Hopefully though, the parliamentary election in France next month cause some chaos for the globalists parties..

Posted by: Anon | May 7 2017 18:43 utc | 103

Emmanuel Macron victory speech praising 5-years François Hollande’s regime.
Good luck good ridden!

Posted by: OJS | May 7 2017 19:13 utc | 105

I see 66% is the new 98.7% common to autocratic elections. France lost another Republic.

Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | May 7 2017 19:22 utc | 107

I wonder when Israel will start sweating.
The idea is to make the use of lethal force against Muslims acceptable in the NATO countries with mass influx of them that will not assimilate but go to war on their host one way or another. Good plan but…
Plans could go awry as there is a real danger of a Sharia Europe if they forgotten how to be a barbarian.

Posted by: ThatDamnGood | May 7 2017 19:37 utc | 109

Nick:
Indeed, these people are brainwashed, they have no idea whats going on in the world, just watching msm and like you say you cant debate with people like these. The worst is that the left is the most brainwashed by this liberal right-wing propaganda. Thats why leftists parties are so weak today.

Posted by: Anon | May 7 2017 20:31 utc | 111

I know that France attempts to rigorously regulate “their” French language, so I presume that the Académie française prohibits the importation of the US colloquial term “sheeple”.
So we won’t see any French newspapers or websites proudly proclaiming “La Sheeple Ont Parlé!”
This is an utterly predictable, even routine tragicomedy. But I must post this to give credit to an expatriate relative I’ll call “Joe”; Joe lives in France, and has proved to be a prophet.
Last year, when Joe visited the US, we were discussing the US presidential campaign and Bernie Sanders. Joe and I agreed that the West is experiencing a general political meltdown. Joe then went on to describe the default pattern that EU elections follow:
1) The prospective candidates are inevitably the “Usual Suspects”, i.e. centrist/moderate careerist technocrats, the odd “maverick” or two with limited, cultlike support– and The Extremist(s).
2) The Establishment power elite, institutions, and complicit mass-media begin an orchestrated howling: “Anybody But [insert Extremist du jour here]!”
3) The “Anybody But!” coalition throws massive resources into a public relations campaign to generate mass hysterical fear at the prospect that The Extremist may win and lead the nation straight to Hell.
4) The terrified, confused, hysterical, panic-stricken public accordingly falls in line and elects the favorite centrist/moderate careerist technocrat who will perpetuate the neoliberal status quo.
5) The Establishment power elite and its mass-media megaphone will effusively praise the inconquerable wisdom and good sense of The People in once again Saving the Republic by rejecting a dangerous Extremist.
________________________________________________
At the time, Joe offered this scenario to explain why Bernie Sanders wouldn’t be allowed to succeed. As it turned out, there are many reasons why the US debacle didn’t precisely conform to this pattern.
But Joe’s description perfectly fits what’s happened in France.

Posted by: Ort | May 7 2017 21:08 utc | 113

So Macron 65%, and Le Pen has already conceded. Campaign well run. Macron is a shark (report from the family), not a victim of the banksters. He followed May’s strategy in UK of staying quiet till elected.
Future policy: not merely a bankster, but also the son of a conservative family of doctors from Amiens. So not a pure neo-liberal, as has been suggested, but someone who is forced by his family background to take their point of view into account.
The prospect is not too bad. Other than in foreign policy, where he has declared himself against the Asad regime in Syria. I don’t take that too seriously. Once in power, he may discover what is implied in attacking Asad, that is war against Russia, and he may hesitate.

