Hey, let's revive the thread a bit.
The really fascinating thing about French politics these days is how Macron has utterly destroyed all opposition. I can't even tell who's supposed to be the opposition party.
Our alt-right and the FN are all busy beating up Marine Le Pen and the former FN leadership for, basically, not being fascist enough. It's not particularly clear what Le Pen is doing meanwhile.
The traditional right has split in two; one half has merrily joined Macron, the other half has chosen Laurent Wauquiez for a leader, an untalented and uncharismatic random fascist in a sleeveless parka.
Benoît Hamon (PS, traditional left) has left the PS and goes on being nice and friendly and not mattering at all. (A pity really, he was by far my favorite candidate).
The left is sort of united behind Mélenchon, who is trying, and failing, to rise up people against Macron. Earlier demonstration is a failure, may 1st was a disaster, and it looks like Macron simply does not care about the strikes, not one bit.
Ryusenshi wrote:
Edit: also, I don't get why Hollande was so unpopular. He had always been a weak, indecisive man; and he became a weak, indecisive President. What were people expecting?
I don't entirely get it either. As far as I can see, Hollande had run under a platform of not being Sarkozy and sucessfully implemented his policy of not being Sarkozy.
Well, actually, I do get it. More on that later.
Salmoneus wrote:French politicians have called for a sixth republic every election since the 1980s. It's never happened, largely because a) it's not clear what's wrong with the fifth, and b) it's even less clear what could be tried in a sixth.
As for me, I'd rather have neither the Fifth nor the Fourth republic but a sensible form of parliamentary government with more proportional representation. Couldn't we just borrow the German federal constitution? It's nice, stable and fairly more representative IMO than our own.
Your other remarks on the French Constitution is fairly spot on. I should note that most of the candidate's platform were actually suitable (if the Constitution was interpreted literally) for a legislative election; none of them were presidential platforms (none of them really mentioned anything about the actual job of the President that is, mostly being Commander-in-Chief and foreign policy).
Macron mentioned once that the French still miss the king. I believe is right, that a good part of the electorate, for some weird, unexplainable reason, likes having a monarch and that Macron has played - and is still playing - that part of the electorate like a violin.
And I have to say, Macron looks and acts the part: fairly good-looking (at least compared to Hollande and Sarkozy), well-dressed (oh the agony of comments about Hollande's tie) cultured (freely quoting philosophy where it's unclear whether his immediate predecessors ever opened a book) and above all, he's always careful to look like the guy in charge. I don't know, maybe it's Freudian, but it looks like people want all that alpha male shit.
Myself, I'm fairly skeptical of Macron. As far as I can see, it's just like the Chirac years, with an extra dressing of bullshit and posturing, but hey, ultimately, it's what people wanted so that's democracy in action, I guess.
Ryusenshi wrote:Yeah, I've watched with despair my country turn into a semi-dictatorship with a few, seemingly unimportant changes in the election system. [...]
And we're turning into a police state in the name of "opposing terrorism". Nowadays, you can't get into a public building without having someone check your bag. The only good news out of this mess? If you're a scary-looking black guy, you can easily get a job as a security agent.
I don't agree with you on that. We're not in Putin's Russia. The UK looks a lot more like a semi-dictatorship and a police state than France does.