Vive la France!

[Copernicus]

If by "him", you mean Hitler, he left Austria in 1913, renounced his Austrian citizenship in 1925, and became a German citizen in 1932. He hated Austria's multiethnic composition under the Habsburgs. He considered Austria proper to be a part of Germany. That's what the Anschluss was all about.

And? The court actions in question were in 1924.

And bilby was correct that German-speaking nativists, especially in Bavaria, tended to think of Austria and Germany as part of the same country. Hitler himself considered himself German and moved to annex Austria after he came to power.

 

[Canard DuJour]

Okay. I've been voting since 1986. Regan was the first republican in my lifetime who claimed that the deficit would go down under his watch. It didn't. It goes up with every republican administration. Every single one. And yet, most people assume that republicans are better at managing the deficit than dems. It's BS.

Similarly, The Tories have always borrowed more than Labour, and always repaid less :

The Tories have always borrowed more than Labour, and always repaid less: they are the party of big deficit spending

It is often suggested that Labour is profligate and the Tories are the naturally ‘safe pair of hands’ when it comes to running the economy. The Tories, it is presumed, do not borrow as much as Labour. This is a hypothesis I have tested before. I thought it time to...

www.taxresearch.org.uk

The Tories are probably copying the Republican Two Santas Strategy:

"First, the Two Santas strategy dictates, when Republicans control the White House they must spend money like a drunken Santa and cut taxes to run up the U.S. debt as far and as fast as possible.​

​

This produces three results: it stimulates the economy thus making people think that the GOP can produce a good economy; it raises the debt dramatically; and it makes people think that Republicans are the “tax-cut Santa Clauses.”​

​

Second, when a Democrat is in the White House, Republicans must scream about the national debt as loudly and frantically as possible, freaking out about how “our children will have to pay for it!” and “we have to cut spending to solve the crisis!” Shut down the government, crash the stock market, and damage US credibility around the world if necessary to stop Democrats from spending money.​

​

This will force the Democrats in power to cut their own social safety net programs and even Social Security, thus shooting their welfare-of-the-American-people Santa Claus right in the face."​

The Two Santas Strategy: How the GOP has used an economic scam to manipulate Americans for 40 years | Milwaukee Independent

www.milwaukeeindependent.com

 

[Playball40]

It is a result of the 1980s. The conservatives sold this insane idea that austerity and lower taxes could make the world a better place. It stuck. The Democrats were able to get back into the White House by grasping the lower taxes and some less financial regulation mantra (oddly enough helping to create the '08 Great Recession). Thatcherism and Trickle Down economics has been proven to be an outright failure, but it is still very popular. If it wasn't for the moderate courts, we'd still have criminalized gay sex and gay marriage would likely only be legal in a few states. Moderate courts pushed America to the left, not the Democrats (who admittedly did put those justices on the courts).

Rupert Murdoch did a masterful job of making the western world more conservative, even if to their own determent.

I will say, I was surprised that even after the pains of Brexit, Britons apparently don't get they were lied to by the far-right. Then you see Derec's posts and you understand why. They've been deluded into thinking it isn't their fault for voting for that crap, it is the migrant horde. Fuck we're screwed. We've lost. The End Game just needs to finish up.

I hope that you're not saying that conservatives in the US practiced "austerity"! They've increased spending every time they took power. Did the Torries really practice austerity? I'm not an expert here (someone please correct me); but I did a quick google search on this and see that spending went up during their rule. Spending went up, taxes down, deficit higher. There is this perception out there that conservatives are more financially responsible because they advocate less borrowing. However, whenever I look at the facts, I see the oppositive.

The guise of austerity. Taking from the food and healthcare programs, from the poor and disabled.

 

[lpetrich]

No, you don't understand how the French system works.

