French philosophers were enormously influential in the 20th century, basically inventing the ideas of gender identity, queerness, social constructs and so on (basically, all the ideas that are considered to be “woke” now). Now, France has become extremely radical, with almost half of the voters willing to pick a literal Holocaust-denying Nazi. The Le Pen clan has never been so close to seizing power. What happened?
Why is France, which brought us all “woke” ideas, suddenly voting for Nazis?
Well there are several reasons.
1 : People don't like Macron. He always had an image of having disdain for poor/middle class people and sometimes his interventions show that it may be true. A while ago, a guy who had no job interpelled macron to tell him about how he couldn't find a job and how difficult his situation was, and Macron said to him, in front of tv cameras "Well, you just have to cross the street to get a job" which is, very honestly, a very douchey statement.
2 : Marine Le pen did her very best for the past 10 or so years to make her political party (le rassemblement national, formerly known as le front national) seem more friendly, less extreme and to appeal to people more. She fired everyone that could be problematic, she even excluded her father from the party, she tried to appear more calm and more open to discuss than her father and overall it worked very well.
3 : Eric Zemmour, which has ideas even more extreme than Le pen, was a candidate for the presidential elections, and because his ideas were so extreme and so all over the place, he made Marine Le pen look more friendly.
4 : People are tired that their vote are only there to block the far right and not so much to elect a new president. Back in 2017 people didn't really like Macron either but they liked Le Pen even less so they voted Macron.
So taken together. People dislike Macron, Marine Le pen seems friendlier, People are tired of voting in order to block the far right (which is something that has been done for like 20 years or so) , and all of that make it so that some people would rather have Le pen as president than keeping up with Macron.
Now, will she win ? I don't know. Back in 2017 I was almost certain that she was not going to win. I'd say that it's more likely that Macron will be re-elected but I wouldn't be THAT surprised if she wins.
Also, there was huge abstention as a result of point 4, and over 45% among those between 25 and 34. People are definitely fed up with politicians.
Yeah, “I’m sick of voting for people I don’t like to block Nazis from taking power, so I’m going to not block the Nazis from taking power” is an interesting approach.
I mean, I get it – I’m sick of voting for candidates I don’t care for just because the other one is horrifying – but yeah.
This is definitely the kind of thinking that gets people burned, figuratively and literally.
She isn't Nazi. That is a revisionist framing that trivializes actual Nazism and obscures the real political issues unfolding in France and throughout the west.
On the contrary, the Nazis started out as a fringe party, whose rhetorical strategy was to pick a scapegoat (in their case, Jews, gays, communists etc.) and to promise to get rid of the “bad people” and bring new change to Germany. No ordinary Germans expected the “final solution” to be a systematic genocide and attempted extermination of all German Jews, but, well, that’s what happened. I’m not saying that another Holocaust is going to happen if Le Pen gets elected, but I am saying that this kind of rhetoric opens the door to political violence, something we are already seeing in places where the far right has gained control. Hell, Zemmour’s party was literally called “reconquête,” or “reconquest.” It’s not hard to see how this kind of thing can get out of hand.
She has had a lot of ties with neo Nazis. She even attended a famous neonazi reunion in Austrich.
She's been trying to paint her father's party in a new light since she's been at the head of it (which her father resented her for), but she still has a lot of questionnable ties with Nazism.
Oh she is. She's like Alt-lite in public, alt-right in private. A charismatic Nazi is still a Nazi.
She’s Nazi-lite but that’s still nasty
Just to give you an English language tip. Interpel is no longer a word used in the English language; however, we do use the word interpellate within British and Commonwealth countries to mean to interrupt or call out a politician within parliament (as a member of parliament), so using this word would still make sense within the context of Mr. Macron being interrupted and called out/challenged by a constituent. Interpellate in the philosophical sense of subconsciously taking in cultural and ideological values and internalizing them as a part of one's character came directly into English from the French philosopher Louis Althusser.
Every country has an opposing view. It doesn't reflect everyone's opinion.
Thank you for your common sense NSA
Mostly you are confused by France’s marketing.
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Far right France - the Vichy regime under the Nazis, had a lot of support and was never de-nazified.
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The New Left, Foucault et al., was anti-Marxist, and thus implicitly or explicitly capitalist. It’s questionable how much of a “left” it is at all, since it is often very elitist, technocratic, and as I just said - capitalist.
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France was pretty right wing when it came to its Algerian war. See “The Battle of Algiers” for more info. EDIT: Also, Vietnam, remember they started that one.
TLDR: American stereotypes of France were/are wrong.
Not to mention the premise that France exported wokisme is completely wrong. Wokism is one of Americas most hated exports
Wokism
An "export" of the right wing media hate machine. They found a way to make caring about others bad.
People are downvoting the guy above because they don't like the opinion, but it's factually true in French culture. 'Le wokisme' or 'la woke culture' is seen as an American export that is condemned by every political side. I'm not saying this is a good thing, but it is what you have to keep in mind when discussing this in the French context.
Macron himself said 'Je déteste ce truc, je suis contre la woke-culture' (I detest this thing, I am against woke culture).
Yeah, without making a value judgement, I can say neutrally from a descriptive perspective I have heard this same complaint in certain countries in Latin America. Many people literally laugh about "latinx" for example, and see this as a kind of gringo imperialism - literally renaming your entire group of people for the enjoyment of some small internal group.
The French can be very racist and bigoted, all the way back to the Dreyfus Affair. Or the police throwing Algerians into the Seine and drowning them in the 50's - yes that actually happened.
They are not 'woke' at all.
The French President and academia have universally condemned race, gender, and post colonial ideas as incompatible with French culture. I’d hardly call Macron a right winger. Sorry, but the French find this Anglosphere export to be repugnant.
I don’t think academia universally condemned "woke culture". Academia was more worried about the government’s remarks about defunding some social science thesis perceived as too "woke". When the government starts to censor research for political reasons that should be cause for alarm.
It’s an American export. Truth hurts. Nobody wants it.
