France General Discussion IV: Yellow Fever

[parochial boy]

It's probably helpful not to think of French political parties as if they were conventional parties that you get elsewhere. A French party is kind of more like... a gathering of bellends nominally working together because it happens to be politically expedient at this particular point int time

[parochial boy]

Méluche is standing in 2022... on the condition that he gets a "people's nomination" of 150'000 people signing in support of his candidature. Which shouldn't be too difficult, you'd imagine.

I still don't like him, but if I'm honest, between him and the Greens I'd probably go for him at this point in time.

[parochial boy]

So, just as they are trying to make taking photos of the police illegal, a police operation to evacuate a refugee camp at the Place de la République in Central Paris (after they had already been forcibly cleared out of one in Saint-Denis), turns violent enough for even Darmanin to be shocked.

One of the many videos going around, the guy in this one is not actually a protestor, but a journalist.

https://twitter.com/Nicomay/status/1330991518765735937

In other news, Olivier Faure wants to rename the Parti Socialiste. But minor fringe parties renaming themselves isn't that interesting. Especially in France where they do it all the time.

[parochial boy]

Why would the PS rename itself? They've been under that name for ages, wouldn't the heritage be a better tradeoff than whatever minor gains they could get from renaming themselves to "Democratic Party" or something? (especially when Socialism is not a dirty word in France or anything)

Granted, I guess that would have also applied to their old SFIO name, but given how the Workers' International had long been disbanded at that point I don't think the comparison is good.

Reading between the lines, it seems basically like an admission that the PS's brand is ruined, that nobody even really knows what they stand for and that they are never they don't have a hope of gaining any form of power in their own right at any point in the near future.

Faure's big "thing" for a while now has been pushing for a united left. He's just come in with a big load of propositions about a united left front going forward to the presidentialy, where there will be a "popular consultation" in instances where the different formations can't agree.

It's all kind of despairing woolly politician speak, but I can't hold it too much against him to at least, you know, vaguely admit that the current ego dance on the left is suicidal. The problem is that the ego dance is already there; Mélenchon is in, Arnaud Montebourg is trying to find a way in, EÉLV are absolutely not going to sit this one out after what Hamon did to them in 2017. And barely any of them really seem to have much of relevance to say at the moment, even when you'd think all the social contestation would be an open goal for them.

That and there is really no love lost between say, LFI and the ecologists - and guys like Jadot or the other EÉLV liberals don't really have too much in common with Mélenchon's crowd, ideologically speaking, from the outset.

[parochial boy]

Why would the PS rename itself? They've been under that name for ages, wouldn't the heritage be a better tradeoff than whatever minor gains they could get from renaming themselves to "Democratic Party" or something? (especially when Socialism is not a dirty word in France or anything)

Granted, I guess that would have also applied to their old SFIO name, but given how the Workers' International had long been disbanded at that point I don't think the comparison is good.

Reading between the lines, it seems basically like an admission that the PS's brand is ruined, that nobody even really knows what they stand for and that they are never they don't have a hope of gaining any form of power in their own right at any point in the near future.

Faure's big "thing" for a while now has been pushing for a united left. He's just come in with a big load of propositions about a united left front going forward to the presidentialy, where there will be a "popular consultation" in instances where the different formations can't agree.

It's all kind of despairing woolly politician speak, but I can't hold it too much against him to at least, you know, vaguely admit that the current ego dance on the left is suicidal. The problem is that the ego dance is already there; Mélenchon is in, Arnaud Montebourg is trying to find a way in, EÉLV are absolutely not going to sit this one out after what Hamon did to them in 2017. And barely any of them really seem to have much of relevance to say at the moment, even when you'd think all the social contestation would be an open goal for them.

That and there is really no love lost between say, LFI and the ecologists - and guys like Jadot or the other EÉLV liberals don't really have too much in common with Mélenchon's crowd, ideologically speaking, from the outset.

I dunno, I still think either Ruffin or Manon Aubry for example* would at least make EELV think twice about running or backing a united left ticket. their fraticide is largely down to Mélenchon's egotism, even if there are clear ideological differences.

