In 2022, France will be holding new presidential elections. It is widely believed that the 2 candidates that will remain in the second turn of the elections will be our current president E. Macron (from La République en Marche - LRM) and M. LePen (from Rassemblent National - RN, formerly Front National - FN, a far right party that has strived for decades to get more legitimacy). If such an event comes to pass, I'm wondering if I should vote for Macron (like I reluctantly did in the last presidential elections, in which France faced this very same situation) or cast a blank vote. That's the dilemma.
To better understand why this is an actual dilemma and not a straight up vote for Macron, it is necessary to give a bit more context about Macron and his political strategy.
In the previous election in 2017, Macron was a political outsider whose campaign focused around promises of bold changes and transcending the left/right divide, while being very short on specifics. Most politically savvy individuals recognized him as, at best, a center right figure trying to broaden his appeal. Their suspicions were quickly confirmed and since the election he and his government have been steadily drifting to the right and even dangerously close to the far right. His government has repeatedly been a relay for ideas and policies that were thought up by the far right (mostly surfing on a wave of Islamophobia).
His political strategy for 2022 has been fairly straightforward: keep the left weak and splintered and strengthen the far right while trying to steal their votes. This strategy is designed to ensure a Macron vs LePen 2nd turn, in which he assumes that voter's fear of a far right candidate will give him the presidency.
As many people on the Left, I am left wondering what to do. As much as I hate the RN and everything it stands for, Macron's strategy seems very likely to give us, in time, either a RN president or one that's so close to it as to basically make no difference. In the long run, the best strategy is obviously to bolster the left and hope for a strong leftwing or at least center left candidate. But I'm pretty sure this won't happen in time for the next election. Which leaves me with my present dilemma, cast an ever more reluctant vote for Macron, and therefore enable his disgusting strategy or cast a blank vote and risk an actual RN presidency.
|
|
|
You're extrapolating a lot of similarity from one facet of policy. While France's illiberal stagger is frustrating, there's still a world of difference between Macron and Le Pen. |
|
baba264 wrote: Which leaves me with my present dilemma, cast an ever more reluctant vote for Macron, and therefore enable his disgusting strategy or cast a blank vote and risk an actual RN presidency. One way to approach ethics is to ask the question, 'what would happen if others did as I do'? I suspect that if all those unhappy with Macron (and more unhappy with RN) cast a blank ballot, the odds of an RN victory would be significant. Democracy is the worst form of gov't except all the others, and we often don't have the choices we'd like. But if presented with 2 choices, the right thing to do is almost always to choose the best of the two, even if it is simply a lesser evil. I'd say vote for Macron. |
|
fil wrote: baba264 wrote: Which leaves me with my present dilemma, cast an ever more reluctant vote for Macron, and therefore enable his disgusting strategy or cast a blank vote and risk an actual RN presidency. One way to approach ethics is to ask the question, 'what would happen if others did as I do'? I suspect that if all those unhappy with Macron (and more unhappy with RN) cast a blank ballot, the odds of an RN victory would be significant. Democracy is the worst form of gov't except all the others, and we often don't have the choices we'd like. But if presented with 2 choices, the right thing to do is almost always to choose the best of the two, even if it is simply a lesser evil. I'd say vote for Macron. I was curious what happens because it's not clear to me from an English translation of the French constitution. If enough people cast a blank ballot that neither candidate gets a majority of ballots cast in the second round, does the candidate with the most votes win or does it shift to one of the options for dealing with a vacancy? If there are only two outcomes, I agree you have to pick one. If there are more than two potential outcomes then it gets at least a little more complicated. |
|
