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Post by finsobruce on Sept 9, 2021 16:15:15 GMT
If you right click on the Tweet you get the option to translate it into English I suspect cogload knows what it says, but wasexpressing surprise at Barnier saying it. |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Sept 9, 2021 16:19:58 GMT
If you right click on the Tweet you get the option to translate it into English I suspect cogload knows what it says, but wasexpressing surprise at Barnier saying it. I suspect I knew that |
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Post by finsobruce on Sept 9, 2021 16:21:43 GMT
I suspect cogload knows what it says, but wasexpressing surprise at Barnier saying it. I suspect I knew that posited the possibility in the second post on this thread. |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Sept 9, 2021 16:23:39 GMT
Indeed. It's an amusing development
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Post by greyfriar on Sept 9, 2021 21:06:38 GMT
www.spectator.co.uk/article/michel-barnier-s-brexity-manifestoThis fits with my theory that true believers are the ones who can most effectively reform, and thereby save, their ideological but flawed institutions. For this reason Blair/Brown had the credibility and should have had the conviction to reform the DWP and NHS and it was their abject failure to do so which left it in the in-tray for the Tories. To be fair in Euro terms Brown stood firm on accession to the single currency, which effectively ended the debate. I suspect a plea for reform from the left may have been more successful than Cameron’s half-hearted attempt at negotiation. Whether Barnier is motivated by sincere conviction to reform the EU or political expediency, he has unimpeachable credentials to do so.
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Post by finsobruce on Sept 19, 2021 14:29:11 GMT
What colour passport does France have and what options are Barnier and Le Pen offering ? Croatian passports are dark blue btw. |
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Post by relique on Sept 19, 2021 14:54:22 GMT
Le Pen has completely renounced any big european divorce. She's all for staying in the EU and the eurozone.
She might become some kind of Orban but it will mostly be all talk and nothing else. It won't be Poland as she won't reform abortion laws and things like that.
In any case, she won't win. I think she might not make it to the second round this time.
But predictions are hard at this time. And of course I'm biased as I'm managing the local campaign (in my département) of one of the candidate.
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Post by carlton43 on Sept 19, 2021 21:31:26 GMT
Me too, but replaced by Le Pen? Surely there must be someone better than those two? I would actually prefer Macron to be defeated by le Pen to maximise the disgrace A le Pen victory would also be beneficial on what it would do to the EU and what it would do to Frances status as a welcoming transit route for migrants to the Uk So all in all I see a le Pen victory as my preferred option It has been my preferred option for two decades. |
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Post by relique on Sept 19, 2021 22:01:45 GMT
Today was the first round of the Green party (and affiliates) primary.
To no surprise, the 'centrist', consensual and would-have-the-greatest-number-of-votes candidate, Yannick Jadot (MEP) did quite poorly (compared with expectations as he had the most support from the big names) with only 28%, and the completely-crazy-will-never-amount-to-more-than-2%-talking-about-witchcraft-better-than-science (and one of my former teacher and colleague, and I can quite agree with the description) Sandrine Rousseau (VP of Lille university, former VP of Nord-Pas de Calais Region, she got 4,5% at the following 2015 election, not getting her campaign money reimbursed - you gotta have 5%) did ok with 25%.
A bit of a surprise, the second 'mainstream' (but radically left wing) candidate Eric Piolle, mayor of Grenoble, did quite poorly with only 22%, behind the surprise of the election, Delphine Batho (who is not part of the Greens but president of an even smaller party, Génération Ecologie) MP (former PS) got 22%, getting the third place ahead of Piolle.
There was 122,000 registered voters and about 108,000 votes.
It's really difficult to predict in such a small number of voters (no pollster was really able to target this small number and so the polls were quite bad), and the dynamics of the voters will probably not be the same as the dynamics of the "big names" supporting each candidates, but I think Rousseau will win, to the glee of all the potential competitors against her, as she will most probably explode and have one of the smallest Green result in the presidential election.
