Today's topic: Boy, I'm sooo ashamed to be French!

[Calcoran]

DoktorEvil:
Let's just say I'm glad you don't vote in France .
Now if you want to arrange for a big closed box (we don't want him biting peoples hands off during the transfer), we'll gladly send him over to you ... though I'm not sure all your fellows Canadians would want of him. He'd probably get stuck at customs for this rabies problems anyway .

[Dan Stack]

I apologize for opening up a bit of a can of worms... From reading this, it would seem that the problems going on in Israel have a bit of influence on French politics. Is that a correct assessment?

In trying to educate myself about European politics a bit more, I'm somewhat confused by the statement linking the Palestinians as the more peaceful party in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It's hard for me to avoid inserting my own views and opinions in here, but, trying to ask as neutrally as possible, are Palestinians, in general, viewed as peaceful, while Israelis, in general, are viewed as warlike? Are the suicide bombings viewed as a valid form of resistance?

With regard to other comments, agreed one can be anti-Israel without being anti-Jewish. My query was with regard to the anti-Jewish sentiments - I can understand there being rallies protesting Israel's actions, the rallies crying for "death to Jews" were what I was wondering about. (Sadly, they happen here as well.)

It was mentioned that LePen also is anti-Arab (and anti-everything else). In a similar line of thinking, does France have what would be considered anti-Arab problems as well? (Not asking if all French are anti-Jewish, anti-Arab, etc., more curious if they reach the level of a problem. For examle, in the United States, there are obviously still problems lingering from centuries of African slavery followed by a century of quasi-legal racism.)


I'm taking this off track a bit so if its veers much further it may be best to form a new thread, but for the time being I'm learning about French politics, something I know little about. My impression of LePen from the news reports here is that he seems to be a good lightning rod for the people who have anti-everyone-but-else views. Such people often manage to garner a sizable minority and I could see in an election how such a person could get more votes over numerous competing candidates with less extreme views. Pat Buchanan in the United States often attracts the more disgruntled members of the Republican party while in the last election Ralph Nader pulled away disgruntled members of the Democrat party.

[Calcoran]

It was mentioned that LePen also is anti-Arab (and anti-everything else). In a similar line of thinking, does France have what would be considered anti-Arab problems as well? (Not asking if all French are anti-Jewish, anti-Arab, etc., more curious if they reach the level of a problem. For examle, in the United States, there are obviously still problems lingering from centuries of African slavery followed by a century of quasi-legal racism.)

We indeed have ... or have had. I don't know, they've been rather quiet lately. The question is: is this because the media have had other things to speak about lately, or because they've been asked to behave for a while (most of those people belong to aforementioned lunatic's party ... maybe they've been too busy placating posters for him ) ... or because this is really becoming less of a problem. I really have no idea.

[Doktor Evil]

Oh Calcoran, you would love Canada : immigrants have more rights than native Canadians like me; rabid feminists dictate policies; you can elect any politician you wish, as long as he or she is at the center-right or center-left (they're all alike); small business and the middle class are taxed to death; the governement provides for all the lazy folks who don't feel like working, with my money to boot. And of course there is the fabulous weather, ass-freezing in the winter and "take-3-showers-a-day" humidity in the summer

I'll trade Jean Chretien, that slack-jawed retard, for LePen anyday.

[Calcoran]

In trying to educate myself about European politics a bit more, I'm somewhat confused by the statement linking the Palestinians as the more peaceful party in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It's hard for me to avoid inserting my own views and opinions in here, but, trying to ask as neutrally as possible, are Palestinians, in general, viewed as peaceful, while Israelis, in general, are viewed as warlike? Are the suicide bombings viewed as a valid form of resistance?

I plead guilty your honour! Well, for them at least. To be honest, I think both are far beyond wondering who's the offender and who's the victim. Both sides are just as guilty as the other one ... I guess it's just that the French government (and a part of France too I suppose) considers that it'd be easier for Israel to make the first peaceful move (as a more organised entity than the palestinians). And since it doesn't chose to make that move...
Anyhow, I'm not claiming to be an expert in international politics ... consider this as the way the whole thing is being presented to us by the media .

[Calcoran]

DoktorEvil:
True, we don't have no rabid feminists in France ... yet. We're working on it. Weather is different too. Still, you sure you don't want our national lunatic for free?

[Doktor Evil]

I would like to apologize to all the mentally-challenged people out there for comparing them to Jean Chretien. That was mean and uncalled for and I am sorry.

[Lee T]

Originally posted by Dan Stack
I apologize for opening up a bit of a can of worms... From reading this, it would seem that the problems going on in Israel have a bit of influence on French politics. Is that a correct assessment?

