To say a massive well done to the people of France...

[MrsBennetsPoorNerves]

For telling the far right National Rally to fuck off to the far side of fuck!!!

So relieved!

Wait. Is that a left leaning person personally attacking. What a shock. I am not right wing. Thanks though.

So in order to stop the RN a bunch of left groupings, most of whom don’t like each other, got together to win the election. The French rejected a party who would have fixed their crime and immigration problem while sorting out their failing economy. The left alliance= more benefits for those who don’t work, taxing the rich to excess and raising wages for poor civil servants. This is what the French are celebrating. It shows me just how idiotic they really are.

They have voted in the Far Left & the Communists who celebrated with riots in all the major cities. The Far Left, Communists, Socialists & Greens can’t even agree on a leader & are ready to pile on the taxes for those working, to pay for those who won’t work & all the new arrivals. Only a matter of time before it all falls apart.

Indeed. Well done people of France.👏

Held to ransom springs to mind! I don’t think you should be grateful for an election result purely because it prevented riots and bullies

@fungipie

Presumably this is the RN policy that you find scary and fascist:

"Immigration: This is described as a priority topic along with security and reducing the cost of living. The aim is stated to be to cut illegal and legal immigrationn*, including an end to automatic French citizenship for people born to foreign parents on French soil, known as the droit du sol."

By comparison in the UK there is equally is no automatic right to UK citizenship for people born to foreign parents on UK soil. The current policy being:

"A child born in the UK to non-British parents who remains in the UK for at least the first 10 years of their life is eligible to register as a British citizen. This also comes with the condition that the child must not spend longer than 90 days out of the country in each year they have lived in the UK"

@HermoineFairfax

"Only a matter of time before it all falls apart."

Left wing Governments will always be undone by loose fiscal policy. The Cold War wasn't won on the battlefields of Germany, it was won through the economic collapse of the Soviet Union.

Which reminds me of one of my favourite quotes by Alexander Tytler around 1800:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years."

Yes this is bollocks, frankly.

I'm not! I'm merely pointing out that we could have expected far worse from the left wing activists if the results had been different.

Is that sarcasm? If you got something to say just say it instead of making daft passive aggressive or sarcastic remarks all over the place. You really don’t sound OK.

Are you racist? Are you feeling attacked or defeated that France voted against them?

Let me be clear, I despite racists and the far right. And the ones bleating about be kind to the racists are clearly racist themselves.

I wonder if they tell people to hold back in their criticism of the allegedly anti-Semitic Palestine protestors or Islamic extremists. Doubt it!

I’m happy to endorse your hatred of right wing racists. But you presumably must also recognise that Melenchon is a disgusting arsewipe antisemite who no decent person should tolerate or vote for.

It is a bit odd that ‘fascist’ is thrown around in this context, and reference to France suffering under the Nazis, when the person with the most awful Jew-hating record is the new poster boy of the left.

@ElizaMulvil
@BishyBarnyBee
@DeerOhDear

Hi

I have returned briefly to apologise for upsetting you and anyone else.

It was never my intention.

The trope I alluded to is unfortunately something that both the nazi and the soviet vocabulary contained. It was meant to illustrate the warped thinking of these people. It comes from a centuries old and very harmful stereotype that is still being perpetuated today, and often by the far left. Including Mélenchon. I was shocked to hear he’s leading the left in France. I apologise for upsetting you.

I tried to edit to clarify once I realised you were upset and ended up deleting my account as it just got too much and I do have an issue with social anxiety. I won’t be participating in this or other threads any more. Other people seem to be able to articulate my POV a lot more eloquently than I can.

The fact is I’m worried sick about the rise of antisemitism.

I’m just so worried we are heading where we were in 1930s with nations divided, democracy in decline, and the same ugly stereotypes rising their head again, the elites derived from people, and everyone absolutely convinced it’s the ‘other side’ that is to blame. And Jewish people are also being increasingly singled out, it sends a chill down my spine.

My family’s history is relevant to how I feel, I suppose. Can’t give details as might be outing but can only say suffered from both nazis and communists within the space of 10 years and it scarred them for life in many ways.

It’s also about what happened long after the war (there was antisemitism behind the Iron Curtain too, Poland in 1968 is just one example). I remember the messages of hate dressed up as something else.

Apologies again, I suspect we are on the same side when it comes to what we would like the world to look like, while we might disagree when it comes to labels.

@RationalityIsHard
@Propertyshmoperty

I apologise for not arguing more gracefully. We might disagree but in the end I shouldn’t have talked down at you, you are entitled to your opinion. And you are right that the communists were indeed singled out, for example they were blamed for the Reichstag fire.

It's such great news! I'm feeling so much more positive about the world!!

How dare you accuse me of being Sarcastic! How dare you!!! To suggest I would be against multiculturalism!

