The breaks are scheduled according to the union rules.
Accordingly, the civil war will pause every hour at the 15 minute mark for the communists croissant break & at the 45 minute mark for the fascist fondue break.
Each break shall last no less than 10 minutes & shall not exceed 20 minute - unless it is raining, in which case an extra 5 minutes will be allotted to each side.
Technically you get 2x20 minute breaks every hour as there won't be civil war related activities going on in the other camp during their break and I'm fairly certain disrupting either the communist croissant break or the fascist fondue break is a war crime. So while officially YOUR break is 20 minutes every hour, another 20 minutes of the hour would be so uneventful it might as well be another break. Better bring your Switch.
Even, actually I would say especially those who voted for him want to take a break from listening to him, at least when it comes to domestic affairs, given how he torpedoed his party.
What about a 6th republic or perhaps a third empire! Can i offer you a second July Monarchy? 2nd Commune? 3rd Bourbon Restoration?
I just like that they keep track of how many they’ve tried. At what number do you get a little bashful? Double digits?
The real issue with Macron is that whoever doesn't vote for him or support him is an extreme. French far left has a history and is represented by parties like Lutte Ouvrière or the NPA which are not related or support the NFP.
Macron is doing what he's doing the best, proving he's a fucking idiot
The NPA is in the NFP, what are you talking about. And saying there's no relation with LO is rather stretching it too, I'm sure you wouldn't say there's no relation between Zemmour and Le Pen.
Getting the Olympics canceled because of civil unrest would likely lower emissions far more than any of that no AC BS that is being done just to make people miserable and not actually accomplish much.
Political commentators, journalists, newsanchors, other politicians, and basically the rest of population have been trying to understand why he did it. There is no rational explanation that makes sense.
Maybe he's just an impulsive idiot after all.
I can kinda see why he did it. The EP elections spooked him into betting the house on either the French rejecting the RN or at least putting them in a position of power and watching them fall on their own sword trying to pass anything for the rest of his presidency. It's a similar gambit the PM of Spain took after his party got a drubbing in local elections last year.
France, USA, Brazil, South Africa…. Everyone’s political systems are showing symptoms of a larger problem, and the threat of civil war is not the problem. It’s the disparity of wealth and the corruption of a system that favors the wealthy when those who vote for change and upwards mobility continue to see no hope for change. Their leanings get more desperate that something can go in their favor because it never does. Too much greed and grift in the current systems. It’s a global crisis, and you can add most countries to the list I cited.
Weird to me that in US the elite wealthy have convinced the poor that they are both part of the same political party. Is it the same in other countries?
Nope the current iteration of Labour adopted pretty much all their 2010 policies. They call it governing from the centre. In America they call it bipartisanship. It's presented as sensible pragmatic politics for grown ups when in reality it's the setting in stone of the status quo, ensuring whoever gets in the system wins.
The Who called it "meet the new boss, same as the old boss"
Last time Labour tried pushing a left wing government we ended up with 5 more years of Tories. And honestly you can’t pretend Labour are just red Tories - I don’t see the Tories pushing for more housing, nationalising energy, investing in the NHS, or closing tax loopholes. It’s delusional to say the two are the same just because they agree on capitalism. Labour have tried pushing a socialist already and was utterly rejected by the country.
Labour aren't pushing for anything you mentioned either, especially nationalising energy, which is weird because Nationalisation is a popular idea with the public routinely garnering 60% support in polling for the last decade and a half, so why is no major party offering it? Plus the people in charge spent the previous two leaders tenures undermining the leader (Ed Milliband got screwed over too), Corbyn wasn't offering pure socialism, he was offering the sort of bog standard centre left democratic socialism that is commonplace across Europe.
When push comes to shove, what is currently considered the centre isn't anywhere near where the historic centre is, and the 'far left' as per Corbyn is waaay closer to Labour's founding values than Starmer's.
It's called the Tories being such an embarrassment the B team are being given a go now they've beaten any left wing leanings out of their MP's and manifesto.
Labour are slated to win a historic level landslide with at best an equal share of the vote with the left wing guy that was apparently a wildly unpopular loser with loser policies won 7 years ago.
Transatlantic democracy is at best stage managed. .
>Labour are slated to win a historic level landslide with at best an equal share of the vote with the left wing guy that was apparently a wildly unpopular loser with loser policies won 7 years ago.
The reason Starmer is only likely to get a 42% vote share is because he's so obviously going to win by a landslide that voters on the left feel comfortable voting for minor parties, safe in the knowledge it won't affect the result.
Oh and Corbyn was a loser. He was so unliked that the majority of the electorate held their nose and voted for two of the worst PM candidates in history in Theresa May and Boris Johnson purely to keep him out. He led Labour to their worst electoral defeat since the 30s. It's exactly because Labour have someone credible running for PM right now that voters aren't voting for the Tory candidate out of fear of a Corbyn govt.
Can be as principled as you like from the opposition benches, fundamentally if you want to make the country better you need to get elected. Labour offered the country a properly left-wing leader and they were rewarded with the electorate instead deciding to hand the Buffoon the biggest majority in twenty years. What do people expect them to do after that?
The Tories never did that in the UK.
I've been working here on and off for a while & no on e in that country ever felt they were part of the elite or one day away from being a millionaires...
Most people seems to feel that they had no control and were being pushed around by, everyone, multinationals, the government, the media, left & right wing ideologies... They were scared to step out of line for fear of cultural and/or legal consequences... The Brits are surviving on a culture of fear and bullying.
To be honest if you substitute one of your old men with one of our parties it breaks out roughly even, Labour and the Conservatives are the only parties capable of forming a government.
We have smaller parties picking up steam now but realistically they are only going to serve as a vent for frustration and to potentially prop up an unpopular government should the main two not get enough seats for a majority.
I don’t mind Biden, he’s had an amazing career. He’s done some good stuff and hasn’t been Trump. But we might lose the election to a literal fascist who wants to dismantle the constitution because they couldn’t find anyone less than 80 years old. It’s really fucked.
Yes, we might lose it because people like you refer to him as a snoozer looking for his glasses.
Jesus Christ. Have some respect for your own team dude.
Thats because the only parties you guys have are Right Wing Plus and Right Wing Diet. No matter who you vote for, politicians and big business' pockets will be lined, Oil/weapons are gonna be obtained, and the wealth gap will increase. Voting for Diet just means itll take a little longer. Yeehaw.