Do the French even understand it? It seems to be convoluted for the sake of being convoluted, like their spelling. "Eaux" or "ault" for an "o" sound. Why? Likewise, they have this 2 round system but it's not a real runoff since they had to persuade candidates to drop out. Just implement a proportional system like the Germanic tribes to the west of Gaul and be done with it!

French is relatively easy, especially compared to English which has both Latin roots ( as does French) and Germanic languages, and heavily borrows from other languages as well.

Actually if you know the spelling and grammatical conventions in French, it’s pretty easy, at least coming from the perspective of a native English speaker.

Your own English is extremely good. You write well.

An English speaker's grumbling about French spelling? That is something.

Both English and French have the spelling that they do because their spelling has not kept up with sound changes over the centuries. Thus all their silent letters.

French is a Romance language, a descendant of Latin, and much of its vocabulary and grammar is derived from Latin. Its nouns have none of Latin's noun cases, but it has lots of additional prepositions.

English, despite its oodles of Old French words, is a Germanic language, as is evident from its grammar and basic vocabulary.

Here is a bit of a verb conjugation in several present and past Germanic languages, and also Romance languages and Latin:

English: I give, I gave
Old English: ic gefe, ic geaf
Dutch: ik geef, ik gaf
German: ich gebe, ich gab
Swedish: jag ger, jag gav
Icelandic: ég gef, ég gaf
Old Norse: ek gef, ek gaf
Gothic: ik giba, ik gaf

French: je donne, je donnai, j'ai donné
Spanish: (yo) doy, di, he dado -- dono, doné, he donado
Portuguese: (eu) dou, dei, tenho dato
Italian: (io) do, ho dato
Romanian: (eu) dau, dădui, am dat
Latin: (egô) dô, dedî -- dônô, dônâvî

Foreign Language Training - United States Department of State - how many classroom weeks for some comparable degree of fluency:

• 24: Danish, Dutch, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Swedish
• 30: French, Spanish
• 36: German, Haitian Creole, Indonesian, Malay, Swahili
• 44: (all the rest)
• 88: Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese), Japanese, Korean

 

[lpetrich]

On se moque de nous!
Plus de demagogie!
Liberté d'abord!
Halte aux abus!
On a trouvé ce gant!
Google Translate:
We are being made fun of!
No more demagoguery!
Freedom first!
Stop the abuse!
We found this glove!

 

[Derec]

To get back to the topic of French elections for a second, there are some good news.

French Parliament Votes to Keep Its Centrist Leader, Enraging the Left

This is not the vote for the prime minister, but for the president of the parliament - like the Speaker of the House.

After three tense rounds of voting, French lawmakers on Thursday re-elected a centrist ally of President Emmanuel Macron as president of the National Assembly, infuriating the left after its victory in parliamentary elections this month.

Yaël Braun-Pivet, a member of Mr. Macron’s Renaissance party, won with 220 votes in the 577-seat assembly to 207 votes for André Chassaigne, the candidate of the New Popular Front left-wing alliance that came in second.

In effect, after weeks of political tumult, the result gave the impression that nothing had changed in France. The so-called Republican front of left and center parties that kept Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally from power in the runoff election on July 7 turned into a center-right front to keep out the left.

220 is not the majority, but the centrists managed to pull enough support to deny the left block the position.

Zahia Hamdane of France Unbowed, the party of the firebrand far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, said, “We are experiencing a total denial of democracy that ignores the needs of French people and their wish to break with the current politics.” She predicted that there could well be “people in the street to demonstrate because this is just not possible.”

How is the person who gets more votes being elected a "denial of democracy"? 220 > 207.

“The French left, we don’t like each other,” said Emmanuel Grégoire, the former deputy mayor of Paris and a newly elected lawmaker with the Socialist Party. “We fight all the time.”
Mr. Grégoire accused France Unbowed of being “people who shout very loud.” Certainly Mr. Mélenchon has been uncompromising, and last October he insulted Ms. Braun-Pivet, who is Jewish, by saying she was “camping in Tel Aviv to encourage the massacre.”
Lawmakers with France Unbowed, on the other hand, have accused the Socialist Party of lacking the courage to reject “Macronism,” a mishmash of centrist ideas whose core is simply the personality of the president, and to turn away from less-regulated market policies.

