Macron has recently called a snap parliamentary election in the aftermath of the far-right getting a large proportion of the votes in the EU elections. Why exactly he called an election at a point of profound weakness is a little beyond me. Explanations that I’ve seen range from “He thinks the element of surprise will benefit his party and not others,” to “WW3 is about to start and he doesn’t want to be leader for it,” (which, like, isn’t true - Macron is the President of France, not Prime Minister, he won’t be unseated by this election and he has said he will not stand down regardless of result), to “He doesn’t want to swim in the shit-filled Seine.”
While we still have a couple weeks to go, the polling I’ve seen generally puts the far-right in first place with the left-wing coalition slightly behind, with Macron’s party all the way back in third place. Anybody who knows anything about French politics knows that while France does actually have something of a left opposition in aggregate (in contrast to the two wings of the Capitalist Party in the UK and the US, for example), French left coalitions are profoundly unstable and this one will inevitably split - perhaps even before the voting begins - meaning they aren’t nearly as useful as they otherwise could be.
Living in a France governed by far right parties would be awful, but maybe they might at least be against the carnage in Ukraine, and sue for peace with Russia? Well, possibly not, if the example of Meloni in Italy is anything to go by. It seems that the differences between the “centrist” parties and the fascist ones truly are not that great, beholden to the exact same set of capitalists regardless of which party wins, and will likely bend the knee to NATO, though they may grumble a lot. Would a left coalition be better on Russia/NATO? They have already helpfully told us that they won’t (only opposing sending French troops to Ukraine but otherwise being full steam ahead), and additionally are genocidal Zionists. Western leftists have long been hampered by a dramatically faulty misunderstanding of how geopolitics works, with many seemingly believing “imperialism is when countries interact with other countries” and “democracy is when you can vote between two parties even if widely popular policies aren’t at all represented by either of them, and if those popular policies are enacted but it’s by a one-party state then that’s authoritarian evil” and other such strange ideas, making them terminally useless on foreign issues and pretty unremarkable on domestic issues too. France is no exception.
And just to top it all off, this is coming in a period of further imperial decline for the tattered remains of the French empire, with West Africa rebelling and Kanaky (New Caledonia) deeply unhappy with recent French decisions.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you’ve wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don’t worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is France! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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Last week’s thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Israeli press seems to be making a lot of hay about the Beruit International Airport being a staging ground for Iranian weapons. The classic stovepipe straight from military “intelligence” to credulous media stenography, no different than the Iraqi WMD bullshit in 2003.
They are establishing a pretext to bomb it.
Israel is making claims that Hamas smuggled prisoners of war into Sinai, guess this is the excuse they’ll be using to invade Egypt
What reason would they have to invade Egypt? They allow Hamas to smuggle but it doesn’t seem like it’s turning the tide, unless the israelis are lying about their performance 🤔
If they’re genuinely plotting an invasion of Egypt, they’re the dumbest motherfuckers alive
Two wars on entirely opposite sides of the country and another insurgent war inside it is the stupidest way to overstretch yourself.
I always think to myself “did these mfs ever read a history book?” then I remember, not reading history is their thing.
If this happens, the usa should help egypt, it is a more reliable ally as it is despotic and economically desperate, Israel is a liability at this point
Tbh, not really. If elections or an uprising occurs, something like Muslim brotherhood will gain control which is very pro Palestine. If that doesn’t happen and military rule continues, sisi is like the most pro Israel coup general compared to previous ones. Sisi replacement will most likely won’t be this loyal to west
Egypt’s government spent 6+ months doing everything to stay neutral, no matter how much blood was on their hands because of that decision. Yet, would you look at that, the fascists are gonna shoot anyways because they told you they were a scorpion before you picked them up.
Israel complaining that their POWs aren’t being kept in an active warzone currently subject to a genocidal bombing campaign? But I have to admit that it’s going to work, considering their target audience consists of the dumbest and most genocidally gullible people to ever exist
So much of this is just him stumbling through misremembered gibberish phrases and then going blank, punctuated by bouts of aggression. Screaming at clouds would require him to know he was talking to clouds, what his problem with them was, and be able to maintain a train of thought.
do you think nacron is being controlled by his teacher/mommy like ratatouille
Most people didn’t meet their partners as a predator when they were a child though.
I don’t like France
If France has a million haters I’m one of them.
If France has 1000 haters I’m one of them.
If France has 1 hater it’s me.
If France has 0 haters it means I have left this world.
If the world is against France I am with the world,
if the world is for France, I am against the world
-Cao Cao
