French political discussion megathread: Yellow Vest Redux

[parochial boy]

Sure. If you are opposed to democratic principles such as editorial independence and media plurality and strong public media that is free from the influence and preferences of the media magnates. Never mind that France télévisions and France radio both produce stuff that is very popular and high quality stuff in the public interest that would all be threatened in a world where it’s budget is more dependent on ministerial decisions or advertising revenue and associated interests

Really funny how authentic progressives tend to look at this and conclude that an independent public service is actually more important

[Zinneke]

This "social movement" is just a recipe to pit one class of professionals against another. It is highly predictable given that the capitalist class is withholding production with the excuse of Ukraine and Covid to satisfy the shareholders, but the whole strategy will not result in working class unity, quite the opposite.

Then again there are those "authentic progressives" (let's call them authentocrats) who care about the buying power of labour aristocracy because Mr Martinez turns up on TV plateaus in his blue dungarees and acts hard and working class in a rough provincial voice, and there are us fake progressives who care about the buying power of all people who get up in the morning and work.

Between the "surprofits" just going to a few Total workers (many of whom make 5k net and are demanding more) and a windfall tax to help the real poor, I know which is the more progressive policy.

[parochial boy]

Did you really... just confuse the rather different issues that are the social movement and the TV licence?

In any case, never mind that you bought the BFMTV/Macroniste line about their salaries hook, line and sinker, despite this being a lie (disproved in 20 Minutes no less, not exactly Mediapart in its political outlook) with the reality for a qualified worker with "responsibilities" tending to earn around 2900 a month, compared to 2500 as an average in France. Which if anything, just shows that unions are effective in protecting workers' rights and that maybe the answer is for stronger unions that cover all workers rather than getting angry at the fact they are covering some people in difficult jobs who might demand some right to the immense profits being generated by their employer.

And in any case, who exactly has been leading outrage about Total using their massive profits to make huge disbursements to their shareholders? and leading demands for a windfall tax? with who being opposed exactly?

A bit of honesty about what the left are calling for here would be appreciated.

[Zinneke]

Did you really... just confuse the rather different issues that are the social movement and the TV licence?

Ummm...no? its just that you can't seriously preach left-wing unity under a NUPES banner and at the same time engage in exclusionary rhetoric because someone who considers themselves a progressive has a different policy opinion to you...one that doesn't involve defending Russia, PR China and Iran...which your favoured candidate (a genuine social fascist third positionist who called Germans naturally prone to re-arm and invade Europe) does.

Which if anything, just shows that unions are effective in protecting workers' rights and that maybe the answer is for stronger unions that cover all workers rather than getting angry at the fact they are covering some people in difficult jobs who might demand some right to the immense profits being generated by their employer.

You know full well this isn't just about union membership (I'm a member of a union btw), it is about one sectoral industry holding the rest of the country to ransom because they want to engage in the same behaviour their executives did in order to bid up their shareholders earnings : deliberately withholding and sabotaging supply of resources to cripple the country. They want to use their industry's position in the economy to hold the rest of the country to ransom and create a Mexican standoff of all other industries with zero solidarity.

Congratulates parochial boy, you are now a fully signed up member to "the market is always right" school of thought.

And in any case, who exactly has been leading outrage about Total using their massive profits to make huge disbursements to their shareholders? and leading demands for a windfall tax? with who being opposed exactly?

Because the French Left is led by a social fascist demagogue who defends wife beaters and the likes of Eric Piolle and Sandrine Rousseau (definitely people who focus on your social movements rather than culture wars issues...right!), they are not actually tackling the structural issues that have led to shareholder capitalism at companies like Total running riot : lack of proper regulation, overall lack of worker input at board level, countless other measures that don;t include witholding supply to bid up the prices and profit from this. Instead, they are engaging in their favorite hobby : artifice and outdated strike action designed to hold other sectors of the economy to ransom. Yay! Go Total Workers bidding up all our fuel prices in a major economic recession! That's sure gonna convince the masses that the dungarees wearers are on their side!

