France General Discussion II: Living under Marxism

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There is a big rumor today that Peter Hartz, who developped the (in?)famous Hartz reforms in Germany may become an advisor for Francois Hollande. The Elysée denied.

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It's funny because he keeps falling but I have the impression that he has always been between 15% and 20%.

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Fabius prime minister and Juppé running for the UMP primary would really look like we are back in the 80s.

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They will wait until Wednesday to announce the new government because they do not want to do it on April Fools' Day. The only thing we know is that Duflot and Canfin are out.

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She came back on that topic.
Now she says she only wants 'to forbid to forbid pork' in school menus. But pork is not forbidden anywhere despite what she says, and all canteens serve two menus.

http://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2014/04/07/porc-a-la-cantine-l-arnaque-de-marine-le-pen_4396864_4355770.html

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Sounds like it's almost over for Copé. And more trouble is coming for Sarkozy.

On the long term it's a good news for the UMP (at least the moderate wing), in 2017 they will need a candidate who will be able to get some votes from the center and the left for the run-off against Le Pen, it's better to get rid of Copé and Sarko now...

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I hope Jean-Marie Le Pen stays alive and healthy until 2017, he is a major liability to his daughter.

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How horrible. [...]

Who gives a s... about the name of its region?

I was from Languedoc-Roussillon, now I will be from Languedoc-Pyrénées, or something like that. Not a big deal... I am unsure why some people want to spend ages discussing this small reform.

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hahaha what have they done again

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You guys seem to disagree with Montebourg ideas, but him and Taubira seem to be the only people alive in this government. If they happen to leave, there is no one left in the government except boring people who have not a single idea of what to do with their power, led by a guy who could not care less about France and who only seeks personal power.

It also confirms what we all already know: Hollande is extremely weak and he does not control anything or anyone. Valls is the one in power, but I don't think that's a good news...

At least the new government may be more coherent, but who's going to support them? Hollande is at something like 16% of public support, and he keeps making more and more enemies every day.

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Montebourg and Taubira can be leaders, like Valls. It's not the case of someone like Sapin for example.
If I am upset it's mainly because I don't like Valls and I am not happy with him kicking out all those who may resist him. But it's obviously better for Valls/Hollande to have a united government.
They should pay attention not to completely lose the left of the PS, and to do so I think they should keep Taubira. She is a rebel on law and order, but since their main concern is economy it's not a real problem.

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Is there a single success that we will remember from Hollande presidency in 10 years? For now, in two years and a half they only did one thing, and it's Taubira who did it.

Montebourg wanted to nationalize the Florange factory. At least it was something. What's better, a nationalized factory or no factory at all? If it had failed then it would have been its responsibilty, but he has not even been allowed to try, and everyone else is watching without doing anything.

This not related, but I have to praise Fabius for doing his job. He does not talk too much to the media, he's not getting involved in national politics, but thanks to him France is involved in every international issue.

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Saving a factory will do a great NOTHING to actually solve the structural problems of French economy.

And at the end, nothing is done about the structural problems, and nothing is done either about the couple workers. Instead these people are basically said that nothing can be done for them and that they are liabilities in the modern world.
Also, maybe 95% of the people do not care about the grand scheme of things, they want to keep their job and that's all.

So the new economy minister of the Socialist Party is a 34 years old corporate banker from Rotschild.

At least they're not trying to pretend anymore.

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I thought it was quite clear, it would make a difference for the people who work there, and that  matters. Obviously I don't expect it to make a difference in my own life.

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I thought it was quite clear, it would make a difference for the people who work there, and that  matters. Obviously I don't expect it to make a difference in my own life.

The only problem here is that the State's means are scarce. There days, they are more scarce than ever. And wasting them on actions that, even if they do some good, change absolutely nothing to the situation of 64,999,950 french people, is terrible policy and a good part of the reason why France is so screwed.

Well everyone agrees that the means of the State are scarce, the whole debate is about what to do with them.

This factory is a symbol. Factories are closing everywhere in France, farmers have been struggling for years, they want to close barracks in cities that only live thanks to them, etc.
There is no money to help people who make actual stuff, people who produce food, or the army, but in the other hand there is money for bankers or people who make Facebook applications? That's just insane.

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Well it's a symbol because for once someone tried to do something. Everyone else is just watching, and when someone wants to try something he is not allowed to do so by those who are not doing anything. If it had worked it could have been a example for other factories, if it had failed well at least something would have been tried.

Maybe this factory could have been saved with public money, even nationalized for a few years, and sold back to private investors in a few years. Everyone did it with the banks, even more economically liberal countries like the Netherlands or Ireland, so why can't we do it with companies that actually make useful stuff and hire hundreds of people in areas that desperately need jobs?

