This morning’s melt-up in stocks appears to be more of the same panic-hedge unwind, vol-driven buying-panic as hopes/hints of a “pause” or “pivot” or “step-down” remain the over-arching narrative as rate-trajectory expectations drift dovishly (lower terminal rate and faster subsequent rate-cuts)…

As SpotGamma notes, its RiskReversal metric closed at -0.03 which is the highest (most bullish) in 2 years.

This is a signal that put values are low relative to calls – and this comes from call buying and/or put selling.

(We’ve been of the opinion that it has more to do with put selling in a high vol environment vs ferocious call demand).

The center of options activity is now forming in/around 3800 which likely makes this a key level into 11/2 FOMC.

As there are still a few sessions before FOMC, traders may see an opportunity to short ultra-short-term put options. We think that impulse likely fades into next Wednesday. Similarly we do not think traders will suddenly start adding long calls now, as they didn’t bother over the last few days. Therefore we favor rallies >3800 as unstable and prone to mean reversion.

Plotted below is the SPX term structure, and you can see how pre-FOMC IV is quite low compared to post-FOMC.

This is clearly where the big money is focused.

However, Nomura’s Charlie McElligott notes that the clearing of EPS event risk this week is allowing for a resumption of Vol-suppressing Corp-Buyback flows… but generally-speaking, with SPX/SPY and IWM sitting back above “Neutral Gamma” in LONG territory… those are acting far more stable… versus Nasdaq turmoil and still stuck “Short Gamma” location (spot $270 in QQQ vs “Gamma Flip” level up at $281)…

As seen in markets this morning…

…stocks continue to “Crash UP” versus just “grind down,” while also too AAPL does the work of Atlas and props almost single-handedly…

And as Spotgamma explains below, there’s a tactical floor appearing from the options market for META and AMZN…

Accordingly, McElligott reminds readers that the average SPX move on “up” days is over 2:1 that of the move magnitude on “down days” – which is part of the super-rare “Corr 1” on UPSIDE days (92% of SPX 500 stocks up on up days) vs typically being a “downside day” occurrence (now just 69% of SPX stocks down on down days) as traders grab into the Call Wing, far more worried about “Crash UP” (because they under-own / high Cash / low Nets) than “Crash DOWN”.

These past few days / weeks of “premature FCI easing” on this central bank “dovish step-down” thing that’s trending (more commentary below) has been such an irritation / frustration for Macro and L/S hedge funds on their (bearishly positioned) Equities exposure side…

But, away from the market’s moves, McElligott is stunned by the arrogance and hubris of the recent flurry of “almost coordinated” G10 central banks (RBA first in Sep, then the remarkable BoC and ECB meetings this week) who have communicated a *sudden* new “balance of risks”.

Central banks are making a big bet that inflation is being solved-for in “lagged and variable” fashion through the past year’s tightening efforts, in addition to the roll-over port backlogs and freight / shipping, inventory “bullwhip” disinflation, and simple “base effect”…trusting the market’s pricing of forward inflation

But the issue is that the reflexive nature of markets, where we “anticipate the anticipators” and take this “pause / mini-pivot / “step-down” information to then then “EASE” financial conditions on the forward projection versus prior expectations…which in-order to actual have the Fed’s desired effect on inflation need to be RESTRICTIVE / “TIGHT” (through impacting “demand” on cost of capital and destruction of wealth effect / animal spirits).

Accordingly, McElligott warns that markets may have “shot their shot” a few months too early.

So, as the Nomura strategist concludes, reiterating his recent thesis: perversely yet-again, the anticipation of what we all logically know has to eventually happen with the Fed’s hiking cycle – that you can’t hike rates at increasing magnitude forever…and that eventually, the hikes turn to a pause before finally, cuts to address the slowdown – becomes yet-another headwind for the Fed and other central banks who still have not yet slayed the inflation dragon…

And that “premature anticipation” of a tilt back towards EASING then acts to stimulate wealth effect and “animal spirits” which is not what The Fed wants to see (and does not fit with any of this morning’s inflation-related indicators – all of which signaled no let up at all in rising prices).

Crucially, the Nomura strategist warns that, I really think there is potential for another “rug pull” coming down the road, either from Fed acknowledging these realities again and as early as next week’s meeting – or worse, from inflation data remaining problematic and likely to stay “sticky higher,” closer to 4.0% than 2.0%, as we sit in 1Q23 with my previously described “now what?” moment.

