French elections 2017: completing the hat-trick?

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.

How is his programme not a continuation of things, kicking-down-the-can stuff that just leaks votes to the far-right. This is not a game. Endorsement stuff reeks of that.

Melenchon may have his problems but these starter-left platforms seem to be one of the few ways to genuinely counter the ongoing rise of the far-right. Just because he lost this time he has to look forward so there is no need to endorse immediately or certainly for his supporters to enthuse or fucking campaign for this void of a man. Vote quietly for Macron, don't boot-lick these technocrats anymore and organise for '22, because after nearly a decade of austerity its going to be needed.

Has French austerity been as ruthless and terrible for the disabled and working poor as it has in the UK? Stephan Brize has been my only research so far tbh.

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.

― Van Horn Street, Tuesday, April 25, 2017 11:32 AM (twenty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

is it not correct that macron is a centrist, third way type? and en marche sort of comparable to ciudadanos in spain? a socially progressive party with centrist/centre-right economic ideas?

that posits itself as neither left nor right but merely "progressive" in a vague way?

please represent what i was arguing fairly.

in the hectic free-for-all that is ilx (and it's much worse elsewhere than here) missing the finer distinctions, qualifications and nuances of an argument is normal. consequently, fairly representing one's shallow or mistaken understanding of someone else's argument, always entails misrepresenting that argument.

deliberate and gross distortions are depressingly common on the web, too, but not so much on ilx. here such gross distortions are usually made in order to justify a lazy zing, rather than to vilify an opponent.

deliberate and gross distortions are depressingly common on the web, too, but not so much on ilx. here such gross distortions are usually made in order to justify a lazy zing, rather than to vilify an opponent.

― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Tuesday, April 25, 2017 3:05 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

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

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, April 25, 2017 2:17 PM (fifty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Right.

wow! you found an instance of shit-talking on ilx! that totally negates my contention that such a thing has never happened on ilx in the history of the universe. (hangs head in shame)

I actually agree with you, it was just a rich thing to say given the 45 odd minutes separating your comment and his.

^ ladies and gentlemen, I give you the full playing out of my thesis in 4 posts.

Macron is a centrist, progressive on social issues / centre-right on the economy (flexicurity and all that). Painting him as a hardline neoliberal is dumb, misguided and missing the fact that 6 months ago, the idea of having a centrist with a shot of winning would have been crazy talk (at a time when a Fillon / Le Pen face off was a given)

“What we are really suffering from,” he says, “is a deregulated Europe that has let go of its primary vocation, which was to hold aloft our values of freedom and solidarity, a ­Europe that protects people, that has become ultra-liberal and uniquely primed towards the free market. This is what we must change.”

interesting that macron is likely the next prime minister of france, is centrist, yet can use the kind of rhetoric that would make you completely unelectable in the uk

i read an interview w/ Mélenchon's economic adviser who said that lowering the retirement age will open up jobs for the youth so the drop in unemployment insurance will pay for the increase in pension obligations, which struck me as wishful arithmetic and a bizarrely defeatist attitude to youth unemployment

i don't know much about france but it strikes me that Bernie/Melenchon comparisons are misguided, since France already has a strong welfare state, universal healthcare, and a much more regulated labor market. except for maybe the latter (although Macron's statements on labour market regulation are very muted) these are all things Macron proposes to uphold the status quo on, and Bernie is still running for

flopson otm

Which makes all this so-called radical talk that much more ridiculous. France is neither the US nor the UK nor even Canada for that matter.

Btw, the US sorely needs someone like Mélenchon asap.

Be happy for the crumbs you have France! Stop flirting with racists and don't demand too much.

But they aren't 'crumbs,' precisely. Get out of the West every once in a while. It helps put things into perspective.

LOL yes I will live in a slum in Mumbai! That will teach me

haven't read up on it in a while but if you were on the old monte cairo in france a few years back you got 4 times what you did in the uk

so their austerity would be beyond corbyn's dreams essentially

Take me to the nearest Social Security office in St Malo, driver!

Don't believe their lies, France is going up in flames and Le Pen is the only one who can save it. I read all about it on Russia Today.

Let's get back to our earlier discussion about Le Pen's antisemitism for a second. This is the man she named as interim chairman yesterday: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-François_Jalkh

Be happy for the crumbs you have France! Stop flirting with racists and don't demand too much.

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, April 25, 2017 5:04 PM (forty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

where are you from?

I'm asking because famous austéritaire président Hollande, in his last budget, ran 200 billions in deficit despite having a debt per gdp in the upper 90s. In no nation of the world this would be considered 'crumbs', in most nations it would be called playing with fire. Heck, I don't mind, Keynes for life imo. But a champion of austerity, France hasn't been and they won't be under Macron either. It just seems that all energy directed at hating for the centre left, or the centre could be aimed at the far right who is gaining on. But I suppose Blair, the Clintons, Obama, Trudeau, Hollande and Macron are the problem when the freaking wolf are at the door.

(Sorry for answering in your stead.) I think he's from the UK. At the very least he seemingly lives there.

He lives there. Did someone just mention Tony Blair?

he says he lives here, i think he flies in from russia for the ILB faps

He's flown in by MI5.

Fizzles is a front.

I always knew he was a bit of a front.