? It makes rubles take care of themselves. Yes, but you have a Kazakhstan tenge and Turkish lira. Small but precious.

By the way, do you have an imported oil? I don't need it. I have my one. I filtered my old oil and added a half-liter of the new one. The ready oil. Oh my God. Oil? Oil. 5 litres saving. Interesting saving. The most economical economy. And also, I can pay you with gift certificates or what else you accept here. For now, I see a bunch of coins and some strange gift cards. And if you had the Tinkoff Drive card, you could have paid for the repairs, and some money would have returned to you. What do

you wanna say? I could save some money, couldn't I? Yes, and without all that fuss. With Tinkoff drive, you don't only get to 1% cashback for every purchase, you could also get 5% cashback for purchasing parts and car accessories. And also, 5% cashback would return to you after paying fines and parking fees. And also, there's 10% cashback after buying CMTPL in Tinkoff Insurance and in every car insurance service at all. And also, 10% cashback for buying some things on fuel station. Fuel included. It's quite a fortune! Well, yes. And so you could spare up to

25,000 bonuses per year. 1 bonus is 1 ruble. By the way, it's the cost of a tire set or some average maintenance. What should I do with it? I just take the card and tap it, and money come back in the app, right? Yes, just tap the card, and money will return to your account. And you will receive up to 1% cashback for all your purchases by card. Moreover, in the Tinkoff Bank app, you will see offers from the partners of the bank. In order to maintain your car with profits, one Tinkoff Drive card is

enough. Book the card per link in description, and the promocode ASAFEV1000 will return 1,000 rubles to you while spending 3,000 rubles and more. Hurry, every detail is in description. You could use cashback to earn back your money-box. Don't worry. I stole it. Rolling R Stories November 17, 1986. France, Paris, the Montparnasse district. The prestige residential area Boulevar Edgar-Quinet. About 8 p.m., local residents heard some strange bangs outside. Just like fireworks. But what fireworks could be displayed on Monday evening? When people peeked outside, They saw several people running along the street, two prams standing on the

roadway, and something unidentified lying on the sidewalk. They realized quite soon that it was a man with four bullet wounds to the chest lying on the sidewalk. Security perimeter, police, cameras of reporters and ambulance were not slow in coming, of course. There was a crowd on the empty street right away, made of shocked people, journalists, onlookers, law enforcement and other riffraff. But among those people who happened To be on the crime scene, literally 20 minutes after shooting, there was Jacques Chirac, the mayor of Paris at that time. And in the nearest future, Prime Minister and

President of France. The first question, right away. Why did Jacques Chirac arrive at the crime scene? It's clear that Paris is a capital of the state, a multimillion city, and murders happen in it as in any other place on the planet, on an all too regular basis. But the mayor of the city would hardly rush for each and every one of them so swiftly. And even if he would, what would he do out there? I don't think it's fun for the mayor of the city, looking at newly-minted clients of the local morgue at nights. Obviously,

if the mayor of the city abandoned all his matters and soft sleep, and rushed out there, the matter would be serious. And yes, it was. Because the man lying on the ground was called Georges Besse. At that moment, he was merely the head of Renault. One of the most influential and famous executives in the country. The capital of one of the main European countries; the prestige neighborhood that had housed Pablo Picasso, Henry Miller, Ernest Hemingway, Marc Chagall, and A bunch of other respected people. And right in the middle of the street, some unknown guys very

easily killed one of the most important high-ranking functionaries of the national business. The very idea that something like that was possible, that someone could just kill one of the high-ranking leaders just in the middle of the street - no one could even think about it. Nemtsov, to begin with. As I've already said, at the time of the murder, Georges Besse was the head of Renault. Not one of them but the very main chief that could be. His being said, he assumed His office not so long ago, in January 1985. That means he had been in

his office only 21 month, less than 2 years. And here's the question: why did somebody want to kill a head of a car corporation? I could understand when somebody kills famous politicians or, for example, druglords. And here's a company that produces cheap hatchbacks, the national company. Yes, it's large. Yes, with a lot of money. And it would be one thing if Besse was the owner of Renault, and after his death, there could be some shady activities with his heritage, change of management, And steamrolling of a competitor. But the company was national. And although Besse was

in a high position, he was a simple hire. He wasn't even a stockholder. Just a manager. Yes, he was smart and effective. But nevertheless, if one was killed, another would be put into place. But! If everything was so easy, something tells me I wouldn't be telling you this story now. And so, let us look a little bit closer. Chapter I. Files for the Murderers and the Victim At first sight, Georges was a pretty dull and boring man, and not a proper person for our documentaries. Because, if being absolutely honest, between us girls, a man was

killed - and to hell with him. A man was killed, nothing new! It happens to everyone. But the closer I looked at some details, the more questions appeared in my head. Although he was a visible person in the scale of the country, more or less, I couldn't find very much information about him. Even in French sources. He was born to the family of a locksmith in 1927; he entered the Engineering College to be an engineer, and after that, he studied in the Paris School of Mines. The most part of his life, he worked in mining

enterprises, as engineer at first, a small executive after that, and a normal executive further on. A bit remarkable was the fact that he was assistant general manager of CIT-Alcatel in 1954. Alcatel, if you remember, that was a cellphone brand in the early 2000s. That was the same thing but with one small remark; Alcatel is a giant corporation that originally produced entire Telecommunications as such, since the XIX century. Cables, telegraphs, phones, wires, communication centers, and so on. And at some point, just like Siemens, for example, they began to produce everything they could lay their hands upon.

At some point, they've been producing even trains. 1964-1974, Besse was in the head management of Alcatel. He was actually in operations, and he worked on improvement of business processes, optimization, and other boring things. 1974-1985, he worked as general manager in mining and energetic sector, nothing interesting. And in 1985, he was made the head of Renault. And he was killed 2 years later. That's it, that's his whole biography. Not kidding. Well, perhaps, he went on vacation a couple times in his life. Who killed him and why? Who was displeased with a manager of a national corporation?

Where do you look for killers? Not clear. But after the murder, a few days later, widely scattered leaflets appeared all around Paris, and those leaflets said that the responsibility for the murder was held by some terroristic group Actione Directe. It means, direct action. They couldn't be more direct, actually. Aside of slogans, those leaflets said that terrorists from that group killed Bessе for his crimes against the working class and for his exploitation of the same working class. And at that point, I'm like, okay. Exploitation of workers, I like it! Give it to me, we're going to

dig in that direction. Because all those things together smell like a giant piece of shit, and I love something like that. Meet Jean Marc Rouillan, Georges Cipriani, Nathalie Ménigon and Joëlle Aubron. The thought leaders and heads of Action Directe. Technically, those were far-left anarchists who professed the theory of permanent revolution. In understandable terms, that meant that whatever social structure existed, whatever order or whatever hierarchy existed, that was some absolute shit. If there was any social ladder where someone could be higher than the other, that had to be bombed down, definitely. Because any hierarchy, any governance,

any rules with laws were just horrible, horrible things. And if there was a glimpse of money out there somewhere, everyone should be shot down, buried in the ground, And you should take a big pile of crap on their grave. That's all. That's enough. That was the idea. What had to be built later instead of the destroyed system? Those guys didn't mention that, of course. If you look at the literature published by those gifted people - and I looked at it right away - it's just impossible to find even some little piece of common sense, that's

for sure. For example, here's a quote from one book. "We have to join forces and stand against the floods of lies and swearing vomited by the cowardly bourgeoisie And those traitors who fear our vengeance." And other 200 pages of such shit. If you want to go nuts in some Sunday evening, I recommend it; you'd have fun in the mental facility later. What did those guys do technically? Covering with ideologic slogans with very unclear formulations, like the whole society were rotten and demanded serious changes, they threw bombs into national buildings, into airports, into road junctions; also

they attacked police departments and robbed banks. Wait, sorry. They didn't rob banks but they expropriated dirty money of the bourgeoisie Profitted off the exploitation of workers. That's the right definition. In human words, they robbed banks. I should say, Action Directe wasn't the only European terrorist organization of that time period. Beginning with the late 1960s and until the moment that we're interested with, the late 1980s, there was a whole bunch of similar organizations in Europe. The Basque Country and freedom in Spain. The Irish Republican Army and the Ulster Defence Association in Northern Ireland. Red Brigades in

Italy, Red Army Fraction, and so on. There was a fricking bunch of them. Altogether, there were several dozens of them. And all of them now joined their forces, now fought, now went to war because someone had not so ideal ideals like everyone else. And it's a real mess of that ideological nonsense, and the devil himself would wrack his brain trying to understand what those guys meant. Beside their wish to kill you. That was pretty clear. But if you'd try to explain any basic principle of all those fuckers, I mean, horrible terrorists, then each group invented

their own idea, some ideal that had to be looked forward to. The ideal could mean everything at all, from some new world order till right washing the dishes clockwise. Whatever. But you mustn't wash dishes counterclockwise by any means, because this is the method human wrecks and our enemies! After the ideal is defined and in some crooked way formulalted, you draw the white line through all the people. And those who don't feel those puppy feelings for your ideals, get some granades into their hallway. And all of those who stand on the other side of the line

get some guns to wage your sacred war in the name of the Spaghetti Monster. There is nothing in the middle. You're either with us or against us. Modern radical feminists are the same piece of trash, just like it. Just change the exploitation and oppression of workers for exploitation and oppression of women, and that would be the same thing, with the same formulations, only adapted for modern times a bit. Like, you should click a "like" if you're with us. And that's it. But if we talk about Action Directe specifically, they had about 80 acts for about

8 years to their name. Use some simple math, and there were 10 acts a year. Practically, each month during 8 years, those guys created a stir with their acts somewhere. And it's not some peas in the store bought on sales. But some attack, bomb exploding, robbery - that was typical Tuesday for the French. Although, the bomb because of the peas from the store could be also very serious, you know. During those 8 years, those guys were responsible for about 120 human victims. I should say that making 80 different raids and not getting caught is not

a simple task. I should do them justice. You have to think your operation through. You have to get explosives and weapons. You have to find allies and like-minded people, Pull off the attack and leave the crime scene in such a way that they wouldn't catch you and that you wouldn't catch a police bullet. And doing that on a constant basis - well, there's a knack. And according to their results, those guys were good. As they wrote in their memoirs - and I've read those fruits of sick phantasies - training was the necessary routine for all

the members of the group. Something about 150-200 people in different time periods. The members had been training on shooting ranges, running long distances and learning the extreme car driving on special training grounds so that they could have all the chances to get off their chasers. The first question that appeared in my head was, how did they train? Who instructed them? You can't train your shooting skills and extreme driving skills on a constant basis in such a way so that you wouldn't get any attention. You can't come to some school and say, "Guys! We need your

training ground and instructors. Here's the deal, you should chase us, and we would drive away while shooting off. Yeah, right. Why do we need that? Don't sweat. Those are our family ways of entertainment. By the way, we have a big family. That crowd of 150 bearded men. Do you have any women?" I failed to dig out some precise information, but the leaders wrote in their memoirs that they'd been training in some fields, woods and marches under the cover of the night. And the money for cars and weapons came from that loot they got in the

banks. Romantic is great, of course, but I don't believe that just as a businessman. If a large group of people produces results of their activities in a sustained and projected way, that means that everything out there is greatly regulated and tuned-up. Obviously, without some serious connection networks that could support all of that commotion, it would be impossible to pull off something like that. Obviously, there had to be some agent network, too, here and there, that could help you to do anything at all. In their memoirs, I was able to dig out only cordial thanks to

their brothers in arms and passionate people. Okay, fine, let's suppose. No matter, it's obvious that all the members of the organization were more like well-trained gunmen than a crowd of careless students with romantic ideals because it was quite impossible to catch them. And in occasional shootings with the police, only policemen were killed, and there were almost no victims among the terrrorist. That fact also confirmed they had been seriously trained. Such combat training would hardly be possible When you were just thumbing books in the basement or running through marshes. But although that organization had been doing

terror for 8 years, and no one could catch them, after Georges Besse's murder, their leaders were caught as a whole, and they surrendered without a fight. Literally, when people came for them, the leaders were just sitting and waiting for them to be arrested. They didn't shoot back, they didn't take hostages, they didn't try to explode themselves; they were just sitting in the kitchen. That's another weird thing. For 8 years, you've been waging war with the regime, Killing people, killing the police. And when they come for you, you're like, "Okay, that's it, you caught me, attaboys.

You're cootie now." Somehow, the police nosed out that the four leaders were sitting on some farm in the Parisian suburbs. Special forces appeared on the scene right away, a whole bunch of people with guns, and they took that barn by assault. The apprehension of the terrorists was being broadcast on all channels. Journalists of the main TV-channels of the country were on the helicopter live and shot everything that was happening. Because helicopters were so inconspicuous That they could never, ever spook the criminals. They were sitting in their house, suspecting nothing; then, they heard some strange noise,

and saw a helicopter coming for them, through the window, and special forces, too, and they were like, "It's time to drink some coffee!" Investigatory interviews made it clear how the murder was performed specifically. Two women, Nathalie Ménigon and Joëlle Aubron, were going along the street with prams, and weapon was hidden in those prams. Jean Marc Rouillan and Georges Cipriani were standing with motorcycles in the adjoining neighborhood, in a pre-agreed place. By the way, that idea to hide weapons inside prams - my respect! Even if police squads were going through the city, they couldn't even think

that 2 friends with prams who were just taking a walk along the street were really some terrorists who were going to kill a man. It was just impossible. Of course, the killers knew Besse' schedule: at what time he came home, where he lived, and so on. Although he was a high-ranking executive, he didn't have any security. Georges Besse had a usual driver who drove him home, put him off and drove home. And as soon as the car pulled off, two pretty girls with prams came up to Besse, and put out some firearms; they shot 4

bullets point-blank and broke into a run. And while the street was just trying to understand what happened, the criminals were already leaving on bikes in the unknown direction. During the investigation, the terrorists didn't deny anything. They confessed everything and continued to hold the frame as if they were some sacred fighters with the rotten system, and they didn't give up on their views; like, they did everything right and didn't have any regrets. And those guys got their fill out. They went to some special maximum security prison, and I didn't hear about those things before. Each one

had more 20 years prison sentence or even a life sentence; and not just in any cell. Each one was held on a separate floor in a teeny-tiny cell detached from the world, without any chance whatever to communicate with anyone at all. The prison personnel was also prohibited to communicate with prisoners. I must say, this is a whole new kind of brutal. Even in our prisons, even with maximum security, You are allowed to have short-term visitations by your relatives. And in the large majority of cases, long-term visitations are also allowed. You may get parcels and wrappers,

you may write letters, and so on. You even live in your cell not alone, very often, and that's important because you communicate with people anyway. Yes, the question of crowd exists. But during a long time in prison, you would make some connections with your inmates. And humanwise, it would be easier to endure your penance. And those people were stripped of all of this. No visitations, no parcels, no communication. You're sitting alone on the entire floor, and it's brutal. And weird. And the official history of Action Directe ends at that point, seemingly. Those guys made some

shit, they got what they deserved at full, and that seemed to be all. The story was quite clear. Actually, you will find such an explanation of the situation if you'd read the first Yandex page about Georges Besse' murder. And at first sight, you couldn't even find any fault. But it wasn't enough for me. 2 questions bothered me. The first question: why Georges Besse was killed exactly, and not someone else? The operation was planned exactly against him, and they wanted to kill him,and only him, not someone else from the Renault management or someone from other large

company. And the second question: why did the government bother after his death and catch the criminals who were hopelessly elusive for 8 years? That's why we need to unravel the context and to find out the following: what strange things happened in Renault at that time? Why is it exactly Georges Besse who was made to its leader? After all, we should find out what horrible crimes against the working class he managed to pull during his 2 years of ruling? Divine Integration Did you even think about the fact How many smartphones a year is sold in Russia?

