Still confused as to why France isn't, like, on fire right now. These people march in the streets and throw molotovs at cops because of a proposed 3 year increase in retirement age, but the sitting government entirely ignores their votes and nothing happens?
Because the Left-Centerleft coalition only won a plurality, not an outright majority. More people voted for Macron's center right party or one of the right wing coalitions.
More French people agree with fascism than you think, or at least according to my friends who live there, it is not something explicitly shown, you can only feel the strong undercurrent by interacting with the people there over the years.
I have long suspected that the left coalition only won because the far right was set to have a landslide victory, and because the French doesn’t want to be seen as directly supporting fascism (they want to be in a situation where they can say “oh look we tried our best to stop it but we still barely got beaten by the far right, that’s how our country end up in fascism”), some of them voted the opposite as a “protest vote” thinking that the far right would have won anyway. The problem here is that when enough people think the same, you actually end up costing the far right parties their election.
But these people’s hearts were not on the left to begin with, so they’re fine with what Macron is doing with aligning with the far right.
Still confused as to why France isn't, like, on fire right now. These people march in the streets and throw molotovs at cops because of a proposed 3 year increase in retirement age, but the sitting government entirely ignores their votes and nothing happens?
Because the Left-Centerleft coalition only won a plurality, not an outright majority. More people voted for Macron's center right party or one of the right wing coalitions.
The new prime minister has also spoken in favor of raising the retirement age, so it's even more confusing
More French people agree with fascism than you think, or at least according to my friends who live there, it is not something explicitly shown, you can only feel the strong undercurrent by interacting with the people there over the years.
I have long suspected that the left coalition only won because the far right was set to have a landslide victory, and because the French doesn’t want to be seen as directly supporting fascism (they want to be in a situation where they can say “oh look we tried our best to stop it but we still barely got beaten by the far right, that’s how our country end up in fascism”), some of them voted the opposite as a “protest vote” thinking that the far right would have won anyway. The problem here is that when enough people think the same, you actually end up costing the far right parties their election.
But these people’s hearts were not on the left to begin with, so they’re fine with what Macron is doing with aligning with the far right.
FIFY