Refractory Gauls, or the French politics thread

[Sheilbh]

Both extremes are Kremlin assets. Everyone is a possible asset when your objective is destabilization.

Which is the strategic risk of a political project of consolidating the centre v the extremes, at the expense of political choice and contestation within the mainstream.

This is where I disagree with Pisani-Ferry, and also the more "policy" focused/technocratic strands of our politics.

[Sheilbh]

Looks like we have a French Liz Truss.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cewn9k0w9rxo

So...finally give people the socialist they voted for?

In addition to Zoups points the big problem here is the budget.

Eurzone budgetary rules were significantly tightened following the Eurozone crisis. Macron's big achievement in his first term was getting France within those rules, plus structural reforms which he hoped would be rewarded by a big leap forward in European integration - it wasn't. The rules were then suspended following covid and extended a bit further because of Ukraine.

The suspension ended in 2024. France's budget is in breach and it's the first big country going through the "excessive deficit procedure" which requires their deficit to be cut to no more than 3% by 2029. And the Commission considers it essential to properly police this given the perception that rules were waived under the Growth and Stability Pact contributed to the Eurozone crisis (as Jean-Claude Juncker put it when asked why budget rules weren't being enforced, "because it's France" ).

With the National Assembly split in three, the budget is the core problem for Macron. Last year they couldn't pass a budget and so there are provisions in the French constitution that basically allow for an emergency automatic extension - I think France already had this for its 2025 budget so might need it again.

In that context it is really difficult for Macron to work with the NPF who reject Macron's pension reforms and want windfall taxes on excess profits plus wealth taxes. I think the RN now also want to abolish Macron's pension reforms (they've previously accepted the reforms but wanted higher rates) and basically want some taxes reduced, others increased plus "DOGE" like audits of finances in the (almost certainly imaginary) search for cuts that can be made. So for Macron and his bloc to work with either of these parties means compromising on one of his big projects but also doesn't necessarily seem to actually present a path to escaping the excessive deficit procedure. There is no way to a majority that will not also involve the humbling of a President by two wings of politics that loath him. And Macron wants to preserve his legacy through a more balanced program of austerity (while increasing defence spending).

I'd add that there is the possibility of ECB intervention if they consider that France's bonds are coming under "unfair" attack by bond markets (spreads are already at the highest since 2012). I think given the context there's no chance at this point of the ECB considering this the sort of situation they should intervene in. Even if the did, intervention comes with strict conditionality - it wouldn't be the Troika but Troika-esque policies.

The parliamentary math and budget situation are both pretty impossible. It's very, very difficult to see a path out, at least until the next Presidential election and the hope of a new President acquiring a legislative majority. And if the EDP is already a bit of a humiliation for the most European leader - and a country like France - none of the alternatives are much better. I've said in the UK thread but I think France and the UK are in a bit of a race for who hits crisis point first.

[Duque de Bragança]

Lfi should of course be kept away from power since they in hamas/Muslim brotherhood pocket (I.e. collabos that actively want to destroy French society)

Tankies > actual kremlin assets.

Islamophiles === Kremlin assets

Nope.
All evidence suggests they're useful idiots making arguments that Putin likes for free. I've seen nothing to suggest they're actually paid to do this.
The FN on the other hand.....

Both are tankies, albeit not on the same degree.
LFI (la France islamiste ?  ) is pro-Kremlin with their selective anti-imperialism and pro-islamist for vote-catching reasons (coucou Mélenchon); RN is "only" pro-Putin.
Their leader even blamed the Balts for their alleged "thousand-year troubles" with Russia in a French electoral debate in 2017, March 20th, by the end of the debate when the theme was Europe.

Here is the transcript, in French, for you

toutes les tensions [en Crimée, Ukraine] viennent du fait que quand l'empire soviétique s'est écroulé, personne n'a négocié les frontières avec qui que ce soit. C'est le moment de négocier les frontières».
Avant de répéter: «Il faut qu'on rediscute de toutes les frontières (avec la Russie)». Et de préciser sa pensée: «C'est une vue de l'esprit d'imaginer que la France va étendre son parapluie nucléaire sur les 28 pays d'Europe... alors elle ne peut pas participer à des systèmes intégrés en Europe qui la conduiraient à entrer en guerre sitôt qu'un pays balte aurait un problème avec son voisin. Et ils ont des problèmes avec les Russes depuis mille ans. Alors, je préfère que l'on se tienne à une distance qui permet de faire la paix.»