GohanIYIan wrote: I was curious what happens because it's not clear to me from an English translation of the French constitution. If enough people cast a blank ballot that neither candidate gets a majority of ballots cast in the second round, does the candidate with the most votes win or does it shift to one of the options for dealing with a vacancy? If there are only two outcomes, I agree you have to pick one. If there are more than two potential outcomes then it gets at least a little more complicated. Unfortunately as things currently stand, blank ballots aren't even counted and get lumped in with abstention. So, if you vote blank the remaining votes will determine the winner, no matter how few votes there actually are. fil wrote: One way to approach ethics is to ask the question, 'what would happen if others did as I do'? I suspect that if all those unhappy with Macron (and more unhappy with RN) cast a blank ballot, the odds of an RN victory would be significant. It's not like I'm not familiar with this type of reasoning. Back in 2017, I went out of my way to convince other people to vote for Macron using those very same arguments. Sadly after seeing the results I have difficulties convincing even myself that this is the right thing to do. In the end, I'll probably cast a vote for my Macron but I feel really trapped by the situation. And the way Macron is using the RN to play this to his political advantage with no regard for the consequences if really aggravating. |
|
Well, you are not condemned to a Macron - Le Pen ticket on the second turn. If the left can unite behind one candidate instead of fielding twenty three flavours of left ranging from Trotskyists to caviar socialists, there is no reason they can't win. First priority ought to be to work on that. |
|
Ok, I rarely post here, but I think I'll give my two cents ... For context: I've been living in France for more than 10 years, and I was born in Brazil. Some might see where I'll arrive from this context |
|
|
Last edited by breubreubreu on Wed Mar 24, 2021 6:28 am
|
|
Also an American here...and a left-leaning one caught in Texas at that. Don't abstain. Unless it offers some tangible electoral benefit (sounds like it doesn't), you will help elect LePen and all the damage that follows. |
|
Also, just to add another point: it is frustrating to essentially have a choice between bad and horrible on the second turn, even more when it's not the first time this happens. But that's how populists win. |
|
A blank ballot or an abstention is worth half a vote for the two major candidates. |
|
Suppose you're right, and Macron leads to a RN presidency later. Do you have any reason to prefer RN now vs. RN later? If not, why take the certainty of Le Pen now vs. the indeterminate future (you can't assume that you're right, plus maybe democracies will develop new anti-populist techniques)? |
|
Yeah, to OP smells like accelerationism. |
|
Shavano wrote: Yeah, to OP smells like accelerationism. How does the system work for the French election? Those of us not in France mostly don't know. It's a runoff election. The top two candidates in the first election pass of to the final one. Those are likely to be Le Pen and Macron. |
|
Just to add, in theory the president in France is not the most powerful person. This is the prime minister, whom chooses the cabinet and defines how the government will run. He's chosen by the president but must be approved by the congress - which is elected a few months after the presidential election. |
|
breubreubreu wrote: Just to add, in theory the president in France is not the most powerful person. This is the prime minister, whom chooses the cabinet and defines how the government will run. He's chosen by the president but must be approved by the congress - which is elected a few months after the presidential election. This is "in theory" nowadays, since after a few presidencies in the 90's where nothing was done because the president wasn't aligned with the congress, the president's party tend to win the congress elections by a landslide. This is still, though, a tool that can be used to limit the president's power. The Fifth Republic, (current French Constitution) was designed by De Gaulle, with the obvious objective to give essential Executive powers to the President. He nominates the Prime Minister, decides of the goals and means of the Government. Since 2002, the Legislative and Presidential elections are synchronized (we elect the President, then his party's MPs), so the Legislative Power is aligned with the Executive. This means that the President is effectively directing the Legislative and Executive powers, which seems pretty overpowered to me. Regarding the current situation, I don't want to vote for Macron, as he's not aligned with any idea I have on how to run the country, and the Republic of Amateurs he's so proud of. I have even less sympathy for Fascist Le Pen, as fascist amateurs won't be an improvement on the situation. I don't believe the Left (Socialists, Green, Insoumis, Communists) will unite behind anyone, but I'm ready to vote for this hypothetical leader, even Jean-Luc Mélenchon, if this gives a valid alternative to the current Right ideology that is permeating the country. I won't dream too big though. If, in the end, we still have a duel between Macron and Le Pen, I'll hold my nose and vote Macron with my left hand, as I did for Chirac in 2002. |
|
Yeah, it gives too much power to the Executive. I get why this was done, from what I've heard, the co-habitation times, with non aligned Legislative and Executive, weren't really great. But it did force the Executive to search for a compromise. And it's still possible to force a varied Legislative that the Executive have to contend with, but it seems like the co-habitation trauma is still too fresh. |
