#also all of you so desperately want to be like western european countries with parliamentary systems | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

montanabohemian · 9 months

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i honestly don't know how many times i have to repeat myself that the u.s. is not a two-party system but is already a multiparty system. you're just being deliberately obtuse ignoring other legitimate parties that are not republican or democrat. you're just mad that the republican and democrat parties have spent literal decades building foundations to have a platform and raise a ton of money to run candidates across the country. if you want other parties to do that, then you have to actually put in the fucking work.

if any of you actually took two seconds to study comparative politics (or just looked at a multiparty system in action), you'd recognize that every single one operates the same fucking way: through coalitions. there are usually two major opposing parties and if one can't win a majority, they work with other parties to create a fucking coalition party. you fucking dumbasses are so thick that you can't be bothered to see that that is exactly how it works in congress in the united states (and in all state legislatures). most independent politicians are gonna lean towards the left and libertarians are gonna lean to the right (until the republicans piss them off).

it isn't fucking rocket science. politics is pretty similar across the world. but every single country is just a little different. and it has to be. because every nation is unique. their way of government cannot be cookie cutter same.

the real problem facing the united states elections is two-fold: money in elections and voter suppression.

stop getting your fucking information from idiotic memes about european countries that are wildly racist and xenophobic.

#also all of you so desperately want to be like western european countries with parliamentary systems #and that just wouldn't work here #leftists get big mad when they're told they have to put in the work to actually build more parties if they don't like the dems #but i find leftists to be incredibly racist when they try and tear down the democratic party which as we know it *today* ...#was built by black women #black women are thee foundation of the democratic party #and leftists like to conveniently forget that part #AND ANOTHER THING: HOW DO YOU THINK COALITIONS ARE MADE? THROUGH COMPROMISE #which y'all morons think is a dirty word #but it's how things get done in the reAL WORLD #(like the libertarians in the mt leg stood with the mt dems when the mt gop started pulling all sorts of shenanigans)#(funny how that works)#god some of you need to take some remedial civics classes #and also my degree is in comparative politics so i know what i'm talking about #how you be saying this is a two party country when you're white saviour bernard is a fucking *independent*#(i mean he uses dem money and dem platform because he's too fucking lazy to actually do the work himself but that's typical of that man)#(BUT YOU CANNOT SAY IT'S A TWO PARTY SYSTEM WHEN HE IS LITERALLY NOT OF EITHER REPUBS OR DEMS)

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adaralondon · 4 years

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Studying the narrative of women in Moses, Citizen, & Me

One thing we often forget is that every aspect of our lives contains a narrative. From the movies we watch to the books we read; they all contain some type of carefully woven together time and place of concurrent events. Even natural storytellers who are surrounded by boundless narratives, writing a novel still poses many challenges. Authors must choose carefully the way they put together the events that they’re describing, who narrates the story, and where it takes place or risk the message being lost or misinterpreted. In Moses, Citizen, and Me, the narrative is woven together through the lenses of a foreign women thrust into the aftermath of a civil conflict between the Revolutionary United Front and the government of Sierra Leone. As readers who have no connection to Sierra Leone, we can empathize with narrator: Julia. Just like her, we are outsiders thrust into the conflict, desperate to find our place and what we can do to help. If this book was told from the perspective of a male or someone who never left Sierra Leone the story would be entirely different. Perhaps we wouldn’t see the death of Adele or know about the rehabilitation of Citizen. Maybe the novel would focus specifically on the violence perpetrated through the war instead, we could only imagine because there are an infinite number of ways this story could have been told if the narrator wasn’t Julia. However, since this novel is told through the lens of a woman, I want to focus on this paper on that aspect by talking about Pre- and Post-colonial west Africa, the roles of women, and Julia’s specific role in Moses, Citizen, and Me.

To understand the role of women in the book, you first have to consider where it takes place. This may not seem important but western cultures have different gender roles than Asian or African cultures. With that being said: Moses, Citizen, and Me takes place in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, a country in West Africa. Freetown was established in 1792 by free blacks, Caribbean’s, and Africans. Without the western influences of patriarchy created by slavery and racism, a melting pot of unique African and Caribbean culture was able to form. However, in 1808 that all changed when Freetown became a crown colony of Great Britain. Although the conquest of Freetown happened significantly earlier, the scramble for Africa changed the entire culture. In order to survive now, West Africans were forced to adopt new ideologies. This can be seen in books like Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o's Weep Not, Child. These new ideologies severely changed not only the role of women in west Africa but also the overall culture. In Pre-colonial West Africa “West African women and the spiritual female principal during the long precolonial period the power and right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience in short they had authority.” (History Textbook).. However, as Africa was colonized, Western men saw women in positions of power as disgraceful and placed them in roles ‘more suited’ to women. “History has been obscured by western patriarchal ideologies which imagined west African women as a beast of burden.” (History Textbook) Gone is the tradition of women being involved in politics and having the same authority as men.