Quoted without comment.

 

[Derec]

After the (rather successful) Olympics, the French are back to bickering about the aftermath of the parliamentary elections.

Macron is refusing to appoint the Left Block's choice for prime minister, insisting that any choice should be able to get support from the majority of the parliament. The Left is incensed.

French left backs protests after Macron rejects PM choice

Some of France's left-wing leaders have backed protests against President Emmanuel Macron, after he refused to nominate a government led by the left-wing New Popular Front alliance (NFP).
The four-party coalition won the most seats in last month's parliamentary elections and said its candidate, Paris civil servant Lucie Castets, should be named prime minister, even though they fell far short of a majority.
President Macron said France needed institutional stability and the left could not win a confidence vote that would come immediately from its opponents in parliament.
[...]
He appealed to three of the four left-wing parties - the Socialists, Greens and Communists - to work with "other political forces" to find a way out of the impasse, without mentioning the radical left France Unbowed, which won the most seats of the four.
However, the three parties refused to take up his offer. Socialist leader Olivier Faure said he would not be an "accomplice in a parody of democracy". Marine Tondelier of the Greens said her party would not "continue this circus, this sham consultation".
No one group was able to win a majority in the elections, with the NFP gaining more than 190 seats, Mr Macron's centrist Ensemble alliance about 160 and the far-right National Rally (RN) 140.

It is quite a thing when your party makes Communists seem less radical, LMAO.
But why is this a "parody of democracy"? The Left Block does not have a majority, and majority is needed to govern. So a government that can command majority support in the parliament is needful. Other countries like Germany next door have been doing coalition governments for decades.
What is the alternative to the circus? A minority government with only ~1/3 of the seats and with extremist 'France Unbowed' being the largest part of the block would be extremely unstable.

 

[Derec]

I guess you all have lost interest in the matter, but let me update you anyway.

France finally has a new prime minister. Macron appointed him a week ago.
Whether he will be able to form an actual functioning government remains to be seen.

Michel Barnier: how Mr Brexit rose from the ashes of Emmanuel Macron’s fire to become French prime minister

When it was announced that Michel Barnier was France’s new prime minister, commentators joked that he was better known to the British public than to the French. There’s more than a grain of truth in this.
The name of the former chief EU Brexit negotiator would raise a nod of recognition in many British households (for good or ill). In France, Barnier was a peripheral right-wing politician.
His appointment has nothing to do with Brexit and everything to do with the state of French politics since president Emmanuel Macron’s bewildering decision in June to dissolve the National Assembly and call parliamentary elections.
[...]
Seen from the outside, Barnier’s record hardly seems like a ringing endorsement of the case for him as prime minister. He did, after all, lose his party primary to a woman who went on to secure less than 5% of the national vote in the presidential election. But that is to overlook the internal politics of the French republican right and centre post-dissolution.

Macron needs Les Républicains, but they will not sell their 47 seats cheaply. And why should they? Macron’s gamble in calling an election went catastrophically wrong. It was the left-wing alliance, the New Popular Front (NFP) that emerged with the largest number of seats – nearly 200 – while Macron’s various supporters managed around 180.
Macron, however is not temperamentally equipped to accept cohabitation with the left and had no intention of appointing a government led by the NFP. Focus then shifted onto the centre-left or centre-right options: Bernard Cazeneuve, a former Socialist prime minister, or former right-wing minister Xavier Bertrand.
It may well be that the Cazeneuve option was just Macron’s attempt to split the left bloc. It failed when the Socialist executive committee voted against supporting such an enterprise. But the problem with Bertrand was that he was deeply unpopular within his own party, having left in 2017 before rejoining in 2021.
Barnier, on the other hand, is regarded within Les Républicains as a loyalist and has the full backing of his party in both houses of parliament. More importantly, he has no ambitions to use the premiership as a platform for another tilt at the presidency .
[...]
The reasons for this lie in Barnier’s 2021 presidential bid, which saw him tack further right by promising to freeze immigration for up to five years, build more prisons and open up discussions on France’s future relationships with the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice.
It’s still not clear if Barnier can secure any sort of workable platform in the National Assembly or even appoint ministers. It is unlikely that he will have the names of his senior team ready before 16 September and until then, there will be any number of names being linked to the key ministries - interior, finance, education. A notional 234 MPs out of 577 might make up a government bloc, if all the Macronists, Les Républicains and the moderate right group sign up and the far-right sit on their hands.

