French elections 2017: completing the hat-trick?

I saw my first gilet jaune a little bit ago. Near the Jardin de Luxembourg

All Parisian lycées are closed tomorrow so my kids are happy, won’t have to navigate the civil war. The city feels very tense today. Cops are gonna be reluctant to intervene tomorrow so it’ll be up to the army. We’ll not be leaving the house.

just checked into our hotel in saint germain des pres. not planning on crossing the river tomorrow but don’t really want to be hotel-bound. do you think it’s likely violence will spread far beyond the 8th?

I’m aware the north american twitter left and jacobin readers have a hard-on over Mélenchon because old grumpy socialists are very fashionable (collection hiver automne 2020) but Mélenchon is just a fucking idiot, like watching Brexit happening in real time and still thinking France should get out of the EU kind of fuckin idiot.

― Van Horn Street, Thursday, 6 December 2018 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

― L'assie (Euler), Thursday, 6 December 2018 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yep, completely.

― pomenitul, Thursday, 6 December 2018 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Take out Nothern Ireland and there wouldn't be as much of a problem. The deal would probably have gone through, even with tight numbers in parliament.

The EU are facing serious problems integrating the Euro - and having to impose austerity in Southern Europe. It needs serious reform and thought. Saying Melenchon is part of a 'fashion' is laughable and you are all fooling yourselves.

It’s not clear where the violence will be tomorrow. Something may go down at Denfert-Rochereau, which isn’t that far from Saint-Germain-des-Près. My daughter’s lycée is in SGDP, I’m glad she won’t be there tomorrow. Up here in L@ Ch@p3ll3 I expect things will be like Ghostbusters after the EPA lets all the ghosts out : while the cops are with the rich scum tomorrow the gangsters up here will have their way.

delightful. thx for the intel.

So a noted yellow vest who also happens to be a holocaust denier 'accidentally' ended up on the cover of Paris Match:

https://www.lesinrocks.com/2018/12/06/actualite/un-militant-dextreme-droite-se-retrouve-en-une-de-paris-match-pour-illustrer-les-gilets-jaunes-111149819/

The EU are facing serious problems integrating the Euro - and having to impose austerity in Southern Europe. It needs serious reform and thought. Saying Melenchon is part of a 'fashion' is laughable and you are all fooling yourselves.

I fail to see how this precludes a critique of Mélenchon himself. Like I said, La France insoumise has much to gain by getting rid of his top-down leadership style.

ex-trots can never stop trotting

The EU are facing serious problems integrating the Euro - and having to impose austerity in Southern Europe. It needs serious reform and thought. Saying Melenchon is part of a 'fashion' is laughable and you are all fooling yourselves.

― xyzzzz__, Friday, December 7, 2018 8:29 AM (ten hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

All indications is that serious reform and thought of the European Union is not Mélenchon's priority.

It's not hard at all to imagine a France + Southern Europe coalition that shoved down a real equalizations payments system on the Germans today, that would have been a real constructive debate. I can see how citizens of Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and France today would be into it. But they didn't unite over it and instead just decided to shit on neo-liberals and the euro and now the situation keeps getting worse. Equalizations works elsewhere and should have been the future of a truly united Europe. Now both the anti-establishment left and right just prefers economic nationalism because its easy dumb votes for shitheads who don't have the imagination to understand that yes our current situation as other options than either protectionism or neoliberalism. For the likes of Mélenchon, its like we never tried protectionism, like we don't have the data on how it created massive problems, like it never lead to absolute chaos in the past.

What infuriates me is that over the past week Macron passed a really though law, one that will reverberate around Europe, to regulate the trucking industry and labor conditions but nobody gives a shit because he wears a suit or whatever he has the tag he has; that's the kind of law that would just infuriate a classic anti-regulation neo-liberals, it stands for exactly everything the populist/protectionist are for while keeping it true to pan-European ideals. I'm not defending his policies as a whole, I think a lot of policies are shit, I did not vote for him in the first round, but I would love to see the grander left celebrate shit that matters sometimes, even if it's the dramatic voice*** centrist mortal enemy who did it. Also fuck that tax hike on gas. The obvious first step would have been to tax the shit out of Total to begin with, and I'm glad the tax has been reversed but boy its going to be real nasty when the same tactics are used for nasty islamophobia/xenophobia and at this point I'm fairly certain it will, the venn diagram has just too much overlap.

