French speaking countries from most conservative to progressive
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Samof94
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« on: June 23, 2021, 06:50:42 AM »

The four countries mentioned here are Canada, France, Belgium and Switzerland.
Those countries all have at least of their country have people speak French as a first language.
What order would you put them in?
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H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY
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« Reply #1 on: June 23, 2021, 07:12:47 AM »

If Belgium and Canada are included, quite a bit of Africa probably should be as well.
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CumbrianLefty
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« Reply #2 on: June 23, 2021, 07:43:06 AM »

Switzerland is *majority* German speaking though? Which makes a real difference.
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jaymichaud
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« Reply #3 on: June 23, 2021, 08:31:14 AM »

Switzerland
France
Belgium
Canada
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TDAS04
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« Reply #4 on: June 23, 2021, 09:31:13 AM »

Some West African country would be most conservative, I'd imagine.
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parochial boy
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« Reply #5 on: June 23, 2021, 10:36:28 AM »

The difference is that nowhere in Africa really has anything more than a tiny minority of people who actually have French as a first language. In Kinshasa, most people on the street will be speakig Lingala; in Dakar it will be Wolof and so on. The only real potential differences are the Seychelles, Mauritius, Haïti; and in these cases the actual day-to-day language is Creole, which probably should be counted as a different language.

As for the original question - as much as I hate these comparisons, French Switzerland is pretty much more progressive in every way imaginable than France is these days.

As an example - in the 2019 federal election, the left combined got 43% in Romandie and about 27% in France in 2017, while the UDC got around 17% in Romandie and the FN + DLF got 26% in France. This is even before bearing in mind that the left in Switzerland is more left wing than the French left, and that the UDC are less extreme than the FN.
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« Reply #6 on: June 23, 2021, 10:39:11 AM »
« Edited: June 23, 2021, 10:46:53 AM by laddicus finch »

Yeah, three of these four are only partly French speaking (and a minority at that - slight minority in Belgium, relatively small minority in Switzerland and Canada).

In any case, my guess is:
1. France
2. Quebec
3. French Switzerland
4. Wallonia

Idk anything about Swiss politics though, Switzerland as a whole is probably more conservative than the others but as I understand it it's the German majority which is very conservative, and the French there seem to be more progressive.

Quebec is more conservative than people think. Culturally, these are all progressive to varying degrees by Anglo standards. Looking at federal elections isn't a great indicator for Quebec though, Quebecers may mostly vote for left-leaning parties at the federal level, but that's more a matter of the LPC and BQ being very in tune with Quebec priorities, while the CPC represents a fusion of Alberta populism and rural Ontario conservatism that is completely off-tune with Quebecers. In provincial elections though, the last election came down to two varyingly centre-right parties, and Quebec has generally lurched to the right since the Quiet Revolution days.

The Wallon part of Belgium, as far as I can tell, is one of the most left-wing nations in the Global North.

France has to be most conservative, at least in political terms. From an Anglo "small government" view of conservatism France looks pretty left-wing, but within France's specific context, the political inclinations of French voters seems to lean right in a way that the other three don't.
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Samof94
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« Reply #7 on: June 23, 2021, 12:00:09 PM »

Yeah, three of these four are only partly French speaking (and a minority at that - slight minority in Belgium, relatively small minority in Switzerland and Canada).

In any case, my guess is:
1. France
2. Quebec
3. French Switzerland
4. Wallonia

Idk anything about Swiss politics though, Switzerland as a whole is probably more conservative than the others but as I understand it it's the German majority which is very conservative, and the French there seem to be more progressive.

Quebec is more conservative than people think. Culturally, these are all progressive to varying degrees by Anglo standards. Looking at federal elections isn't a great indicator for Quebec though, Quebecers may mostly vote for left-leaning parties at the federal level, but that's more a matter of the LPC and BQ being very in tune with Quebec priorities, while the CPC represents a fusion of Alberta populism and rural Ontario conservatism that is completely off-tune with Quebecers. In provincial elections though, the last election came down to two varyingly centre-right parties, and Quebec has generally lurched to the right since the Quiet Revolution days.

The Wallon part of Belgium, as far as I can tell, is one of the most left-wing nations in the Global North.

France has to be most conservative, at least in political terms. From an Anglo "small government" view of conservatism France looks pretty left-wing, but within France's specific context, the political inclinations of French voters seems to lean right in a way that the other three don't.
Quebec outside Montreal and Quebec City can be quite conservative and insular.
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« Reply #8 on: June 23, 2021, 12:07:36 PM »

Yeah, three of these four are only partly French speaking (and a minority at that - slight minority in Belgium, relatively small minority in Switzerland and Canada).