Every one is already comparing her to Eva Joly, the norwegian former judge who won against Nicolas Hulot (popular tv presenter, who then was recruited by Macron but left as he was not able to do what he wanted - Jadot is quite close to Hulot) and did quite badly (2,3%) at the 2012 presidential election, despite a very good showing in the 2009 european election (16,3%). The 2019 european election saw the Greens at 13,5% (with Jadot at the head of the list), and I think if Rousseau is designated, she might do worse. Eva Joly, at least, had some humor (she famously said "I know Dominique Strauss-Khan quite well, I indicted him") and a pretty good CV as a judge. Rousseau is a bureaucrat who always tried to teach and research less (through bureaucratic positions; she is a researcher-teacher in economics but in France you can reduce the number of hours you need to do by assuming administrative roles), who did quite badly as a politician in her only position (VP of a Region thanks to PS generosity in charge of universities, she didn't do much) and always failed to be elected on her name (in Valenciennes for MP, in Villeneuve d'Ascq for mayor, in Nord-Pas de Calais for president of the Region... ). She recently tried to be designated as head of a few institutions (Lille's political science school for instance) and when failing that, she decided to run for president.
But at least, the campaign will be funny. A few weeks ago, she tweeted "Merci Jean-Pierre Belmondo d'avoir porté haut le cinéma français. Une dernière cascade, en espérant qu'elle n'ait pas été difficile" ("Thank you Jean-Pierre Belmondo for raising high french cinema. A last stunt, hopefully it wasn't difficult. "). Two things were noted about this twitt: Belmondo is called Jean-Paul; calling the passing of Belmondo "a stunt" and wishing "it wasn't difficult" is really, really weird, at least in french (there might be double-meanings, nuance that fail to translate ?)
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Post by relique on Sept 19, 2021 23:23:29 GMT
Almost serious question, for relique in particular, but others will doubtless offer their ill-informed opinions. To what extent is le Pen and her party "far right"? caveats. I do not consider a person or party to be far-right because the Mainstream media says so, let alone because the left-wing says so. Bad faith references are of no value. I do not consider opposition to mass immigration to be far-right merely in and of itself without further supporting evidence. (and a reminder, as a free marketeer I am broadly supportive of mass economic migration.) I do not consider Islamophobia to be far-right merely in and of itself without further supporting evidence. Discrimination based solely on race is prejudice, discrimination based on religion is a valid consideration of what values a person holds. And in my view Islam, like Christianity is a load of goat herding bollocks ranging from benign to malignant So, is le Pen actually far-right, or is that just a slur chucked at her?
Well, you seem to only try to ascertain wether Marine Le Pen is far-right without looking at history or at least what was Le Pen and FN a few decades ago.
In the 70s-80s, FN and Jean-Marie Le Pen were very reaganian in their politics, therefore quite happy with mass-economic migration, free marketeers, free movements kinds of guy. They hated the State, the taxes (Le Pen was first a "poujadist", term I explained in one thread on the forum, but I don't remember which; probably in a thread on french politics). Jean-marie Le Pen was first more anti-semitic than "islamophobe" (which, to me, is a really problematic term as it tries to tell that the 'bad thing' is to not like a religion, while what I find a discrimination is against people, not bedtime stories).
Le Pen was the far-ight as he was the most liberal (less taxes, less state; he went farther than the right and so was 'far'-right), had a real link with the old french far right (through antisemitism). These are just two examples, of course, and I truely believe there are more in-depth analysis that can link JM Le Pen to the history and the nature of the far-right better than I can.
Marine Le Pen, to all accounts (every one is recognizing this, I think, now), really transformed the FN's discourse (although JM Le Pen had evolved as well as he became quite hateful for 'the others semites', in a way, the arabs, in a "french identity is christianity" quite anti-republican stance, that he already had, as the historic far-right in France was also anti-Republic, as the Republic had created Laïcité that clearly attacked the influence and the power of the Catholic Church but which was applied to all religions -even if they had no or close to no influence or power. ).
Instead of saying Arabs are bad because they are not christian, she used the Republican, left-wing notion of Laïcité to fight the rising influence of Islam in some parts of France. It began at a time when the left mostly deserted laïcité (with Jospin in 1989 failing to tackle the problem of a few high school girls manipulated by integrist imams into wearing a headscarf at school for the first time in the history of the french muslims).
Instead of saying taxes are bad, the State is bad, which was a discourse that appealed to the former poujadist electorate (small artisans, head of small enterprises, tradesmen, independents...), she decided to switch her target audience to working class industry workers or employees (which is more numerous than the poujadist electorate) and therefore ask for protectionnist measures (including regulating migration, some criticism of the EU's liberalism which her father loved), state involvement in the economy, etc... Targeting the working classes was also a move allowed by the left's desertion of the working classes.