Posted by: Laguerre | May 7 2017 21:59 utc | 115

I am French. Macron won because of an unprecedented media onslaught that led 25% of voters who don’t know their heads for their a… to vote for him in the first round, while the media had blocked anyone but Macron and Le Pen from getting to the second round. That’s because they know that people would elect a head of lettuce if that head of lettuce was running against Le Pen.
There is a very good interview of a French liberal (as in “proponent of free-market rather than big State”. Americans would call him “a libertarian”), Charles Gave, who gives a clear vision of the whole shebang, and of why this could be getting out of control in the near future. You see, the US only stopped major civil war kind of s… because Trump won, which disarmed the anger of the disenfranchised masses. Unfortunately, in France, Emmanuel Clinton won. And the French extreme left wing, who hates Macron’s guts, can be dangerous. I mean, physically dangerous. Other clear-headed observers than Gave are already mumbling words like “barricades” and “civil war”.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-06/why-charles-gave-expects-total-mayhem-france-even-if-macron-elected

Posted by: Lea | May 8 2017 0:33 utc | 117

I haven’t seen anyone mention that only 28-29% of the voters participated in this election.
What does that say about any French thinking their vote matters? Look at the choices they were “offered”.

Posted by: psychohistorian | May 8 2017 0:53 utc | 119

@119 Psychohistorian: the other way around. High turnout compared to your average election in Western democracies, moderate turnout for France. Macron still got more than 40% of all possible voters’ approval.
Which leads me to:
@117 Lea:
If Macron manages to trick the French fools again and his non-existing party actually gets a majority in parliament, I expect things to go South before his first mandate is over. As in major demonstrations. And unlike Nick, I’ll make my best to remind to all my acquaintances who voted Macron by default / because their friends/significant others were brainwashed idiots who would’ve killed them otherwise that they did vote for the guy and are to be blamed for that shit. I want all those who voted for him without considering him worthy of the office and despite considering his opinions as utter shit to actually hate themselves for what they’ve just done, and then to hate him for what they did. And I mean *hate*, not dislike.
I’m also not sure it’s hardcore leftists who would go the farthest in violence; antifas and similar groups mostly seem to focus on soft targets and heavily outnumbered cops. FN guys are just as tough and desiring violence, they just don’t dare to risk it now considering how everyone else suspects them of being closer fascists; and the longer they’re kept out of any significant power, the closer they’ll come to giving in to violence.

Posted by: CluelessJoe | May 8 2017 2:14 utc | 121

@ jfl | May 7, 2017 9:39:16 PM | 120
I may have made the comment you refer to but it was not linked to other sources, rather an informed opinion of my own. It is well past the time for editing that comment but being distracted in typing it out (an interrupted thought a.k.a. a ‘senior moment’, something happening with increasing regularity as the vintage approaches 3/4 century), I neglected to insert the penultimate position of both Obama and Micron as holding senior national public offices thereby exposing their names to widespread public consciousness, Obama in the U.S Senate, Macron as a senior minister in Hollande’s administration as Economic’s minister, a position of significant technical ability implied – Neither producing any significant record of accomplishment. Maybe a control F with my handle will produce the original comment (append the above to it SVP). I try to never rely on Google for my opinions nor YouTube for information, either place I usually find no there there.

Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | May 8 2017 10:22 utc | 123

mina @ 78. Marine: abysmal performance in Pres. debate vs. Macron.
MLP is good speaker facing a supporting audience, but she can’t deal well, or at all, with one-on-one opposition. I remember one TV show where she was facing Mélenchon and simply refused to debate him, he was an ‘illegitimate’ candidate, she looked only to the Media masters, and ignored all he, Méluche, said. This drove him wild and he was vituperative (no doubt the desired effect.) It is important for MLP to appear to be persecuted, marginalised, left out, etc., so that her voters, many of whom are truly so, identify with her.
Iirc, a Le Pen member has failed to become Pres. 7 times! It’s a cottage industry, the Le Pens are supposed to drain the discontented vote, corral it, keep it captive, on a few simple themes, xenophobia, nationalism, national preference, support for families, against globalism / outsourcing, adding in some ‘state support’ stipends, some advantages for a certain class of poor ppl etc. The FN at present drains mostly ‘right’ voters, leaving the ‘left’ to split on its own which it gloriously manages to do with zero prodding, no shame at all, so no need to interfere there. Heh, Marion Maréchal le Pen is ready to carry the flame forward another 50 years.
Fascim is an extremism of the center, with a heart-felt soldered marriage between ‘economic, capital forces’ —corporations, big biz, war, arms, production, control of land, ppl, etc. — and the State – Gvmt – Oligarchs. No need for overt authoritariansm with jackboots, night raids, prison, torture.
We see inspiring, gripping discourse, the inner soul of strength that can be called up, glory be: The Nation or The People who Will, or Must, prevail, a quasi evangelical solidarity without a prescriptive religion… Le Pen and Macron both exploit this register, in different ways.

