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Post by kerouac2 on Dec 4, 2020 4:20:33 GMT
No, the mask is obligatory.
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Post by kerouac2 on Dec 12, 2020 16:40:24 GMT
(Some of) the French are marching again every Saturday. This is about the new law proposal for protecting the police. The French have always been anti-police, so it always sounds like a good idea. Last week, there was major vandalism along the route of the march. This week the police have changed their strategy, using extreme "flanking" along the march route. This prevents the black bloc from smashing banks and other businesses along the way because the police are on the side preventing any contact with the buildings. The yellow vests are joining in because nobody cares about them anymore, which pretty much proves that they have had a valid issue.
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 24, 2021 9:37:43 GMT
Since everybody knows that teens and young adults are among the groups that respect the health rules the least (masks worn properly, curfew, etc.), President Macron had the rather clever idea of making a challenge to two of the most popular YouTubers in France, McFly and Carlito. He said that if they made a video about the covid rules and it reached 10 million views, he would invite them to the Elysée Palace to participate in one of their famous "anecdote battles." This will expose quite a few of their fans who never pay attention to any real news to the things they should be doing and probably start lots of debates among them about whether it is all bullshit or not.
Anyway, the video has reached ten million views in just three days. Naturally, since they are comics the video is not super serious, but it does cover all of the prevention and health rules as well as the consequences for flouting them. It has the added bonus of showing La Défense in the snow.
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Post by htmb on Feb 24, 2021 19:36:43 GMT
Cute and humorous!
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 1, 2021 16:24:52 GMT
Former president Nicolas Sarkozy was convicted of corruption today and received a sentence of 3 years of prison (two years suspended). The case basically concerned attempting to obtain special favours for a judge. Another case is coming up later this month for the fraudulent invoices of a consulting agency during his presidential campaign. He said that he had never heard of this company even though he signed the payment orders.
Naturally, nobody thinks that he will ever go to prison since this will certainly go to the court of appeals and then the supreme court, but it puts a definite damper on the idea of his return to politics, which the traditional right had been hoping for, due to the lack of any credible candidate in their camp.
The next presidential election is in 2022.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 1, 2021 19:17:17 GMT
Ho ho ho ~ let us hope that something similar happens in the US, but with more dirt exposed and more severe consequences.
I assume there are people already making candidate noises now, since 2022 is not all that far away.
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 1, 2021 19:35:54 GMT
People are jockeying in just about every party except Macron's and Le Pen's, who are expected to be the same two second round candidates as last time. It is quite unlikely that anybody can really rock the boat, except that Sarkozy thought he might. Right now he is down for the count because today's verdict and the immediate appeal means that the sentence is suspended until the next trial - which will be in 2022. So that pretty much means that no campaigning would be possible.
All of the parties to the left of Macron would have a chance if they could cooperate. Socialists, Communists, Greens, LFI (radical left), Trotskyists (sounds laughable but they got 6% of the vote in 2002) and other fringe parties. But they all hate disdain look down on each other and are incapable of compromise. All of them are in favour of a coalition on the condition that their party is the figurehead. No way.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 7, 2021 4:49:43 GMT
I found this article most interesting -- tantalizing, even -- but also frustrating. Macron occupies a crucial position on the world stage right now and I for one wish him well. The article purports to give insights into the current mood of France and its politics and also an overview of how Macron is handling things. It should be great reading, but to my mind is marred by several sweeping statements which lack even a whisper of validation. I am curious as to what residents of France & followers of French politics have to say about it. www.nytimes.com/2021/03/05/world/europe/france-emmanuel-macron.html
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 7, 2021 5:22:52 GMT
Actually, nothing raised my hackles in that article, which is rare for NYT articles about Europe. However, one point that everybody seems to miss when criticising Macron's "authoritarianism" is that he has absolutely no choice but to make the final decision on a lot of subjects. His government ministers come from left, right and centre and regularly squabble among themselves over policies that do not appeal to them. Macron often has to blow his referee whistle to get them to shut up settle down. If he let one side dominate the other, half of his government would walk out.