|
I guess it depends on how racist you are, how much you hate immigration, how anto-globalization you are, how much you love Russia and how much you want to eject all Muslims from France. |
|
Quote: I guess it depends on how racist you are, how much you hate immigration, how anto-globalization you are, how much you love Russia and how much you want to eject all Muslims from France. As America demonstrated, electing a leader who owes his office to Putin's support is an excellent way to Own the Libs, or whatever the French equivalent is. |
|
What do you think of the other non-Macron & non-Le Pen candidates/parties? |
|
fragile wrote: As an immigrant, how is this even a question, voting for her could potentially strip you of your French citizenship and demote you to third/fourth class undesirable. Supposing that it's an answer to what I posted above: 1) I am well aware that voting for Le Pen means I'm fucked. Maybe I should've been more explicit (I thought my first post on the thread here made it clear), but I'll never vote for her - or someone like her. Which brings us to the second point. 2) Philippot and Asselineau are essentially the same as Le Pen, mainly the former who was her right hand. If it gets to a nightmare scenario where these guys, plus Le Pen, are on the second turn, I'd probably not vote. I'd go to the streets protest, because that means we're completely screwed. I only covered these guys because they are the only exceptions to the "vote for anyone against Le Pen" - because, again, they are essentially the same as her. Fortunately, these guys feed on the same voting bases as her and got, together, only around 1.5% of the votes. So this scenario will probably not happen. Probably. Edit: ... I'll ignore the name calling ... |
|
|
Last edited by breubreubreu on Thu Mar 25, 2021 10:52 am
|
|
Shavano wrote: What do you think of the other non-Macron & non-Le Pen candidates/parties? It's a bit complicated to say, because most of the big parties still don't have any candidates. For now, among the big parties, only Le Pen and Mélenchon announced their candidatures. A guy from the classical right wing party (LR) announced his yesterday (Xavier Bertrand). Everyone supposes that Macron will run for president again. Warning: personal opinions filtered through personal ideologies of someone with some lack of knowledge! And also, going off-topic ... Mélenchon: he's one of the most popular faces on the left, but his personality is polarizing. I said it a bit above, but he reminds me too much some of the South American, populist and left-leaning politicians - the ones that do more ideological decisions like Chavez and Maduro, and not the ones that are more pragmatic like Lula and Morales. Still, he's the kind of person you want in the congress, because he'll make the inconvenient questions. Les Républicans / LR / Xavier Bertrand: seems like he's going for a "security and anti-terrorism" line, so kinda trying to pick up the right's fringes too. Despite their name, they aren't as "insane" as their American counterparts - but they're still drifting more to the right. The main problem with the Républicans, though, is finding someone who's not involved on a corruption scandal ... Parti Socialiste: ... and the main problem with the socialists is finding someone with enough charisma to be the party's candidate. The main bet is Anne Hidalgo - the current mayor of Paris. She's somewhat popular in Paris, but not so popular at the nearby cities - since her decisions affect them, but they have a limited feedback. She's polling at only 9%, though. EELV / Greens: it's ... a mixed bag. Some of their ecological projects are quite good, and they can be a good alternative on the left. But some of their politicians are too close to anti-5G and anti-vaxx conspiracies ... |
|
breubreubreu wrote: I only covered these guys because they are the only exceptions to the "vote for anyone against Le Pen" - because, again, they are essentially the same as her. Fortunately, these guys feed on the same voting bases as her and got, together, only around 1.5% of the votes. So this scenario will probably not happen. Probably. To expand on that, Philippot represents the RN's old guard and things the RN has become too progressive, he sits at the right of Marine LePen politically. As for Asselineau you could basically describe him as the Marjory Taylor Greene of French politics. Shavano wrote: What do you think of the other non-Macron & non-Le Pen candidates/parties? It's hard to give a complete overview of French parties but I'll try to do a brief one starting from the far right : - RN - Rassemblement National (Marine LePen) : we already talked about her. - LR - Les Républicains (Laurent Wauquiez) : they used to be the mainstream right wing party but greatly suffered from Macron's election. They're currently trying to exist by building a space to the left of LePen but still to the right of Macron and are having quite a hard