Sierra Leone was freed from British colonial rule in 1961. From 1967 to 1985 Sierra Leone was a one-party state. In 1971 the government abolished Sierra Leone's parliamentary government system and declared Sierra Leone a presidential republic. (Britannica) With all this inner turmoil in Sierra Leone, women are unable to find a role that’s comfortable for them and the culture becomes even more torn and fragmented. The civil war in 1991 however adds another role. They are forced into being child soldiers, with both their child and womanhood taken from them. They are killed destroying the matriarchy. “It was a woman. Her hands were tied behind her back and her legs were bound together, there were several bullets in her back. It was Adele, his own grandmother.” (Macauley 2) Choice is stolen from them and disobedience is met with violence. “He turned and hit her hard across the head, so she fell to the ground where her chin hit the bottle. Holding her jaw, she struggled to her feet and stood behind him.” (Macauley 64). Finally, they are made into beings used for sexual gratification and objectification. “The lieutenant touched his ‘wife’ on the buttocks and kissed her on the neck, indicating that it was time to move on.” (Macauley 65). Julia our narrator shows us the brutal affects not only this war, but all the political turmoil has caused for the women of Sierra Leone.

“Maybe it wasn’t your plan, but you could help them, both of them. Did you know that?” (Macauley 320) The novel takes place in Freetown after the civil war. Women finally trying to shift into all three roles and find a place between post and pre-colonial culture that works for them. Julia, who has no idea of any of this, having been born in London, is surprised when she first arrives in Freetown. She is immediately subjected to taking over her aunt Adele’s role as homemaker. It’s her place, a role that’s already been ordained for her. “But he needs care. Someone who would care. Someone like you.” (Macauley 16) She is stubborn. This is her story and she’s going to be the one to tell it. It’s not in her nature to be a caretaker, she wants to make something of her life that’s more than being a trauma rehabilitation center. “Mummy I’ve been thinking I might go abroad at the end of this year.” (Macauley 100). She also states she isn’t ready to give up the things she’s worked so hard in life to secure like the women around her. She feels angry and disappointed with her family, Moses especially, trying to her make her take on this responsibility. “I felt disappointed. I could not imagine any other emotions again. Why could he not understand me and support me? Why did he not see that I was trying to find my way here? I gripped my Paris dream hard.” (Macauley 104) Her uncle, stricken by grief, unknowing names Julia as a replacement for Adele. It’s her job to rehabilitate her nephew Citizen and she is fiercely averse to taking the role. “‘Oh, does he? I thought he’d need people here; people who understand what’s happening to boys like him what they’ve been through.” (Macauley 16).

To me Julia isn’t just our narrator, she also serves as a thematic character, representing this change between old ideas of western Africa, the influence Europe, and the aftereffects the civil war had on Sierra Leone. She’s a representation of the struggle to re-embrace one’s roots or adapt to new times and cultural normativism. “‘That’s how my mother made it and that’s how aunt sally showed her how to make it.’/ ‘We don’t make it like that anymore’. She said. ‘That’s so old fashioned’ she stood up and walked over to the cupboard that I had barely noticed before. From it she took a jar which was put down in front of me. A jar of peanut butter. ‘This is what we do now.’ “(Macauley 82) Initially, Julia rejects her role as a cultural martyr and consequently her character becomes purposeless in the novel. She has no reason to be Freetown as she has rejected the new culture.