*I'm not saying they would be good candidates.

Parts of the party, the Julien Bayou types might, but the new mayors of Lyon and Bordeaux I'm not seeing really ever getting on board with anyone brandishing LFI's style of leftism, Méluche or otherwise - and Jadot has come out with enough stuff too that I woudn't really trust him. Various LFI affiliated types also seem to have had an intensely negative reaction towards EÉLV and with Mélenchon in it as well it's moot anyway.

Honestly probably doesn't matter in any case - the left's objective in 2022 is probably more to avoid going the way of the Polish left than it is to have any real shot at getting into power

[parochial boy]

Big demo against the security law today; and you can't help but notice the optics of passing this particular law at a time where the police seem to be going committing a number of highly publicised and visible acts of violence

[parochial boy]

https://www.lemonde.fr/disparitions/article/2020/12/02/valery-giscard-d-estaing-ancien-president-de-la-republique-est-mort_6061969_3382.html

VGE has passed away. A bit before my time, but I thought "Ramenez la coupe à la maison" was a pretty good song.

[parochial boy]

On which note - time for a sHoCk PoLl!!! As well as a gratuitous hot take for fun

https://twitter.com/malopedia/status/1354502040198770690

Still think he'll win though - a think to remember is that there is still - enourmous - defiance towards basically the political spectrum in its entirety. I don't anyone who is already an established political name has a way past him; especially when that means like 10 candidate who all think they've got it. Macron does seem to have that 20% who'll stick with him no matter what.

Darmy also wants to ban Génération Identitaire now, cos one of them went on Hanouna's show or something and Darmy doesn't like it when other people are allowed to be more racist than him.

[parochial boy]

De Gaulle and Berlusconi would like to have a word.

I don’t mean to be rude, but to pretend that Italy or France in the 1950s had some history of super dominant parties - like the UK, Canada, America, etc. - is really not the case. To be maximally generous to your position, Macron’s electoral feat is at least slightly more impressive than De Gaulle.

Christian Democracy and the PCI were dominant parties up until Italy up until the 90s. Berlusconi's ascension was pretty directly made possible as a reslult of Mani Pulite and the destruction of the First Republic's party system.

France has always had a weak party system, with new parties forming/splitting/merging all over the place - so it's a mistake to say that the RPR/UMP/LR-PS tandem of the end of th 20th century was really that "dominant", as it was always manifestly more precarious than was made out.

What France has had though, is pretty identifiable political traditions that go back decades, in which case Macron is pretty identifiably in the same non-Gaullist centre-right tradition as VGE and Bayrou.

[parochial boy]

Minister of Higer Education Frédérique Vidal is in a bit of trouble after announcing she would ask the CNRS research institute to report on all ongoing research in France in order to combat Judeo-Bolshevism, I mean, "Islamogauchisme" (cf, the "woke American ideas" thread).

This is at a time where university students in France are in a complete social crisis, with ever lengthening queues of students for food banks, crushing poverty over their lack of access to income support, massive psychological strain - all summarised in this video which gained a bit of attention itself the other weak.

So obviously Vidal has her really got her priorities sorted here.

[parochial boy]

https://twitter.com/NicolasSarkozy/status/661447751926808576

For once I agree with poison dwarf.

[parochial boy]

The French left is facing two, let's be honest, pretty unsurmountable obstacles:

1. They are French

2. The electorate is also French

This is the best analysis of the 2022 presidential election that you will read at any point over the next year.

[parochial boy]

Re that Ifop poll, I would note that Bertrand/Pécresse's (and to a lesser extent Méluche/the left more widely) age crosstabs are... eye opening. Especially Bertrand's

[parochial boy]

Someone probably could/should set up a separate thread for the election now, given it's less than a year away and otherwise this thread is just going to be increasingly dominated by election coverage

[parochial boy]

Open letter in a right wing (far right?) paper from a large number of retired officers and active servicemen (incl. 20 generals) warning against a civil war if Islamism isn't brought under control and the authority of the state reestablished in the suburbs. Le Pen has naturally praised them, and apparently the Minister of Defence threatened to sack some of the active soldiers signing the letter.

https://www.valeursactuelles.com/politique/pour-un-retour-de-lhonneur-de-nos-gouvernants-20-generaux-appellent-macron-a-defendre-le-patriotisme/

Would appreciate some comments and/or clarification from our French posters. What's this about and is it a nothingburger or serious?

