Imagine having one of the most class-conscious populaces in the world and ramming this shit through instead of stopping it and winning every election for the rest of your life.
Just :macron: things
It has been a partial victory for the left because the its shows the unpopularity of the government, has increased it, and forced the Republicains to not vote with the gov on it.
Macron personally doesn't give a fuck what most of the population thinks, honestly. He's coasted both elections on the basis that the left was divided, too soc-dem and in the end just not strong enough, and the the broad liberal majority will still vote for him as default, and above all that perhaps most people voted for him just to keep a fascist out of the Elysée.
France is a land of contrasts, both a country of radicalism and reaction. There's an intense, dialectical relationship between the two in French history. Like check the 30s here? Shit was crazy. Obvs there's the Revolution and the Commune.
Honestly the areas in Europe where I think there's the most radical potential are France, Ireland, and perhaps Italy (alot of young italians are radicalized).
alot of young italians are radicalized
When I left Italy in 2015 the winds were strongly changing towards fascism and Lega Nord support tbh.
Yeah there has also been a massive swing to the far right, and depressingly in the last elections this was very noticeable in the South.
They have also been strengthened into the North.
Itaky is more fully developed along fascisation, but the elements are very present in France as well. I’d actually be more worried about it in France tbh, despite also thinking that prospects for the left are probably better here than in Italy.
I mean it more in the sense that the youth of Italy have definitely been very radicalized, and there are still quite a very hard leftists. In any case I find the Italian left more radical and dynamic than other lefts in Europe save France, but I could be wrong on current prospects and the difficulties under Meloni’s (still toeing the neoliberal line) gov
I don't think it's so much that Macron doesn't care because the opposition is weak. As long as they don't assassinate him pissing off literally every French person will lead to a better life for him than pissing off the banks would.
Sure. The pressure of his actual financial and corporate backers is essential. But I think they also overplayed their hand a bit with this.
Also tbh I don’t even think Macron would care that much about handing over government tot he RN, who will likely continue the basic economic policies of his backers but crack down on the left, Muslims and immigrants. He can’t run again so either he has to pass it on to someone else in financier party Renaissance or accept the harder right taking the reigns. The worst case scenario is that the authoritarian neoliberal establishment sides more fully with, and so swings to supporting the RN in response to a growing left political power but before the latter can properly organize and provide a political alternative. Obvs this is all still in the ultimately limited game of electoralism.
I suspect that it’s going to come to a head this decade where the liberals will have really exhausted any remaining goodwill from the electorate due to their economic policies and the election will eventually come down to the left vs the far right. Unfortunately even if the left wing bloc wins it will probably be very Sox dem, rather than revolutionary.
France is a land of contrasts, both a country of radicalism and reaction. There’s an intense, dialectical relationship between the two in French history. Like check the 30s here? Shit was crazy. Obvs there’s the Revolution and the Commune.
It's been a long time since I read The Eighteenth Brumaire but I feel Marx also made this exact same observation over 150 years ago. The reaction runs as strong as the radicalism.
He's a capitalist stooge. He's knows where his bread is buttered, and if he won't fall in line then the next guy will.
This is a being considered a partial victory on the French left because its widely recognised as an admission of weakness on the part of the government.
Also, if there hadn't been demonstrations, blockages, and riots then the right-wing Republicans would have voted with Macron's En Marche/Renaissance to pass it in the Assemblé nationale (the parliament), but they didn't because they shit themselves over how overwhelmingly unpopular it is, and they don't want to lose in future local elections.
The French are pissed.
The demonstrations went up to the Assemblée today and got heavily gassed and beaten. French police have also been savagely beating and gassing activists helping unions to block spots like garbage truck stations, and the French government is trying to hire poorly paid, precarious workers to move the garbage instead (above all to clean it up in bougie areas, ofc), which also then got blocked, to which the police applied a dose of beating and gassings.
The more worrying aspect is that, like in Weimar Germany, this sets a precendent to using the dictatorial powers of the executive in the constitution to pass regressive and unpopular legislation without the consent of the legislature, let alone the working class. This will also increase the unpopularity of the government, driving fascism forward. On the other hand, Le Pen's fascist RN have been pretty all over the place on this.
Overall the left came out looking good from this, and the government weak, corrupt, and undemocratic. It's definitely radicalized a bunch of people, especially young'uns, who haven't had an opportunity to get involved in this level of political activity since the Floyd protests spread here, and before that, the Yellow Vest riots. There has also been more organization and actual political consciousness and radicalization than during the Yellow Vests, which were unorganized and all over the place. There also seems to be increasing convergence of political struggles, class-based, anti-racist, feminist and pro-LGBT.