Posted by: Noir22 | May 8 2017 14:33 utc | 125

@ 126 jfl
Resisting with every fibre I have to disparage the recent POTUS, I think you are correct about the nature of the political beast infesting a good part of the world. Mélenchon, iirc, entered the French race belatedly as an independent and garnered some 20% of the first round vote, insufficient to continue. Speculation has he would have been in the final two had he just a little more time to marshall his supporters and would have likely done as well if not better than Macron, this must be under the assumption that MSM would be honest brokers in dissembling the campaign. It has been said elsewhere that France is a politically conservative country, you can take that to the bank – good as gold. Independents begin in a hole compared to the traditionally known parties and some outliers having national recognition. [The village of about 1500 souls where I live in Spain has about 24 differing ballots to cover the local political spectrum, most garnering a few votes each election]. Nonetheless, Mélenchon demonstrated his political integrity by NOT directing his supporters to any specific candidate. The panic shown by establishment politico was revealing, had Macron NOT prevailed, almost as if EU/ Brussels would collapse as result of M. Le Pen obtaining office. The ubiquitous support for Macron from every quarter other than public must be a telltale sign if anything else is; France got their Clinton, as in Hillary Hollankozy.
You might look into what the Irish Republic has for conducting a multiparty election that gives first past the post candidates the position for multiple office districts – space is too short here to accurately describe but in short a voter ranks the preference of their candidates on the ballot and as the field is eliminated the vote is transferred to the next preference marked on the ballot – some districts having two or three seats to represent that district. All ballots are paper and hand counted under close supervision in public. Makes a fantastic argument for ‘none of the above’ having 50%+1 sends the election back for another slate of candidates.

Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | May 8 2017 17:52 utc | 127

What is the surprise? There will be no adequate alternative candidate under capitalism. No real choice that will alter the condition of the working class and poor will be allowed. Nor will there be an alternative to the policy of imperialist policies abroad, whether as an appendage to NATO, or as a junior imperialist power in its own right.
Only the amnesia induced by the wheel of the life cycle revolving, and the rise and fall of generations, such that the lessons of the past are imperfectly passed on over the years — a process made more difficult by censorship and the deliberate falsification of history — allows this charade of bourgeois politics to continue.
Sooner or later, though, the internal dynamics of history and political need will catch up with this conservatizing process, and the old order will be overthrown. It will all seem so obvious… then! But now, the unfolding of political discussion remains tedious, overheated, flatulent and empty. Le Pen! Trump! Macron! Putin! All people with no future, nothing to offer to anyone, except their retinue and their financiers. All will vanish in a puff of historical smoke. Sad to say it usually takes a war to do this. I very much hope it will happen differently this time. That no war will be needed to terminate the rule of the modern-day Hohenzollerns, Romanovs, Habsburgs, House of Osman, etc. All great rulers! And now their ashes are insufficient to make a doorstop.

Posted by: Jeffrey Kaye | May 8 2017 20:12 utc | 129

@128 smuks, the Financial Transaction Tax appears to continue to go nowhere, thwarted by the big capital interests that run the eu, while the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive and the Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base both seem calculated to benefit those same big capital interests, and to further remove ‘regulation’ from elected governments to appointed eu ‘authorities’.
the eu is an anti-democratic organization. it is government of, by, and for transnational corporate interests. peoples’ interests are not represented within it and people are held powerless against it. the very same powers that are in the us seem also to be in control of the eu. the eu is creeping corporatism. and it seems now to be creeping way past its speed.