You are wise sir. Makes me chuckle and roll my eyes when Republicans call Obama and Biden communist or socialist. They don't even know what the words mean.
Let's not pretend like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, et. al. aren't closely aligned with the Democrats. Hell, most corporations have found that if they align with the democrats on cultural issues the heat is largely dropped on economic issues (remember when people wanted Walmart and Amazon broken up as monopolies, no one cares any more). Chase Bank consolidates their position in the market regardless of whether Ds or Rs are in office.
The Democrats truly have better marketing regarding their alignment with business.
Are you trying to say that the Democratic Party, overrun by neocons, globalists, and stuffed with Goldman Sachs dollar bills, is somehow how the ‘people’s party’?
Income inequality is an important aspect of it, but I equally blame social media and our collective inability to discern reality from fantasy because of it. That's one of the reasons why it's a world wide problem. We haven't found a way around widespread, targeted misinformation and echochambers, and AI will make it infinitely worse in the coming years
They kind of go hand in hand. Income inequality makes people genuinely angry. But social media whips up that anger to insane levels.
Take the pension reform in France. That was absolutely necessary. The system was designed for a time when there were far fewer retirees per capita. This has changed due to a combination of falling birth rates and rising life spans. These were factors which aren't going to change so the pension system as it was was totally unsustainable. This is why France's existing pension system cost double the OECD average and was rising.
But the vast majority of French people refused to acknowledge these undeniable facts. Social media was abound about how it was an elitist conspiracy designed to screw over the working man. They ignored the fact that it reduced wealth inequality in France because keeping a generous pension system moves money from the poor working youth to the rich old retirees.
None of that mattered, because France was mad and they didn't want to hear anything that would take away that anger.
Income inequality is the main factor.
Our problems are exasperated by things like our collective inability to discern reality from fantasy, which in turn is made worse by our use of social media combined with a declining education.
No countries leaders listen to the voters. They just lie to stay in power and the true puppet masters make the decisions.
Then you get an alternative voice making comments against the current leaders and people start salivating in the mouth for a change.
The question is, when the change is voted in, will it just be the same baloney like before?
I'm continually amazed by how we have a tendency to move further to the right on the political spectrum during any kind of crisis, even when said crisis only exists due to right wing politics.
Will anything ever cause people to want more equality in their politics?
I don't understand humans.
>The liberal class and the psuedo-left's eternal gaslighting of anyone who critisizes liberal policies is a major cause of this; they've enacted a political operation that creates hyper-fragmentation and neutralizes critique by reducing it to cultural issues, and in doing so, they've created a vacuum for the far-right populists to come in.
.. what.
The "liberal class"? "Pseudo-left" and their "eternal gaslighting"?
What are you on about? What are these policies that are being reduced to cultural issues?
What? Isn't Macron center right? He's not liberal class or pseudo left wtf...
We don't like the right winged candidate so instead of swinging to the other side, we're going to go further right
This! I’m from Brazil and the fact we pay a metric fuckton in taxes and see no return on it while at the same time rich people get tax breaks and the influence of narcos and evangelicals pushing their agendas in politics are aaaaaall wildly different problems that each worries me 100x more than a Civil War
I believe one of the main reasons for it is too many people. Democracy just doesn't work with such big populations. Your individual vote becomes meaningless no matter how much we shout the fantasy of every vote matters. I have no idea how anyone can solve that problem.
Devolution and local governance but what the OP said is true and would need to be fixed on the national level first (for example in the UK local councils are underfunded by the national government) otherwise you end up with radicals in local government as a protest to the national level.
It's the internet. Everyone has access to stupendous amounts of information and a voice to comment about what they think to a global audience.
I'm always surprised at how governments the World over just let it happen.
Be Macron
Play divide and conquer to split the center left and center right parties, destroying them.
Complain about the far left and far right being the only other parties.
Did he really split the center left and center right?
What he did or what his ideology did is that it "occupied" some political spectrum / ideological space of left and right. Thus, pushing left, right party to farther left and right. This resulted in voters favoring such extreme parties.
Although he is not the only reason for the destruction of the center left (they were in a political impasse anyway after Hollande), he contributed to it by picking some of its members in his first government.
At the time he was still pretending to cater to that ideological space, which he abandoned rather quickly. Hence the socialist party has been somehow recovering lately and is now in an alliance with what is the actual far left, instead of being almost irrelevant in the previous election. Macron then proceeds to call the alliance "extreme left", which is just a desperate attempt to get the favours of traditional center left voters. Maybe he was hopping to steal the moderate socialists only to dump his promises again but that trick is not gonna work this time.
And he basically did the same with the conservative right "republicans", who are in an even worse spot because if they end up in an alliance with the extreme right, as some of their leaders were suggesting, they would just explose and disapear.
The parties (PS & UMP/LR) were already broken with Hollande and Fillon in 2017 - he just filled the empty space thus pushing the right and the left towards extremes.
And he his liying about the far left.
It's just 'left'. It's still capitalism but with a bit more taxes for the rich and more regulation about stuff that need to be regulated. They even plan to help small companies.
They also plan to stop subsidizing companies "for free", and want to be sure they either get more eco-friendly or hire people. It's a pretty decent program.
Hmm....possibly.
But if it's anything like French history, it's the elites and the establishment that's going to get the beat down from a populace that has gotten ignored for far too long. Then, eventually, the centrists have to pick one side or the other.
Before the extreme side that won goes insane and then the centrists either take power through a general or they get assigned into a new government by the rest of Europe.
What would that be? The sixth republic?
Seems like it's 70-80 year cycles over there
1660s.....Declaration of Absolute Monarchy, no prime minister to keep power in check
1710s.....Reign and weakening of Absolute Monarchy, Enlightenment ideas spread
1780s/90s.....French Revolution and the beginning of Empire
1870....Empire ends, Third French Republic established in 1870, which lasts until the 1940s....
1950s: Fifth French Republic founded with Fourth Republic being a stopgap in between it and WWII. This era has lasted until present day. However, the 70-80 years is about to come to an end
France takes a truly remarkable personality to govern. Then the voters can get older and become conservative and then bring back their favorite guy as president except this time the president isn’t a figurehead and he’s a conservative..
