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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: French elections 2017
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
Caught Fillon's TV interview after the rally. He is certainly getting more airtime than the other candidates due to the scandal.
He appeared unruffled and statesmanlike, which is impressive given the circumstances, as well as unbudgeable as far as relinquishing his candidacy goes. His argument is two-pronged: a) he may not have much party support, but he has grassroots support which is what counts at the ballot box b) he is the only candidate with a plausible manifesto (ie one whose numbers add up).
There is some truth in both of these claims, but it is far from certain that a) would be enough to get him into the second round at this point. I suppose he thinks there's no harm in trying and the damage to him can't get any worse at this point.
[ 05. March 2017, 21:14: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
Juppé has just ruled himself out once and for all as a stand-in candidate. The presidential election is now Macron's to lose.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Juppé has just ruled himself out once and for all as a stand-in candidate. The presidential election is now Macron's to lose.
I think the term is "Can Fillon do a Clinton?" Again, each candidate's major asset is their opponent.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Juppé has just ruled himself out once and for all as a stand-in candidate. The presidential election is now Macron's to lose.
Will Sarkozy now try to take the party nomination away from Fillon? Would Sarkozy have a chance in the race against Macron and Le Pen?
Posts: 1537 | Registered: Mar 2010
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
I think Sarkozy is finished, at least for now. There is a meeting this evening at which they might put pressure on Fillon to give way to another undetermined candidate at some point, but I'd be surprised if he gives ground now to be honest.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
Replacing Fillon with Sarko would be a really stupid move on the part of the Republicans. He’s in trouble with the law himself. Juppé might have been a credible candidate, but not at this point I don’t think. Anyway, I think if Fillon was going to give way, he’d have done it already. Never mind that he seems to be pretty much handing the election to Macron at this point. (Or to Lepen, God help us - but I don't think it's that bad.)
Shorter version: les Républicains sont foutus (the Republicans are screwed)
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
Replacing Fillon with Sarko would be a really stupid move on the part of the Republicans. He’s in trouble with the law himself. Juppé might have been a credible candidate, but not at this point I don’t think. Anyway, I think if Fillon was going to give way, he’d have done it already. Never mind that he seems to be pretty much handing the election to Macron at this point. (Or to Lepen, God help us - but I don't think it's that bad.)
Shorter version: les Républicains sont foutus (the Republicans are screwed)
What scares me looking on as an outsider is that the anti-Le Pen crowd seem to be pinning their hopes on a liberal. Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't the French right and left united in their hatred of liberalism (which is often called "Anglo-Saxon liberalism" there)? Isn't it just too easy to pain Macron as a young, opportunistic, globalist financier who is out of touch with the concerns of the majority of French? It seems almost like when so much of the US pinned our hope on Hillary, although she wasn't nearly as young and was more of a political insider (although a former Finance Minister is still a political insider in my book, despite his lack of experience in running for office).
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
That said, referring to specific incidents (of which there were undoubtedly many, it appears hard to find anyone in France above a certain age who doesn't know a perpetrator or at least a witness) as crimes against humanity is by no means the same thing as describing colonisation as a whole that way.
I'm trying to imagine the reaction were someone to describe British colonialism in the same terms. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
The Ess-Aitch-One-Tee would hit the fan in no uncertain terms. As witness the distinguished and eminent figures who were aghast to discover recently that admiration for the late Cecil Rhodes was not what it was. It wouldn't alter the fact, of course, that Mr (or Ms) unpopular would be basically right. We have an example of a European power which treated other European states as European states treated African and Asian states in the 1940s. It's not, generally, a good idea to remark that they were men of their time and we should not judge.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
In a surprise move, Fillon moved forward his appointment with the judges to today.
The media irritation is palpable and hilarious - the pundits were obviously still working on their commentary and there was nobody there to take pictures.
The charges turn out to be quote:
diverting public funds, complicity in misappropriating funds, receiving the funds and not declaring assets fully.
I suspect that at the end of the day, if anything is made to stick it will be that third, relatively minor offence; but the damage has been done.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
By the way, does anyone know much about this Le Canard Enchaine newspaper that has been breaking all the corruption scandals? I had never heard of it before. Is it well respected? How much is it known for humor/satire vs serious journalism? Does it lean to a particular side politically or is it under the influence of any powerful person or lobby? Is it known for being objective compared to other French media?
Posts: 1537 | Registered: Mar 2010
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
Le Canard Echaîné is roughly the equivalent of the UK's Private Eye and quite widely read. It has a consistently satirical take on the news but its leaks are usually high-quality and not infrequently have repercussions.
