French Politics: un Sharknado social

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > French Politics: un Sharknado social

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Lawman 0 posted:

I was listening to the bbc world service and someone described him as the French Tony Blair and I instinctively recoiled as the realization hit me.

He's probably worse than that, Blair's position basically just accepted the changes that Thatcher made as a fait accompli and the new status quo, this guy promises to actually, actively do the things that Thatcher did in the 80s

# ¿ Jun 28, 2017 03:39

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 03:58

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

unwantedplatypus posted:

And here I was thinking that the French were all effete wine-drinking socialists.

they're fascists who worship the state and the catholic church, actually

# ¿ Jun 28, 2017 21:11

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Any suggestions on (nonfiction) books about the Third Republic and its society/politics/economy, particularly on popular nationalism/revanchism and its role in starting WW1?

# ¿ Jun 28, 2017 23:37

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Is it true that the word n�gre is equivalent to the n-word and is still in relatively common use/is not taboo-d?

Cued from this blog post

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2016/04/01/musab-younis/n-is-for-muslim/

quote:

Manuel Valls, the prime minister, was once filmed complaining there were too many dark-skinned people at a market: �Give me a few blancs, a few whites, a few blancos,� he said. A senior member of the Socialist Party was expelled in 2007 after complaining about the number of black players on the French football team. For many people, Rossignol�s use of the term �n�gre� to condemn the way Muslim women dress demonstrated the ongoing links between anti-Muslim and anti-black prejudice in France.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2017 12:37

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Why not send them to Guyana? That's also a sacred 5000-year integral part of the Republic

# ¿ Jul 3, 2017 11:34

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

So wait how is it that a dude who's supposedly the caricature of a groomed-from-birth elite bureaucrat is supposed to be starving the state in the bathtub and bringing about libertopia?

Or is it just poor people and unionized labor that gets drowned in that bathtub?

# ¿ Jul 5, 2017 12:00

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

To what extent is the modern Fifth Republican state/bureaucracy a creation of the Vichy period, in institutional terms? I know a good number of high-level collaborators like Papon et al continued postwar, but how about the institutions rather than people? I just read a book about how Japan's postwar economy was basically created during the war, with various state planning bureacracies that were instrumental in the postwar being more or less continuations of agencies created in the 1930s. I know the Third Republic was supposed to have been a laissez-faire/free market thing, and postwar France heavily diritiste/state-planned. Is it pretty much the same story, that the planning-state was a continuation of, or at least was created by, wartime fascism?

Any good academic books (in english) on the subject?

# ¿ Jul 5, 2017 14:20

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Have anything to read about the rise of interventionism/dirigisme in the pre-Vichy Third Republic, in that case? Actually pretty much anything about interwar France

# ¿ Jul 5, 2017 14:57

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Al-Saqr posted:

https://twitter.com/joeprince___/status/884463860736028672

lol what a complete dumbass. like, what a jupiter-sized piece of poo poo.

aahahahahaha lol. leader of the free world indeed

# ¿ Jul 10, 2017 19:52

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

So how likely does it seem at this point that Macron actually pushes through a substantial neoliberalization of the French economy?

# ¿ Jul 16, 2017 00:56

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Just read this little gem and thought I'd share it

http://artgoldhammer.blogspot.com/2017/07/macrons-remarkable-vel-dhiv-speech.html?m=1

quote:

Macron has been accused, not least by the left, of being pas seulement un banquier mais un banquier de chez Rothschild. The antisemitic intent of the charge needs no underlining. With this speech he has responded to the antisemites. Just as Bill Clinton was said to be the first black president of the US, Emmanuel Macron might be honored as the first Jewish president of France. Anne Sinclair was said to have coveted this honor for her ex-husband, but Macron is no doubt a more suitable person for the position.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2017 07:13

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Do people read Zola in high school/most people's education outside of France?

# ¿ Jul 30, 2017 18:53

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Flowers For Algeria posted:

Gosh, did humanity do a bad job at building civilization

No, just the brutish uncivilized Anglo-Saxons

# ¿ Mar 23, 2018 12:19

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/opinion/macron-trump-friendship.html

quote:

PARIS � It is tempting to say that the relationship between President Emmanuel Macron of France and President Trump is the unlikeliest of friendships, but that would be to miss the point.

Sure, they agree on very little. Not on Iran. Not on trade. Not on the European Union. Not on climate. Not on whether to criticize Vladimir Putin. Not on the importance of dignity, or truth, or the Enlightenment.

Still, I hear that they speak all the time. Trump follows Macron�s labor-market reforms and calls to congratulate him. The first state visit of his administration will be Macron�s to Washington next month, a special honor for �a great guy.� The French president is Trump�s best friend in Europe, and possibly beyond. Things fizzled with Theresa May, the British prime minister. They never went anywhere with Germany�s Angela Merkel. Trump-Macron is the only trans-Atlantic hinge not creaking.