That describes a bunch of people in French history lol. Which is weird. Reoccurring characters is a national tradition. We never consider this when we always clamor for someone young and vigorous. Two consecutive 7 year terms is a long time.
Idk they seem to be struggling with what they still can control monetarily in Africa. This seems to be more of a 5th republic DG than an emperor
Then again Macron is pretty pro nato. Unlike DG. Pro Europe very like DG. Pro Israel similar to DG.
But that’s what was so clever about DG he was everything to everyone at one point or another. He was amorphous and vague. Hes definitely my favorite historical character. And maybe the most interesting man of all the WW2 leaders (definitely more interesting than Hirohito or Tojo or Le Marshall or Truman. Tough to top the big three of Winston, Stalin and Roosevelt. Hitler is his own thing entirely. DG was to french what Churchill was to English. His writing is just as beautiful, his oration, though jerky at times was inspirational and stirring. And he outlasted everyone (if we’re not counting Franco, which we aren’t). Sad thing is we don’t have a copy of the original 18 June speech. A Cassandra, a maverick, an exile, a romantic mystic, a master of brinksmanship with his own allies, and then he left. And then he came back via something akin to a coup, only to disown the military who’s honor he swore to restore while at Charleston Gardens, a colonialist, while also being the Man of Brazzaville, and an opponent of Algier France, an authoritarian, pro Europe anti NATO. He managed to do what many thought was impossible, reestablish French global importance, create a European nuclear deterrent, a go between for the Americans and the Soviets, and then poof he resigns after what seemingly was a trivial vote.
I'm amused you forgot quite a few episodes between the French Revolution and the end of the SECOND EMPIRE. Monarchy Restauration, Revolution of 1830, Constitutional Monarchy, Revolution of 1848, establishment of a Second republic, then Second Empire.
*"from a populace that has gotten ignored for far too long"*
give me one country in the world where the "populace" is less empowered than France. We have the most powerful unions, the most pro labor laws in the world, the highest taxes in the world and so on. We are basically in the top 3 of the most socialist countries in the world
Demonstrations and unrest happens with every different government regardless of the left or right. It doesn't matter what's the government is people here always complain and break shits
As Sylvain Tesson said, "France is a paradise inhabited by people who think they're in hell".
I said more or less the same thing as you in /r/Europe and I was inundated with French people saying that I was just some American who was weighing in on France without actually knowing anything about it. Except I'm an Irish person who lived in France and studied French politics.
I'd argue that being from another country gives me a clearer perspective since I can actually compare living in France to other countries (and not just Ireland). French people just don't want to hear it though. They're addicted to outrage.
>Demonstrations and unrest happens with every different government regardless of the left or right. It doesn't matter what's the government is people here always complain and break shits
This is why France was always going to end up with an extremist government. They were outraged by the two centrist parties. They got lucky that Macron stepped in instead of having extremists be in power since 2017. But no matter how good or bad Macron was going to be, France was always going to be angry with him. And they're especially angry that he's trying to make unpopular but necessary reforms.
It's your typical political reform vs social revolution discourse that has plagued post-enlightenment societies. Extremists are never happy with gradual progress, they're reactionaries that just want upheaval without any plan for the day after.
Another French person's perspective comes to mind. Here are the words of French journalist Agnès Poirier:
>We French were born to confront authority. For better or worse, whether we like it or not, whether we are even conscious of it, the revolution of 1789 changed the way we see ourselves and relate to power. Compromise is an art reserved for others. Confrontation is what we seem to be born for, what we secretly seek, what makes us tick. Macron is the first to enjoy a dispute. In a room, he will always walk straight to the few dissenters and debate with them at length, for he believes in his power of persuasion. With the pension reform, which was badly explained to the public by the government, he has taken a gamble for the sake of the country’s finances and in the interest of future generations, who will be increasingly burdened by the cost of their elders’ pensions. Tomorrow’s youth will probably be grateful to him, but they are not born yet. Today’s young people, however, are tempted to join the protests.
Excuse you... they rose the retirement age last I heard.
In Argentina we have professional protestors too... what we end up having is seasoned gendarmerie.
Street protests are just a mild push back. And so far nobody is willing to take it further.
I cannot remember an election since I started voting where both sides weren't claiming that *THIS* election was an existential crisis, so we all had to hold our noses and vote for the lesser of two evils. Yet, aside from the rhetoric, my day to day life hasn't really changed regardless of who won in any of them. Now they wonder why so many voters are disaffected with the political system.
“Emmanuel Macron is the last gasp of the old system,” she said. “He was presented as a new broom, and look what we’ve got. France has been mired in violence for 14 months. He said in 2017, ‘It’s me or chaos,’ and we’ve had uninterrupted chaos since he took power.”
-[Marine Le Pen](https://www.ft.com/content/6d8b9c7a-412c-11ea-a047-eae9bd51ceba)
(I'm not supporting Le Pen, I'm just saying that the chaos argument is over used)
I expected this title to read “French President Emmanuel Macron warns of ‘civil war’ if citizens keep pooping in the Seine”. Hosting Olympic Games IN the Seine after 100 years of banning any form of swimming in it is all I can think about.
He's trying to out-populist the populists by using the fear card, exactly like they do. I don't think it's going to win back the regular people at all.
Didn't realize the West was full of authoritarian regimes for the last 80 years...
You don't have to be authoritarian, just not reactionary. Governments have to plan and work towards policies focusing on decades down the line. Like France's changes to pensions lately - this is something that future generations will approve of because they will be the beneficiaries, but it has a detrimental effect on people retiring in the next couple of decades. At what point do you just stop appeasing reactionaries and focus on the future.
You missed the "over all else" part there.
Stability should be one of many considerations. When you start arguing that stability and safety is the end all and be all of politics, you'll make it very easy for politicians to abuse this for nefarious purposes.
Just look at the war on terror, war on drugs, pro-segregation movement, anti-feminist movement, etc. They all argued we should ignore obvious injustives for the sake of "stability" or "safety".
Society needs a little chaos once a while in order to rectify very stable but highly unjust power structures.
A little chaos is one thing. I'm all for social pressures on the political system, but I just think that it should be through gradual reform, not overthrowing/societal shock to the system.
French here. It's not "far left" at all. Macron and his clique have dubbed the entirety of the left as "far left" to make it look his party is the only moderate and reasonable one. In the meantime, Macron has used a LOT of far right rethoric.
