[beremaki]

Situation in France will not end well.

Both rule of law and liberal democracy are increasingly damaged. Our institutions are so weak that we are one election away from a complete disaster.

Our constitution always concentrated a lot of power in the hand of the president but there is no effective counter-power left. The government set multiple precedent that violate freedom of assembly and association and parliamentary rights. I skipped a lot of authoritarian practice that happened and are still happening but the situation is egregiously bad

I don't say that because I am a political opponent. I voted for this government in 2017, I am a founder, I am pro business. But also I am a father of two and I would rather raise my children in a democracy.

I am seriously pessimistic about this situation. EU knows and complains about Poland & Hungary but France is going to be a shitshow of a far worse magnitude. We should NOT get a pass because Macron knows how to play the game

[Nemrod67]

As you can see from other replies: - the French people did not care that they had to sign a paper to get out to walk - that we closed libraries and forbade people from buying clothes in supermarkets - that Macron has been in charge of the country's finances for over a decade with horrid results (+600B€ in debt) - that Macron did everything he said he would not, and said a lot of things that would be treason in a reasonable civilization

We are the rooster that sings with it's feet deep in shite. It's gonna get ugly when it hits the fan.

[napo]

"the French people did not care that they had to sign a paper to get out to walk"

1- Don't you think this is quite political? Like what is your benefit from saying this out of context? If signing this paper and being stricter helped the hospitals not being saturated and saved x thousands lives do you still think it was a bad thing? (I'm not even saying that's the case I'm just saying you don't seem to take that possibility into account at all)

2- From my observations French people -constently- complain about this. So I wouldn't say they didn't care about it. You're doing it right now.

[tourmalinetaco]

> Don't you think this is quite political?

We’re discussing politics.

> Like what is your benefit from saying this out of context?

What does that even mean? Are you insinuating they’re being paid to say that? How do we know you’re not paid to counter them?

> If signing this paper and being stricter helped the hospitals not being saturated and saved x thousands lives do you still think it was a bad thing?

The problem is you and no one else could prove now or then that giving up my human rights would save lives. Because its all pointless lip service to take power away from the people under the guise of “protection”. Just like with encryption, personal weapons, and everything else that governments don’t want us to have.

> I'm just saying you don't seem to take that possibility into account at all

And I’m saying you haven’t taken into account that you’re an Authoritarian apologist.

[0xParlay]

>> If signing this paper and being stricter helped the hospitals not being saturated and saved x thousands lives do you still think it was a bad thing?

If banning encryption and helping police stop terrorism saved x thousand lives do you blah blah blah blah

Do programmers hang out here? The aversion to reasoning from first principle is palpable.

[golergka]

> If signing this paper and being stricter helped the hospitals not being saturated and saved x thousands lives do you still think it was a bad thing?

If patriot act helped US intelligence agencies prevent the next 9/11, do you still think it was a bad thing?

[tmdroid001]

It certainly is political in some ways. Some people think that government shouldn't have such authority to lock people down in their homes for months on end, to spend public money on buying overpriced masks and preventive treatment that doesn't work, shouldn't pay the media to spread misinformation and definitely shouldn't have access into our lives like we're in some dystopian novel from the last century. But hey, maybe that's not most people anyway...

[3pt14159]

France's Debt-to-GDP[0] went up about 17 points during the first year of covid, compared to Canada's 20 points. In the following years it's gone down about 3 points, which is about the same for Canada. I don't really know who else to compare France to, since Germany, UK, and USA all have their own weird complications and Italy was hit early by covid in a way that most countries were not.

No matter who was in charge of France there was going to be a giant spike in debt during at the very least covid, and now dealing with this Ukraine mess.

[0] I greatly prefer net Debt-to-GDP, which is a closer approximation to a country's actual balance sheet, as a measure, but it isn't frequently reported and most people tend not to care.

[rand0m4r]

Hold your horses... First of all not all french citizens think or act the same way, and as for the rest Macron is not the first president (and certainly not the last) to screw up.

I'm convinced that whatever president they elect, they'll complain just as much.

[FreelanceX]

> EU knows and complains about Poland & Hungary but France is going to be a shitshow of a far worse magnitude.

I am French too and this sounds greatly exaggerated. Either you don't really know about the situation in Hungary or you have a very twisted view of what's happening in France (maybe induced by the medias). You should take a step back.

[jle17]

There is definitely a tendency to authoritarianism and confusionism from the current government, directed at political opposition.

"Security" laws extending the powers of the police and creating new ways to criminalize protest have been passed at a constant rhythm over the years since Sarkozy's time. After the state of urgency of 2015, part of the dispositions where simply put into law permanently.

Police has been increasingly violent during protests, bringing back old forbidden tactics and squads formerly dissolved for their violence (voltigeurs).

While there has been no dissolution of leftist movement and no political violence from the left since "action directe" in the 80's, there have been multiple ones (or attempts) in recent times, like the one from yesterday of an ecological movement.

