Our new president - President Emmanuel Macron!

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He didn't say she was a Nazi. Read the post again. A 'Reichschancellor' is exactly what she is. 'Reich' is usually translated to mean 'empire' (as in the Second Reich of Otto von Bismarck, established in 1871), and 'chancellor' is her official title. Where did you get 'Nazi' from? You're obviously not German.

No, I'm an American largely of German extraction.
Nobody throws Bismarkian Germany at someone else - especially Germans - but they certainly will use Hitler and the Nazis to defame said someone else - especially Germans.

I wouldn't be too hopeful, since Nationalists are always compared to Nazis, lets look at what happened back then. The election before Hitler truly came to power, his party got a piddling number of seats in the Bundestag... and 2% of the national vote. Things can change rather quickly.

Le Pen got 21.3% of the vote in the first round this year. A defeat yes... but it's hardly game over. Macron doesn't look to have any policies that will change anything. So it's five more painful years of EU diktats, open borders, soldiers on the streets, Muslims mowing down children in lorries. Let's bump this thread in 5 years time and remember the champagne glasses clinking.

Its complicated. France's unemployment is due to a large number of reasons. For one it is extremely hard to discharge and lay off employees making businesses' reluctant to higher more people. In addition France has a 35 hour working week which has lowered productivity and has not achieved its goal of increasing employment, Marine Le Pen supports this. As well as that Francois Hollande's taxation of large businesses has helped increase the fiscal burden from 41 to 48%. We need turn to centrism in France that is what Macron is offering and Marine Le Pen won't do the same.

People talk about France being incredibly open borders but the fact it isn't. France isn't accepting many immigrants nowadays only 100,000 per year. Less than 40% of them come from North Africa. The fact is France is not on a path to becoming a nation full of radicals like everyone says it is.

The simple fact is Marine Le Pen will not work, she doesn't have the ideas on how to make France better. She holds contempt for Islam and for that I fear she could alienate a large part of the population, 8% to be precise. We have seen from 2005 that it only takes a little spark to set the Banlieues ablaze, I don't want Marine Le Pen to provide that. I want someone who understands the sentiments for both sides of the isle, French European and Arab whom can provide sensible and coherent economic policy in these times. One whom can truly work to lift French Arabs out of the dirt. We need a Macron, screw Le Pen. 20.7% of French Arabs are unemployed we need to hack at that now. I would certainly prefer a Macron then to see a large amount of the population whom are unemployed lashing out on society.

France is to the left of California. A Le Pen win would have been a miracle.
In addition, whatever economic reforms he claims to favor, are a non starter with the left - they will never allow it.

It doesn't work that way. People don't abstain because they want nobody.

Bit rich for someone like you to call other people privileged. The disconnect of the fascist elite from the concerns of ordinary people is EXACTLY why Macron won. You just sit back and call people names while ignoring their suffering and not engaging with their concerns. There are lots more defeats on the way unless you get real.

You don't live in a global financial centre which has got richer and richer, you live in one of the wealthiest parts of the world which has got richer and richer. Arizona is an incredibly wealthy place and has benefited hugely from globalisation. The good news is that it's not a zero-sum game, and poor places have also benefited from globalisation. Everybody wins! Except Le Pen.


No, neither of those things are fascism. Believing in borders is a common albeit irrational view shared by many people across the political spectrum. Only neoliberals believe in standing up for your national interests. Everyone else uses "the national interest" as a point of rhetoric, but acts against it because they don't pursue effective evidence-based policies.

Neo-fascism, in the context of Marine Le Pen (and to a lesser extent Donald Trump), is an extreme nationalist and anti-individualist philosophy which blames non-white immigrants for a nation's problems. Unlike traditional fascists, neo-fascists do not openly desire the overthrow of democratic institutions and often try to portray themselves as democrats enacting the will of the people. As palaeofascists are not presently relevant, referring to neofascists as just plain fascists shouldn't cause anyone any confusion.

A good point - Trump only flirted with fascism, and has led many people to believe that a full-on fascist like Le Pen isn't as bad as she is. Fortunately there are still enough intelligent people out there who recognise a fascist when they see one.