The RN never went that far.

Which makes them worse than the RN (not FN anymore), since they do it for free.
Even the RN tries to distance itself through Bardela from the pro-Putin rhetoric of Marine.
Not convincingly enough for now, given their track record.

[Josquius]

The FN (don't forget what they are) never went that far in stating pro Russia policy.
However they are Russias lapdog. Russia is smarter than to have it's puppets declaring themselves to be so.
A FN powergrab is absolutely what Putin wants for France (more so they want complete chaos and disorder. But if one party is to be in power it should be them).
Also worth noting from what I understand Melon man is not the left. He's just one idiot.

[Sheilbh]

Melenchon is key - and I personally think he's the most interesting and effective left leader in Europe.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

The book that the French far-left wants to ban: 'The Accomplices of Evil'

The far-left La France Insoumise (LFI) attracts only one in ten voters in France, but more books are written about it than about all other parties combined. The third book of this year, Les Complices du Mal (The Accomplices of Evil), is coming soon.

Previously published , La Meute , the mob, described by publisher Flammarion as "a staggering account of threats, intimidation, ideological fanaticism, anti-Semitic statements, sexual and sexist violence, and shady financial practices." It's a summary of what's known as "the Mélenchon system," named after Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the 74-year-old founder and chairman of LFI. He will stop at nothing to regain power, and La Meute reveals this in detail.

Always in a group
The book takes its title from the fact that LFI parliamentarians, in their endlessly aggressive street actions, always operate in groups—in mobs, never alone.  The content was immediately dismissed by Mélenchon and LFI as "fabricated."

This also happened with a book published last August: The New Antisemites, a report on an undercover operation within the far-left , by Nora Bussigny. The journalist, working for publications including the opinion magazine Le Point,  had spent months working under a pseudonym in the party's inner circle . As a so-called activist, she had participated in anti-Israel demonstrations, where she recorded anti-Semitism from both LFI politicians and the Islamists they collaborate with. This included members of the Palestinian Liberation Front, a designated terrorist organization. They, for example, accompanied her to events organized for children.

Muslim ties
Bussigny describes LFI politicians' ties to Iran and notes that the party consistently ignores or mistranslates Arabic text on banners. For example, Jews are often mistranslated as "Israeli," a practice the BBC is also guilty of. This time, LFI responded by portraying Bussigny as someone with a political agenda.

Third time's the charm, Mélenchon and his party must have thought when it was announced that The Accomplices of Evil , by the Syrian-French author Omar Youssef Souleimane, will be published on October 2nd. "A cry for help that exposes a dark alliance between La France Insoumise and radical Islam," is how publisher Flammarion describes the book . The goal of this alliance is supposedly the "disruption of society."

Destabilizing democracy
Souleimane claims that LFI parliamentarians are in cahoots with the Muslim Brotherhood, which is very active in France . Together, they sabotage issues such as secularism, republican universalism, and national cohesion, the publisher stated in the announcement. This is done not only in exchange for votes from the rapidly growing Muslim segment of the French electorate, but primarily to destabilize democracy.

Author Souleimane arrived from Syria thirteen years ago and now holds French citizenship. He, too, went undercover, primarily at Palestinian demonstrations organized by LFI in collaboration with radical Islamic groups. As a French Arab, he naturally managed to penetrate the party more deeply than the journalists who preceded him. The most striking detail of publisher Plon's description is that the author "exposes ties between certain LFI politicians and Islamists working to impose new social norms compatible with Sharia law."

Syria
What motivated the 38-year-old immigrant to write this book? Souleimane fled Bashar al-Assad's regime at 20 and later sought asylum in France from Jordan. He was drawn, from a young age, to Paul Eluard's poems, which were banned in Islamist circles.

He now writes his own poetry collections and pieces in French. What he hadn't expected was that the radical Islam he had fled would also be prominent in France. What surprised him most was the collaboration between the far-left and Islamists. In Syria, the left was precisely the opposite of Islamists.

