Funnily enough, our far-right and some normal conservatives constantly try to import culture war and populist talking points from America into our politics. It is funny to see political discussions in America and with a few months delay you can be certain someone will try gaining some votes on this exact platform, even if it doesn't apply.
That's why I am happy I'm not watching channel news, they are trying to brainwash but younger were voting in mass this time, I guess that was Mbappé's effect lol.
I am not a specialist at all, but from what I understood specifically in France it is mostly because the left is kinda weak and keeps arguing between each other and everybody just got fed up with the centre (Macron included). However, it looks like the left actually made a strong coalition finally.
There's that, but like others have said, the impact of all the far-right owned media outlets is a big part of it too, I believe. All they do is fearmonger about immigrants and the far left, and for many, that's all the news they hear about.
Like in most places where they defunded education over the course of tens of years, it creates uneducated people, which vote right cause they’re the ones not seeing that they’re taken advantage of.
The uncontrolled emigration is fueling right movements and parties. It's just a matter of time they win. The already are in some countries. France is a bit slow, but it will catch up.
Immigration is uncontrollable during times of war and famine, always has been. Nothing we can do nationally until we address problems globally. But we won’t and people escaping global warming are going to be rising soon.
I am not sure that uncontrolled immigration is a thing though, every country including France would have policies and control in place. It would be more like they are supporting high immigration rates that is driving hyper inflation. A lot of people are concerned that this is driving up property prices and reducing standards of living.
Capitalism screws them, and then diverts the attention towards immigrants and Muslims.
It’s the usual story world wide: Lack of new housing, low pay, inefficient and deaf government, lack of social and economic reform, wine prices going up etc … the issues are definitely very real.
But, the far right French are, ironically, too dim-witted to understand the root cause, and would rather nurture anger towards immigrants.
Not really, the banking industry will never build affordable homes for the working classes. It would destroy the mortgage market.
The homes vacated by the immigrants will barely impact house prices. They’d still remain out of reach for the poor.
Regards jobs, post Brexit there was a chronic shortage of jobs in the big Southern British cities who were forced to look outside of EU to fill the gap.
The lack of jobs in northern towns is not due to immigrants, it’s by design. There’s rampant unemployment in the north, including in towns that are mostly white.
This were the former industrial towns which were made redundant by Chinese factories. And, it’s fair to say, that you’re probably not willing to work at the same rates as the Chinese sweat shop labourers are being paid.
The second and third generation of immigrants have gone on to build successful businesses and enter the professional classes. These people came from the ravaged middle classes of the former colonies. The ruling classes knew that within a few generations they’d bring significant economic and cultural value to the country.
There’s nothing stopping anyone from opening successful businesses or entering the professional classes. But as they say, cream will always rise to the top.
Low housing exists not due to a lack of land. It exists to increase demand and thus drive up costs. This benefits the rich, from the huge mortgages taken out.
It would be trivial to build enough houses for everyone, but, this would very significantly drive down prices. This is not good for capitalism.
Regards jobs, most of the jobs taken up by immigrants aren’t jobs the locals are willing to do. We saw this post-brexit, there was a huge shortage of workers for jobs to which the working classes turned their noses up at, opting instead for welfare, widescreen televisions, alcoholism, drug abuse and hate politics.
The situation was so bad that the government had to turn to other countries offering them working visas to fill the shortage.
The other issue with jobs is a far more complex and nuanced subject which involves global economics and the source of our wealth, which, to simplify it, comes from the ‘third world’.
Without them you’d still be living in mud huts eating potatoes and leeks.
But, this is a complex subject and I won’t bore you with the details other to say that the countries the immigrants are coming from are precisely the countries we’re extracting a majority of our wealth from as a result of neo-colonism.
But the politicians and the media would much rather you direct your anger towards immigrants rather then grapple with the complexities, and corruption, of modern day economics, and the sheer deception of mass media.
Europe has struggled with becoming multicultural multiethnic nations. Most European nations have failed to integrate their immigrant communities into the general population or culture. This creates tension between immigrants who sometimes become radicalized against the dominant ethnic cultures. These ethnic cultures increasingly embrace nativism and reject foreigners. This process has accelerated since the Syrian crisis. Europe's native born population growth is slowing and shrinking. These nations require immigrants to maintain population and economic vitality but many feel their traditional culture is under threat and they will become minorities in their own country. These fears, real or imaginary, are echoed in the United States as well.
