France facing totalitarianism?

words fail me.....

If you don't know what this represents ... the woman on the right is basically the french trump except much much more racist and actually has a chance of taking the head of the state. Actualy no, scratch that. She is without a doubt the modern day hitler and arabs (and muslims) are her "jews".

A solid chance since the idiots at the left are unwilling to step down for the second round to avoid at all costs a 3 side election which would give her the best chance.

basically you take any random bowl of frenchmen and give them the choice of voting between two parties : the Front National (the racist lady) or basically anything else and you're guaranteed that anything else will win because there are bound to be enough sane-headed people in that random lot.

but with a 3 sided election the cleaving between right and left parties (no not democrat and republican; those would probably translate to up and down) would leave too much terrain to be gained by the one-minded totalitarian party's followers who DO represent slightly more than 30% and that's all they need. I'm not gonna lie the voters (ot lack therof) are largely at fault. Only elders go vote for that lady and they never miss a voting day. Today less than 50% of voters showed up.

the right course of action to take for every 3rd party in every region (there are dozens of parties but we're only looking at the topmost) would be to step down (Front National is almost always second except some regions where it is 1st or other) so that whatever party (Right or Left) was first could have an easy victory and prevent modern-day hitler from rising to power.

But the left wing party (the one I'm closest to, as my own choice, the ecologist party, usually allies with them against the right in the second round) is not playing the part and refusing to step down.

This is a calamity they don't realize what they're causing. we're witnessing history repeat itself here except it's migrated from germany to france and I'm so powerless against it. It's the worst feeling.

That's a really terrible summary of things. Could you be any more biased against the right?

I'm sorry, I'm supposed to be biased when you're calling the front national the right and when I'm bashing the left for not stepping down to let there be a right-FN duel ???????

Unless "traditional" politicians get their **** together, people will vote for stuff like FN purely out of frustration and spite.

Calling anyone "modern day hitler" is not gonna help with anything I think.

But yeah that woman is certainly not a person anyone should want anywhere near a position with political power.

I guess all it really takes are a few terror attacks and people are scared enough to go and vote away all values their nation was supposed to stand for.

You guys remember how hitler came into power by creating a terroris attack and blaming it on the jews ?

I'm not sure that's entirely accurate.

I am going to join Colin in commenting that the whole Hitler comparison is something people should drop when opposing Le Pen. It comes across as hyperbole and weakens your arguments. Besides, people love an underdog, and if the two traditional parties unite in opposition against her, she will likely bask in votes she might not otherwise have gained as people take a stand against what is perceived as bullying.

Political gaming and tactics such as those you describe above are exceptionally risky, because they never have the intended effect. By doing that, the two other parties would in fact be depriving people of a real choice. And we know how the French tend to react to that sort of thing.

The only way you'll be able to ensure Le Pen is kept out is by reasoned, sensible argument. You don't have the luxury of doing what we did to the BNP in the UK and just ignoring them until they go away - they've already too much broad support for that. You're not powerless Tatsu; if you want to take a stand against it, remind your fellow Frenchmen what Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité means. But also remember that "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." That means if in a free and fair election you get a result that, within your electoral system, is deemed to be representative of the people, you will have to live with that.

The biggest struggle is making people aware what they're voting for.

Yup. The situation in france isn't exactly a unique one. Eurosceptic, populistic parties are popping up everywhere. Why, because we're secretly hitlers? Nope. it's because people feel poorly represented, political agendas aren't even being followed anymore, Brussels feels more isolated from the world than it ever has and people don't see a choice other than voting for whatever gives established parties the biggest nightmare.

Here in the netherlands we have the PVV which is also Euroskeptic and populistic and people love it because they don't feel represented. Interestingly their leader does it's utmost best to dismiss comparisons to hitler.

Besides, whenever there's a threat to the nation, blame foreigners. It pretty much always works. It works for Wilders, it works for le Pen, it works for Trump. It worked for Hitler.

some history : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire albeit he blamed it on the communists. my memory wasn't fresh on the matter.

sorry about all the "hitlerisms" I'm doing. It's not me I swear. ... In these circumstances it's hard to help myself. the irony is just too damning.

and the fact we're once again allowing history to repeat itself no matter how many times we tell ourselves that it's silly there's no reason we'd let it is just searing in me.

I'm trying! I'm trying my damn hardest

as explained in the OP this would be the worst possible course of action as it de-facto garantees her victory given same results.

there is no "underdoging" going on with political parties in france. there never has been to my knowledge.

Ecologist party has never gained any sway and it's been the uncontested underdog for years.

I totally feel that as well. It's just that should not be a reason to go and vote for somebody who aims to throw us back into political stone age.

I usually get confused with this left-right stupidity. Totalitarianism, anti-inmigration and not liking EU are not right-wing things. And being anti-inmigration is not being racist.

Your political argument against them is basically calling that woman evil, that's cheap populism.

Maybe your post was intended for another audience such as a political forum in France, here you are just discrediting yourself with that all-present comparation to Hitler.
Why don't you compare her to Felipe III or someone else? but Hitler, really? She doesn't hate jews, she doesn't want to conquer Europe, she isn't socialist....

