They didn’t make our mistake, and avoided electing a fascist: it will be President Macron, and Le Pen was soundly defeated.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
They didn’t make our mistake, and avoided electing a fascist: it will be President Macron, and Le Pen was soundly defeated.
*pours a glass of Armagnac and pulls up La Marsellaise on YouTube*
Serious, massive amount of relief. Congratulations, France, and an election well done! *whew*
I think it probably helped that people could see what happened here, and it was very easy to extrapolate that situation to a Le Pen presidency.
What a relief.
…actually the lyrics to this are kinda fucked. -.-
…based on exit polls. Last I heard, the official results aren’t in yet.
Perhaps we can invite a few of them over to hold workshops to instruct Americans in this art.
Azkyroth:
Yes. I just finished the article, and it was said France had the highest rate of non-voters since 1969 – 24%. Compare to all those who can’t ever be arsed to vote in uStates, in every election. Their media blackout prior to voting is a damn good idea, too.
Turnout was low, which predictably boosted LePen. Fuck Mélechon and all the Lefties who couldn’t get off their asses*. They were lucky as large parts of the population, while not being enthralled with Macron, did their duty and prevented the Fascist becoming president.
But yeah, I’m pretty glad that there won’t be a fascist government with nuclear weapons 30km from my door.
*Yeah, have your cake and eat it. Enjoy not living in fascism while washing your hands clear of the shit Macron is going to do.
About what expected. It’s good that Le Pen went down decisively, although Macron is probably not going to be that great – a lot of his policy sounds like Hollande’s efforts.
It is a little bit of good news, certainly. Looks like fascism is decidedly less popular in countries that actually had to put up with it for a few years. Though a third of the votes going to Adele Hitler is still very worrying.
We’ve got our own general election brewing here in the UK in four weeks. Fortunately we don’t have actual fascists anywhere near the levers of power – and UKIP got absolutely creamed in the local elections last week to the extent that they now have precisely one local councillor in the entire country. Sadly the fucking Tories made significant gains. I really can’t understand why so many of my fellow countrymen keep voting for those arseholes after what they’ve done to us for the best part of a decade.
Still, keep things positive. At least Labour have begun to rediscover their socialist roots again, and finally have a leader with sensible priorities whom I can to some extent admire. It’s no longer full sugar Tories in blue or Diet Tories in red.
No, France does not use exit polls. Cross-posted from Political Madness All the Time (with edits), quoting the Grauniad:
Precise figures are not yet available, but there’s no serious doubt Macron has won with c.65%, which is decisive. Next up are the Parliamentary elections next month, which are just as important as Macron does not have a natural base in Parliament.
@Azkyroth, B*Cos[F(u)]==Y
Damn, and I tought the french language version of Ô Canada were bad!
One cheer for avoiding Le Pen but….
Macron does not have a party of his own, and the Socialists and Republicans imploded this time around. Which would suggest that the FN (aka Fuckin’ Nazis) is the party with the most momentum right now.
Please convince me that I’m wrong.
“Politics of people like Macron produce those like Le Pen. Then you need to vote Macron to stop Le Pen. It’s a perfect mechanism.”
Racism and also produces those like Le Pen.
But I think it’s wrong to consider one cause without the other.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s good, really good that Macron won.
Good job France.
Still, Le Pen got 35% and it’s fucking scary.
Cartomancer – we may not have actual blackshirts anywhere near the levers of power in the UK, but they might as well be. [https://www.]craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2017/04/can-anybody-find-significant-difference-mays-policies-british-national-party-manifesto-2005/
Some interesting points made here https://twitter.com/JeremyCliffe/status/861281102908071940
Especially considering that the two main parties disappeared, it was a remarkable victory.
At least sanity prevails in one part of the globe. If Le Pen had won it would have been the end of the EU.
Oh, Paris, you’re so wonderful.
