The French

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.

whether to close schools is one of the sticking points, since Blanquer wants them open. But maybe they're why we can't get below 20k a day?

Blanquer is LREM's candidate for the presidency of the Conseil régional d'Île-de-France, against Pécresse. Ugh.

Worth a read (I seem to recall you being a Monde subscriber too):

https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2021/01/27/vittoria-colizza-avec-le-variant-britannique-le-nombre-de-cas-peut-augmenter-tres-vite-malgre-les-mesures-de-distanciation-sociale_6067715_3244.html

thanks! yes, I subscribe to Le Monde (& Le Parisien for local news)

Young people will save us.

🇫🇷#France, presidential election poll (1st round) :

Among 25-34 years old :#LePen (RN) : 37 %#Macron (LREM) : 18 %#Mélenchon (FI) : 14 %#Bertrand (LR) : 7 %#Jadot (EELV) : 7 %#Hidalgo (PS) : 6 %#DupontAignan (DLF) : 3 %
...

Elabe, 14/04/21 pic.twitter.com/jtYR217Ocf

— World Elects (@ElectsWorld) April 15, 2021

jesus christ.

I saw 29% among voters aged 25-34 according to IFOP & IPSOS, which tend to be more reliable than Elabe. Still a disturbingly high percentage, obv.

According to IFOP / IPSOS (source), those aged 18-24 plan to vote as follows:

29% – LRM (Macron)
20% – RN (Le Pen)
19% – LFI (Mélenchon)

(They don't provide figures for the other parties, which is telling.)

So zoomers are less drawn to Le Pen than millennials.

The biggest takeaway is how utterly disappointing Mélenchon and the PS have been since Macron got elected (in 2017, 18-24ers oscillated between 29% and 31% for LFI). The French left has done precious little to stem the tide, alas – there is no question that 'la lepénisation des esprits' continues apace in France.

One day the centre will work out that you need to offer something to people besides the fact that you’re not the fascists (whose language and policies you keep ripping off).

scampus milne (gyac)
Posted: 25 October 2020 at 17:45:32
They might do a better job of peeling off some of those FN votes if they weren’t so coy about peddling this shit. Ofc all the fascists approvingly qting it will never vote for them when they can vote for the real deal, but as long as they can hide behind the values of the republic then there’s no problem. 🙃

One day the centre will work out that you need to offer something to people besides the fact that you’re not the fascists (whose language and policies you keep ripping off).

This works for the PS (and only by French standards, since they'd be called commies in the UK or the US) but not so much for Mélenchon, who cannot be described as a centrist. His biggest issue is his authoritarian streak and his countless gaffes. He did remarkably well in 2016 and 2017 and then he squandered it all after he didn't make it to the second round.

I’m talking about Macron.

speaking of authoritarian streaks

Ah, nm.

xp

French Politics pic.twitter.com/7eB6kNvkCq

— Axe🗿🇵🇸 (@westernunion2k) December 16, 2021

"Le wokisme, c'est le contraire de la République" https://t.co/yhollPdeKC

— Vincent Bevins (@Vinncent) February 13, 2022

What were you expecting from the right wing candidate?

Admittedly, French politics is more depressing than it's ever been: a couple of fascists battling it out with a proto-fascist and a neo-liberal, plus a ragbag of left candidates polling in the single digits.

ahhh the french