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So... Them French Protests, eh?

Started by Blumf, December 03, 2018, 11:50:14 AM

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Buelligan

It is funny.  I was only thinking about the Arab Spring today, in the light of the cars burning on the Champs-Élysées.

Dex Sawash


Get a few gatling guns up set up around the town square and turn the buggers into mulch.

Buelligan

Just a quick update to say that I spoke to some more people last night, the consensus seems to be, across a wide range of professions and locations, that everyone feels like something dark and ungood is taking place, they want it to stop but they don't want it to stop because they hate (maybe even fear) Macron and what he stands for.  One friend said, it's like watching an elephant on a tightrope, you know it's going to fall but it's impossible to guess which way and what will be underneath when it lands but something will be crushed.

biggytitbo



No doubt Bannon is colluding with Putin aswell. And they both secretly visited Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy.

Buelligan

You think there's no possibility that people like Bannon have worked in tandem with Russia's interests?  I don't care about Russia or fear Russia, any more than I do the US.  They're not some magical bogeypeople to me, just another gang of mafiosi carving up the planet without a care for it or the people who live here. 

Nevertheless, I am quite certain that they, along with most (almost all) other countries, work to advance their own interests and to fuck others over.  And they use whatever means necessary, including cunts like Bannon.

biggytitbo

If they do its kind of unfortunate its totally buried in the mountain or relentless bullshit we keep accusing them of. The tale of the boy who cried wolf springs to mind.

Buelligan

That's a tale.  This is the real multi-dimensional and faceted world.

Paul Calf

Quote from: Buelligan on December 04, 2018, 09:29:01 AM
Just a quick update to say that I spoke to some more people last night, the consensus seems to be, across a wide range of professions and locations, that everyone feels like something dark and ungood is taking place, they want it to stop but they don't want it to stop because they hate (maybe even fear) Macron and what he stands for.  One friend said, it's like watching an elephant on a tightrope, you know it's going to fall but it's impossible to guess which way and what will be underneath when it lands but something will be crushed.

This confirms my view that everyone in France is secretly Eric Cantona.

Neville Chamberlain

Any chance you could talk to your people again, Buellers, and ask them to be a little more, well, specific? ;-)

Buelligan

Quote from: Paul Calf on December 04, 2018, 10:20:41 AM
This confirms my view that everyone in France is secretly Eric Cantona.

Certainly in this part of the country.  We're not like those soft Northern bastards.

Quote from: WikipediaCantona was born in Marseille, to Albert Cantona, a nurse and a painter, and Éléonore Raurich, a dressmaker. The family home was a cave in one of the hills in the Les Caillols area of Marseille

Paul Calf

Marseille? Christ, no wonder he was quick.


bgmnts

Quote from: Fabian Thomsett on December 03, 2018, 12:42:06 PM
Pamela Anderson I shall call you comrade

https://twitter.com/pamfoundation/with_replies

Why is Pamela Anderson the most sensible and correct person on twitter? That's amazing/scary.

Z

Quote from: Blumf on December 03, 2018, 11:50:14 AM
That Macron fella isn't exactly popular
Was it last week that the Guardian had an article titled "Is France falling out of love with Macron?" or something like that? Was utterly hilarious, was he ever anything even close to liked, let alone loved?

biggytitbo

Only by the worlds political establishment heralding him as a fresh new hope for sensible, pragmatic, centrism. France elected him purely because he was the least worst choice didn't they? He's a corporatist, bankers puppet.

Buelligan

Quote from: bgmnts on December 04, 2018, 12:49:25 PM
Why is Pamela Anderson the most sensible and correct person on twitter?

Because it's twitter I expect.

chveik

Quote from: biggytitbo on December 04, 2018, 01:31:03 PM
Only by the worlds political establishment heralding him as a fresh new hope for sensible, pragmatic, centrism. France elected him purely because he was the least worst choice didn't they? He's a corporatist, bankers puppet.

