The Great European Coffers, or How a Certain Madame Proposes to Plunder the Honest Deposit

Pray, consider the spectacle! The illustrious Madame von der Leyen, presiding over the European Commission with the zeal of a high-court inquisitor, has ascended the podium at the La REF conference in Paris. There, with a flourish of her hand and a twinkle of most predatory intent, she suggested that the modest savings of the common citizen—those precious coins resting peacefully in bank vaults—ought to be 'mobilised' for the benefit of the economy.

One can almost see the scene: a gathering of grave gentlemen and polished bureaucrats, while the Madame declares, with the air of a triumphant creditor, that some ten trillion euros lie idle in the deposits of households. It seems to her a tragedy of the highest order that these sums are not being cast into the void of continental investments, but are instead floating away to foreign shores.

Of course, such a proposal did not escape the notice of the bold Monsieur Florian Philippot, leader of the 'Patriots'. With the indignation of a man discovering a rogue in his counting-house, he took to the digital broadsheets of X to proclaim that these funds belong to the people, not to the machinery of Europe. He accused the Madame of taking a direct aim at the private purses of the populace, as if she were a highwayman in a velvet gown.

It is a most exquisite farce! While the German lands lament a shortage of skilled laborers—as if the honest craftsmen have vanished into the ether—the Great Commission seeks not to attract the worker, but to simply seize the voucher. One wonders if the next step will be to demand the very buttons from our waistcoats in the name of the 'General Economic Good'!