Julia is a memetic character in the sense that she is constantly tied between taking her ‘destined’ role in Freetown and or maintaining comfort in being a European woman. Although she rejects the role the pressure from the environment eventually is able to break her down. She represents the struggle between the old world and new world and her rejection of rehabilitating Citizen takes away her ability to fit in. She sticks out like a sore thumb, while the other women work closely with the child soldiers, Julia is fearful and rejects them. However as much as she rejects this role, she is also desperate to fit it. She is desperate to know her African self and roots and find a place for herself that she never found in England. So desperate that she changes her mind and accepts her role as Citizen’s caretaker. The women in the novel have also seemed to do the same. They are no longer the powerful political figures the history books talk about. They’ve been complicit and accepting of the European idea of what a woman should be and what her role and place in society is. Just like Julia, they are memetic, and all symbolize something greater: the mother figure of Sierra Leone in its entirety (Adele), homemaker/housewife (Anita), and heroine/rescuer of Sierra Leone’s broken children. (Elizabeth). This would make Julia seem as the hero of her story. She’s the only one brave enough to stand up against her ‘destiny’ while women such as Adele and Anita, while having an essential role in the culture, are confined to a more European role. Yet she also gives way to complicity making her unreliable as a character and narrator.

This may seem unimportant to narrative and narrative theory but it’s actually what makes the narrative. As the audience we follow live through her experiences as told by her. Narrative is more than a simple story but rather a time and place of events. With Julia we see things as though she there with Citizen, she gives an opportunity to understand his part in the war, the opportunity to empathize with him. If these events were recounted by Moses perhaps it would be filled with hatred or anger. Also important to the story is the focal point, it’s strictly told after the civil war has wrapped up. Although she gives us breaks from this strictness when she’s showing the war through Citizen’s eyes and flashbacking to her time in Europe. Narrative also helps us realize that character often times have depth and dimension: Julia, Adele, and Anita are memetic in the way that they all represent something larger upon further inspection. Without them we have no story to tell.

Works cited:

“11: Women and Authority in West African History.” History Textbook, wasscehistorytextbook.com/11-women-and-authority-in-west-african-history/.

“All People's Congress.” Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., www.britannica.com/topic/All-Peoples-Congress.

Jarrett-Macauley, Delia. Moses, Citizen & Me. Granta, 2006.

#war #sierra leone #moses citizen and me #theory #critical methods #essay #formal writi

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

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If you want to know where anti-immigrant right-wing populism can go if left unchecked, you should take a look at Hungary — which, under the pretext of cracking down on illegal immigration, passed a bill that gives the Hungarian government extraordinary powers to jail its political opponents.

This week, Hungary passed what the government dubbed the “Stop Soros” law, named after Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros. The new law, drafted by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, creates a new category of crime, called “promoting and supporting illegal migration” — essentially, banning individuals and organizations from providing any kind of assistance to undocumented immigrants. This is so broadly worded that, in theory, the government could arrest someone who provides food to an undocumented migrant on the street or attends a political rally in favor of their rights.

“The primary aim of this legislation is to intimidate, by means of criminal law, those who fully legitimately assist asylum seekers or foreigners,” the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a local human rights group, explains in a press release. “It threatens [to] jail those who support vulnerable people.”

Hungary’s government framed the bill as a check on the influence of Soros, a Jewish Holocaust survivor who funds pro-democracy activism around the world. Orbán has fingered Soros (who is also a favorite villain of the American right) as the source of an international plot to destroy Hungary through migration. He often launches attacks on the billionaire in strikingly anti-Semitic terms.

“We are fighting an enemy that is different from us. Not open, but hiding; not straightforward but crafty; not honest but base; not national but international; does not believe in working but speculates with money; does not have its own homeland but feels it owns the whole world,” Orban said in a characteristic anti-Soros tirade in March.

The Stop Soros bill is every fear about right-wing populism made manifest: an attack on basic democratic rights by an elected government, one legitimized and made popular by attacks on vulnerable minorities. Americans might want to pay attention.

An anti-Soros poster on a street in Hungary. Attila Kisbenedek/AFP/Getty Images

Prime Minister Orbán was first elected — in a perfectly fair and democratic context — in 2010. Since then, he has made it his mission to ensure that no one could dislodge him from power.

He has attacked the independence of the court system, gerrymandered electoral districts so it’s nearly impossible for his Fidesz party to lose its electoral majority, and gotten his allies to buy up independent media outlets to mute criticism and disseminate propaganda. This agenda has not been subtle; he has openly declared his intention to bring an end to “liberal democracy” and replace it with an unspecified “Christian” system.

“We need to say it out loud because you can’t reform a nation in secrecy: The era of liberal democracy is over,” Orbán said in one speech. “Rather than try to fix a liberal democracy that has run aground, we will build a 21st-century Christian democracy.”

