The French

Ally -- would your opinion of the French change if I told you that when I was over there (Summer '95), they had big "Laughing Cow" billboards all over the place? (or, in French, "la vâche qui rire")

I love French vintage ads though. I have 8 of them in my apartment right now.

http://www.demon.co.uk/momus/coppertone.jpeg

Still, great philosophers, pouty actresses, St.Etienne footie club in the 70s, Air & Daft Punk clinch it. They rule.

Hard men of Europe standing up to the Islamic Empire or cheese eating surrender monkeys kowtowing to terrorist threats?

more contrarian than either tbh

Kind of like flag-burning in the U.S., this is really a bullshit issue. How many women in France actually wear burkas?

367.

Great. One more thread I have to stay out of when I'm drunk and cranky.

let's see.. forbidding arab women to cover their faces in public buildings = they stay at home almost entirely! what a great leap forward for modernisation and equality!

(and yes i know muslim =/ arab and also that most muslim women don't cover their faces at all, i.e. what M White said)

tracer kind of otm 'forbidding' them to do this doesn't really seem the way forward.

whatever happened to the liberté part of the equation?? seriously i wonder if french politicians have lost their goddamn minds

laicité in schools is one thing - uniforms promote discipline and minimize class difference, plus they're minors and the whole thing is paid for and run by the state - but full grown adults?? picking their kids up from school or whatever?? what the shitting fuck

fwiw i think kids should be allowed to wear the veil and/or headscarf in school. it's the difference between positive and negative freedom - the freedom FROM religion - or even seeing the ornamental manifestation of religious belief - and freedom FOR religion, i.e. having those ornaments if you want.

i've actually heard that kids basically didn't start giving a shit until it became forbidden - that's when the headscarf started really catching on in school

Tracer, the ruling against the niqab is "in places where ID is required to be shown/personal identification is important". Examples such as post offices and banks, I'm leaning toward "you might have a case".

Examples such as public transportation are pretty ridiculous -- first of all it's no other Joe Citizen's fucking business who you are on PT, and second, that's the time I would MOST want to be hidden from view. Fuck, *I* am tempted to wear a burqua on the subway, it would stop a bunch of sleazy fuckers being sleazy. Plus you don't have to demurely cross legs as no one can see up skirt anyway.

I wonder if any of those women drive. I'm guessing not, but maybe I'm getting my prescriptive rulings confused.

how often is it the case that schoolkids are wearing such items in non-faith schools (or schools where they are in a distinct minority for doing so, which is really a situation to avoid i think) tho? there must be far fewer cases of this than burka wearers - supposedly only around 2000

how often is it the case that schoolkids are wearing such items in non-faith schools

Do you mean, how many girls from Muslim families are enrolled in public schools who have personally chosen or whose families have chosen for them to wear the veil? Seems like that number probably changes every day, tbh.

I happen to think the school ban is BS, tbh.

Sorry, I should specify: schools prohibit any kind of headscarf at all, even if it leaves the face uncovered.

The current French ruling for public places is against the niqab, a veil that covers the lower half of face (everything except the eyes).

laurel is correct (muslim girls don't wear veils anyway i don't think?) so blueski the number of girls that wear the headscarf in school is theoretically nil, since they're forbidden to do so by national law

I am also thinking that I saw a drop-dead gorgeous and extremely stylish Muslim woman on the subway the other day in wide-legged jeans, a long belted coat, and a silk scarf wrapped around head in classic Hepburn/starlet-in-a-convertible style. Make-up and eyebrows were impeccable, personal style was impeccable, obv she had money. Totally gorgeous and modern and still modestly dressed & scarved.

Do not understand who could find the time to object to that, she was a pleasure to behold.

pic or it didn't happen

i just hope they don't ban fever ray from french award shows

That women should be liberated from exaggerated modesty (I don't think there's much modesty in ostentatious modesty, really) and patriarchal control is praiseworthy but to do so by diktat of law is merely to exchange the petty tyranny of enforced social codes for the petty tyranny of the State and the underpinning of this move in France stems pretty transparently (to me, at least) from not only hypocritical (as Tracer points out above) but also racist/nationalist prejudice. It's easy to be tolerant to people who are just like you, less so, apparently, if they're not.

