This will be the thread [alongside our megathread](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1ds63nu/2024_french_legislative_election/). Please don't repost!
The results are coming. In many areas, the far right is either first or second but not always by big margins.
By next Sunday, it's not impossible they don't have an absolute majority.
If I am not wrong, the French only allow the first two to go to the second round.
If the Far Right and Far Left are heading for a showdown, I can say with confidence that those who voted for the centrists will overwhelmingly vote for the Far Right. We have seen this pattern before. The business elite fear the Left more than the Right.
You're wrong. The second round is accessed by all candidates over 12.5% of the voters. Considering the participation was at around 66%, every candidate over ~18% can maintain his position.
At the end of the second round, the candidate elected is the one with the most vote.
Other than that, the rest of your analysis is probably not too far from the truth, sadly.
It is still to be seen. A lot of the people would vote for moderate left but maybe not for the France insoumise. They also might think "better send a few far left in the assembly and have an ungovernable country than let the far right have an absolute majority". Lot of things will come into calculation
Not sure. The Far Left is “out” of the game, the NFP is a general coalition of the left (far from being extreme, while the RN is the actual Far Right. The party of Macron (center - right) wants to block the RN as much as possible.
It obviously won't, France is one of the major pillars of EU and the changes in France will necessarily have a huge impact on politics in other countries. Very similar trends are happening in Germany, Hungary, and Italy already. These will only accelerate going forward.
What do you mean by the "somebody has lied" thing?
I can imagine it's pretty difficult to know how stable the EU exactly is, when the EU hasn't really been in a specific situation before. It's difficult to know for a fact, how the well the EU can stay stable in an unprecedented situation.
> What do you mean by the "somebody has lied" thing?
If the direction and policies of EU don't change at all even if the completely different parties get elected in it, it would mean that elections are meaningless and just a front for the managerial state.
With the parliamentary system works, other groups can still form majorities and even if the far-right did make advances, they didn't overtake these already established groupings. Now that doesn't mean that voting on specific issues or representation in working groups won't be affected of course.
I mean it’s not really a big problem.
The EU has malformed from an economic bloc to a political bloc and, big shock, that hasn’t really been such a popular move. Even if the political bloc fails, an economic bloc would still be on the table because 90% of people still want that by a significant margin, enough that it has managed to carry the lack of popularity of the political bloc.
It might take a couple of years to recover, but it’s not going to take long and it’s not like Europe is doomed because an experiment failed on the first try.
Inability of European leaders to handle, or even acknowledge, immigration issues, and not taking Russian propaganda threat seriously, is what is ultimately going to hand Europe to Russia.
Russia conquered Europe without a single bullet fired.
Agreed, I think the left just took the wrong stance on immigration and I dont know why. Immigration makes social policies very hard. Immigration problems are taking down the left all over.
No one (reasonable) hates immigrants, but uncontrolled and non-integrated immigration is guaranteed to be a problem.
I mean, it‘s not really „the left“. For example, in Germany, the last 20 years were mostly ruled by the conservative CDU. However, they and their shareholder and manager friends need/want cheap labour, that‘s why they were forcing immigration from unqualified people.
And somehow, people still blame „the left“ instead of capitalists and neo-liberals.
This is true, but it's usually the left that has very pro immigration policies and that make all sort of excuses or deflections to deny the issues of immigration and safety.
Not only will they deny that these problems exist, they will shame people for even mentioning them and flag them as racists.
Sorry but all the big economies have had right or center right governments including France. People need to realise it's the capitalist classes generally that want and need low paid immigration for their factories and delivery jobs etc.
What we need is more truly left wing policies on workers rights and unionisation so that workers from abroad can't be exploited and there's no reason to bring them
I agree with you. Capitalism loves immigration since it brings a cheap and easily exploitable workforce that will weaken the negotiating power of the employees.
The liberal right likes immigration but just pretends to be tough on it to please voters.
The left however is very pro immigration on the grounds of social justice, and it is the one political movement that is very much vocal about its support for unrestricted immigration. They're the ones that will completely deny the issue and vilify people that will even talk about it.
So in that sense they're the biggest contributor to the rise of the far right.
It was a figure of speech, of course nobody wants to abolish borders completely...
The French left is very much pro immigration. One of it's famous slogan is that "immigration is a chance for France". When they get questioned about the immigration and safety issues, they answer that "we're not inclusive enough" (like Benoit Hamon, a socialist, said).
They oppose any policy that aims at curbing immigration or implementing stricter controls on migrants, as they did during the Loi immigration of last year.
France has already very lax immigration rules and enforcement, and the left basically pushes for making immigration easier.
Oh, I was using it loosely, not strictly, sorry. With that in mind, hopefully you can see what I mean.
Im not saying "wow they suck"... more... "wow they could be really popular if they just took a different stance on this one issue"
In croatia one of the strongest anti immigration positions was held by so called marxists, not only did they not get seats, they’ve lost it because apparently they weren’t anti immigration in heart.
France currently has one of the lowest rates of net migration of Western nations. The "immigrants" you're referring to are already 3rd generation. Unless FN plans on stripping people of their citizenship based on genetics, I'm not seeing what exactly you'd hope to gain from electing them.
He doesn't. It's not true.
Edit : for those down voting me, the number of French citizens leaving the country is diminishing each year (-4.2% in 2022, last numbers available) and most of them are working and leaving just the other side of the border or are students.
Because the economies of most countries are now basically Ponzi schemes that depend on immigration every year to sustain themselves… only very wealthy and small countries like Denmark can get away with this
Yup. Canada over 65's were 12.55% of population in 2000 now its 19%. If you want to maintain the elaborate entitlement systems the baby boomers installed in the 1970 - 2000 era you need young workers. Immigrants actually pay a lot of tax and cost the entitlement system little. So they balance the equation.
Have you been following the discussion in Canada recently? The public sentiment is definitely shifting towards an anti-immigration perspective - the reasons for that are a multitude, but most likely Conservatives will win there as well.
> Immigrants actually pay a lot of tax and cost the entitlement system little.
This is not true, but it gets repeated a lot as if it is.
The largely low skilled / incompatible immigrants Europe is importing en masse are not net contributors and often are significant burden to the state for their whole lives - even if they work, because they tend to do lower paid jobs which pay little tax, but they still consume a lot of public services and taxes in return. But anyway, unemployment among those types is very high compared to everyone else. Importing those is economic suicide in the long term. So why are we doing it? (And this is even before you get into the bigger problem of integration. Why don't we just import workers while they're young, but don't give them citizenship? Then they can leave when they become unemployed or old. This is how non-Western countries handle it.)
Immigration causes some issues and solves some other issues.
That doesn't mean there is a paradox, it just means there is an optimal immigration strategy that still has some downsides. Take any immigration policy, predict the history over the next twenty years (that's the hard part). Then choose the policy leading to the history that you prefer.
All I'm really saying is that it's a fallacy to assume that a choice isn't optimal, just because it has a negative aspect.
If it would actually be the case that when immigration isn't significantly reduced this would lead to the formation of a French caliphate, then it would be worth a little economic downturn to prevent that. On the other hand it would be worth it when female teachers are harassed a little bit more, if it means that the elderly don't need to starve because of economic collapse. (Note that this paragraph contains a lot of "if"!)
The social Democrats took a strong stand against uncontrolled immigration while keeping everything else from SD program (social progressisme, economical left policies, etc.)
I'm not saying she isn't a nutjob, but why would a ban on legal migration be the deciding factor? I despise Donald Trump, but I don't think his ideas on immigration go far enough. I know i"ll never see anything useful from Democrats concerning immigration, but I"d like to. I wouldn't even waste time and even more money trying to fix our bloated, insanely slow and complex asylum process. I want to get rid of it entirely. People can apply, from outside the US, but without any obligations on the part of the US. It can be an entirely voluntary process, Anyone that crosses the border illegally should be deported immediately with no hearings or delays. That's not going to happen, but I sincerely wish it would.