There’s still a lot of opposition to Orbán’s policies in Hungary, particularly in the capital city of Budapest. But Orbán is popular with a pretty significant chunk of Hungarian society. In the April 2018 parliamentary elections, the Fidesz party won a little under 50 percent of the vote. The next-closest party, the even-more right-wing Jobbik, won 19 percent.

This is partly a testament to the weakness of the Hungarian opposition. But it is also a testament to Orbán’s ability to manipulate fear and prejudice — specifically as it relates to migrants and minorities. The “Stop Soros” bill is not ancillary to the prime minister’s popularity; it’s at the core of it, an example of how he picks up on anxieties created by the refugee crisis to build support for an authoritarian agenda.

Soros really has invested a lot of money into Hungary. He got his start in activism in 1984, funding activists demonstrating against Hungary’s then-Communist government. Since then, he has funded civil society groups working to cement the country’s transition from dictatorship into democracy, among other philanthropic projects.

This sort of activity is obviously quite threatening to a would-be authoritarian like Orbán, who has cast Soros as a kind of a James Bond villain in a strikingly successful bid to check his influence. In 2017, the government put up posters with his face twisted in a nefarious-seeming smile, with the captions “don’t let Soros have the last laugh” and “99 percent oppose illegal immigration” underneath.

Soros’s aim, according to Orbán, is to undermine the soul of European Christian society — to hollow out the West from the inside out. Soros’s humanitarian activity is supposedly secretly indoctrinating Hungarians in a bid to let them acquiesce to mass migration. Once Soros and his allies succeed in opening the borders, Orbán warns, Muslim refugees will flood into Hungary and the rest of Europe — and soon the continent will become unrecognizable.

“We are up against media outlets maintained by foreign concerns and domestic oligarchs, professional hired activists, troublemaking protest organizers, and a chain of NGOs financed by an international speculator, summed up by and embodied in the name George Soros,” as he put it in one speech. “Those who do not halt immigration at their borders are lost: slowly but surely they are consumed. External forces and international powers want to force all this upon us, with the help of their allies here in our country.”

This kind of paranoid rhetoric, which should sound familiar to American ears, is a hallmark of Orbán’s public commentary — and has served as a justification for all sorts of different anti-democratic and anti-minority crackdowns.

Orbán has campaigned to close the Central European University, a prestigious university in Budapest funded by Soros, on grounds that it’s corrupting Hungarian society. He has built not one, but two, walls on Hungary’s southern border with Serbia — cutting off access from a route desperate refugees have used to get into Europe. Soros’s Open Society Foundation, his international pro-democracy charity, closed down all of its Budapest operations in May (citing a climate of persecution).

And now, the Hungarian parliament has passed the “Stop Soros” law — a bill that human rights advocates fear will be used to shut down opposition groups and local rights campaigners.

“[The Stop Soros bill is] modeled on similar legislation in Russia that has been used to restrict opposition voices and independent media,” the watchdog Human Rights First writes in a recent report. “The Hungarian version imposed unnecessarily heavy reporting requirements on Hungarian human rights and civil society groups receiving funding from abroad.”

Cas Mudde, an expert on right-wing politics at the University of Georgia, defines the radical right as possessing three features: an authoritarian approach to law and order, a populist critique of elites as out of touch and corrupt, and a nativist ideology that casts immigrants as a threat to the nation. Orbán, as the “Stop Soros” law proves, embodies all three of these descriptors perfectly.

He’s certainly not the only politician in the Western world who does.

Original Source -> Hungary just passed a “Stop Soros” law that makes it illegal to help undocumented migrants

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

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stopkingobama · 7 years

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Uninspired French Voters Choose a ‘Centrist’ President Rather Than a Far-Right One

Photo: French Government (cc by-sa 3.0 France)

PARIS—As is the case most Sundays, Rue de Bac in central Paris was quiet this morning.

The shops were closed, as were most cafes on this day when self-styled centrist Emmanuel Macron would defeat the far-right candidate, Marine Le Pen, to become France’s next president.

Except for Le Saint Germain cafe, at the corner of Rue du Bac and Boulevard Saint-Germain. On the outdoor terrace, patrons sipped on coffee and munched leisurely on croissants, as is the custom on any morning.

Most were reading a newspaper. Two American tourists thumbed through a Lonely Planet guidebook; true to form, their voices a decibel level or two above the rest.