[parochial boy]

Did you really... just confuse the rather different issues that are the social movement and the TV licence?

Ummm...no? its just that you can't seriously preach left-wing unity under a NUPES banner and at the same time engage in exclusionary rhetoric because someone who considers themselves a progressive has a different policy opinion to you...one that doesn't involve defending Russia, PR China and Iran...which your favoured candidate (a genuine social fascist third positionist who called Germans naturally prone to re-arm and invade Europe) does.

Which if anything, just shows that unions are effective in protecting workers' rights and that maybe the answer is for stronger unions that cover all workers rather than getting angry at the fact they are covering some people in difficult jobs who might demand some right to the immense profits being generated by their employer.

You know full well this isn't just about union membership (I'm a member of a union btw), it is about one sectoral industry holding the rest of the country to ransom because they want to engage in the same behaviour their executives did in order to bid up their shareholders earnings : deliberately withholding and sabotaging supply of resources to cripple the country. They want to use their industry's position in the economy to hold the rest of the country to ransom and create a Mexican standoff of all other industries with zero solidarity.

Congratulates parochial boy, you are now a fully signed up member to "the market is always right" school of thought.

And in any case, who exactly has been leading outrage about Total using their massive profits to make huge disbursements to their shareholders? and leading demands for a windfall tax? with who being opposed exactly?

Because the French Left is led by a social fascist demagogue and the likes of Eric Piolle and Sandrine Rousseau (definitely people who focus on your social movements rather than culture wars issues...right!), they are not actually tackling the structural issues that have led to shareholder capitalism at companies like Total running riot : lack of proper regulation, overall lack of worker input at board level, countless other measures that don;t include witholding supply to bid up the prices and profit from this. Instead, they are engaging in their favorite hobby : artifice and outdated strike action designed to hold other sectors of the economy to ransom. Yay! Go Total Workers bidding up all our fuel prices in a major economic recession! That's sure gonna convince the masses that the dungarees wearers are on their side!

Well thank you for that series of strawmen and false representations. Where on earth did Russia or China become relevant here? What on earth has that got to do with how France 2 is funded?

It's getting tiring, once again to have you having to read your dishonest hysterics about which bogeymen you have been told to be angry about this week. Rousseau and Piolle? I don't think they are in power at the moment are they? And who exactly has spent all summer fuelling these hysterics about the woman? What was this year's electoral cycle entirely about until candidates from the left started actually talking about the standard of living?

Once again, your solutions, who exactly is proposing them? It's the left. Who exactly is responsible for the fact that they aren't in place? Oh, right, not the left.

Yes, strikes work, that is the form of power that unions are able to wield in able to defend their members. One of the few they have left actually, decades of neoliberalism have done to that. What is absurd is coming down entirely on the side of "oh what horrible disruption" as if this is entirely down to the workers themselves as opposed to a larger negotiation in which the unions, the employers and the political authorities are involved. This is old, old stuff - and in a case where people are seeing their living standards decline. Well guess what, going out on to the street and withdrawing their labour is how they demonstrate what their work achieves.

What you are arguing for, in practice, is to deny workers this power and make them entirely subodinate to the whims of their employers' goodwill and an ideologically liberal government. Or to back into the the same old liberal "oh the economy" arguments as if people should just shut up and put up with what they are given.

And weirdly, they do seem to have struck a cord, and generated solidarity, because they are no longer the only people out on the street.

[CumbrianLefty]

Have to agree with pb on this one I'm afraid.

Foreign policy positions are important, and yes often a weakness for too many on the left.

But they aren't *everything*.

[Zinneke]

Have to agree with pb on this one I'm afraid.

Foreign policy positions are important, and yes often a weakness for too many on the left.

But they aren't *everything*.

This is less about the foreign policy theory and more about the way elements of the Francophone far left believe they have the monopoly of indignation, and that this belief is based on a sense of "authentocracy" - we are the real working class because our mediatic figures incarnate what they think is working class but really is just a caricature, or if we're blunt, labour aristocracy.