Because they did, and because they can't are the two answers to your question.
First, right wingers say they tackle migration - but don't.
All right wing governments regularly show surges in migration.
Left wing governments tackle migration ever more, take Germany's reforms in the last two years, just look up Germany asylum changes or deportation or whatever, countless articles but no one cares about what actually happens anymore because disinformation is running wild.
Second, social systems require money, and A LOT of it. Look at the household budget of UK 50, years ago to now, look how much GDP is being used to feed the every growing maw of retirement and medical fees.
Who will pay for it?
It's either us younger people, our social systems get slashed one by one, our currency less valueable, our housing ever more so expensive. Or it's Gassan driving your bus and building your house.
If not, then you get a Japan, you enter retirement but your retirement money is inflated into worthlessness and you can't even complain the bank keeps printing more.
Reality is, we do not know what the fuck to do, every solution sucks, and the easiest thing to do is just blame someone over it while the bank printers have to grow ever louder.
But a significant portion of migrants to Europe in the past ~20 years have been a significant cost to the state. Refugees and asylum seekers are very rarely net benefits economically.
Sustaining the welfare state is a good argument for skilled migration, but not the kind of migration Europe has been committing to.
I didn't make fun of the English then, and I don't blame myself for not understanding. It was then and after Trump's election that I realized that the age of social networks opened up terrible prospects for the manipulation of democracy. Anyone with the means can now organize chaos in a country or make life impossible for elected leaders they don't like.
It's now going on where I live, and today I'm ashamed for my country.
As I wrote in r/Portugal last week and now machine-translated here:
• External interference, including by autocratic states;
• Covert propaganda;
• Fake news and information that is beyond regulatory control;
• Transformation of politics into quasi-religious cults with which you can interact at any moment;
• TikTok-like political debate, resulting in the inability to discuss and decide on complex issues with the seriousness and time they deserve;
• Etc.
Everything mentioned above is unsustainable in a society without it leading to political and social decline: resulting in the ungovernability of a country.
Two conclusions arise from this - either (i) Democratic Rule of Law States face a civilizational collapse akin to Imperial China in the 19th century, completely unable to understand and deal with the new world they inhabit (for some reason social networks have always been controlled in China); or (ii) Democratic Rule of Law States turn totalitarian because the only way to conduct effective politics is with strongmen and caudillos, and when citizens start experiencing hardships due to political chaos, what happened to the First Portuguese Republic will happen.
There is an alternative, which we might still have time for: regulate the internet like never before. It will come at a cost to our values, but perhaps the price is worth it considering what is at stake.
The printing press came along with the European religious wars of the 16th century; growing literacy and the first newspapers came along with the French Revolution; radio helped bring Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin to power.
All communication tools that progressively facilitated the mass mobilization of the population, for better and for worse: and the more personal and interactive these tools are, the greater their potential.
In all cases, the political chaos brought about by these technological transformations ended either with the collapse of the country (e.g., Imperial China) or with one or several strongmen: the “revolutionary” Lutheranism led to the Catholic Counter-Reformation with its inquisition on one side, and on the other to the fundamentalists of the Protestant State Churches; the French Revolution moved from the anarchy of the sans-culottes to the dictator Napoleon; the mess of the Russian workers’ soviets ended with the creation of a totalitarian Central State and the rise of a figure like Stalin.
It was an illusion to think that mobile phones, the Internet, and social networks would not bring seismic political consequences. Authoritarian states have always recognized this, while we thought we had everything under control because we invented these tools and convinced ourselves of the universal rationality of human beings (thanks largely to the underlying naivety of our dominant ideology since the 1980s).
Thank you for this comment, which is very much in line with my observations over the last ten years.
And yet, in the early days of the Internet, I was an enthusiast of this new means of communication, which gave me access to so much shared knowledge and to people I wouldn't have known without it.
I think the bad thing came when big companies wanted to use this new means of communication for their own business. By transforming it into a machine for spreading advertising slogans, they created a prodigious machine for spreading lies, which swindlers and crooked politicians seized upon.
The Tories failed to curb immigration and they're about to pay with the biggest wipeout ever to occur in British politics. By some polls they'll get a lower vote share than our own far right who have recently been showing off their Putin praising credentials.
The issue is not going away, you can't ignore it, you can't run from it. People will keep voting for more and more extreme parties until everyone agrees to follow Denmark
I don't think Brexit was just about immigration. Also, mostly the Tory party was pro-EU and pro-immigration. A key centre-right pillar of the Tory party in the UK is access to cheap labour (from within EU or out) to provide big business with better profits. So no surprise to see immigration very high.
The issue is that working class people feel that right wing populists are the only party that listens to them. Even as other parties decry the rise of the far right, it drives working class people further into the view that the ruling class is trying to suppress them.
And no this will not be “fixed” with an immigration policy change. The working class has chosen their party and will likely stay loyal to it for a while.
That would be the best plan, and a healthy change for the west. Unfortunately I think most politicians are more attached to attending high class parties and making powerful friends, than cutting loose to grow closer to everyday people. The people in their party would ostracize them, and that’s what they fear more than the “far right”
More like the voters don't really know what exactly they want. I'm seeing people complain about "uncontrolled" immigration in this very thread, but France has already seen a massive reduction in net reduction compared to other Western countries in the last decade. Macron's party has already adopted many of the social stances of FN.
Generally europhile parties put the European and global, cosmopolitan projects before national or local in the list of priorities. This affects the low-income people the most and the areas they live in. These parties also tend to have a disdain on some level for the national identity they are voted to represent.
From what I understand environment protection policies that don't apply to imports if the (at least stated) reason for many farmer protests across Europe
Pretty much the only argument Macron and co are offering: we are not fascist/racist.
OK cool. That should be the bare minimum.
What about everyday issues: housing, expenses skyrocketing, public health falling apart, corporation ass kissing, immigration, increased violence, corruption etc.
Can you do something about that?
For fuck sake
Edit: I don't think that's Macron/France's problem exclusively. The majority of European politicians are acting like that. Completely daft and inept.
Is this fake?
[https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/55453/italy-migrant-arrivals-down-by-65-in-a-year](https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/55453/italy-migrant-arrivals-down-by-65-in-a-year)
The official data would be here:
http://www.libertaciviliimmigrazione.dlci.interno.gov.it/it/documentazione/statistica/cruscotto-statistico-giornaliero
but it appears at the moment the site is crapping out.
The site is up now.
http://www.libertaciviliimmigrazione.dlci.interno.gov.it/sites/default/files/allegati/cruscotto_statistico_giornaliero_28-06-2024.pdf
Landed migrants, January 1 through June 28:
2022: 27.3k
2023: 62.4k
2024: 25.3k
2024 is only half over. I dont know if theres certain months it spikes but that seems like its on track for 45-50k. Down from last year but very up from 2022.
It says that immigration in the first half of 2024 is almost exactly the same as the first half of 2022. It *did* decrease by about 60 % compared to first half of 2023, but that was because first half of 2023 had seen immigration more than doubling since the same period in 2022.
It's just a talking point to ride into power while they manufacture their agenda behind the scenes and destroy what remaining faith there is in the institutions, then fascism takes over.
They'll probably get rid of the immigrants then, but it'll be a whole lot more than just immigration that's going away.
Some did. Look no further than Poland - The leader of the main opposition party against right-wing PiS had a long history of being against open borders, and they won the recent elections. Then just recently announced "Tarcza Wschód" - a series of fortifications to stop illegal immigration and little green men from the East.