Inside, 58-year-old Marco was working behind the bar. Gray-haired with the sleeves of his white button-down shirt rolled up and a black apron tied around his soft waist, Marco served coffee and croissants to customers standing at the bar.

“Have you voted yet?” Marco asked an older man who wore a driving cap and was reading a copy of Le Figaro, a staple conservative French newspaper.

“No,” the man replied between sips of coffee. “And I don’t plan to.”

“I’m not going to vote because both candidates are no good,” Marco told The Daily Signal, asking that his last name not be used due to privacy concerns. “Neither one talks about the country. They only talk about their small problems; it’s only a quarrel between the two of them.”

Outside the cafe, the sky was gray, the air cool and fresh, and the sidewalks still wet from spring showers the evening prior.

A homeless man sat beneath two vandalized campaign posters for Macron, France’s 39-year-old former economy minister under Socialist President François Hollande. Macron ended up winning Sunday’s presidential election by taking 65 percent of the vote to defeat his rival, Le Pen, 48, of the far-right, eurosceptic, anti-immigration National Front party.

“His resounding victory confirms that a very large majority of our fellow citizens have united around the values of the Republic and signaled their attachment to the European Union as well as the opening up of France to the world,” incumbent French President Francois Hollande said of Macron’s victory in a Sunday evening statement.

Yet, with his win, Macron faces a divided country with a litany of economic and security woes, including terrorism and high unemployment.

“Many will be breathing a sigh of relief with Macron’s win but while he is far more preferable than the anti-NATO, anti-American, and pro-Putin Le Pen, we should not kid ourselves into thinking that he represents the sort of change France so desperately needs,” Luke Coffey, director of the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal.

“While Le Pen would have done great damage to France and its standing in the world, Macron’s stale economic policies mean that France will remain on economic life support for the foreseeable future,” Coffey said.

Abstention

Sunday marked the tepid end of a historic French presidential campaign. For the first time in France’s Fifth Republic, the Socialists and Les Republicains, France’s establishment liberal and conservative political parties, respectively, were not represented in the second, final round of the presidential election.

Sunday’s vote highlighted an upheaval of France’s political order and a stark crossroads for France’s future due to the diametrically opposing political policies and philosophies of Macron and Le Pen.

However, for many French voters, both Macron and Le Pen were a disappointment. Le Pen was too extreme, and Macron was considered to be under the thumb of France’s banking elite.

“My favorite candidate was François Fillon,” Carmen Van Houten, a 52-year-old pediatric nurse at a public hospital told The Daily Signal, referring to the conservative Les Republicains candidate who lost in the April 23 first round of voting after a scandal-tainted campaign.

“The media decided for the French people that the new president would be Emmanuel Macron,” Van Houten said. “For one year now the media wanted to have a match between Macron and Le Pen. So today I’ll go to Fontainebleau Forest to run a trail. I’ll not go to vote.”

By all accounts, the lack of enthusiasm generated by both candidates translated into historically low levels of voter participation. As of 8 p.m. in Paris, turnout was estimated to be roughly 75 percent—the lowest level of voter participation in a presidential second-round vote since 1969, according to French news reports.

Macron’s win was decisive. But with such low levels of participation, his mandate to govern might be weakened

“Macron will do nothing,” Marco said from Le Saint Germain cafe. “It will just be another five years of the same mistakes and failed policies of [French President Francois] Hollande. The rich will get richer, the poor poorer.”

“Divisions remain, but Emmanuel [Macron] will now have to address the most important concerns,” Nicolas Tenzer, founder and president of the Centre for Study and Research for Political Decision, a Paris-based think tank, told The Daily Signal.

“He will have to transform his victory into a presidential dynamic in the parliamentary elections,” Tenzer said. “The social issues are obviously the main ones, but it’s critical also to have a government with completely new political figures.”

‘Best of a Bad Situation’

Macron represented his own upstart political party, En Marche!–translating to “Let’s go!” or “forward!” in English–which he formed in April 2016 as a vessel for his maverick presidential campaign. He does not have the backing of a major political party in France’s National Assembly, which could make it hard for him to pass his agenda.

“We’re not celebrating, we’re not popping open the champagne,” Olivier Dartigolles, spokesman for the French Communist Party, said in a statement to the press on Sunday evening. “Millions of people must feel trapped. Emmanuel Macron was elected by default.”