A million, perhaps? Or even 10 million? You may not Google it. Totally, they sell about 25 million pieces per year. Think about it: people in our country buy 25 million new smartphones every year. But here's a question: what do you do with your previous ones? More often than not, you put them to the same boxes and put away into the farthest drawer. Provided that those phones are often pretty new and work perfectly, and they have now flaws. Sometimes, they even have cover-ups. But such smartphones are easily sold on Avito. The common cause why people don't

sell their phones is their price. Like, what could I sell it for? Who would buy it from me? And so on. But this problem can be solved now. Those guys made their own calculator of smartphone cost estimating. In this calculator, you could mark your city of residence, brand, model, condition, and other information about your smartphone. And Avito, based on the statistics and similar ads, would offer you the trade For example, I have an iPhone 12 ProMax. And also, I have an 11 ProMax that I used before. Let's assume, I would like to sell it. We

open the calculator, choose all the parameters - that's it! Now we know that the selling range of that phone is 43,000 - 49,000 rubles. The cost estimating takes a couple of minutes, literally. And when you know the price, another couple of minutes will be spent creating an ad about your ware. By the way, you could add the delivery to your ad so that your phone could be sold not only in your city but all over Russia. The link for the calculator of cost estimating is in description. Don't keep your gadgets in the drawer; people wait

for them on Avito! Rolling R Stories Chapter II. Industrial Empire Renault is a giant corporation not only by car inustry standards but in general. What's important for our narrative, it's one of the largest tax payers in France. Traditionally, that brand's been dragging all the way the glory of the producer of small and low-budget city hatchbacks. And in the modern world, beginning with the late 1990s and till that day, Renault's been trying every way possible to get away from that reputation. But this stamp sticks to the brand as seriously as my ex liked to be on

meth. Relax, that's a joke. My ex liked to sit on my face, of course. Being on meth. After the World War II,in 1947, when Renault was already under control of the state, this car came out, Renault 4CV. That was the last car the founder of the company, Louis Renault, managed to take a hand in. It was a great man with a very complicated fate. We spoke about him in our documentary about the French car industry. Check it out, you'll like it. So, 4CV. Technically, it was the direct competitorand tracing of the Volkswagen Beetle. The simplest,

cheapest and safest little car that perfectly responded the inquiries of the post-war times. Half of the planet was lying in ruin, just like the whole economy was, Half of the planet was lying in ruin, just like the whole economy was, and meanwhile, people were trying to recover themselves and to think how to return to their normal human lives after all of that. That's why those ultra cheap and simple cars were the only thing people could afford back then. Although, I must say, even the French couldn't afford such cars because only 37,000 cars were sold in

1947-1949; and that result was pretty far enough from the intended one. But the economic situation in the country was so fucked-up after the war that even a bicycle seemed to be a real luxury. But the factory delivered on the task to make already elementary construction even simpler and cheaper, and reduced the price for 20%. And as the economy of France began to move around a little to the 1950s, the sales rose up, actually. The 4CV left the assembly line in 1961, i.e. the car was being produced for 14 years, and 1.1 million of cars were

sold throughout that time. At that moment, the 4CV became the first French car that reached through the mark of 1 million sold pieces. Renault 4CV was replaced in 1961 by that pretty monster that was called simply Renault 4. That was the first front drive Renault vehicle in history; and it was built in such a way so the car had to be like jeans. It had to be cheap, comfortable and cross functional. And it had to be the perfect choice both for the cityand for the countryside; both for weekdays and for weekends; both for men and

for women. And if a hole emerged in the body of the car, you could also say that was fashion. I must admit, those jeans were a success. To say the least, they fit a very large amount of asses, And that was already some great achievement. There's nothing worse in the whole world for me than buying jeans. If I had to choose my occupation for eternity if it wasburning on the pan or trying on jeans, I would vote for Putin. 1961-1994, the car was on the assembly line; it was being produced in 28 countries and sold

in any hicksville all over the planet where there was any sign of car market. And during 33 years - age of Jesus! - the assembly line produced more than 8 million cars. Renault 4 is the most popular French car and one of the most popular cars on the planet in general. And together with Renault 4, Renault 16 was being produced. That is the same hatchback, only larger and more respectable that occupied the assembly line in 1965-1980. Renault sold another 2 million cars like those. And there was Renault 5, too, and 5.5 million of those cars

were sold all over the world. It's a bit different hatchback. And no matter what car Renault was producing in the 1960-1980s, they made a hatchback in any case, and In any case, it was sold by millions. I think if some woman would have gotten pregnant on the Renault factory at that time, she would have also produced a hatchback to be sold all over the world. Anyway, runs were certain, and there was certain amount of money, too, as we could easily guess. And whatever cute and mediocre those little cars might have seemed, Renault built its own

empire on them. In the 1970s, Renault owned dozens of factories in different parts of the world; totally, hundreds of thousands people worked in those companies all over the world. But Renault produced not only hatchbacks but also commercial cars, Busses and so on and so forth. Before the World War II, they were making trains and tanks. On the wave of success and owning a great amount of resources, Renault began to throw money right and left and created their own racing teams in Rally, Touring, Formula 1 - in order to dominate in each and every department that

was connected to cars, one way or another. In each kind of racing, there was different level of success. For example, for 8 years in Formula 1, Renault managed to take the second place among racing teams only once. And a huge amount of money was pouring down there. Why Renault, the mass producer of hatchbacks, needed car sports so much, especiallyFormula-1? This question is practically rhetorical because most companies join car sports just for one reason: to cling with their balls out there for a high price. Like, look what we can do! But Renault had its logic. The

company needed a very high-quality PR of its brand. "Making cheap hatchbacks isn't the only thing we can do. Actually, we are a strong and high-technology car company, really, and this company can achieve success anywhere and defeat anyone." They wanted to get respect for the Renault brand, Because aside from car sports and other sham, there was the most ambitious and the main project that demanded to strain all the company resources. That project was to enter the fattest car market in the world - the American market. We do know that some little hatchback wasn't the thing Americans

wanted to buy at that time. And if you're directly associated with a producer of small and cheap cars, you'd hardly find success on the American market. Because in the 1960-1970s, the US market was dominated by long and wide cars with the V8 under the hood. And it's always painful and scary, To go to the places with something long and dominating, if you know what I mean. Of course, Renault tried to sell their usual cars on the Americal market. But comparing to the rest of the world, the sales in the USA were so tiny that it

was a real shame. Especially when contrasted with the Volkswagen Beetle that was being sold in the US in their millions. And later, Toyota and Hyundai came to the USA with their rice waggons. And here, we have to remember the context of what was happening in the world and in the American market in the 1970s. If you don't remember, don't worry, I'll remind you. I'm not sitting here just because. And all of that happened because OPEC members - those guys who produce oil - refused to ship the oil to the USA and to the West for

low prices. And they said, they'd got power and would decide for themselves, how much oil and for what money they would sell. The prices skyrocketed, everyone was shocked. It wasn't clear how to provide energy for countries. It wasn't clear how to produce electricity. It wasn't clear where to get gas. They had to spare but sparing was failing. That's was a nightmare. For common US citizen, it looked like that: they couldn't buy gas on any gas station. And even if it was there, it costed like 3 horses. And with those prices, horses were more preferrable. In

Europe, the governments limited usage of personal means of transportation, reduced heating, asked everyone to ride bicycles and stay at home in sweaters. 50 years passed, nothing changed, all the same entertainment. But when your gas is expensive and isn't always present, then some giant muscle car with 30 liters fuel consumption isn't the thing you wanted to find in your garage. Although, standing in garage was just fine, but you wouldn't want to drive that thing. It was obvious for everyone that The US car market was looking to global restructuring and redivision of the market. And that's what

happened. The Big Three of American car producers - i.e. Ford, GM and Chrysler - didn't know how to compete. And they couldn't quickly redesign for the new reality and offer some actual cars with small fuel consumption rate. They failed, and they paid for that with their market share, and VAG and the Japanese hijacked that share quickly and quietly. And also, the Americans paid with Detroit which was the industrial capital of the world but, literally after 10 years, it turned into the most dangerous and criminalized ruins in the country. So, Renault wanted to participate in that

commotion very much, and to bite the share of the richest and most premium market in the world of the Big Three. But they already fucked up the competition in small cars to Volkswagen. Plus, no one needed the Renault brand as it was. And it seemed that the situation was stalemate. This way and that, but burger men still went and bought their cars off your competitors. And if an American needed a normal car, they went to the Big Three. If they needed an economy-type and safe car, they went to Volkswagen and to the Japanese. But Renault

wanted to go to the American market so much that they were like... "Well, they have the Big Three, yes? Okay, let's suppose. But those aren't the only companies in the country. They aren't just 3, right? Right. Is there a fourth company out there? There is. Okay, perhaps, we buy it? How much money? A lot? Well, we have just the amount, no more no less, just a lot of money. What paper do we sign?" And in such a way, the merge of Renault and American Motor Company began. A.k.a. AMC. Divine Integration Okay, let's cut that piece,

and that oneshould be pulled. Or erased, already? Or not... Okay, I don't know about you but I definitely need some coffee. You too, actually. Which minute of timing is it? About 43? You have 2 hours agead. Actually, we have it simple with coffee here. We drink it. A lot. Of course, everyone has different taste. Some drink with grain milk, some drink with usual milk. But the main feature - it must be delicious. And it could be delicious only with fresh beans. And where are fresh beans? That's right, Tasty Coffee has it. We found out about

Tasty Coffee this year when we made our first integration. Before that, we heard about them, but to be fair, we went on with single-serve coffee containers in the office. Until the moment we received an entire box with goods of all kinds. And that was it. Actually, Tasty Coffee makes coffee in different kinds. They have beans, ground coffee, drip bags. Drip bags are such bags you hook on the mug, pour some boiling water - and everything is ready. Not a literal instruction but you got the point. The main thing is, we prefer beans. Because it's important

to have beans freshly ground. While coffee is brewing, I'll add a couple of techical moments on work statement. Tasty Coffee has more than 50 sorts on their website We have Kenia today. But in our reserve, we have Ethiopia, Brazil, and so on. On their site, those guys have also teas, accessories, articles about coffee and many other useful things. But it isn't the main thing. The main thing is their work. And they work 7 days a week. Just like us. And they roast coffee exactly on the day of the order. Yes, Tasty Coffee don't roast their

coffee beforehand and don't storage it in packages for months. If you made your order on Wednesday, they would roast beans, package them and send it to delivery on the same Wednesday. The package will go to you whatever region of Russia you were in. That is that. One more moment. 95% of orders are sent free. And if you don't like anything, they'll either send you another order or bring your money back. But you'll like it. Chop-chop, put your powdered-coffee aside, and click the link in description to choose the right coffee. By the way, don't forget to

use РЕНО promocode to get a discount. That promocode is termless. Even if you live in 2023 right now, it will work anyway. And we will work, too. What's that? Chapter Three? Let's go. Rolling R Stories Chapter III. In Defiance Of Common Sense How could I put it in brief what AMC looked like? Imagine, there are real and normal German cars. Something like Porsche, BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen. And there's Opel. And imagine, there isn't one Opel in Germany but ten of them. And each of those 10 Opels is horrible in their own way. One of them specializes

on the most fucked-up engines. One of those Opel skillfully produces the most crooked mounting. And someone has a whole department of blind designers with their hands shaking because of arthritis, and they draw what they draw. And there are 10 of those companies. It's a real car Mordor with orcs on vectors. The whole nine yards. Only not Mordor but Mordopel. And AMC was about just like that. AMC means American Motor Corporation, and technically, that company was a catch-all soup made from those guys Who couldn't manage to exist alone. Just like modern car alliances only it was

really fucked up. Originally, there was the Nash company that was selling middling cars for middle class. And their volume of sales was also middling. And that was just in the middle of the time period between the World War I and the World War II. Those guys liked to be in the middle, actually. Although, at the beginning of the World War II, it became obvious that the middling strategy would bring the company only to the position in the middle of some buttcheeks. Perfect place in the ass. As soon as they realized all that magnificence, of nothing

else than buying the controlling sharethose guys thought of the home appliance manufacturer, Kelvinator. Like Terminator but the kitchen version. Because Kelvinator mostly produced fridges. And as a matter of fact, that was a luxury article at the end of the first half of the XX century. I think, that logic was awesome. Is the fridge made of iron? Of iron. You put it on the floor, you add some wheels, you make the door more comfortable - And you can't distinguish it from the typical American car. Don't you dare laugh out there or giggle, like, Americans are dumb.

Did you see the ZiL fridge by your granny's? You did. Did you see the ZiL car? You did. Are they different? Yes, not so much. The only difference is that with the fridge, only your hand is cold when you put it in there, and when you see the ZiL car, this sight is a real thrill. I'm joking now, of course. Nash was a real visible car company, and Kelvinator was a real cool manufacturer of kitchen appliances. Originally, before the World War II, their collaboration included that Kelvinator invented the foretype of the modern climate control for

cars. And thanks to their common budgets, they began to produce cars with such units inside. And that technology was a real breakthrough. And then, around 1960, some engineer from Nash realized how to make a bed inside a car. The back couch could lay out and became an almost smooth bed, and you had the access into your trunk so that you could stretch your legs out there. And in the car with such an interior composition, the regulated climate control that could cool the air was a very important function, If you know what I mean. Anyway, those

guys. They merged into one company in 1937, and they called themselves Nash Kelvinator. That's right. Concurrently, there was the Hudson company in Detroit. It appeared before the World War I, in 1909, and before the end of the World War II in 1945, it didn't stand out. Everyone in Detroit was producing cars, and Hudson was producing them, too. And it did it so marvelously that I couldn't Even tell you anything about it. Everything changed for Hudson in 1946 when NASCAR and drug racing began to evolve in the country like hell. Hudson couldn't compete with the Big

Three in general, and that's why they decided to become a symbol of American car racing and began to participate in each and every race they could get into. The racing community became fond of them really quickly; plainly because those guys happily gave them cars and poured down money into the car racing regularly. And Hudson became really popular among the whole racing community. But in a racing delirium, those guys forgot that car racing was expensive; and that you should get into it when you stand on your feet very steadily. Or else, you could tear down something

inside you. Financial balance, at least. And your investor would tear down your ass later. And when everything that had seams was cracking by Hudson someone cried out of the fridge driving by, "Guys! Go do some business!" Why, it's fresh, Hudson executives thought, and they merged with Nash Kelvinator. Thankfully, guys did have the good sense to choose a real name, not something like Nash-Hudson-Kelvinator or Nationator. All those fellas changed their name plainly for AMC. Later on, they happily picked up Kaiser Jeep that was lying on the roadside - that was the company that had been producing

military Willys-Overland. They also took in some pieces from the corpse of Packard that went bankrupt in the 1950s, and a couple of really small manufacturers. And all that gang together presented itself as the fourth car company in the USA after the Big Three. They were beaten, dented, and non-competitive as each of them separately but they were strong because they were together. That was the state of things in the company. Of course, Renault would have wanted to see them all but there was no one else to see. And they had to buy those guys. Why am

I telling you all this? By 1978, the year of signing any agreements between the companies at all, Renault and AMC were in absolutely different positions. By the late 1970s, Renault was in good condition. They had large circulations; they had money they were ready to invest into some future projects and into car racing. And AMC crawled on its knees to make a deal, ass ahead. The energy crisis brought down every car company in the US; But first and foremost, it pounded small companies the most, and AMC in particular. The Big Three was directly supported by the

state. If they began to stagger, people threw money back at them and helped them to stay up. And no one poured down anything on AMC. The only help they could get were loan deferrals. That was all. But in order to service your loans, you had to sell something. And that was tough. Since 1976, the company had operated at a loss. They'd been losing 50-70 million dollars a year. Plus, the late 1970s were the spring of ecological movement, introduction of first Standards and emission limitation, and when your company is sinking, like at all, the last thing

you want to think is developing of new types of fuel systems and engines so that bunnies were happier to jump on grass. And that's why AMC just blew off all the limitations and produced cars without any changes. And they paid for that. In 1978, the Environmental Protection Agency demanded to withdraw all the AMC cars that had been launched in 1976. I.e. 310,000 cars. And to file them till perfection so that their emission could fit the new ecological standards. And the file was needed because AMC didn't have anything else. They needed about 3 million dollars for

re-equipment. With modern money, it's about 15 million dollars. You could think, that was a small amount by standards of large companies. But still, it was more than the quarterly nett profit of AMC at that time period. As the result, by 1978, the market share of AMC was smaller than 2% of total amount of cars being sold in the country. Plus, the company was deeply in debt. Plus, it operated at a loss, and shareholders Hadn't seen any dividends for 4 years already. One may ask, why the fuck Renault needed all that magnificence? At that moment, it

would seem that throwing money out of the window was more sensible than investing it into such a company. But there was something sacred inside AMC, still. That was a jeep the whole company hinged on, basically. That jeep was the only profittable brand of AMC, and Renault wanted to buy it in the first place, actually. But it was impossible to buy the jeep off AMC because everything else would momentarily collapse. And because of that, they ahd to negotiate with that crowd of orcs. So, look: you are Renault, and you need the US market outlet you couldn't

get into so easily. In order to get into the market and to be some competitor in terms of price, you have to produce cars inside the country if you want to sit in the lower or middle price segment. Renault didn't even dream about the premium. And building your factory is very expensive; it's super fuckety-fucking expensive. As if you would take out a mortgage to buy a whole section of the building in March 2022. And even if you build it, there is no guarantee that your production would Find a quick sale because your brand is unknown

in the country. You see some pretty big company that is crawling on the floor in death throes, but inside that company, there is a brand that inspires hope. And that brand, that jeep, it's already has its factory, and it's already found a quick sale by the residents of the country. That brand has history, everyone knows and respects it, everything's cool. What to you have to do? You can't buy the jeep separately, they wouldn't allow it. And the whole company with a fricking bunch of brands doesn't mean shit for you. But as you can't buy the

jeep separately, You have to savethe whole company, all of it. Because if AMC dies, it would drag the jeep into their grave altogether. And you can't put a hold on your decision. When someone big begins to moan and to go west, a bunch of vultures would always gather around their corpse, wanting to plunder their assets and productive capacity and to steal some market share. I'll tell you what Renault did. They decided to give money to the company to cover their operating depts to keep it afloat, and that was 150 million dollars, plus 50 million with

line of credit. With modern money, it's a whole bunch of cash. And also, they gave them the manufacturing license for Renault 5. As per Renault's calculation, by competent usage of money, those resources had to be enough to close all the holes in the financial balance in AMC, and plus, they could guarantee the profit off the production and sales of Renault 5. Eventually, AMC would stand on its feet steadier. And Renault would take the jeep and develop the new model and the new engine for it, and that would give the French the market share on the