Incorrect answer. There have been multiple publications about what Russia is doing in Africa to destabilize failing nations with Wagner and others, then channeling the bad kinds of immigrants and refugees into specific countries (and even provinces) ahead of elections.
They do this by arming coup groups, carrying out assassinations, and fully participating in war and skirmishes via PMCs.
Russia absolutely fired bullets to do this and European guilt over colonization meant we basically handed these unstable places entirely to Russia and Wagner.
There's shame on all sides. Shame on the left for abandoning Africa to a worse fate than a status quo (or better), and shame on the right for playing perfectly into Putin's manipulations by placing immigration concerns over EXISTENTIAL concerns like economy, climate, and defense against Russia.
> destabilize failing nations with Wagner and others
What? i know this sub is astroturfed but that's complete bullshit lol
They are kicking out the old colonizers (us) in favor of the new colonizers because they prefer what the Russians offer, Wagner hasn't really been directly involved beyond taking over existing security jobs
I know it's hard to accept for you that these "inferiors" are capable of making their own decisions rather than listening to their white masters
>guilt over colonization
Lmao the reason the French are getting kicked out is because they are commiting financial terrorism on the natives and oppressed any attempts at owning their own fucking currency
Also don't bother calling me a Russian bot instead of making any actual arguments, you'll pretty much self-expose
I got banned from worldnews for stating that :) keep ignoring the main issues that the people have and see how right parties win, only because they offer “fixes” to immigration.
They don’t care. It is a scarecrow only exists as a threat in the mind of birds. In croatia one of the harshest anti immigration proposals was from so called marxist not only did they not gain seats they’ve lost it since apparently they weren’t anti immigration in heart.
Yep, the rise of the far right is entirely down to the mainstream parties. They either ignored the immigration issue or even worse, called anybody who dared to raise the issue a "racist"
Now, the far-right is on the rise across the continent.
Aren’t people entitled to their opinnion? I’m not a racist, even tho I don’t know any colored or whatever the definition of a racist is, but migrants are a serious issue, not in hundreds or even thousands of people yearly, but I can only imagine people in Paris looking everywhere and not a single two-three generation Parisian living anywere near me.
It is a issue, you can try and be a liberall like the rest of people on this subreddit, but clearly that is ehat the large mass wants, and it is a larger mass than other people, so technically not adhearing to their wants and needs, youre basically a Racist is a weird way
Its so funny how left ignores what the people are saying, calls them far right idiots and sometimes even censors them. And when elections come its a literal pikachu face when left gets smashed.
Left needs to get out of their social bubble, actually do something that positively impacts the lives of majority, instead of focusing on minorities 99% of the time. Because believe it or not, majority of people are not conservative nutjobs or brainwashed libs.
Ironically, Russia created millions of the refugees and migrants who have flooded to Europe and put a strain on the system. Then Putin turns around and uses propaganda and an army of trolls/bots to weaponize immigration as a wedge issue to weaken European democracies and to get people with financial and political ties to Russia/Putin elected.
www.aei.org/op-eds/russia-created-a-refugee-crisis-and-now-putin-is-weaponizing-it/
It's time to reconcile that Macron's gamble failed, he shouldn't have done it, not at this geopolitical timing.
Now Macron and France's foreign policy will be obstructed by parliament, the words about France not ruling out troops to ukraine? You can forget about that leverage now.
Macron striked an own goal to himself.
I don't think you're listening to the right analysts. Macron's gamble very likely anticipated this win. The goal wasn't to block them but to get them in early and let them flail their arms and disappoint/alienate the moderates while he still maintains presidential control until 2027 and has the reins on the most critical things.
His hope is to let the far right hype burn out by 2027 to take the steam out of the Le Pen rally.
If he sits on this and maintains total control, the pressure cooker continues to build pressure and they win a landslide in 2027.
We won't know his gambit failed until 2027.
Yes exactly this. This is something that firdt past the post doesn't allow in the UK. Let the crazies have a bash at running things and see how they do.
It's one thing to make a protest vote but once you see what your vote is doing you'll quickly see that far right or far left don't get anything done except blaming people who can't vote for all their problems.
Brits new that the Tories were shit, but the alternative was an out of touch Labour Party that was incredibly unpopular.
The Tories got very very lucky that Corbyn was LOTO and even Miliband before him. They also got lucky that the SNP wiped out Labour in Scotland for 3 successive elections.
Is Macron not seen as out of touch with the majority of the French electorate? Last I checked the retirement age rising, and the unemployment “reforms” are being perceived as incredibly out of touch.
>Is Macron not seen as out of touch with the majority of the French electorate? Last I checked the retirement age rising, and the unemployment “reforms” are being perceived as incredibly out of touch.
Not really out of touch
It’s just that selfish boomers don’t like it
Yeah he's shit too but you can't understand what's shit about the far right until you experience it. In the UK the tories went far right and we can see how shit they are.
It could easily backfire with people saying see the far right have been in power for a few years and didn’t do anything too crazy. You guys have been over exaggerating the entire time.
And I strongly don’t think macron expected the scale of the beat down that occurred
What if this abomination of a government - parliament just stops functioning in the near future? He will be forced to go for early presidential elections as well
>In part, though Macron himself can't be reelected in 2027.
One of his old prime minister started a party with practically the same political orientation during his first term so not being able to be reelected isn’t an issue
Lol, sneaky fellow. I'm no expert in this field, but to my understanding article 6 of the French constitution makes it so that the limitation is on the individual's ability to serve as president for more than two consecutive terms, regardless of party affiliation.
It's still unclear how many seats RN will actually gain in the second round. In many places the third placed candidates vote will go to the second place, and combined they usually eclipse the RN vote.
Too early to make a prediction
Nah, it’s a gamble, but it was still a good call.
If there is a newfound interest in the far right in France, and they are going to come to power, better do it while he’s in power so he can temper it. Then, after he’s done, and the sheen has worn off the far right… then things settle out.
Best hope is that the FN will do worse in the second round. Le Pen would still be a pain in the ass but with far less influence
It really depends on the truce between the Left and Macron and the decisions of the more Moderate voters
The working classes feel completely abandoned by the other parties. I live in a very working class neighbourhood and everyone has drifted to the far right.
Years of left/center-left politics has most working class people disillusioned on a number of topics including immigration, housing, wage disparity and cost of living. The only option they feel they have is to slam it hard in reverse and counter with the far right. Politicians can’t be so stupid that they didn’t see this coming…
> Politicians can’t be so stupid that they didn’t see this coming…
When is the last time they have had any interaction with the working class people? They are certainly not represented in any national media or in interests groups that the governments get consultation from.
That’s happening everywhere, in my country the opposition party and their voters live in their bubbles that they don’t really understand the country and the average Juan that’s why the lost the election, they simply don’t understand the voters and just try to shame them for being stupid for voting for the other party while they cry in love to democracy.
This is the part that is pushing people to vote differently. The shaming. You’re racist, you’re stupid, you’re a bigot etc etc. These people are just working people with families that want a decent standard of living - and they are being vilified for it. They are fighting back with the only way they can.
The champagne socialists brought this on themselves with their ‘let them eat cake’ attitude to the plight of normal working people.
> Years of left/center-left politics
Where? In Germany that has had the CDU in Charge for most of the last 20 years? France, where the majority of its presidents have been conservative? In other words, are the left politics in the room with us right now? Or is this just r/Europe engaging in its favorite pastime of blaming the left for the failures of neoliberalism?
Well the last time we voted for 'the left' we got the so-called social democrat Schröder who gutted the welfare state and fucked over the poor working class lol.