One of my kids' classmates, a student from Algeria, wears a headband rather than a headscarf, and that's considered acceptable by the school (this is just outside Paris).

I've only seen one woman in anything like a full-body covering here in France.

At my kids' school last month, they sang Christmas carols in class, religious ones, not just your "happy holidays" stuff (although they did that too). This is an ordinary public school. I have some Jewish friends who find this offensive. I don't know what the Muslim kids think. I think the French consider this acculturation, since they don't generally profess the faith anymore.

ime lapsed catholicism is the official religion of france

And Marxism

I've only seen one woman in anything like a full-body covering here in France

seriously? this is common enough in ruralish ireland tbh

That women should be liberated from exaggerated modesty (I don't think there's much modesty in ostentatious modesty, really) and patriarchal control is praiseworthy but to do so by diktat of law is merely to exchange the petty tyranny of enforced social codes for the petty tyranny of the State and the underpinning of this move in France stems pretty transparently (to me, at least) from not only hypocritical (as Tracer points out above) but also racist/nationalist prejudice. It's easy to be tolerant to people who are just like you, less so, apparently, if they're not.

― Mit der Kattzheit kaempfen Goetter selbst vergebens (Michael White), Tuesday, January 26, 2010 6:10 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

i basically agree with this, but don't find a conclusion that easy to reach. it's a difficult dilemma for a liberal secularist, because this is a very strange kind of "freedom to". (i think it's evasive to characterize it as such, really -- we're talking about children.)

(i don't agree with all of it. i don't think the state is enforcing a "tyranny" by doing this ffs.)

I read this the other day:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1953382,00.html

Now the French Must Prove They're French:

"What a lot of people don't realize is that with the increasingly strict obligation to prove your citizenship, you can walk into a state administration today to have your ID or passport renewed, and walk out virtually a stateless person," says Naulleau, 48, whose family had been posted to Baden-Baden, Germany — about 30 miles from the French border — when he was born in 1961. "The situation is creating a two-class system of citizenship in which French nationals born abroad or to foreign parents are treated as inferior, and forced to prove their worthiness of being French more than others."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1953382,00.html#ixzz0do5jbogZ

history mayne you don't think this decision is tyrannical? then what is it?

what do you think of this?

Others will opine that one cannot be a true citizen if one hides one's face, because one is thus refusing human interaction. Yet some people wear dark glasses out of shyness or pure ­obnoxiousness, and nobody would think of denying them their right to humanity. The security-based objection, requiring one to bare one's face in order to have the right to pick up one's children from school, for instance, or if so required by a police patrol, is legitimate in the abstract, but only if one conveniently forgets the fact that in practice, the new generation of women – among the many we have surveyed – do not in fact refuse to comply.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/jan/26/proposed-veil-ban-in-france

from that above link: "Pseudo-feminist rhetoric cannot conceal the fact that it is indeed the voluntary veil which is being fought, and not the imposed article."

yep

as an atheist liberal i still think that believing in whatever wacky comfort blanket gets you thru shd be a basic right, really

and any and all actions arising from that belief? Cos that's the edge that we're treading with this, even if in this case it's a bit of a silly example?

xpost: no, its a case of the French old guard and "intelligentsia" unable to deal with the difference

and any and all actions arising from that belief?

Nah, course not. "Rights" is a tenuous and wobbly notion that is purely metaphysical outside of the realm of enforceable law imo but actions that don't actively harm others ought to be outside of the state's power I think. The chain of logic that would make wearing religious symbols an act of harm is a lot longer than the chain that you could create to argue for lots of other acts that states don't see fit to legislate for.

I think that’s really unfair, Tom, he’s not just a centrist, but so much more!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FRIRrp9XIAEAC4W?format=jpg&name=large

incoherence at least has the minor advantage of not being purposeful evil

all sensible centrists in France like to take a more "nuanced" position on Marshall Petain, unlike those lefty reactionaries with their niave student politics!

