French political discussion megathread: Yellow Vest Redux

[windjammer]

The french are now massively pro nuclear (75% in favour).

Hopefully everything will be working for this winter.

[Zinneke]

Adrien Quattenens has resigned from his LFI portfolio because it was leaked that he slapped his wife.

Melenchon's reaction : a three pronged mainstream media, police and social media conspiracy and the wife beater deserves credit for bravery.

Quattenens proves yet again LFI as an organism cannot be relied on because the individuals who follow the cult leader are as bad as the cult leader. .

Be interesting to hear how the pro-Nupes people here justify wife beaters. Bouhafs was given some leeway for being from a North African background. So ginger people deserve some slack too I imagine...

[Sir John Johns]

Edit: I wrote this when Zinneke was posting about Quatennens' resignation.

Adrien Quatennens, a LFI deputy from Nord and a possible successor to Mélenchon, has announced today his resignation from his office of LFI coordinator (but not from his office of deputy) after revelations in the press about domestic violence against his wife who is currently in the process of a divorce. Quatennens’s wife has reported in early September the violent attitude of her husband to a police station but opposed judicial action against her husband as well as the publicity of the report. Nevertheless, a judicial action has still been opened, the consequence of a policy of the Interior Ministry adopted recently to better address and prevent femicides. In a letter he made public, Quatennens has acknowledged having slapped his wife and grabbed her wrist as well as having accidentally hurt her elbow when both were grappling for the mobile phone of the wife. This is the just third case of violence/sexual harassment against women involving a LFI member in six months or so (after Taha Bouhafs and Éric Coquerel).

https://twitter.com/JLMelenchon/status/1571438234064003073

In a post made on Twitter, Mélenchon is denouncing ‘the police malevolence, the media voyeurism and social networks’ and commending the ‘dignity and courage’ of Quatennens while not having a single word for the victim of domestic violence.

This is coming after, just in the two or three last weeks:

- a massive uproar after Ségolène Royal had publicly questioned the reality of the crimes committed by the Russian Army in Ukraine. The LFI hasn’t expressly condemned the declarations of Royal.

- a controversy over a stand of the Chinese Communist Party at the annual L’Humanité festival just as the UN made public the report on crimes against humanity in Xinjiang. Green protesters against the CCP stand were welcomed by Commies shouting ‘down with the CIA!’

- a largely publicized dispute opposing Fabien Roussel and the rest of the NUPES over ‘work value’. Roussel, once again playing the role of the useful idiot of the right and proving once more that he is stuck in the Trente Glorieuses, has criticized what he called the ‘left of the [social] benefits’ and its supposed demand for a ‘right to be lazy’ (not a trivial reference) to what he is describing as ‘the left of the work’ he is standing for (ironic for a man investigated for suspicion of fictive job, I know). On the other side, the ‘right to be lazy’ has been mostly defended by Sandrine Rousseau, the new face of EELV, whose usual holier-than-thou and out-of-touch declarations are routinely exploited by right-wing parties to portray the left as a whole as a bunch of hypocrite pseudo-intellectuals disconnected from working-class and caring only about frivolous political issues.

In any case, the left has won absolutely nothing from that controversy at the time of the Macron government is preparing a reform of the unemployment benefits in order to ‘index’ their amount, the length of the benefit period as well as the conditions to enjoy unemployment benefits on the unemployment rate (this would be however aligned on the unemployment rate on national level, not on local level because, according to the government, this would be ‘too much complicated’; what possibly could go wrong?) All of this has also overshadowed discussions about remote working, the blurring lines between work and personal life or the growing difficulties for poor workers or seasonal workers to find a housing (there have been recently protests in Brittany over the price of rents exploding due to Airbnb, tourists and pensioners coming from other regions making the life impossible for local workers).

- Sandrine Rousseau, again, feeling it was the right time to start a debate about whether meat consumption should be connected to masculinity. Again, a totally useless and counter-productive debate (especially because it is taking place on 24-hour news channels and social networks) that will not advance neither the cause of the fight against climate change nor the one of the animal welfare and will not help French filling up the fridge.