Nope, this conflict as no effect on our internal politics. However it is a problem everytime someone confuses religion, nationality and politics, and express his dislike with israelian politics by random attacks against the french jews (unfortunalty the leaders of the french jew's community are sometimes helping the confusion with not that bright speachs).

In trying to educate myself about European politics a bit more, I'm somewhat confused by the statement linking the Palestinians as the more peaceful party in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It's hard for me to avoid inserting my own views and opinions in here, but, trying to ask as neutrally as possible, are Palestinians, in general, viewed as peaceful, while Israelis, in general, are viewed as warlike? Are the suicide bombings viewed as a valid form of resistance?

Nope, we never liked terrorisem, we had our share in the 80's and 90's of random bombings in the streets and in the subway. But as there is a difference between the Israelian governement, the Israelians and the Jews, there is a difference between the palesitian political entity, the palesitinians, and the palestinian terrorists. Siding with the palestinians against the israelian governement do not mean condoning terrorism. I think many of out politics see nowadays israelian governement politics as threatening for peace as the palestinian terrorist actions.
I personnaly do not see the suicide bombing a valid form of resistance, but I feel that it's a desperate way of fighting, and you can't fight a desperate people with military force. The only for this region to reach peace is around a negociation table.

It was mentioned that LePen also is anti-Arab (and anti-everything else). In a similar line of thinking, does France have what would be considered anti-Arab problems as well? (Not asking if all French are anti-Jewish, anti-Arab, etc., more curious if they reach the level of a problem. For examle, in the United States, there are obviously still problems lingering from centuries of African slavery followed by a century of quasi-legal racism.)

Because of our colonial history a part of our population is from arab originins. Since they are the last big wave of immigration in France they are the classic scapegoat of our racists (many of the oldest member of LePen's party were fighting against the Algerian decolonisation in what they would call "the good old days" and what I would call "one of the stupidest war we fought").

I'm taking this off track a bit so if its veers much further it may be best to form a new thread, but for the time being I'm learning about French politics, something I know little about. My impression of LePen from the news reports here is that he seems to be a good lightning rod for the people who have anti-everyone-but-else views. Such people often manage to garner a sizable minority and I could see in an election how such a person could get more votes over numerous competing candidates with less extreme views. Pat Buchanan in the United States often attracts the more disgruntled members of the Republican party while in the last election Ralph Nader pulled away disgruntled members of the Democrat party.

I thin that's exactly what happened. Furthermore the majority of the population felt that voting in that first round was like shooting blank and that the two major competitor would end up in teh 2nd round anyway. The disgruntled part of their constituents (a large one since the major right wing competitor is the former president and the major left wing competitor was the prime minister, it's easier to anger people when you're in power) surely felt that it would not be a problem to vote for more "angry" as a way to protest against this and that. The results was this spreading of the votes. Something the extreme parties need never fear since their constituents cannot vote for more "angry".

[Tarbas]

Originally posted by Calcoran
We are all annoying to someone else I guess. I'm not exactly proud of being an annoying country's citizen, but I'm certainly not ashamed of it . It's still pretty much another thing to see a clone of hitler coming withing reach of the French presidency. Say as you like, in wrong hands, France could do way worse than what you complained about.

I have to agree. Such things happen so fast. Here in Germany / Hamburg a man with a very offensive and agressive politic against criminals just became a member of the local government. It was a kind of shock to the citizens of Hamburg but it was their own fault. Nobody voted against him, to many didn' t even vote. So comes one thing to another... Because of our history with such things most people are very careful regarding this kind of people but there are always the "idiots" who deny the past and the problem is: The will vote!

One more thing about the "annoying factor". I think that the media is also responsible for the opinions about each other. At work, i got an american englishteacher and we often talk about this "global things". It is interesting to compare the diffrent opinions. When I was younger I believed for quite a long time, that the americans always love their president, their country and think that they are the number one citizens of good old earth. This was the impression that I got from the media and I belive that many people also think not so good about the germans.

Prejudice is the word that discribe such things the best way.
The problem is that the extremist, which are the minority of every country, are always in the center of attention.

[qerlin]

Okay...time for me to piss people off....

This 'oh my god, how did this happen' attitude just goes to show: don't vote, don't bitch. It should be considered a DUTY to vote, not a privilege.

Just for the record, I dislike Le Pen and his mumblings, but... The right-wing loonies are NO BETTER OR WORSE than the left-wing loonies. Le Pen and Jorge Haider may not be appealing characters to us...but 17% of the population (or was it 18?) voted for this guy. They're not mentally deranged or deficient; they disagree with your (and my) point of view.

