French Politics

Without any clue, I'm guessing maybe the administrative part?

As a bureaucrat in training; administration, procurement (which is quickly becoming my field of expertise) and interdepartmental/intergovernmental management are usual suspects. But a lot of those issues are structural.

Also, too many administration cost cuts render government incompetent or corrupt.

Probably both.

What about graft, corruption, and inefficiency?

I am told that one of the most cost-effective things a government can do is increase the tax inspection force. They bring in a lot more money than they cost.

Possibly a feature and not a bug.

Allows for further cuts and privatization down the line.

Fillon is also sympathetic to Putin, albeit less so than Le Pen. Another reason not to pick between the two.

'Cutting bloated public sector' is generally right-wing/liberal speech for 'cut social services to the bone and keep all the inefficient government administrators.' It's not actually about reducing bloat, it's just about 'saving up' government funds to waste on tax breaks for the wealthy because something something trickle down economics voodoo something something.

edited 9th Jan '17 8:21:27 AM by math792d

Does any one of the (realistic) candidates for the presidency actually support the sanctions against Russia? Fillon and MLP have spoken in favour of ending the sanctions, what do other candidates think about it?

Mélenchon was also pro-Russia, right?

He's a good little tankie, yes. He mentioned several times that it's unfair to condemn Russia's intervention in Syria and Crimea (the latter of which was only done to protect the innocents from the neo-nazis putsch) and that sanctions against Russia are pointless, so yeah.

Emmanuel Macron (independent) said last month that he wanted to decrease the sanctions, though he clarified that unlike the others he didn't consider himself a friend of Russia.

I don't consider anyone else, especially from PS, to be a candidate worth discussing.

edited 10th Jan '17 8:54:18 AM by Nithael

Does MLP have either the intention or the credibility to run a left-wing economic programme?

The Quotidien guest yesterday wrote about MLP's mindset. For him, everything she does is about getting elected, and her "left-wing" economic program (at least something looking like that) was added because she was convinced her father's positions (who was even more pro-free-market than Fillon) couldn't get you elected - that, and racism, antisemitism or homophobia.

Which is why, now, she only implies her islamophobia or antisemitism in her speeches. She won't say that "the World is ran by greedy jews", she will say that "rich people in New York rule the world", and let her voters connect the dots.

So she's started to use the same dogwhistles as (U.S.) Republicans. I'm guessing the Trump strategy of doing away with them wouldn't do well in France (which is why she distanced herself from her father in the first place).

Is the French media pointing out that she's using dogwhistles? That's what's screwing us up here in America: the US media refuses to point out the obvious.

I'm not sure we have a concept of dogwhistles in politics here. Or even a word for it, because the literal translation doesn't have quite the punch of "dogwhistle".

Well, how about "bullshit" then? Is there any general French media saying that?

Macron's under fire by speaking in English during a conference in Germany.

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/quel-disrespect-frances-macron-hit-speaking-english-134353020.html

Well, he probably just wanted to be actually understood. There's a higher chance of everybody in the room understanding English than of everyobdy understanding (or even speaking) French.

Wow, the way they sound in this article, they'd be equally pissed if he had spoken German. In Germany.

Sad part is, how many people will eat that up?

English is the "international" language now, guys. Get over it. This reminds me of that old Esperanto controversy where prominent esperantists like Henri Masson demanded the head of a journalist who had dared to say English was more useful to travelers than Esperanto...

edited 11th Jan '17 6:52:59 AM by Medinoc

Also, French people being pissed about somebody daring to speak another language than French?

@Drunken Nordmann I'm sure you're right about why he spoke English, especially if he doesn't speak German that well (or at all). I'm also sure Medinoc is right that the far-right would have jumped on him if he had spoken German. However, the stereotype is stronger for English, given the long rivalry between France and England.

French is the Trope Namer for Lingua Franca. Vestigial Empire butthurt ensues when they are reminded that it isn't so anymore.

Actually Lingua Franca originally did not refer to French but to a hodge podge of varies words spoken by "Franks" (Western Europeans) when making deals with people in the eastern mediterranean (Greeks, Arabs, Turks, other peoples of the Levant).

Translation: before the French branch of Franks got all Romantic because they did the Norman thing of moving south and switching languages... Franken was a Germanic language.

Complaining about Frank descendants speaking Germanic or Anglo-Norman derived languages = same old family squabble over who inherits Charlemagne's sliver.

You'd think we'd get over it by now. It's been over a millennium, people. -_- Heck, none of our cultures are what they used to be, and the dude would have major trouble recognising any of them. <_<