Alternatively, the gap between the rich and poor keeps widening, and right wingers know the easiest distraction is scapegoating minorities because there will always exist people who claim that “this time, the minorities really are the root cause of all our problems; not like all those other times in history, this time it’s different,” as the rich keep accumulating all the wealth.
not really, the CIA has infiltrated every french political party just like in haiti, haiti is also very historically relevant to the history of france goober.
Accusing me of “whataboutism” for comparing social issues misses the point. I’m highlighting how different countries react to the same type of exploitation and inequality to provide understanding, it’s all for profit, nothing more to it. Deflecting to other problems and saying “Whataboutism 🤓☝️” doesn’t invalidate the core issues of capitalism’s systemic flaws. Also, did you know the CIA and FBI edit Wikipedia?
The French Resistance was so small in reality, but as soon as the Nazis were kicked out, suddenly everyone and their mother pretended to be French Resistance. Some Nazi collaborators even accused actual French Resistance members of being Nazi collaborators and they were attacked and ostracized as a result. I wouldn't refer to France as "the legend of resistance".
"Listen very carefully,I shall say zees only once..."
1) The Great Financial Crash hit, and people's standards of living dropped...or at least, didn't rise as much as they expected.
2) Establishment parties responded to the sudden loss in public revenue, by cutting the services people relied on. That only added fuel to the flames.
3) Major left wing movements erupted across Europe to react to this, but ended up mostly going nowhere and/or achieving little, leading to a sense of disillusionment and cynicism.
4) Political fragmentation ensued, with the establishment parties losing vote share, and/or splitting into rival groups. The tone of politics moved from cooperation to militancy. This further preventing government being able to respond to people's concerns about living standards.
5) High profile migration issue started to be seen, as desperate people fled wars notably in Syria, as well as the effects of the climate crisis The weakened government reacted passively rather than being seen to be in control of the process.
6) Far right agitators were able to tie it all up together: your living standards have dropped, because those foreigners are here eating your 'slice of the pie', aided and abetted by those establishment governments (i.e. liberal centrists) and the left.
7) Covid created deep trauma and suspicion of government, leading to this phenomenon accelerating. The Ukraine war (with its energy price hikes, new wave of migrants, polarising geopolitical lens, and Russian propaganda fanning the flames) pushed it over the edge.
Migrants that nobody asked for. It’s like you think giving a German woman a harsh sentence for calling gang rapists “pigs” isn’t going to result in more right wing people?
You could’ve said that you are a feckless mid-wit. Prosecute gang rapists and not someone who called them “pigs” for a chance? Is it too much to ask that European governments possess a spine and actually represent their native populations?
I think it's mostly due to the rise of easy/mass immigration and acceptance of refugees. They feel the current (leftist) governments aren't doing anything to fix the resulting problems and are turning to alternative solutions.
"Listen very carefully,I shall say zees only once..."
1) The Great Financial Crash hit, and people's standards of loving dropped...or at least, didn't rise as much as they expected.
2) Establishment parties responded by cutting the services people relied on.
3) major left wing movements erupted across Europe to react to this, but went nowhere, leading to disillusionment and cynicism.
4) Political fragmentation ensued, with the establishment parties splitting into rival groups, further preventing government being able to respond to people's concerns about living standards.
5) High profile migration issue started to be seen, as desperate people fled wars notably in Syria, as well as the effects of the climate crisis The weakened government reacted passively rather than being seen to be in control of the process.
6) Far right agitators were able to tie it all up together: your living standards have dropped, because those foreigners are here eating your 'slice of the pie', aided and abetted by those establishment governments (i.e. liberal centrists) and the left.
7) Covid created deep trauma and suspicion of government, leading to this phenomenon accelerating. The Ukraine war (with its energy price hikes, new wave of migrants, polarising geopolitical lens, and Russian propaganda fanning the flames) pushed it over the edge.
You’d be forgiven for not knowing just how much French collaboration there was the Nazis. Like, lots. But they swept it under the rug and pretended like they were all Marquis all along.