During the Fillon scandal stringers from all the political parties were filmed queuing up to get the Wednesday edition hot off the presses on Tuesday night.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
A televised debate is in full swing between the five top-polling candidates.
Fillon is almost invisible, Macron is nodding agreement to everyone except Marine Le Pen, on whom he has landed some pretty resounding blows, and Melanchon has proved surprisingly (to me) eloquent.
My vote is still firmly with Hamon, and I think Melanchon might have stolen some points from Le Pen.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
Last night saw a second televised debate, this one with all 11 candidates. The result was entertaining, but as one Twitter user I saw put it, would have been much more entertaining had it not been presidential candidates for one's own country.
Although ultra-far-left candidate Philippe Poutou stole the show in jeans and something resembling a pyjama top, spending as much time consulting with the people behind him as facing the camera, and mercilessly lambasting Marine Le Pen and Fillon, far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon continues to impress with his combination of intelligence, repartee, and acuity.
The race remains wide open in my view. Round 1 in just a couple of weeks ![[Help]](graemlins/help.gif)
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
The polls seem to indicate that if Melenchon and Hamon's support was combined, they could easily push a candidate into the second round. Why isn't there any support in France to move from a two-round system to a one-round ranked voting system (instant runoff) like for the House of Representatives in Australia? That way, the divisions of the left would be less self-defeating. Granted, not all Melenchon supporters would rank Hamon over Le Pen, but they probably would rank him over Macron. This would also avoid the problem of disappointed leftists staying home for the second round, because if they wanted to vote for their preferred candidate at all they would need to show up to the only round of voting that there is.
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decampagne
Shipmate
# 17012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
The polls seem to indicate that if Melenchon and Hamon's support was combined, they could easily push a candidate into the second round. Why isn't there any support in France to move from a two-round system to a one-round ranked voting system (instant runoff) like for the House of Representatives in Australia? That way, the divisions of the left would be less self-defeating. Granted, not all Melenchon supporters would rank Hamon over Le Pen, but they probably would rank him over Macron. This would also avoid the problem of disappointed leftists staying home for the second round, because if they wanted to vote for their preferred candidate at all they would need to show up to the only round of voting that there is.
I think one of the reasons is that (slightly varied) systems of two-round voting are deeply entrenched as part of the French electoral system overall - not just at presidential level, but to the National Assembly, and to local and regional organs of government too. The formation or reformation of new alliances between the two rounds, as the number of remaining candidates reduces (most commonly to two, but sometimes to three, not usually to any more than that) is a pretty fundamental part of those elections too. I suppose this is felt as providing a kind of responsiveness and flexibility that a one-round system might not permit.
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
What to make of Le Pen's statement that France is not responsible for a famous deportation of Jews during the Holocaust? That the Vichy regime and French officials collaborating with Nazis in the occupied parts of France were not the "real" French government so "France" had no part in the deportations? I know Mitterand had said something similar but in this day and age are there really that many ordinary French people who would find an argument like Le Pen's appealing regarding French culpability in the holocaust? It seems so cowardly.
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
It's just another tired old No True Frenchman argument.
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Hail Gallaxhar
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
France's honest recognition of its role in WW2 is somewhere just above Japan's. Be that as it may, it's revealing to see Marine reverting to type.
I've been wondering whether someone has something ready to launch at Macron in the dying days of the campaign; a sort of French version of the October surprise.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
Polls are showing that there is at least a chance it might be Le Len and far left candidate Melenchon in the second round. Maybe Melenchon's poll bump after his debate performance is fleeting, but if it were Le Pen and him in the second round, who do you think would win? Melenchon's policies seem to make Corbyn look like a Blairite. I would still prefer him over Le Pen, speaking as an outsider, but the possibility of a run off between the two of them is worrying.
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
It's a mistake to draw too many comparisons between Trump and Le Pen. For one thing, she's hardly a misogynist. For another, she is far more eloquent, and leads a party that has built up some solid political experience at local level in her wake. Her party is much smaller than the GOP but she leads it in a way that Trump cannot be said to lead the GOP.
Mélenchon has certainly benefited from a late surge but I suspect this will draw votes away from Hamon, and possibly Le Pen, rather than from the other round 2 favourite Macron.