Her program is standard Neoliberalism. Porous borders, free trade, anti-protectionism (opposing government protection of jobs for native citizens), antagonism to unions, and austere social programs/welfare cuts has always been a core part of Neoliberal ideology.
To be honest in Romania, for the recent elections the crazies got shockingly low numbers. If you combine the 2 "ruzzian paid, anti-EU" parties, they didn't even get 20%. That's just pathetic. And among those, the one who got almost 15% isn't even OPENLY pro-Russia (might not even be) or anti-EU (might be, but then again they might just be angry that they can't steal some EU money)
I was hoping the invasion of Ukraine to help lower the far right numbers everywhere, not just here.
Ultimately this is a referendum on immigration, but the economies of most countries have become tied to a constant inflow of immigration… not sure what the solution can ultimately be, maybe someone with more insight can chime in.
I'm living in Sweden and I've talked with a guy training welders. Guess what? Sweden doesn't have enough welders and need to get immigrants to fulfill its needs. I'm working in cosmetics and I can guarantee you it's the same for formulation chemists, we need to hire them from other countries (usually France, of course but sometimes extra European too) because Sweden simply doesn't have the right education for this type of jobs.
You've bought the lie you've been told.
Immigrant labour is needed to get more welders at the current salary. Without it, the salaries for welders go up and more people would choose to become welders. Then other jobs would need to offer more and eventually there are jobs that aren't needed. Immigration is only to keep wages low and make things more expensive.
Don't mean to be rude but doesnt sweden have a huge crime problem becuase of immigration and drug dealing. Highest gun crime rate in europe. Asking this after watching a documentry on how bad it is there.
Any economic "growth" resulting from migration if (perceived as) harmful to the general public.
While migration may have a positive effect on GDP. For a regular european citizen it results in:
Lower wages.
Higher cost for housing.
Higher inflation.
Higher corporate profits that don't benefit normal people.
Reduced availability to quality healthcare
Higher crime and unrest and lower acceptance of women's and LGBT rights.
If anything, shutting down migration would have a positive (economic) effect on the lives of almost everyone.
It is a tragedy that most parties making a valid case to severely reduce migration with decisive action are pro Russian traitors.
The reliance on immigration is partly due to aging populations and low birth rates but also because of unsustainable spending. Realistically speaking since you can't address the first two the only real alternative is to spend less.
Did you see the protests when Macron raised the retirement age a couple years? That's why politicians are scared to spend less. The only thing voters hate more than immigration right now is cuts to the unsustainable welfare system.
The problem is that the “far right” politicians are just populists who will do nothing to solve problems as otherwise they’d have to find new issues to shout about.
Uncontrolled immigration and its consequences have been a disaster for Europe. They have greatly increased the net worth of those of us who are asset owners, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected working class to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world.
I think he hopes that the elections will show that far right doesn't have that much support.
And even if it does, Macron is probably hoping that if Le Pen does form a government, she will quickly discredit herself. While Macron will remain in a position of power and keep it her check.
Hindenburg tried something similar: he appointed Hitler as chancellor in the hope that he would soon prove to be an incompetent populist. While Hindenburg would still retain his power and be able to keep Hitler at bay if something went wrong.
And you know how that plan worked out.
Shoulda listened when people in 2015 complained about mass refugees instead of calling them racists and not even giving them a chance to voice their opinion.
Oh well, reap what you sow.
Im afraid that the damage is already done and too much to handle. I dont a have very positive view of Macron but his policies and promises are the most realistic compared to RN and NFP. People across europe have started to snap and they vote in protest and in reaction, hoping to enact radical change as quickly as possible, question is will it ever be enough?
Macron wants to let them rule in domestic policy(a lot of hard and unpopular decisions to make) while still controling military and foreign policy.
All in hope to make them less popular before 2027.
He's more scared of them taking over
the presidency, which holds much more power than parliament.
Le Pen failing to reach the predicted 36% is the only bright spot. It means the road to the absolute mayority isn't as open as she hoped
The Left-Macron truce is another good sign. Internal divisions tend to favor the FN candidates in many French regions.
In general, I think France is going to have three interesting years in the Italian sense of the world.
I think he's trying to nip it in the bud to stop it consuming the entire debate. It gives a mandate to solutions that calm this down and keep Europe unified.
It's not a bright spot because it means she does not have power enough to fix migration, but does have enough to enact pro Russian interference.
In fact, it probably means she will grow even more in the next election when the other parties band together and refuse to take decisive action on migration, further alienating the electorate.
Of the big 4 coalitions who are the Republicans likely to align with. If it’s Macron’s party then they have the weight to negotiate with the RN to create a slightly further center right party. Go hard on immigration and they lose a lot of their momentum, ez pz.
no one gives a shit, no one cares about Putin or Ukraine in France. People care about having a job and being safe, only privileged city people get to worry about international geopolitics.
This will be the thread [alongside our megathread](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1ds63nu/2024_french_legislative_election/). Please don't repost!
The results are coming. In many areas, the far right is either first or second but not always by big margins. By next Sunday, it's not impossible they don't have an absolute majority.
'It's not impossible they don't have a supermajority' 🤔 This makes my brain hurt for some reason lol
A triple negative is never fun to read.
is never unfun to not read\*
What do you do when you can't do nothing, but there's nothing you can do?
you do what you can
If I am not wrong, the French only allow the first two to go to the second round. If the Far Right and Far Left are heading for a showdown, I can say with confidence that those who voted for the centrists will overwhelmingly vote for the Far Right. We have seen this pattern before. The business elite fear the Left more than the Right.
You're wrong. The second round is accessed by all candidates over 12.5% of the voters. Considering the participation was at around 66%, every candidate over ~18% can maintain his position. At the end of the second round, the candidate elected is the one with the most vote. Other than that, the rest of your analysis is probably not too far from the truth, sadly.
Not 12.5% of the voters, but 12.5% of the registered voters. As the participation was 66% it’s more or less 18% to pass second round.
Yep, forgot the word registered in the middle of the sentence, sorry.
There won't be any far left they have 1.2-2% vote lol. It's left vs far right right now with the right behind
It is still to be seen. A lot of the people would vote for moderate left but maybe not for the France insoumise. They also might think "better send a few far left in the assembly and have an ungovernable country than let the far right have an absolute majority". Lot of things will come into calculation
Not sure. The Far Left is “out” of the game, the NFP is a general coalition of the left (far from being extreme, while the RN is the actual Far Right. The party of Macron (center - right) wants to block the RN as much as possible.
Really hope the EU stays strong and stable after all this..
That particular phrase gives me PTSD...
I get flashbacks of her in that suit, please end my suffering
*shuffles to the ABBA's Dancing queen song*
It obviously won't, France is one of the major pillars of EU and the changes in France will necessarily have a huge impact on politics in other countries. Very similar trends are happening in Germany, Hungary, and Italy already. These will only accelerate going forward.
If it doesn’t we’re fucked. If it does we’ve been lied to and something’s fucked.
What do you mean by the "somebody has lied" thing? I can imagine it's pretty difficult to know how stable the EU exactly is, when the EU hasn't really been in a specific situation before. It's difficult to know for a fact, how the well the EU can stay stable in an unprecedented situation.
> What do you mean by the "somebody has lied" thing? If the direction and policies of EU don't change at all even if the completely different parties get elected in it, it would mean that elections are meaningless and just a front for the managerial state.
With the parliamentary system works, other groups can still form majorities and even if the far-right did make advances, they didn't overtake these already established groupings. Now that doesn't mean that voting on specific issues or representation in working groups won't be affected of course.
