[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...