So, of course, this can create a lot of questions as "is le pen still far-right" as she clearly captured a lot of historical left-wing concepts against neo-liberalism, the influence of religion in the society etc...
Why most (if not all) people still consider Marine Le Pen far-right:
- no one truely believes she truely believes what she's saying;
- the change of discourse is seen as just an opportunistic pragmatism as the left deserted the working classes (their aspirations not to be left controled by undemocratically designated rulers like the clerks, their aspirations to state protection, decent well-paid jobs protected from the international unfair competition...) - in her party, there are quite a lot of "remnants" of the old ideology, in what the elected mayors or councillors have done/voted, in some discourses, etc...
To me, it's a debate worth having, but I wouldn't rank one politician from far-left to far-right only on one's discourses. History and actions (of the politician/her supporters) are quite important.
Edit: and just as I screened my facebook timeline, I saw that Marine Le Pen's lieutenant said France shouldn't be part of NATO. Another switch from Jean-Marie Le Pen, as the old guy was fiercely pro-NATO, anti-communist, anti-soviet pro-US, as he also was an anti-gaullist far-right (the far-right didn't like de Gaulle's disdain for the US or UK joining the EEC), pro french empire and colonies etc etc... Jean-Marie Le Pen would never have had any bad words against NATO (although he probably wouldn't like that Turkey be part of it). There was an evolution as well.
But maybe I wasn't clear before: Marine Le Pen was there, was part of Jean-Marie's FN, didn't criticize his politics one bit, was elected on Jean-Marie's platform.
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Post by relique on Sept 19, 2021 23:56:49 GMT
I was not trying to tell you my arguments but broadly what kind of rational arguments there are.
To get my vote, a politician needs a platform that is close to my opinions and my personal judgment of wether I think, as a voter, that the politician will act, when elected, mostly according to his platform.
The second part is mostly why I have voted for no one in quite a lot of votes. And I do believe it's a characteristic that I share with others as I don't think I'm that special.
And, of course, me thinking this politician or that politician will be true to their words is mostly subjective, although it can have a few factual and objective causes (I didn't think Hollande credible when he said "my enemy is Finance", and it was broadly based on his actions and votes in the last 30 years of his political career and who was part of his closest advisors/lieutenants, which are not only subjective non-factual opinions).
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Georg Ebner
Non-Aligned
Roman romantic reactionary Catholic
Posts: 9,815 
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Post by Georg Ebner on Sept 20, 2021 0:05:21 GMT
I would actually prefer Macron to be defeated by le Pen to maximise the disgrace A le Pen victory would also be beneficial on what it would do to the EU and what it would do to Frances status as a welcoming transit route for migrants to the Uk So all in all I see a le Pen victory as my preferred option It has been my preferred option for two decades. Oh, well - if she had won, the media would get hysterical, resulting in a left parliament and the permanent quarrels of a cohabitation dragging her - different to Mitterand or Chirac - down without ever being able to do anything. |
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Post by carlton43 on Sept 20, 2021 7:44:07 GMT
It has been my preferred option for two decades. Oh, well - if she had won, the media would get hysterical, resulting in a left parliament and the permanent quarrels of a cohabitation dragging her - different to Mitterand or Chirac - down without ever being able to do anything. That is of course a plausible scenario and would be a concern if I were French, but I am not French and have no concerns about the internal problems that the scenario would cause. I just like the idea of her winning and the turmoil it would cause and the deep angst in the intellectual circles and the left of centre. I know that it will not happen. |
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nodealbrexiteer
Forum Regular
non aligned favour no deal brexit!