I'd say Paris was the 'woke' part. And lots of the Islamic terrorist attacks there have definitely changed their views
The attacks mostly moved centrists to the right.
tf are you talking about, first, idk if you're french, if you're not, don't talk about this and if you're french, le "wokisme" ne vient pas spécifiquement de Paris, il n'a pas changer à cause d'attaques terroristes etc... c'est juste les vieux qui votent à droite, la logique voudrait que globalement tous le monde votent plus à droite en partant de ta logique, mais non, la majorité des jeunes ont voté pour Mélenchon, donc éviter de parler d'événement traumatisant pour appuyer ton "argument", les gens qui votent à droite votent à droite à cause de l'immigration, le racisme etc... il n'y a pas eu de changement drastique depuis les attentats
Soyons honnêtes aussi : BEAUCOUP de jeunes votent LePen, et si Mélenchon a la majorité chez les jeunes c'est seulement parce qu'il est vu comme le "vote des jeunes" plus que pour ses idées et qu'il bénéficie du vote communautaire des populations nouvelles et jeunes (notamment les musulmans). Aussi parce qu'il était le vote utile de la gauche. Contrairement aux votes pour le FN, les votes pour la FI ne représentent pas vraiment une conviction portée par une partie des français
idk if you're french, if you're not, don't talk about this
Oh, so I have to be French to have a saying / opinion on something. It's not giving racial equality :( /s
Seems about right. That's how it is in most countries tho dawg. Also don't know why you had to switch to French to make your point tho 🧐
Immigration, both from their former colonies and now from the Middle East.
People won't call you racist for saying that
Try voicing something like that on German subreddits for example, you’ll be banned…
Germans just outsourced their antisemitism and homophobia
Well if you hold the same view for Ukrainian refugees them okay. Otherwise youre racist..
Not entirely. Ukrainian refugees get a bias, yes, because they're culturally similar and neighbours, but also because they are vastly women and children. The media impression of Syrian refugees at least was that they were largely men of fighting age, who left their wives and children behind in camps in Jordan, Palestinian Territories, Iraq and the like. And so there is, to be honest, a certain level of contempt for them - and yes, you can say it's sexist against men to expect them to stay and fight - who left their families in difficult situations and who left their country, whereas the media image of Ukraine is the defenders of Mariupol and Kyiv and that they were attacked by a large foreign power, whereas Syria was considered as Syrians versus Syrians.
A major difference is that most Ukrainians don’t follow a religion that advocates for the total subjugation of women and mass genocide of queer people.
I think it's better called a cultural issue. The Bible 100% calls for both of those things, but Western culture has been struggling to get over that for the past few centuries where the Middle East uniformly hasn't.
Ukrainians are culturally much more similar to Western Europeans than people from Muslim countries. Similar religion, drink alcohol, speak Indo-European language, wear similar clothing, much more shared history of being part of the same general Christendom faction, similar food, etc.
Not saying its impossible for Muslim people to assimilate into Western society, but it's more difficult.
Lol they are eastern europeans, they have a very different culture. But go on. they are as homophobic as muslim immigrants.
they are as homophobic as muslim immigrants.
Goes to show that you have never interacted with a Muslim immigrant. Go Kiss a dude infront of a freshly arrived muslim immigrant and see what happens to you which I really wouldn't wish that upon anyone. There's a difference in the level of homophobia.
I always wonder why progressive wokes see everything through the lenz of race. It's not the skin color It's the religion, It's the mindset, It’s the incompatible culture and societal values. I wouldn't give a fuck if your skin is green, pink or anything else; If you see decapitating gay people as a duty to yourself then you have no place in a civilized world.
That's actually quite false as well. Homosexuality wasn't a big deal in the USSR at all, nor in Russia before that. Lots of prominent Eastern European people were gay (Tchaikovsky, for example) and people didn't really care. The extreme homophobia is a recent development when Vladimir Putin needed a distraction from his abysmal failings at domestic policy (and also a major Russian newspaper running a story alleging that he's gay). As a result of Putin's sudden interest in persecuting gays (including the Russian Orthodox Church in his plans as well) a lot of LGBT people actually fled to Ukraine where they could have more freedom. Now that Ukraine has been invaded, those who didn't stay and fight are taking refuge in places further West.
And no Eastern European culture is NOT very different from Western European culture. Having experienced both the biggest differences between the two are their languages, largely because of the close contact between the two for so long. Christianity, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, etc. all of these things happened in both East and West and influenced each other. Hell, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, King George V of Great Britain, and Kaiser Wilhelm II were all cousins (descended from Queen Victoria. There's a reason she is "the Mother of Europe".
The West vs. East divide was only really pronounced in certain points in history, such as during the Great Schism when the Catholic Church (based in Rome) and Eastern Orthodox Church (based in Constantinople) broke communion with each other. The Russians, being close to Byzantium, followed suit (and when Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in 1453 the Russian Empire actually claimed the mandate of Byzantium to call themselves the heirs to the Roman Empire and to Western Civilization). Inroads were built back, however. A good example is the reign of Tsar Peter the Great in the late 15th century, who actively sought to re-Westernize and modernize the Russian empire through cultural exchange with Western Europe.
The second time was after World War 2 when communist USSR sought to distance themselves from the democratic West of Europe. They were isolated for only a very short period of time during the Stalin and Khrushchev eras; with larger cultural exchange resuming in earnest with Brezhnev's proposals of perestroika; which were amplified by Gorbachev (as well as his policy of glasnost in 1985 onward).
All of this is to say that Eastern Europeans and Western Europeans have much more in common than not.
I know many of you have a fantasy about these men. These men fantasize about killing you. Also, Ukrainian refugees escaped to the closest coutries, they haven't had NGOs escorting them from international waters.
The one French guy I've spoken to has told me that French people are sick to death of the Muslim refugees and 1st, 2nd, etc. generation immigrants. They refuse to integrate themselves into society, they force their own way of life, take over neighborhoods and turn them into slums, bleed the social system dry, etc. It's easy to see why people support and sympathize with Le Pen and her stance on these pressing issues.
Ive had a similar experience talking to a girl I was friends with in college (we were both studying to become social workers. so pretty left all things considered) and she told me she studied here in Quebec because her home town of Marseille was unrecognizable nowadays. She didnt feel safe walking alone anymore, muggings had increased by a huge margin and most of it was apparently stemming from muslim refugees.
There was some VICE channel documentary on this where they went into Muslim immigrant neighborhoods in France and interviewed people. Among other things, most of the interviewees were very straightforwardly and explicitly anti-gay.