LePen's "the holocaust is a detail of history" gets a lot of airplay as showing the man's evil: the holocaust was horrible. It happened. But a whole lot more people were killed in WWII than 6 million. There were a lot of funky experiments done on British and American soldiers by the Japanese in WWII that had uncanny similarities to the Nazi ones. But we never hear about that. The Holocaust, awful as it was, WAS a detail of history -- showing mankind no better or worse than the horrible experiments done to US soldiers by the Japanese, Stalin's purges, the massacres in Ruanda or in Bosnia (which the noble Danes seemed willing to overlook), or the any number of terrible things we've done to each other over time.

There are a lot of wacked out left-wingers, too, who want to steal hard-working people's property and livelihoods for the benefit of the oppressed masses (who all seem to have TV and place to live) and the blue-footed (name your favorite animal). They are JUST AS BAD. The name of the game here, boys and girls, is control. Political orientation not withstanding, people who want to tell you how to live are BAD.

All to this 'the poor Palestinians' shit: their 'leaders' have no wish to end this conflict by anything other than the destruction of the Israeli state. The 'poor Palestinians' are suffering because they have allowed a TERRORIST to run things since the Oslo accords. Maybe the weather's just too nice to do anything about them.

The Israelis got their country through terrorism. My great-grandfather -- a 92nd Highlander in the Mandate -- was nearly killed by the Stern gang when they rigged one of his soldiers (kicked by these bastards) to explode. I have no hatred of these people...BUT their leaders bulldoze people's homes with applomb. The beach must have been appealing...or could it be that everytime they withdraw, psychos on the other side urge their own children to blow themselves up and take innocents with them .

The Palestinians and Israelis -- at least on an administrative level -- are terrorists. They target civilians to put pressure on each other. I say wall 'em off and let the best set of pricks win.

Hmmm....maybe Le Pen has a point there.

[Kaiddin]

Originally posted by Doktor Evil
I'll trade Jean Chretien, that slack-jawed retard, for LePen anyday.

Hey, I'll trade Chretien for a used box of kleenex.

9 anno Tyrannus Chretienus

[C5]

Damn... hard day at work with no Net access, while there was this interesting thread here...

Okay, first, like all French here, I am disgusted, ashamed, and, to put it mildly, angry!!!
Oh yeah, some years ago, we were all doing a fuss about Austria... yeah, that wouldn't happend in France, noooo... this is the country of the Man's Rights, yeah...
What happened here was cristal simple : for something like five years, everybody knew the French would have to chose now between the current First Minister and the current President on the second round of the elections. Everybody knew that so much that a lot of people forgot that there is a first round before the second, and, for a candidate to be on the second, you have to vote for him on the first. So they went on holidays, they voted for some other fancy ecologist or communist candidates... while the supporters of the raving maniac aforementioned kept voting, and voilà!

I'm really glad to be French

Okay. Thanks for letting me venting a bit (and thanks Calcoran for opening this thread).

Now, let's keep the debate going. There were interesting points here and there from our non-French friends.

First, France has a long tradition of anti-Jewishism. Just two examples :
- In the end of the 19th century, the country was torn apart because of the Dreyfus Afair (a Jewish French officer, accused - wrongly, it appeared much time later - of treason). Of course, the anti-Dreyfusards and the Dreyfusards, as they were called, were not only debating the innoncence of the man, but also the responsibilities of the people from his religion.
- Some guys are also saying now that some of the persecutions the Jews faced during the Nazi occupation were initiated by the French governement on its own.

Now, toward the end of the 20th century, another form of racism appeared : anti-arabism. As Lee T said, because of its colonial past, France had many ties with the nord-african countries, so the number of immigrants from these countries became to grow. Of course, with the unenployment rising, these people were the first to be hit, so they became poorer, sent into some ghetto cities, and now some of them or their children have indeed become thiefs or worse (this is an oversimplification of the problem. I'm trying here to sum in a sentence a process that took 30 years to developp).
So, now, we have young people, looking Arabic, stealing purses and mobiles in the streets, we have areas in some cities where your car will be burnt if you park it there, and also some bombings in the Parisian subway/underground some years ago : bingo! Immigrants = Arabs = scum. Send them away or kill them, they all deserve it. Yeah, okay, some of them aren't that bad, I agree, like, say, 80 or 90 percent of them - but the ones we see and hear on the media are mean, so they must all be like that.

In case you wonder, I studied near one of those cities. I understood that people living there could become racist. I also spent three years there, with no more than some argument once in the middle of the street with one hothead in the middle of a crowd of cool people. So I think I've seen both aspects of the problem.

