French elections 2017: completing the hat-trick?

not in its most rigid form, no, but I deny that that's the model in practice today.

France is a de facto multicultural country that dares not speak its name. But what you (and I) like about it is not enforced de jure, which I'd argue is a fundamental failing on the République's part.

in my years here I've come to see how most French political ideals and projects are implemented in a skeletal way. in the details things vary considerably, based on the individuals putting the ideals and projects into practice. I see this in schooling most particularly because of my life as a prof. & father, but I see it in le républicanisme as well. It's like with the US constitution, or with the Bible: these are just sketches to be filled in, with enough of a guide to get the idea.

The problem, though, is that even if we parse it as a rough sketch the republican ideal bends more easily to neo-fascist forces than the multicultural ideal. YMMV, etc.

I don't see the multicultural ideal as opposed to neo-fascism (the FN loves to hyphenate too) but I think we've been over the point a lot already.

I am a bit confused. Euler, were you born in France?

I don't think there was anything about TN's joke that he needed to apologize for or explain away.

No, I emigrated to France a few years ago.

I disagree with Noah's point, but it's nothing to apologize for, political disagreement is good.

I like the point someone else made that it is not the French Team but l'equipe de France.

My personal pet peeve, Euler, is that France used to be a country with many 'french' cultures in it. My great-grandparents spoke a language different from French (languedocien, an Occitan dialect) at home and as a culture that really did disappear over time to satisfy the great (right wing) republican plan of an unified, monolithic and prosperous nation.

oc! i have heard of that language and always been intrigued by its existence

Suppression of minority languages and cultures was started during the French Revolution - I don't know if that's who you mean by right wing Republicans.

you can hear occitan on the Toulouse métro !

these year some lycéens responded to bac maths questions in breton, which was forbidden by the rectorat (in Rennes). apparently these answers were not graded in the end (so they got 0/20 for their note on those parts). these are still live issues!

& by "on the Toulouse métro" I mean they make the announcements of stations in both French & in Occitan

I wish I had known that! I am going to be on alert for it next time.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/france-far-right-emmanuel-macron-polls-popularity-front-national-a8525106.html

"Mr Macron’s fading fortunes look like a blow to his ambitions of creating a new centrist group in the European Parliament, superseding the existing liberal bloc and owing its allegiance to him."

My partner was very angry at tuning in to French radio in the morning to hear Macron lecturing an unemployed man, "but have you really tried to find employment? There are a lot of jobs in the restaurant sector..."

Between this and the time he threw a hissy fit at the high school kid who didn't show him proper respect I wonder if he's going to moralize at the entire nation one person at a time.

The collection of official souvenirs includes Macron-themed mugs for €24.90 (£22) and T-shirts (€55)

talk about misjudging the humeur nationale, what a prize bellend!

The French are notoriously finicky when it comes to leadership, so don’t assume another president would have performed better on this front.

So what's the deal with this raid on Melenchon? I'm inclined to believe that an anti-EU party abuses EU funds, happens all the time, but the usual suspects are claiming it's politically based.

I don't know what happened but I find Mélenchon is the kind of politician I detest. A populist, a demagogue and an intriguer, someone you cannot trust. He is like a Trump from the left.

The Socialist Party was raided while Hollande was in power and both the Modem and La République en Marche were likewise raided since Macron became president.

Bonus points for openly making fun of a journalist's Southern accent after she asked him a difficult question. At this point, Mélenchon is the French left's worst enemy.

Makes for some great quotes, though: 'I am the Republic' and 'my person is sacred'.

xp. no need to bring trump into it, he's a former trot, intrigue is his raison d'être.

as always i would reserve judgement on this case until more is out in the public eye, but you know, it's like 99% certain there's been some impropriety

So the Gilets Jaunes are the new 5 Stars Movement or what?

Je suis fuckin tired of populism.

It's not that easy. It's not really a movement, it's more like every French person who is unhappy with the governement got together to protest for different reasons (even though it was sparked by the rise of gas prices), some of these reasons being completely uncompatible with the reasons of others. It's just a big fucking mess that covers a lot of ground, mixing anti-taxes entrepreneurs with struggling people who just want their kids to have a decent life with people who are fed up with capitalism and corruption of the elites and people who just like to stir shit. But you're right that it definitely overlaps with populist movements.

For instance for poor people who live in rural places and who have bought diesel cars because for decades they've been highly encouraged to buy them by their very own government, and who have been forced to drive even more because lots of local public services like hospitals or post stations have been moved to to the next "big" town that might be 50 kms away and trains have been cut down too, I understand that the rise in gas prices feels leaves a very bad taste in their mouth, coupled with painting them as the nost awful people because they pollute too much (even though wealthy people are in fact responsible for much more pollution than then), all the while giving tax cuts to the wealthiest 1% and letting big companies pollute as much as they want.

Unfortunately that's not all there is to this "movement" but some of the anger is totally understandable. If you want people to drive less you can't afford not to give them alternatives. Most of the country isn't like Paris where a car isn't needed at all, in some places if you don't have a car you don't have a job and you don't have anything.

in *most* places

the rural population of France as a percentage is small, despite the size of rural France, and it's going to be hard to keep those areas up to urban standards with transport and healthcare. I can see why they'd come to Paris and trash things! what else can they do? Cities are always going to be the future, and sometimes the future needs to be tagged. nb I lived in la France profonde without a car for a while but everyone there thought we were nuts. but it was fine, we just walked a lot. note it was not a tiny village but rather a town of 10k and it was on the boundary of the Île de France so there were more or less hourly trains to Paris (that took 1.25 hours each way)

Yeah, the 5 Star Movement actually has representatives, a hierarchy, organisation. Gilets Jaunes have none of that. To view it as a populist movement is missing the mark imo, it's closer to the London riots.