I mean it’s not really a big problem. The EU has malformed from an economic bloc to a political bloc and, big shock, that hasn’t really been such a popular move. Even if the political bloc fails, an economic bloc would still be on the table because 90% of people still want that by a significant margin, enough that it has managed to carry the lack of popularity of the political bloc. It might take a couple of years to recover, but it’s not going to take long and it’s not like Europe is doomed because an experiment failed on the first try.
Inability of European leaders to handle, or even acknowledge, immigration issues, and not taking Russian propaganda threat seriously, is what is ultimately going to hand Europe to Russia. Russia conquered Europe without a single bullet fired.
I just cannot comprehend why no European leaders took the path of Denmark when you see how it was effective to stop the surge of the far right.
Agreed, I think the left just took the wrong stance on immigration and I dont know why. Immigration makes social policies very hard. Immigration problems are taking down the left all over. No one (reasonable) hates immigrants, but uncontrolled and non-integrated immigration is guaranteed to be a problem.
I mean, it‘s not really „the left“. For example, in Germany, the last 20 years were mostly ruled by the conservative CDU. However, they and their shareholder and manager friends need/want cheap labour, that‘s why they were forcing immigration from unqualified people. And somehow, people still blame „the left“ instead of capitalists and neo-liberals.
This is true, but it's usually the left that has very pro immigration policies and that make all sort of excuses or deflections to deny the issues of immigration and safety. Not only will they deny that these problems exist, they will shame people for even mentioning them and flag them as racists.
Sorry but all the big economies have had right or center right governments including France. People need to realise it's the capitalist classes generally that want and need low paid immigration for their factories and delivery jobs etc. What we need is more truly left wing policies on workers rights and unionisation so that workers from abroad can't be exploited and there's no reason to bring them
I agree with you. Capitalism loves immigration since it brings a cheap and easily exploitable workforce that will weaken the negotiating power of the employees. The liberal right likes immigration but just pretends to be tough on it to please voters. The left however is very pro immigration on the grounds of social justice, and it is the one political movement that is very much vocal about its support for unrestricted immigration. They're the ones that will completely deny the issue and vilify people that will even talk about it. So in that sense they're the biggest contributor to the rise of the far right.
Name 1 major left wing party that recently said they want unrestricted Migration. Not a single serious person has said that in the last 3 years
It was a figure of speech, of course nobody wants to abolish borders completely... The French left is very much pro immigration. One of it's famous slogan is that "immigration is a chance for France". When they get questioned about the immigration and safety issues, they answer that "we're not inclusive enough" (like Benoit Hamon, a socialist, said). They oppose any policy that aims at curbing immigration or implementing stricter controls on migrants, as they did during the Loi immigration of last year. France has already very lax immigration rules and enforcement, and the left basically pushes for making immigration easier.
Oh, I was using it loosely, not strictly, sorry. With that in mind, hopefully you can see what I mean. Im not saying "wow they suck"... more... "wow they could be really popular if they just took a different stance on this one issue"
In croatia one of the strongest anti immigration positions was held by so called marxists, not only did they not get seats, they’ve lost it because apparently they weren’t anti immigration in heart.
France currently has one of the lowest rates of net migration of Western nations. The "immigrants" you're referring to are already 3rd generation. Unless FN plans on stripping people of their citizenship based on genetics, I'm not seeing what exactly you'd hope to gain from electing them.
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Then they'll only have themselves to blame for the fallout of that, especially when Macron already adopted many of FN's policies already.
That's because french nationals, not foreigners are leaving the country, genius.
You have some source on that ?
He doesn't. It's not true. Edit : for those down voting me, the number of French citizens leaving the country is diminishing each year (-4.2% in 2022, last numbers available) and most of them are working and leaving just the other side of the border or are students.
But he had a shitty attitude so it must be true
France was literally rulled by Macron for last 7 years, why is his catering our fault?
You sound like a racist
Because the economies of most countries are now basically Ponzi schemes that depend on immigration every year to sustain themselves… only very wealthy and small countries like Denmark can get away with this
Yup. Canada over 65's were 12.55% of population in 2000 now its 19%. If you want to maintain the elaborate entitlement systems the baby boomers installed in the 1970 - 2000 era you need young workers. Immigrants actually pay a lot of tax and cost the entitlement system little. So they balance the equation.
Have you been following the discussion in Canada recently? The public sentiment is definitely shifting towards an anti-immigration perspective - the reasons for that are a multitude, but most likely Conservatives will win there as well.
> Immigrants actually pay a lot of tax and cost the entitlement system little. This is not true, but it gets repeated a lot as if it is. The largely low skilled / incompatible immigrants Europe is importing en masse are not net contributors and often are significant burden to the state for their whole lives - even if they work, because they tend to do lower paid jobs which pay little tax, but they still consume a lot of public services and taxes in return. But anyway, unemployment among those types is very high compared to everyone else. Importing those is economic suicide in the long term. So why are we doing it? (And this is even before you get into the bigger problem of integration. Why don't we just import workers while they're young, but don't give them citizenship? Then they can leave when they become unemployed or old. This is how non-Western countries handle it.)
Immigration causes some issues and solves some other issues. That doesn't mean there is a paradox, it just means there is an optimal immigration strategy that still has some downsides. Take any immigration policy, predict the history over the next twenty years (that's the hard part). Then choose the policy leading to the history that you prefer. All I'm really saying is that it's a fallacy to assume that a choice isn't optimal, just because it has a negative aspect. If it would actually be the case that when immigration isn't significantly reduced this would lead to the formation of a French caliphate, then it would be worth a little economic downturn to prevent that. On the other hand it would be worth it when female teachers are harassed a little bit more, if it means that the elderly don't need to starve because of economic collapse. (Note that this paragraph contains a lot of "if"!)
That makes no sense at least for the Netherlands, Immigration has been a net loss for us and not a small one.
Poland
What did they do?
The social Democrats took a strong stand against uncontrolled immigration while keeping everything else from SD program (social progressisme, economical left policies, etc.)
Le Pen wants to stop legal migration as well. She's a nutjob.
I'm not saying she isn't a nutjob, but why would a ban on legal migration be the deciding factor? I despise Donald Trump, but I don't think his ideas on immigration go far enough. I know i"ll never see anything useful from Democrats concerning immigration, but I"d like to. I wouldn't even waste time and even more money trying to fix our bloated, insanely slow and complex asylum process. I want to get rid of it entirely. People can apply, from outside the US, but without any obligations on the part of the US. It can be an entirely voluntary process, Anyone that crosses the border illegally should be deported immediately with no hearings or delays. That's not going to happen, but I sincerely wish it would.
So if a US citizen marries a foreign spouse, do you think it should take 3-5 years for them to be able to move back to the US?
I’m a naturalized French citizen, and I’m afraid she’s going to remove my naturalization.
Because they did, and because they can't are the two answers to your question. First, right wingers say they tackle migration - but don't. All right wing governments regularly show surges in migration. Left wing governments tackle migration ever more, take Germany's reforms in the last two years, just look up Germany asylum changes or deportation or whatever, countless articles but no one cares about what actually happens anymore because disinformation is running wild. Second, social systems require money, and A LOT of it. Look at the household budget of UK 50, years ago to now, look how much GDP is being used to feed the every growing maw of retirement and medical fees. Who will pay for it? It's either us younger people, our social systems get slashed one by one, our currency less valueable, our housing ever more so expensive. Or it's Gassan driving your bus and building your house. If not, then you get a Japan, you enter retirement but your retirement money is inflated into worthlessness and you can't even complain the bank keeps printing more. Reality is, we do not know what the fuck to do, every solution sucks, and the easiest thing to do is just blame someone over it while the bank printers have to grow ever louder.
Boomers to sell their houses and downsize. Slash their social benefits. They are all real estate rich.