As for Le Pen, what he does for twenty years is surfing on the wave of hatred, taking the current scapegoat and spit everywhere the good solution is to get rid of it and everything will be okay. It was the Jews, it was the Arabs, it was the homosexuals, it was the AIDS-positive people, it was the disabled, it was the three-foot dandelions with blue hair... add that with his love of making shoking statement, (the one on the holocaust being only an example), or punching female political opponents in the face, the fact that you can always find an irrefutable argument to justify his statements (see qerlin post above - a friend of mine once told me the exact same thing about the holocaust - not that I have anything to say to counter it either), and that equals the worst dejection of a politician you can get, at least in France. I assure you, for those among you who shudder at the word "communist", that even our leftiest politicians can't reach his ankle in depravation. I'm really happy to see him where he is now.

I have not much data on the recent agressions the Jewish community suffered from in France. My personal opinion is that some guys decided it would be fun to do that so it would make vandalisme appear like a political act, the whole being overhyped by French medias who decided insecurity would be the major theme of the campaign (serves us right ). This is only my own personal opinion of mine, wich may very well be quite wrong.

Now... we French seem to not like the American people ? Quite right, in fact. It is well known in France that every American is immensely fat, blissfully ignorant of whatever happens outside American borders, enjoying strange games whose complexity can't be fathomed by the normal (french)man, and loving watching TV programms even an retarted monkey would find boring. Oh, and of course, this American dreams only to spread his cheesy culture all over the world, and utterly destroy with his nuclear arsenal every place that dare standing against Mickey Mouse, McDonalds and Coca-Cola.
Well.... we French are supposed to spend our time on strike, eating frogs and snails, and smelling garlick, right ? I once thought of opening a thread where we would all trade the stupid clichés we have from one country to another.

This was not a serious answer (hope BTW nobody got offended), because the serious one would be much more complex. In a nutshell, my own personal opinion again is that we in France see the USA as a very powerful country, capable of doing almost whatever it pleases itself in politics or economics or military warfare. So, we become either jealous or worried, and then we indeed seem not to like the American people.

Okay, it was good to babble a bit. Hope some of you find some interesting and even understandable sentences in this mess. Now I've got to sleep.

Oh, and Doktor Evil : you do really like being the devil's advocado (er, sorry... advocate ), don't you ?

[Lee T]

Originally posted by C5
I have not much data on the recent agressions the Jewish community suffered from in France. My personal opinion is that some guys decided it would be fun to do that so it would make vandalisme appear like a political act, the whole being overhyped by French medias who decided insecurity would be the major theme of the campaign (serves us right ). This is only my own personal opinion of mine, wich may very well be quite wrong.

Right or wrong you have my full support on this one.

[Lt.Khrys Antos]

Posted by Doktor Evil:

Oh Calcoran, you would love Canada : immigrants have more rights than native Canadians like me; rabid feminists dictate policies; you can elect any politician you wish, as long as he or she is at the center-right or center-left (they're all alike); small business and the middle class are taxed to death; the governement provides for all the lazy folks who don't feel like working, with my money to boot. And of course there is the fabulous weather, ass-freezing in the winter and "take-3-showers-a-day" humidity in the summer

Damned true. Our politiciens are boring...very....very boring....*yawn*. I personnally met Stockwell Day (Canadiens will know who he is) before he was dropped and let me tell you, at least he was entertaining. I'd be willing to trade a few extremists in France for our own politiciens. At least I'd know what language he speaks, unlike Chretien who speaks a mix of French, English and Klingon his speech impediment non-withstanding.

Posted by C5:

Well.... we French are supposed to spend our time on strike, eating frogs and snails, and smelling garlick, right ? I once thought of opening a thread where we would all trade the stupid clichés we have from one country to another.

You should open such a thread It would be easy (and fun), c'mon I'm Polish so that should be an easy one for most Europeans.


We shouldn't be surprised that democracy tends to elect the incompetent and the idiotic. That's just how it works. The fact of the matter is that the French (not targeting anyone here) have only themselves to blame. The people who wanted to vote, went to vote, those who didn't or "wasted" their vote must now live with what they have reaped.

In the end, people must understand that the true value of our politiciens is their entertainment value. If you can't be entertained by them, then what the hell is the point?

Was Clinton boring? Hell no! Was he a complete and utter sleaze? Hell Yes! I say if a politiciens can entertain you then he's worth keeping.

Best luck to the French and hope that you get what you really want.

[qerlin]

"...it was the three-foot dandelions with blue hair..."

Oooooh...I hate those guys.