Elections in various countries

[Raphael]

This is pretty fucking outrageous, but I doubt anything serious will be done in reaction to it:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57219860

[Travis B.]

This is pretty fucking outrageous, but I doubt anything serious will be done in reaction to it:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57219860

Yeah, I saw that. A lot of comments were made in reaction to it, but likewise I doubt anything real will be done about it.

[MacAnDàil]

There have been bans on airspace since then, with Russia riposting.

I haven't gotten round to sorting out the peititon yet, but I have put several propositions on the Ecologist portal https://projet.lesecologistes.fr/profi ... 9/timeline

[Ares Land]

I'll be sure to read these!

The latest viral video is a Catalan comedic song mocking former French prime minister Manuel Valls. (He run for Barcelona mayor because he's Catalan and also because everyone hates him here.)


I'm basically playing the song on repeat, because there are few things as satisfying as a narcissist getting the pubkic humiliation he deserves. Even more so since noone in France would have seen the video had Valls himself not complained about it on social media.

[Raphael]

I'm a bit surprised to hear that a Catalan video got viral outside Catalonia. Does it have subtitles for those of us who don't speak Catalan?

[Linguoboy]

The latest viral video is a Catalan comedic song mocking former French prime minister Manuel Valls. (He run for Barcelona mayor because he's Catalan and also because everyone hates him here.)

Gràcies pel consell! That was lolworthy.

[Ares Land]

I'm a bit surprised to hear that a Catalan video got viral outside Catalonia. Does it have subtitles for those of us who don't speak Catalan?

Oh, the Internet never disappoints. We got French subtitles about a minute after Valls tweeted.
The video is here, in case anyone's interested:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V2WIG8bmO9s

[Creyeditor]

Elections in Saxony-Anhalt might make the extreme right-wing party of the AfD almost the strongest party in its Landtag.

[MacAnDàil]

Most surveys, including the most recent ones, give the CDU ahead: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landtagsw ... nhalt_2021
Anyway, even the rare times the AfD gets a massive share of the vote, they can't govern because they can't form a coalition. Thanfully, even the German right wing parties stay away from them.

I'm a bit surprised to hear that a Catalan video got viral outside Catalonia. Does it have subtitles for those of us who don't speak Catalan?

Oh, the Internet never disappoints. We got French subtitles about a minute after Valls tweeted.
The video is here, in case anyone's interested:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V2WIG8bmO9s

Thanks for the link! Relevant is that Tronche en Biais did a video on the Streisand factor not long back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JImpcWbJJoY

[MacAnDàil]

Also, François Hollande repeats the idea spread by some of the unionist right-wing in Spain that TV3 would be propaganda for showing some sympathy towards independentism: https://www.voici.fr/tele/video-manuel- ... que-704820. Apparently 'unique in Europe', as if RT doesn't exist. Or that Russia isn't in Europe?

[Raphael]

Given that Hollande is French, we should probably be thankful that he considers Spain to be "in Europe". All too often, I get the impression that when many French people say "Europe", they mean "France" (and Germans all too often mean "Germany + France").

[Ares Land]

Oh, no, that was Valls himself. (I don't think Hollande is inclined to feel much sympathy towards Valls now...)

And by that token, France Inter(*) is communist propaganda. Oh wait, people are saying that already.

(*) A major public radio channel, which is indeed pretty left-leaning.

Given that Hollande is French, we should probably be thankful that he considers Spain to be "in Europe". All too often, I get the impression that when many French people say "Europe", they mean "France" (and Germans all too often mean "Germany + France").

Valls did much to uphold the national stereotype by acting horribly arrogant in Barcelona. That said, he was much the same at home.

[MacAnDàil]

I'll be sure to read these!

That's great!

Oh, no, that was Valls himself. (I don't think Hollande is inclined to feel much sympathy towards Valls now...)

Yes, I think I got muddled up with the pronouns in the article.

[Linguoboy]

Can someone summarise what the hell just happened in Israel?

[Raphael]

By "just", do you mean today, or over the course of the last few weeks and days?

If it's the former, no idea - I don't know if anything big happened today yet.

If it's the latter, a bunch of parties ranging from pretty relatively left-leaning by Jewish Israeli standards all the way to hard right, united by little aside from the fact that almost all of them hate Netanyahu (sometimes over genuine policy differences, sometimes because of a history of being personally treated like shit by him) united to form a coalition to replace him. It's not completely official yet, though, since the new coalition has just 61 out of 120 seats in the Knesset, so if 1 (one) of their legislators jumps ship in the all-important Knesset vote, the whole thing fails. Oh, and the plan is for the leader of a pretty small very right-wing party to become Prime Minister of the new coalition government, because that was the only way to get him on board with the project.

[MacAnDàil]

So how are the regional elections going in the other regions of France? Here in Réunion, the current Region President (Didier Robert) is still candidate despite being condemned to jail and loss of eligibility for corruption charges (because he contested). But the two main left-wing candidates (Erika Bareigts and Huguette Bello) are close to find an easy enough second-round agreement and the centrist Nassimah Dindar is supporting Erika Bareigts. We'll see the first poll tonight.

[Ares Land]

In Île de France we're sure to get the incumbent, Valérie Pécresse for Region President (LR - the traditional right-wing party) I don't know what people see in her: as far as I can see she's just there to pick fights with the Mayor of Paris.

I hope RN (the far right) gets shitty results, but realistically they're going to do very well. Which in turns means the media will be all over them in the coming year, a great idea before a presidential election.

Well, it's the usual. Three left-wing parties: PS, LFI and EELV) are running. They all have the same ideas and the same platforms. They all hate each other's guts. Each can hope to get 10% of the votes, tops. It's kind of depressing, really.

Honestly, though, even if they were united, they wouldn't do great either. The country is an awfully authoritarian mood these days.

[Raphael]

Well, it's the usual. Three left-wing parties: PS, LFI and EELV) are running. They all have the same ideas and the same platforms.

Are you sure about that last point? Do they even have the same ideas about issues like foreign policy and support for the world's various "anti-imperialist" mass murderers?

[Ares Land]

Let's just say that I really don't like LFI but I try to keep vaguely neutral.

But yeah, one of these three isn't quite like the others. LFI is a populist party. The idea was to replicate the RN success on the far-left(*), and it shows.
Myself, I find Mélenchon's support of Maduro unacceptable. Generally the party is anti-European (well, officially, it isn't, but still.) Mélenchon in particular has a deep irrational hatred of everything German except Oskar Lafontaine and the GDR. He's also been pretty weaselly wrt to Russia.

For differences between the PS (socialist) and EELV (Green) platforms, you need to bring out special apparatus. I mean, the current PS. The differences were huge before Macron.
There are reasons why the PS and EELV don't get along. I won't go into that because a) they're incredibly boring b) they're incredibly arcane and I don't really understand most of it myself.

[Raphael]

Ah, thank you!