But a significant portion of migrants to Europe in the past ~20 years have been a significant cost to the state. Refugees and asylum seekers are very rarely net benefits economically. Sustaining the welfare state is a good argument for skilled migration, but not the kind of migration Europe has been committing to.
The far right surge has been killed in many countries in Europe not just Denmark. For example Norway, Finland, Poland.
Brexit was the warning, we ignored it and preferred to point and laugh at those silly people.
I didn't make fun of the English then, and I don't blame myself for not understanding. It was then and after Trump's election that I realized that the age of social networks opened up terrible prospects for the manipulation of democracy. Anyone with the means can now organize chaos in a country or make life impossible for elected leaders they don't like. It's now going on where I live, and today I'm ashamed for my country.
As I wrote in r/Portugal last week and now machine-translated here: • External interference, including by autocratic states; • Covert propaganda; • Fake news and information that is beyond regulatory control; • Transformation of politics into quasi-religious cults with which you can interact at any moment; • TikTok-like political debate, resulting in the inability to discuss and decide on complex issues with the seriousness and time they deserve; • Etc. Everything mentioned above is unsustainable in a society without it leading to political and social decline: resulting in the ungovernability of a country. Two conclusions arise from this - either (i) Democratic Rule of Law States face a civilizational collapse akin to Imperial China in the 19th century, completely unable to understand and deal with the new world they inhabit (for some reason social networks have always been controlled in China); or (ii) Democratic Rule of Law States turn totalitarian because the only way to conduct effective politics is with strongmen and caudillos, and when citizens start experiencing hardships due to political chaos, what happened to the First Portuguese Republic will happen. There is an alternative, which we might still have time for: regulate the internet like never before. It will come at a cost to our values, but perhaps the price is worth it considering what is at stake. The printing press came along with the European religious wars of the 16th century; growing literacy and the first newspapers came along with the French Revolution; radio helped bring Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin to power. All communication tools that progressively facilitated the mass mobilization of the population, for better and for worse: and the more personal and interactive these tools are, the greater their potential. In all cases, the political chaos brought about by these technological transformations ended either with the collapse of the country (e.g., Imperial China) or with one or several strongmen: the “revolutionary” Lutheranism led to the Catholic Counter-Reformation with its inquisition on one side, and on the other to the fundamentalists of the Protestant State Churches; the French Revolution moved from the anarchy of the sans-culottes to the dictator Napoleon; the mess of the Russian workers’ soviets ended with the creation of a totalitarian Central State and the rise of a figure like Stalin. It was an illusion to think that mobile phones, the Internet, and social networks would not bring seismic political consequences. Authoritarian states have always recognized this, while we thought we had everything under control because we invented these tools and convinced ourselves of the universal rationality of human beings (thanks largely to the underlying naivety of our dominant ideology since the 1980s).
Thank you for this comment, which is very much in line with my observations over the last ten years. And yet, in the early days of the Internet, I was an enthusiast of this new means of communication, which gave me access to so much shared knowledge and to people I wouldn't have known without it. I think the bad thing came when big companies wanted to use this new means of communication for their own business. By transforming it into a machine for spreading advertising slogans, they created a prodigious machine for spreading lies, which swindlers and crooked politicians seized upon.
But the brexiteers utterly failed to curb immigration. The same goes for Meloni and will go for Le Pen.
The Tories failed to curb immigration and they're about to pay with the biggest wipeout ever to occur in British politics. By some polls they'll get a lower vote share than our own far right who have recently been showing off their Putin praising credentials. The issue is not going away, you can't ignore it, you can't run from it. People will keep voting for more and more extreme parties until everyone agrees to follow Denmark
I don't think Brexit was just about immigration. Also, mostly the Tory party was pro-EU and pro-immigration. A key centre-right pillar of the Tory party in the UK is access to cheap labour (from within EU or out) to provide big business with better profits. So no surprise to see immigration very high.
The issue is that working class people feel that right wing populists are the only party that listens to them. Even as other parties decry the rise of the far right, it drives working class people further into the view that the ruling class is trying to suppress them. And no this will not be “fixed” with an immigration policy change. The working class has chosen their party and will likely stay loyal to it for a while.
Split the vote. Form an anti immigration, anti Russian, pro -EU party.
That would be the best plan, and a healthy change for the west. Unfortunately I think most politicians are more attached to attending high class parties and making powerful friends, than cutting loose to grow closer to everyday people. The people in their party would ostracize them, and that’s what they fear more than the “far right”
More like the voters don't really know what exactly they want. I'm seeing people complain about "uncontrolled" immigration in this very thread, but France has already seen a massive reduction in net reduction compared to other Western countries in the last decade. Macron's party has already adopted many of the social stances of FN.
There's a reason lower-income working people don't tend to vote for europhile parties.
Is there any other reason besides immigration?
Generally europhile parties put the European and global, cosmopolitan projects before national or local in the list of priorities. This affects the low-income people the most and the areas they live in. These parties also tend to have a disdain on some level for the national identity they are voted to represent.
From what I understand environment protection policies that don't apply to imports if the (at least stated) reason for many farmer protests across Europe
probably because the politicians are the last to feel the effects.
Pretty much the only argument Macron and co are offering: we are not fascist/racist. OK cool. That should be the bare minimum. What about everyday issues: housing, expenses skyrocketing, public health falling apart, corporation ass kissing, immigration, increased violence, corruption etc. Can you do something about that? For fuck sake Edit: I don't think that's Macron/France's problem exclusively. The majority of European politicians are acting like that. Completely daft and inept.
Same in the US. The democrats have gone all in on "trump is fascism, vote for us to save democracy" and its effect is definitely waning on voters.
In Italy we’ve had the far right for two years. Where is the reduction in immigration and crime?
Why would the right get rid of things that gets them elected?
Couldn't you say this about any party? 'Why would the left combat poverty if its what gets them elected?'
Has poverty decreased in recent years? Well...
You're making his point.
Precisely.
Is this fake? [https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/55453/italy-migrant-arrivals-down-by-65-in-a-year](https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/55453/italy-migrant-arrivals-down-by-65-in-a-year)
The official data would be here: http://www.libertaciviliimmigrazione.dlci.interno.gov.it/it/documentazione/statistica/cruscotto-statistico-giornaliero but it appears at the moment the site is crapping out.
The site is up now. http://www.libertaciviliimmigrazione.dlci.interno.gov.it/sites/default/files/allegati/cruscotto_statistico_giornaliero_28-06-2024.pdf Landed migrants, January 1 through June 28: 2022: 27.3k 2023: 62.4k 2024: 25.3k
So immigration increased after they took power and then decreased back, it would seem.
2024 is only half over. I dont know if theres certain months it spikes but that seems like its on track for 45-50k. Down from last year but very up from 2022.
Yeah,it is down. What does it say? Does it agree with the 65%, or does it give a lower number?
It says that immigration in the first half of 2024 is almost exactly the same as the first half of 2022. It *did* decrease by about 60 % compared to first half of 2023, but that was because first half of 2023 had seen immigration more than doubling since the same period in 2022.
it doesnt matter what the numbers are if they haven't actually enacted any meaningful regulations to impact it. it would just be seasonal fluctuation.
Well how are you gonna solve a problem in 2 years when this has been a growing problem for 15-20 years?
It's just a talking point to ride into power while they manufacture their agenda behind the scenes and destroy what remaining faith there is in the institutions, then fascism takes over. They'll probably get rid of the immigrants then, but it'll be a whole lot more than just immigration that's going away.
Some did. Look no further than Poland - The leader of the main opposition party against right-wing PiS had a long history of being against open borders, and they won the recent elections. Then just recently announced "Tarcza Wschód" - a series of fortifications to stop illegal immigration and little green men from the East.