time doing it considering how far Macron has drifted to the right. They're also the party of traditionalist Christians. They're not quite as bad as the RN, but they've been helping to make the RN's ideas mainstream for years as such I dislike them quite a bit. - LRM - La République en Marche (Macron) : we already talked about him as well. - MoDem - Mouvement Démocrate (François Bayrou) : A center right party, that appealed to moderate Christians and Middle Class whites. Bayrou supported Macron in the last presidential election and was instrumental in bringing him to power. They've had a falling out since then. I certainly don't like them, but I could live with them. - PS - Partie Socialist (Olivier Faure): They used to be the main left party even if they tended to be more center left than actually left. The Hollande presidency basically destroyed the party and the election of Macron was the finishing strike. As they are now they're but a shadow of what they used to be. I used to feel that the PS was ok, and I voted for their candidates numerous times. However, starting somewhere in 2000 they slowly shifted from left to center left, to just center. Especially when it came to economic policies. This greatly eroded their support, especially among the working class. - EELV - Europe Ecologie les Verts (Yannick Jadot) : The French green party, or at least it's current incarnation. They're pro European, socially progressive, obviously ecologist and kind of nebulous on their actual economic agenda. They've had some impressive success in local and European elections but so far have failed to garner significant support in national elections. They lack a strong leader figure. I voted for them numerous times and they're currently my default electoral choice. - LFI - La France Insoumise (Jean-Luc Mélanchon) : A far left party that was pretty strong during the last presidential campaign and whose leader Mélanchon was fairly popular at the time. However, since then, Mélanchon has taken a very populist approach (as breubreubreu stated, reminiscent of leaders in South America) and has lost a lot of support and disappointed a lot of his former supporters. I voted for him in the last presidential election, but probably wouldn't do so again for the reasons stated above. There are a number of other smaller parties mostly on the far right and the far left but they've never managed to garner significant support so I won't list them here. At present the left is more splintered than ever, and more importantly it lacks strong leaders of national stature. I hope that answers your question. |
|
baba264 wrote: It's hard to give a complete overview of French parties but I'll try to do a brief one starting from the far right : - RN - Rassemblement National (Marine LePen) : we already talked about her. - LR - Les Républicains (Laurent Wauquiez) : they used to be the mainstream right wing party but greatly suffered from Macron's election. They're currently trying to exist by building a space to the left of LePen but still to the right of Macron and are having quite a hard time doing it considering how far Macron has drifted to the right. They're also the party of traditionalist Christians. They're not quite as bad as the RN, but they've been helping to make the RN's ideas mainstream for years as such I dislike them quite a bit. - LRM - La République en Marche (Macron) : we already talked about him as well. - MoDem - Mouvement Démocrate (François Bayrou) : A center right party, that appealed to moderate Christians and Middle Class whites. Bayrou supported Macron in the last presidential election and was instrumental in bringing him to power. They've had a falling out since then. I certainly don't like them, but I could live with them. - PS - Partie Socialist (Olivier Faure): They used to be the main left party even if they tended to be more center left than actually left. The Hollande presidency basically destroyed the party and the election of Macron was the finishing strike. As they are now they're but a shadow of what they used to be. I used to feel that the PS was ok, and I voted for their candidates numerous times. However, starting somewhere in 2000 they slowly shifted from left to center left, to just center. Especially when it came to economic policies. This greatly eroded their support, especially among the working class. - EELV - Europe Ecologie les Verts (Yannick Jadot) : The French green party, or at least it's current incarnation. They're pro European, socially progressive, obviously ecologist and kind of nebulous on their actual economic agenda. They've had some impressive success in local and European elections but so far have failed to garner significant support in national elections. They lack a strong leader figure. I voted for them numerous times and they're currently my default electoral choice. - LFI - La France Insoumise (Jean-Luc Mélanchon) : A far left party that was pretty strong during the last presidential campaign and whose leader Mélanchon was fairly popular at the time. However, since then, Mélanchon has taken a very