French presidential primaries

[Novus America]

Sure, if it did lose then she should follow the will of the people and instead negotiate more preferable staying terms, or even seek to make EU's leadership more democratically accountable by calling for federal elections so that it won't just be a quasi-council oligarchy at the top and have some popular representation.

You mean, because the European Parliament and the European Council aren't enough direct representation yet? I truly don't understand why this whole "undemocratic" thing persists. Voters choose their own national governments democratically. Those form the European Council. Voters directly elect their members to the European Parliament, democratically. And then the Council and the Parliament choose a Commission, which functions as a cabinet, with similar rights and responsibilities as national cabinets (though arguably with the Council as an extra limitation on its powers).

It's a little bit complicated, granted. But this idea that it is somehow undemocratic just sounds like bad marketing on their part. Or rather like a few decades of national governments trying to push responsibility for unpopular policies to someone else (despite having put them together at the European level).

Well the problem I think many people have is that it is mostly indirect, and each person does not have equal voting power. Though the EU is in many ways similar to the US, but people gripe about our electoral college and the like too.

Also I think many people do not understand the process of how the EU works. It is rather complicated and confusing. So people might feel more confortble with a more simple system.

One good thing about the US the EU could learn from is how short our constitution is. Thus anyone can easily read it. The EUs are way too long and complicated.

KISS is the way to go in government.

[Neu Leonstein]

Well the problem I think many people have is that it is mostly indirect, and each person does not have equal voting power. Though the EU is in many ways similar to the US, but people gripe about our electoral college and the like too.

Also I think many people do not understand the process of how the EU works. It is rather complicated and confusing. So people might feel more confortble with a more simple system.

One good thing about the US the EU could learn from is how short our constitution is. Thus anyone can easily read it. The EUs are way too long and complicated.

KISS is the way to go in government.

I actually think most Europeans would agree with that. Problem is that they couldn't start from a blank state. There never was some sort of single convention where everyone just agreed to give up their sovereignty and designed a new body from scratch. Arguably the US states never really had individual sovereignty as such, and so it didn't seem outlandish to get together and start a new project.

In Europe you had existing nation states that had been around for a long time, and spent most of that time fighting one another. So since the whole thing started as a few treaties between sovereign states, and slowly evolved using more treaties, they could only do it incrementally, with each one adding more complexity. It was really only with the last few iterations of those treaties that they were able to set up something like a separate governmental body that could actually be voted on... before it wasn't so much that there were no elections, more that there was no one to elect. The story of centralisation is also one of increasing the accountability of European-level decision making to voters directly (rather than just to their respective elected governments).

But that story wasn't sold very effectively. It kinda got drowned out by EU leaders talking in very abstract, idealistic terms that didn't necessarily work for everyone, and national governments (and their far-right and far-left oppositions) attacking the whole things as being some sort of imposition from above/outside that was making them do stuff they didn't want.

It might have been better had the leaders stuck to factual descriptions of what the new treaties were doing. I actually don't think that most people at the time needed that much convincing that the various individual stages that created the EU were a good idea, with perhaps the exception of the euro. I think most people in post-war Europe saw the point of distributing control of the coal and steel industries. Or the point of free trade agreements. Or the point of relaxing border controls in the Schengen Area. And so on. So I think politicians could have avoided a great deal of hostility by just explaining in detail how each step was going to be done in practice and why the chosen mechanism was a good one, rather than by spending a lot of time appealing to a far-future ideal of a federal Europe and leaving too many people clueless.

But then again, bashing the EU has been an effective political tactic for almost as long as the process has been around. Maybe no one had that much of an interest in having average citizens understand it properly.

[Empire of Narnia]

Le Pen is the one.

[Geilinor]

Le Pen is the one.

Why?

[The Althing Confederacy]

Vive Le Pen !
Vive la République !
Vive la France !

[Kilobugya]

Vive Le Pen !
Vive la République !

That's totally contradictory. Le Pen is opposite to all what the French Republicanism ideal stands for ("Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité"), and the political current she is the heir of has always, historically, been opposed to the Republic. And btw it's only in FN that you can find actual royalists in France.

[Aelex]

Sure, if it did lose then she should follow the will of the people and instead negotiate more preferable staying terms, or even seek to make EU's leadership more democratically accountable by calling for federal elections so that it won't just be a quasi-council oligarchy at the top and have some popular representation.

