French President Emmanuel Macron has unveiled his new government almost three months after a snap general election delivered a hung parliament.
The long-awaited new line up, led by Prime Minister Michel Barnier, marks a decisive shift to the right, even though a left-wing alliance won most parliamentary seats.
It comes as the European Union puts France on notice over its spiralling debt, which now far exceeds EU rules.
Among those gaining a position in the new cabinet is Bruno Retailleau, a key member of the conservative Republicans Party founded by former president Nicolas Sarkozy.
Just one left-wing politician was given a post in the cabinet, independent Didier Migaud, who was appointed as justice minister.
France's public-sector deficit is projected to reach around 5.6% of GDP this year and go over 6% in 2025. The EU has a 3% limit on deficits.
Michel Barnier, a veteran conservative, was named as Macron’s prime minister earlier this month.
Members of the left-wing alliance, the New Popular Front (NFP) have threatened a no-confidence motion in the new government.
Far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon called for the new government to "be got rid of" as soon as possible.
On Saturday, before the cabinet announcement, thousands of left-wing supporters demonstrated in Paris against the incoming government, arguing that the left’s performance in the election was not taken into consideration.
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Thank you France for finally putting to bed the myth that western democracy works and the only problem is that people just have to vote harder.
I've certainly not seen someone wipe his ass with the people's vote quicker than this guy.
If anything it shows that authoritarians will choose what keeps them in power rather than what's best for the people. The left didn't get the majority, it was roughly a 3 way split between the left, center-right and far-right. The government would've been with the left and center-right or center-right and far-right. The former would've been better because it would've represented a bigger portion of the voters but the latter was also viable from the perspective of democracy.
However the choice was largely up to Macron (and his party) and he's definitely more autocratic than democratic. His decision is what ultimately threw the left under the bus.
Tldr: Democracy is fine, authoritarianism is the issue.
What is shows is that western implementation of the concept of democracy is such that it does not represent the interests of the working majority. Western democracies are class dictatorships where the capital owning class makes the decisions and dictates to the workers. This is precisely what we're seeing happening in France right now.
Meanwhile, authoritarianism is a largely meaningless term. Every government holds authority by virtue of having a monopoly on legalized violence. What actually matters is whom the government is accountable to. When the working majority has no tangible leverage then their voice can be easily ignored. That's why Macron is able to do what he is doing. The issue is with the way the system is implemented.
TLDR: democracy is fine, western implementation of the concept is not
You want to expand on that? Considering Ensemble and National Rally (with its far right allies) make up 301 seats out of the 577 seats (and for the lazy, 289 is the minimum to have the majority). If Ensemble had allied with NFP they'd have 339 seats which is more than with the far-right, but not significantly more. Had the left "won" I don't see how you couldn't make the same argument saying it's bullshit.
Define tangible leverage.
Interesting to see where this non-western fine democracy exists.
I'm not sure what you want me to expand on specifically. It's obvious that the government in France does not represent the interests of the public. This is why France has constant public unrest incidentally.
Ability to hold the government to account for their actions. The regular people have no practical way to exercise influence over the government. Simply being able to vote is meaningless as the election clearly showed.
Two obvious examples for you.
China
Cuba
So public unrest is an indication that the government doesn't represent the interest of the public? Seems like your examples of fine democracy don't represent the interest of the public either, protests on the rise in China and protests in Cuba.
Where are their tangible benefits that you defined so vaguely you might as well have not defined them at all? Please specifics this time, not this vague BS.
Nah, it's public unrest coupled with continuously declining living conditions and the government ignoring the demands from the people that shows the government isn't working in the interest of the public.
Meanwhile, here are some tangible benefits for you to chew on.
The real (inflation-adjusted) incomes of the poorest half of the Chinese population increased by more than four hundred percent from 1978 to 2015, while real incomes of the poorest half of the US population actually declined during the same time period. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w23119/w23119.pdf
From 1978 to 2000, the number of people in China living on under $1/day fell by 300 million, reversing a global trend of rising poverty that had lasted half a century (i.e. if China were excluded, the world’s total poverty population would have risen) https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/China’s-Economic-Growth-and-Poverty-Reduction-Angang-Linlin/c883fc7496aa1b920b05dc2546b880f54b9c77a4
From 2010 to 2019 (the most recent period for which uninterrupted data is available), the income of the poorest 20% in China increased even as a share of total income. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.DST.FRST.20?end=2019&locations=CN&start=2008
By the end of 2020, extreme poverty, defined as living on under a threshold of around $2 per day, had been eliminated in China. According to the World Bank, the Chinese government had spent $700 billion on poverty alleviation since 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/31/world/asia/china-poverty-xi-jinping.html
90% of families in the country own their home giving China one of the highest home ownership rates in the world. What’s more is that 80% of these homes are owned outright, without mortgages or any other leans. https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/03/30/how-people-in-china-afford-their-outrageously-expensive-homes
China used more concrete in 3 years than US in all of 20th century https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2014/12/05/china-used-more-concrete-in-3-years-than-the-u-s-used-in-the-entire-20th-century-infographic/
China also built 27,000km of high speed rail in a decade https://www.railjournal.com/passenger/high-speed/ten-years-27000km-china-celebrates-a-decade-of-high-speed/
This is what life in a country with a government that represents the interests of the people looks like.