Meanwhile the chinaman who basically supports western working class buying power by accepting to be paid a bowl of rice a week? That's ah-okay, because according to the above, the global proleteriat are just abstract beings and the CCP is a genuine left-wing counter-power to the Big Bad Uncle Sam.

If it were the shopkeepers and not the Total workers striking, we would hear nothing from these Brahmin...

I'm basically criticising this attitude of antagonising any progressive that might just have an alternative perspective...which in endemic in the Mélenchon Cult.

The best way to help French workers is getting a left-wing candidate in the Elysée, not pitting the masses against each other.

[MRCVzla]

RN has just announced they will vote for a Censorship motion against the government presented by the NUPES related to the imposed-budget, LR votes are decisive in order to the Borne' cabinet (and possibly, the legislature) survival.

[Antonio the Sixth]

RN has just announced they will vote for a Censorship motion against the government presented by the NUPES related to the imposed-budget, LR votes are decisive in order to the Borne' cabinet (and possibly, the legislature) survival.

Watch LR save Macron's ass again while still LARPing as an opposition party.

[MRCVzla]

RN has just announced they will vote for a Censorship motion against the government presented by the NUPES related to the imposed-budget, LR votes are decisive in order to the Borne' cabinet (and possibly, the legislature) survival.

And the No Confidence vote was just a minutes ago... and the "majorité" is saved for now, the NUPES motion backed by RN was 50 MP short to get majority.
https://twitter.com/2022Elections/status/1584589158328434688

[Antonio the Sixth]

RN has just announced they will vote for a Censorship motion against the government presented by the NUPES related to the imposed-budget, LR votes are decisive in order to the Borne' cabinet (and possibly, the legislature) survival.

Watch LR save Macron's ass again while still LARPing as an opposition party.

QED (though based on these numbers, it's clear Macron also got some help from the anti-NUPES "left" - no surprise there either)

[Hash]

RN has just announced they will vote for a Censorship motion against the government presented by the NUPES related to the imposed-budget, LR votes are decisive in order to the Borne' cabinet (and possibly, the legislature) survival.

Watch LR save Macron's ass again while still LARPing as an opposition party.

QED (though based on these numbers, it's clear Macron also got some help from the anti-NUPES "left" - no surprise there either)

Voting details are here: https://www2.assemblee-nationale.fr/scrutins/detail/(legislature)/16/(num)/358

All NUPES deputies voted for the motion, except 3 écolo deputies. But only one of the twenty members of the syncretic mish-mash group LIOT (Libertés, indépendants, outre-mer et territoires) voted for it, namely Guadeloupe leftist Olivier Serva (an ex-macronista supported by LFI in the runoff), so, yes the anti-NUPES PS dissidents didn't vote for it, and neither did any of the other components of LIOT: the Corsicans, the UDI leftovers, Molac and the other overseas members, unsurprisingly. Among the non-inscrits, only NDA voted for it, which means that PS dissident David Habib, ex-villieriste Véronique Besse and far-rightist Emmanuelle Ménard.

Interestingly, Ménard didn't vote for the RN's competing non-confidence motion either (which got 90 votes, including one vote for LFI, Martinique leftist Jean-Philippe Nilor).

[MaxQue]

RN has just announced they will vote for a Censorship motion against the government presented by the NUPES related to the imposed-budget, LR votes are decisive in order to the Borne' cabinet (and possibly, the legislature) survival.

Watch LR save Macron's ass again while still LARPing as an opposition party.

