Can someone explain this France thing to me like I’m 5?

[Js1 82951]

Did Macron play this perfectly?

Left 172-192

Center 150-170

RN 132-152

Republicans 56-67

[Pato del Muerto 52036]

2 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Did Macron play this perfectly?

Left 172-192

Center 150-170

RN 132-152

Republicans 56-67

Are those the final numbers?

do they have to put together a majority to govern like engerland does?

[Js1 82951]

Just now, Pato del Muerto said:

Are those the final numbers?

do they have to put together a majority to govern like engerland does?

That’s the projections once polls closed. Now we wait for actual results.

Its a hung parliament as no one got 289. 

[bolverk 29037]

Just now, Js1 said:

Did Macron play this perfectly?

Left 172-192

Center 150-170

RN 132-152

Republicans 56-67

France may have just dodged a bullet.

I'd read some speculation that he called the snap elections, calculating that if le Rassemblement National had won, they'd not know how to govern and would be ousted at the next regularly held elections. Of course with no one in the majority, it'll still be a shitshow but not a Right Wing nightmare.

 

[Js1 82951]

3 minutes ago, bolverk said:

France may have just dodged a bullet.

I'd read some speculation that he called the snap elections, calculating that if le Rassemblement National had won, they'd not know how to govern and would be ousted at the next regularly held elections. Of course with no one in the majority, it'll still be a shitshow but not a Right Wing nightmare.

 

I had read he called them after EU parliament elections so RN would not have time to gather strength with a prolonged period of time before elections.  The agreement with the third place center/left candidates dropping out after the first round to not give the RN wins worked out well

Also the far right underperforming polling, again? No way 

Edited July 7 by Js1

[gmr548 16289]

This is how the American center and left should come together to put down fascism but we are a bunch of stupid concern trolls at the population level.

[Js1 82951]

2 minutes ago, gmr548 said:

This is how the American center and left should come together to put down fascism but we are a bunch of stupid concern trolls at the population level.

Was thinking that too. Neither side stood their ground / threw a tantrum so they could peacock about “doing the right thing” and letting the far right win. 

[bolverk 29037]

1 hour ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Are those the final numbers?

do they have to put together a majority to govern like engerland does?

It's going to get interesting. The Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) is a coalition of four separate parties that came together solely for this election. One of those parties (la France Insoumise / France Unbowed) is led by a bombastic asshole, Melanchon, who doesn't play well at all with others.

So, it wouldn't surprise me if a different coalition of parties comes together to form a majority for a Prime Minister to be appointed. Former socialist president Francois Hollande might be the most acceptable compromise candidate to bring together enough of the center and left.

 

Edit: The current Prime Minister from Macron's party, which hasn't had a majority in the National Assembly for the past few years, just announced his resignation. It's possible that he'll hang on as a caretaker through the Olympics, and a new one can be selected.

Edited July 7 by bolverk

[David Dennison 17754]

52 minutes ago, gmr548 said:

This is how the American center and left should come together to put down fascism but we are a bunch of stupid concern trolls at the population level.

Unfortunately, we only have two parties.

[bolverk 29037]

4 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Unfortunately, we only have two parties.

Multiple parties to choose from, plus having two rounds of voting to allow folks to take a breather and realign as needed, really makes this possible. 

[Captain Obvious 500]

3 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Multiple parties to choose from, plus having two rounds of voting to allow folks to take a breather and realign as needed, really makes this possible. 

Also helps that the actual candidates in 3rd place stand down and make it clear they want their supporters to vote for the non-fascist alternative even if they don't particularly like them.  It's not just giving the public a chance to realign, the parties themselves are actively pushing them in that direction.

Edited July 7 by Captain Obvious

[F250 28471]

It seems that while we were early in establishing democracy here in America we got stuck with the beta release regarding our democratic institutions. Other nations seem to have a more agile system while we are stuck dealing with punch cards over here.

[Bullneck 18691]

 

 

[BamaATL 16009]

4 minutes ago, F250 said:

It seems that while we were early in establishing democracy here in America we got stuck with the beta release regarding our democratic institutions. Other nations seem to have a more agile system while we are stuck dealing with punch cards over here.