So a lot of wheeling and dealing. I think a harder stance on mass migration is absolutely necessary in Europe. They are absolutely getting invaded from Africa, Middle East and Central Asia.

The Left has already been protesting his appointment.
French protesters rage at ‘stolen election’ as Macron picks conservative Barnier for PM
Stolen election? Macron was elected president. He has the constitutional right to appoint a prime minister.
And the left-wing coalition does not even have the majority. Far from it.

“Democracy is not just the art of accepting you have won but the humility to accept you have lost,” the far-left leader told the exuberant crowd.

Oh yeah? Then why don't you?

“Normally the prime minister comes from the majority party,” he explained. “But Macron didn’t give a damn, he just did what he wanted.”

Normally, yes. But this time there was no majority party. No block gained the majority of the vote.
And the constitution gives the president the power to appoint prime minister.

 

[Gospel]

Yo yo check it!!

Borders worn and thin,
Migrants pourin' in
Torn for war they've been
worn within
can't go back
even with DeLorean
Game of chess,
fame and press
a plot to frame the mess,
Blame the stress
you may suggest
Macron, drop the lame defense
know the mission,
coalition,
an old tradition
In this club, they toss gold
at Melenchon’s
pole position
Dance of distrust,
dust and ashes
discussing tactics
The lust for fascists,
& bold ambition
to crush the masses
When trust collapses,
hold position
as those dumbasses
Sold the vision,
can’t see what Vive la France! Is

 

[ZiprHead]

Which parts of that were written by AI?

 

[lpetrich]

French PM Barnier needs 4 types of ministers if he’s going to survive – POLITICO - "Newly appointed French leader faces an uphill battle to form a government with a fragmented parliament, an unhappy left wing, and a far right that wields key influence."

The Left won big, and self-styled centrist Emmanuel Macron prefers to side with the Right.

His own party, Les Républicains, holds just 47 seats in the French National Assembly, and even with backing from MPs who support President Emmanuel Macron, Barnier can only count on the support of about 200 lawmakers—far short of the 289 needed for an absolute majority.

With that in mind, Barnier is looking to fill out his cabinet with at least four different profiles to satisfy as many MPs as he can.

"The Republicans"?

The token leftie

his summer’s snap elections, which Macron triggered following a far-right surge in June’s European election, led to a hung parliament. The New Popular Front, a coalition of the main left-wing parties, won the most seats, but no party or alliance came close to a majority.

Macron’s decision to name a right-wing prime minister following an electoral win by the left wing sparked a storm of criticism, especially from the New Popular Front, who slammed Barnier’s appointment as a “denial of democracy.”

That sentiment resonates with much of the public. ... Meanwhile, 55 percent agree with hard-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s claim that Macron “stole the elections from the French people.”

Chance of a good match: 1/5

The budget wizard

Whoever he taps must draw up a budget by Oct. 1 and convince the European Union that Paris has a realistic plan to cut its massive debt, which last year prompted the European Commission to launch a so-called excessive deficit procedure against France for overspending.