Posted by: jfl | May 8 2017 23:03 utc | 131

ruralito at 82. Thx for the data from World Bank. I was going on e.g., Jean Gadrey, graph for F:
http://alternatives-economiques.fr/blogs/gadrey/files/pibhpibempl.jpg
Or go to site and search ‘effondrement’ etc.
http://www.alternatives-economiques.fr/
+ The likes of https://jancovici.com (attempts to integrate energy/economy, etc.)
—— World ‘economy’, the larger context, France within it —-
‘The economy’ in terms GDP per capita, as a % of World GDP, a total that varies over time, combined with a Purchasing Parity measure in ‘constant dollars’ identical or similiar to WB stats, used to make a historical comparison between two points, 1960 and 2012:
Most countries // zones, in the world are ‘stable’, i.e. they have, at the comparison points, the same size slice of the pie (the world economy grows over time.) Caveat: this is an *average* measure, and does not measure inequality (gini…), the stress of war, early deaths, migration, oppression, etc.
Exceptions. The USA has experienced a loss of 16%, in a steady downhill slope. The measure integrates per capita. (During that timespan the US economy grew, but so did its population.) Not surprising if you consider how ‘fantastically rich’ the USA was in 1960, in terms of GDP, energy use (!), sq. feet of housing, automobiles, agricultural and industrial ouput, exports, etc. per capita.
Gains. East and South-East Asia 8.5% (China 5,4%, the rest fractioned over the other countries). Japan, 5%. Ex-USSR 3.9% (Russia, 3%, rest fractioned.) Brazil, 2.4%. Middle East and the Mahgreb, 2.3%. All makes sense as well. (Total does not jibe as I have left off losses/gains of 2% or less.)
No change -> Canada, Europe, India, Aus, Oceania, sub-Saha Africa, S. America…….Overall economy grew, scientific, tech. advances, and one might judge that ppl’s lives ‘improved’ with better med care – sanitation – housing, smarter teachers, cell phones, better re-distrib, more tolerance, chocolate doughnuts with sprinkles, or whatever.
Do we see any interesting up-down movements during the time-span?
The only major one is EU27 countries (not the political entity), which rises from 26 (on this index) in 1960 to 33 in 1990 and then…sinks to 24 in 2012. Imho, it appears that EU enlargement, and its re-distributive investments, outsourcing, de-localisation, import of cheap labor, provided a tremendous boost which then rapidly sank, in effect annuling the rise. — Which explains in part Greece, Ukraine debacle, general EU problems and ‘protectionism’, Brexit, rise of Le Pen, Wilders, etc.
http://slideplayer.fr/slide/2331478/ (in F, and v. hard to read etc.)

Posted by: Noir22 | May 9 2017 12:48 utc | 133

For those who think France will get a Greek therapy, a few facts:
– a peasant in France, who starts working at 16 and keeps working until getting his full pension usually get around 800-900 euros per month once retired. This is based on what they earned before and they cannot usually pay themselves more than that throughout their life if they want to stay independent with just a small exploitation. The French system evaluates the pension on “the 25 best years”. The problem is that for people whose best years were on this level, it is just enough to pay rent and food (and just 200 euros above the ‘minimal’ provided by the state even to someone who has never worked).
– the medical file is not centralized: you go to a doctor and he has no information available on what drugs you are taking, what other doctors you have seen, etc. same for hospitals: they have no clue about your allergies. You are supposed to know everything, to memorize it, and to explain it (quickly) to the doctor you have waited 2 hours to see.
But explain that to the French and they will still tell you that they are against reforms and that it is worse anywhere else.

Posted by: Mina | May 9 2017 14:53 utc | 135