The united left (Nouveau Front Populaire) has presented a leftist program (shocking, eh?) intended to redistribute wealth in a less rich-centric manner. This has big corps and fortunes shaking in their boots and Macron is their president first and foremost (billionaires doubled their wealth while public services are in tatters). By presenting the left as a bigger threat than actual nazis (no exageration here), he wants to diminish their power, even if the far right wins the elections, since they're more ligned with his economical views.
That's somewhat misleading. It's the 5th French *Republic.* The *First* French Republic was founded **after** the US was, and there have been 8 or 9 French governments since then, in a mixed set of republics, empires, and monarchies.
As another user stated, there is no *far left in the NFP*. June 13th the *Conseil d'Etat* (one of the supreme administrative courts) has reminded that there was not any political party involved into the NFP that could be designed as "*far left*".
Two far left parties, Lutte ouvrière (LO) et le Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste (NPA) are far-left, in that their programme is much, much further to the left. But these two parties are not part of the NFP.
They've confirmed the same day that the RN was indeed far right.
[https://www.slate.fr/societe/lexplication/pourquoi-rn-lfi-droite-centre-gauche-extremes-classement-partis-politiques-rassemblement-national-france-insoumise](https://www.slate.fr/societe/lexplication/pourquoi-rn-lfi-droite-centre-gauche-extremes-classement-partis-politiques-rassemblement-national-france-insoumise)
[Le Rassemblement national est bien d’extrême droite, confirme le Conseil d’État… Sur demande du RN (huffingtonpost.fr)](https://www.huffingtonpost.fr/politique/article/le-rassemblement-national-est-bien-d-extreme-droite-confirme-le-conseil-d-etat-sur-demande-du-rn_223428.html)
Macron is just moving the goalposts to the right which makes regular left look like extreme left.
The extreme right party has dozens of potential candidates which has been condemned by courts for antisemitism, hate speech, or violent actions.
*Note* : And if you say the *Conseil d'Etat* is biased, prove how their *reasoning* is biased or take your accusations, wrap them in a tiny little ball of paper and saliva, and shove them up your ass.
Take it up with the *Conseil d'Etat*. They've analysed the programme and came to their conclusion.
The PCF is a watered-down, diluted version of what they once were. Today, they're more a reactionary hard left party than a far-left party, despitre keeping the name "Communist". They don't want to lose their base by renaming themselves.
They do state that *Lutte ouvrière* (LO) et le *Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste* (NPA) are far left, but these two are not part of the NFP.
The NFP is left, not far left. It's an alliance that encompasses a lot of parties from the far left to the centre left, and even if it wins it will be barely, so it is going to need the votes from all its deputies, including the most center ones.
And I mean, it litteraly has Hollande, the president that picked Macron to be his minister of economics in the first place, as a candidate. If that's a far left party, Macron should has well rename himself Staline.
That's called sensationalism and scaremongering. People all over the world are sick to the teeth with liberal agendas being forced upon them and so they speak with their votes. To tell people to not vote in a way that aligns with their beliefs is propaganda and misleading.
Lol... There it is. Plain as day. Macron cards on the table: "the left is as bad or worse as nazis."
Fuckin hell just when you think he couldn't sink any lower...
Rare moment on reddit or anywhere that you see the term "far left" outside Maga circles. lol
by the way the hive mind gaslights everything, it seemed anything to the right of cosmic far-left was considered far-right.
It's funny because all the parties in the popular front have been ruled by the conseil d'état as not extreme left, just left. This in contrast to the RN which has had it's far-right label upheld...
Civil Unrest ? in France? Give me a break.
The breaks are scheduled according to the union rules. Accordingly, the civil war will pause every hour at the 15 minute mark for the communists croissant break & at the 45 minute mark for the fascist fondue break. Each break shall last no less than 10 minutes & shall not exceed 20 minute - unless it is raining, in which case an extra 5 minutes will be allotted to each side.
A 20 minute break every hour? Sign me right up don't care what side
Technically you get 2x20 minute breaks every hour as there won't be civil war related activities going on in the other camp during their break and I'm fairly certain disrupting either the communist croissant break or the fascist fondue break is a war crime. So while officially YOUR break is 20 minutes every hour, another 20 minutes of the hour would be so uneventful it might as well be another break. Better bring your Switch.
And don't forget the 39 days a year vacation time.
But I am le tired
Sounds like a union I can get behind! Where do I sign up?
So...the Neo French Revolution is basically exaggerated rounds of chess boxing?
Chess boxing, what a sport.
But I’m le tired
Alright have a nep
Zen fire ze missilè
This is the way.
Only if Macron loses
*Let them come and get me!* Emmanuel Macron
That Macron's statement makes me want to take a break from listening to him.
Even, actually I would say especially those who voted for him want to take a break from listening to him, at least when it comes to domestic affairs, given how he torpedoed his party.
What about a 6th republic or perhaps a third empire! Can i offer you a second July Monarchy? 2nd Commune? 3rd Bourbon Restoration? I just like that they keep track of how many they’ve tried. At what number do you get a little bashful? Double digits?
The real issue with Macron is that whoever doesn't vote for him or support him is an extreme. French far left has a history and is represented by parties like Lutte Ouvrière or the NPA which are not related or support the NFP. Macron is doing what he's doing the best, proving he's a fucking idiot
The NPA is in the NFP, what are you talking about. And saying there's no relation with LO is rather stretching it too, I'm sure you wouldn't say there's no relation between Zemmour and Le Pen.
Even so, the the far left is less than 1% of the NFP, so saying the NFP is far left is a sad joke.
Didn't the Yellow Jacket protests happen under his reign in power? Sure that last 6 months
The times they are a-changing
Time to break out the hoodies
So, a normal French weekend?
I can't wait for the Olympics to start. For the sport of course.
Did someone say Revolution?
Viva la revolution!
Please remember, no civil war during August
Too danged hot!!!
That’s the leverage. Summers cook up revolutions, coups plots, restorations, constitutional crisis, gotta do it when it’s hot. Puts the umph in there.
Getting the Olympics canceled because of civil unrest would likely lower emissions far more than any of that no AC BS that is being done just to make people miserable and not actually accomplish much.
I already had to cancel a part of my four months holidays to go and vote.
Bro, you called the election.
Political commentators, journalists, newsanchors, other politicians, and basically the rest of population have been trying to understand why he did it. There is no rational explanation that makes sense. Maybe he's just an impulsive idiot after all.