QED (though based on these numbers, it's clear Macron also got some help from the anti-NUPES "left" - no surprise there either)

Voting details are here: https://www2.assemblee-nationale.fr/scrutins/detail/(legislature)/16/(num)/358

All NUPES deputies voted for the motion, except 3 écolo deputies. But only one of the twenty members of the syncretic mish-mash group LIOT (Libertés, indépendants, outre-mer et territoires) voted for it, namely Guadeloupe leftist Olivier Serva (an ex-macronista supported by LFI in the runoff), so, yes the anti-NUPES PS dissidents didn't vote for it, and neither did any of the other components of LIOT: the Corsicans, the UDI leftovers, Molac and the other overseas members, unsurprisingly. Among the non-inscrits, only NDA voted for it, which means that PS dissident David Habib, ex-villieriste Véronique Besse and far-rightist Emmanuelle Ménard.

Interestingly, Ménard didn't vote for the RN's competing non-confidence motion either (which got 90 votes, including one vote for LFI, Martinique leftist Jean-Philippe Nilor).

Of the 3 écologistes who didn't for censure, Jérémie Iordanoff is refusing to vote for anything the far-right votes her, Sébastien Peytavie is hospitalized and Jean-Claude Raux says he couldn't be there due to a local prior engagement and his proxy vote paperwork didn't work to a clerical mistake.

[NewYorkExpress]

Grégoire de Fournas has been suspended from the National Assembly for fifteen days for racist remarks while a fellow black MP talked about immigration from Africa.

A far-right MP has been given a 15-day ban from France's National Assembly for shouting "they should go back to Africa" as a black colleague talked about immigration.

Grégoire de Fournas of National Rally (RN) said his remark had not been aimed at Carlos Martens Bilongo but at migrants trying to reach Europe by sea.

Mr Bilongo said he had been born in France and the remark was "shameful".

MPs voted on Friday to suspend him and dock half his allowance.

The decision is described as the harshest sanction available to the Assembly.

Mr Bilongo had been questioning the government about a request by the SOS Méditerranée non-governmental organisation for help in finding a port for 234 migrants rescued at sea in recent days.

The exact meaning of the National Rally MP's remark is disputed, because theoretically he could have referred to more than one person. The official account of the session recorded his off-microphone remark as Qu'il retourne en Afrique - "he should go back to Africa" - but the plural Qu'ils retournent en Afrique sounds exactly the same.

[Hash]

In more RN news, Jordan Bardella was just elected as president at the RN congress (having already been interim president since last September), becoming, technically, the first person not named 'Le Pen' to be elected president of the party.

Bardella, of course, is a diehard Panzergirl loyalist/puppet who owes his entire political existence to her and is nothing without her. His profile and biography suits her political project: he is young (27), from the 93 (Drancy), from a modest working-class background, grew up in a cité HLM, of immigrant descent (Italian) and does a fairly good job at following her playbook and speaking her pre-approved language. She made him the RN's top candidate in the 2019 EP elections. And while he's technically the first person not named 'Le Pen' to be elected president of the RN, he's still part of the family: he is dating Panzergirl's niece, the daughter of her sister Marie-Caroline Le Pen and Philippe Olivier (the sister who 'betrayed' Panzerdaddy during the Mégret split). At the congress he defeated, with about 85% of the vote, Panzergirl's ex, Louis Aliot, the mayor of Perpignan.

Bardella was implicitly supported by Panzergirl and most of the party cadres. Aliot campaigned more as a 'traditional' national-conservative, playing a lot on his 'local roots' and experience as mayor a medium-sized city, whereas Bardella has used dogwhistles to the far-right xenophobic/racist Identitarian movement including quasi-explicit endorsement of the 'grand remplacement' conspiracy theory (something denounced by Aliot). But Aliot was perceived as somebody from the 'old FN', while Bardella was the young face of a party which has seen the promotion of a younger generation of new cadres.

Plus ça change, plus c'est pareil.

[PSOL]

Isn’t Aliot Jewish?

[Hash]

With the lingering threat/realistic probability of a dissolution sometime, we've been treated to a very rare poll of legislative voting intentions from Ifop:



Only the far-right - RN and Renconquête too - would make gains, going up to 21% and 5.5% respectively compared to 18.7% and 4.2% in the actual elections. The NUPES would be down a bit, while the presidential majority (and LR) would be stable.

