NationStates Jolt Archive

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyid=2006-05-01T151123Z_01_L01719102_RTRUKOC_0_US-FRANCE-LEPEN.xml&rpc=22

Looks like Le Pen is becoming more popular, simply for using slogan that appeal to native French.

"Lies of state are now the rule in our banana republic," he told the crowd, many of whom carried maps of France emblazoned with the "Love it or leave it" slogan that Sarkozy and Le Pen's far-right rival Philippe de Villiers have been using.

Referring to the 1960s slogan often shouted at Americans protesting against the Vietnam War, Le Pen said: "We were the first to use this in France, though to be completely honest, I have to say it comes from the United States."

I remember Love It or Leave It when it came out, lol

Indeed there are numerous cultural similarities between the Americans and the French. This is why they dislike each other so much. Sometimes nothing is more painful than seeing yourself from a third person perspective.

What's the bigger insult? Comparing le Pen to Americans, or likening people from the Minutemen Militias to a Neo-Nazi? :confused:

I will continue to maintain that France is far more culturally conservative than most any other western country out there. I don't mean culturally conservative as in the American right. I mean culturally conservative by virtue of the fact that they're incredibly resistant to change.

I will continue to maintain that France is far more culturally conservative than most any other western country out there. I don't mean culturally conservative as in the American right. I mean culturally conservative by virtue of the fact that they're incredibly resistant to change.

The mere fact that the French government maintains an official body to police the official French language is a dead giveaway to me as to how the French think.

Whenever someone mentions policing the English language in the US, they are shouted down as racists - I don't see anyone shouting down the French for their official enforcement of the French language.

I will continue to maintain that France is far more culturally conservative than most any other western country out there. I don't mean culturally conservative as in the American right. I mean culturally conservative by virtue of the fact that they're incredibly resistant to change.

The French have a long established tradition of not changing until people have taken to the streets. It's served them well so far.

Well, the extreme right is growing in France, like in many other countries of Europe. The governements are disbanding the social systems that were created after WW2, because misery was how Hitler came to power, and since the same cause have the same effects, the extreme right is growing again...

And because right-wing leaders like Sarkozy cannot defend their economical or social agenda (it would be rejected by between 2/3 and 3/4 of the french), they try to speak about other issues, the ones they can easily use to scare people and win their vote: crime and immigration. And that's how Le Pen becomes stronger and stronger...

But there is also a huge resistance in the french population, against those far right ideas, as we saw in 2002 (Le Pen was defeated by 82% of the votes, and millions took the street to protest against him).

I will continue to maintain that France is far more culturally conservative than most any other western country out there. I don't mean culturally conservative as in the American right. I mean culturally conservative by virtue of the fact that they're incredibly resistant to change.

Well, depends to which kind of changes. Don't forget we are also the people of the Revolution, the Commune, the Popular Front, ... French people can drive strong change in the right direction, sometimes. They are also very resistant to changes towards neoliberalism, but I see that as a good point: refusing to move backwards is as important as being able to move forward ;)

The French have a long established tradition of not changing until people have taken to the streets. It's served them well so far.
And when the government attempts to change before people take to the streets, they take to the streets against the change.

But even more than that, French culture, going back hundreds of years seems to be stubborn and resistant to changes that other cultures have made readily. The French aristocratic method of warfare was destroyed at Agincourt by a paid professional English army. The French monarcy was toppled because peasants were starving due to the fact that it was too cold to grow cereal grains, but they kept trying to grow cereal grains even when they had a perfectly viable alternative: the potato. Perhaps the French culture is totally unwilling to change, even in the face of disaster.

Am I reading too much into these events?

The mere fact that the French government maintains an official body to police the official French language is a dead giveaway to me as to how the French think.

Whenever someone mentions policing the English language in the US, they are shouted down as racists - I don't see anyone shouting down the French for their official enforcement of the French language.

There are cultural reasons to that. During the "Ancient Régime" (before the Revolution), there were different variant of French in different part of the country (as there were different values for the measuring units, ...); most of the peasants didn't know the proper french, and couldn't read the laws, ... They were also cheated when they traded between regions with the different measuring units, and so on.

The Revolution united the language and created the metric system to prevent the powerful from absuing the people with such dirty tricks. So the unique french language became a symbol of national unity, and of eguality of citizen in front of the law. The values and traditions from the Revolution are very deeply incrusted in french people, like the ones from the independance wars are in many american countries (USA and South America alike).