Chance of a good match: 3/5

The pro-Macron leftover

Although bruised by the snap election, some of Macron’s closest allies are maneuvering to maintain their positions. “The [pro-Macron coalition] will be the first force in support of the prime minister,” outgoing Minister for Gender Equality Aurore Bergé, a key Macron ally, said Monday. “We’ll need to bring in members [of the pro-Macron coalition].”

Chance of a good match: 4/5

The olive branch to the far right

With the left expected to remain in staunch opposition, Barnier will likely have to rely on at least the tacit support of the far-right National Rally, which is embracing its new role as kingmaker.

Chance of a good match: 3/5

 

[Gospel]

Which parts of that were written by AI?

Honestly, I wish AI were that good; otherwise, I wouldn't have spent an hour writing it.

 

[Derec]

French PM Barnier needs 4 types of ministers if he’s going to survive – POLITICO - "Newly appointed French leader faces an uphill battle to form a government with a fragmented parliament, an unhappy left wing, and a far right that wields key influence."
The Left won big,

The Left did not win big. The left-wing block got just under 1/3 of the seats, which means that they are far away from majority.
Note also that the Left Block (aka New Popular Front) itself consists of several parties with significant disagreements amongst each other. And note also that everybody knows that part of their electoral success were the machinations done in order to suppress National Rally and that they are not as popular as their 180 seats make them seem.

and self-styled centrist Emmanuel Macron prefers to side with the Right.

Macron first and foremost wants a prime minister/government that can function in the splintered parliament. And he would prefer somebody close to center that he can productively work with. He offered to work with a center-left (and misnamed) Socialist Party prime minister but they did not want to play ball.
Macron to meet with Socialist PM front-runner Monday

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

French PM Barnier needs 4 types of ministers if he’s going to survive – POLITICO - "Newly appointed French leader faces an uphill battle to form a government with a fragmented parliament, an unhappy left wing, and a far right that wields key influence."
The Left won big,

The Left did not win big.

Indeed, The Left won "big"... barely and barely at all. Reporting on the win was a bit muddled. What the articles should have said was "the far-right didn't win big."... thanks to some coordinated effort. France's biggest problem is they don't get this coalition thing. Kind of new to it.

and self-styled centrist Emmanuel Macron prefers to side with the Right.

Macron first and foremost wants a prime minister/government that can function in the splintered parliament. And he would prefer somebody close to center that he can productively work with. He offered to work with a center-left (and misnamed) Socialist Party prime minister but they did not want to play ball.
Macron to meet with Socialist PM front-runner Monday

I thought Macron is a conservative, just that he wasn't in line with the far-right... I guess that is what counts as "centrist" today in Europe. Seeing the same damn shit that we saw in the 20th century in the 20s. The fascists in Europe have about as much of a plan to manage the woes of today as they did back in the 20th Century. Nothing but pain and failure. Pride and Nationalism and a euro will get you a cup of coffee.

 

[Derec]

Indeed, The Left won "big"... barely and barely at all. Reporting on the win was a bit muddled. What the articles should have said was "the far-right didn't win big."... thanks to some coordinated effort. France's biggest problem is they don't get this coalition thing. Kind of new to it.

Yes, this is an unprecedented situation in the 5th Republic I think.

I thought Macron is a conservative, just that he wasn't in line with the far-right...

No, he is part of the classically liberal Renaissance party which is part of the centrist Ensemble block. "Conservative, but not far right" would be the Republicans. Former president Sarkozy is part of that party (and the predecessor party while president), and Chirac was part of one of its predecessors. They did not enter into a block with the far right, unlike misnamed "Socialists" (really social democrats) who did enter into the "New Popular Front" block with the extremist Mélenchonists.

I guess that is what counts as "centrist" today in Europe.

No. You just mistook his party for another one.

Seeing the same damn shit that we saw in the 20th century in the 20s. The fascists in Europe have about as much of a plan to manage the woes of today as they did back in the 20th Century. Nothing but pain and failure. Pride and Nationalism and a euro will get you a cup of coffee.