Anti-terrorist laws are used to detain ecologists or protesters indefinitely, like in the case of the "8th november" affair from this topic, which has seen a person kept in solitary (hence, tortured) for 16 months without even being convicted.

[beremaki]

What I say is that IF France becomes an illiberal democracy, it is going to be far worse for EU than what happened in Hungary. Hungary and France are absolutely not on the same scale

[piokoch]

Wait for the next election in Germany. AfD has just climbed to the 2nd place with 20% of support and is still growing. Believe or not, one day you will miss someone like Orban.

[skitout]

Germany power is less centralized, with more powerful counter-power than Hungary , reducing the risk of seeing an Orban like situation.

[formerly_proven]

Germany tends to have 1.34 liberal-ish governments followed by sixteen years of conservatives.

[hef19898]

Well, in the last election the greens were projected to get the most votes. Didn't happen. Not to say that the AfDs popularity isn't worrisome, it is, but votes are counted on election days.

[account42]

And of course the response from the other parties is to see if they can ban the AfD instead of realizing that this is their own doing by continously ignoring the interest of the voters who are then easily swayed by a populist party (or just voting AfD because none of the other options are good either).

[xinayder]

> Believe or not, one day you will miss someone like Orban.

I think you're sugarcoating the statement. Any type of authoritarianism is bad, would you mind elaborating why AfD would be worse than what Orban or Duda or even Erdogan are doing to their countries?

[tourmalinetaco]

I can only assume because it’s not “their” kind of authority taking power.

[light_hue_1]

The situation is a bit less dire than that thankfully.

2/3rds of AfD supporters claim to be doing it as a protest vote. And that they don't support the AfD. Just like with brexit.

There's still time for an alternative before all of Europe goes in with fascism again.

[Beldin]

> There's still time for an alternative

That is somewhat funny/punny, since that is (as you're probably aware) literally in AfD's name: Alternative for Germany (Deutschland).

[light_hue_1]

You would think that with that pun I wouldn't get downvoted. Ah well :)

[jacquesm]

> 2/3rds of AfD supporters claim to be doing it as a protest vote.

You don't vote for proto fascists as a protest vote. Especially not when you're German.

[hnbad]

Well, you do, but not if you don't already find their views palatable.

There is a large undercurrent of reactionary hateful views in German politics that usually hides behind the fig leaf of "conservatism" but has become more visible thanks to parties like CSU openly copying AfD talking points and "liberal" media being unequipped to handle them in any other way than giving them a platform and hoping that the "marketplace of ideas" saves the day. Of course as we now know from experience, "rational debate" is impotent in a "post-truth" environment.

It's a widespread misconception that Germany got rid of all the Nazis and Nazi ideology during the so-called "Denazification" (Entnazifizierung).

While there were formal reviews of the innumerable former NSDAP members to determine their ideology and behavior under Nazi rule, only the most blatant offenders faced any consequences and it was demonstrably easy to "cheat" (i.e. we now know based on a better understanding of historical records that some people were able to hide very incriminating evidence of their involvement in e.g. forced labor and Jewish persecution) and any undesirable rulings could be appealed to offer another opportunity to "correct the record" so to say. As a consequence, many Nazis saw no real consequences and even ended up in the same positions of power because their job experience made them the most qualified (and "innocent until proven guilty", right?).

Additionally, many former NSDAP members went on to continue working in politics. Of the parties still relevant today, the conservative CDU/CSU received the lions share of them, in addition to those formerly associated with the likewise Christian "center party" which while ostensibly "politically moderate" was one of the driving forces in the rise of the NSDAP and the passing of the Enabling Act dissolving the democracy.

In East Germany, likewise many former NSDAP members ended up in the equivalent of the CDU/CSU (known as CDU in East Germany at the time and CDUD or Ost-CDU in West Germany), the NDPD and the LDPD (the East Germany equivalents of the market liberal West German FDP, the NDPD explicitly being created to target "unimpacted" ex-NSDAP members and siphon off conservative voters who would otherwise have supported the CDU or LPDP), all of which continued to exist as an executive organ[1] of the ruling unity party until 1989.

It's also worth pointing out the East Germany was even less rigurous in its "Denazification" (Stalin ended the program in 1948 insisting that it was time to stop distinguishing between ex-NSDAP and non-NSDAP and instead focus on growing democracy) and the SED was uniquely ill-equipped to deal with neo-Nazis when they arose, previously already having viewed "unimpacted" NSDAP members as politically confused rather than genuinely dangerous. For some it was literally impossible to imagine neo-Nazis could exist in East Germany because they saw the rise of the Nazis as a response to capitalism and East Germany was supposed to be non-capitalist[2]. For this reason, East Germany was however (like the USSR) quite successful at fighting other leftist currents, which were seen as misguided or even "capitalist" (as the only valid form of anti-capitalism was clearly that practiced by the government and opposing it therefore must be capitalist).