I fail to see how that makes it un-populist?

think the contrast is with "movement" rather than "populist"

Ah, that makes sense, thanks.

An organic, leaderless protest movement with no clear ideology has emerged in France. I've been waiting for this since 2011. Let me explain the French Spring to you.

— Karl Sharro (@KarlreMarks) December 1, 2018

lolll

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/02/world/europe/france-macron-yellow-vest-protests.html

A third weekend of nationwide protests by the movement, largely made up of working-class people angry about a planned increase in fuel taxes and their dwindling purchasing power, left burned cars and smashed store windows in several of the wealthiest neighborhoods of Paris. The movement is named for the high-visibility safety vests that motorists are supposed to wear when they have roadside breakdowns.

guess the nyt has been busy w/ other stuff, this is the first peep i've heard of this

It's spread to Brussels too now!

Driving from the Basque Country to the Netherlands last week, all through France, it was astonishing to see just how many French drivers have put a 'gillet jaune' in front of their car window, or in between a closed car window. The scale of it is huge, even with those who aren't taking it to the streets.
At our Campanile just above Paris we caught a half our long reportage about some 'gillet jaunes' from Normandy. Working class people feeling they can finally make themselves heard. In their trail though, a potpourri of trouble makers: extreme right, football hooligans, youths looking for a nice riot. It has gotten diffuse and unclear as fast as the protests emerged.

The true question is whether the disobedience can be constructive, what comes the day after, can the progressives in France, and all over the world, use this energy so instead of violence we have images of constructing equal and egalitarian societies?

— Pamela Anderson (@pamfoundation) December 3, 2018

i’m in avignon right now and same story pretty much, tons of yellow vests on car dashes. there was a pretty big march through town on saturday afternoon that seemed peaceful enough, just chanting and whatnot. later on somebody started what looked/smelled like a tire fire on the main road. we were walking back to our hotel when another small fire broke out near us and sent people scurrying down the side streets. looks like some windows were smashed as well.

things have been normal for the past two days. we’re going to be in paris this coming saturday which will be interesting.

I'm just talking to an Italian guy in my work who's going there this weekend too.

unless you're going to the Champs-Elysées (which, why), you'll probably not notice anything in Paris. I live like 2 miles away and haven't seen a thing.

tomorrow may be loltastic as a bunch of lycées (including my son's) are going to have blocuses vaguely associated with this + Parcoursup + it's December and we don't wanna go to class, so there'll be more stuff on fire with that

yeah we’re staying on the left bank so i suspect we’ll just limit our wandering on saturday.

Here is a thread of the texts we've translated in collaboration with comrades in France & elsewhere. Images of cop cars on fire are cool but getting a direct, street-level understanding of the situation is also necessary if we want to learn from this insurrectionary unfolding. https://t.co/H4ejC326sG

— e̳d̳i̳c̳i̳o̳n̳e̳s̳ ̳i̳n̳éd̳i̳t̳o̳s̳ (@edcns_ineditos) December 3, 2018

So the eco fuel tax, which set this whole thing off, is going to be suspended as per the Guardian. Interesting to see if this is going to make the gilets jaunes thing fizzle out or not.

I doubt it. We've reached the 'soyez réalistes, demandez l'impossible' stage. Unlike in May 1968, however, there are more than a few fascists mixed in, unfortunately, such as the bunch who brandished the Celtic Cross on Saturday, reclaiming 'justice' for Esteban Morillo, who murdered the antifa protester Clément Méric. Or the 'gilets jaunes' spokesperson who requested that the government be dissolved and redeployed under a new prime minister: the general Pierre de Villiers, 'un véritable commandant'. Civilisation and its discontents…

Yeah, but this is the thing, it's such a heterogeneous crowd that I think it'll be quite difficult for either the left or the far right to co-opt it. As seen by the fact that every "spokesperson" immediately gets denounced.

Yeah, as it stands, it's as heterogenous as it gets, but there are ways to shape shapelessness, for better or worse. We'll see, I suppose.

When I read stuff like this, from Le Monde's live feed –

"Il y a eu tant de mépris et tant de choses qui ne vont pas que cela ne change rien. On ressent une accumulation de ras-le-bol qui fait qu’on veut bien plus", renchérit Elodie Renault, une esthéticienne en congé parental. "Il faut une augmentation du pouvoir d’achat ça veut dire une hausse des salaires, des retraites, des indemnités chômage", ajoute-t-elle.

– I have no idea what to say. More purchasing power, higher wages, better retirement plans and unemployment benefits? These all sound amazing, but technically speaking, how is the French government supposed to achieve that overnight?

Oh yeah, and less taxes. I guess you could further increase them on top earners, but Hollande's 75% tax experiment was a tragic failure, and France is the country that 'produces' the most exiled millionaires, which – however misguidedly – is the reality that Macron is trying to curb by reforming the ISF or wealth tax. I don't see an 'intra-national' or even a European solution here, unless one believes ideology trumps every other consideration.