It's worse than that, we hired a DeVry guy in the name of Clarence Thomas to work on bugs in the code.  

[Willfully Horn 7854]

Heartening.

https://www.cnn.com/

Edited to say the Left is projected to win the election.

”In a surprise second-round result, the New Popular Front is projected to finish ahead of Marine Le Pen’s party in French snap elections”

Edited July 7 by Willfully Horn

[Rimbo 25224]

6 minutes ago, F250 said:

It seems that while we were early in establishing democracy here in America we got stuck with the beta release regarding our democratic institutions. Other nations seem to have a more agile system while we are stuck dealing with punch cards over here.

This is actually a pretty good analogy. We didn't have a contemporary model to follow when we were more or less inventing democracy on a national level. We've been able to patch update the Constitution from time to time, and that's kept things from falling apart.

There's a French lady in my church who's going to be pretty happy today. She was absolutely terrified of what might happen.

[Js1 82951]

It’s a little hopium that the far right/right wing didn’t perform as well as their polls in Mexico, UK, France, India this year

[Neonmoon 38126]

2 hours ago, gmr548 said:

This is how the American center and left should come together to put down fascism but we are a bunch of stupid concern trolls at the population level.

The French media are not allowed to speculate on the election outcome until after polls closed. 

The American media was debating if Joe Biden does cocaine before the last debate. 

A third party would be a bandaid on a shotgun wound to the chest 

[gmr548 16289]

1 hour ago, David Dennison said:

Unfortunately, we only have two parties.

 

5 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

The French media are not allowed to speculate on the election outcome until after polls closed. 

The American media was debating if Joe Biden does cocaine before the last debate. 

A third party would be a bandaid on a shotgun wound to the chest 

I wasn't referring to a third party. The center and the left have both been in the Democratic coalition since 2018 but that appears to be fraying from both sides.

[Neonmoon 38126]

My point still remains. Americans don’t have a political problem, they have a media propaganda problem. 

[Pancho 42237]

These people are tired. 

[C-Man 26617]

My point still remains. Americans don’t have a political problem, they have a media propaganda problem. 

[F250 28471]

27 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

My point still remains. Americans don’t have a political problem, they have a media propaganda problem. 

Countries like Germany and France seem to actively address the paradox of intolerance which doesn't happen here. Granted, they had the fairly recent experience of fascist governments that developed within their democracies so it's a correction on their part.

[chainsaw 9573]

29 minutes ago, Pancho said:

These people are tired. 

They didn't lose they just ran out of votes

[Sawbonz 26810]

1 hour ago, Neonmoon said:

The American media was debating if Joe Biden does cocaine before the last debate.

At least that rumor has been put to bed 

[Sawbonz 26810]

39 minutes ago, Pancho said:

These people are tired. 

[Pato del Muerto 52036]

When do the upside down French flags start?  /snicker

[David Dennison 17754]

 

[bolverk 29037]

Marine Le Pen has spent the last 10+ years trying to clean up the image of her party, and it nearly worked. But in this last week of the campaign, a goodly number of the party's candidates couldn't keep up the ruse.

PARIS -- As it stands on the threshold of power in France, the far-right National Rally is facing scrutiny about some of the candidates it hopes will help it secure a ruling majority in legislative elections on Sunday, including a woman it has pulled from the high-stakes race over a photo of her wearing a World War II-era Nazi officer’s cap.

Other National Rally candidates whose suitability is being questioned by the party’s critics and opponents include a woman said by French media to have once held a town employee hostage at gunpoint, a man who may not be eligible to serve as a lawmaker because he is under guardianship, a candidate who tweeted that “gas brought justice to the victims of the Shoah” and others who have been little-seen on the campaign trail.

Revelations by media and citizens risk puncturing the polished image that National Rally leader and three-time presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has sought to craft of her party to shed its historical links to antisemitism, racism and France’s painful WWII collaboration with the Nazi occupation.

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/national-rally-candidates-including-wore-nazi-cap-scrutinized-111649813

Here's an old photo of one of their candidates that emerged this past week. 

[bolverk 29037]

Cities, suburbs, and the West voted Left/Centrists. The exurb (Chantilly - red dot on the second map) where I spent a year just north of Paris went to Macron's coalition.