So in essence Germany has never weaned itself off fascism, really. While Germany has become generally more progressive compared to the 1930s, in some ways it is also still less progressive than it was during the Weimar era. A lot of leftist politics also died even before the suppression under the Nazis, the suppression under the SED or the suppression under the Cold War era anti-communist West Germany: while many know about the in-fighting between the SPD and the USPD after WW1, culminating in a massacre at the hands of monarchist paramilitaries, there were also numerous other leftist mass deaths such as the two(!) socialist republics in Bavaria, which eventually also fell victim to the monarchists.

In other words, it shouldn't be surprising that we still have monarchist terrorist groups (Reichsbürger) treated with more bewilderment than horror, whereas the closest we have to leftist activism is moderates gluing themselves to public roads to demand incremental climate protection legislation, and two so-called leftist parties that hate each others guts and one of which has almost fully embraced neoliberalism (the SPD implemented the neoliberal reforms of weakening labor protections, social welfare and medical care some 20 years ago).

The AfD is a protest vote in as much as Trump is a protest vote. They're not something you usually bring up in polite conversation but they have easy answers and push all the right (wing) faux-populist buttons.

[1]: Point of pedantry: East Germany quickly established a system with a single ruling party, the SED or "socialist unity party". However the CDU, NDPD and LDPD continued to exist as "block parties" and began increasingly aligning themselves with the ruling SED. The "block parties" were infamously nepotistic and provided a relatively easy path to political power and privileges compared to the dominant SED.

[2]: Point of pedantry: East Germany was not "communist" although it was at times framed as "Stalinist". East Germany instead eventually used the label "real existing socialism" (along with some other Eastern block countries) which was intended to frame anyone left of the ruling party as "utopian" and unserious. This "it's already as good as it gets" position is distinct from other so-called "communist" countries which often used the term aspirationally, claiming they would eventually achieve the communist ideal after reaching a tipping point (allowing the state to "wither away"). Both are distinct from anarcho-communists who would argue that if you try to build a state to achieve communism, "real existing socialism" really is the best you can hope for because states don't wither away voluntarily and you can only grow communism from the ground up (cf. prefigurativism).

[AnonCoward42]

> 2/3rds of AfD supporters claim to be doing it as a protest vote. And that they don't support the AfD. Just like with brexit.

> There's still time for an alternative before all of Europe goes in with fascism again.

AfD => fascism. Argumentum ad Hitlerum basically. Does Germany really need more migration? More identity kamikaze? More publicly financed propaganda (ARD, ZDF, DW, plenty "N"GOs)? More provocation towards Russia for no god damn reason? More climate hysteria (and the unevitable destruction of enviroment for it)?

Which party would you choose instead? They all stand for the same thing with different velocity except ... yeah, exactly.

[hnbad]

The AfD may not be literally a fascist party, but it does have a prominent right-wing extremist faction that includes several of its most widely known members such as this man: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B6rn_H%C3%B6cke

I think arguing about the accuracy of labels like "nazi" or "fascist" is a bit beside the point. You and I both know the people calling the AfD fascist or nazi won't suddenly like it better if you can convince them they don't meet the exact definition of fascism or are identical to the historical National Socialist Democratic Workers Party. It's clearly more about a vibe, but that is also true for the AfD's own political ideology (and yours, apparently, if you think "identity kamikaze" is 1) a thing that is happening and 2) something to be seriously concerned about). Incidentally the NSDAP also had different factions including Strasserites, who imagined a more proletarian-led economy and people who thought having homosexuals like Röhm around was acceptable, at least for utilitarian purposes. Incidentally, most of those were murdered by the rest once the NSDAP actually got into power. Such is the reward for being progressive in the far-right.

[nmlr]

Protest votes. What would one expect if the Green party is suddenly a warmongering party and Scholz is silent about Nord Stream even after the Washington Post essentially blames Ukraine?

Also, while I don't like the people in the AfD, they are still mostly the former right wing of the CDU/CSU, which is not comparable to Orban. CDU/CSU can blame itself for mismanagement.

[hef19898]

The Greens suddenly supported war? The first deployment of German armed forces since WW2 happened under a SPD/Green government, over 20 years ago.

[InCityDreams]

Gp made points, how do you see them as twisted and exaggerated?

[Trencin]

"Either you don't really know about the situation in France or you have a very twisted view of what's happening in Hungary /Poland (maybe induced by the medias). You should take a step back"

[WastingMyTime89]

Classic French answer confusing the fairly good situation in the country for a disaster.

France has been for the past sixty years and remains an extremely technocratic country. Counter-powers are still everywhere in the administration. The judiciary system is fully independent and works well. The balance between the parliament and the executive is extremely in favour of the president (which is still elected every five years during free elections) but counter-powers exist. They can’t be used by the opposition because despite spending all their time crying wolf and explaining this is the end of the world, they remain a minority and have nothing to propose anyway.