Macron’s victory was, however, a landmark defeat for far-right, anti-immigration, anti-EU parties across Europe—as well as for the Kremlin’s machinations to fund and support those parties to weaken its perceived Western rivals.

“This was the best of a bad situation, but at least the only person more disappointed than Le Pen right now is Russian President Vladimir Putin,” Coffey said.

“It’s certainly a loss for Russia, and thus good news,” Tenzer said. “But no one can be reassured with the National Front catching 35 percent of the votes.”

The National Front, the party of Le Pen, is a controversial political force in France. Its founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen (Marine Le Pen’s estranged father), was notorious for his Nazi-sympathizing, anti-Semitic remarks—including his calling the Nazi gas chambers of the Holocaust a “detail” of history.

Yet, many French voters—35 percent of them—were willing to overlook the National Front’s checkered past and dubious ties to Moscow to upend France’s political and economic status quo.

“I’m for Le Pen,” Regis Aernouts, an antiques dealer in Paris’ Sixth Arrondissement told The Daily Signal on Saturday. “I’m not racist, but I think she would be best for the country. We live in a bubble here in Paris. It is, I think, like what happened in America when you elected Trump. People living in Washington and New York didn’t know what was happening in the rest of the country. It’s the same here in France.”

Scar Tissue

In Paris on Sunday, tourists passed through airport-style security barriers to approach the foot of the Eiffel Tower. Armed army fire teams, clad in body armor and with assault rifles slung across their chests, patrolled among the crowds. News teams from around the world were set up with the Eiffel Tower in the background as reporters rehearsed their stand-ups for election day reports.

Up the river at the Musée d’Orsay art museum, which contains works by Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, and Paul Cézanne, people waited for hours in a line that zigzagged around the block before it trickled through metal detectors and X-ray machines at the museum’s entrance.

This was a bellwether day for French democracy, and the fears of a terrorist attack were high.

On the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, a makeshift memorial stands at the spot where, on April 20, an Islamist militant killed French police officer Xavier Jugelé. Within a mound of collected flowers are handwritten notes, candles, and pictures of Jugelé.

The memorial is remindful of the ones that went up on the Promenade des Anglais boardwalk in Nice after a deadly terrorist attack in July 2016, or in front of the Bataclan nightclub in Paris after a terrorist attack, which left 89 dead, in November 2015, or in front of the Paris offices of the French satirical magazine in January 2015 after another lethal terrorist attack.

On this day, election day, the sidewalks of the Champs-Élysées were packed almost shoulder-to-shoulder with pedestrians. At the memorial at the site of Jugelé’s murder, a small group of passers-by paused to silently and reverently consider what had happened here a little more than two weeks ago.

Meanwhile, as unaware tourists marched past, a bullet hole remained in a nearby light pole.

It reminded this correspondent of the top of Institutskaya Street in central Kyiv, Ukraine (now renamed Heroes of the Heavenly Hundred Street) where bullet holes remain in light poles from the 2014 revolution, evidence of when government snipers gunned down protesters in the waning days of deposed pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych’s regime.

Scars of violence on the streets of Kyiv and Paris—reminders, in both places, of the thin veneer that separates civilization from chaos. A dividing line, which is growing thinner in capitals across Europe.

“France will remain divided after the election,” Marco said from Le Saint Germain cafe. “This election will change nothing.”

Nolan Peterson, The Daily Signal

#Emmanuel Macron #France #French presidential election #Foreign Policy

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americanlibertypac · 7 years

Text

Uninspired French Voters Choose a ‘Centrist’ President Rather Than a Far-Right One

Photo: French Government (cc by-sa 3.0 France)

PARIS—As is the case most Sundays, Rue de Bac in central Paris was quiet this morning.

The shops were closed, as were most cafes on this day when self-styled centrist Emmanuel Macron would defeat the far-right candidate, Marine Le Pen, to become France’s next president.

Most were reading a newspaper. Two American tourists thumbed through a Lonely Planet guidebook; true to form, their voices a decibel level or two above the rest.

“Have you voted yet?” Marco asked an older man who wore a driving cap and was reading a copy of Le Figaro, a staple conservative French newspaper.

“No,” the man replied between sips of coffee. “And I don’t plan to.”

Outside the cafe, the sky was gray, the air cool and fresh, and the sidewalks still wet from spring showers the evening prior.

Yet, with his win, Macron faces a divided country with a litany of economic and security woes, including terrorism and high unemployment.