In any case, my guess is:
1. France
2. Quebec
3. French Switzerland
4. Wallonia

Idk anything about Swiss politics though, Switzerland as a whole is probably more conservative than the others but as I understand it it's the German majority which is very conservative, and the French there seem to be more progressive.

Quebec is more conservative than people think. Culturally, these are all progressive to varying degrees by Anglo standards. Looking at federal elections isn't a great indicator for Quebec though, Quebecers may mostly vote for left-leaning parties at the federal level, but that's more a matter of the LPC and BQ being very in tune with Quebec priorities, while the CPC represents a fusion of Alberta populism and rural Ontario conservatism that is completely off-tune with Quebecers. In provincial elections though, the last election came down to two varyingly centre-right parties, and Quebec has generally lurched to the right since the Quiet Revolution days.

The Wallon part of Belgium, as far as I can tell, is one of the most left-wing nations in the Global North.

France has to be most conservative, at least in political terms. From an Anglo "small government" view of conservatism France looks pretty left-wing, but within France's specific context, the political inclinations of French voters seems to lean right in a way that the other three don't.
Quebec outside Montreal and Quebec City can be quite conservative and insular.

Even Quebec city is pretty conservative and insular. There's a real Montreal vs le reste du Québec vibe.
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mileslunn
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« Reply #9 on: June 23, 2021, 02:12:25 PM »

If you mean entire country, I would rank as follows:

1.  Switzerland
2.  Belgium
3.  France
4.  Canada

If you just mean French speaking parts then

1.  France
2.  Quebec
3.  French part of Switzerland
4.  Wallonia

As mentioned elsewhere German parts of Switzerland much more conservative than French speaking parts and even Italian speaking parts are too.  Likewise in Belgium, Flemish parts very much dominated by parties on right with left quite weak.  By contrast in Wallonia it is exact opposite.  Brussels however seems to lean left not just amongst French speakers, but even Dutch speakers but not quite to same extent.

France though economically is probably more left wing than Canada but culturally and socially definitely more conservative.  While France has elected more governments who ran on smaller government than Canada, almost none follow through and usually you get riots and mass general strikes.  Switzerland including even French speaking parts probably most economically conservative as Switzerland has much lower tax rates than other three although French speaking parts tend to be higher than rest of country.  Likewise on health care, Switzerland's is one of the most privatized of European countries although still universal.  Likewise not sure on linguistic divide, but Switzerland has fairly loose gun laws compared to most of Europe (although not crazy like US and still quite strict compared to US).
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Lechasseur
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« Reply #10 on: June 23, 2021, 02:48:27 PM »

1. France
2. Quebec
3. French Switzerland
4. Wallonia+Brussels

This
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Lechasseur
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« Reply #11 on: June 23, 2021, 02:57:44 PM »

If you mean entire country, I would rank as follows:

1.  Switzerland
2.  Belgium
3.  France
4.  Canada

If you just mean French speaking parts then

1.  France
2.  Quebec
3.  French part of Switzerland
4.  Wallonia

I agree with you on the French speaking parts, but not on the countries as a whole

On the entire countries it's:

1. Switzerland
2. France
3. Belgium
4. Canada

I'd say until the last quarter of a century or so, Belgium was definitely more conservative than France, but Belgium has really liberalized and secularized in the last 20-30 years (think of it kind of like Ireland)

And funnily enough, Flanders is quite economically rightwing and quite nationalist/anti immigration, but it's probably the more socially liberal half of Belgium. Belgian politics aren't straightforward in terms of comparisons.

But even then, even comparing the immigration/citizenship laws for example, Belgium has more liberal ones than France, and in terms of say abortion laws, Belgium basically has the same ones as France (that being said, abortion was illegal in Belgium). Belgium also legalized gay marriage first, with the majority of opposition coming from Wallonia. France got to it a decade later with a lot more opposition.

And then even on economics/fiscal policy they're quite similar. Really the only thing that really sticks out as being more conservative in Belgium at this point is they still have their monarchy while France doesn't.
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Samof94
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« Reply #12 on: June 24, 2021, 06:35:08 AM »

Yeah, three of these four are only partly French speaking (and a minority at that - slight minority in Belgium, relatively small minority in Switzerland and Canada).

In any case, my guess is:
1. France
2. Quebec
3. French Switzerland
4. Wallonia

Idk anything about Swiss politics though, Switzerland as a whole is probably more conservative than the others but as I understand it it's the German majority which is very conservative, and the French there seem to be more progressive.