It's been apparent for years that France has failed -- and failed very badly -- in terms of trying to assimilate these immigrants into French culture because there is resistance on both sides. It's a lot worse in France than it is in the United States or the UK.
The United States seems to do a good job at integrating immigrants (and Muslims in particular). Europe however does not and that’s why there is the rise in the far right across the continent. If the left and centrists don’t start addressing it (and by addressing it I don’t mean accuse people who point out that Muslim immigrants on the whole refuse to integrate and hold extreme barbaric and ironically far right views) then Le Penn’s are going to become more common across Europe.
This.
The thing that is hard for people to wrap their heads around is that the US is simultaneously very racist, but also good at integrating people from different backgrounds into the society, particularly when it comes to immigrants.
Key is integrating - becoming part of society while keeping aspects of identity, and not necessarily assimilating - becoming exactly like everyone else.
North America tends to be better at integrating their immigrants because they typically target those who come from skilled, educated backgrounds who then can afford to live in middle class neighbourhoods and not in the poorests ones that lack the resources and funding to integrate and elevate those people living there. Those who do end up living in poverty tend to experience huge amounts of trauma growing up and are surrounded by crime, which they too often feel the need to involve themselves in as a survival tool (if immigrants themselves and not the children of immigrants this could mean deportation, so the first gen try to stay away from such behavior). Canadian and US schools, however, are both much better at integrating kids (at least in the blue states in urban environments) because of a higher degree of multiethnic, integrated peoples already existing in those places leading to less prejudice and isolation, and thus kids wanting to belong and join the in-group, can do so without much push back from other kids, (unlike what many traditional racial minority communities in the US experience because of decades of Jim Crow laws, redlining, blockbusting, white flight, and other forms of cultural and institutionalized racism). Another reason is the huge amount of resources they put into teaching their countries' civic virtues and instilling them into kids from a young age, as well as the fact that their nationalism (with the exception of racist white nationalists and the few black nationalist weirdos), which they work hard to indoctrinate children with from a young age, isn't based around ethnicity as it is in most non-settler-colonial nations but around being a member of a diverse nation of peoples sharing similar values and goals.
We don't want integration.
We want assimilation.
If you want to live in the United States then you assimilate to the United States, not the other way around.
Europe however does not and that’s why there is the rise in the far right across the continent.
Scandinavic countries have the left putting a fight on immigrants and "refugees".
i'm french and gay, there's no difference from white to arab people when it comes to homophobia, most cishet men PERIOD are homophobic, their ethnicity changes nothing
Are you delusional ? Arab people are the most homophobic demographic on earth
Si tu crois vraiment ce que tu dis, t’es complètement, mais alors complètement déconnecté de la réalité. Reviens sur Terre.
I’d say it’s more of religion, though that still has some connection to ethnicity. You’ll find that most of the bigoted and hateful people are devout practitioners or believers of their religion. If the religion does not accept or agree with homosexuality, among many other things, those ideologies and attitudes will become part of the culture, thus passed down to succeeding generations until someone decides that it is wrong, or that enough is enough.
i'm french, and the one french guy you spoke to is just islamophobic, there's immigrants from different country cause of many country France colonized, and being french, no immigrants still any opportunity of jobs, home etc... having more people on you country is a good thing, and most immigrants are willing to work, which means, making the country more rich, and from a cultural point of view they bring their culture with them, couscous, an north african dish, is the most liked dish in France, and young people start using arabic words more and more
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You need to stop with the generalisation. I swear y’all would be mad as hell if LGBTQIA+ people were generalised. Now move !
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I don’t agree. I’m Mexican and TX received me with open arms and the culture is very similar. Rodeo, cowboys, food, BBQ on Sunday, religion from Mormons to Catholics. At least the Texas that’s from El Paso, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Houston and south. Dallas and panhandle are the stereotypes, but Texas is way more south west than people think.
No, I don't know what life in France is like firsthand, I'm just sharing what someone who's been born and lived their his whole life has told me.
And guess what, when it comes down to it people want to feel safe and live their lives comfortably. And they feel the safest when surrounded by people from the same ethnic, religious, cultural, etc background. There's nothing inherently wrong with that.
Woke points don't matter much when these people infest your neighborhood and bring their issues into your life despite the majority of them not speaking the language, not paying taxes, not contributing to society at all. Hell, even a flea knows when enough is enough and when it needs to stop antagonizing its host.
You are using some classic buzz words in your post bud https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/president-trump-heads-baltimore-city-called-rodent-infested/story?id=65570278
Exactly!! I have no clue why you’re being down voted. This subreddit seems to have a lot of islamophobic gays…
Same thing in USA.
You have your intellectual history wrong. I'm familiar with French theorists like Kristeva, Foucault, etc..., but they didn't exactly bring us "woke" ideas. Much of that comes from different sources, or even if it comes from the French-speaking world, like Franz Fanon, it's from people on the margins opposed to French colonialism.
Gender identity, for example, you can trace from some ideas in German sexology to 20th C. Americans like John Money, then to the high priestess of gender, Judith Butler.
Queer Theory was largely an American project, as was Critical Race Theory (a product of American law schools).
Then there's the basic point that French intellectuals aren't "France." France is still heavily influenced by its Catholic past. Family is very important, and is more enshrined in law than it is in the U.S. The French are very protective of their French cultural legacy to the point where they have resisted the importation of some of the more "woke" ideas from American universities into French education. In that sense, France is more culturally conservative than some people imagine it to be.
The French maintain a very healthy separation between their private life and their professional life. The entire concept of 'bringing your whole self to work' is absolutely alien to the French outlook and frankly feels a bit dystopian.
Mandatory DEI trainings would start literal riots.
IIRC, queer theory was also a thing in pre-nazi Germany but the Nazis wiped it out pretty thoroughly.
Not queer theory in any way related to "wokeness" (although that link is pretty tenuous, anyway).
Transmedicalism =/= queer theory
I am from Turkey and trust me, it is good for you to get rid of these refugees.
As a fellow turk, yes! Get rid of muslims in your country ! They are not what they say they are
Just because some ideas now referred to as "woke" came from French philosophers doesn't mean that there are no opposing views in French society.
