In the short term job done
Well Marine Le Pen was roundly put to one side for now especially here in the West where in Bretagne she got less than 25% of the vote.
This gives a bit of breathing space over the next five years to work on social justice for both the immigrants and the French themselves, a new social contract as it were. Integration rather than segregation, genuine attempts at understanding rather than regurgitated dogma.
We have five years otherwise we will actually have an extreme right wing government. The party of which I am a member have to shoulder a great deal of the blame, Hollande was a total catastrophe. What we need to resist is too much neo-liberalism and not enough socialism. Health care is excellent we must keep it that way. Education is accessible and by and large affordable. Economic inequality is something that requires attention, but not a bloodbath.
I would really like Macron to encourage small scale entrepreneurs, setting up a small business in France is expensive and complicated, the UK model for such needs to be adapted here, it's a simple and cheap process. I think that is completely doable, I've been arguing to do it for years.
Some over flexibility for work hours and pension ages are inevitable once again increasing AI and automation needs to be factored in on both economic and social grounds, Hamon had some good ideas on this.
Even the normal right here have some good ideas and so does Mélenchon on the left, so you can see where I'm going, some good old fashioned cherry picking in a country which is still socially driven at heart.
We will see how Macron goes after next months election parte deux. It's going to be very interesting as to where France goes, during the same time the UK is taking a real turn to the hard right.
Macron has no natural political base as I say there is going to be some interesting politics over the next few months. Hope against hope maybe the EU bureacracy will wake up in time to stop this continual circling around the drain of the extreme right of Europe. Reform is much needed.
Just a quick muse.
Comments
Meanwhile, here in Drumpfkopfistan....
The alt-right is still so giddy after 'sticking it to those SJWs' as they say. Little do they realize that in sticking it to people who are largely powerless, they're sticking it to themselves, as they will soon discover.
The Democrats, however, continue to double down on their center-right stupidity and toxic southern strategy style identity bullshit. Oh, and Russia, of course. If there is any silver lining to be found, I've yet to see any.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
Too much neo-liberalism indeed,
What was Hollande's lowest approval rating? 4% or so? I think even Louis XVI had higher approval ratings than that. Oddly, the same agenda keeps being pushed by these neo-liberal clowns, and I fear that Macron is just another one.
France had essentially the same choice that we did, which isn't really a choice.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
France is starting out in a different position than the US
One can draw some comparisons but they often turn out to be false equivalences.
Hollande lost me due to his warmongering more than anything else.
It's a much better position in some ways,
but they face the same essential choice, do we foster policies that benefit the people, or just the elite few? If Macron fails to fix the economic malaise, I fear the Right will just get stronger.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
As I said, we have five years next time it will be much
closer, unless the FN eat themselves [which they are more than capable of doing] between now and then. Marine's position is weakened within her own party even if it is strengthened in France.
Bon Chance n/t
Fighting for democratic principles,... well, since forever
Bon chance!
moi aussi!
To thine own self be true.
If Macon is a neolib then he has a political base
It's composed of the folks who go to Davos. The rest is all show. Or is there something different in France. It looked like the establishment rallied for their pick pretty thoroughly... including it's response to the email disclosure.
A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard
I want to see who he picks to join in his government
he has no actual party or obvious hierarchy to be able to generalize just yet."
Next time
Just some cursory glances, but I don't feel like Macron is going to really do anything significant to change the current mood?
It seems as if Le Pen has set herself up for Round 2. She got herself known and primed for the next time when the crowd gets more riled up with nothing changing.