American market they wanted. The market share on the American market. Live with those wordings, Jesus. For their money, Renault received 22.5% of the AMC share. That didn't give them the full control over the company but it gave them a fair share of future profit provided that would exist. I.e., Renault, technically, bought a quarter of the company but it stayed out of the operations management because that was a horrible pain in the ass. But still, Renault got an opportunity to make the co-operative model in order to share development costs, to launch the model to the market,

and after that, to ripe the fruits of successful sales. And as soon as AMC would fully recover its feet, Renault would take the quarter of the benefit of the whole concern to itself. Profit? Profit. But there was a small miscount in that scheme. I'll explain it in simple terms. I bet, among the whole amount of your casual friends, there is some guy who can fuck off all of his money spectacularly, plunge in debt, and later, he would look at that situation with very big, surprised eyes. That guy lives only from paycheck to paycheck, and only

in that awesome case if he has a job. And even he has a job, he manages, in some fucking way, to lend a thousand or two off anyone until the paycheck, but he promises to return those money. Spoiler: no, he won't. You could think of this money as irrevocable investments to that guy. And also, that guy has a fricking bunch of very profitable credits and loans at 30 percent interest per annum for things that are essential to his life: like a latest iPhone or a MacBook he couldn't really work without, or some super rare limited

snickers. Like, am I a sucker to go without them? And so on. And what will happen if such a guy suddenly gets some benefactor that would be like, "Bro, you're handsome! I believe in you, here's some money to pay your debts; here's some more for starters. Okay, clean up your act, grab my hand, and let's runto the new life. Success awaits us!" Of course, such benefactor is a dream of anysimilar dude. But all of us understand perfectly where that dude will happen to be in a year with such a way. Right you are, he will

get into some deeper financial ass. Because his original actions he's been committing during his life lead him there, exactly. I don't know what Renault counted on by doing the same thing as that mythical benefactor, but they did exactly what I described before. Only not with your friend-dude but with a large corporation. They just gave them money and thought that if they closed their financial hole, those guys would make it. And everything would be alright. But AMC was fucked-up not because the financial system was unfair, Or circumstances turned out that way - but because they produced

some shit on some shitty, ineffective and obsolete factories. And their production wasn't popular not because people were clueless about magnificent cars or just couldn't get a taste of them. They were just noncompetitive. That's all. No magic, no conspiracy theory. They just made shit out of shit on shit - and became what they became. That's all. No one worked upon efficiency. No one developed new technologies. No one adopted practices of other countries. Those guys were just holding out a tin cup looking pitiful and wanted for some saint to come and save them. Because they did their

best! And that saint was Renault. The first year, 1979, when agreements with Renault kicked in and investments were paid; of course, AMC proudly reported something like, well, we're doing really better now. Here are record-breaking profits for 1979, 84 million dollars. Look, what great and smart people we are! But in the next year, 1980, their floating capital for developments wasn't enough again; banks refused to extend their credit lines for some reason; and their market share continued to plummet for some reason. In 1980, their sales reduced for 19%. AMC came up to Renault again, and they were

like, we need another 90 million dollars to close a couple of little holes, and that's it. Then, we will fly! But thankfully, Renault didn't buy those songs that time because they knew that the problem was not only money. In order for all of that to have some sense, The company had to be fully rebuilt. They needed to remake all the logistic chains, to refuse those parts vendours who missed deadlines or delivered flawed articles. They needed to rebuild all the assembly lines, to make processes more effective; to fire all the lazy and bloated employees and to

hire new ones. They needed to buy modern equipment, to remake the sale system, and blah blah blah blah. As you know, the process of remaking could be even harder that building from scratch. And AMC was just the case. Because however you slice it, the company wasn't small. And inside that company, there was a catch-all soup with a bunch of brands, and each of them was ruled and controlled in its own way, organized in its own way. And they had to investigate, to stir the waters, to structurize, to invent the strategy, to roll up their sleeves

and remake it. All in all, I understand why Renault didn't want to mess with operations in the first investment round because that was a very difficult process. But nevertheless, I don't know what they counted on with just giving them money. It was clear beforehand that wouldn't work at all. And you mustn't forget that Renault also wasn't some garage store, and they had their fair share of operational pain in the ass. Also, you have to fully rebuild the non-affiliated company. But the stage was set. They decided - they had to deliver. And their wish to capture

the American market didn't go anywhere. That's why, in 1980, they signed a new agreement between Renault and AMC anyway. The French still poured down another additional 90 million dollars into the company. With modern money, this is about 300 million dollars and one tractor. But for that, Renault got 59% of AMC shares, and they technically became company owners. And in December of the same 1980, on the final meeting of AMC shareholders, all the folks up top decided to turn over the full control over the company to Renault. Like, the barn has burned down, so let the

house burn, too. We have nothing to lose. What if the French would manage to do something worthy? Well, they'd manage to build a hatchback, anyway. And you could think that everything would be fine. Yes, Renault would have to work their ass off. Yes, they had to kill tens of thousands person-hours of smart people to put AMC back on their feet. But Renault were big, successful, and they understood business strategies; and so, they would moand and groan but they'd make it. And the company also had a serious factor of safety, a lot of money, saleable cars

- it's gonna be hunky-dory! But there was a problem: despite their success and large volume of sales, not everything was so calm and cheerful in Renault. There were problems inside the company. Pretty serious problems, I should say. Although, the matters of France itself weren't so cheerful, calm and merry. Chapter IV. The Red May In truth, the French are a pretty interesting and peculiar nation. For example, American national entertainment are American football, turkey for the Thanksgiving and Sunday visits to church. Ours are barbecue for May games after we ritually burnt a straw puppet a couple months

before that, and kitchen conversations about global world structure. And the French national entertainment is coffee with croissants in the morning, and in the evening, they go wrecking their town, smashing shop-windows, turning over a couple of cars, and by the way, on their road, overthrowing their government. Such an amount of regular street demonstrations and shattered little shops in the city center is nowhere to be seen, if we take civilized countries. As those guys took the run since the French Revolution, they can't stop until this day. And they don't give a damn what they protest against. The

main thing is delight in the process. And beautifully burning cars. Yes. Jokes aside, if you just Google photos of regular property riots in Paris, it's always a very spectular sight. I wouldn't want to live in such a city, but it's a sheer pleasure to watch pictures in the Internet. And of course, in the 1960s, the 1970s, and in the 1980s, the situation wasn't any different. As for our current story, it's important to understand one thing about those folk festivals with Molotov cocktails. The late 1960s were pretty significant times for France, because in 1968, there were

protests of untold proportions all over the country. Even by French standards, they were like wow, like la fuck! And history even has a special name for those events - the Red May. At first sight, those were just fricking large protests the French were no strangers to. But in truth, it was a full scale social crisis; and eventually, that crisis resulted in the shift of power. If we'd decide to tell about specific events that happened back then, and about reasons of that bad boom, we would have another separate documentary for a couple of hours inside the

current documentary. It turns out that we should insert a documentary into the documentary so that you could watch a documentary while watching the documentary. That's right, it seems. And so, stretch your fingers, and we'd run over the key moments, just the high points. We won't miss anything important, don't worry, I'm a pro. After the World War II, France had a pretty strange government. During the war, France was divided in 2 parts. One part of the country was occupied by Nazis, it was the so-called Vichy France. And the other part would have seemed to stay the

ordinary France. After the country was liberated, they had to gather all of that anew into a united country. That period is called the French Fourth Republic that existed just after the war. And during that time, communists and socialists were at the helm of the country. Although technically, that was a bunch of strange people and rascals, and they didn't quite understand what to do with the country. Concurrently, there was Charles de Gaulle who was the war hero and the symbol of the nation liberation. He represented the opposition. He believed communism not to be an option; He

thought the country needed a strong leader who could lead the way. But by combined efforts, they put him away from power and political life, very accurately, and so he lived in the countryside and wrote his memoirs quietly. For some time, he represented some kind of opposition, he had a party, and blah blah blah, but when he realized that he was dead in the water, he said the hell with it and went to the countryside. During those 14 years When socialists and communists had power, they unleashed a murderous war in Algeria that sucked resources out of

the country and reduced its weight in the eyes of the whole world. They nationalized half of enterprises but still, they fucked up the whole economy. And the life of average people didn't become any better, at all. The country arrived at the 1960s being in a hard political crisis. At that time, there were enough reasons so that any country Would feel fucked up and in deep shit. And the weak government didn't help it in any way. The situation was so bad among the powerholders that no one could agree with anyone, and the government couldn't even form

the council of ministers. And at that moment, de Gaulle came out of his hibernation and made a fuss in the public field. He gathered his party and began active propaganda. And as the memory of the war hero was still fresh, and everyone was sick and tired with the government that couldn't handle anything beside slogans, Charles gained support, and he managed to take power into his hands. Of course, socialists did resist for quite some time, but they didn't do any shit, anything at all. And at first, de Gaulle became Prime Minister in 1958, and a year

later, in 1959, he was the President of France. De Gaulle held the office for about 10 years. He remade the half of the state machine; he rewrote the Constitution; he ended the war with Algeria, and as the result, Algeria became an independent state, after all. At the moment of the beginning of the war, Algeria was considered to be the French territory. And the main task the new president set himself was the economical and social transformation of the country. Speaking in human tongue, so that people lived better, so that they had jobs, worthy salaries, blah blah

blah. The second main task was to return the independence of politics and defense. That meant to end the influence of the USA and of the UK. The US and Great Britain suffered far less than France during Of the World War II, and because of that, they were trying to manipulate it constantly because France was weak and couldn't defend itself. And the third task was to return both France's glory and influence into the world. Technically, Charles de Gaulles achieved almost all of his goals. The best demonstration of that was the economical growth in the country under

de Gaulles. Suffice it to say, that France under de Gaulles became the second European country in the world in economic growth-rate after Germany. And the average GDP growth rate was 5.5% a year, and that's very much. During 14 years, 1954 - 1967, the economy duplicated, and the quality of life of average people was one of the best in the world. That happened after 10 years, literally. Really, what was happening to the economy of France in the 1950-1960s could be compared only with German and Japanese economical miracles. But reverse of the coin was the fact de

Gaulle had severe control methods, Total censorship and control over all the media, and a bunch of different limitations. And when your citizen are French, plus, there is a strong opposition in the country, you mustn't relax. Even if the country is doing well. Moreover, you shouldn't even try to censor each and everyone, and everything. The situation was following. Everything seemed to be alright, no joke. The quality of life was good, the economy growth, this and that, and so on. But still, the society was living in such tension! The censorship was irritating; there were minor scuffle with

police going on here and there. And plus, after the World War II, the new, young and quite numerous generation began to grow. As we know, after the war, there was a baby boom all over the world, and France wasn't an exception. By 1968, the country had a lot of young students who were living with ideas of global equality, peace, cookies, bubble gum, cola, and so on. And all of them were dreaming about the ideal society of equality, love and peace. Young and naive, the whole nine yards. They saw de Gaulle as an old geezer and

outdated dictator who was holding the power for a very long time and knew nothing about now, and with his censorship, he choked their sacred right to live in total freedom. Plus, despite a very good economy development rate, there was growing unemployment in the country in the middle of the 1960s. That happened because the French economy was growing not only Thanks to its own manufacturing but also because of colonies that worked for France. Here's an important thing. France was a colonial power, and that meant it had its own bunch of countries with full control over them.

And those countries, technically and plainly, worked for France. In the XVIII and in the XIX century, the most bright colonial powers were France, Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, and so on. Those guys went with their navy all over the world, conquered native population and established their own order. Plus, there was slavery, Human trafficking and capture of all the recources, trade submission, and so forth. You went all over the world, put your gun to everyone's head, made them work for you, and then you were sitting in your capital, drinking coffee and talking about democratic values. That was

their system. But the World War II showed to the world that the model of oppression of whole peoples couldn't do any good, and something had to change. In 1960, they signed the Declaration on the Granting Of Independence to Colonial Countries. A bunch of people with difficult faces gathered in the UN; they discussed very worriedly that colonization was a bad thing and no way, that was exploitation, and blah blah blah. And they signed the document. In fact, the USA and the USSR pushed it through in order to weaken the British Empire because it was showing off

too much back then. And France was nicked, too, because France was a colonial power. The paper meant that they had to offer Independences in 1960, and if they would be late, it was pow pow and sanctions against their lazy ass. But although that law was implemented, and independences were given, the significant part of colonies continued to work for France. No one even cared about the paper. Because technically, there was a fucking bunch of businesses and companies in colonial countries that were making money for France. That stuff could be not yours on paper, But everyone knew

perfectly to whom it belonged and what it was doing. That was the reason you could have your economy growing and employment inside the country reducing, that was the thought. That could be if you were a colonial power. And beside students who were always, with any regime and at any time, against the existing power, the existing order and rules, workers also began to bother because factories began to shed jobs, and there were no new workplaces around there. And as we know, when the nation's pearls are clutched, one insignificant spark could be enough for everything to go

ablaze. And the Red May was no exception. It began with some small demonstrations in a couple of universities, just groups of students wanted to stretch their legs and to yell something outside. Later, the nearest universities supported them, and in the couple of days, all the political activists and followers of some or other ideas added to the students: communists, Socialists, anarchists, maoists and other riffraff. Workers and their unions saw something interesting going on without their participation, and they were like, "It's time!" And they went to go crazy with those students, just for the sake of it.

Eventually, after a coulpe of days, absolutely all young people were on the street, like all the workers in the country. Really, all the country was on the street. But there was a problem. When you go to the demonstration, You usually follow some leader, and you have demands aside some meaningless slogans. You could say anything to people on the street, that doesn't matter and didn't matter ever. But under the carpet of every protest, there is always some specific goal and purpose so that some specific guys could discuss them privately and shake what they like to shake

to each other. Whatever anyone told you, the point of any demonstration was exactly that. And here, there were no goals, no one to negotiate with. People just went on the streets because why not? Here's some commotion, right? Should I stay home? No, no way! And the Red May is the ideal example for every mom and teacher who told us since childhood, like, if everyone would jump from the roof, would you jump? Yes! Yes, they would. And you would jump because people do that. Yes. Learn it, finally, and leave people alone, Don't ask that fucking question.

