Refractory Gauls, or the French politics thread

[Sheilbh]

Does this apply to France as well? Why not improve the quality of access/service from rail rather than ban air?

I don't think so, I think France is far better at connections between places not going through Paris, also over 2,500kms of high speed rail while the UK's spent a couple of decades and a few billions deciding not to finish it's second 500 km of high speed rail

I agree though in the UK improving rail is key here but France is pretty good.

When I think about the UK, I don't see any evidence that it is socially unacceptable to drink on a train. Far from it.

Diane Abbott - a nation salutes you

[garbon]

I don't think so, I think France is far better at connections between places not going through Paris, also over 2,500kms of high speed rail while the UK's spent a couple of decades and a few billions deciding not to finish it's second 500 km of high speed rail

I agree though in the UK improving rail is key here but France is pretty good.

So perhaps not exactly illuminating as to why there are people in France who still prefer flight over rail for domestic travel.

Diane Abbott - a nation salutes you

Wasn't her mistake that she was doing it on the Overground? As part of TfL, she fell afoul of its prohibition on consuming alcohol which is not present on major train services.

[Valmy]

Parisians who want to see as little of the provinces as possible.

[Sheilbh]

So perhaps not exactly illuminating as to why there are people in France who still prefer flight over rail for domestic travel.

Fair - but if there's an alternative that is workable and I think in France there is, then I don't see the problem with banning it. We couldn't here yet (until we overrule the NIMBYs and build high speed rail everywhere).

Wasn't her mistake that she was doing it on the Overground? As part of TfL, she fell afoul of its prohibition on consuming alcohol which is not present on major train services.

Yes that's right - I think it's been banned on ScotRail now (along with food) as a covid measure. Though of course it made her a bit of a folk hero because, really, who of us hasn't had a mojito or G&T in a can on the train?

[Josquius]

If short flights are so terrible, why does France have to institute a ban? You'd think if its citizens were against short flights, they wouldn't take them. Is it just tourists?

As said they're often priced better than the train. I've seen this in many countries. Even Japan.

If the price was the same I really don't know what sort of lunatic would choose a flight.

[viper37]

Parisians who want to see as little of the provinces as possible.

yeah, at least Montrealers here have the excuse of distance.  Parisians however, they can cross the country in a couple of hours of train

[Sheilbh]

Re. a civilisational turn in Europe:

Valérie Pécresse rally focuses on immigration as threat from rivals grows
Les Républicains' presidential choice promises crackdown after defections to Macron and rise in far-right's polling
Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
@achrisafis
Sun 13 Feb 2022 19.14 GMT

The rightwing French presidential candidate Valérie Pécresse vowed to crack down on immigration as she held her first big rally on Sunday amid competition from the growing far right and defections from her party to the centrist leader Emmanuel Macron.

"There is no sovereignty without borders," Pécresse said on stage in Paris as more than 6,000 people waved French flags in support of the first female presidential candidate for Les Républicains, the traditional rightwing party of Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy.

Pécresse, who on a recent trip to Greek migrant camps said she was not against "barbed wire" to keep migrants out of Europe, told the rally that she would support the building of barriers and "even walls" on the edge of Europe if the countries on the frontline wanted it. It was a clear reference to her rival, the controversial, far-right TV pundit Éric Zemmour, who this week suggested building a Donald Trump-style anti-immigration "wall" around the edges of the EU.

A former budget minister under Sarkozy, Pécresse, 54, wants to be seen as the only feasible rival to Macron ahead of the April election. But she faces the serious challenge of whether she can make it to the second round runoff. The far right has risen in force to represent about 30% of the vote in current polls, and is split between two candidates, Marine Le Pen, running for the third time, and the newcomer Zemmour. Both are hovering around the same score as Pécresse in the polls.

At the rally, Pécresse cited her heroes, Britain's Margaret Thatcher and Germany's Angela Merkel, as "women who always defended their people", saying she wanted to create a "New France" of law and order, with tight controls on immigration and quotas for migrants.

She said she would also oppose what she termed woke movements, which she said threatened to "demolish French identity", tellling the rally that as leader of the Île-de-France region, which includes Paris and its surrounding area, she had banned "burkinis" or full-body swimsuits, from pools. To cheers from the hall, she said: "For me, the headscarf is not a piece of clothing like any other. It's not a religious prescription. It's a sign of the submission of a woman." She criticised Macron's government for refusing to ban the Muslim headscarf from competitive sports.

Pécresse repeated her promise that "the salaries of French people will increase by 10% during my presidency", and said she would decentralise France, attacking Macron for a top-down leadership style and high public spending, which she said had tipped France into dangerous debt.

A fluent Russian-speaker, Pécresse delved into international affairs, saying that under Macron, France had been "humiliated" on the international scene, including over the Aukus defence agreement between Australia, the US and the UK.