As a former longtime resident and someone who did his PhD at a French university, my take is that France is not a country which was built on the ideas of individual freedom and individual rights. Much rather, the French constitution puts a lot of emphasis on society as a whole. Accordingly, many foreigners will find that French (fiscal) policies are very socialist and statist - which, in a way, they are. The French electorate will expect the state to do and provide for things which would be considered individual responsibilities in more classic liberal democracies such as the U.S., the UK or Switzerland (by classic liberal I do not mean liberal in the American sense, but liberalism in the sense of Milton Friedman).
These statist and collectivist views are what most French - by large - subscribe to. Accordingly, when it comes to economic/fiscal policies and ideas about the services the state should offer, Le Pen's party does not differ much from left wing parties.
On the other hand, views about a multicultural society, the integration of immigrants, welfare payments to immigrants etc. differ as much in France as anywhere else. The same quite obviously applies for "woke" topics, such as LGBTQ+ rights. And this is also where the French political movements differ a lot. Le Pen's chauvinist and nationalistic party suggests entirely different policies than, say, Mélenchon's party. Accordingly, Le Pen's movement appeals to French voters who like collectivism but who are socially reactionary. And France has as many of those as any other country, including the U.S. (Trumpster anyone?).
Bottom-line: While I find France to be a socialist/collectivist country fiscally across the political spectrum, it is a diverse as any other country when it comes to societal questions.
Well I'm French and I have absolutely no idea.
This is very insightful, thank you. From your experience do you feel that this change to nationalism comes from the working class like it does here in the US? I've been concerned that the destruction of the working class here in the US would result in nationalism and this appears to be the case. It doesn't feel like there is a lot of effort to ensure that working class people are protected from the effects of social and economic changes.
I fully recognize that here in the US the working class have written there fate with their own hand by voting for conservatives hell bent on their destruction, but hate the same way the working class voters hate. The way you describe French collectivism seems to indicate that this is not the same in France. That this is more of a cultural conservative movement to ensure France stay's French. Does this feel like accurate?
Thank you again. Love your insights.
Thank you for your kind words.
I'm only a quiet (but curious) observer who obviously has his own views, mentality and personal history, so I can only make assumptions. We all know that political movements are complex and most of the time cannot be captured in detail. The outcome of an election is still the sum of individual votes at the end of the day.
I haven't lived in the U.S. for as long as I have in France and the U.S. are wildly diverse. So my view of the U.S. will be heavily influenced by the places I have called home (Manhattan and Huntington on Long Island - not exactly America's heartland, I guess, even if Walter Whitman came from that area. But then again - he was likely gay :-)).
With all these caveats, I guess that the sentiment in the U.S. and France is similar yet different.
I agree that Le Pen's electorate is more working class and rural than Macron's, for instance. I also agree that rural working class protest movements like the Gilets Jaunes by and large support Le Pen. But that's probably where the similarities with "the basket of deplorables", as Mrs Clinton infamously called their U.S. counterparts, ends.
The U.S. are very strongly built on individual freedoms - right from the Declaration of Independence. Accordingly, the rural/working class Trump supporters don't want federal government to interfere with their lives. They don't want to be taught CRT at school (for whatever it is. But that's their sentiment), they want to have their shotguns and petrol guzzling trucks and use them as they please and they don't want to be told by the authorities what to believe in (LGBTQ+, minority rights, pro choice etc.) and what not (evangelical sects). They basically want to be left alone.
At the same time, they do feel that they are being left behind economically. But by whom? Well, not by the Reds, because the Reds at least don't tell them what to do. So they would rather be poor and free than still poor but being told what to do by the Blues (and being ridiculed as hillbillies for that matter). Because let's be honest - the Democrats and the federal government haven't made Oklahoma, Tennessee and Alabama prosperous places either. So in this respect, I'm not quite sure whether the U.S. rural and working classes are really voting against their own interests.
In France, things are different in my humble opinion. As I wrote in my last comment, the sentiment from left to right is that the state should provide for many aspects of life. So all socio-economic classes (including the working and rural classes) will accept high taxes, a monstrous administration and generally quite a lot of interference by the central government. Be it Le Pen, Macron, Mélenchon or anybody else - the state WILL tell you what to do and how to spend your money. This part is generally accepted. However, many people who are worse off feel that the state doesn't take enough care of them financially. So unlike their American counterparts, they don't want to be left alone if the state doesn't have to offer them anything meaningful anyway, they want to be looked after and are ready to fight for it.
Now, France's Fifth Republic has seen conservative governments (Gaullism and descendants), socialist governments, as well as a centrist government like right now. And nothing has ever changed. These governments' fiscal policies were largely the same - collectivist (even if some French might disagree with me, but the difference really wasn't that big). Social mobility has never been a thing in France anyway. The social stratification is firm.
So why not try out someone else for a change? And this someone could be Le Pen - a terrible demagogue who is smart enough to not come across as racist and bigot as her father did. They tell themselves that she speaks their language and is an underdog - just like they themselves. Due to this, they have high hopes that she will divert state funds to them as her clientele. At the same time, they just ignore that she's a Putin supporter and - despite not talking about it - an abject racist. If someone tells them that they will be taken care of (as opposed to being left alone in the U.S.), they will gladly follow such a person. Are they wrong? Selfish, yes (like anybody else), but possibly not as wrong as we think because they don't have much to lose (unlike us). It's dangerous anyhow.
All right, just a few (more or less random) thoughts and this comment is far too long, so sorry for having to bear with me.
Despite all of it - I still think Macron will win next Sunday. Not as comfortably as last time, but nevertheless. Because after all, the French were almost always smart enough to pick the right side of history - just.
From your experience do you feel that this change to nationalism comes from the working class like it does here in the US?
From a Portuguese view, where the political spectrum switched the far right Bloco de Esquerda party as third political force, to the nationalist Chega, studies here suggest that people with a higher degree of education will vote more towards the nationalist party. However, the same study suggested that the less educated would vote for the socialists, that got a majority as a "useful vote".
Coming into the thread late but thank you for the thoughtful replies!
Islam sucks and the native people of France are finally realizing they don’t want to be outnumbered by an insane religious cult.
calling everyone you disagree with a Nazi dilutes the meaning of the word Nazi. If everyone is a Nazi no one's a Nazi
Her party was founded by Nazi collaborators. Her father is a Holocaust denier. Are you retarded?