Nice to see how little you're paying attention.
The articles I linked both said declining living conditions are the reason of protests. When it comes to Cuba the government suppressed the unrest with force. China protests have worsened in the last year. Looking at how fast you responded you probably didn't even open the links. Nevertheless, your criticism applies to those countries as well
And I accidentally misspelled tangible leverage. I never meant to say tangible benefits and I think context-wise it should've been obvious I meant the term you originally brought up. But you only skimmed my comment for keywords so you could dump your prepared copy paste because there's no way you found those examples with sources within 6 minutes, you had those ready to throw out.
I guess you're just a mouthpiece afterall.
I've literally linked you a bunch of sources showing how living conditions in China have been improving consistently over many decades. Your article isn't a counterpoint to that.
Meanwhile, Cuba is under draconian blockade by the US, and despite that having an obvious impact on the standard of living every poll shows mass support from the public for the government in Cuba. France, on the other hand, has no such excuse. It's one of the richest countries in the world that's been plundering the Global South through colonialism.
You're such a sad troll.
🥱
First of all, do you understand how time works? Your bunch of sources are years old, my source is months old. Maybe years ago everything is was fine, now it's not.
But more importantly, you said civil unrest is an indication of a bad democracy and you brought up those two countries as examples of good democracy. Your excuses might explain why there are unrest, but they don't invalidate the unrest. There's still unrest in those countries which means a) unrest is not an indicator or b) those countries are not examples of good democracy.
What if I'm dyslexic? What if my phone auto corrected it and I didn't notice? Why did I continue talking about it like I meant the other thing? It was an honest mistake on my part, but what is your excuse? Anyone actually paying attention would've questioned how did we get to "tangible benefits". In fact that's how I noticed my mistake in your response because unlike you I was actually paying attention to what you were saying. How do you excuse ignoring the wider context of what I was saying and focusing solely on the one thing that's out of place? I can't think of a single excuse where you don't come out as a bad actor, which is probably why you're name calling me instead of accepting fault. The sad troll here is you, getting caught with your pants down.
Yeah I understand how time works, that's why I gave you list of sources that show historical progress over time. Not just a single event happening, but clear demonstration of long term trends. I guess that was just too complicated for you to wrap your head around.
Nah, that's just a simplistic straw man you keep building instead of addressing what I actually said.
What if you started addressing the actual points being made instead of playing word games.
Except I didn't ignore the wider context, I addressed your points and explained my position clearly.
Projection will always be the way of the liberal I suppose.
So as long as I give you similar data about France your protest argument doesn't count?
Household income in the last 50 years can be found here
I can't find the data on people living for less than $1 but you had another point about extreme poverty as well so we'll cover it there.
The income of the poorest 20% in France is in line with China. Can't link you the exact data but you can put it together in the same databank you referenced.
Amount of people living in extreme poverty in China and France
Home ownership is great in China and this is one place where France (and most western countries) can't compete with.
I'm not sure how concrete usage matters here so I'm just not going to look for that data.
In terms of rail usage France seems to be doing just fine. In fact France seems to be doing pretty well in the public transit area
Unless you really want to hammer in on the housing based on what you've shown France is doing as well as China.
I'm just building on what you've said. If you feel like it's a strawman, it's because that's the arguments you've given me.
Nope. If anything you ignored what I asked and gave me, at that point, irrelevant shit that you're now trying to make relevant.
Does that mean you're calling yourself liberal? Because you're projecting I'm a liberal but I'm a socialist.
That's an imbecilic argument given that France was in a far better starting position than China. What You have to look at is the progression over time, as I've explained this in the last reply. Evidently that went over your head. Household income is a perfect example here incidentally:
The raise in income for Chinese workers has been far more dramatic than for those in France. In fact, a typical Chinese adult is now richer than the typical European adult. https://archive.is/uzLgx
And the context for this, once again, is that China started from the state of utter devastation without any outside help after the revolution.
Incredible that you don't understand how investment in infrastructure matters. Where do you think all this housing, roads, and so on, comes from exactly?
It's because you either have low reading comprehension or you're intentionally misrepresenting what I said by cherry picking and omitting context. Feel free to reread what was said to you until you actually understand the points being made.