CNN staffers were notified by network boss Chris Licht that sweeping changes are ‘imminent,’ according to CNN‘s Oliver Darcy.

In a Wednesday memo, Licht – who has been conducting a six-month business review as part of a larger effort spearheaded by Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav – said he’s identified areas where further change is needed, and that there is “widespread concern over the global economic outlook” adding “we must factor that risk into our long-term planning.”

“All this together will mean noticeable change to this organization,” the memo continues. “That, by definition, is unsettling. These changes will not be easy because they will affect people, budgets, and projects.”

The next wave of layoffs comes after a string of high-profile Russiagate propagandists have departed (or were fired from) the network, including Brian Stelter, Chris Cuomo, Jeffrey Toobin, and of course Licht’s predecessor, Jeff Zucker.

The move also comes six months after Licht pulled the plug on the network’s failed streaming service, CNN+.

Licht’s memo also came hours after CNBC‘s Alex Sherman published a report leaking word of the layoffs, and questioning the future of the network that spent five years self-immolating what was left of its reputation.

CNN’s profit is set to drop below $1 billion this year for the first time since 2016, when Donald Trump was elected president. Parent company Warner Bros. Discovery’s valuation has nearly been cut in half this year as investors have lowered their expectations on global streaming subscriber growth and macroeconomic pressures have pressured advertising revenue.

Licht has been given a mandate from Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav to transform CNN, which the network boss is internally referring to as a “right sizing” of the business. Many of Licht’s job cuts are still to come this year, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the decisions are private. –CNBC

According to the report, Licht doesn’t have a specific number of jobs to target, but he’ll be cutting parts of the organization that have become ‘bloated’ over time.

Meanwhile, as part of CNN‘s image rehab, Licht instituted several content changes. In May, he told CNN‘s TV production staff to quit using “Breaking News” banners so much. He’s also altering the network’s lineup one anchor at a time – shifting Jake Tapper from 4pm to 9pm, and Don Lemon from 11pm to co-hosting “CNN This Morning.”

Licht is purposefully leading CNN differently than Zucker. He’s avoiding saying what he thinks about individual show choices, according to people familiar with his leadership style. Licht has said in private meetings that he’s trying to empower executive producers and show producers to make decisions by themselves. He wants employees to hear marching orders from direct managers rather than him. That’s a significant change for show leaders who have been conditioned to wait for Zucker’s blessing before acting. -CNBC

“When [Zaslav] called and offered me the job, he told me what he was looking for out of CNN,” Licht said earlier this month. “And I said, ‘That’s exactly the kind of network I would like to see.’ There’s no daylight between his vision for this network and my vision for this network. The only reason why I took this job is because it was him in charge. I thought, I can deliver this for him.”

 Licht is also contemplating how the network will cover former President Donald Trump, should he run (when he runs) again in 2024 – promising to air both sides of the conversation, within limits of course.

“The analogy I love to use is some people like rain, some people don’t like rain. We should give space to that. But we will not have someone who comes on and says it’s not raining.”

Authored by Michael Shellenberger via Substack,

Calls for Biden to socialize industry have moved quickly from fringe to mainstream…

The energy crisis is worsening. The U.S. has fewer than 30 days of diesel and other distillate fuels, the lowest level since 1945. Supplies are so low that there will be shortages and price spikes within six months unless the U.S. enters recession, experts warn. In response, the Biden administration is releasing more oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. But the reserves are of crude oil, not refined oil products such as diesel. And the releases are stifling investment in future oil production. “People are depleting their emergency stocks,” warned Saudi Arabia’s energy minister earlier this week. “Losing emergency stocks may become painful in the months to come.”

In response, influential Democrats, including a leading U.S. Senate candidate, a former Department of Energy official, and an influential energy expert, are urging the U.S. government to socialize America’s oil and gas firms.

At a Houston conference last week, Jason Bordoff, Dean of Columbia University’s Climate School, called for the “nationalization” of oil and gas companies. “Government must take an active role in owning assets that will become stranded,” he said, “and plan to strand those assets.” By “strand” Bordoff meant “make financially worthless.” Bordoff made the point at least twice during the confrerence. Bordoff’s call shocked many in the audience. “Jason is smart, well-informed, and well-connected to the Biden Administration,” said someone who was at the conference, “so these comments are scary.”

