posted May 08, 2017 08:19 PM            

So, how goes France?

posted May 09, 2017 06:25 PM            

Things are evolving, the old socialist party that used to represent the left is izn disarray. The same is happening for the conservative party, and those two parties used to be the only parties that managed to rule the country for decades. The electorate was so divided that, besides the non voters (22%), during the first round of the presidential election, 4 main contenders could have reached the second round but only two could be qualified and those two where Macron and Le Pen ( respectively center and far right ).
There is indeed a candidate that could be compared to Sanders, but he lost in the first round. Many people like me preferred to vote for Macron, from the beginning because the far right was given a very high number of votes and indeed they arrived second .
Melenchon, the left wing candidate wasn't able to secure agreements with the Socialist party or with the 2 candidates from the far left.
Personally I am not very enchanted by the leader of this movement. I think he could've done more to help the election of Macron. He didn't ask his electors to vote in favor of Macron, arguing that choosing between a liberal and the far right was choosing between the plague and cholera.
However the president of the Front National that was elected to replace Marine Le Pen during the campaign was reported to have said in an interview in 2005 :

"Moi je vous demande, je pose un certain nombre de questions sur le plan technique." "Je m'intéresse à un spécialiste de la chimie et je lui demande sur l'utilisation d'un gaz, par exemple, qu'on appelle le Zyklon B. (sic), moi, je considère que d'un point de vue technique il est impossible (...) de l'utiliser dans des (...) exterminations de masse"

" I ask you, I ask a certain number of technical questions " " I am interested by a chemical specialist and I ask him about the use of a gas, for example, let's Say Zyklon B., me, I consider that from a technical point of view, it is impossible to use it for mass extermination "

The father of Marine Le Pen, also a former President of that party, and the founder actually, said in 87 :

« Je ne dis pas que les chambres à gaz n’ont pas existé. Je n’ai pas pu, moi-même, en voir. Je n’ai pas spécialement étudié la question. Mais je crois que c’est un point de détail de l’histoire de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale. »

" I do not say that gas chambers didn't exist. I couldn't, myself, see any of them. I didn't particularly study the question. but I believe that it is a point of detail of the history of world war two. "

Classy isn't it ?

Well, for Melenchon, liberalism = fascist right wing Le Pen

I think there are some plates shifting, and hopefully a strong left will emerge, but I hope that it doesn't settle yet cause it isn't the leader, or the party that I would wish for.
In fact we have another important election coming in june, parliametary elections, and Melenchon seem unable to sort out an agreemet with the communist party. Those 2 have worked together before but now, they don't seem able to, probably because the State grants money to the party for their deputies, the more, the merrier.

I suppose some people are waking up to politics and this new political offer has a great chance to bring hope to them, but, I will be honest, so far, I see only a new form of fanatism. The election of Macron in front of Le Pen was a failed chance to reach beyond partisan politics, and this new left just failed to do so.

We'll see in the future, somethibg great could emerge, but thing aren't yet clear regarding their stance on globalization, it could really be a missed opportunity if they fail to see the good in it. As yuo can see, i am totally a global citizen, they aren't. They argued that the EU needed to change, as we can all agree, but had they been elected, their program proposed to get out of the EU if they couldn't get what they wanted. This type of negotiating skills isn't going to give a solution in the European Union with 27 countries around the table, and the option would have been to leave the EU.