The issue in France remains the same it has always been. The population is old, largely apathetic and would much rather be on the dole than produce anything of value. Meanwhile the unions are extremely unrepresentative of the population as a whole and remain stuck in the Trotskyist heydays of the past.

[Guthur]

Oh yeah everyone must work harder, for some reason we have more technology than ever before and more people than ever before, but we all must work harder.

There's enough food and energy if we so choose but no; artificial crisis from coughs to barbarian hordes on the horizon mean you must be poorer and work harder.

We could all just actually wake up and realise they are lying they are always lying. They dare not tell the truth for you'd realise how much they lie when truth would shine so bright.

[WastingMyTime89]

You are confused. The issue is not about working harder. The issue is with producing value.

I have yet to met a protester who can explain to me how burning cars and picketing is going to magically move down the median age of the population which is slowly but surely drifting towards 50. Considering most French also don’t want to rely on immigration (not that the country is attractive anyway), I guess they are either planning to force people to make kids at gunpoint or are strongly in denial.

Don’t hesitate to explain who is this mysterious "they" who are apparently responsible of everything wrong in the country.

[Guthur]

They are the people of power, the psychotics and narcissists. It's not that hard to see.

I've existed here long enough to see those that claw themselves to the top, and they are nearly all without fail a combination of psychopaths and narcissists and they will conspire to increase their power and self obsession. I'm very sure you've bumped into them at some point in your life.

The problem is that most of the people are weak and passive and they can not compete against this "they", the majority don't have the will to do it individually and our collective will is either captured by the "they" or kept divided.

[ajsnigrutin]

France kinda has a history of things going bad, their rulers overreaching, and people then taking matters into their own heads,...

I somehow hope this time it can end less violently, but with how much (a lot of french) people hate macron, you never know...

The larger problem is, that it is spreading to other countries and EU itself (just think of how many times EU tried to stop/backdoor/outlaw encryption). Add a new upcoming crisis, recession in germany and the long-term problems brought with eu expansion, and things are about to get even worse.

[nunja]

Frenchman, pro business too. Completely share your analysis. This is slowly turning into a shit démocrature.

[flashfaffe2]

Short debate on the same topic on french TV:

https://youtu.be/5Sf6hdnSqS4

[tokai]

This sounds like the normal mode for french politics. How many times has your government collapsed over the last 200 years? You're on the 5th republic or something right?

[gorjusborg]

Better to have governments collapse than allow society to collapse.

I can't claim to be an expert in French politics, but harmful government should not be allowed to be stable.

[ohgodplsno]

To be fair, a bunch of these happened because of wars, we didn't really control these ones.

The other bunch happened because they were precariously unstable governments.

[barrysteve]

Yep and compared to European history this is tame.

[throwaway290]

I am not French but my opinion of the current government is at rock bottom after how Macron recently went to China to basically suck up to Xi Jinping, completely ignoring human rights violations and all. And for what?

[jle17]

Oh it's not just Xi. He likes dictators and human rights abusers, even those that no one will touch with a ten foot pole. Most recently, he received Mohammed bin Salman at the Élysée.

[tut-urut-utut]

You criticise Macron for visiting a „dictator“ but not for being dictator himself?

Macrons pushing of retirement law change against both public and parliament is definitely not democratic.

[throwaway290]

as not French I'm not very aware of his internal policies in France, but the news of that visit got to me. In my eyes it concerns EU and the world too

[ikt]

I think maybe because the rest of the world sees those changes he pushed through as incredibly mild

he increased the pension age because people are getting older and the state will not be able to afford it? wow what a crazy dictator

[dtoma]

Other variables could have been adjusted (pensions, contributions...). Independent studies showed that our retirement system is very much affordable for our government and will still be 50 years from now. Just today it's also been revealed that the government's plan overestimated its savings by 4B euros...

Are you just repeating a common cliche while not knowing much about the situation?

So yes, unilaterally deciding to raise the retirement age, which doesn't actually fix anything, without having a vote, without listening to the protests, is neither mild nor democratic.

[derelicta]

He used emergency powers to pass the law because he knew such law would hardly survive the regular legisative process. It might not be a Putin-style dictatorships but its definitively heading in the wrong direction.

And thats without mentionning the use of abuse of administration prohibitions towards anti-racist associations and environmental groups.

[raxxorraxor]

Probably did it because the EU needs this for political acceptance. It should have been made clear to people, that any form of social security system will need to be harmonized. I guess this was just the first step to increase pension age and in general it will always converge on the lowest common denominator for normal workers.

[martin8412]

How would it ever pass normal legislative process? If I tell you that you have spend two more years working and there's no benefit for you at all, would you vote for it?

[derelicta]

Through parliement. Thats just how a normal democracy works. Or through a referendum.

unless we are talking about handling a national crisis, or avoiding a US-style shutdown, then avoiding a vote may be legitimate under specific circumstances.

but I doubt pension reforms fall under national emergencies

[raxxorraxor]

I think the situation in France is quite similar to other EU countries, even the formerly holy nordic ones.