Mountains voted a mix of "normal" Conservative and Center/Left.

Economically stagnant areas in the North and East went Radical Right. I never made it down to the Mediterranean coast, but what the fuck is up with that? I can only imagine that's fueled solely by anti-Arab sentiments, especially the large population in nearby Marseilles.

 

 

[WhatTheBuck 28604]

1 hour ago, Pato del Muerto said:

When do the upside down French flags start?  /snicker

OMG! THEY’RE EVERYWHERE!

[WelfareBuysMyWeed 5310]

The video going around of the crowd at Stalingrad erupting into cheers then everyone sobbing ugly tears of joy is giving me life, especially compared to the RN rally.

 

 

[chainsaw 9573]

MANDATE!

[WelfareBuysMyWeed 5310]

9 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

MANDATE!

it seriously is. Not necessarily FOR any party, but definitely AGAINST the RN. It's staggering how fucking awful do you have to be to get so many picky leftists to coalesce, but the RN did it.

[Jhawkmvp 1487]

10 hours ago, bolverk said:

France is going to the second round of voting at the polls today. Turnout is high. In the last poll that I saw, the Far Right was projected to fall just short of a majority. Finger crossed.

Meanwhile, France has been subject to a Russian disinfo campaign for the last year.

 

Russian-linked cybercampaigns put a bull’s-eye on France. Their focus? The Olympics and elections

PARIS (AP) — Photos of blood-red hands on a Holocaust memorial. Caskets at the Eiffel Tower. A fake French military recruitment drive calling for soldiers in Ukraine, and major French news sites improbably registered in an obscure Pacific territory, population 15,000.

All are part of disinformation campaigns orchestrated out of Russia and targeting France, according to French officials and cybersecurity experts in Europe and the United States. France’s legislative elections and the Paris Olympics sent them into overdrive.

More than a dozen reports issued in the past year point to an intensifying effort from Russia to undermine France, particularly the upcoming Games, and President Emmanuel Macron, who is one of Ukraine’s most vocal supporters in Europe.

This story, supported by the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, is part of an Associated Press series covering threats to democracy in Europe.

The Russian campaigns sowing anti-French disinformation began online in early summer 2023, but first became tangible in October, when more than 1,000 bots linked to Russia relayed photos of graffitied Stars of David in Paris and its suburbs.

A French intelligence report said the Russian intelligence agency FSB ordered the tagging, as well as subsequent vandalism of a memorial to those who helped rescue Jews from the Holocaust.

Photos from each event were amplified on social media by fake accounts linked to the Russian disinformation site RRN, according to cybersecurity experts. Russia denies any such campaigns. The French intelligence report says RRN is part of a larger operation orchestrated by Sergei Kiriyenko, a ranking Kremlin official.

“You have to see this as an ecosystem,” said a French military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to reveal information about the Russian effort. “It’s a hybrid strategy.”

The tags and the vandalism had no direct link to Russia’s war in Ukraine, but they provoked a strong reaction from the French political class, with denunciations in the legislature and public debate. Antisemitic attacks are on the rise in France, and the war in Gaza has proven divisive.

The Stars of David could be interpreted either as support for Israel or as opposition. The effect was to sow division and unease. French Jews in particular have found themselves unwittingly thrust into the political fray despite, at just 500,000 people, making up a small proportion of the French population.

In March, just after Macron discussed the possibility of mobilizing the French military in Ukraine, a fake recruitment drive went up for the French army in Ukraine, spawning a series of posts in Russian- and French-language Telegram channels that got picked up in Russian and Belarusian media, according to a separate French government report seen by The Associated Press. On June 1, caskets appeared outside the Eiffel Tower, bearing the inscription “French soldiers in Ukraine.”

The larger disinformation efforts show little traction in France, but the Russian audience may have been the real target, officials said, by showing that Russia’s war in Ukraine is, as Putin has said, really a war with the West.

Among the broader goals, the French military official said, was a long-term and steady effort to sow social discord, erode faith in the media and democratic governments, undermine NATO, and sap Western support for Ukraine. Denigrating the Olympics, from which most Russian athletes are banned, is a bonus, according to French officials monitoring the increasingly strident posts warning of imminent unrest ahead of the Games.