Not really, some people believed in his bullshit.

chveik

anyway, I've just listened to the news:





Z

Quote from: Z on December 04, 2018, 01:27:10 PM
Was it last week that the Guardian had an article titled "Is France falling out of love with Macron?" or something like that? Was utterly hilarious, was he ever anything even close to liked, let alone loved?
It was a podcast apparently, 7 days ago https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2018/nov/28/has-france-fallen-out-of-love-with-emmanuel-macron-today-in-focus-podcast

Ant Farm Keyboard

Quote from: Buelligan on December 04, 2018, 09:29:01 AM
Just a quick update to say that I spoke to some more people last night, the consensus seems to be, across a wide range of professions and locations, that everyone feels like something dark and ungood is taking place, they want it to stop but they don't want it to stop because they hate (maybe even fear) Macron and what he stands for.  One friend said, it's like watching an elephant on a tightrope, you know it's going to fall but it's impossible to guess which way and what will be underneath when it lands but something will be crushed.

That's a fair take.
The think about the yellow jackets is that they are a grassroots movement tied only by one thing, a visceral hatred of Macron.
Macron has lately been doing a particularly poor and immature job with reforms. People have the feeling that there's a new tax every month, the cabinet has been terrible at giving the feeling they give a fuck about poor people.

And the thing is also that most of the opposition and trade unions are in the gutter.
Mélenchon faces his own scandals. It looks like he paid a huge sum (later reimbursed as public funds) for his 2017 campaign to the company that belongs to his communication manager/lover. He got angry at the press, the government, the judges and basically everybody who doesn't bow in front of him. The conservatives and the socialists are inaudible.
Meanwhile, the largest trade union, the CGT, has lost credibility, as they put all their weight in the demonstrations from the fall of 2017 that resulted in no compromise. And the third or fourth one, Force ouvrière, has just lost his leader, because he had put together a file filled with subjective comments about the main union personalities.

And the Front National (now Rassemblement National) has managed to tone its racist views down, keeping only the anti-Macron stuff (or the old rich vs poor, big companies vs small business speech), which has given them a huge boost in popularity.
These days, I'm seeing worrying posts by friends of mine on Facebook. A few months ago, they would have thought twice before sharing some cartoon or some ultimately fake piece of news. Now, they don't see anything wrong about publishing stuff full of innuendos that comes from a notoriously racist guy, as long as he supports the yellow jackets, hates Macron and blames the media.

With his business school and startup methods that just push a string of reorganisations where the concern about the population is only featured on section 3, paragraph 4 (social support measures), Macron may be the political figure who will be ultimately responsible for the avent of fascism in France. Originally, I regarded the yellow jackets as something similar to the Tea Party in America in 2010, but it might actually be worse. Most of the people in the streets aren't right-wing, but the Front National is getting a new virginity in the process and is attracting a few left-wing sympathizers, with their "anything but Macron" attitude.

chveik

yeah, it's quite scary because there isn't any decent left wing alternative now that Melenchon is (allegedly) corrupted.
the number of protester keeps dropping though.


Buelligan

Quote from: chveik on December 05, 2018, 02:21:46 AM
yeah, it's quite scary because there isn't any decent left wing alternative now that Melenchon is (allegedly) corrupted.
the number of protester keeps dropping though.

Not sure about that.  Last week there were businesses in Perpignan and Narbonne reporting 85% fall in custom.  The restaurant I work in, normally busy at this time, has been empty for the last couple of weeks.  People can't get fuel or are worried about travelling.

I think you're absolutely (and worryingly) correct in what you say, Ant Farm Keyboard, let's hope, somehow, we avoid moving to the Right.

Ant Farm Keyboard

An aside about Mélenchon. Mélenchon, until 15 years ago, was your average Socialist Party pundit, who, apart from some journalism or some teaching for a couple of months, hasn't ever done anything besides being an elected official (getting easy districts). Then, he had a change of heart, started to align himself with dissidents and left the party to start his own movement, with some irregular backing by the Communist Party.
He has always been fueled by his own ego. Actually, during years of election nights on TV, Mélenchon would only make snide remarks at his former colleagues of the Socialist Party, rather than commenting on other issues. He can't stand criticism, which can occasionally make him ridiculous. His admiration for Hugo Chavez resulted is some snark from most candidates and the press, and resulted in him doubling down for Maduro.