The crowd was absolutely colorful. On one side, someone voted for the world peace - because there was the Cold War going, the war in Vietnam going, and other wars going God knew where, and that was definitely very, very bad. Next to them, someone voted for France to get it together, to punch its enemies and to create the new world order and the new empire. It was a pretty funny sight. Some part of radicals asking to create a new empire with More colonies, more influence and more power, and other radicals yelling for you to withdraw troops

from everywhere, to give everyone independence and to lose control over your own territories. The thing about declarations that you should strenghten your country, take more resources and all of that - I could understand that. But declarations of people who wanted for their country to become weaker and with less power and control - I couldn't quite grasp that thing. Someone was yelling, "All power to the people!". Someone next to them was yelling, "Fuck the power itself!" That was a very funny picture. In one place, communists were standing and waving red banners, and near them, anarchists were

standing, and you don't want to know what they were waving. And a bit further, students were standing who were sick and tired of waving and wanted to puff a smoke and go to their dorms and ladies because Revolution is a revolution, and dinner with tacos was on schedule. On the parallel street, workers were sitting and pounding with their helms on the asphalt because they had helms and they knew how to pound them. A real clusterfuck, clashes with police, barricades, demonstrations, and all that shit was strange, anyway. No one to negotiate with, no specific leader or,

at least, some distinct majority; everyone was just going crazy. Those students invented their slogans just for fun. The most popular one was "It is forbidden to forbid." It was the main slogan of that party, and it's strongly associated with the Red May. Among all things, there was a slogan "It is hard to obey your superiors but it is more stupid to choose them." Also a popular one. And you're trying to ponder about it but you don't understand a shit. "It is hard to obey your superiors but it is more stupid to choose them." I mean,

you don't want to choose your superiors, you want for them to come and take you; But it's hard for you to obey them. Fuckety fuck, what's the point? And why "hard" stands at the beginning, and "more stupid" - later? Didn't they teach you Russian at school? Another famous slogan - "Workers of all countries, have fun!" And my favorite, "We don't want to live in the world where you're certainly not to starve but you pay for that risking to die with boredom". Try to think about it. You'd get a buzz, I promise. Once more. "We don't

want to live in the world where you're certainly not to starve but you pay for that risking to die with boredom". It's so fucking funny! We're sated and satisfied but we're bored, and because of that, let's smash half the country! Such a demonstration. Of course, I'm overdoing a bit. Of course, the country had its problems like any other country. There are no perfect countries, regimes and all of that. There were fired workers in the country, there were slums full with poor people where life was no bowl of cherries. There were political and law matters; but

totally and globally, everything was alright with the country. It was growing and evolving. And those figures which are sometimes used by analysts to explain the causes of the Red May were the same as in other countries. No more, no less. The same unemployment was at the level Of all other European countries, and in some of them, it was even higher than in France. Technically, the society just freaked out, like, "The country is evolving in a wrong way, let's do it differently. How? How do we have to know? You're politicians, you do it differently, somehow." The

result of that fuss: there was no revolution, they managed to calm down the protests. But de Gaulle lost his power. Although, Georges Pompidou came to his place who was the right and And fervent advocate of de Gaulle's politics and his good friend. And so, we could say, there was no overthrow of the regime. And here's the question! You, bottled one! Why the heck do we need this information? We're talking about the murder here! I understand your question. You don't know how many times I asked it myself while digging in all of that. Here's the reason.

Technically, the protest failed, but not all people remained satisfied with the results. 99% of students and workers rioted a bit, took out their emotions, and then, calmly, went out on their errands. Funny thing is, everyone protested bourgeoisie, some way or other, thatseized the power, exploited workers,dictated its own rules, and so on. And now, in the modern world, the most part of that bourgeoisie are those folks who were yelling on the streets in 1968. Half of the French government and half of the whole management of the country are those fellas from 1968. It's a normale state

of things, It happens all the time. Even Churchill said, "If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain." But not everyone had their brains evolved in time. And as I said, not all of them were satisfied with the results of the protest. And in the early 1970s, small bunches of those displeased people began to form radical groups that would become terrorists in the nearest future. And Action Directe that killed Georges Besse was also formed out of those displeased idealists.

That's the reason we need it. The top person in the organization Jean Marc Roullan. In 1968, he was 16 years old, and of course, he was on the streets. Besides, his father was a revolutionary fanatic, and he held constant meetings of some sketchy dudes in his house discussing revolution, overthrow of the regime and how things were rotten all the time. Naturally, such underground Allure attracted the kid, and after May 68, he decided firmly that he would devote his life to it. Aside of France, there was enough such revolutionary and radical protest commotion in all the

countries at that time. Germany, Italy, and Spain, they also had underground organizations, and Rouillan was constantly travelling, meeting different radicals and terrorists, and also, he participated in different actions of other organizations. He even went to prison one time when police caught him For an illegal weapon transfer. The second important person in Action Directe was Georges Cipriani, this guy. By 1968, the year of protests, he worked as milling-machine operator in the Renault-Billancourt factory. And when I found it out, I said, ta-da! Come here, come here, my sweety! By 1968, Georges was 18 years old. He was

born in 1950. And by the time of protests, he just went to work at the factory. Of course, he was at demonstrations and strikes as the whole city was. And when the dust settled, he went to work again because he needed something to eat, somehow. But you should know that very many agitators worked at any large factory at that time; they went to work on purpose. You should remember that the Cold War was right in the middle of the 1970s, the face-down of ideas of capitalism and communism. And workers of any factory were perfect testing

subjects for Political activists. You come to the factory and begin to explain in what shit those workers live and all because of fucking capitalists. And if there was communism, then our work at the factory were totally different! All the same activities - sitting and wrenching - but definitely, each of us would have a Maybach and a house near the sea. And because such an agitator worked with everyone else, side by side, the level of trust to that person was Higher that to some rascal off the street. "Because Basil is our guy, he says good stuff."

And Cipriani was such an activist, on top of it. He didn't work in behalf of some party, no. But he was a dedicated man himself, and he constantly urged workers to strike and resist, just because. No arguments were included. But up to a certain time, Cipriani was reasonably harmless dude, and everyone left him alone. And that certain time was 25 February 1972, The day after which the life at the Renault-Billancourt factory divided on "before" and "after". The day one man was murdered on the factory. That man's name was Pierre Overney. Chapter V. Revenge Pierre Overney

was a rank-and-file worker at Renault and the same political activist as Georges Cipriani but far brighter. He was constantly trying to find audience and to address it with some slogans; he was handing out leaflets, he was using all the possible agitation methods and so on. Of course, each character like that was a pain in the ass for executives of any factory. A giant pain, like a log. Imagine, you're a head of the factory, your facility is of epic scale; several thousands of men are working on it; and it produces some stuff. It doesn't matter what

the factory is making, even if sawing needle holes, that doesn't matter, at all. What matters is your leader responsibility to a very large circle of people. You answer before the board of directors or before The factory owners and make the facility work, manufacture production and pay off. You answer before all vendours so that your factory would buy all the parts needed, or raw materials, in time. Because it's important to your vendours if their business processes don't collapse. You answer for competitiveness of your production on the market in general, and that means constant improvement of workflow

and implementation of new technologies. You answer before the state and different social services so that taxes, Pension payments, salaries and other stuff were delay-free and full-scale. After all, you do all of that for your factory to live and evolve further, remain competitive and have some growth prospects. So that people could have workplaces 'cause they need to feed their families. And the opportunity to live normal lives for those families because of the work at your factory - you answer for that, too. And if anywhere, any department would stop, The failing of one process would drag the

whole construction down along with it. As one deralied car drags all the train along with it, as the violation in one component could fail all the business process. And whatever happens anywhere, you would be held accountable because you are the administration. And when everything is alright and works as it should, when everyone gets money and all is great, no one would thank you. Of course, all is well because we are such great people here, and it happened all by itself. And if something isn't right anywhere, that's because the executives are douchebags. That's normal, that was

always the case, and it will be. It isn't normal when executives are douchebags, it's normal when... You know what I mean! Well then, add the early 1970s to this picture. At that time, OPEC were already here, and contradictions in the oil field, and the smell of that was already unhealthy. Plus, the fat 1960s ended in France. The rate of economic growth began to reduce little by little, and it became obvious for big executives that something was coming. And your gut feeling was confirmed when you got protests of the Red May all over the country that

were loaded with premonitions that the society was sitting on a powderkeg. That's the situation, when there is still some tension in the society, some strikes and demonstrations here and there, Something like that; and you are the top person of the factory; and it's crucial that the factory works normally. And amongst your workers in the workshops, some dudes appear that begin to tell your workers that they should break the tethers of capitalism, and they push them to strike. What will you do with such a dude? Will you push your matters aside? Will you take his hand

and, with eyes full of empathy and understanding, Will you listen to his stream of consciousness? Now, of course, you'll fire him for fuck's sake, and you will go about your own business. That was the way they handled Pierre Overney. To be fair, I must say, although he was an ordinary worker, they gave him several talks before they fired them. They told him, "Look here, bro, work is work. You have work to do. Because that's what we agreed upon when you came here to find employment. You do your job, and we pay you for it. That

was it. That's all. Of course, politics is very interesting but if you wanna do politics, go somewhere else, not in our workshops." Naturally, Pierre didn't give a damn on any notions, and he agitated everyone to go on a strike as before. And for that, they threw him on his ass quite fairly and forbade him to appear on the factory territory. How do you think, did it stop Pierre? No, of course, not. Together with his friends, he constantly idled around near the front gate; He continued to hand out leaflets, to draw some posters, and he encouraged

people to wake up. Of course, the security guards constantly chased him here and there, but strictly speaking, the territory behind the fence was out of Renault's limits, and lawfully speaking, they couldn't do anything with that dude. He was just standing and freaking them out day by day. In security reports, there is info that they undermined several attempts to break into the territory of the factory, Including at night. Why did activists need to enter the factory at night? History is silent on that matter. But it's obvious that they were doing it not wanting to work a

lot, and to deliver on a week plan overnight. That commotion continued day by day. Of course, the security guards were also human beings, and they hardly heard lots of friendly stuff from activists. And 25 February 1972, during another squabble between the security and Pierre, one of the of guards, Jean Tramoni, just shot the dude. Those security guards had some Friday! Yes, that was wrong. It's wrong to kill people under any pretext. Yes, of course, after that, the guard went to prison, and again, he didn't dodge and agreed with everything. But humanwise, I could understand the

reason why the guard did what he did. That dude pissed him the fuck off. But the incident was one thing. Shit happens, when people fight each other, punch each other, sometimes even kill each other. No surprises here. But the death of an activist at the hands of a guard exploded a bombshell. Another wave of riots rose across the city once again, and radicals began to yell at every bend, "We've told you so! They will be killing us! Choking us! That would be with everyone!" And so on, and so forth. Although, if you don't want to

get into such situation, you just have not to bother people with guns regularly. And no one will touch you. Ordinary people, just automatically, took a side Of the poor victim of the big system; they were also outraged and upset. Pierre Overney stopped being an ordinary and useless factory worker, and he momentarily became an idol. Several dozens of thousands of people came to his funeral. Of course, after that, that crowd went protesting, chanting and entertaining themselves as they liked the most. I should add, that since 1968, since the Red May protests, there was some serious split

inside the opposition. One part was very radical, and they wanted a violent overthrow of the regime, And more violence in general. And the other part of the opposition that consisted of communists, mostly, thought fairly enough that those bunches of inadequates didn't allow to bring matters of 1968 to logical conclusions because usually, people were just scared by such announcements and actions. Murder, blood, fires on the streets, bombs in buildings are not what an ordinary person would want to change the current regime. Although Overney's death brought the protestants A bit closer together, there was no unity inside.

This time, radicals decided they should act and they should revenge. 6 days after Overney's murder, a bunch of radicals entered one of Renault's warehouses with ready cars and set it afire. By the way, no special group took responsibility for those actions, but some leaflets were found on the scene that read, "That's for Pierre". A couple days later, the executives of the Billancourt factory began to get personal threats. The first one who received them was Pierre Dreyfus, the director of the whole Renault concern. Upon returning home, he discovered a note on his porch that read that

resistance fighters would blow up his apartment if all those people who'd been fired for harsh words and calls for violence wouldn't be rehired by tomorrow. Those were about 15-20 people. Is this announcement normal? Rehire us, or we blow up your apartment with your family. The environment among the employees would be a real bomb! But Pierre Dreyfus did reach his house that night. But Robert Nogrette, the COO of the factory, didn't come to the factory the next morning. He was kidnapped. A group of people with guns pushed Nogrette into some car - either a pickup or

a larger truck - and left to the unknown direction. Their motive was following: Nogrette allegedly hired those specific guards on purpose so that they could kill Pierre Overney specifically. And he fired all the radicals at the factory, that scum! The demands were the same as with Dreyfus. Hire people back, and we'll cover it up. Actually, based on those demands, you could understand the intellectual level of terrorists. It's certain that no sane people would have to do anything with those guys. Who the fuck needs you, marvellous guys, here, at the factory? Unclear. Even the workers at

the Renault factory were blown away with what happened, and they organized a 2-hour demonstration - not to support the terrorists, but to support their executives. Like, hello, guys, back off, that's too much! Give our executives back, we need to work. Plus, the radicals received some serious and harsh criticism from their colleagues. The opposition didn't supprot the current order of things, yes; but those methods didn't sit well with them, as well. As the result, either the terrorists understood that no one supported them, or they just didn't have the heart to kill a man, but Nogrette was

released. He was held captive for two days, and as he said himself later, they treated him well, gave him food and Water, allowed to go to the bathroom. They punched him a bit, but that was all. And at that point,while Nogrette was being held captive, Georges Cipriani crawled out of his hole. That dude from Action Directe who killed Georges Besse; that dude that still worked at the Renault factory at that time. And he was like, "They are right, they are great! That's what you do! That's how we will wage war with those shit-eating scoundrels! We

should take them all captive, put them on their knees, shoot them down and establish a new order!" That's not a direct quote, but that was the point. In public and on common meetings, he began to support terrorists and to agitate workers to rise against their chiefs. Guess what happened to him? Naturally, he took off the factory like a shot because neither executives nor workers were in playful mood. You should understand that always, under any regime, at any time, 90% of people just want to live and not to bother anyone. Mostly, all the ordinary people want

to live their life And to do their own businesses, to nurture their children. And all that politics, world order, riots, revolutions, slogans and other shit is an entertainment for a very small amount of people. Although, at that time, everyone thought that a lot of people were for those radicals and for revolution, the total load of people just wanted to live. That's why, in that situation, when activists tried to find excuses for a kidnapping, those workers didn't bat an eye when Cipriani was kicked out of the factory. Everyone realized that the situation smelled bad, and it

would be better not to mess with it. But Cipriani chose such a bad timing for his speeches, and he allegedly said so painful words that they didn't just fire him. They fired him with a so-called Black Mark in his file. The Black Mark was just like a reference from your previous work but it meant, actually, that you wouldn't be hired anywhere with guarantee. At any factory in the country. While such fools and activists worked not only At Renault but at any factory in the country, and they were a pain in the neck of each and

every executive of those factories, there was an unspoken arrangement between all the factories. If someone at the factory got an especially fucked-up person who just didn't allow either the factory itself or people to work properly, just firing that man in that situation meant only one thing: that person would go to the next factory and would be fucking brains of executives and working personnel out there. And in order to work out such People more efficiently, all the big guys agreed among themselves to put special marks into those people's files and work record books. So that dude

wouldn't be hired anywhere by any means. Or at least, there was a note, like, call us, and we'll tell you everything. And with that ticket to the free life, Cipriani landed on the street. And at that point, I was like, that's it! They killed Besse because of their revenge! Of course, crimes against the Working class is a very extended definition, and any shit from crooked head could fit into its limits. But here we are! There's motivation! Cipriani was humiliated, right? He landed on the street because of his beliefs, right? He couldn't find another job, what

else did he have to do? To brood over schemes of vengeance! Yes! That's it, I finally can go home! But I was happy for 5 seconds, literally. But then I was like, wait, where does Georges Besse come in? He was killed in the middle of the 1980s, and Cipriani landed on the street in 1972. He hadn't brooding over his vengeance for 14 years, right? And Georges Besse didn't fire him, there were other executives around the 1970s. Of all the leaders of the group, Cipriani was the only one Renault worker. Jean Marc Rouillan hadn't worked anywhere

ever. Nathalie Ménigon worked at the bank, and they fired her for some inside reasons, too, and after that, she joined the radicals. But that was also in the 1980s. In the 1970s, Ménigon was too small. And Joëlle Aubron was just a wife of some terrorist, she was going nutsfor the sake of it. That's why the version with revenge doesn't stick. Even if Cipriani wished to revenge to the Renault executives, it's unlikely that he could convince everyone else. And during interrogations, where everyone could get 20 years in prison each, they would have confessed and pointed at