Democratic U.S. Senate Candidate from Wisconsin Tom Nelson (left) and energy expert Jason Bordoff (right) are urging the Biden administration to nationalize U.S. oil and gas companies.

The calls come on the heels of two other Democrat-led efforts to expand U.S. government control over oil and gas production.

One is a piece of legislation called “NOPEC,” which passed the Senate Judiciary Committee in May.

The bill would change U.S. antitrust law to revoke a policy of sovereign immunity, which protects OPEC+ members from lawsuits. If NOPEC became law, the U.S. attorney general could sue Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members in court. The result could be a disruption of global supplies of oil and other commodities if nations retaliated against the U.S.

The other is an effort led by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to cap the price of Russian oil sold on global markets, which I and many other experts have warned since June is unworkable, because China and India have said they would circumvent it, and could backfire, resulting in far higher oil prices.

Last week, analysts with Rapidan Energy told the same Houston conference that the December 5 implementation of the Russian price cap could reduce global supplies of oil by 1.5 million barrels per day. Such an amount would create an oil price shock.

Earlier this month, Bordoff told the World Economic Forum, which has called for a “Great Reset” to quickly move from fossil fuels to renewables, that climate change required a “massive transition” that is “going to be messy, it’s going to be disruptive.”

Said Bordoff, “I think part of the broader macro environment that’s happening now is one of more disruptive change because of climate impacts, but also more disruptive change because of geopolitics coming out of the pandemic, coming out of this conflict, completely rethinking what the World Economic Forum is all about.”

Bordoff then sounded an even darker note…

*  *  *

Subscribe to Michael Shellenberger to read the rest…

After ECI and Core PCE signaled no end to The Fed’s nemesis, this morning’s UMich survey (final data for October) is the last chance to show that inflation expectations are being managed before next week’s FOMC meeting.

The final print for next 12 months inflation expectations was very marginally lower than the flash print (+5.0% vs +5.1%) but remains higher than the September final print of 4.7%…

Source: Bloomberg

The final October print for the headline UMich sentiment indicator rose modestly to 59.9, driven by an increase in ‘current conditions’ but ‘ future expectations’ dipped. The university’s sentiment index increased this month to 59.9, the highest since April. The current conditions gauge also advanced in October to a six-month high, while a measure of expectations dropped to a three-month low.

Source: Bloomberg

While buying conditions for durable goods, such as cars and appliances, improved based on easing supply-chain constraints and lower prices, consumers were more pessimistic about the business outlook.

“These divergent patterns reflect substantial uncertainty over inflation, policy responses and developments worldwide, and consumer views are consistent with a recession ahead in the economy,” Joanne Hsu, director of the survey, said in a statement.

This pain is expected to continue, given that for the 8th straight month, over 80% of consumers expect interest rates to rise in the year ahead.

Following the declines in new- and existing-home sales, analysts (unsurprisingly) expected to see pending home sales drop for the 10th month of the last 11. They were right BUT the magnitude was remarkable.

Pending Home Sales plunged 10.3% MoMin September (way worse than the -4.0% expected), pushing the year-over-year plunge to 30.4% – its weakest since the trough of the COVID lockdown crisis…

Source: Bloomberg

That dropped the pending home sales index to its lowest since 2010 (ex the trough of the COVID lockdowns crisis)…

Source: Bloomberg

And in case you think it’s over, mortgage rates say no…

Source: Bloomberg

Is this where home sales will go before Powell is done?

Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

It’s the moment we all knew was coming. Well, most of us, at least. 

A Senate Committee on Health Education, Labor and Pensions interim report from October 27, 2022 titled “An Analysis of the Origins of the COVID19 Pandemic” has revealed that the origins of Covid were more likely based in a lab as part of a “research related incident” and not zoonotic.

The report was the result of a “bipartisan Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee oversight effort into the origins of SARS-CoV-2”. It provides a lengthy analysis that reviews “publicly available, open-source information to examine the two prevailing theories of origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus”.

Among other conclusions, the report notes: “Substantial evidence suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic was the result of a research-related incident associated with a laboratory in Wuhan, China,” the report states.

“A research-related incident is consistent with the early epidemiology showing rapid spread of the virus exclusively in Wuhan with the earliest calls for assistance being located in the same district as the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s (WIV) original campus in central Wuhan. The WIV is an epicenter of advanced coronavirus research, where researchers have collected samples of and experimented on high-risk coronaviruses.”