Scores du Front National / Rassemblement national au second tour de la présidentielle :
- 2002 : 17, 7%
- 2017 : 33,9%
- 2022 : 41,8%

On va éviter de se réjouir ce soir, hein.

— Guillaume Champeau (@gchampeau) April 24, 2022

Ipsos poll: Mélenchon's voters were 41% various forms of choosing neither candidate, 42% Macron, 17% Le Pen. So it probably wasn't worth the moral panic about infantile radical leftists making red-brown alliances https://t.co/j9bZiDVfWA

— David Broder (@broderly) April 24, 2022

also Le Pen only got 29% of the 70+ age group votes in the 2nd round, the oldies haven't got much enthusiasm for the real fascists.

Centrists love fascists tbf so a good night for all concerned

Now they can concentrate on fighting the real enemy, muslims

Pretty concerning to see the high numbers for Le Pen among working age people

My understanding - v limited - was that Le Pen's economic proposals were solidly to the left of Macron's, and yknow, the racial policies are pretty similar so

incoherence at least has the minor advantage of not being purposeful evil

― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Sunday, 24 April 2022 bookmarkflaglink

Good and evil now is it.

Would have been shocking to see a major European country elect a racist anti-immigrant party dedicated to exiting the EU... errrrrr.

who said anything about good?

(bastani content warning)

Democracies only run like this for so long. pic.twitter.com/uhCZKzmk78

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) April 24, 2022

Melenchon can go fuck himself imo, but (and this is an argument fellow ukpol despairers have heard me mane again and again) it’s 100% bullshit that voting against someone you hate is seen as preferable in most democracies than voting for someone you actually want. Assuming left French voters have several more years of being blamed for Macron’s failures while he desperately panders to the right in an attempt to set things up for…whoever he wants to succeed him, I guess?

Could see Macron trying to change the constitution to go for a 3rd term tbh.

Seems like a bad idea but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I was surprised to see that Le Pen's best results anywhere were in Outre-Mer constituencies like Guadeloupe and Martinique, and hugely up on 2017:

Marine Le Pen have a LARGE LEAD Overseas:

Guadeloupe: +39.2%
Martinique: +21.8%
French Guiana: +21.4%

Results not representative for the rest of the country, but still...#Presidentielles2022 pic.twitter.com/yIQvKxoe5z

— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) April 24, 2022

Only analysis I found was an interview with a local pro-independence politician: apparently they really really don't like Macron there. Still I might have expected abstention rather than a huge vote for Le Pen, esp given that Melenchon won big in the first round.

Would be interesting to see the racial make-up of the votes in those constituencies? Not much of a surprise that white ppl living in those areas would enjoy fascism.

(just remembered that French policy means these numbers will never be tallied)

who said anything about good?

― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Sunday, 24 April 2022 bookmarkflaglink

Effectively that is what you were doing with that post. The politicians that say they occupy the centre will do a version of fascism without the rhetoric and you will tell yourself it's incompetent but not
capital evil. Just inventing justifications for your vote next time.

don't think aimless has a vote in the French elections

either way tho plenty of incoherent thinkers present in most totalitarian movements

Lol I know Aimless doesn't vote in this election but its a rehearsal for the ones he'll vote in.

Xpost White people are very much in the minority in Guadeloupe, Martinique and Guyane so that's not going to explain the massive Le Pen vote there. These are departements, ie fully integrated politically into metropolitan France, unlike say New Caledonia, which also has a strong independence movement. These departements don't have serious independence movements, most people there consider themselves completely French but forgotten by the Paris elites, I think that's the core of the Le Pen vote, and the Melenchon vote in the first round. And Le Pen is keen on these leftovers of French Empire and has been courting them assiduously. Tldr French racism is a complicated thing

"vote for the crook not the fascist" has been the equivalent slogan since at least 2002, when jacques chirac face off against marine's dad

as a one-off it was what it was (chirac was a massive crook (who wd be convicted after he stepped down); as a now-persistent multi-reality it's an emblem of the perma-crisis that the centre has no way to resolve (and one has to assume no plan or intention to resolve = you maintain said threat primarily to discipline yr foes on the left… and normalising the framework w/o sating the beast, by goading the far right with promises you will never quite deliver on, into a weaponised presence that isn't going away

(i tried googling to find if the slogan goes back any earlier than 2002 but its massive use in 2002 stymied the search)

I was living in France at that time and I don't think that phrase had antecedents.