> [...] l’utilisation de messageries chiffrées grand public, sont instrumentalisées comme autant de « preuves » d’une soi-disant « clandestinité » qui ne peut s’expliquer que par l’existence d’un projet terroriste.

Sure, using encryption must mean I have terroistic ambitions... they say public officials lack creativity, but... but at least the government got convicted for their attempts at prosecution. Means the justice system is still functioning.

[Draiken]

I'm from Brazil and I'd say we've just had that disaster election you fear a few years ago.

I used to laugh at the absurdities of the Trump government thinking it would never happen here and alas, it did. And it was even worse than most could have ever imagined.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't like the previous government and already dislike the current one's direction, but when you take one person that truly doesn't give a f**, they can ruin a country in ways you didn't even know existed.

But I don't really see a way out though. Most politicians here (probably everywhere if we're honest) are corrupt so you always choose between the lesser of many evils. The obvious solution is to actually use our collective power to rebel and really enact change - something ironically we say the French are good at - but it simply never happens. Looking at the French protests against the rise of retirement age gave me hope. But then you look at the outcome and it's always the same: we lose.

I honestly think the system has won. Capitalism successfully made everyone (myself included) just comfortable enough to not really take action. We are the proverbial frogs in boiling water and slowly but surely normalizing this insane world we live in today giving away all our hard-fought rights to our capitalist overlords.

We get upset and yell at the void, Twitter, HN, blog posts and don't actually DO anything. I truly hate myself for that. Meanwhile those that actually do something, have their efforts stifled away by governments with ease.

Perhaps I am a bit too pessimistic about this, but from where I stand, there's no way out.

[denton-scratch]

> but from where I stand, there's no way out.

I know how you feel!

I'm from the UK. Corbyn's Labour seemed to me to be a glimmer of hope; but he was pushed out by the MSM and a cabal of his own party's rightist officials, and replaced by a man who immediately on getting the leadership, repudiated all his manifesto promises.

So I no longer have anyone to vote for, and I favour revolution.

[paganel]

First they came for the Gilets Jaunes...

I know that that particular reply of mine doesn't help your particular case, but it was sickening to see how much of the supposed French people's liberties and citizens rights were broken back then and how most of the French intelligentsia was just cheering the government from the side.

[pif]

> First they came for the Gilets Jaunes...

Actually, they came too late for the Gilets Jaunes!

> it was sickening to see how much of the supposed French people's liberties and citizens rights were broken back then

I agree with you, a bunch of idiots holding a whole country hostage was not at all what one would expect in a sane democracy.

[James_bread]

Pif, your messages here align mostly with authoritarianism and fascism. You don't seem to care about people their freedom, their rights or real democracy. It's not a minority that holds the country hostage it's a minority who have the balls to standup against a small elite who have all power. Having to pick out of two evils has nothing to do with democracy.

[pif]

> our messages here align mostly with authoritarianism and fascism

If you want to call "authoritarianism" the basic rule of law (as in: do not block traffic, do not prevent shops from opening, do not prevent public offices from offering their services...) you are welcome.

By the way, a pet peeve of mine, having always voted for the centre-left, I never appreciated how authoritarianism is generally considered an expression of the extreme right, while history shows that dictatorship was the evil of both extremes.

> You don't seem to care about people their freedom

I do care about the freedom of all people, and that is why I detest when protesters use violence (which is wrong) in order to gather attention for their point (which may be right).

> minority who have the balls to standup against a small elite who have all power.

I respect your opinion, even if I don't share it.

[themaninthedark]

So, how does that mesh with the BLM protests that took place across the US?

Here we have "fiery but peaceful protests" but in France it is a fundamental breakdown of the rule of law?

[paganel]

That's the spirit of "he has promised us that he'll let us enjoy our assignats in peace and bring order to the country by ending the revolution", i.e. the spirit that helped Napoleon got hold of power. I think trying to end the revolution is still an ongoing thing in today's France, for better or for worse.

[pif]

> trying to end the revolution is still an ongoing thing in

I don't agree. France is as wonderful as it is because revolution was successfully completed long ago.

[mytailorisrich]

I think we should not go over the top.

The case reported in this article started when French people who went to fight in Syria among Kurdish militants came back to France and were put under surveillance.

Even if the prosecution is using unconvincing evidence, which I don't know, this is hardly a sign of impending doom.

[pif]

I live in France as well, and personally do not feel the same negativity as you.

What I don't appreciate at all is our share of idiots that think that blocking the country is a proper way of protesting (see "gilets jaunes"). That is not democratic, when a minority imposes their will to the silent majority.