I saw a lot of outrage about this on French twitter about this on Monday. Along the lines of "they are threatening a coup". But didn't really read the thing until now. For the most part, it sort of comes across as an old drunk man ranting in a PMU bar. Until you get to this rather eye opening passage:

Par contre, si rien n’est entrepris, le laxisme continuera à se répandre inexorablement dans la société, provoquant au final une explosion et l’intervention de nos camarades d’active dans une mission périlleuse de protection de nos valeurs civilisationnelles et de sauvegarde de nos compatriotes sur le territoire national.

In other words:

"however, if nothing is done, this permissivenes will continue to spread throughout society, provoking a final explosion and the intervention of our active (serving) comrades in a perilous mission to protect our civilisational values and the safeguard of our compatriots on the national territory"

Did you know that apparently about 50% of words in English and French are practically identical?

Which, well, the nicest you can be here is that it is rather ambiguous in its phrasing.

Anyway, main point is that these guys are mostly retired, not particularly well known or influential, and it's probably just a load of hot air. As mentioned, it sounds like the rantings of someone who spends most of their days at home in front of Pascal Praud and Zemmour on CNews - so retired generals a pretty good demographic there

Maybe it's a little more worrying if reflective of widespread opinions in the army. They've already been through a scandal about being apparently perfectly happy to tolerate openly nazi recruits in recent weeks. So you might start to conclude that there are some pretty worrying opinions among the leadership. But mostly a nothingburger over all - VA has come up in this thread before, this sort of stirring the pot is exactly the sort of shït they adore.

[parochial boy]

cher-e-s lecteur-rice-s, professeur-e-s et écolier-ère-s

The government has now decided to ban écriture inclusive (gender neutral writing) at schools.

Honestly, nothing makes me support it more than the way it triggers conservatives and reactionaries.

[parochial boy]

cher-e-s lecteur-rice-s, professeur-e-s et écolier-ère-s

The government has now decided to ban écriture inclusive (gender neutral writing) at schools.

Honestly, nothing makes me support it more than the way it triggers conservatives and reactionaries.

Ah yes, Emmanuel "liberté d'expression" Macron.

pourvu que vous ayez les mêmes opinions que lui, bien sûr 🤷‍♂️

[parochial boy]

cher-e-s lecteur-rice-s, professeur-e-s et écolier-ère-s

The government has now decided to ban écriture inclusive (gender neutral writing) at schools.

Honestly, nothing makes me support it more than the way it triggers conservatives and reactionaries.

Ah yes, Emmanuel "liberté d'expression" Macron.

Eh? From what I can tell the minister is just saying school documents shouldn't be written in it and pupils shouldn't be taught it because it's tough to understand [and looks awful]. Learning to write in school is about learning a standard set of rules which everyone can follow.

Anyway, they have taken the advice of the historian and 'perpetual secretary' of the Académie Française:

Au moment où la lutte contre les discriminations sexistes implique des combats portant notamment sur les violences conjugales, les disparités salariales et les phénomènes de harcèlement, l’écriture inclusive, si elle semble participer de ce mouvement, est non seulement contre-productive pour cette cause même, mais nuisible à la pratique et à l’intelligibilité de la langue française.

The "historian" though, that's the thing isn't it? The Académie is packed full of people who aren't actually experts on the questions they are supposed to be dealing with - heaven forbid they ever actually involve actual linguists in making these sorts of decisions (and also the absurdity of a generally reactionary organisation desperately trying to outlaw changes in the French language that are happening whether they like them or not).

