We don’t learn for ourselves, which is what that glurgey quote refers. we learn what others will do TO us.
Contrary to the hype, whoever faces LePen would win (if indeed she is in the second round). That’s what she’s been made into, a watchdog of the system.
That being said, in the very hypothetical case she were to win, she couldn’t govern: the FN doesn’t have the necessary base to get enough MPs in Parliament. Last time, they even fielded people with light dementia from old age and one guy who had refused to do it but was tricked into signing the relevant papers. The closest she’d have would be a Right majority, possibly with Fillon as the Prime Minister; said Prime Minister would then govern ignoring whatever she says, apart from when it would be convenient for him (in this scenario, definitely a ‘him’).
What many don’t understand about the French system is that the President and the Prime are basically independent bodies. When on the same side, the president is usually the one setting the policies, but if they’re not, the president loses most power, at least as pertain to domestic policies (it has happened three times, although the 2002 reforms makes it less likeky).
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Whoooo boy, I do think that after Brexit and Trump, these kinds of pronouncements are to be taken with a lot of skepticism. I do hope you’re right, but the way things are going, DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE POSSIBILITY. This kind of smug self assurance has been disastrous.
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HOWTO to tar & feather someone with hyperbole
HOWTO reply when you don’t believe anyone is capable of Islamophobia.
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Those results are not so surprising if you look at facts. The basics are simple: average people are fed up with the never-ending decrease in the standards of living, and so lash at the establishment they know is the reason behind this fall (all those people who benefit from Globalism and keep repeating Thatcher’s ‘There is No Alternative’).
In Europe, the Establishment uses the EU to slowly attack and destroy every progressive achievements made ever since WWII. As such, the Brexit (despite all the Remainers who keep screaming the first reason is racism. News flash, people tend to reject anything and anyone even slightly different when the economy makes them feel threatened in their very lives).
In France, Hollande was elected on an agenda that was, essentially, ‘take down the bankers’ privileges, loosen the stranglehold the stockmarket has on the Economy’. Instead of even attempting to do that, from day one he simply just threw every single one of his promises into the bin and essentially did what Sarkozy would have done. So much for the idea of a difference between the two main parties (PS and LR, previously UMP, previously RPR).
At the same time, here was Le Pen’s Front National. Important point: this party is, essentially, a family business. The founder, JM Le Pen (father of Marine), never had any wish to be elected. He simply liked receiving money from the state (which all parties getting over 5% do), and having a cushy ‘job’ as an European MP. However in 2007, Sarkozy managed to attract many of its voters, making it lose quite a lot of money.
Enters Marine.
Contrary to her father, she has apparently started to believe in her chances to win the elections. And so she rebuilt her party’s image around two points: the FN was an outsider, and they didn’t want the EU (analysing that people hadn’t forgotten the NO to the 2005 EU referendum that was completely ignored by Sarkozy and Hollande in 2007-2008 with the Lisbon treaty). She was helped by both the media (who like juicy pieces of news) and the two main parties, especially the PS, as they saw the FN as a very nice way to make people vote the way they wanted, i.e. for the PS and none of the left alternatives (for fear of a repeat of 2002 which saw Chirac against a very surprised and unprepared Le Pen). Indeed it worked in 2012, with many on the Left voting for Hollande to make sure he would go on to the second round.
This is not going to happen this time. It’s pretty much the only case where Le Pen could win, if she were to face Hollande (he is that hated, a bit like Clinton).
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A synonym for welshite?
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I do hope you are correct. But I do have the strong feeling you are simply ignoring one or more elephants in the room.
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Possibly a bit unfair, I agree. However, he does seem to be part of the recent crop of these people…
- espouses national values
- espouses native religious values
- espouses the free market
- derides foreigners and those of other faiths or none
- claims to speak for the people
…and yet… - has a foreign wife
- has foreign investments
- lives in a chateau, and races cars
- does not seem religious beyond hating other religions.
I see nothing wrong with being cosmopolitan or being wealthy. My ‘and yet’ list is not a list of faults. And yet, it does seem he is an unlikely candidate for leading the French worker to the promised land. Just about as silly as someone from the rust belt electing a New Your property baron in the hopes he will forgive their mortgage.
Come on, you workers! Rise up! You have nothing to lose but your 40-hours a week zero-hours contrast in the chain factory! But, no, the wrong ones are rising up, and for the wrong reasons.
Nowt so queer as folk, eh?
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Welshite. Well-shite. Heh heh heh.
(clicks on link)
Oh. It’s real. I didn’t expect that.
I always thought Thatcherite was like Kryptonite, but for ordinary folks.
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Except for, y’know, the entire national anthem.
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Well, whoever it is, it won’t be Hollande.
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