While Macron is at 24% in the first round, according to the latest Cevipof poll for Le Monde, Pécresse is at 15.5%, with Le Pen at 15% and Zemmour at 14.5%.

Without naming Zemmour or Le Pen, Pécresse told the crowd: "The extremists are lying to you. Refuse the venom of their nostalgia. Don't let anger and fear win."

Pécresse is under pressure from her party to pull ahead of her far-right rivals in the polls just as president Macron is expected to declare his re-election bid this month.

But she suffered a blow this week on immigration when Natacha Bouchart, the rightwing mayor of Calais, broke ranks and announced she would support Macron for the presidential race.

Bouchart is an outspoken critic of the situation of migrants wanting to reach Britain from the northern French coast on small boats. Bouchart said Macron had "listened attentively" to the problems of Calais and increased government involvement. She said she was supporting Macron "in the general interest of Calais".

Pécresse has failed to dominate the political debate with her policy ideas, in part because she is seen as attempting to cover all ideological bases in a divided party.

She is seen as hailing from the moderate, centrist wing of the right, which Macron himself has won over by appointing two rightwing prime ministers. But Pécresse is also veering very hard right to win over the increasingly anti-immigration line on French national identity in her own party. Pollsters say her messaging to voters is not always clear.

Chloé Morin, a political analyst who interviewed Pécresse on her communication style for a new book, We Get The Politicians We Deserve, said the rightwing candidate had been accused of appearing too studious and lacking spontaneity on screen. But Pécresse has criticised those who "act" in front of the cameras.

Morin added: "Today, part of Pécresse's space is occupied by Emmanuel Macron, who has the advantage of being the president in office ... he has stifled her ground on the economy. And on the other side, she's facing serious competition from Éric Zemmour and Marine Le Pen, who have the advantage of being in a more populist register of one-upmanship and can make themselves more audible in a media world that values clashes and buzz. They are more audible than Pécresse, who has to be more measured."

Meanwhile, Le Pen and Zemmour continued their own vicious battle to win far-right voters, with another defection from Le Pen's National Rally party. Stéphane Ravier, Le Pen's only senator, jumped ship to Zemmour saying he was best able to "unite" the far right.

And also brings to mind Art Goldhammer's point that there's a re-alignment in France right now to a party of the centre right and party of the far right - which is fairly grim

Realignment!
Arthur Goldhammer
11 February 2022
Tocqueville 21 Blog

This year's presidential campaign has thus far generated little excitement, but behind the scenes a remarkable party realignment seems to be well under way. This was underscored by three events this week: Eric Woerth abandoned Valérie Pécresse, the chosen candidate of his Republican party to announce his support for Emmanuel Macron; Rachida Dati denounced Pécresse's candidacy as "nonexistent"; and Pécresse herself, recognizing her growing difficulties, finally decided to bend the knee and kiss the ring of Nicolas Sarkozy, who has thus far refused to endorse her and who has been widely quoted in the press expressing doubts about her personality (he called her a "Queen Bee") and her skills as a campaigner.

Interestingly, Woerth criticized Pécresse's campaign as trop droitière for its emphasis on immigration and insecurity–the themes favored not only by her rival Éric Zemmour but also by primary runner-up Éric Ciotti. In placating Ciotti for the sake of party unity, Pécresse has evidently alienated the Sarkozystes, including Sarkozy himself. Yet when they were in power, they were hardly bashful about emphasizing the same issues in order to ward off the challenge of Le Pen. Perhaps they feel that this year the split in the far right makes shoring up this side of the coalition unnecessary. Or perhaps it's simply ambition talking: Woerth and/or Dati could be in line for ministries in a new Macron administration, and Sarkozy may well be looking for a presidential pardon before too long. They know where the real power is likely to lie after the April elections.

Fundamentally, though, what is happening is the party realignment that many expected after the 2017 election. It has taken a while, but this election and the legislatives that follow may mark the next steps. Macron has shown that the way to consolidate power in the center of the French political spectrum was not to create a centrist faction within the formerly dominant parties of the left or right but to split from them and reorganize around a charismatic but unclassifiable personality. Hollande couldn't do it: he lacked the charisma; Valls couldn't do it: he had made too many enemies; Juppé couldn't do it: the right wing of LR was too powerful.

LREM is not yet a fully-fledged party; it lacks deep local roots and an effective organization, and the ideological allegiances of its elected officials tend in many different and incompatible directions. But, despite these shortcomings, it's clearly going to remain a powerful force for the foreseeable future, as the actions of Woerth, Dati, and Sarkozy make clear. It's not at all clear that the same can be said of LR. The demise of LR and the continuing dissolution of the once impermeable membrane separating the mainstream right from the far right mean that there will be a coming party realignment around two poles, a center-right and a far right.

Meanwhile, on the left, the Communist candidate, Fabien Roussel, has surpassed the Socialist candidate, Anne Hidalgo, in the most recent polls. That hasn't happened in more than half a century. So the two parties that had dominated French politics during that long period may not be with us much longer. That is an important change, which bears further reflection.