It's important that the hard left uses this to help people realised that these struggles are intrinsically interconnected. They need to weaponize the anger and energy for radicalization and organization.
Sure, but I'm afraid that it will just help the right-wing. At least in the US, the left wouldn't be allowed to say much in mainstream media, so the only people attacking stuff like this would be dishonest conservatives. If France is similar, things will only get worse.
Do you mean that Macron’s use of 49.3 will only help the right?
I don’t think so. The centre right have been pretty shattered, the Republicans and the PS are very diminished as political forces, and it’s true that the right is radicalizing, but then again the far right has always moved somewhat in lockstep with a radicalizing and organizing left because they are also a reaction to the failures of liberal capitalism. M’y impression is that what is going on now in France is radicalizing a lot of people towards the left, over issues that have been building for a while. There have also been recent reactionary laws on work and unemployment, as well as profoundly racist immigration laws brought by rapist minister of the interior Darmanin.
The French right are trying to gain from it to embellish their populist credentials but I don’t think it’s touching young people as much as they’d like. That being said, the French far right RN had distinguished itself in recent history by actually having a far higher proportion of young people as members and activists compared to other far right movements.
There is also the French equivalent of Fox News, CNews, which is as vile as u can imagine. Like imagine great replacement theorist fascists but they’re either decrepit old nonces and aristocrats or they’re 99 cent store, hunting, bougie versions of Andrew Tate.
That being said, the success of the fash has mainly been amongst the bougie, petit boug and more rural precarized white workers. The precarized middle classes and most virulently reactionary elements of the bourgeoisie have been their base of support. In the cities and amongst most young people the left is definitely stronger. The situation is better than in most of Italy. Amongst students notably, although there are also bastions of academic and student reaction.
It should be remembered that France is kinda unique in the west because more so than other countries it managed to preserve something like and organized left and unions during the neoliberal onslaught, despite waves of reformism, opportunism and sectarianism following the left’s post-war peak.
The left, including it’s more organized and radical elements, is far more present and vocal on media in France than in, say, the US or the UK, even though the corporate media is equally corrupt and beholden to capitalist interests.
TLDR: everything under Heaven is chaos. The situation is excellent. :mao-aggro-shining:
The first thing any French left should do in the event of any kind of electoral or revolutionary victory is call a congress for a new, socialist constitution, enshrining the dictatorship of the proletariat in a new FRS (French Republic of Soviets).
This should become the dictionary definition for Neoliberalism. Fuck the popular will, we've got institutions to destroy
Presumably that meeting with Rishi Sunak was to get special dispensation for him to cross the channel hidden in a fishing boat, fleeing the French public's pitchforks, after he does this.
I know your joking but nah he's got enough militarized police around him for the time being.
French police have gone the route of the Americans. They're militarized now and it intensified alot, as did their tactics, in reaction to the Yellow Vest protests.
Yes. The minimum retirement age is going from 62 to 64 for most people, and from from 52 to 54 for cops. Although, and don't quote me on this, it appears that most cops keep working past 52 anyway so few cops would actually be inconvenienced by the reform.
Edit: They probably have a secret union exemption ready to go so that they're not affected at all.
The police retirement age will go from 52 to 54.
The police here have a lot of political power and have even held demonstrations against proposed reforms or controls over them (at which demonstrations, btw, for anyone still under any delusions about the revolutionary nature of the PCF, the French Communist Party leader Roussel showed up at in their support.) Melechon also has a republican streak, which ends up reactionary in the French context, aside from all his other issues).
Yeah. They even had his head of security dress up as a cop and join in beating the shit out of protestors I believe.
Yh the Benala scandal has been a pretty permanent thing lmao
He's just about dead isn't he? :macron: a dead man walking around.
Especially when they mock the workers by openly being members of elite 'dining' clubs like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Si%C3%A8cle_(think_tank)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_Club_of_France
Holy smoke I haven't been following Fr*nch politics too closely but there's going to be a riot right?
I assume they're going to be building guillotines outside his house.
The French do, indeed, bring their paper-mache guillotines to the riot.
Some parents bring their kids to the demonstrations lmao
People have already been marching, demonstrating, doing blockages and rioting for weeks.
We'll what the French left decide to do tactically and strategically now (not to say its unified: there are tensions between the more radical elements and the soc dems, some of whom wanted the rioting to dissipate and to hold discussions, lol, with Macron, a man who wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire).
I think shit could heat up there, especially if the economic situation worsens, say, due to a financial crisis.....
That image goes hard. I want to be that mad and in the streets when I'm his age
Yeah no shit he was going to do this
Gotta love a firm of government that gives you little hidden options to do what you want