Cipriani. Or at least, they would have said he were the main ideologist of the operation. But no, they told a carbon-copy bullshit about capitalism, crimes against workers and so on. And after all that time and all that context, it would seem that we're at a dead end again. And it's clear only that the reason lied somewhere else. Yes, it did. And we're going to the right direction. All that remains is to dig deeper. Chapter VI. "Crimes" for the Sake of the Factory So, we're in the middle of the 1970s. There are still 10 years before

Besse' murder but the picture already began to paint itself. All over the country, there was a lot of underground groups appearing, Waging an ideological war with the existing regime, and here and there, there were clashes and demonstrations. And especially crazy ones already began to put out weapons. Action Directe as organization appeared in the late 1970s. They were hardly the only militants that began to attack state institutions, attack banks, explode buildings and to kill people. There was a lot of such people, and I would recite them until tomorrow. Concurrently, there was the oil crisis. When the

members of OPEC limited oil deliveries to the European Countries and to the USA because they were sick and tired of being simple resource colonies that were exploited in any ways. Plus, prices shot up for any kind of fuel and for energy, and the US and European economy began to stagger. Because of the crisis, as it usually happens, some facilities went under and closed down, and someone began to cut all their expense sides in order to survive. Because of that, the unemployment rose even more, and that poured more oil in the flames with the total level

Of tension and discontent. Plus, let's remember that in 1979, Renault decided to save and buy AMC shares. And in the early 1970s, with good volumes of sales, Renault felt great, but by the late 1970s, because of falling demands on cars, because of the energy crisis and because of global economic decline in the country, the company began to feel not good. And they also had to make giant injections of cash into The American company that could only shit itself. Plus, they had a bunch of racing teams round their neck that were also not so cheap. And

now, we remember that, by the late 1970s and the early 1980s, Renault was a huge corporation with dozens of factories and tens of thousands workplaces. Such Titanics can't turn around momentarily, as well as adapt to the situation quickly. But they could begin to sink, very quickly. Year by year, their financial health was getting worse. The volume of sales dropped, The cost of making grew, the end product went up in price, and no one wanted to give much money for a simple hatchback by Renault. Plus, they hung themselves a weight of car racing teams on one

leg, and the fourth by volume car manufacturer in America on the second leg. And the US car market was up shit creek after the oil crisis. And by 1984, or 1985, Renault obtained a magnificent number in their financial accounting. 12.5 billion franks of losses per year. 12.5 billion. Not million, billion. Practically, because of external factors, the oil crisis and wrong executive solutions, after several years, the company plummeted into a very serious economic ass. It was obvious that the company had to be rebuilt, and rebuilt quickly. Because if Renault collapsed - and with such parameters, that

was the question of one year, tops - everyone would be hung to dry. Renault was one of the largest employers and tax payers of the country. And a hundred thousands of people that would just lose their workplaces - that wasn't the sight you would wish to see in the middle of the crisis as the state. The company had to be saved, no matter how, just fuck it, don't give la shit. They needed a decision, and Renault had to survive at any cost. As mostly, Renault belonged to the state at that time, the state made a

decision about the change of senior executives. They chose Georges Besse. At that point, in 1985, Besse was in charge of Pechiney Ugine Kuhlmann company, a.k.a. PUK. Yes, you could laugh that Besse was in charge of pookas. And I laughed when I found out. But jokes aside, Pechiney Ugine Kuhlmann was another fucking huge company in France, and in the 1980s, about 100,000 people worked there. Mostly, the company was dealing with raw materials from the mining sector. Like, aluminium, ferro-alloys and rare ores for atomic industry. Plus, they were producing every kinds of packings. Like heat seal packaging

with an aluminium membrane inside. That shit was their business. But the main thing was extraction and delivery of raw materials. Despite the crisis that was mowing everyone off, Besse' company was just fine. No deviation in financial balance; the company was standing on its feet firmly; nothing was collapsing. At that moment, there was no better candidate for Renault than Besse because he had a successfull experience of managing similar huge corporation During difficult times. I don't know if they asked his opinion or just sent him to the new workplace by command. But it doesn't matter for us.

What matters is that in 1983, Georges Besse entered the office. I think, the day he studied all the reports, he went and drank himself stupid. Things were going much worse in the company than he supposed. Practically, all the processes of delivery and producing were horrible ineffective and obsolete by standards of the 1980s. Logistics, warehouses, supplier management, lines of products - all of that was horribly slow; too many people worked everywhere, and efficiency of whole departments approached zero. It was obvious for Besse that the company wouldn't survive without serious changes and reforms. And the first thing

Besse did, was cutting down all the car racing. With one movement, in the harshest possible way, he cut off all the programs of racing team financing. At fat times, when the company has much money - go nuts as you waish, no one is against it. But when you have to survive, just spending money like water for some mythical image - that was too costly affair. Besse thought so. And he thought it right. The second move - everything that didn't bring profits here and now, each person that generated losses, each process that didn't bring money -

to hell with it. There was a full and very meticulous inspection of everything that was going on in the company. They looked in every hidden corner And under every skirt in order to understand what each person was doing in the company and how much benefit they provided. About half a year was needed for that research. And after all the data was gathered, it became obvious that a huge lot of people was just sitting on their hands doing nothing. Usually, when it comes to reduction of staff that brings nothing aside from losses, open debates begins. The

unions begin to outrage, the press comes Running immediately and pokes people with their mics, and the long dillydallying begins. Is it wrong or right what the executives are doing? What the union thinks about it? What Uncle Ben thinks about it? The Uncle Ben who's been going to work for 10 years just for the sake of it and doing nothing useful. No one asks when Uncle Ben was sober the last time but his opinion about managing an industrial behemoth is interesting for everyone right away, yes. Besse didn't allow anything like it. At the very least, he

didn't allow the press to his factories so that they didn't infuse panic. And he rarely appeared before them himself; his motivation was the fact that he didn't have time for talking, he had to work. By the way, after that, the press characterized him as a man that was used to say nothing but to do much. It was a pretty strange eulogic reaction. Usually, the press doesn't praise anyone like that. Honestly, I don't know How Besse found commond ground with the union, but after the global inspection of the company activities, they signed a regulation that, literally

in a couple of months, 21,000 people would leave their workplaces. And the union agreed with that. The only explanation I could find in my head of the reason why the union didn't resist was the fact that they realized the real state of things at the factories, too. And the question facing them was: either they reorganized production works And lost 21,000 people but the company would survive, or they would just collapsed, and over 100,000 people would lose their jobs. There was no other way. You could get an impression that I treat workers like a snob. That

I constantly throw biting words at them. But I throw biting words only at lazy people and drunkards, and the living dead woods that exist in each company. Of course, the vast majority of workers at any factory are smart, active, high-class professionals. And they should be left alone. And all of those who go to work to do some bikeshedding nine to five - those people must be chased over the hills and far away. And the amount of those dudes at Renault factories was 21,000. And the only thing Besse didn't touch but, on the contrary, increased financing

of it, was the developing of cooperative engine and model with AMC to get the market share in the US and make some money. Technically, the company dried itself, shaking off unwanted expenses, and all the means that they managed to free were sent to develop projects that would guarantee the future of the company. And yes, those actions would appear unfair to someone or brutal for the fired workers or for racing teams that were dropped, that had their own fanbases who rooted for them and worried about them, and all. But technically, Besse had to stew in the

juice that was being boiled and drawn by previous Executives for a very long time by not improving their manufacturing, by turning the blind eye to the efficiency of employees, and so on. Roughly speaking, when you're letting your health go hard for a long time, and you're beginning to feel a gangrene on your toes, let's suppose, - that's it, you should have your leg cut, or else you will die. And the doctor that cuts away your leg is an unpleasant character at the moment. But what should you do? It's his job, he's helping you. And Besse

was that doctor. The most surprising thing is the following. We already know that when big companies get to the deepest financial asses, even if their executives act very quickly and right, there would be no instant effect. When you need half a year only to gather information about processes because the company is huge, then to think that everything would be alright magically in another half a year - that absolutely pointless. You have to reprocess a trilliard of processes, that should take years or even decades. But Georges Besse became the head of Renault in the very beginning

of 1985. And in the middle of 1986, just one and a half years after his designation, the company showed profits. Besse silently clenched his teeth and dragged the company out of the financial hole to profits for some sorry year and a half. At that time, with the financial crisis, the continued oil crisis, and the reducing European car market, it was a real miracle of management - to drag a giant company from the bottom. Although the press wrote very little of him because Besse didn't communicate With them practically - he had other things to do -

it was obvious that he was just a brilliant manager. And everything that man got were 4 bullets from 2 women who decided with their 2 friends that firing 21,000 workers were a crime against the working class. At least, they explained it that way. That's another proof that life is fucking unfair. But do you know what the problem is? The problem is, all of that isn't the answer to the question why they Killed Besse. In the middle of an economical and energy crisis, workers were being fired not only in Renault but almost everywhere. Not only Renault

but all the companies had to dry themselves, and serious clashes of unions and executives were everywhere. For example, on the 3M factory, during one strike against firings, workers took their executives hostage and said they wouldn't let them go until they signed papers that no one would be fired. And the same shit was happening at French branches of Sony. At Peugeot factories, at Citroën factories, at any other large facilities, the processes were the same. There were protests and property riots, but killings... There were no killings. Only Besse was killed. There was never a case of physical

assault towards top executives. When hostages were held at 3M, they were just held in the office. It would be a different matter if Besse was killed during a demonstration with mad crowds smashing everything around them. It's understandable when a person happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they got in trouble. I would understand that. And here, there was a directly planned operation against the specific executive. And if we'd believe the terrorists' rhetoric, they would treat about half of the senior executives of the whole country alike. Or at least, they should

have shot a couple dozens of CEO down or tried to do that, at least. And here - there were no attempts. They killed only Besse. From the first time. It looked like a coincidence of circumstances. As if he was chosen as a victim just because. But what if Besse wasn't a random and singular victim? Who else did Action Directe directively kill? I told you earlier that more than 100 people in total found death at their hands, and those were random victims of their actions when those guys threw bombs in public places or exchanged fire with

cops. But did they kill directly anyone else? Perhaps, the method of murder could help us to connect Besse' death with anyone else. The answer was not hard to find. Just under 2 years before Georges Besse was killed, 25 January 1985, the same month when Georges Besse entered the office of Renault's CEO, a man was found in his home with 8 bullet wounds. That man's name was René Audran. And his death was also Action Directe's doing. Chapter VII. Colonial Interests If we look into the literature terrorists Wrote about their activities, then we'd see that René Audran's

murder was a separate bragging right of Action Directe. They said, that was not a murder but an execution. Because they thought that René Audran deserved it. René Audran was the main engineer of the Ministry of Defense in France, and he was responsible for delivery of French weapons to other countries. In particular, he oversaw the weapon delivery to Iraq that was at war with Iran in the 1980s. The conflict between Iraq and Iran was just horrible, no joking. The war began in 1980, lasted 8 years, and during those 8 years, there were all kinds of things

out there. Carpet bombings, chemical operations, minor teenagers sent to the front lines, hunger, lack of medical assistance and so on. Wars are always fucking ugly. The ugliest thing in the world. No matter where and under what banners it went on the planet. We don't have exact info about losses. All the assessments are so different and contradictory that you couldn't even dream about some accuracy. But if we take average numbers, 750,000 people were killed, and million and a half were wounded or MIA. And that happened not so long ago, in the 1980s, in the late 1980s.

And as René Audran took part in supporting of that war as a person of high standing and delivered weapons to Iraq, the guys from Action Directe killed him for that. But I have a question in my head. Strictly speaking, honestly. Why do you give a fuck that someone is waging war somewhere a world away? Look here. The 1980s weren't the same as modern times. At that time, much less information about what and where was happening. You had papers with more or less official point of view, and TV- and radio-channels with about the same point of

view. And they would tell and show only what they needed to tell and show. It was very difficult to begin seriously worrying about the fate of an ordinary resident of Iraq for no reason. I even allow the possibility that half Of the population of the Earth didn't know at all what was happening and who was fighting where. Excuse me, but where's Iraq and where's France? Killion a high-ranking person from the Ministry of Defense because someone was being at war somewhere and that dude was doing his job and delivering some weapons to those guys - that

was a bit odd, I think. You don't get it, right? Okay, fine, I'm gonna rephrase the question. Why did they get at that war and at that particuclar man? The war between Iran and Iraq was Hardly the only conflict that was going in the 1980s. Not the only one at all. By that moment, there were - tick off your fingers - the Ethiopian Civil War; the Angolan Civil War; the Second Sudanese Civil War; the Western Sahara War, the South African Border War, the coup and the seize of power in Turkey. Should I go on? Okay.

The Islamist uprising in Syria; the Salvadoran Civil War; the Soviet–Afghan War; the Second Mafia War; the 1982 Lebanon War and the Lebanese Civil War - Those are 2 different things, you shouldn't confuse them. Further on? Like a boss. The escalation of the Cold War and the Doomsday Clock between the USA and the USSR; 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre; 1983 Beirut barracks bombings; the internal conflict in Peru; the Nicaraguan Civil War; the Falklands War and the United States invasion of Grenada; and the Iran-Iraq War, yeah. Those were happening at the same time. I repeat the

question: why did they get at Iran and Iraq, exactly? In the 1980s, there were so many wars - shop till you drop. And France took part not only in one war with its weapons and its influence. But let us remember that those radical terrorists already had their demands for France to wrap down its presence in other countries and in its colonies. Do you remember the Algerian War in the 1960s? And the radical declarations at that time? That looked a bit strange, too. The French inside France vote for their country to give up its piece of

land willingly to God knows whom. Is it strange? It is. Let us work backward. The independent state of Algeria appeared as the result of Algerian War of Independence that was fought 1954-1962. Before that time periond, since 1834, Algeria was the territory of France. During their colonial expansions, the French came there with their huge navy, way back in the XIX century, in the 1830s. And they said, "We are the power. You are aborigines and natives, and now, we're gonna teach you how to live the right way." And they began to do exactly that. The Algerians, of

course, had been resisting for some time for signs on the wall, but they surrendered pretty quickly because it was hard for them to field something against the military power of France. And for over 100 years, Algeria was the full-fledged territory of France. During all that time, French had been building there their so-called migratory resource colony. The Algerian population allegedly was presented as citizens of the French Union, but they had lesser rights than native French. Far lesser. Native citizens of Algeria couldn't take high positions in any important institutions. But still, they were recruited as privates to

the French army and used as manpower in mines; they were used to build facilities, dockyards and ports for delivery of useful shipments. And they got far less money for the same labor than French workers. In a word, a standard colony. Beside the direct use of manpower to build something useful for the sake of the empire using cheap hands, on the territory of the country, they discovered heavy stocks of gold, different iron ores, rare wood that grew near the shores. And the French used those riches to the full. Everything they could dig out of the earth,

they had to dig out and to drag away. Or they could try to do some wares out of the dug out Stuff right on the territory of the colony; but then, they had to drag it away anyhow because the metropoly had to get profits. But from the point of view of ordinary population, everything was not so bad. At least, in comparison with regular colonies. Algeria didn't feel so bad because it was not only exploited and oppressed. The French shared their technologies with them, they built cities, they built the financial system; they built educational centers, and

they moved the country To evolution, in general. It was like this, among other reasons, because many native Frenchmen came to that country to settlement. Technically, they built the country for themselves. By the end of the XIX century, around 15% population in the country were really the "French" French from the French France. And that was the case until the World War II, and it was win-win for everyone, in general. Yes, there were smal clashes, there were movements for liberation of Algeria, but They were nothing serious, actually. And that's why no one paid any attention to them.

