Most people reading this probably have little interest in French politics so the presidential election today is a bit of a non-story. Macron will win with 60% of the vote as he has the full backing of the European establishment and the cosmopolitan class in France. Unlike the US, French elections are basically a collection of city elections. If you can win Paris, you win France. Imagine if Manhattan dictated our election results.
One reason for this is French politics have largely been conducted in a narrow space of post-war cosmopolitan social democracy. Like teenagers who define themselves by their contentious relationship with their parents, European political elites defined themselves by how petulant they could be toward the Americans. As a result, there is a fundamental lack of seriousness in French political culture. They vote for the cool kids, not the smart kids.
Still, it bears watching for those on the Dissident Right as it helps frame the coming battles in the West over the central conflict of our age. European elites imagine a pan-European feudalism where the peasantry has no identity of their own. The resistance imagines a continent of states governed by national populism that corresponds with their unique cultural heritage. The flash point is immigration from the south, particularly Islam.
The last time a non-approved candidate made it to the second round of the French presidential election was 15 years ago when Le Pen’s father did it. He got 18% of the vote in the second round, but his success had a sobering effect on the French political class after what they saw as a close call with fascism. They started to take the Right more seriously, which is why the mainstream parties have largely converged on all issues.
This time, Le Pen is hoping to break 40%, but there is zero chance she will will win or even make it close. It’s not so much that Macron has much appeal as that Le Pen is not a great politician for France. Her cause needs a roguish male to lead the party, someone who has some flare and has had some success in other areas. France has always needed a man on a horse to restore order and national pride.
That’s why the final number will matter. If Le Pen does break 40%, that will open a lot of eyes in the French political class. If you are an ambitious politician, you will now have a base of 40% to work from simply by adopting the immigration arguments of Le Pen. Avoid some of the weird and unpleasant aspects of the National Front and you can become the great compromise that unites France. That’s the hope anyway, from the Civic Nationalists.
It’s also the fear of the globalists who keep trying to make this election look like a horse race. They desperately want a resounding victory for Macron and they want to have a trophy they can hold up, claiming the Far Right is now dead. The obituaries for Le Pen and her issues are all written and ready to go as soon as the vote is counted. By pretending it is close, they can cast any win as a massive defeat for the Right.
The reality is something different. France, as a self-governing political entity, was probably broken in the Great War, but it was most certainly broken in the Second World War. Getting run over by the Huns and then having most of your political class collaborate with them will do that to a country. If that was not enough, being relegated to the kiddie table during the Cold War finished off what was left of responsible French leadership.
It’s why Macron winning is probably a good thing for France. He is an accelerationist, who wants to fling open the gates and invite in millions of Muslims. He wants to hand over to Brussels what’s left of French sovereignty. Nothing undermines the legitimacy of the rulers like seeing them on their knees, kissing the feet of foreigners. Macron is Marshal Philippe Pétain, without any of the military success on his resume.
If there is any hope for a revival of French culture it will only come through total French humiliation and despair. Once a majority of Frenchmen no longer see any reason to support the status quo, to remain loyal to their betters, then things change and change rapidly. It will not happen through elections and political activism. Democracy is good at driving a country off a cliff. It is useless in pulling it back onto the road. France needs to vote itself off the cliff in order to clear the field for what comes next.
Of course, what comes next may simply be the end of France. There is nothing magical about the land on which the French people live. When Caesar conquered Gaul, he did not conquer the French. When the peasants stormed the Bastille, most people in France did not speak French. The point being, there is nothing permanent about France. Maybe what comes next is the slow invasion of Europe from the south and the death of Europe. It could simply be reversion to the mean and nature is now reclaiming an exception.
I’m noticing that Brexit and Trump were in English-speaking countries. There is a critical mass of alt-Right propaganda in English, but perhaps not in French – yet.
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I would join the others here who pointed out Suez as an inflection point in French history and amplify it a bit. After Suez, the French could no longer act as a great power, no longer trust the United States, and no longer trust Britain to act independently of the US even when it came to shared great power interests. After that, all that was left was the farce of Gaullism and decline.