[Qiu_Zhanxuan]

I'm always appalled by comments like these that justify their sympathy for authoritarian practices simply because they align with their interests. I'm in Paris, France, and police brutality has been increasing hand in hand with the corrupt nature of our government over the last decade, and it's horrifying. The apple is completely rotten; the way our election system works and all the dirty tricks you can do when you're in power mean people are not left with any other choice but to revolt. This does not bode well for our country.

[pif]

> sympathy for authoritarian practices simply because they align with their interests

Nothing personal, I'm talking about the interests of all the voters who freely elected the current president and parliament.

If you are not happy, it's our duty as a society to provide you a way to express your point. But the right to express your point does not involve the violence to get our attention. Most people just want to go on with their daily life, and putting obstacles to them will not gather any sympathy around you.

[skitout]

Polls showed that a large majority of French supported the Gilets Jaunes or supported the recent strikes. Foolowing your reasonning, the minority imposing their will to the silent majority is the government.

Furthermore, independently to our opinion about the Gilets Jaunes, the way this government use the police on the protest can be questioning for a democracy. Even the journalist of the right Figaro newspaper protested several times against police brutality against journalists.

Furthermore, independently to our opinion about the recent strikes (supported by 100% of the democratically elected trade unions), the fact that the government twisted the constitution to avoid a democratic vote of the democratically elected parliament on the legislative text is "puzzling"

[barrkel]

https://www.statista.com/statistics/945415/gilets-jaunes-app...

Those in favour went from 70 to 50% over the course of 5 months, opposition tripled, strong support went from 50% to 20%.

[skitout]

Few months after the start of the Gilet Jaune, they were not "blocking the country" anymore (I was answering a comment about this)...

And while not supporting the Gilet Jaune mode of action anymore, people still strongly supported and support the main ideas they pushed, like Citizens' initiative referendum, or the Solidarity tax on wealth

[pif]

> while not supporting the Gilet Jaune mode of action anymore, people still strongly supported and support the main ideas they pushed

Imagine how successful they could have been if they had behaved as civilised people from the beginning! I personally like some of those ideas, but I'll never trust people who think that violence is justifiable.

[dtoma]

I don't understand this point, and it's one we see very often. What would have happened if they'd been civilised?

1. We had a convention citoyenne pour le climat. Macron then mostly ignored it.

2. We have elected representatives who can vote on the laws for us. Macron then used article 49.3 to mostly ignore them.

3. Vote? For which candidate? None of them would cover all of the GJs' demands.

If you disqualify protests as a valid form of democratic expression, you also disqualify our famous revolution, the feminist protests that earned women the right to vote, the union strikes that earned us many worker rights, etc.

> I'll never trust people who think that violence is justifiable

Ah, that explains it. You only see violence in protesters who break windows, not in governments who enact laws on their people. Am I correct in assuming that you're ok with making people work 20 hours/week for the RSA as well?

[skitout]

Seriously ?

In France the only way firefighter got heard the last few times, after month of peaceful protestation, is by doing violent protest, including throwing heavy thing on the policeman. Then the government accepted to negociate with them. If you don't use violence in France, in many case you don't get heard at all.

Gilets Jaunes, aslo because of their violence did manage to get the government to made some concession.

Millions of French people (more than Gilets Jaunes at their peak) marched several times peacefully against the recent Pension Law, supported by all the trade union democratically elected, supported by more than 70% of the population and more than 90% of the workers. Nothing happen. No concession. Not even a vote in the parliament.

For sure sometimes violence is efficient, sometimes violence in counter-productive. Justifiable ? that is something else...

[barrkel]

To be fair, wealth taxes are a pretty unworkable idea in the large.

[skitout]

Used to work just find in France before Macron

[pif]

> Polls showed that

The only polls that matter are elections. Apart from elections, people have the right to avoid any poll without risking any policy change.

[HourglassFR]

Elections are not, and should not, be the be-all end-all of a functionning democraty. Otherwise you just have an elective aristocracy.

And to be clear, I'm not saying pure polling driven policy is the solution, but saying politician should outright ignore them because not legally binding is a very weird stance.

[dtoma]

If anything, the origin of the 5th republic under its founding president used referendums to validate the president's actions. He literally resigned after losing a referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_de_Gaulle#Retirement.

[skitout]

1) I was responding to someone talking about silent majority... polls is then relevant

2) Democracy is not just voting every 5 year for a president and a parliament

[beremaki]

What gilets jaunes or blocking whatever have anything to do with violating parliamentary rights ? Or making protests of disappointment (edit: disapproval) illegal everywhere the president go ?

What can anyone do about a president that abuses its power ? This is a basic democratic issue and I am pessimistic because a lot of people like you just don't seem to get it, so we won't address that and when it is going to be too late it will be too late.

You might like or trust the current government but what about the next one ?

[pif]

> making protests of disappointment illegal everywhere the president go

France is big enough. Having to avoid a few square kilometres around the president will leave you plenty of space to organize your protest.