I'm more worried about Le Pen winning regardless of the opponent than I am about a Le Pen-Mélenchon runoff. I think she is massively under-represented in the polls.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
It's a mistake to draw too many comparisons between Trump and Le Pen. For one thing, she's hardly a misogynist. For another, she is far more eloquent, and leads a party that has built up some solid political experience at local level in her wake. Her party is much smaller than the GOP but she leads it in a way that Trump cannot be said to lead the GOP.
The Bannon comparison was about the anti-semitic and downright Neo-Nazi ties in some of her close aides, not about how much she personally is like Trump.
I read in an NYT article that former FN members have accused the FN of being like a financial racket - that it's much more than just a few cases of financial impropriety that ticks off bureaucrats in Brussels. Has anyone heard more about this?
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I'm more worried about Le Pen winning regardless of the opponent than I am about a Le Pen-Mélenchon runoff. I think she is massively under-represented in the polls.
But if Melenchon is her second round opponent, does that improve her chances of winning?
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I'm more worried about Le Pen winning regardless of the opponent than I am about a Le Pen-Mélenchon runoff. I think she is massively under-represented in the polls.
I am as well. In uncertain times, fear and those who embrace it have greater traction. I think the polls miss this because people are not honest. I wonder if these blokes have run their tool on the French elections.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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decampagne
Shipmate
# 17012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I'm more worried about Le Pen winning regardless of the opponent than I am about a Le Pen-Mélenchon runoff. I think she is massively under-represented in the polls.
But if Melenchon is her second round opponent, does that improve her chances of winning?
I'm sure it must do, but I've not even seen any polls taken that considered the possibility of Melenchon going through to the run-off.
Both in as much as he is a far more unknown quantity (and arguably far more of an extremist) than is Le Pen; and is going to find it even more difficult to obtain parliamentary backing than would Macron (or Le Pen); and in as much as a number. And while it is reasonably easy to envisage a situation in (at which at least part of) Les Republicans and assorted "divers droite" groups in the National Assembly might serve to both work with and moderate Le Pen (as as happened with FN representatives locally in numerous places, over the past 20 years or so) - the same really is more difficult, but not impossible, to foresee happening on the left with Melenchon. Not because it is ideologically impossible (or exactly unprecented - at any rate past "gauche plurielle" coalitions included elements more or less as noxious as Melenchon), but because the fragmentation of the left, and the collapse in support for the Parti Socialiste, makes it far more difficult to envisage.
Frankly I can't see any positive outcome of this election. Fillon or Macron would both be to a degree more or less tolerable, but neither of them is close to setting the agenda.
Posts: 86 | From: Oxfordshire | Registered: Mar 2012
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
it is reasonably easy to envisage a situation in (at which at least part of) Les Republicans and assorted "divers droite" groups in the National Assembly might serve to both work with and moderate Le Pen
I agree with this analysis and hate the fact that it has to be envisaged (I know major industrial firms in France are seriously examining what the impact of a Le Pen presidency might be on their business).
However one scarier and little talked-about part of Le Pen's agenda (as I understand it) is to get Article 11 of the French Constitution altered to allow the president far greater discretion in going over the heads of the government and getting all manner of legislation passed on the basis of popular referenda (and we've all seen how well that works )
I'm not sure what powers any government might have to overthrow this, but it seems like a recipe for instability by creating all manner of excuses for the street and the parliament to argue with the president*.
Which of course would give the president an excuse to invoke article 16 (direct rule by the president)...
For an English-language source discussing article 11, see here under "Frexit".
Note the public perception is that she wants a Frexit referendum, but the underlying policy goal is far broader. I would never have noticed this unless I'd come across it during my translation work on the type of in-house analysis mentioned above.
==
*It is wryly amusing to the see the French tut-tutting over Erdogan's recent referendum victory when our current constitution enables any President with a mind to do so to achieve pretty much the same thing, at least in the short term.
[ 17. April 2017, 20:27: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
One week to go and the whole thing’s looking thoroughly depressing. What I’m hearing from most of my acquaintance* is that they feel like Macron is the only sensible option (not sure this is a good translation – what the French call “raisonnable”) but they’re very unenthused about him. I think some of my work colleagues (finance people and natural right-wingers) are still wavering over Fillon.
I am also quite scared of Le Pen-Melenchon. According to opinion polls Melenchon would win but (a) I don’t trust opinion polls and (b) I don’t want Melenchon to be President either. He actually talks a lot of sense on certain subjects like equality, but I strongly disagree with him on others, notably on protectionism.