By the way, France’s revenge for Suez was its very real threat to force the US into default during the dollar crisis (by cashing in its dollar-denominated Euro-dollar accounts for gold). Nixon’s solution was to abandon the gold standard and transition to fiat money (or credit money). Which pissed off the Arabs and helped precipitate the Yom Kippur War… [skipping 45 years of political, economic, and military turmoil], and finds us today mired in debt, with banksters running the world, Europe in decline, and world economy teetering on the verge of massive default and either polity-destroying hyperinflation or civilization-crushing deflation.
It’s all connected.
“France, as a self-governing political entity, was probably broken in the Great War, but it was most certainly broken in the Second World War. ”
In the immediate post-war period Britain and France did try for a recovery of sorts, if not to the level of the superpowers then at least as something with clout outside the immediate west European neighborhood. Suez was the final straw that wiped them out almost completely.
“Of course, what comes next may simply be the end of France. There is nothing magical about the land on which the French people live. ”
France breaking up is a possibility, whether its official or not. Its not a stretch to imagine all those no-go zones turning into dukedoms or fiefs and the cities split into neighborhood city-states. We still have Iraq and Syria on our maps; France may suffer a similar fate. But the French state and the French people are two different things; its still possible for the French people to retrench somewhere and consolidate. It does depend on the will of the their people; if they want a France of their own to survive or not depends on them. Given Macron’s 65% win, the question of whether the French want a France of their own to survive seems very much up in the air.
(To be honest I’ve always thought a total state breakdown and breakup was more likely in Germany which actually has a long history of being disunified. France dissolving into several different states always seemed out of place in my mind given the long history France has had as a unified entity. But I’m not sure how good history can be as a guide to the current situation in Europe; the world wars shook up everything. For instance, it was always Western Europe that was more or less homogeneous and Eastern Europe a jumble of ethnic groups. WW2 and the Cold War have flipped that around.)
I’ve written about this in past and maybe I should revisit it. We have to great trends, it seems. One is the long term trend toward larger and larger organizing units. Village -> Town -> City -> City-State -> Country – Supra-National. The other trend is the dis-aggregation of people within the old nation states. The people living in Normandy, who used to be bound to the people of Bordeaux by patriotism are now drifting away as patriotism falls away. The people in Paris think of those in Lyons as just French speaking foreigners, like Algerians.
Presumably the Globalists envision a two-tier society — upper-tier Atheist White Elite (AWEsomes?), lower-tier Muslim Brown (MoB?). Or rather two societies, one on top of the other. Are there any indications that the Globalists are working on how to protect the AWEsomes from the MoB? Walled-off AWEsome neighborhoods in Paris? Helicopter landing-pads with laser-cannon? Fortress-like corporate skyscrapers?
Qatar and Abu Dhabi are the models here?
Looks like the French went for a bit of food on the table and some jingle in the jeans. Venezuelans did that, too, though the deep pockets in Caracas were not as deep as those in Paris or Brussels.
“If there is any hope for a revival of French culture it will only come through total French humiliation and despair.”
Well, looking on the bright side- they have certainly voted for more humiliation and despair, so let’s hope that works out for them. Seems to me that they’ve voted to terminate France and establish a new Caliphate, but I’ve been wrong before, and little surprises me anymore.
I’ve enjoyed French food & French art; got discriminated against in Paris because I was a “Yankee warmonger;” got feted in a Parisian hotel, as its owner was freed from the Nazis by (you guessed it!) other Yankee warmongers; had the best bowl of French onion soup I’ve ever had in my long life, in Rue St. Denis (where it is now unsafe to travel.)
Here’s to France that was! Tojours le France! And for the hardships to come- the misery, pain, suffering and blood that will be spilled as islam bites, all I can offer is tristesse. I cry for the France that was, in all its glory and paradox. I will miss it, even though I never thought to return. Its loss saddens me.
Me too.
“As a result, there is a fundamental lack of seriousness in French political culture. They vote for the cool kids, not the smart kids.”
Then why are they so opposed to Le Pen if they are not serious? Why did more than 80% of the electorate vote in the first round if they are not serious. And the French vainly think they are the “cool kids”. They have become more and more vain as they have been relegated to the back burner of Europe. But, never doubt how “serious” they are about their vanity. Now, I could agree if you said that “there is a fundamental lack of humor in French culture”.