Is Le Pen advocating for a genocide or something? No? What a way to prove nothing while calling others retarded, retard
I am afraid the framing of this question is based on a rather superficial understanding of the political situation. Not just in france, but globally
The pendulum swings
Thanks for posting this question that's generating an interesting discussion.
Have you not heard of Vichy France
They have Macron, thats why. Everybody is better than him.
It's not going to. This is ridiculously hyperbolic. Marine Le Pen is not a Nazi nor is she a fascist. She is a right-wing radical, yes, but she is notionally democratic. Her opposition is to the liberal substance of modern democracy.
Yes, she has softened her image to win more votes, but she’s still a Nazi. It’s not a hyperbole (like in the case with Trump). Her party was founded by Nazi collaborators. Her father was convicted of denying the Holocaust. She will start another Vichy regime.
No. By definition she is NOT a Nazi. Seriously, if you look at the academic literature on the radical and extreme right, no serious scholar would argue she is either a fascist or Nazi. She does not meet the definition. She is a member of the radical right family, she is opposed to the liberal elements of democracy but not democracy itself. Ergo, she cannot be a fascist or Nazi.
"Illiberal democracy" pretty much fits the concepts of Fascism of the 20th century in Italy, Austria, Spain, Portugal or Fascistoid governments in Poland, Hungary and the like. It's not like "Fascism" is just Holocausting Aliens who all disappeared in 1945.
In order to discuss fascism adequately we need to advance a minimum definition; here I lean on the definition provided by Roger Griffin which is that fascism is the fusion or combination of ultranationalism and palingenesis (Griffin 2007). It is this latter element that is important as it is what distinguishes the regimes of Germany and Italy from those appearing in Hungary, Portugal, Spain, etc. These latter regimes were authoritarian, and ofttimes emulated stylistic components of fascism, but substantively they were not fascist.
For instance, while Salazar introduced a range of radical social reforms (such as the Estado Novo or 'New State'), the raison d'etre was inherently conservative. Salazar sought to protect the existing establishment, especially the Church and Catholic values, from radical alternatives (read socialist). Salazar's regime 'remained an essentially pro-system pattern of conservative-authoritarian government whose 'fascist' elements of style were duly shed in the 1940s' (Kallis 2000). Furthermore, we should dispense with the notion of democracy vis-a-vis fascist regimes in that no fascist regime in Europe was established as a result of popular majority choice, but rather, through the over-throwing of the existing regime and often through a coup between the fascists and conservative elements in the existing regime (the latter of whom ended up dead; see Germany).
Marine Le Pen, and the main radical right movements of Europe today, do not subscribe to the same substantive political philosophy as the fascists of the 1930s and 1940s, nor of neo-fascists today. They are inherently committed to democratic structures of government and often wish to expand those democratic structures (Mudde 2007). The reason they are radical is not because they are opposed to democracy, as the fascists were, but because they are opposed to the liberal substance of modern democracy (see Carter 2005, Mudde 2007).
The point is that fascism is a very particular ideology and it is often applied to people and parties for whom this label is completely inappropriate as they fail to meet the requirements for inclusion as established under the minimum definition.
It is also important to recognise that the reason why so many radical right parties ceased to be fascist organisations - and why radical rather than extremist organisations - are in the ascendency, is because radical organisations are vote-winners, while extremist ones often are not (see Carter 2005). It's why parties like the National Front/Rally, Sweden Democrats, etc., all shifted from their more extreme historical origins - the SD were the most dramatic, as they were rooted in Swedish nazism - toward more radical but wholly democratic orientations.
After reading the comments I forgot I was reading from a subreddit that usually is about enema frequency and giving a good blow job.
France like all Western countries are leaning towards right wing candidates, because the Leftist parties have been taken out of the equation or have been subject to outside influence from neoliberals.
Macron is a neoliberal. He’s all about corporate power and lowering taxes for the rich and helping businesses which is in conflict with Marxist democratic socialist values. He uses the Left, but because the Left in France lacks a proper coalition and a coalescing figure they are left with Macron as the least worst candidate. Same with America with Biden being seen as palatable in the face of the corrupt Trump reactionary policies.
The Left in much of Europe has been slowly dismantled and broken by EU neoliberal leaders and they’ve worked hard these past 20 years to ensure the Overton Window shifts to their positions and now the world has to choose between neoliberal policies or fascist policies and the democratic socialists rarely if ever even have a seat at the table. Thus austerity for the poor and cutting of social services becoming an increasingly common reality in much of the Western world.
Muslims. I am a turkish ex muslim and if i were french i would vote to stop them from invading my country. We too are being invaded by muslims even muslimer than us and if a muslim majority nation cant stand more muslim migrants imagine a civilized one…
The right wing has done a facelift - optics matter
The Russians have been funneling money to far right candidates in several Western countries as a destabilization tactic. Immigration was already fueling undercurrents of white nationalism and Russian troll farms have thrown gas on the fire. Russia sees it as a good thing if nations leave the EU so they assist candidates who support leaving like Marine LePen. I understand she’s toned down her anti-EU and pro-Russia rhetoric since the war started but it was a popular far right talking point for a long time.
Probably for many of the same reasons that the United States, the world center of enlightenment on civil, racial and sexual equality in the 1960s, is on a forced march to return its authoritarian party to power in Congress this year and to the presidency in 2024. The causes today are much the same as they were during the rise of authoritarianism in the 1930s - economic distress and cultural division and relentless propaganda fomenting fear and hatred of racial, ethnic and sexual minorities from American fascist media sources.
le pen is not a nazi, they don´ t want a genocide based on race .. so get out of your woke lil twitter bubble
The apple doesn’t fall too far from the Nazi tree.
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Well I'm French and I have absolutely no idea.
They are tired of the left and the Muslims ruining the country
True dat
The left has hardly ever been in power in most of french history. Do not understand this reasoning
Strange, considering the party in power is firmly centrist.
Rightwing* they try to appear centrist by changing their vocabulary and goals depending on who they want to appeal to.
For example the President said some days ago that a feminist muslim woman wearing the hijab was one of the best thing he's seen those last days. In 2019-20 he said that hijab was the symbol of everything in opposition to France and its values.