*who are mostly lower middle class, whether in Paris or the provinces
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
If anyone is wondering who they might want to vote for if they were French, here is a neat quiz (in French):
https://www.vote-et-vous.fr/presidentielle-2017.html
Cutting and pasting the questions (there aren't very many) into Google translate (which was pretty accurate for the simply-worded questions in this quiz) makes this pretty easy to take if you don't know French.
The only obscure issues I needed to google were Article 49.3 of the French constitution and the reforms of school timetables.
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
Those questionnaires told me what I already knew. But they don't take the issue of tactical voting into account, which is even thornier than usual this time round.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Barnabas62
Host
# 9110
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Posted
An insightful commentary.
I was intrigued by the section on mediocre opponents. Fast finishers always have momentum, but this is two different races.
I'm in the "anyone rather than Le Pen" camp, like just about everyone who posts here. But she looks certain to be in the run off.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
Probably. I'm due to be doing a long-scheduled teaching session for a local church in my region on polling day, on Revelation; or Apocalypse as it is known in French.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Ian Climacus
Liturgical Slattern
# 944
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Posted
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Some talented video editors out there!
Posts: 7800 | From: On the border | Registered: Jul 2001
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ian Climacus:
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
If anyone is wondering who they might want to vote for if they were French, here is a neat quiz (in French):
https://www.vote-et-vous.fr/presidentielle-2017.html
I found this one (in English) earlier:
https://votecompass.france24.com/president/home
This quiz says I most closely match Nathalie Arthaud(!). I am definitely not a Trotskyite, but I knew these quizzes were imperfect anyway. My #2 match is Hamon, which makes sense. If I were French, though, I would vote for Macron in the first round in order to help prevent Melenchon (or Fillon, for that matter) from being the candidate that advances to the second round, presumably against Le Pen. If France had Instant Runoff Voting, I would rank Hamon over Macron, though.
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
Meanwhile Marine Le Pen makes a late bid (link in French, sorry) to alienate the protestant vote by saying Richelieu was right to suppress them as being "against the interests of the nation".
This was clearly a swipe at present-day Muslims but it says a lot about her that she's willing to hold up as an example someone who massacred 23,000 protestants in La Rochelle.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
Gah, dammit, policeman killed tonight in Paris.
BBC
God help us all ![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif)
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arse
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Meanwhile Marine Le Pen makes a late bid (link in French, sorry) to alienate the protestant vote by saying Richelieu was right to suppress them as being "against the interests of the nation".
This was clearly a swipe at present-day Muslims but it says a lot about her that she's willing to hold up as an example someone who massacred 23,000 protestants in La Rochelle.
![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
Would it be fair to say that there is no intersection between 'people who are sympathetic towards Protestants' and 'people who could be persuaded to vote for Le Pen'?
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Would it be fair to say that there is no intersection between 'people who are sympathetic towards Protestants' and 'people who could be persuaded to vote for Le Pen'?
Unfortunately not (at least until now). I have seen French evangelicals actively support Le Pen on FB. Perhaps not more traditional protestants.
The CNEF evangelical federation put out a press release condemning her remarks but it was much less-well worded than the FPF protestant federation's (however, I don't think many Front National voters are in the habit of reading press releases...).
The informed view here is that yesterday's attack in Paris might give a nudge to Fillon and/or Le Pen but is unlikely to affect the first-round result much.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Would it be fair to say that there is no intersection between 'people who are sympathetic towards Protestants' and 'people who could be persuaded to vote for Le Pen'?
Unfortunately not (at least until now). I have seen French evangelicals actively support Le Pen on FB. Perhaps not more traditional protestants.
The CNEF evangelical federation put out a press release condemning her remarks but it was much less-well worded than the FPF protestant federation's (however, I don't think many Front National voters are in the habit of reading press releases...).
The informed view here is that yesterday's attack in Paris might give a nudge to Fillon and/or Le Pen but is unlikely to affect the first-round result much.
Another question is: who exactly is Le Pen trying to appeal to by attacking Protestants? Do FN supporters tend to not like Protestants? Or is appealing to Fillon's base, many of whom are conservative Roman Catholics?
Do secular and nominally Catholic French who are nationalists take pride in the historical defeat of Huguenots and consider the Huguenots (back then, not now) as less French than Roman Catholics? Do conservative Catholics? Is there a difference in opinion regarding this between conservative Catholics who actually go to church and observe Catholic teaching versus those who march in Manif Pour Tous demonstrations but otherwise live secular lives?
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
If Brexit and Trump are anything to go by, Le Pen is trying to appeal to Mr & Mrs Angry (however you say that in French). The exact terms, even the target doesn't matter, but Le Pen can probably see herself as the focus for the "angry" vote.
