A topical detour

Moved here from Community Support, cos it has zip to do with StrongEd!

There’s me for one.

Do I count? ;)

Ah, I don’t care. Just glad that it seems sanity has prevailed in France. Exit polls put Macron to win with 58.something percent. Less than 2017, but still keeping the devil out. Also the first to be reelected. (edit: or not, see the discussion further below)

Official results to come as counting concludes.

The chaos not over though. Senate votes coming up, and the far left Mélenchon wants to run to be PM.

Asides from that, Macron is the only normal centrist party still in the game. Otherwise it’s the far left versus the far right. I think he’ll have a lot of work to do in the coming five years.

Sorry, just happy that the Fifth Republic didn’t drop a grenade down its pants and elect a Russia-lovin’-Nazi… I get that Macron is hated, but voting for whatever else is on offer… that’s part of what delivered Brexit (people against Cameron). There were probably easier and less destructive ways to get rid of Cameron, really… ;)

Right, time to put the kettle on.

<yawn>

My wife and I travelled into Manchester today so she could vote.

As a Frenchman I share your opinion

Macron is the only normal centrist party still in the game. Otherwise it’s the far left versus the far right. I think he’ll have a lot of work to do in the coming five years.

The past five years have been difficult, “yellow vest”, covid and now war in Ukraine by the will of one individual, without forgetting the Brexit.
Macron did the job.

You are right the vote to elect deputies is another story, I hope that France will not be ungovernable.It would be a disaster also for Europe.

If it wasn’t for the war in Ukraine highlighting LePen’s links with Putin, we could be looking at a very different result this morning.

I don’t think, and I don’t think anyone in all of Europe has forgotten what the far right stood for. That’s what Lepen voters want.

People are fundamentally selfish, in various degrees. We (mostly) don’t mind sharing when times are good, but when things go wrong is when we’d rather see somebody else take the fall. Just look at how many younger people don’t seem to think that France’s national debt is their problem or responsibility. Never occurs to them that times were good for them and their parents because of that.

A hundred years ago a sick sad man blamed the Jews. Now it’s Romanians, but the story is the same. Get rid of them and all will be fine. It’s the same sort of logical fault that brought us Brexit – blaming “Europe” for everything that went wrong rather than looking within.

Sadly, there is a lot of foreign influence, both in certain regimes that are looking to destabilise the West, but also from the United States who create big social media platforms, don’t pay much attention to what is going on until they are forced to, and are happy to turn their platforms into a personal eco chamber for everyone because that keeps people engaged, and being engaged equals more advertising which equals profit.
The fact that misinformation is rife and their algorithms are spewing it at the most susceptible doesn’t concern them. They don’t give a crap so long as the money keeps rolling in.

Really, in order to protect our fragile democracy, we ought to have complete transparency in who is funding political parties (all donations should be a matter of public record), and they should be subject to the same rules in social media as on television, backed up with proper punishments for them and their “useful idiots”.

But I don’t see that happening any time soon, as the rich few are coining it right now, so no need to change the system.

I don’t think Le Pen voters necessarily want to wreck the Fifth Republic, they just hear somebody that makes them lots of nice sounding promises, which might count for a lot when one is in the situation of deciding whether to heat or eat. Yes, sadly, for some, it has come to that. They’ll support anybody who claims to show them a way out of their misery, even if it’s complete bollocks (as preached by Farage who had a load of influence and wasn’t even a real elected politician (he was only an MEP because British humour is voting that rabble to fail to represent them and then blame the EU)).

Given that Macron cannot run for a third term, I really hope he ditches his unpopular pension reform ¹ and concentrates on trying to reunite the country so it doesn’t go horrifically wrong in five years time.

¹ Yes, I’m well aware that it has to be done, just kick the can down the road like everybody else. There are clearly bigger issues now.

A hundred years ago a sick sad man blamed the Jews.

Not quite that long, and it was a longer list than just the Jews. Always blame the outsider and then wonder why it comes round and bites your ass¹

They don’t give a crap so long as the money keeps rolling in.

and that applies to more than the big corporations.

¹ Consider the lyrics in the Manic Street Preachers song

A hundred years ago a sick sad man blamed the Jews.

The sick and sad man stood in a long and sad tradition, beginning with Augustinus, sharpened by many others (Luther, to mention one of the worst).

Also the first to be reelected.

Mitterand? Chirac (beating LePen senior)? De Gaulle, even, though his first election was by college rather than popular vote?

Yup. The early news articles said the first re-elected president of the fifth republic, later news articles said the first in twenty years.
Which isn’t so impressive given I’ve been here that long so it’s not that long ago.
At least, it doesn’t feel that long ago…

Anyway, he won, she didn’t. And, sadly, in the political arena there’s somebody even worse than her entire party. :-/

What’s more scary is that though Le Pen lost, she still got a ton of votes… previously her or daddy pretty much got their derriere handed to them on a plate when they made it to the second round – this time it was a much more even fight and that’s just downright scary :( – Sanity restored, but we had a good long look into the abyss before deciding not to jump, and that’s not healthy for any democracy… same as UK, sadly.

Except we did jump, of course :(

The scary thing is that Macron can’t run for a third term. Second and third place were the far right and far left respectively, with traditional parties having been slaughtered.

In five years time, do I grab a big bag of popcorn or do I start digging a hole to jump into?

In five years time, do I grab a big bag of popcorn or do I start digging a hole to jump into?

Already been done, though I suspect you wouldn’t be any more keen on Wonderland. In its early days a french colleague complained about english humour, given it’s then termination.