French election | Emergence of far right in Europe?

[Husseinisdoingfine]

In the recent Hungary election, the further to the right, Viktor Orbán, and his 'Fidesz' party have won an overwhelming victory, with 49% of the National vote. 

Now in France, Marine La Pen and her National Rally party is back and the race is really close percentage wise in the polling. Marine La Pen has just entered in the last round of the election and the election is coming up in June.

 

 

[Leo Gura]

Not much different from 4 years ago. Of course the MAGA style people have not disappeared. They will be around for a long time, trying to seize power.

[Husseinisdoingfine]

 

[whatishappeningtome]

Maybe, but there's been a lot of left wing victories such as in Germany recently. 

[KingCrimson]

Le Pen is not going to win the run-off vote. I don't believe there is a majority in France for an extreme right wing president.

Macron is a staunch neoliberal and elitist snob who has already demonstrated that he is not going to be able to solve France deep-seated problems. The best thing I can say about him is that at least he is not an extreme right winger and is pro-EU.

I am sympathetic towards Melenchon, but sadly, there is no majority for a far-left president either. So it's going to be Macron for another couple years. It's not great, but Le Pen would be way worse. Her election might even lead to France leaving the EU like the UK did, which would be a disaster.

Orban and Hungary is a bit different. He has already been in power long enough to dismantle some democratic institutions, seize the media, curb women and LGBT rights, and change university curricula to his liking, among other things. Hungary is headed straight for authoritarianism. Similar things are happening in Poland with Kaczynski. 

It will be interesting to see how the EU will deal with this issue. The EU's executive arm has recently started a disciplinary procedure against Hungary that could lead to the freezing of EU funds for backsliding on democratic norms. For the mechanism to take effect, 15 EU member states representing 65% of the bloc's population must agree to the penalty, but Hungary will also have multiple opportunities to appeal the process.

[Husseinisdoingfine]

1 hour ago, KingCrimson said:

I am sympathetic towards Melenchon, but sadly, there is no majority for a far-left president either. So it's going to be Macron for another couple years. It's not great, but Le Pen would be way worse. Her election might even lead to France leaving the EU like the UK did, which would be a disaster.

Melenchon was the only which had a working class centered platform, why didn’t he win!?!?

[8Ball]

The rise of the Swedish democrats the last 10 years is staggering. Close to being the second biggest party here. And yep, they're pretty right. 

[thibault]

I think we all agree here that these far right nationalist movement are a form of ego backlash on the scale of a country. I see lots of criticism, disappointment and general negativity regarding these events. I sometimes wonder if we're missing the point : when in my own life I notice my ego acting up, I always think "What have I neglected ? What have I willfully ignored recently ?".

 

In our Western democracies I think our sins are easy to point out : lack of transparency, lack of democratic representation throughout society, increased centralization of power into the government-corporation-media trifecta. From our point of view these problems are resolved by implementing stage Green and beyond solutions. From the stage Blue point of view, these problems have been brought about by a degeneration of society and an abandonment of the stage Blue values.

 

In France specifically I am shocked to see that the candidates most accurately depicting our nation's issues are the far right candidates. Of course right after they have correctly identified our issues they insert their boiler plate racism as a solution. While for the American election I thought Bernie Sanders was an exceptionally advanced candidate, I see no equivalent in France. Mélenchon, unlike Bernie, is much more of a schemer, much less authentic. He is also anti-EU like the far right. All of the left in France has torpedoed itself by leaving all the serious issues to Macron and the far right as they would much rather talk about whether university students should be allowed to ban white people from non-white meetings.

 

The French motto is "Liberté, égalité, fraternité", "Liberty, equality, brotherhood". Everyone has their favorite of those three, mine is brotherhood. If we cannot see those who voted for a far right candidate as our brothers then we can never change their minds.

[thibault]

@A_v_E Yeah I agree that we need to be more Orange focused in our evolution because our culture has had Green ideals for hundreds of years. I think it's obvious to anyone who knows French culture at all that we are idealistic first and pragmatic last. I also don't think we need a Bernie Sanders but I do wish we had an equivalent, not someone who stands for the same things as Bernie but someone who is a serious candidate with radical ideas relative to the field, deeply rooted in love rather than personal ambition or narcissism.

Edited April 16, 2022 by thibault