French political discussion megathread: Yellow Vest Redux

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Because everybody is asking for it, the latest days in French politics:
[stuff]

Thank you for the update. It was an interesting read.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

In 2015, Schiappa declared she is sapiosexual.[21]

Sapiosexuality describes attraction to the intelligence of another person.[28][29] The prefix sapio- comes from the Latin for "I [have] taste" or "I [have] wisdom" and refers to a person's preferences, proclivities, and common sense.[30] Sapiosexual-identifying individuals can also be gay, straight, or bisexual.[31][32] It is not a sexual orientation.[31][33] It first gained mainstream attention in 2014 when dating website OkCupid added it as one of several new sexual orientation and gender identity options.[31] About 0.5% of OkCupid users identify as sapiosexual, and it is most common among those ages 31–40.[31] Women are more likely to identify as sapiosexual than men.[34] Critics responded that sapiosexuality is "elitist," "discriminatory," and "pretentious."[31][33][35] OkCupid removed the Sapiosexual identity on February 11, 2019[36] following what it described as "considerable negative feedback", specifically quoting an article from Vice magazine.[37]

Schiappa is doing her feminist credentials a favor by showing that French politicians of any sex can be pretentious. Yes, even women.
#GirlBoss

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

It’s just obvious tbh. The more the West tries to isolate, suffocate, coup or destroy these South countries in order to protect their standing; the more overflooded the West will be with people from non-western places.

Which can be good to compensate for demographic declines but also creates a much more intense need for integration. They think they can welcome all these people while keeping them as third-rate citizens with no consequences and that’s simply impossible without some kind of harsh backlash. And we all know that the West isn’t really prepared to renounce to internal white supremacist dynamics that are key to shaping their national and cultural identities. You easily notice how they inherently feel “superior” to these immigrants culture even when they’re trying to welcome them.

It’s like, you can arrive to France as long as you renounce to your individual identity and basically become a white person with “French” values. It’s absolutely disgusting but westerners in general always push it very naturally because of this inherent misguided superior complex mixed with the savior complex too. It’s not because people look for better opportunities that they want to be like you are lmao. This led to people in the West to believe that immigrants would just come and be like them because the “inherent western cultural superiority” would lead the “better” culture to prevail.

If more and more people inside your borders are increasingly different than the “national standard” then it’s that standard that will inevitably have to change in order to fit the country reality for the sake of social cohesion and peace. Otherwise you have an apartheid state. This is the reality that the West has to face nowadays, renouncing their old national identities is inevitable for the sake of their own survival after all the interference that was pushed by themselves.

You say migrants can't properly integrate, yet I see these actions as proof of integration into the beloved French culture of rioting.

lol

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Russian propagandists on twitter are trying to make out that there'll be a military coup within 48 hours...I wonder why?

They should be more "concerned" about their homeland in that regard, if anything.

Yes it was a rhetorical question

Anyway, I listened to a French podcast with a wide range of views, and there was some tidbits I thought I'd share to add to this "combat d'infirmes" with my own conjectures

• This is much more like the London riots of 2011 that the George Floyd protests. The George Floyd protests were still fundamentally political, these protests are somewhat nihilistic and there is no actual genuine political requests coming out of these, which is also what makes this protest different to say 2005. Looters and just generic nihilistic behaviour is the main driving force of these. And sure you had looters in the BLM protests, opportunists, etc but the central gatherings during that time were genuine protests with banners, people power, etc. Apart from the white march for Nahel there isn't much political mobilisation, just talking heads on TV calling for police reform. And incidentally that doesn't mean the median French voter is uninterested in reforming the police, but its pretty obvious that the median French voter, in so far as they exist, deem public order in these banlieues to be a much bigger issue than police reform, and that's a shame as both are obviously linked
  
• France's precarious internal security situation over the past 10 years (several terrorist attacks) meant there were massive recruitment drives of police officers, which were rushed and thus poorly trained and poorly vetted. In that context its no wonder that there are extreme right police officers on the ground right now, and its no excuse either, as these guys just continue the problem + the police unions continue the grift (I genuinely think a lot of police unions are only far right for the grifting purposes, or at least they are casually far right but above all else want shiny new toys that they can claim budgets with and blackmail the President so his approvals don't tank).
   
• Related to this, Macron is a President who is actually pretty strict when it comes to tackling drug trafficking, more so than previous Presidents. The reasons for this are multiple, I would theorise its because of what I said before about him : he is a goody two shoes who feels genuine contempt for people he deems imperfect, whereas the likes of Chirac and Hollande, despite being arrogant/aloof, understood the imperfections of humanity and societies like these as a whole. Anyway, one of the speakers on the podcast said it is perfectly possible this is an intimidation tactic of influential drug dealer gangs in specific quarters to turn the heat up and rally certain types to their anti-policing cause. Police presence in these areas has gone up massively under Macron compared to Chirac and Hollande. Sarkozy was quite authoritarian too but he butchered "police de proximité", the equivalent of the British community police, with his austerity. Macron in tandem with Hollande's recruitment drive after the terror attacks has really upped the tempo in these areas in terms of boots on the ground.
  
• Amidst the over-analysis of the causes of these protests, you can for sure include racial profiling and austerity and a bunch of other ready made issues that we all know about, I still maintain listening to the sociological perspectives is that the number one issue in these places is broken families or broken parenting. Partially that can be put down to for example working class people working long hours, nightshifts, supervision etc, but I think we're being really blind with "baizuo" if we're not honest about some cultural aspects too. In a village in the Atlas mountains its perfectly normal to let your child roam and explore the world until midnight/1 am, hell even Spain for example has that culture - it should be expected though that in a city like Paris you should know where your 13 year old kid is at ing midnight. And the adaptation of this culture leads to very specific phenomena like 13 year olds hanging out with guys who can afford Mercedes A-class with Polish number plates. It still staggers me that there are people here who in the name of cultural relativism would say its up to a parent to do what they want with their kid.
   
• Even so, the only way you link the issue of Mediterranean migration to this issue is through austerity and public services unable to house and deal with more people. if you think its because of more Muslims or Arabs that this is somehow a related problem : we're talking 3rd generation here vs newcomers and more importantly treating each one of them as individuals rather than a blob - there's absolutely no link and the real culprits for both are the decades of cost-cutting McKinsey fuelled neo-liberalism that destroyed the State as a capable actor of housing, educating and providing public and cultural services to people of all backgrounds, as well as a police force which for the reasons I cited now inhabits far right activists. Quit the ing "France is going to sh*t" rhetoric, its still a more tolerant society than most, and its incredible seeing Americans think its some sort of warzone when they probably have a fair amount more "no go" areas that could genuinely be called ghettos as well as unhealthy obsession with self-segregation, so the eurobashing is honestly a bit laughable.
  

Thanks for this post, it was enlightening.