After the World War II ended, Algeria looked at the bunch of cases when countries declared their independence of Britain, for example. And they were, like, "We want it, too!" And momentarily, by history standards, literally after several years, there was a strong national movement in the country for separation Algeria from France. And the French, in their turn, didn't get That gag because they perceived Algeria as their property. Well, something like children stirring the pot in the kitchen who don't want to eat porridge but only to take walks and to watch toons. And with those eyes, full

of puzzlement, France looked at Algeria. Like, "You don't have the right of voice, what are you doing?" The French came and tried to spank Algeria, to put it in time-out, but they couldn't do it. The child turned to a teenager and began to bite. And by 1954, those actions resulted in a prolonged and bloody war. Details of the conflict don't matter much for us. All the details of all the wars are the same. Blood, intestines on the walls and destroyed human fates, those are all the details of the war. What's important, is the result. Technically,

on paper, Algeria was free, yes. But that was of little use. Because France signed the independence of the country with the condition that France would keep control over all the strategically important objects and facilities. All the mines and all the factories, all the ports and everything that had been under control of France, would stay under their control. Of course, you could paint yourself a banner, write a fucking great anthem with pipes, but everything important for France would stay under control of France. And after the declaration of the independence of Algeria, the French went on dragging

everything they needed out the country. But beside resources, people, extractive industries, a lot of businesses and all of that, France needed Algeria for something more important. And that something also remained under control of France after signing the independence of the country. For France, a piece of Western Sahara was important that was situated on the Algerian territory. More specifically, all the territory of the desert near the town called Reggan. And when you hear it for the first time, a small hunch dog wakes up in you, and it's, like, "Excuse me, what!?" The reason why the exploting

country needs facilities, people and resources - that's understandable, no problem. But why the heck could you need a pile of sand in the desert - that's pretty unclear at the first sight. There's only wind out there, sand and 2 bushes. There were no social media back there, or photos, like, look here, John Chairless is al-sheikh now, fuck! And he's standing with his Mary Scheherazade, wrapped in sheets, waiting for likes in the great sandbox. But strategically, that mountain of sand was really important for France. They needed it for their nuclear weapon testing. Chapter VIII. Metal That

Gives Power France is one of nuclear-weapon states. The nuclear-weapon state is the country that has a working and successfully tested nuclear weapon. If you have only some groundwork or some nuclear plant that generates electricity, you're not a nuclear-weapon state but a shit on a stick. At this point, in 2022, 5 states officially have nuclear weapons: those are the USA, Russia, the UK, France and China. Allegedly, the nuclear weapon is present also in North Korea, Israel, India and Pakistan. Allegedly, because all those countries had their tests but neither of them confessed if they had something working.

And beside that, there were nuclear explosions On our planet organized by who-knows-who. All the countries checked out that someone banged something in the ocean. But when they asked each other what that was exactly, all of them were, like... Nuclear testing is a very important thing in the developing process; because you can calculate anything with your computers, but in real life, something might go wrong and the weapons load might not bang. Or bang, but in some different way. Or bang in that moment when you don't expect that. The same thing with your drunken dad. Anyway, only

after you finished the full-fledged testing, you can be sure that you have a working weapon. Without testing, you might tell anything to anyone; but without real facts of testing, you couldn't scare anyone with it. After all, you wouldn't be so sure that you won't shit yourself in the right moment. And nuclear weapon isn't just any bomb, by the way. This is a very important argument in any negotiations and very certain centers of power that make people listen What you're saying and what you want. For our narrative, it's important that during the period after the World

War II, only the USA, the Great Britain, and the USSR had nuclear weapons. The UK had its first testing in 1952, near the Montebello island. It's on the west of Australia. What did the British do? They parked a frigate on anchor, put a bomb in it, sailed further away, and exploded all of that stuff. That's all. By they way, the word "testing" Simply means a bomb explosion. You take the bomb, choose a target, put on the darkest shades, push the button - and enjoy fireworks. And yes, testings were organized in the open air in the

ocean. No one collected radioactive debris. You could try to find them after a whole ship burst to pieces in the ocean. They just exploded it and sailed further on doing their business. Ecology! Don't forget! The Soviet Union had its first testing in 1949 on the testing site in Semipalatinsk. It's the territory of modern Kazakhstan. Those guys built several facilites in the steppe, like some towers, foretypes of warehouses, domestic houses, in order to see what would remain intact after the explosion. The bomb was planted into one of the towers, and it was exploded. And by the

way, another information for those who worry so much. The participants in nuclear testing always were and will be animals that were put around On different points of the testing ground and at different distance from the explosion in order to see how forced meat flies on the walls. Think about it for a few seconds. You won't put living people on the testing ground, right? You won't. But goats, doggies, cows, kitties, pigs, rats - come here. And if some of you have your chin trembling because the Soviet Union was so horrible and cruel, you should know: there

were dudes who put people on testing grounds. And not even in North Korea. Those were Americans. And their testing grounds were Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Beside the fact that the nuclear strike on Japan was a military operation, that was the first successful nuclear weapon testing with people. The Experiments Column in global sense looks exactly like that! Before dropping bombs on Japan, literally a couple of weeks before Hiroshima, in July 1945, those guys exploded a bomb on their testing ground in Nevada, and they put a bunch of animals in there, of course. Because it was boring without

animals, And sensations were wrong. And a couple of weeks later, in early August 1945, bombs were dropped down on people. Of course, it's a tragedy; that's forbidden, yes. But nobody cares. The explosion of a nuclear bomb is the power demonstration and the direct notion that you should do what we ask you to do. And while the World War II was followed by global remaking of world order and all power centers, the nuclear bomb in someone's pocket was a very strong argument to participate in that process. And here, France sucked so many dicks you couldn't count.

Technically, the USA, the UK and the USSR decided what would belong to whom after the war. Look how pleased all of them are! The moment that photo was made, Britain and the Soviets still didn't had tested bombs but they were very close to the end of development. And the USA knew that. That's why everyone was smiling politely to each other, so brightly that they were shining. That was easy with such a level of radiation. France wasn't used to that position where everyone held it cheap. It had been an empire all the way, and a very

important bird! And here they say to you, "Go for a walk while adults would discuss some matters here. And they realized that France would either become a nuclear-weapon state, and they would be able to speak on a par with serious guys, or it would continue to stand doggy style in the position "la fuckolie". But we deal with French, and it's only natural that they had to fight among themselves On the top for ten times, to discuss it from every point, to spit each other in the face, to rally that nuclear weapon was evil and very,

very bad. But by the late 1950s, it was already perfectly clear that they needed their own bomb. And here, we should take our bullet points and explain at them how to make your own nuclear weapon. But I'm gonna do it with one condition: promise me not to recreate it in your kitchen. Or, only under supervision of adults. For starters, you need a scientific base: special labs and a bunch of smart people inside that would be studying atomic structures, nuclear chain reactions, how that could work and how you could make nuclear fuel from mud and straw.

France did have all of that. Long before the World War II, there were scientists in France that were doing that. I must say, a pretty big share of fundamental processes was Opened by French scientists exactly. The most famous of them were a married couple, Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie. Both were Nobel prize laureates in chemistry. If you're interested, you could read about them, those guys were funny. But their scientific works are just super boring. They didn't invent any memes even. Further on, you need to make nuclear fuel. If we take it just super simple, it would

look about like this. For our recipy, we have to take natural uranium and a huge plant that could enrich it. Did you hear such a term - enriched uranium? And that all the countries run with it back and forth? So, I'll tell you what that is and how everything fits together. Spoiler, enriched uranium doesn't fit into your system. It's like a large basket of Buffalo wings from KFC, just a bit stronger. At the very least, you would turn to a fine rocket. There is natural uranium that is mined from the earth. The uranium content in

the ore isn't very high - 1% in average, or less. That's why you have to dig some huge, super huge hole to dig out at least some needed quantity Of uranium from that hole. Further on, you have to free clean uranium frm any mud and straw, and as the result, you would have a silver-colored metal. You shouldn't touch it with your bare hands, but ribbon gloves are okay; nothing scary would happen to you. On its own, in such relatively natural state, uranium is a real nothing. Well, it's just a piece of metal. Yes, it's chemically

active. Yes, it's a bit radioactive, but essentially, it's just A piece of metal as it is, that's all. But if you cast a certain magic on it, you might get something interesting. Here comes a bit of tension. I'm gonna explain difficult things. That's why you should pull such a face. With such a face, you would understand it better. And if you do like this, you would understand it all. If you did it more often, you would have known a long time ago that you're adopted. Regular uranium consists of 3 parts in strict proportions. Each parts

is called an isotope. Roughly speaking, it's like water consists of 2 molecules of hydrogene and one molecule of oxygene, the H2O formula. And uranium consists of 3 isotopes of uranium. I know, chemists are already very tense because of such analogies, but don't you dare throw your ebonite sticks at me. Shove them back where they belong. I'm gonna make things simpler on purpose so that the principle was clear. Isotopes that make uranium are called pretty tricky. U-238, U-235 And U-234. They look like a very strange bus numbers. Route 238, route 235, and route 234. The terminal

station is nuclear winter. Proportions of each isotope in uranium are different. 238 takes the most of its mass, 99.27%. And if you rack your brains a bit, you could notice that 99.27 percent of total mass is practically the whole amount of mass of the element. Yes, almost the whole mass of uranium comes to 238 isotope. The rest take a teeny-tiny share the size of fucking nothing. Essentially, that basic mass with 99 and shit percent is absolutely useless because uranium-238 can't do the nuclear chain reaction. The nuclear chain reaction means that atomic nuclea inside some stuff,

in certain conditions, like at certain temperature or under some other impact, begin to bump into each other, and change and split frantically. If you skipped science at school, it looks about like this in a simple way. Imagine, you have a huge pack of dogs. About 100 of them. All are lying, sleeping, no one is bothering anyone. But suddenly, some dog has a scary dream, it jumps up and begins to bark. What will happen? All that pack would be barking another week through a contagion effect. Because all of them would begin to bark, others would bark

because of the noise, and so on. And now, imagine, what would happen if any barking from any dog would add To your pack another dog, or several at once, even. And those dogs also could bark and summon new dogs. It's some scary stuff. It's not enough that you can't stop it; they would crowd the whole city in a couple of seconds. That is the nuclear chain reaction but with atoms instead of dogs. And when atoms begin to split because of excitement, an epic outburst of energy happens that we need so badly. And so! Uranium-238 that

presents 99.27% from the basic mass, can't do that. It's like a dog without a mouth. It could only look cute and understand everything, but it cannot bark. You could heat it, slobber it, bang it with a hammer, it doesn't care at all. Let's call it a relative impotent. And the second uranim isotope, U-235, our 235 bus, can do the nuclear reaction. Yes, it can! You just touch it, and everything near it would suddenly regret it. And so, let's call it Bitchy Casanova. But the natural uranium, taken from mines, Has only 0.72% of that isotope. Well,

0.72 from the basic mass. And you couldn't separate it just like that, it would react at once. And being raped by uranium Casanova isn't the thing that you would want to experience in your life, trust me. The third isotope, U-234, makes 0.0005% from the basic mass at the level of acceptable error limit, that's why they don't mention it in many sources; they just write that uranium consists from isotopes 238 and 234, that's all. And if we take usual natural Uranium in its usual natural conditions, you couldn't gain a thing in those proportions between the impotent

isotope and the Casanova isotope. It's useless because more than 99% of its mass doesn't want anything and can't do anything. But if you change that proportion and make uranium with a greater share of Casanova, you could invent something interesting with it. And the process when the share of active uranium isotope, our Casanova isotope, U-235, in the basic mass of uranium increases, that's called The process of uranium enrichment. And if the result of your tricky manipulations with uranium makes sure that the share of Casanova in the result materail would be higher than natural 0.72%, that would

be enriched uranium. And if it would be lower, that would be depleted uranium. That's all the difference. Is it clear? Nod so that I could see it. I always admired how clever you are. Whatever I tell, everything is clear to you. Take the second deserved kiss. The enrichment of uranium is the task of special plants. Those are really huge things; some chemical magic happens inside them, and they consume some fucking amount of energy to do their work. One uranium enrichment plant consumes as much energy as a whole city. That's why they're usually built near some

water power plants or some power plants that work on oil, gas or coal, so that the whole power plant Could work only for one plant. Because it needs a real lot of energy. By the way, I would really like to see how ecological activists imagine the way you could power a whole uranium enrichment plant with a turbine tower or with a solar panel. I would like to see it and laugh very much. Together with all the nuclear scientists and power engineers. Of course, activists parry with the fact that nuclear technologies are horrible as they were,

And they need to be destroyed. But it's because they don't have their own power plant, and so they're mad. Okay, let's return to our nuclear bomb recipy. We dug a huge hole in the earth, received the ore, got uranium from the ore. Then we took it to a special uranium enrichment plant, and for that process, we spent a huge amount of energy, time and money, and as the result, we got enriched uranium that can be used as nuclear fuel. Here's another important nuance. Depending of the way we want to use enriched uranium, we need different

concentration of Casanova in that uranium. If using our intellectual and anal suffering on the plant, we increase Casanova's concentration, i.e. Uranium-235, up to 5%, or perhaps to 10%, or even to 20% from basic mass, that enriched uranium can be used as fuel on power plants. Roughly speaking, it's like for cars, we have sorts of gas - 92, 95 and 100. And for atomic reactor, there are 5%-uranium, 10%-uranium and 20%-uranium. And it's used as a fuel. And if you increase the concentration up to 90%, it can be used as a weapon. It would blow up like

hell. And there are also reactors that don't produce power but serve for different research. Including research to create weapon-graide uranium and plutonium. For those reactors, enriched uranium with 5%, 10%, 15% is a quite fit, too. Technically, you could take a usual research reactor, and if you have a right amount of 5%-uranium, then, after hard and tricky suffering and spending much time and many human resources, you could get some amount of weapon-grade uranium or plutonium out of that stuff. For this very reason, everyone gets tense even if a certain country has usual atomic reactors. As a

rule, such facilities are top secret, and it's unclear what happens out there. Anything could happen, really. It could look like peaceful atom in the shop window, but under the table, it could be anything. Especially in the 1960-1970s. But getting uranium with 90% Casanova concentration is very hard. It's very expensive because the process of enrichment isn't linear. Each following procent of concentration would be more difficult and expensive for you than the previous one, and when you reach 30% at least, that would be very hard to obtain both with infrastructure and with energetics. And so, scientists grunted

a bit, racked their brains, and then they discovered that if you throw 20%-uranium into the atomic Reactor and make some fuss inside, you could take plutonium out of the reactor. And in certain condition, plutonium is a perfect fit for nuclear weapon. And it happens to be cheaper and more dangerous than weapon-grade uranium with high Casanova concentration. By the way, you could get plutonium only that way. Only inside an atomic reactor. It doesn't occur in nature. It's an atificially created chemical element. Or, rather, it occurs in nature but in such tiny numbers that you couldn't get

it anywhere in the amounts you need. And if you could irradiate uranium in a very specific way, you can get plutonium. It's very convenient for nuclear weapon production. All in all, you could put uranium into the missile, not a problem. But plutonium is still cheaper and funnier. The entire scheme looks something like this. We find uranium deposits, We dig uranium ore out of them. Then we take it to some special facility that clears uranium of some additions, mud and straw. And later, we put that uranium to some uranium enrichment plant. We get it to the

needed Casanova concentration, then we put it into an atomic reactor, do some magic, salt and pepper to taste, and then we take plutonium out of it. Later, we put plutonium in a bomb in some certain way, we write "world peace" on it - and that's all, the bomb is ready. You can go and boast before your neighbors. But all of us remember - well, I hope, we still remember - it's not enough to make a bomb, you should test it. And Algeria was a perfect fit for those matters. We're talking about Algeria here, y'all. You

have a piece of desert where nobody lives. You could blow up a ton of shit. You won't blow up a nuclear bomb in France, won't you? People live here, eating croissants, and so on. But you could say to Algerians that they shouldn't go over that dune because snow Could fall onto their head, and that's all. That was the decision, by the way. In total sum, France organized 17 nuclear testings in Algeria 1960-1966. They bombed as they could. Those parties were really hot. The first 4 tests were simply land-based, i.e. they exploded nuclear weapon on the

ground. Later, they began to organize underground tests. Underground testing means that they blow up a weapon in a deep mine so that they wouldn't pollute everything Around them with radioactive ashes. And when they passed all the tests, gathered all the data, and had their share of fun, the French wrapped all their testing grounds in Algeria down, and they went to bomb testing grounds in French Polynesia, another French colony. There was a lot of empty islands. Plus, you could explode something under water. And the climat was more pleasant there. Plus, Polynesian women were bombs, too. But

here's the thing, why the heck I'm telling you all of this? If I might not tell you all those things, I wouldn't tell you. I've been inventing that analogy with dogs and nuclear chain reactions for two days, really. And naming active uranium isotope, that Bitchy Casanova, is just worthy a Nobel prize, I think. In all that story with Algeria and nuclear testing, there was one person that made me very interested. That man was called Michel Baroin, and it's highly unlikely that any of you could hear about him. Michel was a politician, diplomate, Doctor of International