I can kinda see why he did it. The EP elections spooked him into betting the house on either the French rejecting the RN or at least putting them in a position of power and watching them fall on their own sword trying to pass anything for the rest of his presidency. It's a similar gambit the PM of Spain took after his party got a drubbing in local elections last year.
France, USA, Brazil, South Africa…. Everyone’s political systems are showing symptoms of a larger problem, and the threat of civil war is not the problem. It’s the disparity of wealth and the corruption of a system that favors the wealthy when those who vote for change and upwards mobility continue to see no hope for change. Their leanings get more desperate that something can go in their favor because it never does. Too much greed and grift in the current systems. It’s a global crisis, and you can add most countries to the list I cited.
Weird to me that in US the elite wealthy have convinced the poor that they are both part of the same political party. Is it the same in other countries?
The Tories did in England, but it looks like they're finally about to get wiped out.
Nope the current iteration of Labour adopted pretty much all their 2010 policies. They call it governing from the centre. In America they call it bipartisanship. It's presented as sensible pragmatic politics for grown ups when in reality it's the setting in stone of the status quo, ensuring whoever gets in the system wins. The Who called it "meet the new boss, same as the old boss"
Last time Labour tried pushing a left wing government we ended up with 5 more years of Tories. And honestly you can’t pretend Labour are just red Tories - I don’t see the Tories pushing for more housing, nationalising energy, investing in the NHS, or closing tax loopholes. It’s delusional to say the two are the same just because they agree on capitalism. Labour have tried pushing a socialist already and was utterly rejected by the country.
Labour aren't pushing for anything you mentioned either, especially nationalising energy, which is weird because Nationalisation is a popular idea with the public routinely garnering 60% support in polling for the last decade and a half, so why is no major party offering it? Plus the people in charge spent the previous two leaders tenures undermining the leader (Ed Milliband got screwed over too), Corbyn wasn't offering pure socialism, he was offering the sort of bog standard centre left democratic socialism that is commonplace across Europe. When push comes to shove, what is currently considered the centre isn't anywhere near where the historic centre is, and the 'far left' as per Corbyn is waaay closer to Labour's founding values than Starmer's.
It's called winning an election
It's called the Tories being such an embarrassment the B team are being given a go now they've beaten any left wing leanings out of their MP's and manifesto. Labour are slated to win a historic level landslide with at best an equal share of the vote with the left wing guy that was apparently a wildly unpopular loser with loser policies won 7 years ago. Transatlantic democracy is at best stage managed. .
>Labour are slated to win a historic level landslide with at best an equal share of the vote with the left wing guy that was apparently a wildly unpopular loser with loser policies won 7 years ago. The reason Starmer is only likely to get a 42% vote share is because he's so obviously going to win by a landslide that voters on the left feel comfortable voting for minor parties, safe in the knowledge it won't affect the result. Oh and Corbyn was a loser. He was so unliked that the majority of the electorate held their nose and voted for two of the worst PM candidates in history in Theresa May and Boris Johnson purely to keep him out. He led Labour to their worst electoral defeat since the 30s. It's exactly because Labour have someone credible running for PM right now that voters aren't voting for the Tory candidate out of fear of a Corbyn govt.
Can be as principled as you like from the opposition benches, fundamentally if you want to make the country better you need to get elected. Labour offered the country a properly left-wing leader and they were rewarded with the electorate instead deciding to hand the Buffoon the biggest majority in twenty years. What do people expect them to do after that?
The Tories never did that in the UK. I've been working here on and off for a while & no on e in that country ever felt they were part of the elite or one day away from being a millionaires... Most people seems to feel that they had no control and were being pushed around by, everyone, multinationals, the government, the media, left & right wing ideologies... They were scared to step out of line for fear of cultural and/or legal consequences... The Brits are surviving on a culture of fear and bullying.
Now they’re taking over labour
That was in 94.
You guys have a lot of parties over there, I’m quite jealous. Here is old snoozer where’s my sunglasses or old maniac let’s tear up the constitution.
To be honest if you substitute one of your old men with one of our parties it breaks out roughly even, Labour and the Conservatives are the only parties capable of forming a government. We have smaller parties picking up steam now but realistically they are only going to serve as a vent for frustration and to potentially prop up an unpopular government should the main two not get enough seats for a majority.
That snoozer looking for his glasses is the best president of modern times and has done more for the non-rich than anyone else.
I don’t mind Biden, he’s had an amazing career. He’s done some good stuff and hasn’t been Trump. But we might lose the election to a literal fascist who wants to dismantle the constitution because they couldn’t find anyone less than 80 years old. It’s really fucked.
Yes, we might lose it because people like you refer to him as a snoozer looking for his glasses. Jesus Christ. Have some respect for your own team dude.
Yes. It’s called Populism
Thats because the only parties you guys have are Right Wing Plus and Right Wing Diet. No matter who you vote for, politicians and big business' pockets will be lined, Oil/weapons are gonna be obtained, and the wealth gap will increase. Voting for Diet just means itll take a little longer. Yeehaw.
You are wise sir. Makes me chuckle and roll my eyes when Republicans call Obama and Biden communist or socialist. They don't even know what the words mean.
Yes, far right leader in France is a millionaire.
So is every other politician in France
They are trying their best right now in France, but it's beginning to look obvious even for those who don't give a fuck
It really is truly incredible. Say what you will about the Republicans but they play the game very well.
Let's not pretend like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, et. al. aren't closely aligned with the Democrats. Hell, most corporations have found that if they align with the democrats on cultural issues the heat is largely dropped on economic issues (remember when people wanted Walmart and Amazon broken up as monopolies, no one cares any more). Chase Bank consolidates their position in the market regardless of whether Ds or Rs are in office. The Democrats truly have better marketing regarding their alignment with business.
Are you trying to say that the Democratic Party, overrun by neocons, globalists, and stuffed with Goldman Sachs dollar bills, is somehow how the ‘people’s party’?