The LFI, the PS and EELV have also called for a ‘march against expensive life and climatic inaction’ for 16 October but the PCF has already indicated it would not participate into it and the main unions aren’t very thrilled to take part of it, considering it as a political gesticulation parasitizing the protests they have already planned (including one on 22 September in the exhausted health sector).

[windjammer]

Adrien Quattenens has resigned from his LFI portfolio because it was leaked that he slapped his wife.

Melenchon's reaction : a three pronged mainstream media, police and social media conspiracy and the wife beater deserves credit for bravery.

Quattenens proves yet again LFI as an organism cannot be relied on because the individuals who follow the cult leader are as bad as the cult leader. .

Be interesting to hear how the pro-Nupes people here justify wife beaters. Bouhafs was given some leeway for being from a North African background. So ginger people deserve some slack too I imagine...

This is an example among many other examples why I don't support NUPES. It's very low to defend wife beaters.

[Zinneke]

Adrien Quattenens has resigned from his LFI portfolio because it was leaked that he slapped his wife.

Melenchon's reaction : a three pronged mainstream media, police and social media conspiracy and the wife beater deserves credit for bravery.

Quattenens proves yet again LFI as an organism cannot be relied on because the individuals who follow the cult leader are as bad as the cult leader. .

Be interesting to hear how the pro-Nupes people here justify wife beaters. Bouhafs was given some leeway for being from a North African background. So ginger people deserve some slack too I imagine...

This is an example among many other examples why I don't support NUPES. It's very low to defend wife beaters.

There's a good chunk of abstentionnists and Macron's electorate that could be convinced to get behind a genuine, minimalist left-wing platform rather than a social fascist or caricatures created by the media like Sandrine Rousseau. But alas the Meluche cultists got their way. That's why it angers me even more than any fash flash in the pan : a total missed opportunity thanks to the mythology of LFI somehow being populated by remotely credible people.

[windjammer]

Adrien Quattenens has resigned from his LFI portfolio because it was leaked that he slapped his wife.

Melenchon's reaction : a three pronged mainstream media, police and social media conspiracy and the wife beater deserves credit for bravery.

Quattenens proves yet again LFI as an organism cannot be relied on because the individuals who follow the cult leader are as bad as the cult leader. .

Be interesting to hear how the pro-Nupes people here justify wife beaters. Bouhafs was given some leeway for being from a North African background. So ginger people deserve some slack too I imagine...

This is an example among many other examples why I don't support NUPES. It's very low to defend wife beaters.

There's a good chunk of abstentionnists and Macron's electorate that could be convinced to get behind a genuine, minimalist left-wing platform rather than a social fascist or caricatures created by the media like Sandrine Rousseau. But alas the Meluche cultists got their way. That's why it angers me even more than any fash flash in the pan : a total missed opportunity thanks to the mythology of LFI somehow being populated by remotely credible people.

The two main reasons that the left is such in a bad shape now: Valls (his rightwing policies ) and Melenchon who has turned La France Insoumise into a sect.

[windjammer]

Adrien Quattenens has resigned from his LFI portfolio because it was leaked that he slapped his wife.

Melenchon's reaction : a three pronged mainstream media, police and social media conspiracy and the wife beater deserves credit for bravery.

Quattenens proves yet again LFI as an organism cannot be relied on because the individuals who follow the cult leader are as bad as the cult leader. .

Be interesting to hear how the pro-Nupes people here justify wife beaters. Bouhafs was given some leeway for being from a North African background. So ginger people deserve some slack too I imagine...

This is an example among many other examples why I don't support NUPES. It's very low to defend wife beaters.

An another key member of the NUPES, Julien Bayou, has been accused of having beaten his wife as well.

[MaxQue]

Adrien Quattenens has resigned from his LFI portfolio because it was leaked that he slapped his wife.

