Two months after snap parliamentary elections that threw France into political turmoil, tens of thousands of left-wing demonstrators rallied in central Paris on Saturday in protest at French President…
  • TheFrirish@jlai.luEnglish
    21·
    2 months ago

    My personal little conspiracy theory as a French person:

    The Président was fully expecting the far right and right to win so that they could be ridiculed while in power (since the very moment you are in power in France you are unpopular) therefore guaranteeing that the right and far right do not win the next presidential election. However the left unexpectedly won the election throwing off the plan. Due to this he has been forced to push through in nominating a conservative Prime Minister so that the right could be still ridiculed while in power and mobilizing more than ever the left, thus saving French democracy for the next presidential elections.

    • ThePyroPython@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      2 months ago

      As an Englishman who has been loosely following the French elections since 2022, I think your theory is sound.

  • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.worldEnglish
    211·
    2 months ago

    A lot of countries have been usurped by billionaire conservatism. A lot of countries would benefit from revolutions targeting billionaire conservatives.

  • deadbeef79000@lemmy.nzEnglish
    8·
    2 months ago

    Why is the President choosing the prime Minister?

    Rather, what France’s constitutional whatever that set that power structure up?

    Here in [Commonwealth nation] we have a Governor General who officially accepts (as the Crown’s representative) whichever coalition has majority in parliament as the new government and that government appoints their own prime Minister.

    • Ziggurat@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      6·
      2 months ago

      The trick here is that nobody had the majority at the parliament. Which is quite unusual in France compared to let’s say Belgium where spending over 6 month to build a coalition is the norm.

      Macron and moderate right say they don’t wanna work with leftist killing the hypothesis of left wing government that moderate right can remove at any time. However, if Barnier allies with Macron party, and get at least the passive support of far right, he has a majority. But basically the kind of majority that far right can remove at any time. Not sure what deal with Le Pen was negotiated

    • BoomBoomKlap@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      2 months ago

      Not a lawyer but an informed citizen, I’d be happy to be corrected if I’m wrong.

      That’s a spirit of the law vs letter of the law question which to my understanding has not been answered. I am no lawyer but the wording of our constitution is pretty ambiguous and leaves room to interpretation. I won’t try and translate the article in question because as I said, not a lawyer and some blurred lines may be lost in my attempt at writing legalese in a foreign language.

      It’s also useful to point out that this situation has never happened before. Yes the left coalition has the highest number of representatives, but there is little political room (as seen when the most radical parts of the coalition proposed not to participate directly in a would-be government) for expanding said coalition.

      The constitution of the fifth republic was written in much different times, when De Gaulle wanted to avoid the fourth republic’s issues which was very parliamentary, but quite unstable. He wanted to be able to pick, and got this power when the constitution was written.

      But we’ve reached this odd situation (no obvious majority because of the three-block-parliment) which was not really anticipated. So we’ll see how it goes, how long Barnier’s government will stand. As of now, the far right has given it’s blessing not to censor the government, making it a center-right-far right de facto coalition. But as of today, these are just words, so we’re not sure what the exact terms of their agreement are. From what I know, the far right is not trying to participate in the current government, they would just abstain from participating in votes of no confidence, which would prevent such votes from having any effect, due to the current structure of parliament.

      A party is also trying to impeach Macron which I think has never happened before in the 5th republic.

    • zaphod@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      6·
      2 months ago

      In France the president normally chooses the prime minister backed by a majority in the national assembly, otherwise the majority would do a vote of no-confidence and the president has to find a new prime minister. The current problem is that there’s no majority.

    • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.caEnglish
      3·
      2 months ago

      Here in [Commonwealth nation] we once had a governor general that refused a request by the Prime Minister to dissolve parliament and instead appointed someone ales as PM. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King–Byng_affair

      Maybe some Commonwealth countries have made constitutional changes to avoid this from happening, but it’s most certainly not universal thing that the GG has to accept the wishes of a coalition. In fact what is the mechanism for when there is not a coalition, which is common when there’s a minority government in Canada? We kinda don’t really do the coalition thing, we tend towards minority governments that take a “go ahead and vote no confidence, I dare you!” kinda thing.

  • bitflag@lemmy.worldEnglish
    44·
    2 months ago

    26,000 people in Paris. That’s basically nothing, the NFP militants came out but there’s no popular support for the protest beyond that.

    For the left to call itself “the winner” was a mistake: not only do they control 1/3 of the parlement only, but by refusing all compromise and branding Macron’s party “the enemy” they were guaranteed to never be able to gather more support for their bills. It’s so bad that they were seriously discussing passing some bill on pension reform with the help of the far right.

    • Don_alForno@feddit.orgEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      In a time when avoiding a far right government should be his first concern, I strangely mostly read about him shooting against the left, talking about how dangerous they supposedly are. Looking at it from the outside it sure looks like he branded himself the enemy.

      Just like most “conservatives” around the globe, when it comes down to democracy vs corporate profits, he knows which side he’s on.

      • bitflag@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        In a time when avoiding a far right government should be his first concern, I strangely mostly read about him shooting against the left

        That’s because the left has also been shooting mostly against his government as well, while ignoring the far right.

      • bitflag@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        Any compromise with Macron is unfortunately impossible. There is no way a single measure of the NFP would have gotten adopted if they had bent the knee

        Of course there are. There’s plenty of ideological overlap on public services, LGBT rights, the environment.

        And, sure, the far right should never be an ally, but if the idiots are going to follow you, why tell them to fuck off?

        Because when the situation was reversed and the far right voted along with Macron’s party, the left cried about a supposed “alliance with the fascists”.

        voted against the decriminalization of homosexuality

        This is outright misinformation. He voted against lowering the age of consent for gay sex with minors from 18 to 15 yo. And that was more than 40 years ago too. Homosexuality is legal in France since basically the French revolution back in the 18th century.

        You’re so full of shit it’s not even funny.

        Says the guy broadcasting fake news.

        And, sure, the far right should never be an ally, but if the idiots are going to follow you, why tell them to fuck off?

          • bitflag@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            2 months ago

            Macron is hell-bent on dismantling public service

            This is a complete myth: France public spending has never been this high (yes, even adjusted for inflation). France has never had so many public employees. France’s health care spending has grown (fast) every year. Taxes have not significantly been dropped either.

            Macron’s government has also passed many left-oriented bills: 1 € meals for poor student, free contraceptive and morning after pills, culture check for youth, increased paternity leave, alleviating the SNCF debt, coverage of listening and dental prosthesis, subsidies for increasing housing insulation or repairing clothes, higher taxation on polluting cars, the shutdown of the airport project in Nantes, surrogate mothers, etc. You are telling me none of this could be worked on further with the left?

            People voting for the retirement age to be 60 will never agree with people saying it should be 70.

            For one nobody is saying it should be 70, for two the 60 year age is being quietly dropped by the left. Everyone knows we ain’t going back to the 1981 age, given the demography.

            But the centre and left can recognize there’s an obvious demographic and financial issue. And surely can find a compromise where people with long career and hard labor retire early, and those with office jobs and long studies can probably retire a bit later. In other countries like Germany, alliances ranging from far left to centre right can work on compromises and agree on a single program. It’s perfectly doable to find middle ground.

            but you fail to realize how this confirms how bigoted

            I think you fail to realize that in 1982, perspectives on LGBT issues were FAR FAR different than they are today. Huguette Bello, a communist which was proposed as a prime minister by the left, refused to support gay marriage, and that was in 2013 not 1982. But she is not a bigot and Barnier is?