populist approach (as breubreubreu stated, reminiscent of leaders in South America) and has lost a lot of support and disappointed a lot of his former supporters. I voted for him in the last presidential election, but probably wouldn't do so again for the reasons stated above. There are a number of other smaller parties mostly on the far right and the far left but they've never managed to garner significant support so I won't list them here. At present the left is more splintered than ever, and more importantly it lacks strong leaders of national stature. I hope that answers your question. Easy to say from the outside, but based on your description it seems the obvious answer for the Left in France has to be to try revive and rally around the Partie Socialist (and move them leftward). Single issue parties like the Green Party will always be marginal (and the Greens also tend to attract the anti-science fringe), far-left parties tend to get tied up in populism/authoritarianism, so that leaves the Partie Socialist. Would seem that the left rallying around them would be by far the best bet to get one of those 2 slots in the runoff election. Again, I know, easy to say from the outside (I'm sure there are many complexities that are hard for outsiders to see), and it only works if Partie Socialist can get good candidates to lead. |
|
You're debating a full vote against Le Pen vs. half a vote against Le Pen. |
|
fil wrote: Easy to say from the outside, but based on your description it seems the obvious answer for the Left in France has to be to try revive and rally around the Partie Socialist (and move them leftward). Single issue parties like the Green Party will always be marginal (and the Greens also tend to attract the anti-science fringe) Analyzing European Green parties from an American perspective isn't too likely to work. A few of those parties are quite successful. Some of them have even won Prime Minister positions. |
|
Lt_Storm wrote: fil wrote: Easy to say from the outside, but based on your description it seems the obvious answer for the Left in France has to be to try revive and rally around the Partie Socialist (and move them leftward). Single issue parties like the Green Party will always be marginal (and the Greens also tend to attract the anti-science fringe) Analyzing European Green parties from an American perspective isn't too likely to work. A few of those parties are quite successful. Some of them have even won Prime Minister positions. The Europe Ecology – The Greens party got 2.3% of the 2012 presidential vote and then withdrew to boost the Socialist candidate in 2017 (who himself got 6.4%). In 2017 Europe Ecology – The Greens received a single seat in the French legislature. They seem marginal at best. |
|
U-99 wrote: Lt_Storm wrote: fil wrote: Easy to say from the outside, but based on your description it seems the obvious answer for the Left in France has to be to try revive and rally around the Partie Socialist (and move them leftward). Single issue parties like the Green Party will always be marginal (and the Greens also tend to attract the anti-science fringe) Analyzing European Green parties from an American perspective isn't too likely to work. A few of those parties are quite successful. Some of them have even won Prime Minister positions. The Europe Ecology – The Greens party got 2.3% of the 2012 presidential vote and then withdrew to boost the Socialist candidate in 2017 (who himself got 6.4%). In 2017 Europe Ecology – The Greens received a single seat in the French legislature. They seem marginal at best. That is a much better argument. |
|
Can anyone itemize the Macron controversies that is steering people away from him? I know that he's expressed some hostility to Muslim culture but don't follow the country closely. |
|
Macron is a newcomer in the political field. He campaigned in 2017 on bringing a new blood, new solutions, a "Start Up Nation" mindset, coupled with Social improvements (he was part of a Socialist government under Hollande) and a Green revolution. He won the minds of Right leaning people who were seeing traditional Right parties as corrupted, and the hearts of Left leaning people who were disappointed by the inefficiency of the Socialist Government. |
|
Dr Nno wrote: French People are traditionally leaning Right, but with a strong attachment to our Social protection system. This is something that really looks out of left field from an outsider perspective. "Tradition" is a strong word in France, but so is "solidarity". Quote: Macron's popularity started to take a serious hit. It should be noted that, while Macron did screw up in the "government trust" department, having a low popularity and some hostility is par for the course for French presidents. Macron was around 35% last September ... which is not that bad, considering that the two previous presidents (Hollande and Sarkozy) were lower at a similar point (image below, spoiler due to its size). He's at around 37% right now, after losing some points since December. Quite frankly, I'm surprised his numbers aren't lower.