You mean, because the European Parliament and the European Council aren't enough direct representation yet? I truly don't understand why this whole "undemocratic" thing persists. Voters choose their own national governments democratically. Those form the European Council. Voters directly elect their members to the European Parliament, democratically. And then the Council and the Parliament choose a Commission, which functions as a cabinet, with similar rights and responsibilities as national cabinets (though arguably with the Council as an extra limitation on its powers).

It's a little bit complicated, granted. But this idea that it is somehow undemocratic just sounds like bad marketing on their part. Or rather like a few decades of national governments trying to push responsibility for unpopular policies to someone else (despite having put them together at the European level).

"I mean, you're electing the people who elect the people who elect the people who elect the people who're governing the E.U, I don't see how this is undemocratic at all!"

[Aelex]

That's totally contradictory. Le Pen is opposite to all what the French Republicanism ideal stands for ("Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité"), and the political current she is the heir of has always, historically, been opposed to the Republic. And btw it's only in FN that you can find actual royalists in France.

No. Le Pen is just supportive of a different brand of French Republicanism, one with which you might not agree with but that is nonetheless no less legitimate than the one you do.
Last part of the statement is also bullshit. You can find royalist in plenty of place and parties, most of which support L.R rather than the F.N. They even have joints list in some communes.

[Major-Tom]

Why has Macron been suffering in the polls recently?

[Chessmistress]

For those users who are expert about French politics: what are Le Pen's positions about economy?
Especially about matters like:
Loi du travail (the damage done by Hollande, I mean)
Universal healthcare
Welfare state, on the whole

Thank you for every explanation.

[Quintanilla]

Why has Macron been suffering in the polls recently?

Major gaffe concerning the French colonization of Algeria that happened recently.

[Aelex]

Why has Macron been suffering in the polls recently?

Major gaffe concerning the French colonization of Algeria that happened recently.

He called our enlightenment of the natives a "crime against humanity". Unsurprisingly, many responded him to fuck off rather than say shit about things he know nothing about.

[Chessmistress]

Major gaffe concerning the French colonization of Algeria that happened recently.

He called our enlightenment of the natives a "crime against humanity". Unsurprisingly, many responded him to fuck off rather than say shit about things he know nothing about.

I agree that Macron is a political illness.
But wording colonization as "our enlightenment of the natives"...

[Aelex]

I agree that Macron is a political illness.
But wording colonization as "our enlightenment of the natives"...

I was merely being humorous.
(As someone with Syrian origins, I would however definitely say that the French colonisation was over-all positive, tho)

[Neu Leonstein]

"I mean, you're electing the people who elect the people who elect the people who elect the people who're governing the E.U, I don't see how this is undemocratic at all!"

You're not exactly presenting your argument in the best light. The EU Parliament is directly elected. So are the members of the Council. And they then pick the people on the Commission. That's no more scandalous than the French President picking a Prime Minister, or the majority of parliament picking the Prime Minister and Cabinet in a Westminster system, or the electoral college members picking a US President.

[Chessmistress]

I agree that Macron is a political illness.
But wording colonization as "our enlightenment of the natives"...

I was merely being humorous.
(As someone with Syrian origins, I would however definitely say that the French colonisation was over-all positive, tho)

We can agree, then.
I also wish to go much more far: I think that decolonization have been a disaster, in most places. It was mainly about western nations giving up while letting private companies taking over.
It would have been much better a progressive disengagement, through a time range of about 20 or even more years, with some investments meant to promote development, especially about education, I think it would have worked better, at least in most places. In example I doubt that a modern day Syria would had been in civil war if it would had benefitted of a full generation educated with French/western values (including democracy) and also some structural investments before Frenchs finally leaving Syria.

[Neu Leonstein]

We can agree, then.
I also wish to go much more far: I think that decolonization have been a disaster, in most places. It was mainly about western nations giving up while letting private companies taking over.
It would have been much better a progressive disengagement, through a time range of about 20 or even more years, with some investments meant to promote development, especially about education, I think it would have worked better, at least in most places. In example I doubt that a modern day Syria would had been in civil war if it would had benefitted of a full generation educated with French/western values (including democracy) and also some structural investments before Frenchs finally leaving Syria.

One can have an argument about this... but the situation that comes up in French history specifically is Algeria in the 50s and 60s and the evident wish by the colonised people to be independent sooner rather than later. By then, a 20-year handover was not feasible or something either side wanted. And before then there would have been plenty of time for the colonial powers to make structural investments and ensure proper education, including the creation of a group of skilled public servants who could run a country effectively.