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So because we cannot compete with foreign countries we should get rid of everything? And if one day there are economic sanctions against China, Russia or others we are only left with bankers, advertisers, artists or IT guys to feed us and make cars and planes?

If you take that specific factory it's a steel factory. It's always going to be useful at some point and it's worth some public money.

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Well I really agree with you on this and Germany for example is much better at that than France. But it's based on a very long experience and it will take twenty years or more to catch up, in the meantime I prefer to have subsidized factories than no factories at all, otherwise we will have to start over from scratch. If in order to do so, we have to run a 4% deficit instead of 3%, forget about the 3% rule.

In the same time people in France have to realize that we are not the best at everything and that it's time to start learning and even copying from those who do better than us. The funny thing is that many already realized it, but those who spent their lives within 50 km^2 in the nice districts of Paris did not, and they still have a lot of power.

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There is no need to convince Draghi, he is already convinced :
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-24/draghi-pushes-ecb-closer-to-qe-as-deflation-risks-rise.html
http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/08/26/can-mr-draghi-get-germany-to-spend/

The only question is when is Merkel going to yield.
For several reasons, I think end of 2016/beginning of 2017 is the most likely.

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Can we cut their heads already?

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Sarko will announce his UMP leadership bid next week.

An interesting thing is that we wants to come back on a more centrist position. He even suggested that the UMP should merge with the UDI. That's a good development, and it's also obviously a good strategy given that centrist voters who chose Hollande in 2012 are unlikely to do it again. He wants to avoid a centrist candidate in 2017, and between Hollande and Sarkozy most of them will choose Sarkozy.
On the other hand, since Hollande/Valls also opted for a centrist position, there is plenty of room on the left and the right for Mélenchon/Montebourg/(others?) and Le Pen, but not enough to win a presidential election.

Even if Sarkozy will probably become leader the UMP, I still a lot of doubt about its capacity to run for the primaries in 2016: his problems with the justice are not going to get any better in the coming months/years.

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I just listened or read what he said, or what is said about him. That would be very bad for Hollande/Valls, there is no difference between them and a more centrist Sarkozy, whether on economy, immigration, security or even individual freedoms (see the last law on terrorism for example).

Why would people vote for the PS when they try to imitate Sarkozy? By definition, the original is better. I can really imagine the PS having a PASOK fate -  they will do something like 12% in 2017.

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That would be a real nightmare.

There is no doubt he will be elected president of the UMP (the election is only open to party members and there is no big challenger), but the open primaries against the bigwigs of the party will be disputed (if he avoids judicial problems before that).

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Must admit I have never read any of his books, have any of you?

All the usual: "Another white, European male" complaints of course.

I don't know the guy, but looking at the list of laureates this complaint is not really honest.

The glorious right-wing economy minister wants to gut unemployment insurance (this is the same rich moron who said that workers in some plant were 'illiterates'): http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2014/10/12/macron-relance-le-debat-de-la-reforme-de-l-assurance-chomage_4504807_823448.html

Can this government be any more of a joke?

There is no doubt that the unemployment insurance can be improved, but Macron cannot afford to make empty announcements like that without saying what he has in mind. He does not have the trust of his own camp, so it only raises suspicion. He's a typical youngster: he is ambitious and he wants to change everything right now -fair enough-, but he speaks too fast and too much.

The French press talked a lot about the problems of the German economy during the last days. There seems to be a kind of schadenfreude from those who claimed that France should not follow the German model.

Just seeing now that a guy from my home area -Toulouse- won the Nobel in economy, it's going to be a big deal there.

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Funny story of the week: a young FN elected member converted to Islam, explained that he realized he had been wrong about Islam all this time and, and sent a video to other members to explain his choice. He was excluded from the party.

Other sad/amusing story of the week: two French people won a Nobel prize lately. It seems quite good for a country of 60 millions, and one could expect people to be relatively proud of it and to rush to their books. But the literature Nobel prize winner Patrick Modiano is only second among the best book sellers of the week: the best seller is Eric Zemmour, with his book The French suicide. The whole book explains why France is going down the brain because of immigrants, Islam, the US, the EU, women, gays, high finance, artists, etc... "France is dying, France is dead. Our elites . . . spit on her tomb and trample on her smoking corpse."

If you want to understand FN voters, read Zemmour. He is kind of the spokesperson and the intellectual hero of the FN supporters. Obviously I see him as a crazy man projecting its own nevrosis, sick obsessions and suicidal thoughts on others, but many are like him.