Spoiler:
show
Concerning the covid response: it's kinda expected that communication would be at least clumsy during the first wave. Most countries / authorities had to improvise, and only a handful were able to deal very well with it. During summer, covid numbers were really low, so it's kinda understandable to try to catch up and recover on the economy side. France has more resources than many places, and social support measures are well accepted, but taking infinite loans to support them still has some risks. And even with the best social support, some people can fall through the meshes. As Dr Nno said, the response to the second wave was seen as success, since a full lockdown was avoided. But that's were Macron's government got cocky. The answer to the third wave is a joke. A written authorization that wasn't available during the first day, was over-complicated and then dropped for movements under 10km. Bad communication. Saying that they didn't want to infantilize the population, but a few days later come with the catch phrase "I stay at home with my family, I go outside as a citizen" ... At least it rhymes in French, so there's that. There's no excuse for this bad response to the third wave, it's the third time they had to do it. Even worse, the government has no way to enforce the current constraints. The whole idea of the written authorizations was to make people consider and remember the risks and the limitations before leaving home. They depend on, if not respect, at least compliance from the population. And they risk losing it. |
|
U-99 wrote: Can anyone itemize the Macron controversies that is steering people away from him? I know that he's expressed some hostility to Muslim culture but don't follow the country closely. Sorry for the late answer. Previous posters have already given a descent general assessment of the situations : - His fairly popular (and passionate) minister of the Ecology (Nicolas Hulot) being pushed to leave the government due to lack of support for any sort of actual ecological policy. - The Yellow vest protest which where dealt with very brutally with a very severe police response and a distinct lack of dialog much less concessions as well as a form of contempt for the (overwhelmingly poor) people involved. - The clumsy communication and delivery of his economical and social reforms. - And of course his fairly disastrous response to the Covid epidemic, which demonstrated a lack of foresight, clumsy organisation and disastrous communication. However, I'd like to come back on a few issues that arose recently and have been deeply concerning (to people on the left and center at least) : - His current minister of the interior (Gérald Darmanin) is close to the far right and has been credibly accused of negotiating sexual favors in return for administrative help. - Response to Police Racism and Brutality (during Yellow Vest protests and after) There were a few incidents in recent years of obvious and undeniable police brutality and racism. The answer of both Macron and Darmanin was to deny and assert that there was no such thing as police brutality or institutional racism in French police forces. - The Global Security Law (Loi Sécurité Globale) (a NYT article and another) This was a kind of omnibus law dealing with all kind of police of security issues. But article 24 was the one that drew a lot of attention both nationally and internationally. It stipulated that the diffusion of identifying information of police officers in an attempt to cause physical or mental harm could be punished by up to 1 year of prison and a 45k€ fine. It was seen by many news organisation as an attempt to prevent the diffusion of videos of police brutality by citizens. The law was voted by the nation assembly where Macron has a majority but later amended in the Senate where the old parties (PS and LR) have more power. - Conflict over Social Sciences (a NYT article) In recent months Macron's government has repeatedly attacked social sciences using the concept of Islamo-Leftism, an idea born on the far right and reminiscent of the concept of Judeo-Bolchevikism that was used for a similar purpose in the early XXth century (and likewise, a complete fabrication with no grounding in reality). The goal is to attack the credibility of social sciences and in particular, gender studies, race studies and colonial studies and to promote in their stead right wing concepts and ideas that, while popular have no recognition in the academic field. Macron's government has also tried to pass a law (currently in discussion) that would force university lecturers to respect "the principles of the republic". The wording is so vague that it could potentially be used to attack a lot of courses in particular in such fields as political science. |
|
The company I work for started in France, we have a large office in Paris. |
|
The company I work for started in France, we have a large office in Paris. |
|
In the first round, vote for whoever you think is the best alternative to Macron and LePen. Save hold-my-nose votes for the runoff. |
|
Yeah ... while Macron (and mainly some of his ministers) are doing some questionable stuff to say the least (as baba264 pointed out), I feel like a good part of it is more for political gains than "ideological" positions. |
|
Just an addendum to the "islamo-leftism" part: the minister of higher education should've been sacked for her generalizations, and I have quite a few friends in STEM domains that also see her declaration as an attack against higher education as a whole. I expect that from someone in Bolsonaro's government, not from Macron's. |
|
Wasn't Macron heralded as some kind of technocrat? |
|