It's why they keep on making non-sensical decisions like insisting on saying "la Covid" because it's "une maladie", even though we say "le radar" or "le weekend" despite those words being based on "la radio" and "une semaine". Like, they flat out invented a rule, when any consultation with any consultation with an actual trained linguistic would have set them right. All they managed to do there was to start a pointless culture war, and almost everyone kept on saying "le covid" anyway because you can't actually just set arbitrary rules like that in a living thing like a language.

I don't think écriture inclusive is particularly difficult or ugly either - but I  guess I'm also more used to it, because it is much more common place in Switzerland than in France, in part because the Swiss are generally far less conservative about the language.

[parochial boy]

If they were purely advisory, and if they purely there with a view to an aesthetic or artistic use of the language.

I’m very conflicted on the idea of the Académie. On the one hand a rigid language tends to be less enjoyable, less to play around with for poetry for example. On the other hand I quite like the idea of a group of eminent persons deciding matters of preferred style - as long as people don’t have to follow it. I would probably adhere religiously to their views. The OED, I suppose, used to play the de facto role that the Académie plays.

I don’t think you need technical linguists; rather people with a grasp of how the language works, and experience and eminence in other fields. I, for one, find écriture inclusive nearly illegible.

The problem is that the stuff they come out with does actually hurt the language, and hurt it's comprehensibility. Like the complete refusal to reform the accords du participe passé. There is, in academic linguistics, a fairly well established consensus that they quite simply don't exist in spoken French any more. Most people actually struggle to use them, if I look through some off my various chats, half the time people don't even try. This is all a problem because it makes written French harder, and that makes it harder for people to communicate (especially people with foreign backgrounds, immigrants, second language learners) when they have to learn written rules that they simply don't use in spoken French (and even more so with the various bizarre spellings).

So in that respect, the académie tieing themselves to some romanticised version of ye olde French, and being taken so seriously in terms of setting linguistic policy, it actually damages the language. It makes it harder to communicate, harder to understand, puts people off learning it and more.

If they actually spoke to linguistics, and actually learned to live with the way that languages change - it would do a lot of good for the status of French as a language.

[parochial boy]

It's something of a truism in polling that you can find a majority in favour of holding a referendum on just about any subject you want. So in this case, C"News" commissioning a poll on this is just a partisan attempt to push the public discourse in a direction that is closer its own fantastical obsessions.

As it is France already has basically the lowest level of immigration of every Western European country, and net migration that is barely positive, so it's not like they have especially much to complain about on the subject.

[parochial boy]

Véran also slapped down the horrifying and intellectually challenged education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer over the the allocation rentrée the other week (money that parents get to spend on school funds at the start of the schoold year). As in, the traditional outrage about "ThEy'Re JuSt GoInG tO sPeNd It On FlAt-ScReEn Tv'S!" with the suggestion that the cash should be replaced by a voucher. Véran rightly pointed out the allocation fell under his remit, and not Blanquer's, and wasn't going anywhere.

Despite being a bit meme friendly I've got to admit that Véran isn't the most obnoxious member of this government. God knows what he is doing in it.

[parochial boy]

No context needed 🙂

https://twitter.com/BraudFlo/status/1437643293953830912

[parochial boy]

Released a week ago to actually barely any sort of a reaction at all was a circular from education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer stating that schools should support trans children in their identity and their transition. Including ensuring they are allowed to use the toilets/changing rooms of their choice; sleep in dormitories with their identified gender and be referred to using their desired names.

Hardly earth defying stuff, but the fact that even the likes of Le Figaro could hardly muster up the energy to worry about it does show certain things about how much less emotional the issue is than in certain other countries. And rather more eye-openingly, that there is apparently an issue where even Jean-Michel frigging Blanquer is to the left of the average atlas poster.

[parochial boy]

The Petit-Robert dictionary included the neologism that is the gender neutral third peson pronoun "iel" in its online edition.

The reactions have been... predictable

[parochial boy]

For the first time in recorded history, something news worthy happens in Savoie.



Yes, I am that juvenile. Problem?