On June 9, the French far-right National Rally trounced Macron’s party in elections for the European Parliament. The party has historically been close to Russia: One of its leading figures, Marine Le Pen, cultivated ties to Putin for many years and supported Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. And its leading contender for prime minister, Jordan Bardella, has said he opposes sending long-range weapons to Kyiv.

In more than 4,400 posts gathered since mid-November by antibot4navalny, a collective that analyzes Russian bot behavior, those targeting audiences in France and Germany predominated. The number of weekly posts ranged from 100 to 200 except for the week of May 5, when it dropped near zero, the data showed. That week, as it happens, was a holiday in Russia.

Many of the posts redirect either to RRN or to sites that appear identical to major French media, but with the domain — and content — changed. At least two of the more recent mirrored sites are registered in Wallis and Futuna, a French Pacific territory 10 time zones from Paris. A click on the top of the fake page redirects back to the real news sites themselves to give the impression of authenticity. Other posts redirect to original sites controlled by the campaign itself, dubbed Doppelganger.

The redirects shifted focus for the European elections and continued after Macron called the surprise legislative elections with just three weeks to spare. Three-quarters of posts from the week ahead of the June 30 first-round legislative vote that were directed toward a French audience focused on either criticizing Macron or boosting the National Rally, antibot4navalny found in data shared with The Associated Press.

One post on a fake site purported to be from Le Point, a current affairs magazine, and the French news agency AFP, criticizing Macron.

“Our leaders have no idea how ordinary French people live but are ready to destroy France in the name of aid for Ukraine,” read the headline on June 25.

Another site falsely claimed to be from Macron’s party, offering to pay 100 euros for a vote for him — and linking back to the party’s true website. And still another inadvertently left a generative artificial intelligence prompt calling for the re-write of an article “taking a conservative stance against the liberal policies of the Macron administration,” according to findings last week from Insikt Group, the threat research division of the cybersecurity consultancy Recorded Future.

“They’re scraping automatically, sending the text to the AI and asking the AI to introduce bias or slants into the article and rewrite it,” said Clément Briens, an analyst for Recorded Future.

Briens said metrics tools embedded within the site are likely intended to prove that the campaigns were money well-spent for “whoever is doing the payouts for these operations.”

The French government cybersecurity watchdog, Viginum, has published multiple reports since June 2023 singling out Russian efforts to sow divisions in France and elsewhere. That was around the time that pro-Kremlin Telegram feeds started promoting “Olympics has Fallen” — a full-length fake Netflix film featuring an AI-generated voice resembling Tom Cruise that criticized the International Olympic Committee, according to the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center.

Microsoft said this campaign, which it dubbed Storm-1679, is fanning fears of violence at the Games and last fall disseminated digitally generated photos referring, among other things, to the attacks on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics.

The latest effort, which started just after the first round of the elections on June 30, merges fears of violence related to both the Olympics and the risk of protests after the decisive second round, antibot4navalny found. Viginum released a new report Tuesday detailing the risks ahead for the Games — not for violence but for disinformation.

“Digital information manipulation campaigns have become a veritable instrument of destabilization of democracies,” Viginum said. “This global event will give untold informational exposure to malevolant foreign actors.” The word Russia appears nowhere.

Baptiste Robert, a French cybersecurity expert who ran unsuccessfully as an unaffiliated centrist in the legislative elections, called on his government — and especially lawmakers — to prepare for the digital threats to come.

“This is a global policy of Russia: They really want to push people into the extremes,” he said before the first-round vote. “It’s working perfectly right now.”

France and Russia are butting heads in Africa.  Russia is increasingly taking influence away from the French by using their mercenaries to support rebel factions and governments in opposition to the previous French leaning regimes. It is really messing with France's money pipeline from Africa. That is why France, along with Poland, are most gung-ho to go fuck up the Russians in Ukraine. Russia meddling in their politics is just going to fire them up more.

[ChiTownDoc 20841]

53 minutes ago, Jhawkmvp said:

France and Russia are butting heads in Africa.  Russia is increasingly taking influence away from the French by using their mercenaries to support rebel factions and governments in opposition to the previous French leaning regimes. It is really messing with France's money pipeline from Africa. That is why France, along with Poland, are most gung-ho to go fuck up the Russians in Ukraine. Russia meddling in their politics is just going to fire them up more.