“While precedent of previous outbreaks of human infections from contact with animals favors the hypothesis that a natural zoonotic spillover is responsible for the origin of SARS-CoV-2, the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 that resulted in the COVID-19 pandemic was most likely the result of a research-related incident.”

In other words, all of us “conspiracy theorists” floating the idea of a lab leak just because of the totally coincidental fact that the virus showed up on a virology lab’s doorstep, have now been validated by the U.S. Senate.

In a section titled “Problems with the Natural Zoonotic Hypothesis”, the report says:

“Based on precedent and genomics, the most likely scenario for a zoonotic origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is that SARS-CoV-2 crossed over the species barrier from an intermediate host to humans. However, the available evidence is also consistent, perhaps more so, with a direct bat-to-human spillover. Both scenarios remain plausible and, in the absence of additional information, should be considered equally valid hypotheses.”

“However, nearly three years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, critical evidence that would prove that the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 and resulting COVID-19 pandemic was caused by a natural zoonotic spillover is missing.”

“Such gaps include the failure to identify the original host reservoir, the failure to identify a candidate intermediate host species, and the lack of serological or epidemiological evidence showing transmission from animals to humans, among others outlined in this report,” the report states.

“As a result of these evidentiary gaps, it is hard to treat the natural zoonotic spillover theory as the presumptive origin of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Then, in the report’s conclusion, it states:

“Based on the analysis of the publicly available information, it appears reasonable to conclude that the COVID-19 pandemic was, more likely than not, the result of a research-related incident. New information, made publicly available and independently verifiable, could change this assessment. However, the hypothesis of a natural zoonotic origin no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt, or the presumption of accuracy.”

The report was signed off on by Richard Burr, United States Senator and Ranking Member, U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

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Regarding the report’s research process, Burr wrote:

“Over the last fifteen months, HELP Committee Minority oversight staff carefully reviewed several hundred publicly available scientific studies, interviewed several dozen subject matter experts, and analyzed previous reports and studies on the possible origins of the virus. I believe that this report provides a significant contribution to the existing body of evidence and helps establish parameters for how future analyses should be reviewed.”

And for the icing on the cake, just weeks ago Taiwan also concluded that the virus likely did not come from the Wuhan wet markets. The country’s Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said in late September, in a revelation that went mostly unnoticed by the mainstream media, that “it does not believe the wet market to be the source of the COVID pandemic and suggested that a leak from a laboratory in Wuhan is a possibility.”

“Our speculation is we think the Wuhan Huanan wet market is not the origin. [The market is] probably just a very important step in the transmission chain. The origin is somewhere else,” said Philip Lo, deputy head of the CECC’s medical response division, Taiwan News reported.

“Maybe it’s still in Wuhan, for example, the laboratory…we don’t have proof, solid evidence,” Lo continued.

This news should come as no surprise to anyone who has been reading Fringe Finance. Back in early September I published the thoughts of Harvard PhD and Rutgers professor Dr. Richard Ebright, who said Covid was “much more easily explained” by a lab leak: Covid “Much More Easily Explained” By Lab Leak: Harvard PhD & Rutgers Chem Professor

Upon reviewing the thread laid out by Ebright, Justin B. Kinney, an Associate Professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Princeton PhD commented that the thread was “much more compelling” than the evidence recently published by Worobey et al. and Pekar et al. in Science,” referring to a July 2022 study that concluded the virus came from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market (and was riddled, in my opinion, with conflicts of interest and ties to the CDC and WHO).

“This evidence is not dispositive, but were the lab leak hypothesis incorrect, it would represent a staggering set of coincidences,” Kinney wrote back in September.

Unforunately, these findings have not prevented Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance from receiving more funding, which it has this year to the tune of at least $2 million. 

You can read the new Senate report for yourself here.

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Andreessen Horowitz’s timing in investing in the crypto world arguably couldn’t have been worse.

The firm, widely known as a major crypto bull, was the topic of a new Wall Street Journal piece this week examining just how poor its timing was before going “all in” on the blockchain and cryptocurrency boom. 

As the Journal notes, crypto prices have been thrashed this year and Andreessen’s flagship crypto fund was down about 40% in the first half of the year, marking a decline that was “much larger” than other venture funds invested in crypto. 

As a result the firm has “dramatically slowed the pace of its crypto investments this year”, the report says. And now, the question is being raised as to whether or not the firm even has the option of “buying the dip”.

