The French

Macron wants the children of France’s largest minority to be given ID numbers, he’s dissolved Muslim civil rights groups and wants loyalty vows from religious figures. If you’re silent on this don’t pretend you’re serious about our society learning anything from the last century

— Marcus Barnett (@marcusbarnett_) November 20, 2020

Marshall Petain would be proud of this lad, but at least he defeated Le Pen

this is the point where Fishhook Theory is now an incontrovertible fact

Just so you know, that's a made up 'fact'. See also:

I do unequivocally apologize for the error I made in saying that Macron's bill targets Muslim children.

I do have a responsibility to facts. And I do not want to make anything harder for my colleagues who are doing an amazing job with a difficult story.

— Karen Attiah (@KarenAttiah) November 22, 2020

Doesn’t mean the law will be equally applied, something something rich and poor men sleeping under bridges.

Everyone has a national ID number from birth in France.

Furthermore, collecting ethnic/racial data is illegal since 1978

You don’t have to collect ethnic or racial data to know which neighbourhoods or populations you want to monitor. Nor is the aim of ensuring all children go to school entirely separate from the context previously discussed on the threads.

The worst new policy is the one making it illegal to film police, assuming that’s accurate reporting.

The point is Muslim children aren't being specifically assigned ID numbers. The bill itself provides enough grist for the mill, no need to focus on nonexistent issues.

As for the other policy, it makes it illegal to film police if and only if the video is accompanied by targeted death threats. Sounds like a front.

Thanks for further clearing up/exchanges on this. It's not been that well reported on so I wanted anyone to comment (I do think posting tweets is useful even when inaccurate).

Any time. It's worth remembering that stuff like this does often get lost in translation.

Btw, re: the police bill, I forgot to add that it also prohibits citizens from circulating such material if it is accompanied by death threats. If I were an MC, I'd make a video featuring salient examples of filmed police brutality and rap pointed threats over it. I'd get taken to court, where the case would likely fizzle out as an instance of artistic licence but it would help underscore just how absurd this proposal is in the first place. Oh, and the 'intention of causing harm' clause – whatever the fuck that means from a legal standpoint – was added later, which tells you all you need to know about their intentions.

It's also ridiculous to assume that this bill could in any way shape or form have prevented, say, the 2016 Magnanville stabbing attack.

In other news, Sarkozy's on trial for corruption.

🤞

While it is currently legal to film cops they have no problem pretending otherwise and threaten you or break/steal your gear if you do, so regardless of what this new bill really does I wish good luck to anyone trying to document police misdemeanings after that.

This Onion-like ultimatum from Macron would be hilarious if it didn't convey so much violence pic.twitter.com/Kvwl5Mbucw

— Tarek Younis (@Tarek_Younis_) November 23, 2020

37!

🇨🇵El Ministerio de Interior francés anuncia un balance de 46 detenidos de París, así como 37 policías heridos.pic.twitter.com/bPQDXDaXxR

— Descifrando la Guerra (@descifraguerra) November 28, 2020

French presidential election poll, second round scenario

Macron vs Le Pen

Macron: 52%
Le Pen: 48%

Harris / Jan 19-20th pic.twitter.com/JeMFC3HVli

— Politics For All (@PoliticsForAlI) January 27, 2021

christ

u ok hon hon hon?

Les Républicains are dead and buried since François Fillon's humiliating defeat, and while some of them have become full-blown macronistes in the interim, the others have openly embraced Marine Le Pen, greatly boosting her score in the process. She herself has toned down her anti-EU statements, focusing instead on curbing immigration, which is a far more popular stance, including on the so-called left. Moreover, a year prior to the election is usually when she does best, in no small part because the French get sick of whoever's in power after four years, but also because Le Pen likes to make herself scarce throughout most of the quinquennat, as this has proven to be a winning strategy. Basically you shut up and allow the xenophobic media to do your dirty job, until you're forced to open your mouth once the campaign proper begins, at which point people suddenly claim to be shocked by your statements. Anyhow, I think Marion Maréchal has a much better shot in 2027. Keep in mind that Macron's approval rating is currently 40% and on the upswing, which may not seem like much, but from a French perspective it's not bad at all. The biggest problem here is that the left is typically divided, and doesn't stand a fighting chance at the moment, although that may yet change in the coming months depending on how well the new contenders do, starting with Anne Hidalgo, the current mayor of Paris.

Hidalgo is a terrible mayor. She’s polling at 5% in the presidential at the moment.

I got some news yesterday that means I may already be eligible to vote in that election, though I don’t have the final word yet. I won’t be voting for Macron or Le Pen or Mélenchon in the first round, that much I know.

What I do worry about are voters such as my MIL's partner. Lifelong PS (Parti socialiste) supporter, hates Macron because he's too right-wing and a traitor to his party. I suspect he wouldn't vote at all in the event of another run-off involving Macron and Le Pen. Alternatively, he might vote for the latter out of dégagisme… Or so he would claim. The reality is that he's a jingoistic/openly racist asshole and has only nominally voted on the left his whole life because that's his 'team'. I once asked him to consider the effects a Le Pen presidency would have on French people of colour and immigrants in general and he gave me a horrified look, not because he hadn't thought of the implications but because he felt found out.

Speaking of Mélenchon, he should've stepped down a long time ago – La France insoumise needs new blood or it'll perish altogether. I'd love to see someone like Clémentine Autain leading the charge.

that's a great question to put. straight up. 'aren't you worried about what a le pen presidency would do to immigrants and minorities? it would be terrible for them. aren't you concerned about that?'