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Post by patricklondon on Mar 7, 2021 10:59:50 GMT
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 7, 2021 11:37:47 GMT
De Gaulle turned the 5th Republic into a presidential regime like the United States. The 3rd and 4th republics were extremely unstable (21 different administrations in 12 years for the 4th republic.), like Italian governments. (Funny how Trump managed to turn his term into a completely authoritarian regime, far worse than anything Macron has done.)
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Post by mossie on Mar 7, 2021 12:03:49 GMT
Please see my little bit in "what we are all reading", which shows me that French politics since the Revolution have been very conflicted with parties being unable to come to a common conclusion, which seems to lead to needless delay and muddle. The vaccination shambles is just an example, although I am pleased to see great strides are at last being made.
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 7, 2021 15:06:56 GMT
I keep wondering why people keep saying that the EU vaccinations are a shambles. Does every country ahead of other countries find an automatic need to disparage them? Has no one heard of the tortoise and the hare? Maybe it would be prudent to check back in a month or two.
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Post by onlyMark on Mar 7, 2021 17:55:28 GMT
Depends where the finish line is, what the finish is and will there ever be a finish.
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Post by fumobici on Mar 8, 2021 2:30:47 GMT
I keep wondering why people keep saying that the EU vaccinations are a shambles. Does every country ahead of other countries find an automatic need to disparage them? Has no one heard of the tortoise and the hare? Maybe it would be prudent to check back in a month or two. The US under Trump has hardly been an example of how to deal effectively with the pandemic, but Biden has predicted that vaccines will have been available to all adults by the end of May, and I believe it. I don't know the exact situation in France, but I'm not aware of any EU country that will be at or even anywhere near to that point until months later. Italy is doing poorly right now and isn't expecting to be at the point where the US will be in terms of vaccination by June until late in the year at best. I can understand less developed and technically advanced nations not keeping pace with a wealthy country like the US but I don't understand why the EU is doing such a massively worse job of getting critical vaccination done than the US or the UK. It really is day and night. Widespread vaccination is the only way out of this. I would be happy to post links to the data for any skeptics out there.
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Post by Biddy on Mar 8, 2021 3:00:30 GMT
Bixa - trust me I read everything on the NYT re France and I have been more than pissed off with Roger Cohen and some of his reporting. He doesn't 'get' secularism IMHO. I just find it hard to believe that voters will go for Le Pen.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 8, 2021 4:19:17 GMT
Thanks, Biddy! Roger Cohen has such good credentials, but he lets his audience down by assuming they know the source of some of his breezily unreferenced statements. I read articles such as the one I linked above because I want to learn something -- not because I want to just take on someone elses view of things.
I'm not ready to cancel my subscription, but I'm increasingly annoyed with the sloppy lack of journalistic rigor I increasingly see in the NYTimes.
Thanks for your informed input as well, Kerouac. Maybe I am completely off-base, but I see Macron as the logical & probably best person to assume the stabilizing mantle that Merkel wore to such good effect for so long.
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 8, 2021 4:32:11 GMT
France is one of the only countries in the world that has safely reopened its schools since June 2020. A lot of the world, even countries that are proud of their vaccination statistics, are just beginning to reopen their schools after a year of being closed. It's all a question of priorities. It has not been easy to keep the schools safe and obviously there have been some classes closed for a week or two when there has been an outbreak, but frankly there seems to have been a fiasco in the rest of the world to abandon education and the very important social interaction of children for so long. Go figure.
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Post by Biddy on Mar 8, 2021 5:14:48 GMT
Agreed K2 - I do note how other countries have managed to keep the schools open and we in California have closed our schools for almost a year. More power to Europe obviously. Supposedly our schools will reopen sometime in April only to close again June.
