French Fashion -- This year is yellow vests

[mikewhitney]

It doesn't seem like we are hearing enough about the French protests.

People from the wide political spectrum have not felt represented within the government in their needs, situation and interests. The protests (mostly non-violent) appears to be a spontaneously-started movement which is supported by seventy percent of the people.

Pray for the people of France.

The question of the day is: How did the government get so distanced from the will of the people?

[heavily edited]

[Sparko]

It doesn't seem like we are hearing enough about the French protests.

People from the wide political spectrum have not felt represented within the government in their needs, situation and interests. The protests (mostly non-violent) appears to be a spontaneously-started movement which is supported by seventy percent of the people.

Pray for the people of France.

The question of the day is: How did the government get so distanced from the will of the people?

[heavily edited]

Because Macron is a typical socialist liberal who doesn't care what the people think and believes he knows best what they need?

[One Bad Pig]

Because Macron is a typical socialist liberal who doesn't care what the people think and believes he knows best what they need?

...who got into office because he was a new and therefore interesting face, managed to attain top two in a crowded field, winning the runoff against a "right-wing extremist"? It's not as if the people knew just what they were getting; he won the runoff because he wasn't the "extremist".

[Terraceth]

Because Macron is a typical socialist liberal who doesn't care what the people think and believes he knows best what they need?

From what I can determine, Macron actually seems mostly right-wing on economics (the fuel tax he was pressured into rescinding being one of the exceptions). For example:
https://www.politico.eu/article/emma...rity-plummets/

"Labor charges on employers are set to drop by close to €20 billion, while working households will get around €6 billion worth of cuts. A tax on overtime pay is to be axed from September 2019, as is a housing tax. And the government plans to cut 4,500 state jobs next year, followed by another 10,000 in 2020."

That doesn't sound particularly socialist.

[Starlight]

Macron reminds me of when neo-liberalism was introduced in my country in the 80s: A guy in a left-wing party decided deregulation and neo-liberal economics was the way of the future, and without really consulting anyone (even his own party for which he was finance minister) started enacting extreme right-wing economic policies which caused the voters and others in his own party to have a tantrum, and he subsequently founded a libertarian political party that remains unpopular to this day (0.5% in last election).

Macron seems to be of the same mold - origin in a left wing party but he himself seems to be a libertarian and in his new party is doing some extreme right-wing economic policies which are causing the general populace to throw a tantrum. France is a fairly left-wing country economically, so Macron's strongly right-wing economic policies are causing a great deal of upset.

Problematic is the misleading terminology that was used during the last French elections: Le Penn was often described as "far right" due to her anti-immigrant policies - but her economic policies were pretty normal and centrist, while Macron was described as 'centrist' due to his social policies being fairly normal and the media tended to ignore his extreme right wing / libertarian economic policies. The Political Compass chart shows the issue:



Macron there is plotted as a typical US Libertarian (not to be confused with the social y-axis on the chart) - that's about where they put Rand Paul on their graphs (although they note that their US charts shouldn't be directly compared to international charts cos the entire US political spectrum is further to the right compared to other Western countries). Fillon is plotted as a typical right-winger, much where Republicans usually get plotted, and Hamon as a fairly typical left/center-left. Le Penn you can see is in a rather strange place - very conservative on social issues but pretty middle of the road on economic issues. Trump sometimes got plotted in this sort of area in the lead up to the 2016 election as his numerous contradictory statements on many policy issues made him look fairly socially conservative but a bit more middle of the road economically than most Republicans (which didn't really turn out to be the case).

[Starlight]

Because Macron is a typical libertarian socialist liberal who doesn't care what the people think and believes he knows best what they need?

Yes. Fixed it for you.

[rogue06]

Macron reminds me of when neo-liberalism was introduced in my country in the 80s: A guy in a left-wing party decided deregulation and neo-liberal economics was the way of the future, and without really consulting anyone (even his own party for which he was finance minister) started enacting extreme right-wing economic policies which caused the voters and others in his own party to have a tantrum, and he subsequently founded a libertarian political party that remains unpopular to this day (0.5% in last election).

Macron seems to be of the same mold - origin in a left wing party but he himself seems to be a libertarian and in his new party is doing some extreme right-wing economic policies which are causing the general populace to throw a tantrum. France is a fairly left-wing country economically, so Macron's strongly right-wing economic policies are causing a great deal of upset.

Problematic is the misleading terminology that was used during the last French elections: Le Penn was often described as "far right" due to her anti-immigrant policies - but her economic policies were pretty normal and centrist, while Macron was described as 'centrist' due to his social policies being fairly normal and the media tended to ignore his extreme right wing / libertarian economic policies. The Political Compass chart shows the issue:



Macron there is plotted as a typical US Libertarian (not to be confused with the social y-axis on the chart) - that's about where they put Rand Paul on their graphs (although they note that their US charts shouldn't be directly compared to international charts cos the entire US political spectrum is further to the right compared to other Western countries). Fillon is plotted as a typical right-winger, much where Republicans usually get plotted, and Hamon as a fairly typical left/center-left. Le Penn you can see is in a rather strange place - very conservative on social issues but pretty middle of the road on economic issues. Trump sometimes got plotted in this sort of area in the lead up to the 2016 election as his numerous contradictory statements on many policy issues made him look fairly socially conservative but a bit more middle of the road economically than most Republicans (which didn't really turn out to be the case).