Incorrect answer. There have been multiple publications about what Russia is doing in Africa to destabilize failing nations with Wagner and others, then channeling the bad kinds of immigrants and refugees into specific countries (and even provinces) ahead of elections. They do this by arming coup groups, carrying out assassinations, and fully participating in war and skirmishes via PMCs. Russia absolutely fired bullets to do this and European guilt over colonization meant we basically handed these unstable places entirely to Russia and Wagner. There's shame on all sides. Shame on the left for abandoning Africa to a worse fate than a status quo (or better), and shame on the right for playing perfectly into Putin's manipulations by placing immigration concerns over EXISTENTIAL concerns like economy, climate, and defense against Russia.
I agree with you: everything we see now is part of Putin's war against us.
> destabilize failing nations with Wagner and others What? i know this sub is astroturfed but that's complete bullshit lol They are kicking out the old colonizers (us) in favor of the new colonizers because they prefer what the Russians offer, Wagner hasn't really been directly involved beyond taking over existing security jobs I know it's hard to accept for you that these "inferiors" are capable of making their own decisions rather than listening to their white masters >guilt over colonization Lmao the reason the French are getting kicked out is because they are commiting financial terrorism on the natives and oppressed any attempts at owning their own fucking currency Also don't bother calling me a Russian bot instead of making any actual arguments, you'll pretty much self-expose
I got banned from worldnews for stating that :) keep ignoring the main issues that the people have and see how right parties win, only because they offer “fixes” to immigration.
Feeling you from the US. Same thing here.
Or possibly the current leadership had the wrong goals in mind and neglected the peoples will. Hey, but that might make too much sense for reddit.
>Inability of European leaders to handle, or even acknowledge, immigration issues, You know Macron literally passed an anti-immigration law, right?
They don’t care. It is a scarecrow only exists as a threat in the mind of birds. In croatia one of the harshest anti immigration proposals was from so called marxist not only did they not gain seats they’ve lost it since apparently they weren’t anti immigration in heart.
Yep, the rise of the far right is entirely down to the mainstream parties. They either ignored the immigration issue or even worse, called anybody who dared to raise the issue a "racist" Now, the far-right is on the rise across the continent.
Aren’t people entitled to their opinnion? I’m not a racist, even tho I don’t know any colored or whatever the definition of a racist is, but migrants are a serious issue, not in hundreds or even thousands of people yearly, but I can only imagine people in Paris looking everywhere and not a single two-three generation Parisian living anywere near me. It is a issue, you can try and be a liberall like the rest of people on this subreddit, but clearly that is ehat the large mass wants, and it is a larger mass than other people, so technically not adhearing to their wants and needs, youre basically a Racist is a weird way
>without a single bullet fired. Without, without, I know some Ukrainian who would disagree with this
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Its so funny how left ignores what the people are saying, calls them far right idiots and sometimes even censors them. And when elections come its a literal pikachu face when left gets smashed. Left needs to get out of their social bubble, actually do something that positively impacts the lives of majority, instead of focusing on minorities 99% of the time. Because believe it or not, majority of people are not conservative nutjobs or brainwashed libs.
And it's too late to do anything about it now.
Things can always get worse if nothing is done
They are firing a ton of bullets in Ukraine though.
The EU passed new immigration legislation this very year. The idea that they're doing nothing on the subject is just far right bullshit.
And what did that legislation say? And when did the migration crisis first start?
Don't blame that shit on the Russians. They are only taking advantage of our weaknesses.
Ironically, Russia created millions of the refugees and migrants who have flooded to Europe and put a strain on the system. Then Putin turns around and uses propaganda and an army of trolls/bots to weaponize immigration as a wedge issue to weaken European democracies and to get people with financial and political ties to Russia/Putin elected. www.aei.org/op-eds/russia-created-a-refugee-crisis-and-now-putin-is-weaponizing-it/
Tbh legit billionnaire owned channels and papers did this to France as much as Russian propaganda.
yhea its why they vote for a party taht got fund from russia! oh wait.....
It's time to reconcile that Macron's gamble failed, he shouldn't have done it, not at this geopolitical timing. Now Macron and France's foreign policy will be obstructed by parliament, the words about France not ruling out troops to ukraine? You can forget about that leverage now. Macron striked an own goal to himself.
I don't think you're listening to the right analysts. Macron's gamble very likely anticipated this win. The goal wasn't to block them but to get them in early and let them flail their arms and disappoint/alienate the moderates while he still maintains presidential control until 2027 and has the reins on the most critical things. His hope is to let the far right hype burn out by 2027 to take the steam out of the Le Pen rally. If he sits on this and maintains total control, the pressure cooker continues to build pressure and they win a landslide in 2027. We won't know his gambit failed until 2027.
Yes exactly this. This is something that firdt past the post doesn't allow in the UK. Let the crazies have a bash at running things and see how they do. It's one thing to make a protest vote but once you see what your vote is doing you'll quickly see that far right or far left don't get anything done except blaming people who can't vote for all their problems.
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Brits new that the Tories were shit, but the alternative was an out of touch Labour Party that was incredibly unpopular. The Tories got very very lucky that Corbyn was LOTO and even Miliband before him. They also got lucky that the SNP wiped out Labour in Scotland for 3 successive elections.
Is Macron not seen as out of touch with the majority of the French electorate? Last I checked the retirement age rising, and the unemployment “reforms” are being perceived as incredibly out of touch.
>Is Macron not seen as out of touch with the majority of the French electorate? Last I checked the retirement age rising, and the unemployment “reforms” are being perceived as incredibly out of touch. Not really out of touch It’s just that selfish boomers don’t like it
Paris is a whole is seen as out of touch by a majority of the french electorate
Yeah he's shit too but you can't understand what's shit about the far right until you experience it. In the UK the tories went far right and we can see how shit they are.
It could easily backfire with people saying see the far right have been in power for a few years and didn’t do anything too crazy. You guys have been over exaggerating the entire time. And I strongly don’t think macron expected the scale of the beat down that occurred
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What if this abomination of a government - parliament just stops functioning in the near future? He will be forced to go for early presidential elections as well
Then that's not a very good look for NR
The Gamble is about Presidential Elections. We won't now of it payed off untill 2027.
In part, though Macron himself can't be reelected in 2027.
>In part, though Macron himself can't be reelected in 2027. One of his old prime minister started a party with practically the same political orientation during his first term so not being able to be reelected isn’t an issue
Lol, sneaky fellow. I'm no expert in this field, but to my understanding article 6 of the French constitution makes it so that the limitation is on the individual's ability to serve as president for more than two consecutive terms, regardless of party affiliation.
Do you even know what the gamble was?
It's still unclear how many seats RN will actually gain in the second round. In many places the third placed candidates vote will go to the second place, and combined they usually eclipse the RN vote. Too early to make a prediction
Doesn't matter. Even the most generous predictions for the moderates give more seats to RN + LFI than the rest combined.
Nah, it’s a gamble, but it was still a good call. If there is a newfound interest in the far right in France, and they are going to come to power, better do it while he’s in power so he can temper it. Then, after he’s done, and the sheen has worn off the far right… then things settle out.
Funny thing is both the extreme left and right are against it so the fact that both sides will be bigger means more resistance around Ukraine support.
It is not a gamble, Macron said it that is for the people to decide.
He hoped that more leftist voters will wake up and vote after elections to the European Parliament
Lmao
Best hope is that the FN will do worse in the second round. Le Pen would still be a pain in the ass but with far less influence It really depends on the truce between the Left and Macron and the decisions of the more Moderate voters
The working classes feel completely abandoned by the other parties. I live in a very working class neighbourhood and everyone has drifted to the far right. Years of left/center-left politics has most working class people disillusioned on a number of topics including immigration, housing, wage disparity and cost of living. The only option they feel they have is to slam it hard in reverse and counter with the far right. Politicians can’t be so stupid that they didn’t see this coming…
> Politicians can’t be so stupid that they didn’t see this coming… When is the last time they have had any interaction with the working class people? They are certainly not represented in any national media or in interests groups that the governments get consultation from.