Lol.  Great job Russian bots.  All the antisemitism in the name of the far right just galvanized the left.  

[F250 28471]

2 hours ago, bolverk said:

[Michael Knight 12699]

9 hours ago, Js1 said:

Did Macron play this perfectly?

Left 172-192

Center 150-170

RN 132-152

Republicans 56-67

Quote

The Macron camp, meanwhile, had appeared so certain of its defeat that it had not even organized a public election party.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/07/07/france-election-result-2024-left-far-right/

[Hefeweizen 5221]

3 hours ago, bolverk said:

Marine Le Pen has spent the last 10+ years trying to clean up the image of her party, and it nearly worked. But in this last week of the campaign, a goodly number of the party's candidates couldn't keep up the ruse.

PARIS -- As it stands on the threshold of power in France, the far-right National Rally is facing scrutiny about some of the candidates it hopes will help it secure a ruling majority in legislative elections on Sunday, including a woman it has pulled from the high-stakes race over a photo of her wearing a World War II-era Nazi officer’s cap.

Other National Rally candidates whose suitability is being questioned by the party’s critics and opponents include a woman said by French media to have once held a town employee hostage at gunpoint, a man who may not be eligible to serve as a lawmaker because he is under guardianship, a candidate who tweeted that “gas brought justice to the victims of the Shoah” and others who have been little-seen on the campaign trail.

Revelations by media and citizens risk puncturing the polished image that National Rally leader and three-time presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has sought to craft of her party to shed its historical links to antisemitism, racism and France’s painful WWII collaboration with the Nazi occupation.

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/national-rally-candidates-including-wore-nazi-cap-scrutinized-111649813

Here's an old photo of one of their candidates that emerged this past week. 

Man Ilsa the she wolf has really let herself go!

[Michael Knight 12699]

[Captain Obvious 500]

2 hours ago, WelfareBuysMyWeed said:

it seriously is. Not necessarily FOR any party, but definitely AGAINST the RN. It's staggering how fucking awful do you have to be to get so many picky leftists to coalesce, but the RN did it.

And of course the RN, like Aggy, has no self-awareness.  They blame the "unnatural alliance" of the center and left parties, but never stop to question what drove the alliance to occur in the first place.

[tx 3 putt 75237]

 

[Michael Knight 12699]

10 hours ago, F250 said:

It seems that while we were early in establishing democracy here in America we got stuck with the beta release regarding our democratic institutions. Other nations seem to have a more agile system while we are stuck dealing with punch cards over here.

Well the French are on their 5th republic

[WelfareBuysMyWeed 5310]

4 hours ago, ChiTownDoc said:

Lol.  Great job Russian bots.  All the antisemitism in the name of the far right just galvanized the left.  

damn straight they did. I feel more pumped up today than I've felt in years. I'm ready to vote trump away forever.

[WelfareBuysMyWeed 5310]

 

This video is fucking incredible, I keep watching it and focusing on a different person each time. The simultaneous change from anguish to joy across the sea of people is the best shit in the world. Bottle this up, lets fucking GOOOOOO.

[locodos 5230]

Compared to this ...

 

[WelfareBuysMyWeed 5310]

1 minute ago, locodos said:

Compared to this ...

 

One thing i like seeing pointed out is that the videos of people cheering, everybody is dressed like a normal person. In all the videos where people are upset, they look like too skinny 20 year olds with huge ears cosplaying as executives in tacky blazers. Like this but completely played straight:

 

[miguelito 11095]

2 hours ago, locodos said:

Compared to this ...

 

Wow, they even have their own Boobert and MTG.

[Js1 82951]

17 minutes ago, miguelito said:

Wow, they even have their own Boobert and MTG.

America is not that exceptional in having fucking morons for politicians. We just amplify ours more 

[Bateshorn 9542]

I have a French friend who told me that due to the two rounds of voting, it’s pretty typical for the first round to be “Vote your heart” and the second to be “vote your head”.  Macron was gambling the Left wouldn’t unify and his party would be the beneficiary.  That didn’t happen, but the French turned out in droves to vote against the far right.