This is not really surprising. Both men came from nowhere, mavericks hoisted to the highest offices of their lands by a wave of disgust at politics-as-usual. They are, in their way, accidents of history, thrust to power at the passing of an era. Longing for disruption produced these two disrupters.

Both laid waste to the political establishment, either smashing or co-opting mainstream parties. Both understood the fact that voters were bored as well as angry, mistrustful of the liberal consensus, angry at globalization�s predations, restive for grandeur, thirsty for the outspoken rather than the dutiful warnings of experts.

Macron, who at 40 could be Trump�s son, has honed a grandiose theater of the center, thereby giving centrist politics new vigor at a time of extremist temptation. He�s tough on immigration because he knows his survival depends on it. Trump�s is the theater of the zigzagging bully, nonstop noise often drowning out meaning. For both men, movement and action are essential.

Gaullist pomp, shunned by Macron�s predecessor, is back. If that�s what it takes to defeat the racist National Front, bring it on. Macron celebrated his victory last year with an address to the French people at the Louvre, greeted Putin at Versailles, and returned to the Sun King�s palace this year for a �Choose France� summit meeting of global C.E.O.s to trumpet some $3 billion in foreign investment.

�It�s not �Make France Great Again� � except that it is, sort of,� a French friend observed.

Macron�s Bastille Day celebration � complete with guards on horseback, troops, tanks and fighter jets � so impressed his special guest, Trump, that Trump now wants his own version with a heavy air component (but sans tanks) on Veterans Day.

Ridiculous? I think this friendship is so important as Trump surrounds himself with hawks that I�m prepared to swallow hard.

Or rather, it�s potentially so important. We have yet to see what Macron can leverage from this relationship. We don�t know if it�s a nice thing or a beneficial thing. It did not stop Trump from leaving the climate accord or recognizing Jerusalem as Israel�s capital. The jury is still out.

Trump did exempt the European Union from steel and aluminum tariffs, an issue on which the French had pressed hard. �If we are viewed like China, that would be a big problem,� one senior official told me before Trump�s decision.

Next up: Iran. If Macron cannot avert the worst on Iran � a decision by Trump on May 12 to torpedo the nuclear deal by no longer waiving sanctions � then all bets are off. The accord, which reversed the program that had made Iran a threshold nuclear power, is working. The French are determined to preserve it.

If it collapses, the Shia-Sunni Middle Eastern confrontation will worsen, Iran may race for a bomb, and Saudi Arabia will not be far behind. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty could fray to the point of meaninglessness.

The signs are not good. Mike Pompeo, nominated by Trump as the next secretary of state, is an Iran hawk. John Bolton, the new national security adviser who will replace Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, wants to abrogate the nuclear deal and bring down the Iranian regime � and that�s just for starters. Devastation looms. Macron�s � and Europe�s � challenge in blocking Iran folly has just grown tougher.

As Trump�s behavior becomes more erratic, a trend the Russia investigation will only accentuate in the coming months, the Macron friendship is some insurance against the worst. Unlike Trump, the French president knows what he wants and is capable of pursuing a coherent strategy.

He�s also a bulwark against all the destructiveness Trump has embraced: ethno-nationalist bigotry, the growing authoritarianism of Putin and Xi Jinping, the erosion of the rule of law, trade wars, the militarization of foreign policy and the undercutting of the European Union.

Macron�s vision of restored greatness is consistent with French ideals. Trump�s involves the betrayal of America�s. There�s the difference. A lot hinges on this being a friendship that delivers.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2018 05:53

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

I intended it for mockery, not reading for real

# ¿ Mar 24, 2018 07:24

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Condiv posted:

i just looked it up cause i hadn't heard of it till now, and I saw this article about it: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/7/19/17590302/trevor-noah-france-french-ambassador-araud-world-cup

this article seems to masturbate a lot about the american subcultures retaining their identity, and shits on the idea of everyone who has french citizenship just being "french", but the idea of non-assimilation tolerance in america is just bs. only minorities hyphenate in the US. white people don't. If your parents are french and white and you are born in america, you're just an american, not a "french-american".Likewise, if your parents were black and french, and you were born in america, you're "african-american", not "french-american". moreover, if you're not black or white, then you can expect to hear "where are you from?" on a constant basis in america, even if you have a very typical accent for the area. and if you say "america", then the question will always come up "where are your parents from?"

Both Noah and French Ambassador Guy are misinterpreting laicite though, aren't they? It's not so much about an individual's identity in the postmodern sense but about political association/civil society organization distinct from the state. There's no problem with individuals adhering to Islam or Catholicism as a religion/self-identifying as Muslim or Catholic or Black, there's a problem with Muslims or Catholics operating as a unified political bloc. Right?

# ¿ Jul 25, 2018 07:22

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 03:58

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Sorry to bring up againwhat I�m sure has been talked about a lot ITT but what has Melenchon actually done/said for people to be calling him a reactionary nationalist or whatever?

# ¿ Sep 25, 2018 10:05

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