Law, and an employee of French special service. And for many years, he was busy with discussion of questions in Algeria. In general, he attended to presence and protection of interests of France all over Africa. That harmless term, presence and protection of interests, that we hear very often on TV or other media, it's just about stealing plants, instituting and possessing of control over some important deposits, for example, putting your own people to important top posts in the government, and so on, and so forth. That thing that all the important objects remained under control of France After

the Algerian recognition of independence, that means protection of interests in the parlance of diplomates. Not like it could sound "You, apes, go fuck yourselves, we won't give you anything, and we will fuck you all" - but protection of interests. Very precise nuances of wordings. And Michel attended to those things. Through all his political life and special-service-life, beginning with the 1950s. He was one of those people who participated in signing the Évian Accords. The Évian Accords Aren't some conspiracy of all cafes and restaurants to sell the Évian water for some absolutely inadequate money but a paper

about ending the war in Algeria, recognition of independence of the country and all that shit that was signed on super beneficial terms for France. At some point, people of the government called Michel and told him the following, "Michel, are you sleeping? Take you suitcase, take the plane. You're flying to Gabon. Why? It seems we found an uranium mine out there, and it seems there is so much uranium that we could cover a half of the planet." Chapter IX. An Ideal Scheme As we could guess from all that was said before, everything that was connected with

uranium, with its mining, with its transportation, enrichment and further use, those were all really sensitive matters of strategic values. Of course, France didn't have its own uranium in sufficient volumes. The country had uranium mines, yes, but they were so small that they couldn't ever cover uranium needs for some strong nuclear program. They couldn't be enough for some experiments, but building of their own nuclear weapon or power plants without colonies was out of the question. That was the reason France mostly mined its uranium on colonies' territories, of course. Like any other resources. And uranium is a

pretty rare shit. And its amounts in the earth are not very high. And concentration of uranium is always low in uranium ore. And when someone finds uranium deposits somewhere in the world, everyone who's interested come to those places like vultures. Especially, back then, the 1950-1970s. Today, many deposits are investigated, everyone understand their volumes and some planning horizon in very country. And back then, when it all began to appear, no one knew where to get uranium. As soon as someone found some rock with uranium somewhere, you could say good-bye to it. They would come running, close

it off, shoot everyone down or shoot themselves down. You would be lucky if you escaped. The same thing like with the gold rush in the US but with uranium and over the whole planet. Since the late 1940s, like 1948-1949, since that time, the French were looking all the possible uranium deposits in all their colonies in all the possible ways. Because the whole nuclear program in the country fully depended on the search of those mines. And at that moment, when they embraced the strategy That the country needed both nuclear power and nuclear weapon, they created a

special department - the Atomic Energy Commission, a.k.a. CEA. And it consisted of scientists and security officials. That question was directly connected to the nation security. And those guys of CEA travelled over all the available and possible colonies of France and sticked their nose absolutely everywhere where, theorhetically, some hint at uranium could be. In 1956, 4 years before the first French nuclear weapon testing, CEA scientists discovered a very strange place in some dump in Gabon. Gabon is a god forsaken place in Central Africa. It's situated right here, and in our modern world, for the time being,

its population is 2.2 million people. And in the 1950s, there were about 1 or even 1.5 million people. There is no exact information because you couldn't count them on palm trees. The French landed in Gabon in 1840 for the first time, about the same time as in Algeria. They caught all the local chieftains, explained who's the master here, and they began to exploit them as some usual colony. They exported coffee, wood, minerals, all the usual stuff. The place those scientists discovered was near some town called Franceville. That's a pure African name, there's no way French

invented it! Well, that place was strange because originally, it was just like an ordinary uranium deposit. But uranium that was contained in the ore from that place had very strange proportions. Do you remember, I told you that uranium has isotopes, and they have some strict correlation of mass? 99.27 percent of the inactive isotope U-238, 0.725 percent of the active isotope, U-235, that Casanova, and 0.005 percent of U-234, which is at the level of error limit. And uranium found in Gabon, concentration of active isotopes was 0.717 percent. And it seems that the difference with usual uranium

was 0.008 percent, that was small change. But the big idea was, no one had seen it in the entire world. Nowhere else. Natural uranium was always with strict Proportions, no more no less. All over the world, all the known mines were absolutely the same. But here, the amount of active isotope was less. After many years of research, scientists found out that out there, near Franceville, 2 billion years ago, there was a real natural atomic reactor of fucking big scale that burnt out that part of active uranium in uranium. That's real, it's possible in nature. Now,

that phenomenon and that place are known as Oklo nuclear fission reactor. There is a lot of articles and interesting things about that. But back then, in 1957, they understood that was some strange uranium deposit, and they didn't care about it. Because it had the main thing the French needed. It had uranium. A lot of it. For the first time, 1957-1974, the French dug out 5 huge uranium mines on the territory of that deposit that put Gabon at the 6th place In the world in uranium mining. Look here. Imagine, you are France. You find so strategically

important deposit in one of your colonies. But you already signed all the important papers with UN, and you promised to the whole world that you give sovereignty to all the colonies. And if you give sovereignty to those guys who were wearing palm skirts a while ago, there's no saying what they could do with your mines, absolutely no saying. But you must give them independence. Or, rather, you should give them independence on paper. And really, no one gives a shit who will do what inside the country. You should honor the rituals. And what would you do

in that case, were you France? You would put your own government, under your control, you're right. And Michel Baroin worked on that project exactly, as on independence of Algeria. Meet 2 friends. Léon M'ba and Albert-Bernard Bongo. Those guys were not just any friends; both of them, just accidentally, were the first and the second Presidents of the Gabonese Republic. First, Léon M'ba ruled the country, and Albert-Bernard Bongo was second. And in the late 1950s, when uranium mines were found, Gabon was still a colony that had to become independent in some way but to regain full dependence.

That was the equation. At that moment, Léon M'ba was just an ordinary politician but he was pro-France. Even in 1951, for some reason, he tried to be elected to the National Assembly of France. Of course, they kicked them out of there without second thoughts. And Michel came up to Léon and said, "Look here, we could give Gabon independence and make you president, but with one condition: you have to leave our control everywhere where we need. And if we need to do something, you would do that with smile and zeal. Agreed?" Of course, democratic party of

Gabon appeared immediately because democracy looks exactly like that. In a spite of several years, they created a needed image for Léon M'ba, they trained him as mayor of Libreville, that is the Capital of Gabon; and later, they carefully put him to the post of president of the government council of Gabon, and they began to prepare for independence. The independence was declared 17 August 1960. That was the year of the first nuclear tests in Algeria, and up to that point, they had been mining uranium in Gabon for 3 years already. At that point, the moment of

independence declaration, Léon M'ba was premier minister. Automatically, he became the head of the government. But the country was independent. Plus, democracy came, freedom, at last! And with those democratic values, you have to take the will of people into consideration. And you should hold a presidential election. A real one, a real free democratic election. You should know that all that shit with independence went under slogans "For freedom, for people, for Gabon's future", all of that fucking shit. That was perfect distraction of the public while you were to dig uranium, without the fuss. In 1961, there was

a presidential election. And with genuine pleasure, I ask you to have a look at the candidate list and to assume what fever pich was happening with that fair and competitive fighting for the presidential chair. Here's the list. We didn't fuck up during the edit, there's one candidate, that's right. And, absolutely surprising, there were 100% votes for him. Obviously, that was the great candidate, if all of them voted for him with such passion. That was the democratic party of Gabon, not a dog's dick. And the country's leadership - he wasn't alone in there, there was some

amount of people, and everyone understood everything that was happening. Of course, they understood that there was no such thing as independence. And Léon would only do everything what they'd tell him to do from Paris. And 3 years after the election, when all the doubts about the independence of thкe country's leadership fell away, the domestic opposition and the military tried To make an army coup. And they even managed to kidnap the president. That was in 1967. Albert-Bernard Bongo, that Léon's friend, that was premier minister at that time, and the president's right hand, called Charles de Gaulle,

and he said, "Hey, boss, they stole Leo. What should I do?" Charles told him to keep a low profile, "We'll figure it out, don't worry. And during the next few days, the French moved their military and special ops forces from Congo who Were making democracy out there, of course. They found Léon, punched all the rebels in their teeth, returned Léon to his chair and ran back to Congo doing their democratic errands. But as Léon was 65 years old at that time, and his health was not so good with such fun in the background, it was

only natural that the old geezer didn't make it. They tried to fix him in Paris. He spent some time out there, but the nature took over, and in the same year, 1967, Léon died, and his friend Albert-Bernard Bongo was put into his place. That was the Premier Minister that called de Gaulles. The scheme of keeping Bongo in command was the same as with Léon. In 1967, he became president by the right of the Prime Minister. And in 1973, 1979 and 1989, he was elected during the most honest democratic elections with one candidate in the list.

All of that was happening under supervision of Michel Baroin because he was responsible for the whole African region. But let us return to the mines. We did speak about them originally. Here's the place on the map where they are concentrated. And by the late 1960s, there were 4 large mines around there, and they were extracting uranium from them. But you don't give a shit about the just extracted uranium. You have to transport it to the enrichment plant in order to turn it into enriched uranium and to send it further on, to become fuel for nuclear

power plants or for bombs. Here's the question: how would you transport uranium from that African ass? You should know that in the 1960s, Gabon represented 240,000 square kilometers of actual fucking nothing. Just jungle, land and mountains. What would you do? You could try to bring something down the river. From Franceville till the West Coast, the Ogooué river leads. That's its name. It is shallow, and you couldn't put a huge ship from industrial harbor into it, it wouldn't fit. You could transport something little, okay, but you can't transport thousands of tons of uranium ore or pure

uranium down the river. You could try to use airplanes. But they couldn't take much either because that stuff is very heavy, and that would be very expensive. And you wouldn't build the uranium enrichment plant out there because it's dangerous to leave that sort of technology in the country. Yes, the country is under your control; yes, everything is calm there. But what if? Some military coup is always possible. And if they take your plant away from you, it could be very soon that you would present Africans with nuclear technologies just like that. That's a no. There

is one way out. The railroad. You could transport the stuff on the railroad to the port, embark on huge hips nad sent it to the plant that stands somewhere out there, in France. That's a great scheme. Your technologies are safe, and you could safely transport the ore back and forth. Only one question remains: who would pay the whole banquet? Building the railroad road... Railroad road, live with such wordings! That's nothing, you wouldn't die. Building such a railroad, that 700-km stretch, is very expensive. Just really, very, very expensive. One thing if you build a railroad somewhere

in Europe, in the US, or even in Russia, where you have factories that produce rails, or concrete, or construction supplies within reach; you have much equipment within reach, and there is a bunch of railroads you could take to come to the construction site. And the other thing is to build everything from scratch, in the middle of nowhere, without infrastructure, God knows with what hands and out of what. The only benefit is you could see some rare monkey species in the forest. That's all. Gabon couldn't manage it as the country, just physically, really. From the other

hand, France also didn't want to pur down a bajillion of cash to Gabon's infrastructure. First, they grudged the money. Second, it would be a real smoking gun that France suddenly decided to pour down several year budgets of Gabon into Some free country. And they didn't want any extra attention. At first, those guys decided to play simple, and they tried an absolutely standard move of big politics. They gathered all the stories how all the poor and miserable Gabonese lived poorly in their Gabonese hicksville. Like, they had nothing back there, no common goodies and normal clothes, no

medicine; and they were eating some shit that grew under their feet. And why was their life so bad? Because they had no railroads. And if they had a railroad, we would bring them a bunch of goodies of any kinds, and Gabonese would live happily and merrily. They put such presentations and pictures into the bag of Gabonese president, and they sent him to the global central bank with all of that. Like, give us money, please, and we would say thank you. Do you have much money? Yes. And we have a little. Let us decide that situation

in some way. But those people were either smarter Or not so sick in the head as they are now, but no one bought those songs in the Central Bank. Omar Bongo travelled back there several time. Each time, he told ever more vivid stories how fucking hard life in Africa is without a railroad. But all of that was to no luck. But in 1973, Michel Baroin came to Albert-Bernard Bongo, and he said, like, "I thought of everything and made an agreement. We have sponsors that are ready to build the railroad; they have money, everything Is alright,

I checked. There is only one condition. You have to convert to Islam. No options, you should go. Don't worry, I asked them not to invent a too funny name for you." I'm not messing around. There was such a converstaion. Honestly, I would like to look at the eyes of Albert Bongo when he was told that further on, his name would be not Albert but Omar Khayyam Ibn Hussein oghlu or something like that. And that was necessary. The point of the situation: during all that time, the French had been secretly negotiating with OPEC. What happened in

1973? The first oil crisis, that's right. When OPEC put limitations on oil delivery, they didn't want just to make some more money. They had enough money. With those limitations, they wanted to show their power and to explain that they were to be reckoned with. But you could show off like that one time, good. They would notice you, listen to you, even shake your hand. But in the long term, you wouldn't be able to blackmail countries that have nuclear weapon when your ammunition consists from Kalashnikov guns and a couple of missiles that could blow up a

field toilet. And your soldiers could blow up the field toilet themselves. You should only keep their food on the field kitchen for a couple of days too long. France was just about the only country That got oil from OPEC without limitations and extra charges whatsoever. Yes, for global panic, the French imposed some stupid restriction inside their country, too, like you should spare gas, and all that stuff. But it wasn't really needed because the French didn't have any shortage. They honored a couple of stupid rituals to do some cover-ups, that's all. All of that happened because

at that moment, France was the only way to obtain nuclear weapon for OPEC needs. In 1968, the UN committee made еру Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. For the public and those who were worried, that was pictured as if a bunch of guys were sitting with serious faces and said, like, "Nuclear weapon is bad, horrible; we musn't allow its proliferation in no way. No, no, no, no, no. That's why we wrote some serous document made on the most serious paper with most serious ink and seals. More serious is only our suspect that you're fag..."

Technically, that treaty obligated all the country in possession of nuclear weapon in no way and under no circumstances to give their nuclear weapon to anyone. And all of the were like, yes, good, as it should be! Or else, all the countries with nuclear weapon longed to give it to each and everyone else. Like, "Guys, we have our super technology that allows us to dictate our policy all over the world. Here you go, take it, please. We made it just for you. No, we don't need it, thкat's okay, we had enough of it. You're top guys

now." That treaty said that who had nuclear weapon, that should have it. That's all. "We are the power and the might center, and everyone else could have a dick with butter. By the way, Granny made that butter herself, you should try it." And that treaty was signed by the USA, the Soviets and the Great Britain. And France ditched it. It didn't sign anything. It was sick to death with their agreements. It was bent over once after the war already, it didn't want it anymore. That's why the French didn't have any slightest limitation even legally, and

they could safely trade nuclear weapon and nuclear technologies. And OPEC members knew that, of course. And at that point, when everyone recieved limitations on oil delivery, and the export to the USA was taboo, at all, OPEC came to the French, and they said, like, "Shall we talk?" And the French answered, "We shall." And Michel Baroin invented an ideal scheme. The point of the deal was following. First, OPEC members would give money to build the Trans-Gabon Railway from uranium mines in Franceville up to he shipping port in Libreville. OPEC had to finance the building all the

way through, till the last cent. And railroad is called Transgabonais, by the way. I wouldn't want to hear that in Thailand, you know. "Hello, I'm Transgabonais." Second, France would organize uranium delivery on its own and takes responsibility for shipments safety and uranium delivery from the mines. By the way, it was their dumb luck that they had a military base in Gabon, near the port where uranium was transported to. It just fell out of the pocket. "That would be our watching point. We have a free country here, democracy, everything is safe. Well, just in case. Let

it stand, we just want to watch." Third, France would implement special quotas and admit students from OPEC into its universities for its own money; so they would learn how to handle Nuclear technologies, reactors, and all of that, and later, they could safely work in their countries at all the possible facilities. Fourth, OPEC would give money, and they would build a single uranium enrichment plant on the territory of France; and guys from OPEC would own 10% of it, and they would claim the same 10% of all amount of enriched uranium that would be produced by that

plant. Fifth, France would deliver several nuclear reactors Directly and help to turn them on. That was all the scheme. Albert Bongo had to convert to Islam to confirm France's commitment. Because that was a very importand and sensitive for Muslims. If you came to us, if you denied your religion and converted to our religion, then we trust you. If you converted to Islam, you're one of us. And the French were like, "Who's gonna be Muslim? Him? Easy-peasy! Sorry. Hey, you, on the palm-tree! Come here! Come on! Hurry, run to those guys, to their temple, Go with