My condolences go out to you as well. They should be raging against extremist islam, rightfully so, and their post-terror-attack bombings definitely dealt a righteous blow. However, they shouldn't be targeting an "entire demographic" without giving individual judgement on a personal basis whether the person is "peaceful" or not. That is just ignorant. Leave the religion or race alone, and target just the extremist and terrorists.

I am all for starting yet another war with Syria and allowing them to establish a government that doesn't support terrorists and genocide, both against the Geneva Convention, like they do now. Maybe that is just the American in me, but being racist isn't my thing, there are plenty of decent muslim nations out there and plenty of decent mosques within America. They are no worse than snooty racist misogynist extremist christians, and i'd support fighting CS in 20 years just like I support fighting IS now. It isn't the religion you target. It's the terrorists, both domestic and foreign.

Disagree. Raging won't help at all, they're falling for the old trap yet again. Raging doesn't help, no matter who you are dealing with. Calm rational analysis and action is what would be required. I can't see any of those sadly.

Because the rational politicians don't get voted. If you don't shout something catchy you won't get heard.

if we want to deal with bigger problems, then the established politicians need to get their act together.

Idk, I still say the bombings in response to the attack, were good and proper. Since we are talking about Hitler here, history has proven that dealing with aggression with pacifism and "warning after warning", just leads to giving the enemy a head start. Giving the terror network a "head start" by shrugging off attacks, is no good. Laying waste to every government they have ties to, well, we are being rational if we give them fair warning to collaborate in cutting ties and handing over terrorists. If they don't want to hand over terrorists they are harboring, then we can do things the hard way and still get the terrorists that threaten many a nation, and if we are lucky it doesn't take more than the deployment of troops to obtain the government's surrender to demands, an easy victory to get the hostile terrorists and not have to actually go through and fight a war with a stubborn government, if they will "listen to reason".

I personally am not an extreme "against all muslims" person, I don't want "muslim blood", I want just the terrorists. I am not stupid, the terror network have more than enough angloid-looking not-publicly-muslim nation-native correspondents, if people are stupid enough to wage a civil war with it's innocent muslim citizens then they are going to be surprised when they see attacks still get through their racist-based national security fairly easily. Much more likely to stop attacks, by destroying it's planning and support network.

I think history has proven that bombings alone don't work. the Middle East needs more than bombs to be safe.

Those bombing attacks were the manifestation of the typical mistakes. Violence? Sure let's react with more violence. Puts "us" on the same level as "them".
I'd rather the reaction to terror attacks would be a simple "Hey that was not nice .... okay back to what we did before", Even for 9/11 no reaction would have probably been a lot better than the actual reaction. Well a little police investigation is reasonable I guess, but when I say police I mean police. Not "we're gonna ignore our own laws as we please"-kind of secret organizations.
Sometimes it's better not to fight back.

No, don't get me wrong, "we're going to ignore our own laws as we please" kind of secret organizations are in fact wrong. The response of "giving an ultimatum to the Taliban to step down from power" as a NATO-initiative after finding out they were the responsible party, was pretty straightforward. Honestly, you are right that it is a violent reaction, but after that whole ordeal it shouldn't be a reaction any longer, it should really be a constant pursuit, I don't know why terrorist organizations were ever left alone again.

I know for a fact they wern't.

they were largely a firework show with nothing but innocent civilian casualties.

more wood for isis's fire.

http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/en-d...ertains-responsables-opposition-syrienne.html

You're selling it as a moral story, but it plainly isn't. For a country like america where throwing bombs first and asking questions later is pretty much it's Modus Operandi, having something as big as 9/11 happen and then replying "nope won't do anything about it" is the same as saying "i hereby resign from office, politics and personal honor".

Look at what the Paris bombings did. one moment EU nations resisted involvement. Next moment, even the UK gets it's bombings greenlit. As much as the "correct" response would be to do nothing, there's a snowball's chance in hell that anyone will accept that.

Besides, throwing bombs does have some effect (like destroying strategic installations). The problem is that there's no follow-up plan. The Coalition invaded iraq, trained some troops and left. Now many of those troops are fighting for either Taliban or IS.

We need the people of the Middle East more than ever to return it to stability. Pouring hatred on the no.1 religion there and discriminating against them is as useful as throwing bombs on their homes and schools. There are voices that oppose that (Italy doesn't want to bomb, the Netherlands are discussing other avenues than bombing to name a few) and what we need is support for those causes. I understand Hollande's decision to send bombs first, but we need more than that.

In context to the thread, putting a wall around the nation won't help. The threat is external. It's like there's a forest fire nearby, and in stead of trying to stop the fire we're just digging a little trench so that even though the countryside is ablaze, at least our tiny little patch isn't hurt. What we -of any western nation- need is not people like Le Penn who will wall off the nation (isn't she also against gay marriage, which only recently got approved there? way to turn the clock back). What we need are politicians that can look further than that and deal with the problem. Part of achieving that is voting, as useless as it may seem.

It never had to be. Why can it never be the right time for a change ?