Edit: More from Bloomberg - hard to miss Zemmour's impact on the race here:

"In 10 years will we still be the seventh power in the world? Will we still be a sovereign nation or instead a U.S. auxiliary, a trading post of China? Will we be a united nation or a fragmented nation?" she said. "Faced with these vital questions, neither the great downgrading, nor the great replacement are inevitable."

[Josquius]

Great replacement

[Duque de Bragança]

Re. a civilisational turn in Europe:

Tough line on immigration and citing Merkel? That's a typical contradiction in terms.
Pécresse is just playing the part for the audience.

[Sheilbh]

Great replacement

Not just that but talking about there being areas of France that are not French, saying she wants to make French people at heart not just "paper Frenchmen" ("Francais de papier") - which I understand originated as a term for Jews in the 19th century. As I say with the "Islamo-leftism"/"Judeo-Bolshevism", the "great replacement" and "paper Frenchmen", there's some really alarming language in France right now - and it's being used by more and more mainstream politicians.

Edit: Oh and obviously she added that "le wokisme" is the opposite of the Republic. Macron's team have separately set up an "anti-woke" think tank to resist this new Anglo-Saxon "cultural totalitarianism"

[Grey Fox]

It is a hard concept to reconcile with the french laïcité movement.

[Duque de Bragança]

Not just that but talking about there being areas of France that are not French, saying she wants to make French people at heart not just "paper Frenchmen" ("Francais de papier") - which I understand originated as a term for Jews in the 19th century. As I say with the "Islamo-leftism"/"Judeo-Bolshevism", the "great replacement" and "paper Frenchmen", there's some really alarming language in France right now - and it's being used by more and more mainstream politicians.

Not really for the Jews in the 19th Century, though it also applied to them if they were recent Central/Eastern immigrants ashkenazis as opposed to Sephardis, once called "Portuguese" (Portuguese only meant the average Portuguese from the late 19th/ early 20th century) who had been there for a much longer time, cf. banker Péreire/Pereira who eventually got a boulevard in West Paris.

In fact, it really became common parlance between the Two World Wars for recent naturalisations. In some cases, Germans "Papier Franzosen" who chose to become French in order to stay and keep all rights in Alsace-Moselle.
So in general for immigrants, or métèques as the beloved future socialist François Mitterrand would say and demonstrate against, so Italians, Poles and Spaniards etc.

Trouble is, the Français de papier concept (for welfare purposes only no real link with France) has some merit given the situation in some places such as Roubaix, referred by Crazy Ivan earlier.

Edit: Oh and obviously she added that "le wokisme" is the opposite of the Republic. Macron's team have separately set up an "anti-woke" think tank to resist this new Anglo-Saxon "cultural totalitarianism"

I prefer "wokerie" as a term, since it rhymes with connerie. 
Given how much Macron is into franglais I would not worry too much about Anglo-Saxon cultural "totalitarianism" being defeated, sadly.

[alfred russel]

Has there been any polling of Melenchon versus Macron in round 2? I assume Macron would roll, but with Zemmour and Le Pen splitting the right wing moron vote he could sneak into round 2...I saw a very recent poll with him 3rd at 13% and LePen is in second with just 15%. That is margin of error territory.

[Josquius]

Would certainly make for a delicious irony with flipped groups voting challenger and holding their nose and voting macron.

On the surface anyway. Last election some left wing French I know were thinking to vote le pen out of some kind of shake shit up / accelerationist desire

[Sheilbh]

I've not seen any but it feels like the surge has been relatively recent so he's been bobbing around 10-11% for a while, while Zemmour, Pecresse and Le Pen have all, at one time or another, been in the high teens.

On the surface anyway. Last election some left wing French I know were thinking to vote le pen out of some kind of shake shit up / accelerationist desire

I think there's been a lot more talk (and polling) suggesting left-wing voters might abstain if it's Macron-Le Pen again. The polls for that have stayed pretty solidly at 55/45 which is solid - but not great and a shift from 66/33. Hopefully Le Pen's long Putin links etc will take their toll and bring numbers back down to where she was in 2017.

I've always thought Macron will win and I think he will win better than we'd expectd because of the war - but I'm not sure if the tankie left (who will, I imagine, broadly be backing Melenchon) might play a bit of a spoiler role. I think they'd still just abstain but I wonder if in part they'd be tempted to vote for Le Pen over Macron who is being "aggressive" and "provocative" in supporting arming Ukraine, increasing European defence commitments etc in a way that is aimed at Putin and broadly in support of the "hegemonic/imperialist" West?

Nothing will make me laugh/cry more than the French left doing a "people's primary" to try and find a unity candidate - the end result was that Taubira launched another campaign and none of the other left-wing candidates withdrew (she has since pulled out - but still)