Ben Narasin, a general partner at the VC firm Tenacity Venture Capital, told WSJ: “They’ve just pushed it so far with crypto that I’m not sure they can rebalance.” 

The firm’s main crypto advocate, partner Chris Dixon, who joined in 2012, said he “remains faithful” in the industry, stating that crypto “is about the political and governing structure of the internet” before adding: “We have a very long-term horizon.”

Dixon championed bitcoin well before it was adopted in its current form, the report says. Andreessen Horowitz was an early investor in Coinbase because of Dixon’s enthusiasm for the space, the piece notes. When ethereum was launched in 2015, he decided he wanted to run his own crypto-based fund.

In 2018, the firm launched a $350 million fund and raised a second fund worth $515 million in 2020. By the end of 2021, “the first crypto fund had multiplied its initial investment by 10.6 times after fees”, the Journal wrote. Andreessen then returned over $4 billion in shares to investors after Coinbase went public in April 2021. It solidified Coinbase as “one of the most-lucrative bets ever made in venture-capital history”. 

The firm then raised $2.2 billion in June 2021 to raise a third crypto fund, but months later the market turned against them, with demand for many of the company they invested in being “vaporized”. The Journal wrote:

OpenSea’s monthly trading volume has plummeted since its December funding round in the midst of a broader collapse in the market for NFTs, while Coinbase’s monthly active users declined 20% in the second quarter from last year’s fourth-quarter peak of 11.2 million. Both companies have cut around one-fifth of their staff this year.

Solana, an upstart cryptocurrency that the firm bought in June 2021, has shed over 80% of its value since the beginning of the year. In the first six months of this year, Andreessen lost $2.9 billion of its remaining stake in Coinbase as the crypto exchange’s stock price cratered by more than 80%.

But despite the plunge, Dixon is sticking by his strategy. He lamented: “What I look at is not prices. I look at the entrepreneur and developer activity. That’s the core metric.”

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin has issued a statement saying ongoing military aid to Ukraine is essential because Russia is mean to gay and transgender people.

Yes, really.

Raskin released the statement after 30 “progressive” Democrats watered down their call for peace talks in a letter to Joe Biden.

Raskin (D-MD) is apparently concerned that any slide in support for Ukraine represents an abandonment of woke values

“Moscow right now is … a world center of antifeminist, antigay, anti-trans hatred, as well as the homeland of replacement theory for export,” said the statement.

Calling Vladimir Putin an “imperialist” and a “colonizer,” Raskin went on to demonize the entire country.

“Moscow right now is a hub of corrupt tyranny, censorship, authoritarian repression, police violence, propaganda, government lies and disinformation, and planning for war crimes…

In supporting Ukraine, we are opposing these fascist views, and supporting the urgent principles of democratic pluralism. Ukraine is not perfect, of course, but its society is organized on the radically different principles of democracy and freedom,” the statement said.

As we have previously highlighted, the bizarre intersection of sending advanced weaponry to foreign conflicts in the name of defending far-left identity politics reared its head right at the start of the war.

Back in February, the head of MI6, who includes his preferred pronouns in his Twitter bio, faced backlash for suggesting that a large part of the war in Ukraine was about “LGBT+ rights.”

“With the tragedy and destruction unfolding so distressingly in Ukraine, we should remember the values and hard won freedoms that distinguish us from Putin, none more than LGBT+ rights. So let’s resume our series of tweets to mark #LGBTHM2022,” tweeted Richard Moore (he/him).

One of the principal organizers of Dublin’s gay pride parade also decided to add the colors of Ukraine to the LGBTQ rainbow flag, presumably to ensure support for all ‘current things’ were covered.

*  *  *

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The global semiconductor shortage appears to have officially “bullwhipped” its way the other direction and, as such, as become a glut. Yes, you read that right, there is now reportedly a glut of semiconductors at top manufacturers, according to a new report by Caixin. 

Names like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) and Nvidia are now dealing with “unsold stockpiles” of inventory as a result of shrinking demand and cancelled orders, the report says.

This means that the years-long hold up for chips looks like it has officially come to an end. 

Xie Ruifeng from semiconductor industry market research institute ICwise told Caixin: “This round of business sentiment is reversing so fast that chip designers were struggling to find production capacity only last year, but now they find chips won’t sell.” 