What infuriates me is that over the past week Macron passed a really though law, one that will reverberate around Europe, to regulate the trucking industry and labor conditions but nobody gives a shit because he wears a suit or whatever he has the tag he has;

That seems a bit reductive, don't you think? There's much more to it that him wearing a suit. It goes back all the way to his actios under the Hollande government to everything and said to did since he was elected. The trucking thing is a good thing but it doesn't cancel the rest at all. Like you said his policies are shit. Almost everyone in this country who isn't super-wealthy is fed up with decades of shit policies, even though not everyone is fed up with the same policies for the same reasons.

I don't support the Gilets Jaunes nor their methods and I got into seriously heated arguments with colleagues over it but this governement totally deserves a loud reminder that Macron isn't our king and people won't just shut up for 5 years and accept anything. If anything maybe he'll show less contempt for people now.

*everything he did and said*, sorry it's early

"Macron's arrogance unites us"

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/07/macrons-arrogance-unites-us-on-the-barricades-with-frances-gilets-jaunes

His supposed arrogance is also a theatrical posture he developed to avoid coming off as weak. Damned if you do, damned if you don't: either they take to the streets to demand that the new Roi-Soleil be guillotined or they diss your supposed softness until you hit rock bottom and are forced out of politics for good (Hollande).

I'd also like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that France's Gini index, which measures inequality, is still low compared to that of other Western European countries, that there are exceedingly poor nations with a shit-tier GDP that are indeed less unequal in their wealth distribution but whose standard of living would be considered appalling by the gilets jaunes, that the French get five weeks of paid vacation, a 35-hour work week, free world-class health care and benefits that would (and should) make the socialist parties of comparable countries quite jealous.

Macron supports all that, does he?

The lingering problem is unemployment. How would you solve it?

How's he solving it, he's the President of France, I'm not.

There was nothing supposed about Hollande's softness. He kept trying to please the right, who would never like him no matter what because socialism is evil, while forgetting he's got elected on the basis of left-leaning promises. The ecotaxe was actually a good thing, for once, but he abandoned it as soon as the industry protested. On gay marriage, which is a fucking non-issue for everyone except a bunch of homophobic fucktards, he almost pussied out (as a side not it's interesting to note that Macron has shown much more empathy to the "humiliated" (his words) opponents to gay marriage than he has ever shown towards to any other kind of protesters). As one comedian said once of Hollande, "we expected absolutely nothing from him and he still managed to disappoint".

From a UK perspective all you ever hear about France is how it needs to reform itself, to be more in line with UK and US, that is something I've been hearing about from right wing and, yes, centrist, commentators in the UK for as long as I can remember - which is a long time. It comes in two forms - sniggering schadenfreude from the right and patronising mock concern from the centre, as always driven by British resentment of the French.

35 hr week is pretty theoretical for a lot of professions

"free" healthcare, well, apart from the deductibles and/or the mutuelle that you've bought to cover them

but in general i agree

well given that the deductibles are mostly reimbursed by CPAM even if you don't have a mutuelle, it's not as bad as that sounds.

the biggest healthcare gripe I hear is that eyeglasses are not really covered. as a former american I lol every time I hear someone go about vision coverage here.

Tom, he lengthened bereavement leaves and implemented a 'right to disconnection'. He is unlikely to get rid of the 35 hour work week and will extend health coverage to dental care, which is currently not free. He also plans on giving benefits to the self-employed as part of his labour reforms. Truly neoliberalism incarnate.

Oh and eyeglasses will also be covered by 2021 at the latest.

Dinsdale, everyone on the left conveniently leaves out the 75% wealth tax, which Hollande was subsequently forced to backpedal on because it turned out to be a complete and utter failure. So yes, he did aim for maximum 'leftism' given his wiggle room. A tragic cautionary tale if ever there was one.

That said, I don't think Macron's ISF reform is the way forward.

I agree with everything you're saying, pomenitul

I do think that the gilets jaunes are a good counterweight to French neoliberalism, in LREM and LR and whoever else. There was no such voice in the presidential election : instead it was fought about immigration because of the fascists. I'm heartened by the gilets jaunes' lack of interest in immigration. If racism becomes a prominent part of their surges then I'll be cheering the army on. As it is, this is a democratic counterweight of which we were robbed by Le Pen (and by Mélenchon's lack of interest in ordinary French life but rather in the mostly-irrelevant "international politics of the left")

This is mere anecdotal evidence, of course, but my (French) wife has been keeping me informed about the bits of far-right 'alternative facts' her supposedly left-leaning relatives – all gilets jaunes sympathizers or members – are spreading on Facebook and there are some significant racist elements among them.

Les Décodeurs do a great job of summing up this particular xenophobic conspiracy theory, which has gained a fair amount of traction worldwide these past few weeks:

https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2018/12/06/vendre-la-france-a-l-onu-de-donald-trump-aux-gilets-jaunes-l-itineraire-mondial-d-une-intox_5393268_4355770.html

Yes, I've seen articles about that in several European countries this week. No doubt the Russians are trying to seize upon the moment.