Because the real nazis is on the table for too long
Reading these comments makes me feel depressed. I’m gay and Muslim (neither by choice, I’m not very religious though) and it feels like everyone hates me :/ I’m so lost
There’s nothing wrong with religion but common sense needs to go with it. There are concepts that help with life. Take the good ones and cancel out the hate
I’m gay and Muslim (neither by choice, I’m not very religious though)
Not "very" religious... so it means at least "a bit" religious, that is, you still choose to believe in Islam. I understand this can be difficult since you were probably mentally abused as a child to believe in Islam.
If you use rational thought, there is no way you will feel lost: it’s very fundamental, as 1 + 1 = 2. Prophet Mohammed killed and taught to kill (whatever excuse Muslims give for killing). You can never say that a religion and its followers are peaceful when they follow the teachings of a killer warlord. Truly pacifists, like Jesus or Buddha, never taught to kill.
If you are a good person, sooner or later you completely leave Islam... hope you find your way and don't feel lost anymore.
Wow, talk about colonialist mindest.
Do you also belive that some people are less evolved and need guidance by a more enlightened people?
I don't know if you heard the news but we stopped doing that about 80 years ago, maybe it's time you did 1+1= 2 and realize that telling someone that they have to leave their religion and switch to yours because it is more civilized and advanced is exactly what created many of the problems we still face nowdays.
Straw man fallacy. When you can't argue with logic and reason and are not honest enough to accept facts, you use fallacies to deviate the attention.
Fact, read again: Prophet Mohammed killed and taught to kill (whatever excuse Muslims give for killing). You can never say that a religion and its followers are peaceful when they follow the teachings of a killer warlord.
I never stated that Islam is peaceful. No religion is since they are just a tool of the ruling classes to subjugate the rest of the population.
But your entire comment was soo deply rooted in ethnocentrism and religious chauvinism that it makes me question wheter or not you are in you right mind or not.
Stereotyping is also a straw man. Assuming those in a particular religion are mentally abused, that is not helpful. It's true that some Christians, Jews & Muslims were abused (mentally & physically) as children. It's not true that if one is a Christian, that person was abused.
"I understand this can be difficult since you were probably mentally abused as a child to believe in Islam."
Stereotype much?
You're not alone in feeling this way, as an American. I feel that way too.
A top cause is the love of Western leftists for Islam, which defies logic.
Richard Dawkins calls them REGRESSIVE LEFTISTS: they are always ready to criticise Christianity (I agree), but embrace Islam, which is fundamentally against everything leftists believe: LGBT rights, feminism, religious freedom even democracy.
I'm gay, atheist, and left - but in the European context, I would vote for Le Pen to stop regressive leftists from digging their own grave. I'd rather live in a Christian country, where I can still have some freedom, than in a Muslim country, where my life would be in danger.
And this is how they play you.
They make you fall for some battle between religions or between values so that you don't focus on class struggle and realize that Macron and Le Pen are two sides of the same oligarchist coin with the only difference between them being in the different number of mosques built every year. If you want the left look at the real left, not whatever bullshit the liberal right is marketing itself as.
The idea that French are the woke haven of Europe is a nice PR campaign, they have their fair share of right wingers in there.
Their idea of laïcité, or secularism, favors white Christian French citizens and everything that’s outside the mold threatens French identity.
That with the terrorist attacks, massive refugee crisis, inflation and a president with a fair share of blunders makes for the perfect scenario for Le Pen
It’s not just France, all of the western nations have had a rising tide of conservatism lately.
Everyone is saying it’s mass migration. It probably is, and it’s only going to get worse in the coming decades as climate change forces people to leave.
This is why world history is so important to understand. This was inevitable. Culture wars rarely end well for anyone. They divide populations and make room for someone unlikely to come right down the middle. There is a culture war in Western Europe between the people who were there, and the people who immigrated there, don't fit in, and don't want to. This is the French incarnation of the Western European culture war.
Haven't been to this subreddit in a long time, is this what it's come to?
France might have been where a lot of ideas originated but that does not mean that the whole country has adopted them. Trying to get the French to think all one way - that’s worse than trying to herd cats! After all many Americans are against the new deal - just listen to right wing talk radio. Anyway, le pen has moved to the middle and tamped down the anti semitic part of her party. Meanwhile Macron seems to be more for the rich.
I pray Macron wins.
Tell me you're American with a poor understanding of other countries geopolitics without telling me you're American with a poor understanding of other countries geopolitics.
I'm glad France is finally standing up against the ridiculous flood of Muslim immigrants that refuse to assimilate to Western culture.
Those ideas where cancer since the beginning, so good for France, hope the rest of Europe follows them
Because Macron is the anti-Christ (I would put "/s" after this statement, but my batshit eighth-grade English teacher tried to tell us this and that we should hope Le Pen wins).
No, that's every Pope in history since they are all slaves to the demiurge.
I wish this sub had mods. “Wokeness” is not something anyone on the left is talking about but if you look at conservative media right now, this is the talking point that they’re using against left leaning people. This post is 100% slanted to create a narrative that gay men are more conservative than can be proven with statistical data.
This post is not in good faith.
I love how you're talking about "wokeness" not being a thing while advocating for censorship against people with different opinions than you.
Gtfo of this sub if you don't like it.
This is a sub about gay guys, not wokeness. This conversation doesn’t even belong in this sub at all.
"This is where anyone can ask the manly men for their opinions on various topics. Advice. AskReddit style questions. AMA. ELI5. Everything in between."
Gtfo if you don't like it.
You can GTFO if you don’t like me posting here that these posts are meant to manipulate you. I’m just informing readers here that this post isn’t in good faith.
Nothing radicalizes people to vote for the right as few years of left in power.
left hasnt been in power in france
So what do you think Marcon is?
Clearly right. You're welcome.
Looks like your and mine definitions of left and right differ.
Enjoy your Nazi president.
His economic policy is stripping the French welfare state and retirement system. And cutting taxes for the wealthy.
I don't know there must be something in the water turning all the frogs fascist lol
Honestly I have no idea. I was really hoping we'd get Mélenchon to the second turn but... Kinda worried for the years to come
The question is pretty ill-conceived; "woke" ideas did not really come from these thinkers, but have a much more recent, and mostly American, origin. And just because a country has influential left-wing intellectuals doesn't mean much about its overall politics. It's kind of like asking "How did Donald Trump win when we have Noam Chomsky?"