[Beldin]

You mean like "free speech zones" - which seems to be defined as zones in the US where you do have freedom of speech. (Yes, I'm wondering "what about the rest of the land area" as well.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone

[soco]

Next law: protest as much as you want but out of sight. In your own cellar maybe? Ok that was sarcasm, but the very point of a protest is to be visible. Same with all Last Generation or such protests: if they had simply marched on some side street, nobody would talk about them today.

[pif]

> the very point of a protest is to be visible.

And that's why the public space must be made available for protesters, it's part of the life of a sane democracy. Public space and free press are sufficient if you have a point that matters to other people.

But if you feel the need to hijack another event in order to get people's attention, maybe you don't have a valid point to start with?

[wholinator2]

I would argue the conclusion to that isn't that they don't have a valid point, but that the people cannot be sufficiently motivated, or that they are unsure how to protest effectively, or that they are unaware that disrupting often leaves people feeling disrupted, that feeling disrupted is not a positive feeling, and that associating Negativity with a movement too many times can really hurt it in the long run. Just look at the cultures idea of PETA in the USA.

[throwaway290]

When they came for the protesters you did not speak out because you was not a protester... Beware when they come for you there will be no one left to speak out. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_)

[pif]

When they came for violent people preventing other pacific people to move on with their life, nobody needed to speak because their actions were against the law.

[hbt]

Will you be celebrating the 14th of July buddy? Or will you be condemning the act of 633 angry French citizens "storming the Bastille in Paris, capturing its munitions, releasing its seven prisoners, lynching the governor and demolishing the fortress".

After all, they broke the law and since it's the law then clearly the government had full legitimacy... right?

Next, you should be defending the "Code Noir" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_Noir That was also the law at some point and only affecting a minitority of the population. The suffering of anyone in society shouldn't interrupt your daily life as any act of revolt is illegal and therefore illegitimate.

Are you even French? "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite" unless it inconveniences my day-to-day.

[pif]

Your examples do not involve people living in a democracy with universal right to vote.

[hbt]

And your definition of democracy is nothing more than electing a master to rule over you for 5 years. As long as his actions are legal, you consider them legitimate despite being highly unpopular and imposed on people through police violence.

There is more to democracy than a vote every 5 years.

Consent of the governed: "Government's legitimacy and moral right to use state power is justified and lawful only when consented to by the people or society over which that political power is exercised."

The founders of the United States believed that the government of Great Britain should rest on the principle that government depended on the consent of the governed and that any government not based on that consent could be justifiably overthrown and replaced.

Pretty sure revolutionary France abides by the same principles.

[throwaway290]

Or defending the flattening of protesters who were occupying Tiananmen square...

[batch12]

I hope they come for the clichés and razors first...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

[pif]

What every programmer should know about "First they came" :-)

[throwaway290]

Deserves repeating. I learned of this poem first last month, seems relevant.

[kome]

very very well said

[qsdf38100]

Come on, this is so exaggerated.

If you care about democracy, you have much more relevant menace in France. People are screaming about Macron for some reason. Because they were told he is a DiCtAtOr!! Because he didn’t fold to unions. Apparently unions are to be obeyed otherwise you are a dictator? While obeying to elected government is dictatorship? It’s a nice inversion.

The true authoritarian menace in France comes from the far right and far left. Melenchon is in love with authoritarian leaders (see bolivarian alliance), he can’t help screaming at people that disagree with him. His political career should have been ended by just a few of his outbursts. But he gets a pass for some reason. And don’t get me started on the far right, screaming that we are in a dictatorship while admiring Putin…

Of course you can criticize Macron, he’s far from perfect, but if you care about democracy, focusing on him being THE issue is outright ridiculous. We have far more serious threats. You are completely missing the big picture. And people being told to fight Macron instead of the extremes is a serious threat. I can’t believe I have to explain that.

[skitout]

Well, democracy is not 0 or 1, there are shades... So for sure Macron is not a dictator, but French democracy "grade" was not super high and it did went down.

French 5th republic is sometimes nicknamed "presidential monarchy"... Electing the parliament quite at the same time as the president did reinforced the power of the president. The rise of the far right basically made that the one in the best position against far right at the first round of presidential election (with less than 20% of French people voting for him) be sure of being a Presidential Monarch for 5 years. (Notes that the leftist like Melanchon support a new constitution with more democracy, more counter power, less power for the president...)

Note also that in France people working do democratically vote for unions (even if you are not unionized), and quite 100% of those votes went to union that are strongly against las Pension Law. According to polls more than 90% of the workers were against this law. And Macron could not pass this law in the elected parliament, and had to twist the constitution to pass it... This can be seen as problematic for many.

When it come to protest, a lot of NGO and international bodies criticized the way France handle it. Many people are afraid to prostest in France now. Even the journalist of the righ wing newspaper le Figaro protest several time against police brutality against journalist in protest. NOte that France is the only country in EUrope to use many kind of weapon against protestors, weapon that can kill .

