this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2024
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I wonder if French social media users are seeing a constant stream of compelling content in their social media insisting that their central government is fucking up and doesn’t deserve their support.
I know next to nothing about French politics, but the odd alliance of the far-left and Le Pen’s government against the center, and the resulting catastrophic damage to their country’s ability to operate, struck me as a little bit reminiscent of some events that just recently happened on my side of the pond.
There is no alliance between the left and the far right. They're both individually planning to vote the non-confidence motion against the party that got its policy clearly voted against in the last legislative elections and yet is somehow still trying to maintain it, refusing to acknowledge its defeat. We've been stuck ever since, but life goes on.
It’s the first sentence of the article.
I’m sure that the center party got clearly voted against. I am saying that it’s interesting that the sensible people in the governments of the US, UK and France all have this massive popular uprising against them over the course of the few years of time, and have been toppled and replaced by no coherent policy preference in particular other than rejection, during a time when almost everyone gets their political news from social media which is massively compromised by opponents of their governments.
Oh, right, thanks for clarifying, I get it now. I agree, it's not happening in isolation. People are fed up with the status quo and being spectators of the policy sliding always more to the right. And when there's instability, the terrain is ripe for diverse influence and manipulation in the social media. That we've seen. Eventually people will vote anything out of frustration, lack of knowledge, and many other reasons including being nudged by bad actors, via bots as well for sure.
As for the article, it's clearly biased. It never talks about far right, not once, though Rassemblement National is officially a far right party, and it says leftists for the Nouveau Front Populaire, which is a broad alliance ranging from communists all the way to establishment social-democrats, never citing its name, not once. They also forgot to mention that no confidence was the plan all along for the left, while the far right was perfectly fine making the current government their bitch by threatening no confidence, but now, Le Pen is facing inegibility in the next presidential elections in 2027 because of misusing EU parliamentary funds, so it would be tremendously convenient for her if an early election happened next year. Calling it a coalition would mean they are working together, which they aren't.
I agree with everything you said, except for this part. Obama was way more left than Clinton, and Biden was way more left than Obama. Pardoning marijuana prisoners, investing in a big way in climate change and unions, and forgiving student loans were about 5 times more than the big project of health care that Obama took on, alongside all the drone strikes and transfers of police equipment. And bailing out the banks. Biden actually raised corporate taxes in a huge way, which basically never happens in American politics.
I would be surprised in one person in ten knows that any of that massive stuff happened. All they know is weird little talking-points that always seem to point in one particular direction... of which, and I'm not trying to be rude because like I said I mostly agree with you, "everything is always sliding to the right so what's the difference" is a huge one. In certain segments of the left. Other segments have other collections of talking points.
You're right, I actually had a second take when writing this sentence, for exactly the reasons you state. France and the US aren't exactly comparable, but to me it seems the Macron "center" and the US democrats are left leaning in social issues, and go with the times, there's that, but hard right in economy with neoliberalism, trying to run a country like a private business (yes, the education department costs money, it's public service!) , and crony capitalism. That's what I was thinking about with the sliding to the right bit. In both countries the main media belong to billionaires pushing hard the far right agenda. It's exhausting. We mobilised to avoid for the far right to outright win the legislative elections, but I can't be confident we'll be so successfull in the next presidential elections. We have a real left here, but they'll bicker and split when it matters the most. It's baffling.
"sensible" ?
You mean the party of the president who has so little respect for democracy that he never listened to the massive protests against his policies, and only ever catered to the rich? Who hates democracy so much he called the entire Haitian population "morons" ?
The "sensible" people that were in power for 7 fucking years, leading to a massive budget deficit but keep saying "it's not our fault" ?
The "sensible" people that keep lying, often contradicting themselves in the same sentence?
Neoliberals are not "sensible" or "centrists". They're right wing plutocrats.
They're not "joining a coalition", they may just vote the same once. There's no coordination between the two. The left said from the start "this government sucks, we must get rid of them". The far right said "this government needs to agree to x, y and z or we get rid of them" (and the government did x and y but not z).
The far right are split between the fact that actually their program is very close to the government and the fact that they must look like "the opposition" for their electors.
There are not sensible people in charge of government or life would not be getting worse for all of us.
There are greedy parasites in government.
Yes, it's basically democracy grinding slowly. The french system gives too much power to the president IMO and he clearly abused it with his latest government so here is sanctions from both the extreme right and the far left.
Yeah many people are pushing for a new system that will end the all powerful president era. This 5th republic was tailored for De Gaulle, those were different times. On paper the prime minister is supposed to lead.
Yeah, it's crazy that the leading party / coalitions choice of government has to be ratified by the sitting president.
I know you get this but it's so bad; "let there be snap elections!" then when other political visions emerge; "No, not that result."
You mean after the left got utterly betrayed in the last election? I don't blame them for wanting to burn down the current ruling coalition either.
The current left isn't "far-left" at all. Is it far-fetched to protect essential needs of your popular classes like keeping public services operating, ensuring proper education and healthcare while hunting down corporate abuse of public funds? All while proposing a balanced budget for it? That's what I would expect the government doing, and this is the reason the NFP made all its amendments to the budget that was being prepared. That is, until Michel decided to pull a 49.3 to override the decision and get rid of the amendments Emmanuel didn't like. You have to understand that the president gets to select his own prime minister, no one gets to vote.
Having said that, neither the left nor the right wanted Michel as prime minister and each had their own ideas about who should take the position, so it's in everyone's interest (except Macron) to eject him and then push for their own candidate. This is possible after Michel issuing a 49.3.
This is the system working as expected with the current rules, and a president that clings to power very very desperately with forces trying to fight him back while also fighting amongst themselves when they get a chance.
But boy did I wish Emmanuel's gang didn't cling as hard to power like they're doing. It feels very underhanded.
See, this is what I'm talking about. I wonder if there is an exact mirror-image complaint from the opposite side, with just as impassioned a presentation, that talks about how the budget isn't austere enough, and doesn't do enough to crack down on immigrants, and that's the reason why we have to eject the current government. The stuff in the article sounds much more like that side. Everything in it is that National Rally is withdrawing support because the current plans don't go far enough in hurting ordinary people. Right?
I'm saying that same pattern is exactly what happened in the US. Everyone had their own reasons they absorbed from social media why ~~Biden~~ Harris was totally unacceptable, and the reasons weren't even consistent with each other, just tailored to what would resonate with each individual person. ~~He~~ she was way too hard on Israel, and way too soft on Israel, and way too corporate-friendly, and way too much of a communist with her economics, and so on and so on, depending on the person. And the solution proposed was going to make the left's version of what was the problem a whole lot worse.
It would be weird if both elections happened to follow the exact same pattern, with the result that the country's government collapsed "democratically" into impotence in exactly the same way. Right?
And yes, I realize it's hilarious for an American to be implying that someone is meddling in our elections to force in a leader that's aligned with our interests, and against the interests of the people of the country, as if it's all unfair for that to happen.
The secret ingredient is misinformation.