“If that was not enough, being relegated to the kiddie table during the Cold War finished off what was left of responsible French leadership.”
Responsible? You mean like Clemenceau? Like Edouard Daladier? Like De Gaulle, who was the foremost proponent of flip-off the Americans and British?
“If there is any hope for a revival of French culture it will only come through total French humiliation and despair.”
The French have been humiliated over and over again in the last 2 centuries. Their despair is due to the repetitive nature of their humiliation. Maybe the current French culture is the logical outcome of a gelded people? Maybe this is just karma for the stupidity of Le Révolution francaise? Just the inevitable result of “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité”? Chould a people survive if they think Jerry Lewis was a genius?
Guy Mollet proposed during the Suez Crisis a union with the UK with Elizabeth as the head of State and a joint citizenship. Aim: to be the big cheese in the Med basin and reconquer the nearby Muslim lands and remain a force in world affairs with an economy to match. Eden unwisely rejected it, and defeat in Suez made it moot (thanks Ike!).
Pretty much like the US and UK and Germany, France is a sinkhole of nasty urban places filled with non-Whites a few sheltered White elites. With of course the pill, condom, anonymous urban living, mass media aimed at female consumerism peeling off White women to that of elites and non-Whites. Look at popular entertainment: murderous bad boys, bad boys, apocalyptic bad boys (no more hateful Western Civ), all aimed at women/girls: CW’s 100, Riverdale (Archie is now a vampire, and Veronica a slut), Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, Walking Dead, Shades of Grey, Outlander (woman time travels to escape her boring hubby and marry instead his exciting bad boy ancestor). America elected Trump because A. Hillary was so repulsive a candidate her young female base did not turn out instead binge-watching Girls; B. A lot of people still live in exurbs and own property — making them conservative about inviting the Third World.
Should a young man of ambition arise in France, he ought to propose giving the average Frenchman a plot of land, his forever, no ability to sell or encumber. THAT would make them very conservative — if you owned a small plot of land would you want Muslims coming over to take it? [Napoleon did something similar to end the French Revolution and got a massive Army out of it.] Seize the apartments of the rich and give it to exiled Frenchmen in the boonies? Maybe?
[Loved the interview on 2Kevins.]
Let me add, Mollet’s model and its failure was tragic. He was a man of the Left, who wanted an Imperial and Military presence, for both France the UK. I’d like “everyone in the party man!” because it insures me from political risk of a new faction gaining power and deciding to go full Third World immigration. I work in Software Development and have seen first hand how whole sections of companies and sectors are nothing more than H1-B body shops with No White Man Need Apply. [Microsoft products are so crummy because of this — they have almost no White coders left in non-senior positions.] Having to constantly stay on the edge of emerging technologies and spin up very fast is not fun; you lose your prior expertise in a language and environment just to stay ahead of the Indian/Chinese hordes.
People like Mollet are insurance against that — and it was tragic that his model failed. He certainly attempted scale against the Soviet and US competition.
I think the Jerry Lewis thing had a lot to do with people virtue signaling about liking a Jew. He was any easy way to do it with no personal investment involved. If any people is into virtue signaling, it’s the French.
“French politics.” Enjoyed that line! It brought to mind one of my favorite made for TV movies, The Scarlet Pimpernel (1982 – Anthony Andrews, Jane Seymour, Ian McKellen). A good scene is when British Sir Percy Blakeney, Baronet (Andrews – secretly the Scarlet Pimpernel) is dressing down pompous Leftist French Revolutionary Chauvelin (McKellen):
Chauvelin: We shall execute our king instead, sir, and exalt our tailors.
Sir Percy: More’s the pity. Then your tailors will rule the land, and no one will make the clothes. So much for French fashion, and French politics.
Guess some things don’t really change. Here’s the scene. Did I mention Ian McKellen? Ha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKgs7hv9_Kw
More of the same. The meme for LePen on the DS is her riding that flying dog from The Neverending Story.
The results are not surprising. The shock was that she made it to the second round. Scoring 35% does suggest there’s something to build on, but I think Le Pen is the wrong sex and she reminds people that her party was founded by a guy most French regard as a buffoon. Maybe this respectable showing will encourage more sober minded professionals to run on the Le Pen line.