God... I mean, Allahu Akbar!" That was their decision. Oil people would deliver everything to France as before, plus, they would give them a ton of money for building the railroad and necessary facilities. And the French would give technologies, learn future specialists, and deliver reactors and fuel for them. And no one would do anything to them for that. The problem is that I didn't tell you about some very important detail. That detail was the fact that the deal wasn't made quite with OPEC. Yes, OPEC participated as an organization, but all those negotiations were held with one

specific country. And all the technologies, shipments and the share of uranium enrichment facilities had to go to one specific country. That country was Iran. Chapter X. Deal with the Devil Iran was one of the countries that were initiators of OPEC creation. Just because it could. And because Iran had power. In the 1970s, Iran was one of the most developed countries in the Middle East. At that point, the office was held by a pro-western sheikh Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. And the country was actively developing, supplying the half of the world with oil, making money and investing it

in its development. All in all, they could make ther own nuclear program, without any hellp. But in the light of their technological differences with the West, they would waste too much time. And no one would allow them to do that because no one wanted another center of power. But they had an opportunity to settle with the French. And based on their tenderness, the French was also interested to make everything work. One way or another, in 1973, Albert Bongo converted to Islam confirming his intention, and he became El Hadj Omar Bongo. During the same year, they

laid the cornerstone to the railroad that would connect Franceville with Libreville. And that it was touted like the greatest project for tourism and development of inner infrastructure of the country. Like, it would be comfortable to travel back and forth, here's for the new life! But the main task of the railroad that went under the radar, of course, was delivery of ore from the mine that was situated literally in several tens of kilometers from Franceville. Concurrently, in order to secure the deal, two companies were born. The French government created the COGEMA company, and the Iranian government

created the Sofidif company. Those companies shared each other's stock in certain proportions, and they created together the third company called Eurodif. It owned the liked named uranium Enrichment plant Eurodif. The point of mixing shares inside the company: as the result, Iran should have 10% share of Eurodif on its hands, and also, 10% of all enriched uranium that plant would produce. And for that, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi paid 1 billion 180 million dollars to the French to build that plant. And also, through the COGEMA company, France had to deliver atomic reactors to Iran, and also, through Eurodif,

They had to deliver enriched uranium for those reactors to work. On paper, that looked like France had to deliver to Iran an atomic reactor to produce electricity in nuclear power plants. And everyone made serious faces, like, yes! Iran needed electricity! Natural, pure, modern, all of that. Exactly for electricity, yes! But excuse me! There is more oil than water in Iran. And their total deposits of oil and gas would last 100 years, even if they would Deliver hydrocarbons to the half of the planet. Hydrocarbone stock in Iran would run short far later than it would be

in the rest of the Middle Eastern countries. Really, they have shit tons of them. And that story they needed an atomic reactor for electricity was such a ridiculous excuse that even readers of cheap crime stories would suspect something was wrong. On the Eurodif plant, uranium was enriched up to 5%. That was enough to make plutonium out of it, for the weapon. Yes, you'd have to spend a shit ton of energy for that because the reactor would consume it in huge numbers and not produce, of course. But power plants working on hydrocarbons were a dime a

dozen in Iran. They could handle it. And everyone understood everything. But actually, the game was much funnier, and the stakes were much higher. The Eurodif uranium enrichment plant had to be launched in 1978, like the first stretch of Transgabonais. And the last payment of Iran had to be paid in 1977. And Iranian government did exactly that. By that time, France already managed to deliver several atomic reactors to Iran. And as soon as the Eurodif plant would be finished, shipments of enriched uranium had to travel to Iran. But the main LOL was the fact that no

one intended to deliver any uranium. In 1977, exactly at that point when Iran paid for everything, some disturbances began in the country resulting in the Islamic Revolution of 1978-1979. The point was that Iranian people at large were hardly content with the government policy. They didn't like westernization, women in skirts, and so on. The protestants had a certain leader, Ayatollah Khomeini. Ayatollah is a religious title, like our patriarchs. But out there, the title of Ayatollah was quite more serious. And Ruhollah Khomeini - that was the man's name. And it would seem, France would have wanted to

help to its partner to deal with this matter. They had business relationships, agreements, responisibilities and everything. But why? Did they already pay us? They did. Should we fulfill our contract obligations? Why the fuck? We'd better help the revolution! They would turn the things upside down, and we wouldn't have to deliver anything, we're good! Generally, Iran's power was enough to handle the protests on its own. Reza Pahlavi wasn't a fool. But the French managed to bring Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the protests, over to Paris, and they hid him in their embassy. And he led the

protests from there. And no one even bothered to hide anything. Media wrote about it safely, and the French were, like, "Yes! We're covering the darling of the people and fighter for all that's saint. Because he could be punished by the bloody Iranian regime. We won't allow it, oh no, we're the good guys!" The USA were still holding the grudge because Iran was initiator of the prohibition of oil delivery, and they were only happy to shit into their pockets with all the means possible. Iran was left alone. And it failed. By all tokens, when Ayatollah Khomeini

rose to power as the result of all that fuss, and when he realized all the agreements and saw that his country was fucked with the nuclear deal, he was just taken aback. There were papers, there were agreements, there were reactors, but where was the fuel? The Eurodif plant worked for a year now, and the Gabonese uranium was already travelling along the railroad built for their money, and no one wanted To return or to deliver anything. What the fuck!? And after the fair question of Iran, like, guys, hello, where's uranium? - at that point, accusation began

to pour down from every media and shit throwers, like, Iran were a horrible state that wanted to make nuclear weapons and to kill all of us, that's why we had to to rally all together against those horrible monsters. Concurrently, right after the Islamic Revolution, the Iran-Iraq war began. Actually, everyone fought everyone back there. Technically, battles were held on territories of Iraq and Iran, yes. But the whole world was fighting out there. Because Iran was very strong and it could be an equal player with the powers that be very soon, and it had to be kicked

out from that field once and for all. That's why the US, France, the USSR and Great Britain were financing Iraq. And Iran was reposing on its own power, and also on the help of Syria and Livia, its OPEC partners. And China helped a bit, too. A spoiler question from the future: What state are Syria and Livia now? Yes. As I've said, an impossible amount of people died in the Iran-Iraq war. As it always happens in those games, yeas. And it turns out that wasn't enough that you were publicly sent to hell with your agreements; you

were stripped of your money; your enemies from Iraq fly on American and French fighters and bombers; and plus, they kill your people; but that's not enough. You were pissed and shit-canned for the whole World to see so that you couldn't show off and knew your place. The funniest thing was that Iran even tried to file complaints to justice courts because of the nuclear deal with the French. They showed them papers; they said they had agreements and the French had to fulfill their obligations, or at least, give their money back, please. And the answer was, "Hey

you, animal, shut up your mouth. We will freeze all of your accounts, and by the way, meet sanctions." Put yourself in Iran's position. What would you do when they treated you like that? When you realize that you wouldn't achieve justice, and whatever you did, they would spit you in the face. And they wage an actual war with you, both in political sense and literally. And they want to beat you to death just because you happen to become strong. What would you do? You would seek revenge. And if there are no rules, The revenge would be

cruel. Iran began financing radical movements inside France. Using them in order to play its own game. All the members of the organization were more like well-trained gunmen. How did they train? Who instructed them? Yes, weapon delivery, training of fighters and leaking of the info needed was oversight by Iranian special forces. That is the answer where usual dudes had been trained like professional mercenaries. In their memoirs, I was able to dig out only Cordial thanks to their brothers in arms and passionate people. Moreover, some operations of gunmen and terrorists in France were held only to distract

the public attention. Something like bombing a police station. And some of them were precisely targeted. The first victim - René Audran, murdered 26 April 1986. Why do you give a fuck that someone is waging war somewhere a world away? A man was found in his home with 8 bullet wounds. René Audran. René Audran was sending weapon shipments to Iraq, Iran's enemy. He was a talented military engineer; he helped to develop a large amount of weaponry and made agreements to deliver it to the places needed. And the peculiar ferocity of that murder shocked all the French

government. 5 February of the same 1986. A bomb exploded in one of the shops from the large trading network that belonged to Michel Baroin. It looked like a just some strange shop explosion. But Michel knew why the bomb Happened to be exactly in his store. In general, he attended to presence and protection of interests of France all over Africa. And Michel Baroin invented an ideal scheme. And no one would do anything to them for that. 2 months after that bomb, 26 April 1986, in the center of Paris, on the New York Quay, some unkown people

hit do death a girl of 22 that was called Veronica. The murderers weren't been found, although everyone was looking for them hysterically with every means possible, and The whole city was upside down. The reason was Veronica's family name, Baroin. She was Michel Baroin's daughter. You would seek revenge. And if there are no rules, the revenge would be cruel. In September 1985, within 3 days range, another shop went boom, as well as the Renault Pub. It was just a special pub from Renault, some usual drinking establishment where workers of the factory used to hang out. And

if the bomb in the store was addressed to Michel Baroin again, The bomb in the Renault Pub was addressed to some other person. To the person who participated in the dealings with Iran no less than Michel Baroin. It was addressed to the person that was building the uranium enrichment plant, Eurodif, and who was its CEO. Georges Besse. Why did somebody want to kill a head of a car corporation? 2 questions bothered me. Why Georges Besse was killed exactly, and not someone else? The operation was planned exactly against him. Through all his life, before Georges Besse

appeared to be in Renault, he attended to nuclear operations. 1974-1985, he worked as general manager in mining and energetic sector. He was CEO in COGEMA. That was the company Iran paid 1 billion dollar throughh, to build the Eurodif plant. And he was CEO of the Eurodif plant. And after his murder, that plant got his name. Why did Jacques Chirac arrive at the crime scene? The mayor of Paris at that time. And in the nearest future, Prime Minister and President of France. Jacques Chirac, Georges Besse and Michel Baroin were friends since their university. And in 1974,

Chirac was Premier Minister under the President Giscard d'Estaing. Together with him, they signed the deal with Iran. And at that point when you need to organize such a dangerous deal, you would put on main posts only your closest people, people you could trust with your life. And when one of your best friend is killed right beside you, and the daughter of the second friend is smeared along the asphalt, you'd know that you're next. The night after Georges Besse' murder, Jacques Chirac had a phone conversation with the President of France. The next day, France announced that

it's ready to make the first payment, 330 million dollas, returning the money that was paid for Eurodif. But the French were ready to return not the whole sum but the third of it. And - 5 February 1987. The plane crash in Gabon; the private plane of Michel Baroin. Michel was on board. He died, as well as the entire crew. You would put your own government, under your control. Who's gonna be Muslim? Him? If you converted to Islam, you're one of us. As soon as the fuss with Iran happened, Omar Bongo realized that he was to

take the fall because he was connected with the global scheme and he was the voucher of the deal. Everyone knew that he was a puppet in French hands. But still, Iran put pressure on him, a serious pressure. For his loyalty for France, Omar Bongo was allowed to do anything at all inside his country. He enjoyed a lavish lifestyle, he used the budget of the country as he wanted. He bought cars and yachts, he had 33 personal real estate units in Paris on his account, houses, apartments, villas in Nice and some other shit. And inside Gabon,

under Michel Baroin's hand, for the French money, they built a real person palace for him. A huge one. And no one hid that fact at all. The French Wikipedia tells proudly about it. Corruption is bad. Very bad. But if it benefits us, so be it. We could stand it. But when shit hits the fan, when the question of your personal safety comes up, and Iran gives you a specific hint that you're next, the question of palaces, cars, yachts and models in your bedroom becomes secondary. And your skin is far more important to you. Michel flew

to meet Omar Bongo, and details of that meeting remain unknown. The one thing we know that Bongo was very concerned. And when blood and intestines fly over the wall, you would hardly drink your mint tea, safe and sound. The negotiations were swift and harsh, and according to eyewitnesses, both left the office angry. And several hours later, Michel's plane that was standing on the parking lot of the gate that belonged to the President of Gabon, couldn't gain altitude and fell several minutes after it took off. All the details of the plane crash were classified. And the

information about The last minutes of the flight was erased from black boxes that were to be sent to Paris. Of course, after that, the next election in 1993, Omar Bongo had without any support of France. And suddenly, from nowhere, there was a hell of a lot of candidates, an opposition, and people of Gabon suddenly got a choice. A pure accident, no coincidence at all. And after all of that, when all the people who took part in that scheme paid their price, each their own, when France announced, like, "Okay, so be it, we're ready to give

you back your money" - after that you could safely give up your gunmen as a goodwill gesture for negotiations. After Georges Besse's murder, their leaders were caught as a whole, and they surrendered without a fight. That's another weird thing. When people came for them the leaders were just sitting and waiting for them to be arrested. 21 February 1987, 16 days after the plane crash and Michel Baroin's death, the French police, with reference to some inside sources, Found the leaders of Action Directe on a farm in Parisian suburbs. They surrendered without a fight. Those gunment who

fought so fiercely against the government, against the order, against capitalism - they fulfilled their task and were waiting for their punishment. Georges Besse was killed because of Eurodif and his participation in the nuclera deal of France and Iran where the French made everyone they wanted suck many dicks. And the crimes against the working class and other idelologic wordings were just a sham That wouldn't raise additional questions and didn't give people the reason to look closely to the situation. Ideas, moral lessons and sermons that make some people good and other people bad - those are some

shit on a stick and food for hamsters. The very same way as all the ideas of all the good and fair in this world. Even if we assume, even if we thinkg that Georges Besse was really killed because of his activities in Renault, it's still some shit on a stick. Let's assume, really, in order to stop unjustice towards workers, they needed to kill the head of the company who was busy with restructuring. They needed to stop that horrible capitalist who kicked people out on the street, and put all the money into the American car market.

Renault decided to save and buy AMC shares. And the only thing Besse didn't touch was the developing of cooperative engine and model with AMC to get the market share in the US and make some money. AMC together with Renault developed a crossover that they managed to launch while Besse was still alive. The first American crossover with integrated frame and body. Light, manoeuvrable, passable. The name of that crossover was Jeep Cherokee. That jeep was the only profittable brand of AMC. The car that would be a bestseller in the American market; because of it, they would create

the Grand Cherokee a bit later, a mega popular car all over the world that would be sold in some impossible numbers. But the fruits of that development didn't go to Renault, to France. They didn't get anything of it because the man that replaced Besse, the man that was called Raymond Lévy, was simply scared that they could kill him, too, if he would continue the project. As the result, he sold AMC to Chrysler. And in Chrysler, the new star of the company, the brilliant Lee Iacocca, smiling in the ad spots, told everyone how marvelous that car

was, a real symbol of America. And he sold that car to millions. Renault spent hundreds of million dollars to keep AMC above the ground; it remade all the processes within AMC; it faced its own inside crisis and, by some miracle, it managed to survive and keep the development. Now it had to relax and to obtain profits from the American market because they did it. Because they had it. But 4 bullets shot at the CEO of the factory, allegedly for the sake of the French people, stripped that French people of all the profits and all the

taxes To the treasury of the state, the reason everything was happening to begin with. And activists under the banner of fighting capitalism made an incredible present to that capitalism. Only in a different country. What could you do for an idea? We know the answer perfectly. Everything. And I ask that question again, what could you do for an idea? We know the answer. And as the mankind is built that way that we live with ideas, We would be fed with them our whole life. I don't doubt it. It's so easy to divide everyone for good and

bad with one phrase. It's so easy to believe that and then, to go championing your ideals that no one wants. And really important things would happen behind your back, and they really wouldn't want to get your attention to them. There is no truth, there won't be a truth because no one needs it. This world reposes and will repose on power, spheres of influences, leverages and money. And fresh ideas would be Always ready for the public; the ideas that are so easy to feed people with to distract their attention when you need to do something unnoticed.

And by the way. Why did I need to tell that entire story to you? Written by Stas Asafiev Directed by Daniil Gudkov Editor - Andrey Ezotov Director of photography and LD - Vitaly Andreev Director of photography - Egor Zorin Director of photography and lampmen foreman - Andrey Shuvalov Producer - Eliza Tsatsurina Commercial producer - Sergei Semyonov Grading - Vadim Yerlin Credits - Dennis Grushechkin Infographics - Pavel Anisimov Sound and remastering - Denis Stroev Prop archives - Vladimir Velychansky Helper - Georgi Krievinysh Helper - Sergei Soloviov Film score - Stas Asafiev Supported by Avtopragmat - selection

of used cars