However, this sort of polling is still kind of pointless and says relatively little, except that there hasn't been much change since June, and that a snap election would be rinse and repeat, just with a few more far-right racist creeps elected. I'm not quite sure why Macron seems to be quite excited at the prospect of a dissolution, but he's not very good at political calculations these days.

[omar04]

French far-right party elects new leader to replace Le Pen

PARIS (AP) — European lawmaker Jordan Bardella replaced his mentor Marine Le Pen on Saturday at the helm of France’s leading far-right party, pledging to protect French civilization from perceived threats posed by immigration and defending a party member who made a racist remark in parliament.


https://apnews.com/article/europe-business-france-immigration-951a52316ed3818bcdc56933e04a8b1b

[NewYorkExpress]

The National Assembly voted to include abortion rights in the constitution.

Lawmakers in France's lower house of parliament voted to include abortion rights in the country's constitution, the first step in a lengthy legislative process.

The National Assembly voted with 337 lawmakers in favour and 32 against.

The measure was proposed in reaction to the United States' recent Supreme Court ruling to overturn Roe v Wade, a case dating back to 1973 that legalised abortion nationwide.


"This terrible regression demonstrates that when it comes to the right of women to dispose of their bodies, nothing is ever certain," the French proposal says, referring to the US case.

While abortion was decriminalised in France in 1975, there is nothing in the constitution that guarantees abortion rights.

[Hash]

Definitely not going to start a thread for this, but there was a departmental (cantonal, for us retros) by-election in Perpignan-5 today. In 2021, the left gained it from the right and beat the RN by 96 votes in the runoff. Perpignan-5 includes the western/southwestern parts of the city and the suburban commune of Canohès.

Louis Aliot, the RN mayor of Perpignan, led the RN binôme and got 44.1% today. The right, led by former departmental councillor and mayor of Canohès Jean-Louis Chambon, won 27.6%, narrowly beating out the left-wing incumbents (by 43 votes) for a spot in the runoff. In 2021 the right-wing had missed out on the runoff by just 1 vote (to the left). Aliot is probably the favourite to win in the runoff, which would give the RN its first two seats in the Pyrénées-Orientales dept. council.

Turnout was 21.6% overall. This was basically a name recognition and notoriety election, with Aliot winning 53.7% in Perpignan (against 34.1% for the left and 10.2% for the right) where turnout was just 14.5%, and the right-wing duo winning 42.3% in Canohès (against 36% for Aliot and 19.9% for the left). Turnout was 37.2% there.

[Sir John Johns]

Caroline Cayeux, the old lady Macron has appointed as minister for Territories’ Cohesion and Relationships with Territorial Collectivities (who has very reluctantly gave up her mayorship of Beauvais she was originally intending to keep while also a minister; meanwhile the Defense Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, is still remaining the president of Eure departmental council), when asked on television about comments she made in 2012 over same-sex marriage (she called it a ‘caprice’ and ‘a design against nature’), unapologetically refused to disown them but, feeling obligated to show how open-minded she is, mentioned having friends chez ces gens-là (‘with those people’, an expression with a particularly disdaining/pejorative connotation, forever associated with Jacques Brel’s famous song containing some of the harshest lines in the history of chanson française delivered by the narrator against the members of a petty bourgeois family).

The controversy is now growing with Cayeux’s declarations having been denounced even by Éric Ciotti (not really a champion of LGBT rights but he will not waste such an occasion to trash the Macron government) with LGBT associations contemplating filing a complaint against the minister and part of Renaissance plotting to get her booted from the government.

Cayeux has been forced to resign after the discovery by the High Authority for Transparency of Public Life (HATVP) she has significantly underestimated in her declaration of interests the financial value of a Parisian apartment she is owning. This is so bad, she is now investigated for a potential case of tax fraud. Really a tremendous success from the beginning to the end. Her portfolio has been attributed to Dominique Faure, the secretary of state for rurality, who will hold concurrently the two jobs because apparently rurality and/or territorial collectivities are just worth a part-time job.