Meanwhile, smartphone and PC demand is shrinking, with global 5G smartphone shipments expected to fall by 150 million units in 2022, the report says. Demand for 5G chips will also plunge by 100 million units, to 120 million units, the report says.

Caixin noted that TSMC is facing significantly reduced orders:

TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, faces reduced orders from four of its largest customers, reflecting slowing global demand. JPMorgan Chase said in a report in early September that AMD, Nvidia, Qualcomm and MediaTek slashed chip orders with TSMC.

And names like AMD and Intel are also suffering the demand slowdown:

Other semiconductor companies are also facing tough conditions. AMD lowered its revenue forecast for the third quarter, citing significant weakening in the PC market. Intel, Nvidia and Micron Technology all issued subdued outlooks.

In the first half of 2022, macroeconomic headwinds and a number of “black swan” factors combined to cause consumer electronics demand to plummet, with smartphones and PCs bearing the brunt. Micron predicted that global PC shipments will decline by 10 per cent to 20 per cent in 2022, while the global smartphone market will decline by less than 10 per cent.

And manufacturers are dealing with “six months of stockpiles” that they built up as a result of 2021’s shortage…and once-optimistic demand forecasts. That was, of course, at a time when free money was being handed out to “combat” the pandemic. Now, with tighter monetary policy globally, it should be no surprise that demand is falling off. 

Mr Sravan Kundojjala, associate director of smartphone component technology services at Strategy Analytics confirmed that current supplies kept in inventory by companies could last until mid-2023 at current demand levels. 

Still, it appears that all of the massive new infrastructure projects being taken on by companies like Intel and TSMC as a result of last years’ shortage are going to forge forward. Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) co-chief executive Zhao Haijun told Caixin: “We will not change our plans for long-term capacity expansion and development.”

Authored by John Cody via Remix News,

…but Macron is still pushing for more mass immigration despite data showing the tremendous crime rate of foreign nationals

French President Emmanuel Macron admits that half the crimes committed in Paris are the work of foreigners during an interview yesterday on the France 2 television channel.

“Yes, when we look at delinquency in Paris, we can see that half of the delinquent acts come from foreigners in an irregular situation or awaiting asylum approval,” said Macron.

However, Macron also said that despite the issue with immigration and insecurity, he sees no “existential” link between the two.

“I will never make an existential link between immigration and insecurity,” said Macron just 10 days after the murder of 12-year-old Lola, who was raped, had her throat slashed, and was stuffed in a suitcase by an Algerian migrant who was in the country illegally.

Macron is under severe pressure after the murder, with a number of leading opposition politicians laying the blame for the murder at his feet and pointing to his abysmal record on deportations. Macron previously promised in 2020 that he was aiming for a 100 percent deportation rate. That rate currently hovers under 6 percent, and in the case of Algerians, it is 0.2 percent.

Despite growing anger, Macron is pushing a plan to send more migrants to the countryside, a move that is overwhelming rejected by the French public there. He also said in February of this year that migration from Africa and the Middle East “can make France greater.”

On top of inflation and growing unrest, the issue of immigration is turning political opinion against the French leader. As in the past, such as following the beheading of French history teacher Samuel Paty by a Chechen Islamist teen, Macron has put forward a number of “reforms” to assuage public anger, but many of the proposals were never enforced or have done little to disrupt France’s issues with insecurity, including a 91 percent increase in murders since 2000.

This time around, Macron claims he wants “in-depth reform” and a “debate in parliament on immigration.”

“We must reform our laws in depth to be able to better welcome those we want to welcome,” he said during the Europe 2 interview. He offered little in terms of how he plans to address problems with integration and the country’s inability to deport cirminal migrants.

However, Macron’s admission that illegal migrants or migrants awaiting asylum are responsible for half the crime in Paris is supported by data. The recently retired Paris chief of police, Didier Lallement, made assertions just this month, writing in his new book that “one out of every two crimes is committed by a foreigner, who are often in the country illegally… It is clear that some of the newcomers are integrating through delinquency.”

It is also unclear what the racial and ethnic breakdown of crime statistics is in France, as there are many French citizens of “foreign origin” who are not counted as foreigners since they have obtained citizenship. France does not keep data on the ethnic or racial identity of suspects. However, in other cities, such as Marseilles, 55 percent of all crimes are committed by foreigners, a rate even higher than Paris, illustrating that it is a countrywide issue.