French elections 2017: completing the hat-trick?

Danesplanation to follow.

i am getting off the thread, partly bcz i'm very aware i'm NOT FRENCH so there may well be all kinds of stuff i'm missing, and partly bcz it is a lovely day here and i plan to go SWIMMING for the next coupla hours

Or he doesn't want to act like a servant of neo-lib interests. If he supports Macron the far-right can say he is an establishment guy in 2022.

Alternatively, not endorsing Macron provides fuel for the blando "economic leftism and far-right ideologies are just two sides of the same xenophobic unwoke coin" idiots and will further push younger voters away from leftist politics.

I go back and forth on the united front against Le Pen: part of me worries that it's feeding into the FN rhetoric of "they're all the same", but at the same time, imagine if the entire political establishment of the UK treated Farage with the same open and vocal disdain that the French treat Le Pen, as opposed to scheming how to be more like him.

No compromise/unity leftists seem to be taking their time to learn the lessons of recent elections nest past

imagine if the entire political establishment of the UK treated Farage with the same open and vocal disdain that the French treat Le Pen, as opposed to scheming how to be more like him.

As a Dane I really, really dream about this in Denmark :(

You don't see the raft of islamophobic French legislation at the national and local level as an attempt to steal the thunder of FN?

I see it as Islamophobia :) Not that I'm French, but if it's anything like Denmark, then that's what is happening.

Some disdain would still be nice.

No compromise/unity leftists seem to be taking their time to learn the lessons of recent elections nest past

― virginity simple (darraghmac), Tuesday, 25 April 2017 11:07 (thirty-two minutes ago) Permalink

tbf one lesson of the US election is even if their guy campaigns energetically for the centrist candidate, he'll still get blamed 4 defeat

That lesson applies to everyone involved whenever the Democrat loses - the fault finding on the US left is an endless exercise

Yes, so can we not do it here?

You don't see the raft of islamophobic French legislation at the national and local level as an attempt to steal the thunder of FN?

I think it's more complicated than that - islamophobia has extremley high currency in France rn it's true but I don't think it's as direct as French pols going "hmm, FN getting good results at the ballots, must get on that", which at the risk of oversimplifying seems like it's actually what's going on in the UK. Treading lightly here as an outsider, I think some of the more popular islamophobic positions in France are enthusiastically embraced by people who would never vote FN in their lives.

At any rate, a parallell universe where Cameron, Corbyn, the LibDems had all established "we don't agree with each other, but UKIP is just beyond the pale and has no place in the debate"...I dunno, it might play to their strenghts, but it could also make a lot of people go "oh wait, literally everyone thinks they're evil? maybe I should reconsider my support".

XP wow censorship on yet another country's political thread huh?

Ban all Irish, please

You guys should make out

Give ILE back to the Danish - don't make deems have to take it away!

Wasn't Britain better off under the King Canute anyway?

Score this skirmish to Fred tbf

Born in an Eastern European utopia under Russia's benevolent tutelage, I now live in a Western centrist neoliberal dystopia, so I completely understand why someone would want to pick the racist, authoritarian, pro-Putin candidate over the inclusive globalist with a realistic yet optimistic program in a country that already has an enviable social safety net.

Wasn't Britain better off under the King Canute anyway?

England, Fred, get it right.

at issue is less "macron isn't PURE" as "neoliberal globalism and austerity are the PRIME CAUSE of the current fascist emergency", which as a position is obviously undermined by too speedy and kneejerk a turnabout endorsement -- and also that defeating the fascists isn't something that's going to happen purely or only electorally

mark s, Tuesday, April 25, 2017 6:38 AM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Do you know how percentages work? Is the math that complicated? Do you not realise who is facing Macron?

The whole line of 'neoliberalism bred fascism' is just so so so so idiotic when the fascists are already there, knocking on the door.