France also voted for law-and-order politics in 1968 when these people were at the height of their influence.
Not really. Simone de Beauvoir first articulated what has come to be known as the sex-gender distinction, that is, the distinction between biological sex and the social and historical construction of gender and its attendant stereotypes. Michel Foucault uncovered sexuality as a construct. These are just some examples.
The different between French intellectuals and Chomsky is that the former were actually influential. Chomsky is just an America-hating genocide-denying communist sympathizer whose ideas have never gained traction (even within the realm of linguistics). He’s regarded as an influential thinker by some people on the far-left, but he’s actually a fraud whose outdated linguistic theories have been disproven.
Honestly the whole of Europe has always been conservative, especially countries with a major religious footprint. The left is just Loud but they aren’t a lot.
Honestly her domestic policy is irrelevant. France isn’t influential outside Europe. The problem now is Ukraine. She would undermine western unity against Russia the terrorist state if she wins.
I'm afraid it's the opposite.
France is more influential outside of Europe than within.
They still controll the politics and the economy of thier former colonies in western africa and still implement colonial policies in their oversea territories in the pacific.
Also, domestic policies are never irrelevant, that's some very etnhocentric bullshit. Domestic policies is how a country is being run and tells you how the country is going to mutate in the following years wich has a huge impact on theyr foreing policies.
The problem is not that she would undermine western unity (especially since all the forms of western unity in the last month were either some very out of touch speeches made by politicians or mostly dictated by the fact that the west is still very much under the controll of the united states) but that she would ruin worker's right in france and act against the muslim minorities wich in turn is going to lead to a less stable France with the workers goink on strike when not rioting and the islamic extremist increasing their attacks in retaliation for Le Pen's action against muslims. That is going to decrease the ability of France to still act internationally so they can and up choosing to follow two ways, isolationism to focus on their internal problems or an increase in their activities to cover up the fact that their power and ability to incluence the rest of the world is decreasing.
Also, what on earth is that "russia the terrorist state"? It's an aggressor state in an imperialistic war, if you want to condemn russia do it right, don't fall for wathever crusade our goverment decided to launch us on. If you wanna look at a terrorist state look at Saudi Arabia, we have been feeding them money and weapons for years.
They still controll the politics and the economy of thier former colonies in western africa and still implement colonial policies in their oversea territories in the pacific.
Ok fine France has influence in poor as shit countries in Africa, that's it.
First you pretend to be somehow scandalized by the war in Ucraine and then this is your response to neo-colonial practise in africa?
If you only care when the victims are white you can just say it, apparently it's not a taboo anymore here in Europe.
I mean, who cares about Africans anyways?
Keep in mind america is a massive exporter of “woke” stuff too.
Why is anyone engaging with this nauseatingly obvious islamophobic dog whistle of a post? OP has islamophobic comments in his post history and this is a very thinly veiled attempt at pushing his ignorant agenda.
because maybe some people are tired of migrants murdering and raping their daughters.
Many of us people are tired of citizens murdering and raping their daughters or their sons.
Rupert murdoch and putins propaganda machine is not just for the US, it has been operating to destroy democracy and destabilize the west for decades.
The reason is the french left of the past 20-30 years has been very weak in addressing the needs and concerns of the working class and the far right has adopted social rhetoric which has allowed them to replace the left in many peoples minds as the main alternative to the liberal right which has mostly governed France since 1995. In any case, what does this have to do with gaybros?
Went too woke
France is a very Catholic country, people often forget this. It can be rather socially odd, too - people in France (and I'm speaking in generalities here) are somewhat nationalistic, tend to verge toward retaining / restoring their identity, and many still resist being in the EU. There are also a lot of tensions between ethnic French and non-French residents, and as we all know, when there are economic uncertainties, these seem to get inflamed all the more. Some of Frances social problems don't translate directly to a left/right paradigm as they do in the US, there is more nuance to it. There's also some anger about power being centralized in the north/Paris and less control given to the other territories. It's a whole lot of different things at play right now. I'm in the US and although I know Le Pen has made some changes to her (former) National Front I don't trust that woman at all.
Wait wich Nazi??
I guess they forgot that the nazis invaded their country during the second world war
The entire western world is fascist and living in it you also serve fascism(corporatism)
America has upended 67 govts these last 200 years alone
I hear la pen wants to disband NATO, which would be a good thing.
You are a moron.
Nuh uh!
(What kind of retort is that, idiot ?)
You’re a rational fascist, I understand. But you must dissuade what Assange’s captors have forced fed you all your life- I reccomend a big dose of Parenti, “black shirts and red: rational fascism and the overthrow of communism”
I don’t have time to argue with braindead commies who jerk off to fascist dictatorships. NATO will keep expanding, with Finland and Sweden joining this June. Your tankie tears will be delicious. Putin-supporting scum Le Pen will hopefully lose as well.
Putin-supporting scum
He's probably a black. an Indian. Or Brazilian. Those have been the most vocal Putin supporters online.
You’re literally. A fascist.
Ignore your labor history at your own peril.
Communist Donbas will be free. As all people will.
China, Russia and the entire global south will make sure to NATO’s disbandment
No more wars for profit, scum
Macron is a NWO zog puppet
They won't allow him to lose
the level of racism and islamophobia in the comments is disgusting, just to be clear, i've saw as much arab and white people being homophobic in France, stop saying that arab and muslim people are more likely to be homophobic, cause it's just not true, christian people and white atheist people are as much homophobic, they're just all cishets, and religion and ethnicity has nothing to deal with homophobia
French? Left and woke? LOL.
Maybe in bits of Paris. Not the suburbs though or rural France, they tend to be racist af. The "Republic' is built on myths of equality, as long as you're not black, Muslim, Jewish or queer.
Go ask Ivory Coast or Algeria about that. In spite when Ivory Coast voted for independence. the French government ripped out every piece of equipment, including medical gear from hospitals and took it back home.
Or the French Government bombing the Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior and killing people to stop them protesting nuclear tests in a foreign harbour? Working with Mossad? Etc. Latter which is ironic given all the crap the French media and right-wing gave about Sarkozy being Jewish, or the Dreyfus Affair.