There's a lot of it about, and it's growing all the time.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
who exactly is Le Pen trying to appeal to by attacking Protestants? Do FN supporters tend to not like Protestants? Or is appealing to Fillon's base, many of whom are conservative Roman Catholics?
Definitely an appeal to conservative catholics who are on the FN radar, even more that of niece Marion Maréchal-Le Pen (coincidentally the grand-daughter of a pentecostal pastor!), and more generally anyone who thinks they are "us" as opposed to "them".
quote:
Do secular and nominally Catholic French who are nationalists take pride in the historical defeat of Huguenots and consider the Huguenots (back then, not now) as less French than Roman Catholics? Do conservative Catholics?
Majority Catholicism in a country is a completely different animal to minority Catholicism and even more so in ultra-montanist France, which is also unique in being the only country to have first accepted the Reformation and then rejected. Religious wars (between protestants and catholics) are scarcely out of living memory here. Rewriting history in this respect is a national pastime*.
quote:
Is there a difference in opinion regarding this between conservative Catholics who actually go to church and observe Catholic teaching versus those who march in Manif Pour Tous demonstrations but otherwise live secular lives?
I'd say the difference is between individuals and the institution.
I enjoy great fellowship with many catholics and a limited amount of success in ecumenical events (we did a joint catholic-orthodox-protestant Good Friday service in my prison for the first time this year). But the institution is quick to clamp down and remind everyone who's boss if they feel threatened in any way.
My enduring impression of institutional ecumenism by the catholics here is that of taking their faithful on a trip to the zoo... (they even have their approved list of ecumenical hymns which they assume we must know and be ok with because the Catholics have decreed that those are ecumenical hymns; you get the idea).
Back on topic, traditional catholics will no doubt vote overwhelmingly for Fillon. He was on the front page of Catholic daily La Croix earlier this week.
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*I may have mentioned this before, but one of the most striking 1984-degree pieces of disinformation I have ever witnessed was shortly after my arrival in France in 1985, the anniversary of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The Edict (1598) granted freedom of worship for protestants; the Revocation ended it, and triggered massive persecution.
The French post office managed to commemorate the Revocation as though it were the Edict, with a stamp celebrating this licence to persecute with the words "1685-1985 - the welcome of the Huguenots - Tolerance - Pluralism - Brotherhood" ![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Pancho
Shipmate
# 13533
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Posted
For what it's worth, the Jesuit magazine America had an article a couple of weeks ago about the signs of a potential Catholic revival in France:
Zombie Catholics vs. French Secularism
The article was written by a Frenchman living in Paris and describes some of the changes he has observed during the last few years. The observations are anecdotal but he makes a case for why these could be early signs of a larger and more influential movement that doesn't always fit previous molds of French (or American) conservatives.
[ 21. April 2017, 17:57: Message edited by: Pancho ]
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“But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places and calling to their playmates, ‘We piped to you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.’"
Posts: 1988 | From: Alta California | Registered: Mar 2008
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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I think the article tells you more about where the guy lives (one of the right parts of Paris) and the circles he moves in than about any national groundswell. He sounds out of touch to me.
There are certainly signs of life in the Catholic church here, but it is through consolidation more than growth. The fastest-growing Christian group are undoubtedly conservative-leaning evangelicals with a dash of health and wealth and church-as-a-business thrown in.
To my mind at least, the politicisation evident in Catholic movements like La Manif pour Tous is no more the sort of Christianity I embrace than the latter kind.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Pangolin Guerre
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# 18686
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quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
If Brexit and Trump are anything to go by, Le Pen is trying to appeal to Mr & Mrs Angry (however you say that in French). The exact terms, even the target doesn't matter, but Le Pen can probably see herself as the focus for the "angry" vote.
There's a lot of it about, and it's growing all the time.
M. et Mme Fâché is dangerously (tellingly) close to M. et Mme. Facho.*
*fâché = angry, facho = (coll) fascist
Posts: 758 | From: 30 arpents de neige | Registered: Nov 2016
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
Why does Melenchon think it is a good idea to talk about Chavez in Venezuela as a role model? Look at what is happening in Venezuela now. The economy has collapsed due to gross mismanagement, crime is rampant and Maduro, Chavez's successor, seems willing to destroy democracy in order to stay in power. Can Melenchon blame all these problems on US imperialism with a straight face?
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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You wouldn't believe how well communist nostalgia plays in France.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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