If you don't understand that the best anti-fascist action you can take in the next two weeks is to campaign against and vote against Le Pen, regardless of where you stand then no, your are not a leftist, ' then you don't care about the fate of millions of immigrated citizens, then you don't care about the poor, the press and the intellectuals, and lgbt rights and about women's right. You are just a politics snob looking to be cool or whatever.

On top of that if you take your ideas from a person who praised the russian actions in Syria, loved Chavez dearly (do I need to remind what is happening to the working class in Venezuela ?) then that's between you and your conscience, but tell us about fighting fascism mark.

oh i'm a kick-the-can-more-down-the-road guy, i still hold out a slender reed of hope that the neolib massive can indeed hold some kind of line for long enough to defuse the immediate emergency, and adapt to better coax us all away from the various edges we teeeter on: so i'd have no problem at all voting macron -- at the very least it brings time and space to work something out, and besides by then other things will have shifted and etc

i quoted butler's facebook essay to try and colour in why someone a lot further left than me -- and a *lot* more invested in direct and constant antifa activity -- might be more conflicted (tho butler also in fact says "vote for the crook not the fascist", and that -- after pause for weary sigh -- he'd add his vote to the macron tally)

beating the fascists in this election is essential -- but defeating them long-term, plus facing up to a fvckton of other growing problems -- is something i don't really think the macronite approach is (currently) helping much with: if i had a strong clear idea of what i believed needed doing (which trust me i don't) and also believed that delaying a statement of support gave that idea better traction for the future, i'd probably also be tempted to dabble in a few dick moves, dick moves is kinda what politics consists of

(i heart butler bcz he's good at laying out dilemmas really clearly but "politics snob" is not an entirely unfair description of him)

There's a saying in French: 'Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien.'

in english too: the best is the enemy of the good

(apparently it's from an unknown italian original, popularised in france by voltaire)

but it cuts in all direction to be honest -- the best response from melenchon wd have been a swift endorsement of macron on sunday night, a merely ok one is where he takes a few days and hedges somewhat to keep his political show on the road long-term (all politics is mostly dick moves)

That would have made sense had the run off been between Macron and Fillon, but there's simply no room for ambiguity here, especially since Macron is a social liberal and not some grotesque Rich Uncle Pennybags. Regardless, the damage is already done.

Lol, that's some sophistic bullshit mark.

I mean, compare this to Christian Estrosi (Les Républicains, i.e. Fillon's Party), who advocates excluding party members who refuse to fight against Le Pen: http://www.lemonde.fr/election-presidentielle-2017/article/2017/04/25/estrosi-demande-l-exclusion-des-membres-de-lr-qui-refusent-d-appeler-a-voter-macron_5117379_4854003.html

like all liberals, i like to deploy that phrase (usually in english, i shd start using it italian) to chop others off at the knees when they pompously insist their position is the best -- while secretly regarding myself as actually and obviously "the best" (bcz i'm a liberal)

anyway, apologies for butting into someone's else politics -- i'm not a melenchon expert at all, and totally defer to frenchspeakers and french citizens on his good and bad qualities and positions: i'm (as is probably obvious) extremely interested in the longterm strategies and potential of the rather further left, not least bcz of the all-too-evident collapse across europe of the centre left (so very visibly playing out in the UK), but i entirely agree that now is not really the moment to be litigating them in any careful depth

xp

a lot of the twitter arguments and thinkpieces about this seem to blur the line between "a centrist liberal like Macron is the best we can realistically hope for in the specific context of this run-off", (which is obv literally true), and "a centrist liberal like Macron is the best we can realistically hope for ever/in the abstract" which seems a lot more debatable (possibly because the arguments + thinkpieces I'm reading are mainly from UK ppl and are using all this as a stalking horse for arguments for Corbyn)

If the shoe was on the other foot, and melenchon was the one facing down le pen, how enthusiastic would macron be to support him? What about fillon? In the American context, if Sanders was the one facing trump, would the democratic establishment have dropped their reservations about him in a grand gesture of unity? Or would they have offered qualified support, maybe even a few days later, and made sure to maintain a distinction between their vision and the left?

mark:

That implies that the good is surreptitiously better than the better itself, whereas what the adage actually argues is that we are to regard any and all such meliorative claims with suspicion including, perhaps, autoreflexively.

xp

soref otm

Isn't the normal translation 'the perfect is the enemy of the good'...