Abstention

However, for many French voters, both Macron and Le Pen were a disappointment. Le Pen was too extreme, and Macron was considered to be under the thumb of France’s banking elite.

Macron’s win was decisive. But with such low levels of participation, his mandate to govern might be weakened

‘Best of a Bad Situation’

“This was the best of a bad situation, but at least the only person more disappointed than Le Pen right now is Russian President Vladimir Putin,” Coffey said.

“It’s certainly a loss for Russia, and thus good news,” Tenzer said. “But no one can be reassured with the National Front catching 35 percent of the votes.”

Yet, many French voters—35 percent of them—were willing to overlook the National Front’s checkered past and dubious ties to Moscow to upend France’s political and economic status quo.

Scar Tissue

This was a bellwether day for French democracy, and the fears of a terrorist attack were high.

Meanwhile, as unaware tourists marched past, a bullet hole remained in a nearby light pole.

“France will remain divided after the election,” Marco said from Le Saint Germain cafe. “This election will change nothing.”

Nolan Peterson, The Daily Signal

#Emmanuel Macron #France #French presidential election #Foreign Policy

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therightnewsnetwork · 7 years

Text

Uninspired French Voters Choose a ‘Centrist’ President Rather Than a Far-Right One

PARIS—As is the case most Sundays, Rue de Bac in central Paris was quiet this morning.

The shops were closed, as were most cafes on this day when self-styled centrist Emmanuel Macron would defeat the far-right candidate, Marine Le Pen, to become France’s next president.

Most were reading a newspaper. Two American tourists thumbed through a Lonely Planet guidebook; true to form, their voices a decibel level or two above the rest.

“Have you voted yet?” Marco asked an older man who wore a driving cap and was reading a copy of Le Figaro, a staple conservative French newspaper.

“No,” the man replied between sips of coffee. “And I don’t plan to.”

At the intersection of Rue du Bac and Boulevard Saint-Germain in central Paris. (Photo: Nolan Peterson/The Daily Signal)

Outside the cafe, the sky was gray, the air cool and fresh, and the sidewalks still wet from spring showers the evening prior.

A homeless man sat beneath two vandalized campaign posters for Macron, France’s 39-year-old former economy minister under Socialist President François Hollande. Macron ended upwinning Sunday’s presidential election by taking 65 percent of the vote to defeat his rival, Le Pen, 48, of the far-right, eurosceptic, anti-immigration National Front party.

Vandalized campaign posters for defeated French presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen.(Photo: Nolan Peterson/The Daily Signal)

Yet, with his win, Macron faces a divided country with a litany of economic and security woes, including terrorism and high unemployment.

Abstention

However, for many French voters, both Macron and Le Pen were a disappointment. Le Pen was too extreme, and Macron was considered to be under the thumb of France’s banking elite.

The Arc de Triomphe in Paris on Sunday. (Photo: Nolan Peterson/The Daily Signal)

Macron’s win was decisive. But with such low levels of participation, his mandate to govern might be weakened

‘Best of a Bad Situation’

Security measures at the foot of the Eiffel Tower on Sunday. (Photo: Nolan Peterson/The Daily Signal)

“This was the best of a bad situation, but at least the only person more disappointed than Le Pen right now is Russian President Vladimir Putin,” Coffey said.

“It’s certainly a loss for Russia, and thus good news,” Tenzer said. “But no one can be reassured with the National Front catching 35 percent of the votes.”

Yet, many French voters—35 percent of them—were willing to overlook the National Front’s checkered past and dubious ties to Moscow to upend France’s political and economic status quo.

Scar Tissue

This was a bellwether day for French democracy, and the fears of a terrorist attack were high.

A memorial for French police officer Xavier Jugelé, who was killed by an Islamist militant on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées on April 20. (Photo: Nolan Peterson/The Daily Signal)

Passers-by pause at the site where French police officer Xavier Jugelé was killed by an Islamist militant on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. (Photo: Nolan Peterson/The Daily Signal)

Meanwhile, as unaware tourists marched past, a bullet hole remained in a nearby light pole.

A bullet hole remains on a light pole on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées from an April 20 attack by an Islamist militant. (Photo: Nolan Peterson/The Daily Signal)

“France will remain divided after the election,” Marco said from Le Saint Germain cafe. “This election will change nothing.”

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Uninspired French Voters Choose a ‘Centrist’ President Rather Than a Far-Right One

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