Emmanuel Macron’s battles at home means he risks losing sway in Brussels.
For the EU, the French election result was good news — but also bad news.
“The worst has been avoided,” a senior EU diplomat said, capturing the mood in Brussels on Sunday night when it became clear that the far-right National Rally would not gain a majority in parliament, as many had predicted after the first round of voting a week earlier. Instead the far right finished third, behind the left-wing alliance and Emmanuel Macron’s centrists.
Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella’s failure to grab the reins of the French parliament will have delighted mainstream pro-Europeans.
But that’s where the good news ends as France — alongside Germany, the other big beast in the EU, which has its own internal struggles — has now been plunged into political chaos, with no party winning enough seats for a majority. The paralysis could last months — and damage the EU.
Gotta say, this in my view hysterical reporting around hung government is just nuts.
I grew up in a country where this happened all the time and the end result was negotiated agreement, discourse, learning and enrichment.
This notion that we must have majority rule that appears to have swept the globe is not the only way to make progress.
I would’ve loved if after the last German election, the left, greens and social democrats agreed to form a hung government. Instead, the greens and social democrats got the neoliberals on board, which, while the smallest of the three, claimed some of the most important ministries and blocked anything remotely progressive ever since. And now we’re headed towards a fascist government next election cycle, because this move killed all their credibility. A hung government would’ve been sooo much better
The issue here is that France doesn’t really have a good tradition of having a negotiated agreement between parties.
Some systems work well with power sharing; France’s does not.
I can’t fucking stand how all major media outlets just can’t seem to stop themselves from shitting all over the fact that the French electorate just successfully stopped the fascists from winning the election two days ago. Like… come the fuck on. Yes, it’s a bit chaotic. But this is France. That’s kind of their MO.
Not to mention, with regard to how they responded to an internal fascist threat, they’ve got their heads on pretty fucking strait in my book.
It’s because the major media outlets are controlled by the same right wing.
They’re all controlled by the same corporate oligarchy. There is no war but class war. At the end of the day, the major political parties are funded by 95% of the same donors. Fascism is just a means for those oligarchs to do away with the illusion of democracy and achieve even greater power and control.
All of MSM is acting in unison because the oligarchs have made it abundantly clear that they prefer fascist dictatorship — legitimate democracy is too much of a risk to their wealth and future profitability.
What? I thought the progressives formed a coalition government with the centrists. How is this the end of the world? Isn’t this the Parliament working as designed?