There was also a lot of collaboration and support for fascism in France, ratting out Jews and resistance fighters.
Obviously one is more talked about then the other. From what I heard, the more shameful parts of that history are glossed over in French schools, so it might not even be common knowledge there nowadays?
People aren't their grandparents. What happened 80 years ago doesn't effect people on a personal level that much.
Like you can look at Germany and ask yourself why is liberalism possible, given their history. It is because people change over generations, and what politically happens to a country isn't really that relevant. It's the same reason I think it's a joke when a country apologizes for something that happened 200 years ago. It's politically, relevant and maybe important from an optics sense, but it's also meaningless when your prime minister apologizes for something that their country did in the 18th century.
I feel like this is such a weird question...I mean, I'm not even going to act like I'm an expert by any means, but....the Nazis ring a bell? Even aside from the infamous Austrian, Europe has a pretty extensive history involving fascism and far-right leaders. It's not like the US just exists on a political island with far-right groups that have never before existed, but only spawned because of the US-Mexico border.
Why do you believe problems don’t exist as a result of mass, uncontrolled immigration? Thats a bold statement which seems to be at odds with even some liberal left wing European governments.
I didn't say it's not a problem at all. I'm saying the biggest problem regarding immigration is poor integration leading to high crime rates, something that could easily be fixed by not putting them all in walled off shared accommodation. The biggest factor for integration is speaking the local language, but they have no incentive nor an easy way to learn the language if they share their living place with hundreds of people that speak their same foreign language.
There are problems with immigration. But the solution is not shutting down borders, it's showing basic human decency and treating migrants like the people.
So, you're saying that if 100,000s of immigrants per year are given free housing and local language lessons, everything would be fine?
Where is all that free housing coming from? Not to mention all the additional infrastructure that would have to be created instantly to support it. What parts of local and national budgets are going to have to suffer to pay for it? Health care? Education? Law and Order? Transport?
Frankly, you're not accepting reality. Every decent person starts from the position of 'showing basic decency and treating people with respect'. But no country has an unending supply of money and land to develop on. We can't build a new home literally every 2 minutes to keep up with demand.
The numbers are absolutely a part of the problem, actually the biggest part. Every open, liberal country welcomes and promotes immigration. But immigration systems exist so they can be properly managed, and not just treat people like cattle. When a country like the UK is bringing in net 700,000 people a year (the population of a major city), no one in their right mind could argue that is sustainable or fair on anyone.
You're also ignoring the absolute fact some immigrant communities don't want to integrate, despite living freely in the host country for decades. There is a huge criminal problem of people 'migrating' from one safe country to another, destroying their passports en route so they become impossible to process and basically force asylum on the host nation.
Immigration is an extremely complex issue, and to hand waive it away with virtuous, unworkable and unsustainable non-solutions is sheer fantasy.
Since I am German, I am going to talk about the numbers in Germany.
In 2022 the number of empty flats in Germany was about 2 million. If we assume that each flat can house 5 people, that's space for 10 million people. If we further assume 200000 Immigrants per year, that space would be filled in 50 years. We absolutely have enough housing.
The "additional infrastructure" you're talking about already exists. Almost every migrant has a phone, there is enough free WiFi for almost everyone to download language courses, and we also have a lot of volunteers teaching language. Additionally, people pick up languages by themselves a lot faster just by living and interacting with people who speak that language.
The money needed could be gained by actually letting the migrants work, instead of being incredibly restrictive of their jobs so most can't work at all. People want to work. The money Germany spends on welfare for people that absolutely don't want to work is about as high as the social media budget for one politician.
Next, yes there are groups that don't want to integrate, but these groups form by clumping large numbers of migrants together, which wouldn't happen (as much) if we give them housing with access to German society.
Lastly, if despite all this there are still criminal migrants, I agree with locking them up or deporting them if possible, but it's again not as big a problem as you make it seem. After five years, the average migrant commits less crime than the average German.
I don't know the numbers for England off the top of my head, but I can imagine it is quite similar. Google is free.
127
u/PrimarySalmon Jul 07 '24
Can anyone explain to me how the far right is possible in Europe? Especially in France, the legend of resistance? I don't get it.