Apparently, teh le penazi failed to win in any age group (from the Grauniad’s live blog, 22:14 mark):
Note the people with experience of WW ][ and its immediate aftermath vintage are having none of her. Nor are, encouragingly, the young adults.
me@19, A spurious “vintage” sneaked in there, perhaps because of the French vin I’m drinking. Fortunately, the cheese isn’t also sneaking about.
By now most municipalities have reported the vote
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/05/07/world/europe/france-election-results-maps.html?smid=tw-nytimesworld&smtyp=cur&_r=0
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I’m very glad that there won’t be a fascist government with nuclear weapons were I live. To be frank, I wasn’t enthusiastic about implementing my “Sell Everything I have, rush the fuck out toward New Zealand before the brown shirts arrive while dragging my father by the skin of his ass” emergency plan.
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Macron is more openly pro-european than Hollande, whose cowardice on European affairs was the second biggest blot on his terrible presidency, and chances are that he won’t repeat Hollande’s fucked up forfeiture of nationality project
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There’s something cathartic about singing your national anthem when the lyrics are about slaughtering aristocrats & their lackeys and using their blood to water your fields.
@21 laurentweppe
Well, without the greater context of the French revolution, and the more present context, it really sounds like the lyrics are about foreigners.
Well done, France! Tell the fascists that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1et8ZrzYYQ"they shall not pass!" I was genuinely worried after Brexit and Drumpf, but it looks like the third time’s the charm.
Sorry, messed up the HTML.
Well done, France! Tell the fascists that they shall not pass! I was genuinely worried after Brexit and Drumpf, but it looks like the third time’s the charm.
Oh, is that what they mean by “impure blood?” >.>
Macron supported and still supports all the wars and coups by NATO and the EU that have killed millions globally. Majority of which are people of color.Le Pen did not.
Myers – or for any Clinton/Macron supporters – what the hell is your definition of fascism? Are you just going off talking points by your favorite news personalities and celebrities?
Bigotry toward immigrants and citizens of more coloration or a different religion than you. DUH. All assertion, and not one link. Typical…
This is a question that has a right answer, oddly enough:
(Let me guess, you’re going to seize on the “external expansion” part and ignore literally everything else in those quotes?)
I’m going to seize on the part where anyone would even attempt trying to compare stronger immigration control for non citizens -to- bombing dozens of countries, killing thousands and thousands, arming terrorists, overthrowing governments, warmongering, etc.
Ever since the Trump election i’m horrified how either incredibly dumb, or secretly evil, these so called liberals are.
“Oh, Trump doesn’t like Mexicans? Okay… Clinton was instrumental in arming Saudis, arming terrorists, bombing Libya, etc? Wait, who’s the fascist again?”
I really REALLY hope that people who call themselves liberal and have some sort of visible footprint online are just ignorant. Maybe they actually think Le Pen eats Algerian babies, and Macron is a humble all loving Buddhist because that’s all their sources keep telling them. There’s a chance to counter that and educate. But if that isn’t it… expect many many more wars and coups and more dead people of color from these people.
@poolboy
You have no idea how gratifying it is to see all you pepes come out of the woodwork after this utter defeat and spew your nonsensical hysteria all over liberal blogs.
You’re a last gasp, a death rattle, even. It’s a downfall that’s lovely to behold, rather like when Ali never threw that final punch as Foreman was falling, so as not to disturb the aesthetic of the knockout.
@poolboy
I agree that Clinton should take a lot, A LOT more flak for her support for wars, as I have made it crystal clear over several posts here.
And possibly Macron, I don’t have enough information on his record.
But I have two objections.
1) Someone who will pay lip service to climate change is better than someone who has destroyed the EPA.
Climate change will make wars much worse.
2) Authoritarians *love* wars, as the first months of the Trump administration should have made clear.
You really think Le Pen won’t get involved in a war as soon as she needs some distraction and/or nationalist dick waving?