As I said, I think France is a walking corpse. Paris is a museum for the global rich surrounded by Muslim peasants. As the noose tightens, the cosmopolitans will decamp for somewhere else. Our ruling classes are the sort that has a suitcase packed at all times.
I believe that most binary choice elections crystalize down to an unspoken “ugly truth” question that is never publicly discussed but that catches the current mood of the electorate. Way back in 1992, in Canada, (talk about politics that nobody is watching), an ill-conceived Constitutional Referendum was held that resulted in an embarrassing loss for the ruling Progressive Conservative (sigh, don’t ask, it’s Canada) party. The merits of the proposal didn’t matter a whit; what mattered was that it gave the country an opportunity to cast a screw-you vote to the Elites that run the country (sound familiar?)
For Brexit, the question was “Aren’t you tired of Europe running your life?” Last November, the question in America was “Don’t you hate those smug elitists in Washington? In France, unless I’m mistaken, the question turned out to be “Do you really want those scary Far Right monsters to user in a Fascist nightmare?”
This says something about how much more power the French elite holds. It also says something about the state of nationalism in France. In the US, of course, a concerted effort is under way to equate any form of national pride with a Klan Rally. I’m a little surprised that nationalism has become so tainted in France, though.
One problem for the New Class is that they are running out boltholes. They are shitting in every room in the mansion, so to say
“They vote for the cool kids, not the smart kids.”
That sounds at least as much like American politics as French. At least since JFK’s hair beat NIxon’s five o’clock shadow.
Vercingetorix 2022!
Kodus on starting a firestorm on VD. Your libertarianism post really got the Dread Ilk on a roll!
Ah, autocorrect…Kudos!
I was wonder why Kdos would have started a firestorm there. 😉
I saw that and it is interesting to me that there was so much pent up anger between the camps.
Kodos? The Executioner?
What language did most people speak in France in 1789?
Up until the Jacobins, Corsican, Breton, Gallo, Basque, Franco-Provençal, Occitan, and Catalan were common regional languages. During the French Revolution, the Left decided they had to fix this and began to enforce language rules and uniformity. Sound familiar?
Three million of 25 million spoke Parisian French. 80% of the population were peasants, and 99% of those were illiterate by the design of the Church and the ruling class. The regional languages were, among others, Breton, Norman, Picard, Provençal, Gascon, Basque, Corsican Italian, forms of German, and dialects of said languages. There are still 400,000 Frankish speakers in northwest France. Add very bad roads to intentional illiteracy and this is situation normal anywhere.
To this day Parisians turn away from Canadian French like a bad smell. I prefer the sound of it, with a Teutonic ring and lacking the studied affectations of Parisian French.
Likewise Louisiana Cajun French. The ancestors of both the Cajuns and Quebeckers were separated from the Parisians centuries ago, and evolved independently. I understand that Canadian and Louisiana French are closer to each other.
Just a question of taste, but I believe the most mellifluous French is Belgian French.
A small disagreement: people who come here care very much indeed about European elections.
Macron Petain! So Vichy.
I defer to you, Frau Merkel, und ze oppergruppenfuhrer blue-haired vegan slam poets.
Our next revolution will almost certainly be French style.
Reading yesterday’s comments, conservatives conveniently forget- as they always forget- that they spent decades with one focus: putting libertarians in jail.
Not SJWs, racebaiters, trade unionists, open border opportunists, warmongers, anti-tobacco zealots, or snitches and secret police.
All while quoting the Constitution.
We are now to sing your hosannahs!
Victory is at hand!
We have made our fair land safe for new brothers, Welcome oh yearning masses!
you sound drunk; stinking drunk even 🙁
Which conservatives, where, what decades, which libertarians? (Not disagreeing, just wondering what you have in mind.
Dopers?
You are making no sense
So much bitter irony. It’s not our fault your little movement was high-jacked by left-wing open borders pot-smoking hippies. If you don’t like it then take your fight to them, hypocrite. Why cling to the name ‘libertarian’ any longer if you don’t agree with their official positions? At least The Gipper took it like a man when the Dems left him, don’t loose your head or anything…
Dammit. Had to upvote that- it ain’t what it was, is it?