For those who haven't encountered it yet, it's about how Macron's decision to sign the UN Global Compact for Migration on Monday will accelerate the so-called 'grand remplacement' or 'great replacement', a now-mainstream racist theory developed by the loathsome writer and 'intellectual' Renaud Camus. In essence, it states that white Christian Europeans are being deliberately, systematically replaced by exogenous, coloured forces bent on the destruction of Western civilization.

There surely are lots of rotten apples within the Gilets Jaunes and especially with those are somehow appear as "leaders" (self-appointed or not). Which is part of why I can't fully support them.

Dinsdale, everyone on the left conveniently leaves out the 75% wealth tax, which Hollande was subsequently forced to backpedal on because it turned out to be a complete and utter failure. So yes, he did aim for maximum 'leftism' given his wiggle room. A tragic cautionary tale if ever there was one.

Like you said, he backpedaled. That's pretty much his M.O.

The lingering problem is unemployment. How would you solve it?

According to Macron finding a job is actually easy, you just have to cross the street. So I don't know what he's waiting for, build more streets Manu! And actually, at this very moment you have thousands of people walking in the streets of France, they haven't figured out the whole crossing thing but as soon as they do we can kiss unemployment goodbye.

You forgot the 'complete and utter failure' part.

Anyway, Macron's calculatedly off-the-cuff statements are often quite dumb and he definitely deserves to get flak for them.

He scolds like a French schoolteacher.

On a slightly different note, I do find it sad that Renaud Camus, an excellent prose stylist and disciple of Roland Barthes, now follows in Céline's footsteps.

Mélenchon does indeed seem to be losing support on the left, for reasons more to do with his personality and dictatorial style than policy afaict.

That being said, it is pretty galling to hear so much about how the international left doesn't understand French politics when international liberalism still views Macron as a saviour because, uh, he's not Le Pen and he zinged the orange guy once.

A lot of French politics is right in the currents of stuff happening in world politics.

And Melenchon's loss of support has been reported on in the English press:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2018/11/22/samuel-earle/melenchons-decline/

xp strong handshake too

This is a detailed account of the yellow vests: https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/12/11/from-sans-culottes-to-gilets-jaunes-macrons-marie-antoinette-moment/

Goes contrary to the excuses ppl on the thread have been making for Macron.

Yeah, the part about how there are almost no far-right elements among the gilets jaunes is simply not true. Read up on their spokespeople and their obsession with the aforementioned migration compact. Check their Facebook accounts, which is where it all started.

Yes I did find it funny how on the one hand there was little non-white make-up and yet there was also no far-right elements/racist messaging - but it doesn't look like anyone has truly co-opted the movement.

For sure, it's still fairly heterogenous at this point. I do wonder whether backpedaling on wealth tax reform would get them to stop protesting completely (it's the Macron policy I disagree with the most).

The piece has an arc to it - sounds like when he was first deregulating/fighting unions people were giving him some leeway to see where it was all going, hence Macron's success in pushing that through.

With tax reforms, coupled with the abuses of power and the rhetoric since it looks likes its going in a direction that people are very angry with. And, as has been discussed, he won but he doesn't have a very strong mandate.

This may not be the ideal thread for it, but what the hell.

How to draw attention to yourself (as if it were still necessary) prior to the release of your latest novel:

https://harpers.org/archive/2019/01/donald-trump-is-a-good-president/

Isn't that exactly what you'd expect him to say though?

Indeed it is. His trolling used to be more subtle, however. It suited him and his writing better.

lol, he really puts the terrible into being an ageing enfant these days. He ought to be a bit disturbed that his Trump/Brexit controps just pretty much sound like what you'd currently read in the dying UK tabloid press, but not in a making u think way or the oh so hilarious provocateurish "own the libs" thing I think he might be trying to aim for.

The first American military interventions I can really remember are those of the two Bushes, especially the son’s. France refused to join him in his war against Iraq—a war that was in equal parts immoral and stupid;

I'm thirty years younger than him, and I can clearly remember that there was another guy in between the two Bushes who intervened a couple of times. Or is he saying that his memory is not what it used to be?

how is his position any different from yr standard counterpunch / greenwaldian pov?

He's a couple of years older and has an accent

ah yes the totally leftist and not at all reactionary movement that the cops are somehow drawn to. https://t.co/GkhUHQf16B

— Michael T Sweeney (@mtsw) December 19, 2018

Good piece by Mark Lilla on intellectual currents of the new French right:

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/12/20/two-roads-for-the-new-french-right/