In 2017, he was quick to notice he had a serious opportunity at reaching the second round, benefitted from the implosion of the Socialist Party at the time, and did an impressive campaign. After the first round, he boasted MANY times hat he had just been 600,000 votes short of being in the second round, which in Mélenchon's mind means being elected president, naturally, as he's better than everybody else. He just forgot to mention that he was the fourth, and that the third guy was himself 450,000 votes short.

This year, Mélenchon had benefitted from having a political group at the French Parliament, which allowed a few new guys from his party to shine in speeches. He's himself relatively lazy, something that was already obvious during his days at the European Parliament. He would just make a few public comments about political events, but he lacks the energy to do more. He had also welcomed a few transfuges from what remains of the Socialist Party.
Then, investigations started about the spendings during his campaign (where his lover charged much more than she should have) and about MEP aides that were actually paid to do political stuff unconnected from their official duties (a scam that several minor French parties played for years).
Mélenchon went into full meltdown mode, live streamed a police search that happened at his place, claimed that every prosecutor was planted by Macron, etc. The worst moment was when he did a press conference and imitated in a mocking way the Southern accent from a journalist, because he didn't like her question. Mélenchon was elected at Marseille, which is about as South of France, accent-wise, as you can get.


Which is to remind people that Macron didn't win because he had the support of international finance, interest groups, etc. He won because he was the least problematic out of the four main candidates. Mélenchon is an egomaniac, Fillon was revealed to be a stingy crook who brought the traditionalist catholics to the party, and Marine Le Pen is unfit for any position of authority. That's the shitty hand we were delivered.

Blumf

Sounds a bit like France's answer to George Galloway?


Ant Farm Keyboard

Quote from: Blumf on December 05, 2018, 03:29:01 PM
Sounds a bit like France's answer to George Galloway?

I hadn't heard of him. From a quick glance at Galloway's entry, there are many differences. Mélenchon isn't that single-minded. He's self-centered, vain (like almost every politician), but not obsessed with a single issue. And Mélenchon was for a while in an upward trajectory. He just failed to notice that he had hit the glass roof for his ideas, and that his popularity would result in increased scrutiny.

The Venezuela stuff got quickly ridiculous. Mélenchon's presidential program wanted France to leave NATO and join... the Bolivarian Alliance (Venezuela, Cuba, with Iran and Syria as observer members) because of French Guyana. His representatives at the time hadn't even heard of this measure, which they tried to dismiss as fake news.

However,  Mélenchon still has something of a Syria problem. His supporters started in January their own TV network (more accurately a YouTube channel) financed through crowdfunding to counter official networks that distort facts. They would broadcast a half-hour of news every day. Most of the staff and the celebrity columnists left the network in June. The news team had refused to show footage from the war in Syria because the info hadn't been corroborated enough. It was rich, coming from a team that would also pass a ton of unchecked allegations on other issues. Their Syria expert actually asked for some "fair and balanced" coverage of Syria that would also cover atrocities by the rebels (that justified El Assad to strike them).
The head of the network was... Sofia Chikirou, Mélenchon's alleged(*) lover. She had to leave under the pressure, and her last decision as a boss was to sign two checks, for a €130,000 worth, to her other company. The network now survives as a shell of its former self.

(*) When an investigation site (Mediapart, which is actually very left-wing) revealed that Chikirou was at Mélenchon's place at 6am during the police search and that she was in an "extra-professional relationship" with her, she said that the claim was "an assault and an ignominy." At the same time, Mélenchon denied that he was her companion. Two days later, he actually explained that his previous statement was fiscal, as he mentions on his tax declaration that he's single...

Bhazor

The enviornment is all well and good y'know. But 5p tax per litre?