Oh goody, Starlight's favorite political test that pegged me as more liberal than most of the self-professed liberals here as well as several other comically inept conclusions for other posters and politicians

The fact is Marcon was the Minister of Economy and Finance under the Second Valls government, which consisted of 15 ministers from the Socialist Party (PS) and 2 from the Radical Party of the Left (PRG). Yup someone with "extreme right-wing economic policies"

Then what can someone expect coming from someone who has repeatedly declared that the communist dictator Joseph Stalin was a right-winger

[Sparko]

Yes. Fixed it for you.

The political compass is a joke. It showed me as basically where Hamon is on the chart above. Do you believe I am a liberal libertarian?

The entire chart you showed if compared to American politics would probably have to be shifted completely to the left 100%.

After all Obama endorsed Macron. And Obama is probably in the pink left upper quadrant.

[rogue06]

The political compass is a joke. It showed me as basically where Hamon is on the chart above. Do you believe I am a liberal libertarian?

The entire chart you showed if compared to American politics would probably have to be shifted completely to the left 100%.

After all Obama endorsed Macron. And Obama is probably in the pink left upper quadrant.

IIRC it had Mountain Man pretty far to the left. That says a lot concerning its veracity, or lack of it.

[Sparko]

IIRC it had Mountain Man pretty far to the left. That says a lot concerning its veracity, or lack of it.

And that was with us taking the actual quiz and not just someone answering for someone else as is the case with Starlight's chart.

[One Bad Pig]

And that was with us taking the actual quiz and not just someone answering for someone else as is the case with Starlight's chart.

He somewhat surprisingly got Le Pen right - she's only "far right" on immigration; on everything else, she's pretty much run of the mill socialist.

[rogue06]

And that was with us taking the actual quiz and not just someone answering for someone else as is the case with Starlight's chart.

And yet he repeatedly offers that test, which has shown itself about as accurate as rolling dice to determine correct results, as some sort of authoritative indication of someone's views.

[Terraceth]

After all Obama endorsed Macron. And Obama is probably in the pink left upper quadrant.

I think Obama's endorsement was less due to any sort of left-wing/right-wing consideration and more the fact that Macron was obviously going to be considerably more "international-friendly" than Le Pen was. Macron got multiple endorsements from prominent members of The Republicans, which is France's right-wing party, including the person who was their candidate for president after losing out in the initial primary. Notably, the most left-wing of the French presidential candidates, Mélenchon, didn't endorse Macron.

But on your original "liberal socialist" classification, consider the criticisms made of him in this article:
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ate-owen-jones

Macron is a pound-shop Margaret Thatcher, redistributing wealth to those with too much of it, while assaulting workers’ rights and France’s hard-won social model. His tax changes have gifted the hundred wealthiest households more than half a million euros a year: the top 1% captured 44% of his new tax breaks.

For the less affluent, it’s a different story. This former investment banker has slashed housing benefit, and hiked taxes on pensioners – in a country where the average monthly pension is just €1,300 (£1,100). His policies have shifted the workplace balance of power from workers to bosses. French students are staging occupations and protests against more selective entry requirements for universities, derided as an attack on free universal education and France’s social model.

Another pillar of his agenda is privatisation, including of France’s airports and part of the national energy utility. His confrontation with rail workers is seen as an attempt to lay the foundations for a catastrophic British-style privatisation of the railway industry. EU-mandated deregulation will mean foreign companies can soon compete with the state rail company SNCF, and Macron is transforming it from a state enterprise into a limited company; exactly what happened with the formerly state-owned France Télécom.

Obviously, that's an opinion piece from a left-wing writer, so you may not agree with their criticisms. But when you look at what their criticisms are, I don't see how in the world he can be classified as a "liberal socialist." The liberals are the ones complaining he's too right-wing!

Granted, there are left-wing policies he's enacted, like the fuel tax he came under so much fire for. He's not fully right-wing in economics. But when you put it all together, it seems pretty obvious he's at worst centrist on economics.

[Starlight]

And that was with us taking the actual quiz and not just someone answering for someone else as is the case with Starlight's chart.

Your inability to answer a quiz accurately notwithstanding, the graphing of politicians on the site is not done by someone taking the quiz for them it is done by political scientists directly graphing them on the chart. The quiz is quite a separate feature to the international graphs of politicians, the only overlap being they are graphed on the same chart layout.

[Starlight]

The liberals are the ones complaining he's too right-wing!

Also if you look at the concessions Macron has made to the yellow vest protesters to try to appease them, it's clear the protesters (whom ~80% of the French people seem to support against him) are to his economic left... his primary concessions so far have been an increase for the minimum wage and increases for low-income pensioners.

If Macron's concessions to the mass populace uprising against him are to do some left-wing economic policies to appease them, that indicates he is significantly to the right of mainstream views on economics in France.

Granted, there are left-wing policies he's enacted, like the fuel tax he came under so much fire for.

That one's a bit complex and not exactly a left-wing policy. Macron has long been under fire for doing absolutely nothing whatsoever on the environment, and his environment minister resigned on-air in disgust and condemnation at Macron's inactivity on climate change. So Macron decided he needed to do something, and the something he chose was the most 'regressive' possible option (i.e. a tax that disproportionately fell on the poor rather than the rich), which is a very right-wing approach to taxation in general. While some left-wingers do support the idea of fuel taxes in general as part of their more general idea that there should be carbon taxes in general, others are concerned that fuel taxes in particular fall more heavily on the poor than the rich.

If Macron's implementation of the fuel tax had been part of a more general carbon tax he was implementing that might have been palatable to the left. But as it is, his fuel tax pleased almost no one with the left not liking it because it was regressive and the rural people of France who are generally more right-wing not liking it because it fell rather heavily on them. The only people that liked it are the 1%-ers who seem to be Macron's target audience as per usual for right-wing economic policies.