Diversity is the UK's greatest strength! So the media tells the world! I don't live in the UK, but I hear multiculturalism has made the UK what it is today. 🥰

As for France! I think multiculturalism has made it what it is today! I say they need more of it!!! More more more. 🥰💯

Fantastic news!
well done to the people of France - did you see on the news some of the people celebrating - the relief on their faces, my word ! So pleased 👍

Questions something about society.....

"Are you a racist" 😂

No, I love the current state of Europe! Everyone does!

So pleased for France. However UK, Farage is coming up.

Yes! I also saw them attacking the police also! I guess that's what the left do when they celebrate?

@rumnraisins you didn't offend me at all I thought it was very clear from all your posts that your back ground is suffering at the hand of both right and left wing.

Often people on mn who purport to be against something write heinous stuff but I didn't get that from you at all. 😊

Its like the Dreyfus affair.
The right were antisemitic because they opposed Jewish refugees from the pale, and because they were the eternal other/not catholics etc.
The left had no inclination to disagree because the Jews represented the globalists and bankers etc.
There's antisemitism on the left and right. Including in France. And has been ever since the left and right existed.

@Zebedee999 i grew up in a Muslim country ( where I was relentlessly sexually harassed) . I then had very lefty 1st boyfriend who had no interest whatsoever in this experience of mine. A variety of life experiences have shown me that the fear of being seen to be racist will trump anything for a certain type of left wing man, and women’s lived experience of oppression in non western countries is dismissed as cultural or the result of difficulties inherent in individual relationships ( never mind that these unequal and abusive relationships are replicated across entire countries).

Mélenchon is unlikely to be part of the coalition thats cobbled together. I think most other parties hate him.

They might want to read the article I just read then. I'll paraphrase it for you.

Jean Luc Melanchon makes Jeremy Corbyn look like a moderate. His party France Unbowed is even more extreme than the RN and in some of the exact same ways. Some of the people now wielding the power are Marxist extremists. That poses a real threat to the survival of the single currency.

The Popular Front's manifesto promised 150 billion euros in in extra public spending, increasing public sector pay by 10% immediately, making all transport free, lowering the retirement age back to 62, and investing more in green energy. It would pay for all of this with higher 'wealth taxes' and by borrowing more money. If you know much about France's borrowing levels already than that should frighten you.

Now, in this left alliance, the retirement age will be reduced to 60, there will be free school meals for all, a freeze on food and energy prices, more holidays, more civil servants, and a minimum wage increase of 14%. This is thought to be at a cost of up to 300 billion over the next three years. All this at a time when France's borrowing is already too high and it needs to find 25 billion worth of savings from next year in order to fulfill its European budgetary commitments.

A recent analysis by Bloomberg showed that under JLM the national debt would rise to 130 % of GDP by 2027 compared to 120% for Le Pen and 110% for Macron's outgoing government.

With a visceral hostility to the 'markets' and a history of currency controls, France's last socialist-communist government under Mitterand in the early 80s imposed a limit on foreign spending of $450 annually and banned the use of credit cards abroad, to stop people from moving their money out of France. It's anticipated that this socialist- communist government will not be above measures to do the same. It is unlikely that the European Central Bank would step in to rescue a far left government. The harsh reality is that more than 80% of voters voted for a big increase in the deficit (if you include RN voters as well). France might get away with that for a while, but is not sustainable long term in the single currency, so the whole of the eurozone is under threat.

Other countries have made genuine sacrifices to stay within the currency zone, the Greek GDP for example is still well below it's 2000 level, but the French refuse to make any sacrifices (the pension age being one such example) complacently assuming they will be bailed out by their neighbours. Ironically it will be the emboldened Far Left who are most likely to bring the system crashing down, rather than the Right.

@TwigletsAndRadishes

To put these figures into context Liz Truss managed to create an economic meltdown with a deficit of £40 billion, so imagine what a deficit of €150 billion would do!!

Jordan Bardella, the head of RN, is the son of Italian immigrants. Under this rule, he would not be French.

The FN/RN has a huge number of secondos and thirdos and more, of Italian and Spanish and other European descent.

Not just other parties, many in his own can't stand him either.

@TwigletsAndRadishes, the Front Populaire don't have the kind of majority where they can pass this stuff, you may calm down.
rumandraisinagain (I know you said you weren't engaging anymore) - Mélanchon doesn't 'lead the left'. I know he pops up often pretending that he is leading it, but that's because he's a twat. He's the only one to think he is leading the Front tPopulaire. He's mostly disliked, including in his own party. Raphael Glucksmann, who is Jewish and headed the Socialist list for the European selection, which won 28% (or something like that) and came 2nd after the RN, ahead of Macron's party, managed to stomach making an alliance with Mélanchon's party against the FN, because he thought it was the right thing to do, no matter how painful. If he could do it, I thought I should do. There's no way in hell I would have voted for a party associated with Mélanchon in normal times, and it's the same for the people I know, and tbh, most people who voted FP, I suspect. We would never have done it if we thought it was going to actually unleash him and his antisemitism. I have faith it's not going to.