Melenchon's reaction : a three pronged mainstream media, police and social media conspiracy and the wife beater deserves credit for bravery.

Quattenens proves yet again LFI as an organism cannot be relied on because the individuals who follow the cult leader are as bad as the cult leader. .

Be interesting to hear how the pro-Nupes people here justify wife beaters. Bouhafs was given some leeway for being from a North African background. So ginger people deserve some slack too I imagine...

This is an example among many other examples why I don't support NUPES. It's very low to defend wife beaters.

An another key member of the NUPES, Julien Bayou, has been accused of having beaten his wife as well.

I think your allegation is quite libellious, as Sandrine Rousseau only talked about ''actions who endanger the moral health'' and is not yet calling to him to be suspended from his party positions. Don't jump the shark in your anti-NUPES position.

[windjammer]

Adrien Quattenens has resigned from his LFI portfolio because it was leaked that he slapped his wife.

Melenchon's reaction : a three pronged mainstream media, police and social media conspiracy and the wife beater deserves credit for bravery.

Quattenens proves yet again LFI as an organism cannot be relied on because the individuals who follow the cult leader are as bad as the cult leader. .

Be interesting to hear how the pro-Nupes people here justify wife beaters. Bouhafs was given some leeway for being from a North African background. So ginger people deserve some slack too I imagine...

This is an example among many other examples why I don't support NUPES. It's very low to defend wife beaters.

An another key member of the NUPES, Julien Bayou, has been accused of having beaten his wife as well.

I think your allegation is quite libellious, as Sandrine Rousseau only talked about ''actions who endanger the moral health'' and is not yet calling to him to be suspended from his party positions. Don't jump the shark in your anti-NUPES position.

Well he has been accused by an another important member of the NUPES and this is what I reported. I didn't Say he did it.

So please explain me how this was "libellous"?

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

The European Left's obnoxious self obsession with doing whatever the opposite of what the Americans do has now culminated in them standing up for wife-beating homophobic anti-Semites to own the Jews.

[windjammer]

The European Left's obnoxious self obsession with doing whatever the opposite of what the Americans do has now culminated in them standing up for wife-beating homophobic anti-Semites to own the Jews.

*Totalitarian far left as NUPES is

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

The European Left's obnoxious self obsession with doing whatever the opposite of what the Americans do has now culminated in them standing up for wife-beating homophobic anti-Semites to own the Jews.

*Totalitarian far left as NUPES is

Does France have an actual left? I don't remember any major candidates on that side other than Melenchon

[windjammer]

The European Left's obnoxious self obsession with doing whatever the opposite of what the Americans do has now culminated in them standing up for wife-beating homophobic anti-Semites to own the Jews.

*Totalitarian far left as NUPES is

Does France have an actual left? I don't remember any major candidates on that side other than Melenchon

It used to frankly. Now the mainstream left is mostly divided between En Marche and PS (part of NUPES).

[CumbrianLefty]

I don't think anyone who still supports En Marche can be considered meaningfully "left" tbh.

[NewYorkExpress]

Former Danish Prime Minister and NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen attacked Macron for his response to Russia's invasion to Ukraine.

Diplomatic efforts by French President Emmanuel Macron in response to the war in Ukraine were a failure and "deeply harmful" for Kyiv, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former NATO secretary-general, said in an interview published on Friday.

"It was not a success", Rasmussen, a former Danish prime minister who was one of the world's most-senior diplomats until he left the transatlantic defence alliance in 2014, told French magazine Le Point.

His comments come after criticism, especially in eastern Europe, about how Macron kept an open line with Russian President Vladimir Putin with direct phone calls even after the invasion of Ukraine and has warned against 'humiliating' Russia.

"Macron astonished us at the beginning of the crisis with his, to say the least, unique and critical statement that Putin should not be humiliated and offered an exit ramp. Such statements were disastrous and deeply harmful", he added.

