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French protesters rage at ‘stolen election’ as Macron picks conservative Barnier for PM
(www.france24.com)
this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2024
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This is a complete myth: France public spending has never been this high (yes, even adjusted for inflation). France has never had so many public employees. France's health care spending has grown (fast) every year. Taxes have not significantly been dropped either.
Macron's government has also passed many left-oriented bills: 1 € meals for poor student, free contraceptive and morning after pills, culture check for youth, increased paternity leave, alleviating the SNCF debt, coverage of listening and dental prosthesis, subsidies for increasing housing insulation or repairing clothes, higher taxation on polluting cars, the shutdown of the airport project in Nantes, surrogate mothers, etc. You are telling me none of this could be worked on further with the left?
For one nobody is saying it should be 70, for two the 60 year age is being quietly dropped by the left. Everyone knows we ain't going back to the 1981 age, given the demography.
But the centre and left can recognize there's an obvious demographic and financial issue. And surely can find a compromise where people with long career and hard labor retire early, and those with office jobs and long studies can probably retire a bit later. In other countries like Germany, alliances ranging from far left to centre right can work on compromises and agree on a single program. It's perfectly doable to find middle ground.
I think you fail to realize that in 1982, perspectives on LGBT issues were FAR FAR different than they are today. Huguette Bello, a communist which was proposed as a prime minister by the left, refused to support gay marriage, and that was in 2013 not 1982. But she is not a bigot and Barnier is?
Funny that you would mention that, I was reading liberal propaganda not two minutes ago, and then this came: https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2024/09/10/l-erreur-budgetaire-majeure-de-l-allemagne-emporte-toute-l-europe-avec-elle_6310318_3232.html
Public services do seem to be deteriorating in France, it comes from the mouth of liberals themselves. It's a trend that has all but shifted in the 30ish years I've had the chance to be alive with the West being under the yoke of liberals of all professed kinds.
The Macron regime has brought too little measures, too late. And for one small step it's taken forward, it made two backwards (retirement age being a HUGE one).
What does the 1€ meal bring if public money is going to end up in private hands, driving up inflation? The culture check you mention is a laughable demagogic measure (one would say, "popullist") if I ever saw one. Sure you don't have a job or any economic prospects, but at least you can buy manga, public money that will once again end up in private pockets. That's not what left wing politics are about.
When do we get rid of parisitic media like the foul stuff brought by Bolloré et al? Why did the Macron regime try to restructure Radio France in prevision of a private buyout before the dissolution of parliament? I thought we had a media concentration problem? Also, when do we stop filling the pockets of the already-rich (cf ISF)?
The feminist measures (glad the French have them!) surely don't outweigh the islamophobic panic reinforced by stupid measures about the type of garment you can wear in public? Oh, and when do the French get the long promised right to die in dignity yet?
I'm glad there's a couple things that will materially impact the living conditions of French citizens (dental care is cool!), but it's too little, way too late. I'd say I can accept a few liberal measures in an ocean of actual anticapitalist measures, not the other way around. We don't have time for that shit with the climate crisis. We can't act as if things were business as usual.
It's quite ironic that the libs would criticize the French left's fiscal responsibility. They manage to accomplish the herculean task of delivering very few things in 7 years with an impressive deficit. How cool is that?
Regarding Bello, the truth is a bit more complex: https://www.huffingtonpost.fr/politique/article/huguette-bello-a-matignon-pourquoi-ca-coince-pour-le-profil-presque-parfait-degote-par-le-nfp_236861.html
She did not explicitly vote against gay marriage (abstained) and celebrated the union of two men a few months after the vote. Hardly a vocal opponent against gay marriage, and a far cry from the bigoted votes of Barnier. Sure, that means she wasn't LGBTQ-concious or an ally, but, oh boy, talk about misrepresentation of facts! I'd accept any public apology from the Boutin's and the Maréchal's and the Sarkozy-aligned, in which cast I'd retract my accusations of bigotry... But I think I shouldn't hold my breath. They will be bigoted when enacting societal policy in France, and Macron knows it bloody well.