Although everyone is like "phew, dodged a bullet" at the moment, 41% of French voters voted fascist. That's huge. God only knows what will happen after another five years of macronisme.

I did make that point yesterday, yeah. Not great that the demographics of working age people went for Le Pen.

"vote for the crook not the fascist" has been the equivalent slogan since at least 2002, when jacques chirac face off against marine's dad

Reminds me of Anthony Crosland's comment on the Labour Party leadership contest between Harold Wilson and George Brown, "A choice between a crook and a drunk."

he was just tired and emotional tom

le pen’s signature policies are not tremendously different from the tories or the republicans afaict?

Not sure she was arguing for French soldiers to be exonerated from shooting civilians was she?

Or for shipping asylum seekers to the middle of Africa?

Indeed and ffs

She wanted a referendum to amend the constitution to allow discriminating against non-nationals for access to jobs and welfare. A fascist move that the Tories and Republicans might like in theory, but are not actually proposing.

non-residents already have to pay for healthcare in the UK, it’s not a huge psychological next step

Huge news in France, that just two weeks ago seemed unthinkable: the four major left and center-left parties have struck a left-wide coalition deal, the first of its kind in decades, that gives them a shot to wrestle power from Macron in the June parliamentary elections.

— Taniel (@Taniel) May 4, 2022

Interesting development but colour me sceptical. There are a lot of people in the Socialist Party that hate Melenchon more than Macron. Even if such an alliance succeeds in the legislatives, the chances of it all falling apart within weeks, to Macron's ultimate benefit, are high.

Yeah the last tweet of that thread is watch this space.

On Melenchon's evolution.

Mélenchon 2017-2022: from tribune of the people to radical socialdemocrat. A short 🧵

— Paolo Gerbaudo (@paologerbaudo) June 13, 2022

It's that Jeremie Le Quorbyn again.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/06/14/support-jeremy-corbyn-shows-danger-french-left-claims-emmanuel/

yes. yes. YES https://t.co/sox6oaeiWS pic.twitter.com/aOIK4zYgoj

— 「𝘁𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮」 (@tara_chara) June 15, 2022

qu'en est-il des dimensions relatives dans l'espace?

The footage and the applause is so good.

‘Whereas capital works to dominate the long term through the short term… our own model seeks to harmonise the rhythms of production with those of nature… We are going to nationalise time’ — Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Amazing that any national-level political leader can talk like this https://t.co/Yb5wkepwUd

— David Broder (@broderly) June 14, 2022

Macron just lost his parliamentary majority, and Mélenchon's left-green alliance is set to win 150 to 180 seats. Gonna be hard to be Jupiter nowhttps://t.co/iwmafa1CfJ

— Vincent Bevins (@Vinncent) June 19, 2022

This is a more thorough assessment.

Some thoughts (to be continued as the night goes on):

1) Biggest news by far is that France's far-right finally has a bloc in parliament that matches its electoral strength. This is the logical conclusion of institutional normalisation, but 80+ députés for the RN is still huge.

— Emile Chabal (@emile_chabal) June 19, 2022

Henri Bergson to thread!

Or even just
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKcwJD3ky38

Rachel Kéké, a hotel chambermaid who led a 22-month strike, was elected as an MP with France Insoumise. Her first comments were to women cleaning workers at the National Assembly: ‘I’m going to be taking a look at their working conditions!’ https://t.co/kCxp2dgRSZ

— David Broder (@broderly) June 19, 2022

54% of people stayed away, and that's how the far-right win.