wco81 wrote: Wasn't Macron heralded as some kind of technocrat? Like he'd be competent, even if he had little experience? That's how he sold himself during the elections, including the "neither from right or left" angle - even if he's more towards the right. He was Hollande's economy minister for a few years, and a relatively popular one. He stepped down after some conflicts with Hollande and his prime-minister, Manuel Valls. (don't get me started on Manuel Valls, he's a pretty big reason why the socialists are shattered ...) His government does have one of the main technocratic flaws: the hubris that, since they are "technical" and "logical", they are right. That's partially what created the Yellow Vests. The extra taxes on fuels were well received in the urban centers and by ecologists, but ignored the population that lives in the more rural areas - where public transportation options are disappearing or non-existent, and where the increase in fuel cost would have a big impact. These populations felt like they were forgotten by the government. Quote: What was the deal with Hollande? Is he the one who instituted the wealth tax that backfired on him? Yeah, that's him. France already had a wealth tax - it was substituted by Macron for a "house ownership tax", which has its own problems. Hollande's tax was over the very wealthy, and would be of 75% on any revenue above 1M€. Hollande ... is in a weird position. He has zero charisma. He wasn't supposed to be the socialist's candidate, but the original candidate (Dominique Strauss-Kahn) had a big sexual scandal. Still, Hollande won the election, partially because the population was really fed up of Sarkozy. He's a bit too much to the right for the socialist party, and didn't have that much of his party's support. His prime-minister, Manuel Valls, used too much a mechanism that boils down to "either this law passes as I want, or the whole government is fired". This means firing the prime-minister and all the other ministries, and the president must form a new government. This constitutional mechanism is used by the executive to force their base to do what they want, and it's extremely controversial. You could say that Hollande and Valls hollowed out the socialist's left and center left - so, the whole party. The former was taken by Mélenchon during the last elections, and the latter went to Macron. Who also got the center right after a scandal involving the republican candidate hollowed his campaign. |
|
|
Last edited by breubreubreu on Tue Mar 30, 2021 9:58 am
|
|
Quote: His government does have of the main technocratic flaws: the hubris that, since they are "technical" and "logical", they are right. That's partially what created the Yellow Vests. The extra taxes on fuels were well received in the urban centers and by ecologists, but ignored the population that lives in the more rural areas - where public transportation options are disappearing or non-existent, and where the increase in fuel cost would have a big impact. These populations felt like they were forgotten by the government. This seems to ascribe more intelligence and direct causation to the Yellow Vest riots than contemporary coverage. They appeared to be rage without a cause, personifying elements of extreme entitlement and ignorance, with a strong dose of foreign meddling. From Politico: Quote: In sum, this is a revolution against politics by the non-political. Four in 10 Yellow Jackets, according to polls, voted for the far right in last year’s presidential election. Two in 10 voted far left. Many of the others have not voted for years, except to spoil their ballots. Yellow Jackets’ anger is understandable. The white-hot rage is baffling. Many small towns in France are suffering but they have public services and shops that similar towns in the U.S. or U.K. would die for. Welfare payments and pensions have failed to keep pace with inflation but remain generous compared to other countries. While the movement was home-generated, it’s clear that Russian and alt-right propaganda machines have turned their cyber-bellows onto the flames. Much of the rage is existential — a sense of injustice, a belief, inflated by misleading arguments in regional, web-anger groups, that they are systematically cheated and insulted by Metropolitan France. Frankly the Yellow Vest movement seems from an outsider to be a failure of culture and education, not government. I'm not sure what Macron could have done to diffuse a worldwide wave of astroturfed populism. |
|
That's more of what the movement "evolved" towards than how it started. The fuel taxes, together with a law proposing to reduce maximum speeds (also to reduce pollution) were the things that sparked the movement. From the wikipedia article on it: Quote: The issue on which the French movement centred at first was the projected 2019 increase in fuel taxes, particularly on diesel fuel.[83] The yellow vest was an accessible symbol for the protests, as all French drivers have been required to have one in their vehicles since 2008.[76] (the background section actually covers a lot of it) It's ... actually funny to see this Político article. Some points are good - the difference from other popular movements, and how it's not linked to a political front. Both Mélenchon and Le Pen (and others) tried to connect themselves to the movement, and failed to do so. But the comparison with the situation in the US and UK is baffling. This movement started because a part of the population felt abandoned by Macron's government - actually, by several of the previous gouvernements. When such type of manifestations happen, they're not going to see if things are "less worse" than in other places. The article itself points that the movement started locally. Later, other agents tried to capitalize on it, but that's different from external agents trying to start it all. Also, yes, Macron had a low popularity, but that's par for the course in French politics. As to why the movement grew so much: normally, strikes are a strong political tool for the population, but they barely made a dent during Macron's government. The Yellow Vests movement were the first to make an impact. And to make matters worse, the government reacted badly. Everyone jumped in the opportunity. |