Or the Jaune shirts / visivest mobs that were like a precursor to the Brexiteers here or the anti-mask/anti-vaxx Trumpers in the states?
The Gilets Jaunes had nothing to do with Brexit or the antivax, they were just people coming from all political beliefs spectrum tired of seeing their president reduce their quality of life to give advantages to super wealthy people.
as always, people can't think beyond their own little world. people that vote for Le Pen have never seen an immigrant in their life, and they think the immigrants are the cause of all their daily trouble. she's gonna make our country look bad on the international scene because she wants to get close to Russia (a country which, in case you forgot, attacked its democratic and sovereign neighbor). Le Pen promise impossible stuff, on the basis of "we're gonna get rid of all the immigrants and we're gonna get money". I'd like to see that. well actually no, I'm gonna vote Macron to avoid this shit. and gays that vote her because she'll get rid of the Muslims are fucking stupid because she is just as homophobic as them. we are between a rock and hard place, I'd rather go for the least worst
(it's just my opinion vote for whoever the fuck you want)
I think it's like most places, the loudest group stand out the most. Like in the US and UK, do I honestly think the majority of people believe all the woke crap coming out? No.
Most people are just busy working to feed their families and the issue is that politicians seem to base their opinions off of Twitter which is an ecochamber full of people who don't have realistic world views. Policies then get imposed by politicians who stupidly think this is how people feel which makes the regular public uncomfortable about talking about their concerns and issues and topics get misrepresented in a way to push a particular agenda - it's just the same bs cycle over and over.
The florida bill for example that people are complaining about - it literally just stops teachers talking the kids about gender who are in the third grade down (9 years old and below) which any reasonable person should be ok with as the kids can still talk amongst themselves about anything it just prevents teachers from talking about a complex topic to kids who don't have the cognitive ability to fully understand and question the topic. The average age for puberty is 11 in girls and 12 in boys so a more appropriate time to discuss these topics anyway would be around that period - it's just made out to be this evil bill by activists who actually do want to indoctrinate kids as if they didn't they wouldn't have any issue with teaching the topic at a more appropriate age.
Everything you said is spot on. I recall Obama saying something along that lines that Twitter is not reality during the 2020 election as a warning to Democrats. As for the Florida bill you again are correct. The bill is a non-issue. When would it ever be appropriate for a teacher to lecture a 6yo about gender and sexuality? Now all conservatives have to do is go to independent voters and say “see these people want to sexualize your children”.
Yeah, it's really put those who oppose it in a bad light for the next election as like you say this will likely be the tactic used.
Saying that people are the same everywhere is a great oversimplification. France (or Italy) were indeed much more left leaning in the second half of the 20th century than UK (for example) ever was. And the States are playing in a league of their own altogether.
Politically I completely agree countries vastly differ, However under all of it there are fundamental human issues which everyone deals with such as economic concerns and mental and physical health issues, those will always take priority above politics and the cost of living in conjunction with mental health is big issue in the current times throughout most (if not all) of Europe and the US.
France ALLEGEDLY has a reasonably sized portion of people who are anti-islam which likely makes up part of the poll in Le Pen's favour so I acknowledge your argument there as the political leaning in this regard is definitely a factor.
What people refer to as woke ideologies however only got as far as they did in the first place as originally they didn't impose on other groups rights so people didn't care, but when they began to people started pushing back - Macron even said in 2021 he would continue to resist the social sciences being pushed in the US as they posed a threat to Frances cultural heritage:
So In reflection I should have been more specific to portray that this isn't specific to voting for Le Pen but more so that I wanted to point out there has always been an element of push back against woke policies in France (and other countries), for Le Pen - factors like the anti-muslim example, and her focusing on the cost of living in addition to other issues that general population are facing in current times is more so likely for why she has gained popularity as she's targeting the issues people care about in the here and now from what I've seen.
So why isn’t there a bill to stop religious indoctrination of children?! Following your logic, it ought to be one, since religion is a very complex topic, and can be considered, by many standards, child abuse. But sure, gender and sexuality education is the problem. The solution is clearly to be uneducated!?! PS: your “age appropriate” discourse is wrong on so many levels it makes me weep. Never-mind that A LOT of LGBTQ+ kids are already being bullied by the age of 9 by their peers, who don’t know any better. Never-mind that on this day and age, by the age of 11 / 12, most children will have already been exposed to unrealistic and/or (sometimes hatred) biased views of gender and sexuality.
Except this bill doesn't interfere in any way with what you tell your own kids, you're free to discuss what you want with your children it only impacts what teachers can push on them at school - like I'd also not want teachers pushing one specific religion onto kids at school and would agree with a bill pushing to ban that, which is why the last time I checked religious indoctrination was banned in public schools under the constitution and rightfully so (while I still feel this needs to be heavily regulated)
Teaching sex ed and gender to kids under 10 is ridiculous to be absolutely honest, as even the whole concept surrounding gender is still under debate in the adult world so what you'd be teaching them wouldn't be factually accurate anyway it's just a mindset and hence this is an uneducated method of teaching. Literally all they need to know at that age is "everyone is different, we love who we love" - gender and sex don't even need to come into the equation.
Kids are being exposed to sex and gender because adults are exposing them to that topic, kids have always bullied other kids as bullying has always been a problem - it has nothing to do with them being LGBT as under the age of 10 conversations don't surround sex and gender in the playground unless an adult has specifically pushed that into their mind.
The scenario it may come up for example is if a kid has two dad's, that's fine and kids will get curious but that's for their parents to discuss with them at a young age (or use the line above) as whether you like it or not it's THEIR kids and they have a right to raise their kids the way they want, random people don't have a say in how other people raise their kids and for good reason as it opens the door to a whole load of other issues.
It's important to have discussions surrounding sex when kids are of the age they can better understand and question it as it's something in life that they will face so 11/12 is a much better age to address these things as it's around when puberty begins and it explains the different changes they begin to see with their bodies. Hence why this bill is only aimed at kids UNDER 10 as they don't need this information at this age and it's not an agreed consensus throughout society, the debate is still under way so until that's done it is indoctrination to push one viewpoint onto kids.