Sure, some people will try to carry out terrorist attacks even after Macron crushes ISIS. Nothing any political leader could hope to do about that without introducing a police state, which isn't a price worth paying. The police and security services already do a really good job of stopping the pathetic little shrimp who try to commit terrorist attacks. On the rare occasions when one does unfortunately succeed in committing an atrocity, they get crushed immediately. They're losers who keep on losing and never achieve anything. Just like Marine Le Pen.

According to Reuters:

Another analyst confirmed he'd found APT28 fingerprints to Fortune.

But they do achieve something; The erosion of more of our rights.

Maybe you should try reading my post, or failing that, look up Macron's fully costed policies. In simple terms, the amount of cuts he will be making will be greater than the increases in welfare spending combined with the tax cuts. The stimulus package, which I believe is to be funded by borrowing as per mainstream economic policy, will also increase tax revenues.


Yes, allowing in all those refugees probably saved thousands of lives. Not to mention the benefits of multiculturalism. Germany is much better off thanks to all those refugees!


You don't seem very familiar with the policies of Malcolm Turnbull. While he's not bad for an Australian Liberal (large L because they're not really liberals), he's a close-minded nationalist who refuses to take refugees when they arrive on your shores, desperate for care.

Open borders are great, open markets are great, trickle-down economics works. Cheap unskilled labour mostly benefits the working classes who spend a greater portion of their income hiring unskilled workers. Even I, a poor, working-class, comprehensively-educated young man, can see the benefits of globalism; I recognise evidence when it is presented to me, and the economic case is clear. It has raised global living standards enormously, particularly in poorer areas.


OK, sure, it wasn't a fight, but the best way to defeat actual fascists like Marine Le Pen is by voting against them.

And that's why socialists suck. If you have the power to stop something evil, and you don't do it because it would compromise your principles, then you have the wrong principles. But then socialists have a completely bankrupt philosophy which fails every time it is tried, unlike neoliberalism which nearly always works.

Agreed - that's what extremists like Jean-Luc Melenchon and Marine Le Pen will never understand. Some of us are pragmatic liberal centrists who will support the best candidate even if we think it might hurt us personally. They are too busy virtue signalling to come up with effective solutions and engage with the evidence.

Indeed. That's why it's important that we need to vote for liberals who will uphold our rights, rather than reactionaries who want to take them away.

I quite agree. I was also wrong to say that spoiled papers outweighed Le Pen - abstentions did, but she beat spoilt papers.

I do however find it extremely satisfying that Le Pen didn't only lose to Macron, she also lost to abstentions.


Look back 5 years at the predictions people were making for UKIP and then compare their recent electoral results.

Personally I think Le Pen will go the same way. Blind nationalism isn't as cool any more. People are more interested in evidence-based policies, liberalism, internationalism, and freedom.

Macron is the fascist elite, he is a media creation and a fake outsider in a country I guess that has a perversion for financial criminals as they very well might of voted for the rapist Dominique Straus-Kahn. His campaign is one built on fear, not the concerns of ordinary people. The banker does not care whatsoever about the suffering of the people, he is there to make sure the status-quo has its gravy train unimpeded. The communist Melenchon is obviously way less of a fraud than fake socialist Bernie Sanders who sold out his followers to help finance his 3rd vacation home in Vermont and to starve off an investigation into his wife.

You are very ignorant if you believe that everywhere has benefited from globalization and I have chuckle at you calling Arizona incredibly wealthy. You do know why I live here in the first place right? It's not 'cause I like the heat, it's because the place I grew up was ravaged by globalization. 'Make America Great Again' is an incredibly powerful statement to someone from a place that was better off 10 years ago, 10 years before that, and even 20 years before that. Large tracts of this country and their people have been essentially been abandoned, places like San Fran and NYC were the global elite live meanwhile have become richer and richer and richer which should help explain the bubble these folks live in when confronted with the real suffering of the rest of America that they affectionately refer to as 'flyover country'.

It's rich for somebody on an island thinks borders are irrational, it's confusing how somebody on an overcrowded little island where there is no hope of ever owning a home thinks that unrestricted immigration is the way to go. Neoliberals believe in standing up for their 'national interest', what is that? To not upset the bankers, to consume and to continue to build on a broke banking system dependent on perpetual growth? We're not all better off but the people at the top certainly are.