Also an investigation has been formally opened over potential illegal political financing and favoritism in relation with the role played by the McKinsey consulting firm in Macron’s 2017 and 2022 presidential campaigns (in short, McKinsey would have financed the campaigns of Macron in exchange of public contracts). McKinsey is currently also investigated for tax fraud.

And, as Ciotti is mentioned in my original post, he is now also investigated for misuse of public funds after revelations made by Le Canard enchaîné over the suspicious collection of public jobs (at least three) concurrently held his then-wife between 2007 and 2016: parliamentary assistant to Ciotti, press officer for the Nice municipality and a job in the general council of Alpes-Maritimes (which Ciotti has presided since 2008). Additionally, she may have held additional jobs in the urban community of Nice, in the commune of La Colle-sur-Loup (Alpes-Maritimes) and in the diocese of Nice. A case pretty similar to the one that torpedoed Fillon’s candidacy back in 2017. Ciotti is currently running for the presidency of LR (ironically while having made the restoration of the 'work value' and the fight against social welfare dependence a political priority) while also holding an office of quaestor in the National Assembly (in charge of the budget and the administration of the lower house).

[NewYorkExpress]

The Baguette has been given protection by UNESCO

Freshly baked news: the baguette, the long, crusty loaf bread that is a delicious staple of French life, has been awarded special protected status, placing it in a culinary pantheon alongside other regional food delicacies from around the world.

The "artisanal know-how and culture of the baguette" is now officially recognized on UNESCO's list of Intangible Cultural Heritage, the organization announced Wednesday, inscribing the expertise behind the French bread as an integral part of human culture.

UNESCO -- the UN's cultural body -- defines intangible cultural heritage as "traditions or living expressions inherited from our ancestors and passed on to our descendants."

The baguette joins other foods and culinary cultures on UNESCO's list of Intangible Cultural Heritage, including the making of Neapolitan pizza, kimchi, Belgian beer culture, the "Mediterranean diet", and Arabic coffee.

While sites from the US, including the Statue of Liberty, Yellowstone National Park and Philadelphia's Independence Hall are recognized by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites, nothing from the US is currently listed on the organization's Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list.

[CumbrianLefty]

As the kidz say, based.

[NewYorkExpress]

The Government is pushing to collect millions of old and unregistered firearms.

The pistol the elderly French woman inherited from her grandfather had once belonged to a German soldier, killed in a war fought on France's soil in the last century.

Now the woman has turned the heirloom over to police for fear that her grandchildren would stumble upon it.

French authorities want others to follow the unnamed woman's example by turning in millions of old firearms, remnants of the two World Wars and long-abandoned hunting excursions.

The country has launched a weeklong nationwide campaign ending Dec. 2 to collect old, unregistered weapons that are tucked away in attics and storerooms across the country that saw much of the twentieth century's fiercest fighting.

“We believe there are about 5 or 6 million weapons that are being kept in an irregular manner by our fellow citizens,” said Jean-Simon Merandat, Head of the Interior Ministry’s Central Service for Arms and Explosives. “Eighty to ninety percent of these weapons are in their possession due to an inheritance.”

Despite many such historical items seeming harmless, authorities promoting the campaign warn that appearances are deceptive. The old weapons can still be deadly and can be used to perpetuate domestic violence, or even fall into the hands of criminal networks.

The good news is French authorities deem their campaign so far to have been “a real success,” claiming to have rounded up 1.6 million munitions pieces, and 65,000 firearms. There will be no legal consequences if weapons are handed over willingly, authorities said.

The overwhelming majority of unregistered weapons that will be collected will be destroyed. But a prized few whose metal barrels tell remarkable stories will be saved and preserved by the state.

[Zinneke]

https://twitter.com/ugauthier/status/1598076173468446720?t=vMICU50GxgzMJApmMFouS...