Quebec is more conservative than people think. Culturally, these are all progressive to varying degrees by Anglo standards. Looking at federal elections isn't a great indicator for Quebec though, Quebecers may mostly vote for left-leaning parties at the federal level, but that's more a matter of the LPC and BQ being very in tune with Quebec priorities, while the CPC represents a fusion of Alberta populism and rural Ontario conservatism that is completely off-tune with Quebecers. In provincial elections though, the last election came down to two varyingly centre-right parties, and Quebec has generally lurched to the right since the Quiet Revolution days.

The Wallon part of Belgium, as far as I can tell, is one of the most left-wing nations in the Global North.

France has to be most conservative, at least in political terms. From an Anglo "small government" view of conservatism France looks pretty left-wing, but within France's specific context, the political inclinations of French voters seems to lean right in a way that the other three don't.
Quebec outside Montreal and Quebec City can be quite conservative and insular.

Even Quebec city is pretty conservative and insular. There's a real Montreal vs le reste du Québec vibe.
Quebec just seems rather isolated geographically outside Montreal.
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LAKISYLVANIA
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« Reply #13 on: June 26, 2021, 10:52:06 AM »
« Edited: June 26, 2021, 10:58:23 AM by Laki »


And funnily enough, Flanders is quite economically rightwing and quite nationalist/anti immigration, but it's probably the more socially liberal half of Belgium. Belgian politics aren't straightforward in terms of comparisons.
A good example is the vote for legalizing gay marriage here with French-speaking liberals voting mostly against, while Flemish christian democrats and what would later become the Flemish conservatives mostly voting in favour of gay marriage, making us the second nation worldwide to legalize gay marriage back in 2003.



Quote
History

In the late 1990s, gay rights organisations in Belgium lobbied for the legalization of same-sex marriage. Belgian civil law did not explicitly require that two people be of opposite gender to be able to marry, as this was considered self-evident. Private member's bills in the 1990s by Flemish Block senators to add this as an explicit requirement were never considered.[3][4]

Verhofstadt Government
The election programmes of the SP (Flemish Social Democrats), Agalev (Flemish Greens) and VLD (Flemish Liberals) for the 13 June 1999 elections included the aim to legalise same-sex marriage. The new Verhofstadt I Government was formed, which was notably made up of a coalition of liberal, socialist and green parties and excluded the long-dominant Christian Democrats, who lost the elections due to the Dioxin Affair. The coalition agreement included "implementing a full legal partnership scheme" as well as "immediately making the Act of 23 November 1998 enter into force", which had not been done yet.[5] A royal order signed on 14 December and published on 23 December 1999 made the law on statutory cohabitation go into effect on 1 January 2000.[6]

In 1999, the PS (French-speaking Social Democrats) and Ecolo (French-speaking Greens) also announced they agreed to legalise same-sex marriage. At that point, the only remaining party in government that opposed same-sex marriage was the French-speaking liberal PRL (later merged into MR), mainly because it was opposed to adoption rights for same-sex couples. PRL agreed not to block same-sex marriage if adoption rights were excluded. As the first same-sex marriage in the Netherlands was performed on 1 April 2001, the Belgian Government, mostly under the lead of Minister of Health Magda Aelvoet (Agalev), began considering it as well.[7][8] On 22 June, the Council of Ministers formally approved opening marriage to same-sex couples.[9] In September, the largest opposition party, the Christian People's Party (CVP), held a party convention where they rebranded into Christian Democratic & Flemish (CD&V), with a renewed party platform, including the aim to legalise same-sex marriage, put forward by their youth wing.

On 30 November 2001, however, the Council of State gave a negative legal opinion on the bill, saying that "marriage is defined as the union of a man and a woman".[10] LGBT organisations and government ministers criticised the opinion and said they would proceed with the legislation.[11] The Council of Ministers formally approved the government bill on 8 December 2001 and in second reading on 30 January 2002, and submitted it to the Chamber of Representatives on 14 March 2002, where it faced a Justice Committee overloaded with bills to consider.[12] In May 2002, the government bill was then withdrawn from the Chamber and instead introduced as a private member's bill (which does not require opinions by the Council of State) in the Senate by the group leaders of the majority parties, Jeannine Leduc (VLD), Philippe Mahoux (PS), Philippe Monfils (MR), Myriam Vanlerberghe (SP.A-Spirit), Marie Nagy (Ecolo) and Frans Lozie (Agalev).