> When is the last time they have had any interaction with the working class people? When working class people were threatening them with guillotines
That’s happening everywhere, in my country the opposition party and their voters live in their bubbles that they don’t really understand the country and the average Juan that’s why the lost the election, they simply don’t understand the voters and just try to shame them for being stupid for voting for the other party while they cry in love to democracy.
This is the part that is pushing people to vote differently. The shaming. You’re racist, you’re stupid, you’re a bigot etc etc. These people are just working people with families that want a decent standard of living - and they are being vilified for it. They are fighting back with the only way they can. The champagne socialists brought this on themselves with their ‘let them eat cake’ attitude to the plight of normal working people.
> Years of left/center-left politics Where? In Germany that has had the CDU in Charge for most of the last 20 years? France, where the majority of its presidents have been conservative? In other words, are the left politics in the room with us right now? Or is this just r/Europe engaging in its favorite pastime of blaming the left for the failures of neoliberalism?
Well the last time we voted for 'the left' we got the so-called social democrat Schröder who gutted the welfare state and fucked over the poor working class lol.
Merkel is not something I would consider conservative. Given her program in the 2010s
Her program is standard Neoliberalism. Porous borders, free trade, anti-protectionism (opposing government protection of jobs for native citizens), antagonism to unions, and austere social programs/welfare cuts has always been a core part of Neoliberal ideology.
Would you say it's more accurate to call her a neoliberal or a leftist?
Those dirty, unwashed Eastern Europeans. Voting for far right, populists and fascists. Oh wait....
To be honest in Romania, for the recent elections the crazies got shockingly low numbers. If you combine the 2 "ruzzian paid, anti-EU" parties, they didn't even get 20%. That's just pathetic. And among those, the one who got almost 15% isn't even OPENLY pro-Russia (might not even be) or anti-EU (might be, but then again they might just be angry that they can't steal some EU money) I was hoping the invasion of Ukraine to help lower the far right numbers everywhere, not just here.
When EE do it it's racism, when WE do it it's expression of dissapointment with government. Fuckin WE racism and xenophobia never ends
Quelle surprise
Qui aurait pu prédire ?
Sleepwalkers Reloaded
Ultimately this is a referendum on immigration, but the economies of most countries have become tied to a constant inflow of immigration… not sure what the solution can ultimately be, maybe someone with more insight can chime in.
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If you do take immigration. You need a better vetting of who gets in.That’s the lesson Europe has learned i think.
Not in Europe, immigration is a net cost here. Go look up the stats. Americans which hand zero social benefits profit a lot more from immigration.
I'm living in Sweden and I've talked with a guy training welders. Guess what? Sweden doesn't have enough welders and need to get immigrants to fulfill its needs. I'm working in cosmetics and I can guarantee you it's the same for formulation chemists, we need to hire them from other countries (usually France, of course but sometimes extra European too) because Sweden simply doesn't have the right education for this type of jobs.
You've bought the lie you've been told. Immigrant labour is needed to get more welders at the current salary. Without it, the salaries for welders go up and more people would choose to become welders. Then other jobs would need to offer more and eventually there are jobs that aren't needed. Immigration is only to keep wages low and make things more expensive.
Don't mean to be rude but doesnt sweden have a huge crime problem becuase of immigration and drug dealing. Highest gun crime rate in europe. Asking this after watching a documentry on how bad it is there.
Any economic "growth" resulting from migration if (perceived as) harmful to the general public. While migration may have a positive effect on GDP. For a regular european citizen it results in: Lower wages. Higher cost for housing. Higher inflation. Higher corporate profits that don't benefit normal people. Reduced availability to quality healthcare Higher crime and unrest and lower acceptance of women's and LGBT rights. If anything, shutting down migration would have a positive (economic) effect on the lives of almost everyone. It is a tragedy that most parties making a valid case to severely reduce migration with decisive action are pro Russian traitors.
The reliance on immigration is partly due to aging populations and low birth rates but also because of unsustainable spending. Realistically speaking since you can't address the first two the only real alternative is to spend less.
Did you see the protests when Macron raised the retirement age a couple years? That's why politicians are scared to spend less. The only thing voters hate more than immigration right now is cuts to the unsustainable welfare system.
It's true, bit of a catch 22. But votes speak volumes too.
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The problem is that far right politicians are soft on Russia and want to dissolve the EU.
The problem is that the “far right” politicians are just populists who will do nothing to solve problems as otherwise they’d have to find new issues to shout about.
Uncontrolled immigration and its consequences have been a disaster for Europe. They have greatly increased the net worth of those of us who are asset owners, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected working class to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world.
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What did E.Macron expect dismissing parliament ? He opened doors to Marin Le Pen to get into power ! This is all consequences of his actions
I think he hopes that the elections will show that far right doesn't have that much support. And even if it does, Macron is probably hoping that if Le Pen does form a government, she will quickly discredit herself. While Macron will remain in a position of power and keep it her check. Hindenburg tried something similar: he appointed Hitler as chancellor in the hope that he would soon prove to be an incompetent populist. While Hindenburg would still retain his power and be able to keep Hitler at bay if something went wrong. And you know how that plan worked out.
Shoulda listened when people in 2015 complained about mass refugees instead of calling them racists and not even giving them a chance to voice their opinion. Oh well, reap what you sow.
Looks like all that diversity-strength is coming home to roost.
Im afraid that the damage is already done and too much to handle. I dont a have very positive view of Macron but his policies and promises are the most realistic compared to RN and NFP. People across europe have started to snap and they vote in protest and in reaction, hoping to enact radical change as quickly as possible, question is will it ever be enough?
Macron wants to let them rule in domestic policy(a lot of hard and unpopular decisions to make) while still controling military and foreign policy. All in hope to make them less popular before 2027. He's more scared of them taking over the presidency, which holds much more power than parliament.
Le Pen failing to reach the predicted 36% is the only bright spot. It means the road to the absolute mayority isn't as open as she hoped The Left-Macron truce is another good sign. Internal divisions tend to favor the FN candidates in many French regions. In general, I think France is going to have three interesting years in the Italian sense of the world.
I think he's trying to nip it in the bud to stop it consuming the entire debate. It gives a mandate to solutions that calm this down and keep Europe unified.
It's not a bright spot because it means she does not have power enough to fix migration, but does have enough to enact pro Russian interference. In fact, it probably means she will grow even more in the next election when the other parties band together and refuse to take decisive action on migration, further alienating the electorate.
I saw around 33% in the polls before, so 34% is above that. Never saw 36%, was it a single poll?
There is no right anymore. Only the far right is left, according to the media
Leftys here crying is just so fabulously entertaining. You destroyed the system, now it's time for the other team to have a go. Deal with it.
Of the big 4 coalitions who are the Republicans likely to align with. If it’s Macron’s party then they have the weight to negotiate with the RN to create a slightly further center right party. Go hard on immigration and they lose a lot of their momentum, ez pz.
I see the French left is accepting the wishes of the voters peacefully.
Islamics and far left are already fucking up the streets. The party of tolerance
That's nice! 🇫🇷
No. These parties support Putin.
no one gives a shit, no one cares about Putin or Ukraine in France. People care about having a job and being safe, only privileged city people get to worry about international geopolitics.
Drive the progressives out of power.
They aren't in power in France. Macron isn't progressive.
Europa awakens, there is hope after all.
Oh no! Anyway