The problem is that the mainstream parties reacted horribly to the mass migration crisis that started with its current intensity in the last decade. Instead of allowing robust debate, it was stifled. That gave far right a big boost.
I think that is one thing that IS indeed similar to the last century. The mainstream parties in Europe also had a hard time managing the challenges of the post-WWI situation, which increased popularity of fascist and communist parties alike.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Indeed, The Left won "big"... barely and barely at all. Reporting on the win was a bit muddled. What the articles should have said was "the far-right didn't win big."... thanks to some coordinated effort. France's biggest problem is they don't get this coalition thing. Kind of new to it.

Yes, this is an unprecedented situation in the 5th Republic I think.

I thought Macron is a conservative, just that he wasn't in line with the far-right...

No, he is part of the classically liberal Renaissance party which is part of the centrist Ensemble block. "Conservative, but not far right" would be the Republicans. Former president Sarkozy is part of that party (and the predecessor party while president), and Chirac was part of one of its predecessors. They did not enter into a block with the far right, unlike misnamed "Socialists" (really social democrats) who did enter into the "New Popular Front" block with the extremist Mélenchonists.

I guess that is what counts as "centrist" today in Europe.

No. You just mistook his party for another one.

I'm an American, it's dumb luck I know the nation of France exists!

Seeing the same damn shit that we saw in the 20th century in the 20s. The fascists in Europe have about as much of a plan to manage the woes of today as they did back in the 20th Century. Nothing but pain and failure. Pride and Nationalism and a euro will get you a cup of coffee.

The problem is that the mainstream parties reacted horribly to the mass migration crisis that started with its current intensity in the last decade. Instead of allowing robust debate, it was stifled. That gave far right a big boost.

The problem is the problem of migrants is a small one, and it is the only thing the nationalist parties seem to want to solve or have the desire to solve. For everything else, they have no solutions. All they have is nationalism and closing off borders. Nationalism sells that life would be so much more easy without migrants, but that doesn't solve issues of poverty, employment, wages, economics, growth, retirement, access to health care, etc... Excess migrant populations can amplify those issues, but those issues existed without migrants.

Nationalists try to shift the blame of the general entropy of life on migrants. Managing migration is important and doing so poorly can make things more difficult. But migrants aren't the source of the problems of life... that'd just be life in general.

I think that is one thing that IS indeed similar to the last century. The mainstream parties in Europe also had a hard time managing the challenges of the post-WWI situation, which increased popularity of fascist and communist parties alike.

At least there was a Great Depression and widespread economic issues and unemployment and issues with endless large scale wars (Crimean War, The Great War) to drive that sentiment. Today... it is just normal day to day difficulties. Many have accepted the lies that things are bad now. They aren't. Things have been worse... much much worse.

 

[Copernicus]

The problem is that the mainstream parties reacted horribly to the mass migration crisis that started with its current intensity in the last decade. Instead of allowing robust debate, it was stifled. That gave far right a big boost.
I think that is one thing that IS indeed similar to the last century. The mainstream parties in Europe also had a hard time managing the challenges of the post-WWI situation, which increased popularity of fascist and communist parties alike.

Tribalism is a powerful factor in European politics, because nationhood is strongly associated with ethnicity in all of those countries. Although France has a strong tradition of egalitarianism and ethnic diversity, racial and ethnic tensions play as much of a role in their politics as it does in ours. This is exacerbated by the fact that French, like English, is a very widely spoken language. So France is something of a magnet for immigrants that already speak the language, especially from former countries that had been under French colonial rule. Le Pen's popularity has risen dramatically with the swelling population of immigrants there. What is surprising about this past election is that predictions of a right wing tsunami were so far off the mark. Macron is a solid centrist who is in a position to play the right and the left against each other. French politics will be even more paralyzed than normal in the next few years, mais plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.