But before then, none of the colonial powers were particularly interested in doing any of those things. So it's maybe just a little bit silly to effectively blame independence movements for wanting independence too quickly, when literally centuries of mostly one-sided resource extraction had preceded it.

[Baltenstein]

I was merely being humorous.
(As someone with Syrian origins, I would however definitely say that the French colonisation was over-all positive, tho)

We can agree, then.
I also wish to go much more far: I think that decolonization have been a disaster, in most places. It was mainly about western nations giving up while letting private companies taking over.
It would have been much better a progressive disengagement, through a time range of about 20 or even more years, with some investments meant to promote development, especially about education, I think it would have worked better, at least in most places. In example I doubt that a modern day Syria would had been in civil war if it would had benefitted of a full generation educated with French/western values (including democracy) and also some structural investments before Frenchs finally leaving Syria.

Actually, something like this more or less happened in the case of Italy's former colony, Somalia. It remained under Italian civilian administration for 15 years after WW2, and the Italians (of all people, go figure ) did a pretty good job of improving its infrastructure, education and economy and prepping it for independence.
It still went through one party socialism and eventually complete societal collapse though.

[Goddess Jadny]

For those users who are expert about French politics: what are Le Pen's positions about economy?
Especially about matters like:
Loi du travail (the damage done by Hollande, I mean)
Universal healthcare
Welfare state, on the whole

Thank you for every explanation.

Le Pen is a big supporter of the Welfare State, with her main point against mass immigration being that it will lead to the collapse of the french welfare state. She is pro-healthcare, but not for illegal immigrants.
She is an economic protectionist, advocating an "intelligent protectionist" and making clear that she is against autarky.

[Kilobugya]

No. Le Pen is just supportive of a different brand of French Republicanism, one with which you might not agree with but that is nonetheless no less legitimate than the one you do.

No. French Republicanism isn't just anything with a president elected more or less directly. It has a content. It is directly linked to the "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité" motto, to a conception of public life where "citizens" are the ones living and working in a place, regardless of skin color or religion. It is a direct product of the Enlightenment. Marine Le Pen and the FN are direct opposite of all that - they oppose "Liberté" with their reactionary and ultra-securitarian view of society, they oppose "Égalité" by dividing people by religion and place of birth, and they oppose "Fraternité" with their hate speech.

And while Marine Le Pen tries to hide it, it's not her party and candidates and even elected mayors/MEP/... aren't full of nostalgics of Pétain, that she doesn't go to neonazi parties in Austria, ... They are the ideological heirs of Pétain (sure, in a weakened form, but the ideological remains), which is the antithesis of French Republicanism.

[Kilobugya]

Why has Macron been suffering in the polls recently?

Because he has been caught contradicting himself - like one day saying that French colonisation had positive aspects, and the next day saying it was a crime against humanity.

[Kilobugya]

For those users who are expert about French politics: what are Le Pen's positions about economy?
Especially about matters like:
Loi du travail (the damage done by Hollande, I mean)
Universal healthcare
Welfare state, on the whole

Thank you for every explanation.

Historically the FN has been very pro-business pro-market, wanting to privatize social security (especially retirement, but also healthcare), cut help to disabled, and to "liberalize labor market" (ie, do much worse than the "Loi travail").

They have tried to tune down a bit their discourse to attract the vote of disappointed workers/unemployed, so now it's a bit hard to know exactly what they want or will do, but I don't think they changed much their core believes and ideas, just that they don't expose them as much.

[Kilobugya]

You're not exactly presenting your argument in the best light. The EU Parliament is directly elected. So are the members of the Council.

No. The europarl is directly elected, yes, but it's the weaker of the three powers (Council, Commission, europarl). The fact that the only directly body is the one with the least amount of power is a real problem. The Council is not elected directly, but indirectly, since most national governments are, and most national governments are elected on local politics issues more than european politics issues, making them even less legitimate. And the Commission (which has lots of powers, like the monopoly on legislative initiative) is indirectly chosen by indirectly elected Council, the more you multiply levels of indirection the less democratic it becomes.

the electoral college members picking a US President.

Seeing the latest election fiasco, on top of the 2000 election fiasco, that's not a good reference The electoral college system is deeply broken, and saying that EU is as broken as it doesn't speak well of the EU

[Kilobugya]

Le Pen is a big supporter of the Welfare State

No, she is not. Historically the FN has been the most aggressive opponent of the welfare state, and while she did tune down a bit the discourse, she remains very hostile to it.

[Maluvia]

I always pick Mélenchon in these things, I have for years. Vive la gauche!