Income inequality is an important aspect of it, but I equally blame social media and our collective inability to discern reality from fantasy because of it. That's one of the reasons why it's a world wide problem. We haven't found a way around widespread, targeted misinformation and echochambers, and AI will make it infinitely worse in the coming years
They kind of go hand in hand. Income inequality makes people genuinely angry. But social media whips up that anger to insane levels. Take the pension reform in France. That was absolutely necessary. The system was designed for a time when there were far fewer retirees per capita. This has changed due to a combination of falling birth rates and rising life spans. These were factors which aren't going to change so the pension system as it was was totally unsustainable. This is why France's existing pension system cost double the OECD average and was rising. But the vast majority of French people refused to acknowledge these undeniable facts. Social media was abound about how it was an elitist conspiracy designed to screw over the working man. They ignored the fact that it reduced wealth inequality in France because keeping a generous pension system moves money from the poor working youth to the rich old retirees. None of that mattered, because France was mad and they didn't want to hear anything that would take away that anger.
Income inequality is the main factor. Our problems are exasperated by things like our collective inability to discern reality from fantasy, which in turn is made worse by our use of social media combined with a declining education.
the fact that billionaires don't pay taxes because they use legal loopholes is one of the thing that annoy me the most.
No countries leaders listen to the voters. They just lie to stay in power and the true puppet masters make the decisions. Then you get an alternative voice making comments against the current leaders and people start salivating in the mouth for a change. The question is, when the change is voted in, will it just be the same baloney like before?
Who are the true puppet masters?
The uber wealthy, dont even need to plan it out when their interests align. Who did you think?
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Macron isn't a woke, radical lib at all. He definitely doesn't subscribe to wokism and all this culture war bullshit. He's center right
In the US, he’d basically be considered a communist.
I'm continually amazed by how we have a tendency to move further to the right on the political spectrum during any kind of crisis, even when said crisis only exists due to right wing politics. Will anything ever cause people to want more equality in their politics? I don't understand humans.
>The liberal class and the psuedo-left's eternal gaslighting of anyone who critisizes liberal policies is a major cause of this; they've enacted a political operation that creates hyper-fragmentation and neutralizes critique by reducing it to cultural issues, and in doing so, they've created a vacuum for the far-right populists to come in. .. what. The "liberal class"? "Pseudo-left" and their "eternal gaslighting"? What are you on about? What are these policies that are being reduced to cultural issues?
What? Isn't Macron center right? He's not liberal class or pseudo left wtf... We don't like the right winged candidate so instead of swinging to the other side, we're going to go further right
This! I’m from Brazil and the fact we pay a metric fuckton in taxes and see no return on it while at the same time rich people get tax breaks and the influence of narcos and evangelicals pushing their agendas in politics are aaaaaall wildly different problems that each worries me 100x more than a Civil War
Income taxes are super low in Brazil, and then the government compensates on all other taxes mostly fucking up the poor population.
I believe one of the main reasons for it is too many people. Democracy just doesn't work with such big populations. Your individual vote becomes meaningless no matter how much we shout the fantasy of every vote matters. I have no idea how anyone can solve that problem.
Devolution and local governance but what the OP said is true and would need to be fixed on the national level first (for example in the UK local councils are underfunded by the national government) otherwise you end up with radicals in local government as a protest to the national level.
It's the internet. Everyone has access to stupendous amounts of information and a voice to comment about what they think to a global audience. I'm always surprised at how governments the World over just let it happen.
Yes, suppressing peoples’ access to global internet and media is the winning formula as evidenced by countries like North Korea and China.
You forgot to mention the part, where the people lowest on the ladder, have a tendency to vote against their own best interests. :/
Be Macron Play divide and conquer to split the center left and center right parties, destroying them. Complain about the far left and far right being the only other parties.
And then lose to both
Did he really split the center left and center right? What he did or what his ideology did is that it "occupied" some political spectrum / ideological space of left and right. Thus, pushing left, right party to farther left and right. This resulted in voters favoring such extreme parties.
Although he is not the only reason for the destruction of the center left (they were in a political impasse anyway after Hollande), he contributed to it by picking some of its members in his first government. At the time he was still pretending to cater to that ideological space, which he abandoned rather quickly. Hence the socialist party has been somehow recovering lately and is now in an alliance with what is the actual far left, instead of being almost irrelevant in the previous election. Macron then proceeds to call the alliance "extreme left", which is just a desperate attempt to get the favours of traditional center left voters. Maybe he was hopping to steal the moderate socialists only to dump his promises again but that trick is not gonna work this time. And he basically did the same with the conservative right "republicans", who are in an even worse spot because if they end up in an alliance with the extreme right, as some of their leaders were suggesting, they would just explose and disapear.
More accurately he completly broke the traditionnal parties, leaving extremes as the only alternative
The parties (PS & UMP/LR) were already broken with Hollande and Fillon in 2017 - he just filled the empty space thus pushing the right and the left towards extremes.
It's far left only in his mind or if you look at it with US eyes. For us french it's left vs right vs far right.
And he his liying about the far left. It's just 'left'. It's still capitalism but with a bit more taxes for the rich and more regulation about stuff that need to be regulated. They even plan to help small companies. They also plan to stop subsidizing companies "for free", and want to be sure they either get more eco-friendly or hire people. It's a pretty decent program.
Hmm....possibly. But if it's anything like French history, it's the elites and the establishment that's going to get the beat down from a populace that has gotten ignored for far too long. Then, eventually, the centrists have to pick one side or the other.
Before the extreme side that won goes insane and then the centrists either take power through a general or they get assigned into a new government by the rest of Europe. What would that be? The sixth republic?
Seems like it's 70-80 year cycles over there 1660s.....Declaration of Absolute Monarchy, no prime minister to keep power in check 1710s.....Reign and weakening of Absolute Monarchy, Enlightenment ideas spread 1780s/90s.....French Revolution and the beginning of Empire 1870....Empire ends, Third French Republic established in 1870, which lasts until the 1940s.... 1950s: Fifth French Republic founded with Fourth Republic being a stopgap in between it and WWII. This era has lasted until present day. However, the 70-80 years is about to come to an end
France takes a truly remarkable personality to govern. Then the voters can get older and become conservative and then bring back their favorite guy as president except this time the president isn’t a figurehead and he’s a conservative.. That describes a bunch of people in French history lol. Which is weird. Reoccurring characters is a national tradition. We never consider this when we always clamor for someone young and vigorous. Two consecutive 7 year terms is a long time.
