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Well thank you for the thoughtful, respectful and engaging response.

I do not advocate for the state surrendering its authority, far from it. The problem lies, to my mind, within some very abuse prone legal frameworks that are currently being put into place. For example, in France, local "préfets" (which are unelected officials that act as local governors) have been steadily gaining more and more powers that cannot be democratically countermended, or at great expense: they can limit people's movements, forbid demonstrations, etc.

That could be seen as a necessary measure against the rising polarization you talk about (a point on which we agree btw, 100%), but then again whenever the far right happens to be the one doing the agitating, the préfets are suspiciously slow to act.

For example, in Paris, the prefet did not forbid a neo Nazi march ending in an Aryan rock concert whereas a week before that he had forbidden multiple démonstrations against Macron's pension reforms. And the list goes on. Our minister of the interior refused yesterday to condemn a police union campaign labelling rioters in Parisian suburbs as "pests to be eradicated". This is not moderate.

Macron is not really a moderate. He acts like one and manages to feel like one from abroad perhaps. But here he is more and more leaning towards the exact type of authoritarian doctrin a moderate should, as you do, strive to impede. And the thing is, his actions, and the general apathy of many towards them, are reinforcing Le Pen's chances come 2027. And that scares me.

Our ranking is unfortunately not getting any better, just look at what is currently happening with Les soulèvements de la terre.

I understand Le Pen would be worse, I truly do. I actually voted against her in the last two elections. But imagine Le Pen in power, which is very likely to happen soon, with all those legal framework already in place. She is going to have the mother of all field days.

You absolutely can find my view to be an exaggeration. Some part of me hope it is. But I'm quite worried about our future as a country right now.

Whataboutism is a hell of a drug. I'm afraid people in many countries are so used to not having those freedoms that they look at us weird for trying to keep them.

I always expected someone to coin the term pornporn to describe the excess of pornographic images. Alas, it was not to be.

I live in France. The government here is using every single tool they have to prosecute radical leftists and environmentalists while ignoring the fact that more than 60 % of the police force has fascist adjacent ideals. I do not want these people spying on me, period. This is not some libertarian horseshit, trust me.

Preach. The shitshow is only getting started.

No approval is needed to launch a service in Europe. Them not launching simply means they know it is not regulation compliant.

T his is not new. He just stopped giving a shit about hiding it.

He is not going to stop, people outside France need to understand this. This man, despite his mild mannered centrist exterior, is an authoritarian. He will stop at nothing short of full tilt censorship. Environmental and political activists are being jailed for no reason while fascist groups run amok. This is bad.

Update: in the end it only partially worked. Bummer. Thanks anyway!

Well, they do intend to federate...

Same. The AI truly are taking over, but instead of skynet we are going to be eradicated by meme bots.