Posts: 4,450
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Post by nodealbrexiteer on Sept 20, 2021 10:00:00 GMT
Oh, well - if she had won, the media would get hysterical, resulting in a left parliament and the permanent quarrels of a cohabitation dragging her - different to Mitterand or Chirac - down without ever being able to do anything. That is of course a plausible scenario and would be a concern if I were French, but I am not French and have no concerns about the internal problems that the scenario would cause. I just like the idea of her winning and the turmoil it would cause and the deep angst in the intellectual circles and the left of centre. I know that it will not happen. It would also likely stop the French trying to take the higher moral ground on a few issues.. Seems we both like a bit of mischief! I agree it won't happen-it would be nose peg time again if the final round is Macron vs Le Pen! |
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Post by finsobruce on Sept 20, 2021 10:03:48 GMT
That is of course a plausible scenario and would be a concern if I were French, but I am not French and have no concerns about the internal problems that the scenario would cause. I just like the idea of her winning and the turmoil it would cause and the deep angst in the intellectual circles and the left of centre. I know that it will not happen. Seems we both like a bit of mischief! I agree it won't happen-it would be nose peg time again if the final round is Macron vs Le Pen! I don't think anything could ever do that.  (or any other country for that matter). |
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Georg Ebner
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Roman romantic reactionary Catholic
Posts: 9,815
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Post by Georg Ebner on Sept 20, 2021 16:02:52 GMT
It would also likely stop the French trying to take the higher moral ground on a few issues.. Seems we both like a bit of mischief! I agree it won't happen-it would be nose peg time again if the final round is Macron vs Le Pen! I don't think anything could ever do that. (or any other country for that matter). "The higher moral ground" fits rather to the Germans. Whereas "The French can never take anything serious." (GOETHE) Nevertheless a - as always - funny bonmot by You. |
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Post by relique on Sept 23, 2021 18:11:02 GMT
A poll published today, just to give you an idea of the "balkanization" of the left. Four hypotheses, according to who is the "mainstream right-wing" (LR supported) candidate (between Xavier Bertrand and Valérie Pécresse, who both left LR since 2017) and who is the Green party candidate (between Yannick Jadot and Sandrine Rousseau, both qualified to the second round of the Green party primary): Macron (LREM, center-right, incumbent) : 26% Le Pen (RN, far-right) : 20,5% Bertand (supported by LR, right-wing) : 14% Zemmour (no affiliation, far-right): 10% Mélenchon (Insoumis, radical-left): 8% Jadot (Green party, center-left): 6% Hidalgo (Parti socialiste, center-left): 4% Montebourg (former PS, left-wing) : 4% Dupont-Aignan (DLF, radical-right): 2% Roussel (Parti Communiste Français, radical-left): 2% Poutou (Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste, trotskyst, far-left): 2% Arthaud (Lutte Ouvrière, trotskyst, far-left): 1,5%
Macron : 25%
Le Pen : 21%
Pécresse : 13%
Zemmour : 10,5%
Mélenchon : 7,5%
Jadot : 5%
Montebourg : 4,5%
Hidalgo : 4%
Dupont-Aignan: 3%
Roussel : 3%
Arthaud : 2%
Poutou : 1,5%
Macron : 26%
Le Pen : 21%
Bertand : 15%
Zemmour : 10%
Mélenchon : 8%
Hidalgo : 5%
Montebourg : 4%
Rousseau : 3%
Dupont-Aignan: 3%
Roussel : 2%
Arthaud : 2%
Poutou : 1,5%
Macron : 26%
Le Pen : 21,5%
Pécresse : 12,5%
Zemmour : 10,5%
Mélenchon : 8%
Hidalgo : 5%
Montebourg : 4%
Rousseau : 4%
Roussel : 3%
Dupont-Aignan: 2,5%
Arthaud : 2%
Poutou : 1%
far-left: 3-3,5% radical-left: 10-11% left-wing: 4-4,5% center-left: 8-10% center-right: 25-26% right-wing: 12,5-15% radical-right: 2-3% far-right: 31-32%
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Post by ibfc on Sept 23, 2021 18:21:43 GMT
What’s the difference between the radical right and the far right?
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Sept 23, 2021 18:25:21 GMT
Macron (LREM, center-right, incumbent) : 26% Make that centre-left. LREM is the local branch of Renew Europe, the artist formerly known as ALDE. Verhoftwat's lot in other words. Macron, the guy named after the accent that can't decide if it's acute or grave, is a Lib Dem. He'd be pushing up the daisies if you hadn't nailed him to his perch. The lack of a mainstream conservative party in France manifests itself in the unusual popularity of candidates from the radical right. Here's to an Orleanist restoration. |
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Post by relique on Sept 23, 2021 18:40:05 GMT
I hesitated for Dupont-Aignan. He supported Marine Le Pen for the first time in 2017 on the second round, but he doesn't have the same position today.
The "left-right" divide is an easy one to comprehend but quite a simplistic one. I wouldn't really trust it, notably to understand how electors might shift from one candidate to another.
Macron is not left-wing, even center-left. He's a neo-liberal, which has always been a right-wing criteria since Lucas' critique, Thatcher and Reagan. Deal with it.
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(or any other country for that matter). 