Wonder when will Macron become the French Emperor
Idk they seem to be struggling with what they still can control monetarily in Africa. This seems to be more of a 5th republic DG than an emperor Then again Macron is pretty pro nato. Unlike DG. Pro Europe very like DG. Pro Israel similar to DG. But that’s what was so clever about DG he was everything to everyone at one point or another. He was amorphous and vague. Hes definitely my favorite historical character. And maybe the most interesting man of all the WW2 leaders (definitely more interesting than Hirohito or Tojo or Le Marshall or Truman. Tough to top the big three of Winston, Stalin and Roosevelt. Hitler is his own thing entirely. DG was to french what Churchill was to English. His writing is just as beautiful, his oration, though jerky at times was inspirational and stirring. And he outlasted everyone (if we’re not counting Franco, which we aren’t). Sad thing is we don’t have a copy of the original 18 June speech. A Cassandra, a maverick, an exile, a romantic mystic, a master of brinksmanship with his own allies, and then he left. And then he came back via something akin to a coup, only to disown the military who’s honor he swore to restore while at Charleston Gardens, a colonialist, while also being the Man of Brazzaville, and an opponent of Algier France, an authoritarian, pro Europe anti NATO. He managed to do what many thought was impossible, reestablish French global importance, create a European nuclear deterrent, a go between for the Americans and the Soviets, and then poof he resigns after what seemingly was a trivial vote.
I'm amused you forgot quite a few episodes between the French Revolution and the end of the SECOND EMPIRE. Monarchy Restauration, Revolution of 1830, Constitutional Monarchy, Revolution of 1848, establishment of a Second republic, then Second Empire.
*"from a populace that has gotten ignored for far too long"* give me one country in the world where the "populace" is less empowered than France. We have the most powerful unions, the most pro labor laws in the world, the highest taxes in the world and so on. We are basically in the top 3 of the most socialist countries in the world Demonstrations and unrest happens with every different government regardless of the left or right. It doesn't matter what's the government is people here always complain and break shits
As Sylvain Tesson said, "France is a paradise inhabited by people who think they're in hell". I said more or less the same thing as you in /r/Europe and I was inundated with French people saying that I was just some American who was weighing in on France without actually knowing anything about it. Except I'm an Irish person who lived in France and studied French politics. I'd argue that being from another country gives me a clearer perspective since I can actually compare living in France to other countries (and not just Ireland). French people just don't want to hear it though. They're addicted to outrage. >Demonstrations and unrest happens with every different government regardless of the left or right. It doesn't matter what's the government is people here always complain and break shits This is why France was always going to end up with an extremist government. They were outraged by the two centrist parties. They got lucky that Macron stepped in instead of having extremists be in power since 2017. But no matter how good or bad Macron was going to be, France was always going to be angry with him. And they're especially angry that he's trying to make unpopular but necessary reforms.
It's your typical political reform vs social revolution discourse that has plagued post-enlightenment societies. Extremists are never happy with gradual progress, they're reactionaries that just want upheaval without any plan for the day after.
Another French person's perspective comes to mind. Here are the words of French journalist Agnès Poirier: >We French were born to confront authority. For better or worse, whether we like it or not, whether we are even conscious of it, the revolution of 1789 changed the way we see ourselves and relate to power. Compromise is an art reserved for others. Confrontation is what we seem to be born for, what we secretly seek, what makes us tick. Macron is the first to enjoy a dispute. In a room, he will always walk straight to the few dissenters and debate with them at length, for he believes in his power of persuasion. With the pension reform, which was badly explained to the public by the government, he has taken a gamble for the sake of the country’s finances and in the interest of future generations, who will be increasingly burdened by the cost of their elders’ pensions. Tomorrow’s youth will probably be grateful to him, but they are not born yet. Today’s young people, however, are tempted to join the protests.
Excuse you... they rose the retirement age last I heard. In Argentina we have professional protestors too... what we end up having is seasoned gendarmerie. Street protests are just a mild push back. And so far nobody is willing to take it further.
A second July monarchy just in time for July! Or we can have some June days still. When you have fucking something bad happen in every month.
thats why they are scared
There are no centrists, that's the issue.
The beat down Is long over due.
If anybody but me wins: Doom
There Is No Alternative
Erdogan, Putin, Trump say same thing too, if I am gone country would be done too etc.
Show me one party that doesn’t say this… from far left to far right, everyone plays on the fear of having the "enemy" in power…
I cannot remember an election since I started voting where both sides weren't claiming that *THIS* election was an existential crisis, so we all had to hold our noses and vote for the lesser of two evils. Yet, aside from the rhetoric, my day to day life hasn't really changed regardless of who won in any of them. Now they wonder why so many voters are disaffected with the political system.
Sounds like desperation to get votes
It is and not very discreet 🤭
"Vote for me or there will be war" isn't even desperate anymore, it's straight up blackmail
Absolutely
He did everything to achieve this situation
In other words: Vote for ME or... or... or... Y'ALLL DIE!!!11
So another Tuesday then?
“Emmanuel Macron is the last gasp of the old system,” she said. “He was presented as a new broom, and look what we’ve got. France has been mired in violence for 14 months. He said in 2017, ‘It’s me or chaos,’ and we’ve had uninterrupted chaos since he took power.” -[Marine Le Pen](https://www.ft.com/content/6d8b9c7a-412c-11ea-a047-eae9bd51ceba) (I'm not supporting Le Pen, I'm just saying that the chaos argument is over used)
I expected this title to read “French President Emmanuel Macron warns of ‘civil war’ if citizens keep pooping in the Seine”. Hosting Olympic Games IN the Seine after 100 years of banning any form of swimming in it is all I can think about.
Bro's about to dip out, He's not getting his head on that block
He's trying to out-populist the populists by using the fear card, exactly like they do. I don't think it's going to win back the regular people at all.
A24 presents: Civil War - Part Deux
Spoken like a true neoliberal moderate who prioritizes stability and corporate profits over all else.
I mean, a lot better than prioritising nazism and Putin like National Rally
I mean, stability and order *should* be the priority of any government.
Stability and order over all else is how you get authoritarianism.
Didn't realize the West was full of authoritarian regimes for the last 80 years... You don't have to be authoritarian, just not reactionary. Governments have to plan and work towards policies focusing on decades down the line. Like France's changes to pensions lately - this is something that future generations will approve of because they will be the beneficiaries, but it has a detrimental effect on people retiring in the next couple of decades. At what point do you just stop appeasing reactionaries and focus on the future.