@poolboy
Yes, there is a hell of a lot to criticise moderate politicians for. It seems that even the most humane of neoliberals forget about the value of human life when that life is out of sight, and we need to rid ourselves of their influence on global politics. That doesn’t mean it makes sense to embrace those who don’t need life to be out of their sight to see no value in it. The opposition being bad is not enough to make your guy good. If your solution to politicians being bad is to skew worse, you are not helping to make the world better. I don’t know why that needs to be stated, but apparently it does.
He’s only recently passed his hundred day mark, but has Trump actually been better than any of his predecessors? Has he even been as good? Has he stopped bombing other countries? Has he stopped cozying up to regimes that support terrorism? Did he actually implement stronger immigration controls? (And I don’t mean did his attempted controls stick around, I mean were they actually strong immigration controls?) Is it not a tiny bit dishonest to act as if “stronger immigration control” was the entirety of Trump’s platform, without reference to internment camps, or the idea that nukes should actually be used, etc? Or as if that’s the entirety of Le Pen’s platform?
I certainly agree that neoliberal politicians are far from a good option, but we can only get better politicians by electing better politicians – electing worse politicians gives us worse politicians, oddly enough.
While Belgium didn’t have a government, its GDP beat the eurozone average. Obviously it did have a government, just one better than average by this measure. While they were worrying who was the best walloon or flem or whatever belgiums think they are, there was no time to take more of the tough decisions of austerity. One might hazard that if you starve a horse, it doesn’t run so good. But this ‘lesson’ appears to be less fun than projections/reflections of identity, and plays out as the greek tragedy.
If Mr Trump is worse than chance, you would be better off tossing a coin.
Trump has already loosened the restrictions on drone strikes, resulting in a 400% rise in strikes, very likely causing many times more civilian casualties.
[meta]
Bah Trump.
He’s not the subject of the OP, only the (implicit) contrast.
Before poolboy, no mentions. Since, nothing but.
(Robert Westbrook @30 made the best response, IMO. It suffices.)
—
Goodonya, France.
@poolboy: no, Le Pen talked about immigrants raping your wife, forcing you to house 12 immigrants, and having them steal your wallpaper. Just out and out racist.
You’ll be relived to hear, though, that the security boarding the Thalys at Gare du Nord last night was traditionally racist. They arbitrarily split us into two lines, one of which went through metal detectors, then randomly stopped almost exclusively brown people for a further search.
#30 / Robert – keep in mind, 11 million did vote for her, and the Tories and UKIP are still doing pretty well. We’re not out of the woods yet, but this combined with the CDU in Germany is at least looking to hold Europe together for a while longer.
This man had his wallpaper stolen by its pattern. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKaPeWoS7PQ
@Derek Vandivere #37
What do you mean when you say that UKIP is doing pretty well? I thought they were just wiped out and left with one seat.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/05/ukip-finished-electoral-force-says-biggest-donor-arron-banks/
Maybe this is too hasty but it does give me some hope for the foreseeable future. Wilders got big, but not as big as he hoped for. Le Pen got big, but not as big as we feared. People are getting their senses back now the mess in the US and the UK is for everybody to witness. I hope, I hope. Trump, Wilders and Le Pen should never have been more than marginal phenomenons in the first place.
[Citation needed]
poolboy is clearly a fascist scumbag, as well as a liar – and the FN is just as clearly a fascist* party, despite Marine Le Pen’s addition of spray-on glitter to the turd. With regard to Clinton, Macron and their banker-wanker counterparts elsewhere, yes, they will continue policies that benefit the very rich at the expense of everyone else, and yes, they will continue bombing people of colour and supporting foreign tyrants – but we know that the triumph of fascism would be far worse than anything the neoliberals have done or are likely to do. Building a revived, and green, democratic socialism, in the wake of the shameful surrender to the right of so-called “centre-left” parties is an urgent and very difficult task – but we know that the triumph of fascism would make it impossible. When we’re faced with the choice of a smarmy stooge of the IMF or a Nazi in a threadbare disguise, there should be no doubt who to vote for.
