France: A left-wing coalition unexpectedly surged and the far-right National Rally fell short
France: A left-wing coalition unexpectedly surged and the far-right National Rally fell short
Everybody else in the world is like “Holy shit the French beat the Nazis, that’s some pretty good news at a time when it’s badly needed”
Not the New York Times though. They’re mad because it means “gridlock” if the Nazis are gonna be obstructed on what they wanted to do and the left is gonna get a say in government again
I suggest that we take the cubby that was left unfilled after the gradual retirement of “Russian Warship go fuck yourself” and fill it with “New York Times go fuck yourself”
It‘s not so surprising that the NYT does not know what a proper democracy looks like. They‘re American after all and never experienced one.
For NYT Neoliberalism is the only valid form of govermnent
The anti left media blitz before during and after this election has been nothing short of disgusting. You've got people from a party actually founded by Waffen SS accusing the left of being anti-Semitic (because guess what, they're not wholly approving of the genocide in Gaza). No fact check no push back just straight up "plutôt Hitler que front populaire". They don't even hide their shame anymore.
Oh nooo there are more than 2 major parties, what are we supposed to do, this is way too complicated for our little peabrains.
Gee, it's almost like they expected Macron to hemm, haw, deliberate, and 12 other words for "stall", but ultimately make the hard, difficult, bitter, but undeniably necessary and honourable decision and join Le Pen in the government, you know, for the good of the nation.
And then the godless fucking commies RUINED IT ALL!!!
Remember, in America, the New York Times is part of this notorious "liberal media" I keep hearing so very much about...
i thought it was funny, you could feel how stunned mainstream media seemed, like struggles for words, usually everybody has pretty much the same framing, here it was all over the place. Communism is scarier to them then fashism.
Ok then rebut The NY Times screen clip by explaining how the next prime minister will be chosen. What is the coalition that will choose them.
It's a win for the left, but seeing that chart breakdown doesn't look that hopeful. National Rally and other right wing parties still gained. Macron got squeezed out the middle. As long as Macron's party prefers to work with the left rather than the right, it's a win, but that's not always how things work.
Exactly right. The left/center share didn't surge relative to 2022 - it fell by 13%. Meanwhile RN surged by 60% in its share of seats.
So it's reassuring in the near term that the center-left "surged" relative to initial polling, but in the longer term it is quite concerning that the far right is actually the segment gaining ground.
France shifts to the left, but risk of policy paralysis looms - https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/france-shifts-left-risk-policy-paralysis-looms-2024-07-08/
The French people absolutely came out in force to wreck the far-right, which is a phenomenal upset from the predictions!
They also gave no party a majority, and France has little experince in making broad coalition governments. I fucking hope the "Fuck Le Pencil" alliance of Centrists, Liberals, Leftists, and Communists can come together, but the stereotypical left infighting might neuter this before it's begun.
I might be stereotypical but I, for one, sure hope the left sticks to its program and doesn't compromise itself by allying with the so-called centrists. They've been calling us antisemites, chaos agents and extremists for the whole campaign, and the last 7 years of Macron speak for themselves regarding the centrists inability to support left-wing policies.
The best thing that could happen for the fascists is facing a coalition too mild to do anything meaningful for the people, and being able to say "See? The Left has betrayed you!" next elections
People on the overarching "western liberalism" side of the spectrum are usually fairly accustomed to putting aside their differences to cooperate on important things when the shit really hits the fan. The shit just has to hit the fan, first.
Priorities and all.
To quote Maya Angelou, "Surviving is important. Thriving is elegant." When you can afford to, it's good to fight for your particular vision. When your actual survival is threatened, however, that takes a backseat by necessity.
We're naturally good at this, because the principles of liberty and equality themselves require a certain willingness to cooperate and compromise with people with diverging views. As opposed to authoritarianism, where manipulation of and contesting for power is the ultimate method for sorting out how differing ideas get dealt with.
Hopefully Macron remembers this, and remains willing to compromise with his left flank. I think he likely will.
Meh, for the common people, a technical government is going to be a massive upgrade from what we had before.
I never thought I’d say this, but America needs to be more like France. They didn’t forget what fascism looks like.
Believe me we did, the RN gained seats.
Also according to the OP, RN now have more seats than anyone else. Still not enough to form a government by themselves, and the other two main parties won't want to help them.
However the other two parties don't exactly get on swimmingly with each other, either, so the new coalition government might struggle.
They sure as fuck know how to protest.
We Americans could learn a lot from them right now
Why would you never think you'd say that? France is a rather functional country on the whole.
Sorry, that was a poorly worded response on my part. Thinking back, I’ve watched France stand up numerous times (if memory serves) against this type of hard-right nonsense.
Don't speak too fast. With the RN (far right) being unable to govern now, they'll be able to watch comfortably from the sidelines and criticise everything the others are attempting to build without doing anything themselves. They will be blameless for the presidential elections in two year's time.
Had they been in power now, we would have seen how incompetent they are and it could have lowered their chances for the next election. And we'd have had them for two years instead of five (or, ok, a risk of two + five).
With the RN (far right) being unable to govern now, they'll be able to watch comfortably from the sidelines and criticise everything the others are attempting to build without doing anything themselves.
Which is what the GOP does anyway. Obstruct any progress as much as possible, criticize the Dems for not doing anything while ignoring their obstruction as the reason, and when something does happen to get through their obstruction they go back to their districts and take credit for it.
Turns out that having Nazis in your political party is not beneficial in some places. Food for thought.
The far right was defeated in the election, but they still grew their total presence in government. This graph just shows the increasing polarization in modern politics.
It's not an increasing polarization, it's literally about one issue: immigration, and the European left wing's inability to say "no".
Amazing, so all the Russian and Chinese propaganda didn't work as much as Pootin and Winnie wanted to.
I see the same happen in most European countries. Like for example here in Belgium.
Sorry, but the majority of people just aren't xenophobic fucks and would never fall for that Russian and Chinese propaganda.
USA has joined the chat.
I do not understand how this can happen.
Like obviously polls can be wrong but did the far right not win the first round of voting?
Because the centre and left candidates that arrived 3rd in three-ways against the RN removed themseves from the vote to allow for a bigger front and it worked
I'm crying with envy that this is even a thing for others.
Saved from the far right by an undemocratic voting system, I see.
NPF and Macron withdrew candidates from districts to funnel them into one of the two parties. In those districts they got more votes than RN. But because it's counted nationally the poll numbers look weird because in other districts they got 0.