As Minister Aelvoet resigned on 28 August 2002 and elections were to be held in June 2003, the fate of the bill was unclear. Some politicians also accused Philippe Monfils (MR) of deliberately stalling the bill.[13][14] Nevertheless, new momentum was gained at the start of the new parliamentary year in October 2002. The Senate Justice Committee held hearings and voted 11–4 to approve the bill. It passed in the full Senate on 28 November 2002, with 46 votes to 15 (and 4 abstentions), and on 30 January 2003 the bill passed the Chamber of Representatives by 91 votes to 22 (and 9 abstentions).[15][16][17][18] The Flemish Liberals and Democrats, Christian Democratic and Flemish, the (Francophone) Socialist Party, the (Flemish) Socialist Party, Ecolo, Agalev and the People's Union voted generally in favour except for several abstentions, whereas the Flemish Block and National Front voted against, the Humanist Democratic Centre voted against with several abstentions and the Reformist Movement voted mostly against.
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Samof94
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« Reply #14 on: June 27, 2021, 11:09:19 AM »

And funnily enough, Flanders is quite economically rightwing and quite nationalist/anti immigration, but it's probably the more socially liberal half of Belgium. Belgian politics aren't straightforward in terms of comparisons.
A good example is the vote for legalizing gay marriage here with French-speaking liberals voting mostly against, while Flemish christian democrats and what would later become the Flemish conservatives mostly voting in favour of gay marriage, making us the second nation worldwide to legalize gay marriage back in 2003.



Quote
History

In the late 1990s, gay rights organisations in Belgium lobbied for the legalization of same-sex marriage. Belgian civil law did not explicitly require that two people be of opposite gender to be able to marry, as this was considered self-evident. Private member's bills in the 1990s by Flemish Block senators to add this as an explicit requirement were never considered.[3][4]

Verhofstadt Government
The election programmes of the SP (Flemish Social Democrats), Agalev (Flemish Greens) and VLD (Flemish Liberals) for the 13 June 1999 elections included the aim to legalise same-sex marriage. The new Verhofstadt I Government was formed, which was notably made up of a coalition of liberal, socialist and green parties and excluded the long-dominant Christian Democrats, who lost the elections due to the Dioxin Affair. The coalition agreement included "implementing a full legal partnership scheme" as well as "immediately making the Act of 23 November 1998 enter into force", which had not been done yet.[5] A royal order signed on 14 December and published on 23 December 1999 made the law on statutory cohabitation go into effect on 1 January 2000.[6]

In 1999, the PS (French-speaking Social Democrats) and Ecolo (French-speaking Greens) also announced they agreed to legalise same-sex marriage. At that point, the only remaining party in government that opposed same-sex marriage was the French-speaking liberal PRL (later merged into MR), mainly because it was opposed to adoption rights for same-sex couples. PRL agreed not to block same-sex marriage if adoption rights were excluded. As the first same-sex marriage in the Netherlands was performed on 1 April 2001, the Belgian Government, mostly under the lead of Minister of Health Magda Aelvoet (Agalev), began considering it as well.[7][8] On 22 June, the Council of Ministers formally approved opening marriage to same-sex couples.[9] In September, the largest opposition party, the Christian People's Party (CVP), held a party convention where they rebranded into Christian Democratic & Flemish (CD&V), with a renewed party platform, including the aim to legalise same-sex marriage, put forward by their youth wing.

On 30 November 2001, however, the Council of State gave a negative legal opinion on the bill, saying that "marriage is defined as the union of a man and a woman".[10] LGBT organisations and government ministers criticised the opinion and said they would proceed with the legislation.[11] The Council of Ministers formally approved the government bill on 8 December 2001 and in second reading on 30 January 2002, and submitted it to the Chamber of Representatives on 14 March 2002, where it faced a Justice Committee overloaded with bills to consider.[12] In May 2002, the government bill was then withdrawn from the Chamber and instead introduced as a private member's bill (which does not require opinions by the Council of State) in the Senate by the group leaders of the majority parties, Jeannine Leduc (VLD), Philippe Mahoux (PS), Philippe Monfils (MR), Myriam Vanlerberghe (SP.A-Spirit), Marie Nagy (Ecolo) and Frans Lozie (Agalev).

As Minister Aelvoet resigned on 28 August 2002 and elections were to be held in June 2003, the fate of the bill was unclear. Some politicians also accused Philippe Monfils (MR) of deliberately stalling the bill.[13][14] Nevertheless, new momentum was gained at the start of the new parliamentary year in October 2002. The Senate Justice Committee held hearings and voted 11–4 to approve the bill. It passed in the full Senate on 28 November 2002, with 46 votes to 15 (and 4 abstentions), and on 30 January 2003 the bill passed the Chamber of Representatives by 91 votes to 22 (and 9 abstentions).[15][16][17][18] The Flemish Liberals and Democrats, Christian Democratic and Flemish, the (Francophone) Socialist Party, the (Flemish) Socialist Party, Ecolo, Agalev and the People's Union voted generally in favour except for several abstentions, whereas the Flemish Block and National Front voted against, the Humanist Democratic Centre voted against with several abstentions and the Reformist Movement voted mostly against.
Belgian politics can be rather odd. It feels like it is really two countries.
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