I didn't ignore anything you asked, but I guess you've already made it abundantly clear that you're not trying to have a good faith discussion here.
No, I'm saying that you're projecting your own behavior onto me here. The fact that you think you're a socialist makes the whole thing even funnier though.
You're comparing a country that was a developed country more than 50 years ago to a country that has been a developing country in the last 50 years. No shit one of them is going to show a lot of progress. It's like comparing the progress a person does in the first 18 years of the life to the progress of someone from the age of 30 to 48.
You're not proving China is somehow doing better than the western world, you're proving that China is reaching the same standard as the western world.
Come back when you have an actual argument.
Except, China has already caught up to the west and there is still steady progress happening. Hence Chinese people now being richer than Europeans.
Once again, that reading comprehension really needs work. It's frankly embarrassing. From my previous reply.
Perhaps take your own advice here.
Yes, the average Chinese adult is richer than the average European by a whooping 0.22%. How about you read your own articles dumbass. It's literally an example of China reaching the standard of the western world.
EDIT. Forgot to bold a certain part so we can get back to that when you eventually start complaining about numbers again.
Absolutely hilarious how you continue to ignore where China started. Explain to us why we don't see the same thing happening in India for example. Explain why the standard of living in China is improving more rapidly anywhere or any time in history. Meanwhile, also explain why the standard of living in Europe is declining. Pretty clear who the actual dumbass here is.
There's a great article in HBR showing how India could become a significant global player by 2050 and what are the barriers that are preventing it. The same thing happening in India could be just a matter of time.
Foreign investment? Notice how the trend is almost identical with the household income you pointed at before
Source?
China and India started in roughly the same spot after WW2, and there's an obvious reason why they developed very differently. India develops exactly the same way every capitalist country has developed. It's quite obvious that the same things hasn't been happening in India. The fact that you call yourself a socialist and don't understand these things really says volumes.
Last I checked there's plenty of foreign investment in capitalist countries like India. Yet, they're developing in a completely different way.
Meanwhile, people in China are enjoying record household savings in 2024 https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-dow-jones-bank-earnings-01-12-2024/card/chinese-household-savings-hit-another-record-high-xqyky00IsIe357rtJb4j
Enlighten me.
Are they really? In what way?
For fuck sake, the title of the first article literally says relative decline as in the standard of living isn't actually declining, and if you read the article it clearly states the household income isn't increasing as fast as it was before.
Considering how many times you've linked an article and it's complete BS I'm just not going to read any more of your articles. You link an article, find a suitable quote from the article that actually matches what you're claiming and then I'll bother to open the article, because if you can't be bothered neither can I.
Enlighten yourself. Go read up on the history of India and China, what state they were in back in the 50s, and how they've developed since. All of this is publicly available information.
In the way of poverty elimination, industry development, public infrastructure, education, and so on. Again, all of this is publicly available data that you could easily look up instead of spending your time making a clown of yourself here.
Of course you're going to cherry pick the one sentence that fits your narrative. 🤡
Of course you won't, because if you read the articles then you'd actually have to engage with them, and that's not what trolls do. You're not fooling anybody here. Bye.
You said is declining, article is clear its not actually declining. "YoU'rE cHeRrY pIcKiNg"
With the amount of false information, mental gymnastics, name calling and actual idiocracy I'm genuinely happy get be rid of you. France is fine, China sucks, fuck off.
read all of the sources genius
Nobody forced you to make a clown of yourself for two days here, but clearly you couldn't help yourself. The fact that you think that a fascist shithole like France is fine while a socialist country like China sucks tells us everything we need to know about you. As the saying goes, scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds.
Why are you linking sources that are objectively false? Multiple times. And then you claim I'm clowning?
I'll happily take the "fascist shithole" over the surveillance state that is China. But I wouldn't expect you to understand, you believe authoritarianism to be democracy.
I haven't linked any sources that are objectively false. I guess you're just going to repeating it like baby Goebbels as if it's goign to make it true somehow.
Ah yes, the country that just arrested Durov because they can't surveil people using telegram is the beacon of privacy. Said without a hint of irony. Libs have to be the least self aware people on this planet.
I couldn't care less about your capitalist friend being arrested. I guess it's only western capitalists that you're against, Russian capitalists you defend.
Nowhere did I defend any Russian capitalists, but thanks for providing further evidence that you're just here to troll. Since you obviously need to have the last word, I'll just stop here so you can finally move on with your life.
The only reason we're still here is because you keep coming back. You said your bye, I gave you my goodbye. But then you came back anyway because a) you're petty as fuck as evident from the downvotes and b) you can't stand someone, especially a socialist, talking shit about your autocratic wet dream, China.
Anywho, once again.