Mélenchon can get to fuck, and so can Macron tbf. He’s come out with more racist stuff, again, obviously as appalled by these opinion polls by the rest of us, and I cannot tell you how great it feels to be blackmailed into voting for the only viable candidate to keep the fascists out when the only viable candidate is not-so-subtly pitching for their votes again. Democracy, eh? No wonder people don’t vote.

I don’t know anything about the ranks of LFI, JLM is silly enough that I expect very little of them. But I should look deeper.

lol fuck Manu though

“There will be no repentance, there will be no apologies,” an adviser to French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday ahead of the release of a much-anticipated report on the history of colonization and the Algerian War.https://t.co/3pdIvKgxfm

— POLITICOEurope (@POLITICOEurope) January 23, 2021

sir, this is a flunch

Mélenchon has been flirting with anti-vaxx discourse lately to rack up a few extra votes. His approach is quite interesting, as a matter of fact, and something that other left-wing parties need to reflect upon the world over: basically, he came away from the last election feeling like the only way to defeat Le Pen and Macron was to become a proper populist but from a left-wing perspective, which is a fair hypothesis. Except he got tripped up in the process and started saying and doing shit that is uncomfortably close to what the other, more successful right-wing populists were saying and doing. If it was all a strategic ploy on his part, I actually feel bad for him because it hasn't paid off at all so far. The Gilets jaunes episode was a good example of this.

2xp yeah I mean only about 10% of the population wants that. Talking about that stuff is a fucking minefield over there and ironically enough, Macron has actually done a better job of it so far than his predecessors, which goes to show the sheer scale of the problem.

Flunch might be going bankrupt lol. Sixty of their locations are closing due to covid. RIP.

Lol flunch I have eaten there once because I wanted the all you can eat fries, such shame

My wife would often eat there when she was a teenager because at the time it was one of the few restaurants in France where you could actually have a varied and balanced meal as a vegetarian.

Macron’s handling of education has been total garbage. Blanquet and Vidal are bolos.

Yeah, it's been pretty bad. When was the last time the government (I'm tempted to say: *any* Western government) has viewed it as a priority?

A priority to blow things up, and then fail to deal with the mess. See: the bac during the rona. Or soon, the LPR (glad I’m not on the cnu this year!)

Mélenchon seems like the living embodiment of what all the centrist/right wing commentariat in the UK lied out of their arses and said Corbyn was. He seems like a terrible waste of space.

the only way to defeat Le Pen and Macron was to become a proper populist but from a left-wing perspective, which is a fair hypothesis. Except he got tripped up in the process and started saying and doing shit that is uncomfortably close to what the other, more successful right-wing populists were saying and doing.

isn't it strange how this keeps happening

just saw the algeria thing. death to france

I once asked him to consider the effects a Le Pen presidency would have on French people of colour and immigrants in general and he gave me a horrified look, not because he hadn't thought of the implications but because he felt found out.

― pomenitul, Thursday, 28 January 2021 bookmarkflaglink

Wild what people will pretend not to know.

Guarantee père-in-law doesn’t think of pom as one of them either.

Wild what people will pretend not to know.

Tbc my faux-naïve question was in the context of him saying that a Le Pen presidency wouldn't be that bad, all things considered.

As to whether he doesn't think of me as 'one of them', that's probably true now, but we did have a long falling out almost a decade ago after he told me that I couldn't possibly be a true Canadian if I wasn't ready to die on the battlefield for my host country. He has LeGiTiMaTe CoNcErNs about the loyalty and reliability of immigrants when the shit hits the fan, you see. He's not a xenophobe, he's a patriot! And, to reiterate, he has always voted left, which, when I first met him 10+ years ago, really opened my eyes to how incoherent most voters are, including those who follow politics very closely like he does.

Btw this beau-père is my MIL's current partner. The one I usually describe as my FIL, i.e. my wife's father, is now a full-blown anti-vaxx, anti-medicine chemtrail covidiot, but I've never heard him make any xenophobic comments – quite the opposite, really. I do worry about the influence his antisemitic conspiracy theorist 'shaman'/healer of a brother has had on him lately, though, but I already talked about that in the brainworms thread.

And in case it wasn't clear, I strive to avoid interacting with my in-laws as much as possible. Being on a different continent certainly helps.

Being on a different continent sounds like a great idea when it comes to in-laws.

Aha! So this is how we can get you to make peace with North America.

XP parents too if at all possible at times ime

My previous médecin traitant retired at the end of 2020, and I'm glad because when I asked him to prescribe Gardasil for my kids, he said he'd do it but that I should come back later after I'd looked into it more because he didn't advise it. He also didn't want to prescribe vitamin D for us. My new one was happy to do both. Anti-vax views here go deep.

Note that the anti-rona vaccine being developed by the Institut Pasteur was canned this week because it wasn't going to be up to snuff.

Maybe you've come across this French joke that's been making the rounds. A doctor is charged with vaccinating an Englishman, a German, an American and a Frenchman against Covid-19 – all of them are unwilling subjects. The Englishman ultimately relents when he's told it's ungentlemanly to refuse, the German caves in upon hearing 'it's an order!' and the American decides to get the vaccine because his neighbour did. The Frenchman fends off every single medical argument that gets thrown his way until the doctor tells him he is in fact ineligible for it, being French. Indignant, he rails against this injustice and gets the jab.

The only part I find a bit confusing is the American, whose logic is oddly similar to that of the Frenchman.

Is the American one about Keeping With The Joneses? Is that considered an American trait?

Or, I suppose, it's my right to one if he's getting one.

ha I have not seen that.

Véran making it look like it's palace intrigue as to whether we're locking down again, but it may just be decision theater to put pressure on MEDEF and to buy time to figure out how to handle the public unrest they're anticipating.

I guess, but it still falls a bit flat imo. The joke would work better without the American.

xp another full lockdown (minus schools) seems likely due to the British variant.