When it comes to journalists. Aside of being target by police during the protest, we've seen also a growing Judicial pressure against them. And now the government is talking about law where they could be spied...

"Because" of terrorism we've seen different law reducing the privacy of people... and many exceptional law that are hijacked to target people who are political opponent but not terrorist (like a police raid without judge OK against peaceful ecologists, or using antiterrorist law to forbid some peacefull protest)

Even the normal law are "twisted" is a problematic way. Like arresting random protesters and keeping them for the night. Or arresting the leader of a group for a fake reason and then searshing his phone flat computer for intel...

FOr sure France is not a dictature, but things are not good and are not going in a good way

[martin8412]

Of course most of the workers are against working for two more years with benefit for themselves.

[skitout]

Many people where against 35 hour workweek, more people where supporting the previous Macron attempt to make people work longer (but was seen as more fair, including to number 1 union)...

[qsdf38100]

Presidential Monarch is a nice catch phrase, but it just contradicts itself for many reasons. Monarchs don't get elected. They don't step down from power after at most 2 terms. They don't have to deal with an assemblée nationale. Unless you think of some constitutional monarchies were the monarch has basically no powers. In both cases, it doesn't make sense.

I don't care if "quite 100%" of unionized people are in unions that were against the pension law, it doesn't tell anything reliable about their support. They mainly followed what the union told them. Same with polls, I don't care what they say as they are easily oriented, interpreted, ignored or promoted depending on opaque support from influential actors.

If only there was a reliable way for people to express their support and have some influence on who gets to rule... Hmmm, like votes and elections, maybe?Maybe we could call that democracy. We would equip it with super-rules, aka a constitution, that would define "democracy" with actual laws. Using the laws from the constitution isn't "twisting it". The ones doing some twisting are those who provoke massive outrage about something perfectly constitutional. There was a vote ultimately (actually several votes), called motion de censure, and the deputies against the reform couldn't form a majority. And I don't care it was only missing 9 votes, all the rules were followed. If you don't consider the rules should be the decider, then rules are meaningless. Then why bother with a constitution?

It's nice trying to think about how the constitution could define democracy differently that in the current one, but if you think that polls and unions should be part of the definition, it just doesn't make sense. The 5th republic was a response to the political instabilities that plagued France in the wake of the 2nd war, probably not helping France get a consistent stance against Nazi Germany. I don't see why it's attacked today, apart from some opportunistic reasons from actors with questionable and vague alternatives.

You are bundling many weak points together to make up for an actual strong one. "Many people are afraid to protest in France now.". Really? That's somewhat funny because according to unions, millions of people recently protested in France, for weeks. Are you sure you're not confusing with Russia? Protesting in France is not going anywhere, and outside of some twitter disinformation campaigns, people are more afraid of bad and violent actors mixing with the protesters, breaking and burning stuff, provoking police, than the police itself. Of course police is also guilty, their response can be completely inappropriate. But even then, is that because Macron is president? Do you think he personally orders the police to be violent? Why? I don't think he has anything to gain from increased police violence, as it's used against him by his political opponents. Attempts at forming a police brigade specialized against violent actors is possibly counter-productive. But what are you supposed to do when hundreds of people determined to burn something down for whatever political reasons are exercising power from violence and intimidation? And completely free from consequences? Are a few hundreds of radicalized people going to dictate what is allowed in a whole country? I don't know what the response should be, but it can't be giving up or blaming police every time.

Finally, I'm not sure where you heard about pressure against journalists from Macron, spying laws against them, or "terrorist" laws, but I'd be curious to know.

[skitout]

Presidential Monarch (that is a witty remark) means you get elected monarch, then there you have quite the power of a monarch, with little counter power, including now quite not having to deal with assemblée nationale (or just rarely). No other western democracy have such system giving that much power to one person. I think we can do better than this when it comes to democracy.

There are different election in France, including professional election, where you basically vote for a union that will represent you while you are not necessarily unionized.

Note that in 1789 our system would not be called a democracy, but a representative system. Note that Russia our Turkey have regular elections and a nice constitution. Of course I am not comparing France with those 2 countries, but it shows that election and a constitution elone are not enough, and that is the only thing you are mentioning.

France is not Russia of course, but I am often afraid in protest(being several time attacked by the police while peacefully demonstrating), and some of my friends did not joined me at some protest because of fear of the police. And we've seen negative change on how police handle protest under our last president (Hollande), but even more under Macron's rules. Germany, birthplace of Black Bloc, use less dangerous weapon and very different technique (based on deescalation).

About pressure against journalists, for sure we are not in Russia ! but there are regular alarming things... Twitter feed from Societe des journalistes or societe des Redacteur of mainstream newspaper can be a good source of information. Here just 3 random bits: https://www.telerama.fr/debats-reportages/l-espionnage-des-j... https://www.lemonde.fr/actualite-medias/article/2023/05/10/m... https://rsf.org/fr/petition-les-citoyens-ont-le-droit-de-man...