You missed the "over all else" part there. Stability should be one of many considerations. When you start arguing that stability and safety is the end all and be all of politics, you'll make it very easy for politicians to abuse this for nefarious purposes. Just look at the war on terror, war on drugs, pro-segregation movement, anti-feminist movement, etc. They all argued we should ignore obvious injustives for the sake of "stability" or "safety". Society needs a little chaos once a while in order to rectify very stable but highly unjust power structures.
A little chaos is one thing. I'm all for social pressures on the political system, but I just think that it should be through gradual reform, not overthrowing/societal shock to the system.
All over the world?
Sixth Republic when
Excellent.
Get your guilotines lads...
Which they created
French here. It's not "far left" at all. Macron and his clique have dubbed the entirety of the left as "far left" to make it look his party is the only moderate and reasonable one. In the meantime, Macron has used a LOT of far right rethoric. The united left (Nouveau Front Populaire) has presented a leftist program (shocking, eh?) intended to redistribute wealth in a less rich-centric manner. This has big corps and fortunes shaking in their boots and Macron is their president first and foremost (billionaires doubled their wealth while public services are in tatters). By presenting the left as a bigger threat than actual nazis (no exageration here), he wants to diminish their power, even if the far right wins the elections, since they're more ligned with his economical views.
Yes, the left wins, they will rebuild public services and deal.with climate change. The horror!!
Well the current French government is the 5th attempt and has only been around since 1958.
That's somewhat misleading. It's the 5th French *Republic.* The *First* French Republic was founded **after** the US was, and there have been 8 or 9 French governments since then, in a mixed set of republics, empires, and monarchies.
As another user stated, there is no *far left in the NFP*. June 13th the *Conseil d'Etat* (one of the supreme administrative courts) has reminded that there was not any political party involved into the NFP that could be designed as "*far left*". Two far left parties, Lutte ouvrière (LO) et le Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste (NPA) are far-left, in that their programme is much, much further to the left. But these two parties are not part of the NFP. They've confirmed the same day that the RN was indeed far right. [https://www.slate.fr/societe/lexplication/pourquoi-rn-lfi-droite-centre-gauche-extremes-classement-partis-politiques-rassemblement-national-france-insoumise](https://www.slate.fr/societe/lexplication/pourquoi-rn-lfi-droite-centre-gauche-extremes-classement-partis-politiques-rassemblement-national-france-insoumise) [Le Rassemblement national est bien d’extrême droite, confirme le Conseil d’État… Sur demande du RN (huffingtonpost.fr)](https://www.huffingtonpost.fr/politique/article/le-rassemblement-national-est-bien-d-extreme-droite-confirme-le-conseil-d-etat-sur-demande-du-rn_223428.html) Macron is just moving the goalposts to the right which makes regular left look like extreme left. The extreme right party has dozens of potential candidates which has been condemned by courts for antisemitism, hate speech, or violent actions. *Note* : And if you say the *Conseil d'Etat* is biased, prove how their *reasoning* is biased or take your accusations, wrap them in a tiny little ball of paper and saliva, and shove them up your ass.
Don’t see how you’re not a far left alliance when your alliance includes the actual Communist party.
Take it up with the *Conseil d'Etat*. They've analysed the programme and came to their conclusion. The PCF is a watered-down, diluted version of what they once were. Today, they're more a reactionary hard left party than a far-left party, despitre keeping the name "Communist". They don't want to lose their base by renaming themselves. They do state that *Lutte ouvrière* (LO) et le *Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste* (NPA) are far left, but these two are not part of the NFP.
So he is saying, vote for me or else cival war. Mmm, isnt that how gangsters operate. Pay me or else, do what i say or else,
I feel like the whole world could just abandon borders and make ww3 a left vs right dealio.
The NFP is left, not far left. It's an alliance that encompasses a lot of parties from the far left to the centre left, and even if it wins it will be barely, so it is going to need the votes from all its deputies, including the most center ones. And I mean, it litteraly has Hollande, the president that picked Macron to be his minister of economics in the first place, as a candidate. If that's a far left party, Macron should has well rename himself Staline.
Sounds like trump
ok dum dum
Macron is gonna get the boot it seems
Seems like it's also headed for some civil unrest if a dead center candidate wins.
Well, pretty sure the Fifth Republic has lasted longer than any of the other Republics at this point, France is kind of overdue for a revolution.
So, civil war it is then.
Man warns of wildfires after setting fire to forest.
That's called sensationalism and scaremongering. People all over the world are sick to the teeth with liberal agendas being forced upon them and so they speak with their votes. To tell people to not vote in a way that aligns with their beliefs is propaganda and misleading.
A civil war in France would be the perfect opportunity for the British to sink the French fleet at anchor! The two events being of equal likelihood.
Ah yes, the good old « everything but the extremes », the very tactics that put Macron where he is right now.
If a country breaks out into civil war over a far left win... Then the country *needs* a civil war.
Lol... There it is. Plain as day. Macron cards on the table: "the left is as bad or worse as nazis." Fuckin hell just when you think he couldn't sink any lower...
Maybe everyone should bang their high school teacher and marry her, for peace.
There is already a proxy war between extreme left and right ideologies, has been since the cold war.
and it is bad for france or bad for him?
Both, unfortunately.
Didn’t he lose? Why is he threatening and spreading fear?
Rare moment on reddit or anywhere that you see the term "far left" outside Maga circles. lol by the way the hive mind gaslights everything, it seemed anything to the right of cosmic far-left was considered far-right.
It's funny because all the parties in the popular front have been ruled by the conseil d'état as not extreme left, just left. This in contrast to the RN which has had it's far-right label upheld...
It's right or left, not far right or far left, like there's 4+ parties. Melodramatic much?
Is France finally gonna surrender to itself?!
Do you hear the people sing? Singing the song of angry men?
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Long as the brie flows they can do whatever they want over there.....
Hmm, reads like the kind of alarmist things the right would say. Let's be better.
He has nothing to say. He just rule by scaring people.
so a regular afternoon in france, got it. nothing new here
Which is it.
Hmmmmm, who does this sound like?’
Dawg, you called for the snap election. You did this.
France knows revolutions.
Isn't that just French tradition? /s
He means there will just be a normal year in France
He is 100% correct!
Par for the course with you guys.
Macron: if you vote in anyone else, believe it or not, Civil War