[Zinneke]

I don't think anyone who still supports En Marche can be considered meaningfully "left" tbh.

Supports enthusiastically? no. But voted for them? there are still some. As usual though, with post-2008 Left it's about pushing as many voters away rather than broadening the circle.

Anyway, in EELV news, Julien Bayou has also had to resign for much less serious allegations than Quatennens. Why? because Sandrine Rousseau is bulldozing the party into the hyperwoke caricature she wants it to be, with the help of the French media establishment who see her as box office token "left" figure to provoke as many 20 second clips and outrage as possible.

[windjammer]

Jupiter apparently thinks this is a good idea to dissolve the National Assembly if the representatives don"t vote his 65 years retirement bill.

He really has 0 political instinct, he's a very mediocre politician

[Lechasseur]

Jupiter apparently thinks this is a good idea to dissolve the National Assembly if the representatives don"t vote his 65 years retirement bill.

He really has 0 political instinct, he's a very mediocre politician

It will result in a worse result for LREM, and may even lead to RN forming government...

[windjammer]

Jupiter apparently thinks this is a good idea to dissolve the National Assembly if the representatives don"t vote his 65 years retirement bill.

He really has 0 political instinct, he's a very mediocre politician

It will result in a worse result for LREM, and may even lead to RN forming government...

A LFI-RN government!

[Lechasseur]

Nicolas Sarkozy is threatening to leave LR if Bruno Retailleau is elected party president. The latter said he wanted to make the right "actually rightwing".

If Sarkozy, who was seen as really rightwing back in the day, thinks the party has moved too far right, that really says a lot.

[windjammer]

Nicolas Sarkozy is threatening to leave LR if Bruno Retailleau is elected party president. The latter said he wanted to make the right "actually rightwing".

If Sarkozy, who was seen as really rightwing back in the day, thinks the party has moved too far right, that really says a lot.

Was he really rightwing thought? I must admit his reelection campaign was particularly rightwing but how did he govern:
-Biggest stimulus plan ever against the subprime crisis
- Reaching out the center left by appointing a ton of them to key posts: Kouchner,...


It seems to be he was trying more than anything to expand his coalition both to the center left and to the far right

[NewYorkExpress]

The Government has now been hit with multiple conflict of interest scandals.

The top official in Emmanuel Macron’s office has been charged with a conflict of interest.

The move against Alexis Kohler, who holds one of France’s most powerful jobs as Élysée secretary general, came hours after another ally of the French president, the justice minister, Éric Dupond-Moretti, was ordered to stand trial in a separate case, also over a conflict of interest.

Kohler is accused over his professional and family links with the Italian-Swiss shipping firm Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), which is run by his mother’s cousins, prosecutor Jean-François Bohnert said in a statement.

[parochial boy]

And guess which moderate, progressive, centrists just abolished the TV licence fee?

Making the funding of public broadcasting contingent on the goodwill of the government, that won't means any loss of independence or capacity right?

Right?

[parochial boy]

Apparently we're not mentioning the strikes either.

Anyway, massive social movements going on in France. It was triggered by a strike by employees at Total's oil refineries, striking for higher their wages at a time the company's profits were going through the roof. This led to shortages at petrol stations, Elisabeth Borne announcing that she would requisition the striking workers.

This is now spiralling into a wholly bigger movement, hundreds of thousands of people out on the streets (alongside the trade unions and NUPES figures) to protest against the cost of living and low wages and strikes across the public and private sectors. Up to and including teachers, bin men, port workers, hospital employees and more.

Overall this seems to be moving towards being one of the most important social movements since the gilets jaunes. Far more important than, you know, this threads usual fare of Muslim bashing and associated culture war hysterics.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

And guess which moderate, progressive, centrists just abolished the TV licence fee?

Making the funding of public broadcasting contingent on the goodwill of the government, that won't means any loss of independence or capacity right?

Right?

It's a great and progressive move, TV licenses are a regressive tax on the poor that often subsidize content for which there is little demand or public interest.