Anyways, I'm not French either, and I guess I would have voted for Melenchon in a heartbeat, had I had the chance. Perhaps not if I'd researched it further... But I'm a bit weary of hearing that the center-left is collapsing, when the most centrist left candidate ever is probably going to win in France, when the Danish center-left is enjoying it's best polls in many many years while the Greens have collapsed, ditto for the Norwegian center-left, etc. It's a bit more complex than that, and being weak - or 'strategic' - on right-wing populism won't help at all.

And could everyone please shut up about Corbyn and Sanders...

I too would have voted for Mélenchon based on his environmental platform, his emphasis on gender equality and social justice in general and even his economic aims (to a more limited extent), if it weren't for:

1) His desire to leave the EU
2) His pro-Putin and pro-Assad statements
3) His utter disregard for Eastern Europe, which he views as Russia's rightful fief
4) The personality cult that surrounds him
5) His facile worship of Chavez, Castro and their ilk

…to begin with.

melenchon feels like what would happen if corbyn went full corbyn

I don't know much about Corbyn, but Mélenchon is highly charismatic, articulate and an excellent debater. His mastery of rhetoric is possibly the main factor explaining his success. My understanding is that Corbyn possesses almost none of these qualities.

i meant politically.

I too would have voted for Mélenchon based on his environmental platform, his emphasis on gender equality and social justice in general and even his economic aims (to a more limited extent), if it weren't for:

1) His desire to leave the EU
2) His pro-Putin and pro-Assad statements
3) His utter disregard for Eastern Europe, which he views as Russia's rightful fief
4) The personality cult that surrounds him
5) His facile worship of Chavez, Castro and their ilk

…to begin with.

― pomenitul, 25. april 2017 19:12 (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://media.giphy.com/media/9RWcytIJi3uYo/giphy.gif

trots, former or current, are a menace tbh

tankies too obv

No compromise/unity leftists seem to be taking their time to learn the lessons of recent elections nest past

― virginity simple (darraghmac), Tuesday, 25 April 2017 11:07 (thirty-two minutes ago) Permalink

Here is your lesson darragh:

Results for the official centre-left in recent elections Iceland 29 Oct '16 — 5.74% Netherlands 15 Mar '17 — 5.70% France 23 Apr '17 — 6.35%

Study it carefully. Essay by 9am tomorrow.

My god at some fo the shit on this thread:

That's not neccessarily what austerity is.

― Frederik B, Tuesday, 25 April 2017 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I thought Mordy's Le Pen isn't an anti-semite thing wasn't going to be topped but this is a contender.

Fred you need I, Daniel Blake hooked into your veins you vile shit.

ftr i didn't say le pen isn't an anti-semite. i said that dogwhistling was coming le pen AND melenchon.

if it seemed like i was downplaying le pen's "antisemitism" it was bc i said that they both send dogwhistles (whereas lbi was trying to argue that le pen was somehow more explicitly antisemitic and i was contesting the 'explicitness'). please represent what i was arguing fairly.

No I won't take it back because its totally the way it came off.

LOL this is comedy:

1) His desire to leave the EU

This pro-migrant killing pro-austerity monster is a hell of a drug for some of you huh? Above a love of Castro, even.

"People google and prove me wrong that eating shit is good for you"

Hilarious how for the left, Macron is obviously a neoliberalist, about to wreck havoc on the poor and for the right (not the far right!) he is a goddamn socialist commie who will continue to give benefits blindly and oh god homo mariage! It is telling on how the clivage gauche-droite is absurd.