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Post by fumobici on Mar 8, 2021 6:03:05 GMT
In the US schools and decisions about in-person learning are, as so often is the case in a federation, decided on a state and local level so the US is a crazy quilt of differing approaches. Right now our Democratic Party state governor Jay Inslee is being uncharacteristically frank in expressing his frustration with the teachers' unions unwillingness to return to classrooms without being vaccinated first. Teachers were, just this week, added to the groups who meet the requirements for vaccination and I expect we will have schools back to some form of normalcy here within a matter of months. Our local schools are open and have been for a couple of months, but only for younger students. Some states and administrative districts have been a lot quicker to return to in-person class than others.
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Post by bjd on Mar 8, 2021 6:29:40 GMT
I think that some time in the future, perhaps before the next pandemic, an overview of global handling of the covid19 epidemic will be made. At the moment, each country compiles statistics in its own way, so some are probably accurate, others are completely unreliable.
One of the reasons for the EU's "vaccination shambles" is that they were trying to act as a single unit, with vaccines distributed as a pro rata of population. As usual, the bigger and wealthier countries are trying to push to the front of the line, but there is still an attempt to make a fair distribution. Furthermore, there is a supply problem, with vaccine contracts under secrecy clauses re costs and supply. Not to mention promised vaccines not supplied.
I am a bit tired of comparisons with Israel with its population of 9 million and the EU with 450. And if I may use the word "shambles", neither the US nor the Uk are in any position to cast the first stone.
France has its own priorities: keeping schools open, vaccinating care-home residents and health workers first. And there haven't been many scandals of politicians or wealthy people pushing to the front of the line.
As for Macron, like many others, I am disappointed about his move to the right, and his PM's choice of cabinet ministers who are former Sarkozy buddies. However, I also understand his visible move to the right ahead of next year's election, trying to pull in centre-right voters who might otherwise be tempted to vote for LePen. He has indeed written off trying to please the left, probably on the assumption that they won't vote LePen. The danger of course, is that the left won't hold their noses and vote for Macron, but will sit it out.
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 8, 2021 7:16:23 GMT
I am a bit tired of comparisons with Israel with its population of 9 million and the EU with 450. Not to mention the fact that it managed this "exploit" by paying 40% extra to gets its vaccines first.
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Post by bjd on Mar 8, 2021 8:47:28 GMT
I am a bit tired of comparisons with Israel with its population of 9 million and the EU with 450. Not to mention the fact that it managed this "exploit" by paying 40% extra to gets its vaccines first. And also gave the pharma companies access to its health data in return for priority distribution.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 8, 2021 15:29:31 GMT
As for Macron, like many others, I am disappointed about his move to the right, and his PM's choice of cabinet ministers who are former Sarkozy buddies. However, I also understand his visible move to the right ahead of next year's election, trying to pull in centre-right voters who might otherwise be tempted to vote for LePen. He has indeed written off trying to please the left, probably on the assumption that they won't vote LePen. The danger of course, is that the left won't hold their noses and vote for Macron, but will sit it out. Thanks, Bjd. This is the kind of insight that helps me understand France's view of its leader, plus gives somewhat of an overview of the voters.
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 8, 2021 15:38:02 GMT
Right now most of the left is saying that the days of holding their noses to vote for Macron to keep Le Pen at bay are finished because he has disappointed them too much. But the election is still 14 months away, and the stink of Le Pen will only increase as the days go by.
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Post by whatagain on Mar 9, 2021 10:32:16 GMT
After the gileys jaunes nobody in his rigjt mind would think leftists still like Macron... 7
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 9, 2021 11:11:03 GMT
Actually, both Anne Hidalgo and François Hollande said in the last two days that they would vote for any candidate against Le Pen.
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 17, 2021 19:42:21 GMT
I think this video is highly informative for giving a background as to why Parisians are always ready to rebel.
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Post by mossie on Mar 18, 2021 8:21:05 GMT
Very interesting, thanks Kerouac. Because I always stay in the 19th I have taken an interest in the Commune.
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Post by kerouac2 on Mar 20, 2021 16:46:12 GMT
This somewhat dull video is full of information, too.
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