It's very simplistic and dismissive to boil everything that Trump and Le Pen believe in down to scapegoating minorities, you believe in the cult of multiculturalism so any quasi-attempt or suggestion of tackling the real security concerns or preserving national identity(every culture has value except our own apparently) is 'literally Hitler' to folks like you. Unlike real fascist they believe in democratic institutions and don't partake in violence on the street, does that mean I can start calling leftists 'neo-Stalinists'? They actually do partake in street violence and have embedded themselves in every undemocratic institution in this country like our nation's universities for example. It's nonsense, meaningless words meant to scare people. Fascism and racism are screamed at all opposing views to the point that it's very hard to nail down their actual meaning. I still don't see how Le Pen is a fascist, she is not some foaming at the mouth lunatic some people would like us to believe. She, like Trump, recognizes a problem the other side refuses to acknowledge let alone try to solve.

France has been under a state of emergency for how long now? Worry about a police state doesn't make a lot of sense when it's already here, there are other more sensible ways of preventing these attacks but Macron will do nothing but double down on everything the created the problem in the first place. You believe that Merkel's refugee policy was her smartest decisions? That's one of the craziest things I ever heard, I would really like to hear that explained how that benefits Germany or Europe as a whole. How much crime and terrorism is in Japan? Is that a police state? Why might that be?

Crushing ISIS means working with Russia, not paranoid accusations of meddling and grandstanding about fictional human rights abuses. Le Pen, Fillon, even Melenchon were all committed to working with Putin. Macron will do what, what Merkel has done? Nothing? Talk is cheap, even Obama has mustered up some tough words for terrorists at times but there has been no US president besides maybe Dubya more responsible for the growth of radical Islam. Does Macron believe we should arm terrorists to fight dictators we don't like? Those Hillary emails did tell us that they considered al-Qaeda the 'good guys' in Syria and they support Islamists in overthrowing/murdering Gaddafi in Libya which is an ungovernable hell on earth at this moment. There is no end in sight, we can win the military engagements on the ground but we'll lose the war in the long run. Their plan all along was to bleed us by attrition, Islam will eventually gain majorities in regions of Europe and then we will see how true this peace loving moderation actually is. I see no way things actually get better, the situation is completely ****'d.

Indeed, but this goes both ways. To think this is the end of the far right (or far left) movement in Europe is _way_ too premature.



Ahh... to be young and naive. Invigorates my creaky old bones.

OK then.


Arizona has a median household income of $52,000 p/a. Its GSP is as large as Israel's GDP despite a smaller population. Its GSP per capita (PPP) is slightly above the UK and France. It might not be as obscenely rich as California but it is still incredibly wealthy. Even the poorest state, Mississippi, is as rich as Israel or Spain.

Obviously there are underprivileged communities who are well below average, but even a poor person in America is doing well globally. That's little comfort to them, of course, but it doesn't change that they're part of an incredibly wealthy community.

Do you think it is a coincidence that the states which embraced globalism are the ones which are the richest?


They are. We're s**t scared that we're going to have to tighten the border with Ireland and disrupt communities that cross over it every day. If communities naturally cross over it every day, then why pretend it exists? Nothing magically changes when you step over it. Big government just forces borders on people who don't recognise them as they go about their lives. Let people move about freely without artificial barriers.


Britain isn't overcrowded. The benefits of immigration are well documented.

Personal, social, and political freedom.

Economic freedom, but recognition that unregulated markets often fail and so government intervention is sometimes necessary.

Robust public services helping people meet their basic needs and allowing society to thrive.

Evidence-based policies.

A strong and resilient economy.


In Le Pen's case it's true.


All cultures have value. That's what multiculturalism means. We want the best from every culture. In practice that basically means modern liberal Western culture with a bit of foreign food and some extra religious festivals.

This is why Macron won.


What's that then?

Also https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Marine_Le_Pen


OK.

I never claimed she was a Nazi, but she has a lot of sway with the Eurocrats to the point where she might as well rule over Europe.

Edit: FYI, I'm German on my mother's side. My fourth or (fifth?) grandfather was from the Grand Duchy of Baden.

I apologize; but being of largely German descent, I get a little sensitive whenever it appears anything German is associated with Hitler.
Where in Baden did your ancestor come from? My dad's people had come from the northern Frankish dialect region of Baden (as opposed to the Alemannic dialect south), particularly the area that had once been the Electoral Palatinate, or Kurpfalz.