*A friend of mine claims the likes of the FN are better described as “national populist” rather than fascist, because they don’t have uniformed gangs of street thugs to enforce their will, but I think this is a matter of political strategy, not fundamental political identity. Such uniformed gangs would make the currently essential task of pretending attachment to political pluralism impossible, and the far right can almost certainly rely on the police to support them in establishing a de facto dictatorship if they do gain political power at national level.
Agree with KG. I have come to the opinion that the reasoning capacity of a person is inversely proportional to the frequency with which they employ the word ‘liberal’.
Not exactly. These were local council elections, and in England, only 1/3 of the council districts had elections. So UKIP were reduced to 1 seat across all the districts that did vote (which included all those in Scotland and Wales), but they still have seats in many of those that did not.
Moreover, this wipeout has occurred because the Conservative Party have stolen UKIP’s clothes. If, as expected, they win a big victory* in the forthcoming election, we can expect a shift further to the right – further “austerity”, further privatisation of the NHS, further increases in the powers of the “security” state, increasingly strident attacks on the EU as the Brexit negotiations go badly (which they will), and increasingly open scapegoating of immigrants and refugees, and of anyone who opposes the government as traitorous tools of the EU (the Daily Mail’s headline when May announced the election was “Crush the saboteurs”).
Unfortunately that leader, for all his good qualities, is hopeless as a leader. Even more important, the Labour Party’s MPs are still mostly “Diet Tories” who despise Corbyn, and this will still be so after the election – while the membership is substantially further left than it has been in decades, having twice voted overwhelmingly for Corbyn. The probability of Labour coming to power before 2027** at the earliest is barely distinguishable from zero. Well before then, I hope to be living in an independent Scotland. (Incidentally, I think May did the independence movement a good turn by refusing another referendum – at present, I’m pretty sure we’d have lost again. A few years more of a Tory government Scots won’t have voted for, and a few more years of normal demographic turnover, will make a big difference.)
*Meaning, a big majority of House of Commons seats in our grossly undemocratic system. If people vote as the local elections suggest they will, they will get around 38% of the vote. This is likely to give them a majority of over 100 seats over all other parties combined.
**Elections will be due in 2022 and 2027, unless someone does what May has just done and gets agreement for an early one.
…time?
Well, in fact, it meant the commoner’s blood: “We’d rather cover the whole country with our own “impure” blood than allow the degenerate inbred “pure” blue bloods to continue ruling it“.
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Thank you for summarizing things before I started filling the comment section with french obscenities.
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They don’t need: 50% of french cops vote FN and police brutality has become increasingly prevalent here.
@laurentweppe #46:
No, no, please do! I could always do with learning more French obscenities than I can get from the average episode of Engrenages.
Talking of the American would-be fascist – and science denier and conspiracy theorist:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/on-demand/66173-001
Trump, the Doctor & the Vaccine Scandal.
With Donald Trump worried about ‘big’ vaccine shots like MMR causing autism, Cathy Newman investigates disgraced British doctor Andrew Wakefield’s resurgence in the US.
For people wanting Frech obscenities, François Perusse got you covered. With both a French of France and a French of Québec version.
France version:
http://francoisperusse.ca/albumsetdvd/paroles/vivelamour-fr
Québec version:
http://francoisperusse.ca/albumsetdvd/paroles/vivelamour
#ImStillWithHer LE PEN 2022!
#44 KG / #39 Kayden: Sorry, that was poorly stated. More that the Tories seems to be aligning themselves even more with UKIP ideas, and are polling surprisingly well even in places like Scotland.
From what I heard, Macron is far from a left-leaning candidate. I’m relieved, sure, but it’s pretty sad that we’re celebrating the fact that the fascist didn’t win. It’s “lesser-of-two-evilism” in the extreme.
Now the fascist has fired James Comey.
Worse. We’re celebrating the hopeful early signs of “Well NEITHER candidate is PERFECT so I’m just gonna sit at home and jack off over how pure and awesome I am rather than show up to fucking vote!” Greater-Of-Two-Evilsism has hit its high sewage mark.