Well, depends to which kind of changes. Don't forget we are also the people of the Revolution, the Commune, the Popular Front, ... French people can drive strong change in the right direction, sometimes. They are also very resistant to changes towards neoliberalism, but I see that as a good point: refusing to move backwards is as important as being able to move forward ;)
Yet neoliberal ideas have brought wealth and prosperity to the countries that have followed them. Meanwhile, regulated economies have done little more than stagnate for the past four decades. The amazing growth of the American economy during the nineteen-nineties, the rebirth of the Japanese economy under the liberalizing reforms of Koizumi, the economic explosion of China, the increasing liberalization of India (after so many decades of regulation and stagnation) all seem to be evidence in favor of neo-liberal ideas. Whilst Keynes ideas remains favored in economies that are registering barely any growth.

And when the government attempts to change before people take to the streets, they take to the streets against the change.

We take the streets against counter-reforms: attempts from the governement to go back to the time of before the social rights of 1944. We won't let them do that.

We don't protest against changes that go in the right direction, the direction of more social justice, of less poverty, of more rights for the people. We protest against attempt to destroy the rights the previous generation won, and refusing to go backwards is not refusing changes - quite the opposite.

Yet neoliberal ideas have brought wealth and prosperity to the countries that have followed them.

That's just utter bullshit. Even the wealthiest of neoliberal economy (USA) is full of poverty, while the ones who applied the neoliberal reforms the most failed utterly (Argentina, for example).

For Japan, it's far from neoliberal, it's a very specific system, but the state as HUGE control on the economy, and played a massive role in preventing the 90s crisis from being much worse.

For China and India, it may look nice on the paper, but the numbers of very poor people is growing...

There are cultural reasons to that. During the "Ancient Régime" (before the Revolution), there were different variant of French in different part of the country (as there were different values for the measuring units, ...); most of the peasants didn't know the proper french, and couldn't read the laws, ... They were also cheated when they traded between regions with the different measuring units, and so on.

The Revolution united the language and created the metric system to prevent the powerful from absuing the people with such dirty tricks. So the unique french language became a symbol of national unity, and of eguality of citizen in front of the law. The values and traditions from the Revolution are very deeply incrusted in french people, like the ones from the independance wars are in many american countries (USA and South America alike).
But it's preventing the natural evolution of language. Look at American English, and the many foreign influences that have come into the language, and every single one of them has been beneficial. American English integrates words from French, German, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Yiddish, Japanese, Arabic, Greek and we seem to not be harmed by these changes.

That's just utter bullshit. Even the wealthiest of neoliberal economy (USA) is full of poverty, while the ones who applied the neoliberal reforms the most failed utterly (Argentina, for example).

For Japan, it's far from neoliberal, it's a very specific system, but the state as HUGE control on the economy, and played a massive role in preventing the 90s crisis from being much worse.

For China and India, it may look nice on the paper, but the numbers of very poor people is growing...
Yet a poor American lives far better than a mid-level Vietnamese. Poor Americans typically have a car, color televisions, cable TV, telephones, houses and access to education. Only a few people, living in the most remote regions are poor in the fashion of a Vietnamese rice farmer.

Argentina got fucked because the government spent massive amounts of money irresponsibly. If the government is able to control it's spending and make sure that the laws are followed (corruption of all sorts must be rooted out) then neo-liberal reforms will work.

While the number of poor in India and China is growing, there are greater numbers of people living better, longer, more comfortable lives in these countries than ever before. The increase in the number of poor is primarily a factor of the population growth in both of those countries, not of neo-liberal reforms.

Japan is liberalizing, and as it liberalizes an economic rebirth is occuring. Koizumi has been fighting tooth and nail to force through liberal reforms. There's still a long way to go, but the Japanese are slowly getting on the right track.

The crisis of the nineties was caused by governments, not by the economic cycle. Currency speculation, the sort of thing that made George Soros rich, ruined the Thai Baht. The other countries of the region were severely damaged by these behaviors. The situation was only exacerbated by the ROK. The ROK hid it's fiscal problems so well that we didn't know that they were in trouble until they only had two or three days worth of money left. The International Financial Organizations managed to bail the ROK out, but foreign investors found out about it and bailed. The shockwaves caused by the government's fiscal irresponsibility affected the entire regional economy.