Another Syrian MEP Rima Hassan, who presents herself as Palestinian, plays a role in the book. Only her father is Palestinian, a high-ranking officer in Assad's army at the time. Souleimane believes he was a member of the Palestinian death squads the dictator deployed to exterminate Christians and Kurds. A very different story than Hassan's, recently honored by the Université Libre de Bruxelles .

Legal action
What is known about the contents of Les Complices du Mal comes from publisher Plon, and from a single interview with the author . Plon apparently saw good reason to keep the book under wraps and not even send out review copies.

Not for nothing, they must have thought at LFI: the party requested access to the manuscript from the publisher by registered mail. When they refused, they went to court to demand the same in summary proceedings. They argued that they had "a strong suspicion that the book contains unfounded statements that will damage the honor and reputation of LFI..."

The judge ruled that demanding access to a forthcoming book with the aim of potentially banning it went too far. Last Monday, he rejected the demand.  Meanwhile, opinion magazine Marianne has published several excerpts from Les Complices du Mal . The publisher has finally revealed a glimpse of the situation after the judge rejected LFI's demand.

https://doorbraak.be/les-complices-du-mal-het-boek-dat-frans-extreemlinks-wil-verbieden-voor-het-verschijnt

you may not like it but this says enough about the danger that LFI is. at least as bad as FN.
Melenchon may be 'effective', so were Hitler and Stalin. They also share being Evil.

[Zoupa]

I've been a lefty/socialist my whole adult life, and I would never vote for Melenchon. He went off the rails 10-12 years ago.

[garbon]

His...adjacency to antisemitism seems disqualifying enough.

[Josquius]

The question here isn't is Melenchon good. He clearly isn't.

But one old guy who believes stupid shit whose far left party is hitting their upper limit in getting 10% of the vote   (the Judean Peoples Front effect is very real) is far less of a concern than a far right party that takes funding from Russia.

Melenchon wasn't even under consideration for a PM from the left. Others were.

[HVC]

I dont know, playing with the devil is how we got here. You're just more comfortable with your own devil then the right devil.

[Josquius]

I dont know, playing with the devil is how we got here. You're just more comfortable with your own devil then the right devil.

So don't play with the devil maybe?
This false dichotomy is the oldest trick in the book for the far right.

[Sheilbh]

At the last Presidential elections Melenchon won 20% and came third, behind Macron on 29% and Le Pen on 24%.

It's not fully clear who the candidates will be in the 2027 election. All poll have the RN reaching the second stage - there have been a few polls that have Melenchon also getting there. The strongest candidate of the left is still, most likely, Melenchon. So Europe's nightmare, a Melenchon-RN second round is a plausible possibility.

LFI are an integral part of the New Popular Front (so the Judean People's Front effect is not real) and the question of how you'll interact with Melenchon and the LFI is a key question on the left right now. So if the NPF tried to form a government, both the RN and Macron's party have said there would be an immediate vote of no confidence if that included ministries for LFI- but it's impossible to see how NPF could form a government without them.

As I always say - I think all of this is downstream of Macron making what is subtext across the West text. Consolidating all the forces of the "centre", obliterating the traditional parties of centre-right and centre-left - they literally really are all the same. But this also means that if you want change you have to go for revolution.

[HVC]

I dont know, playing with the devil is how we got here. You're just more comfortable with your own devil then the right devil.

So don't play with the devil maybe?
This false dichotomy is the oldest trick in the book for the far right.

You just said you'd vote for him even though you dont agree with his motality because his party only has 10% of the vote. That's the definition of playing with the devil in politics

[Josquius]

I dont know, playing with the devil is how we got here. You're just more comfortable with your own devil then the right devil.

So don't play with the devil maybe?
This false dichotomy is the oldest trick in the book for the far right.

You just said you'd vote for him even though you dont agree with his motality because his party only has 10% of the vote. That's the definition of playing with the devil in politics

... Wut?
I never said I'd vote for him at all.
I said it's wrong to think he's a problem on a level with the fascists with the small chunk of the vote he gets a part of that.

[Zoupa]

LFI/Melenchon might be marginally "better" as they don't seem to be funded by the Kremlin (that we know of anyway).

They would be a disaster pretty much on par with the RN on policy, so it's a false choice.