I'd like to have your opinions on french politics, your thought on Melenchon ? and on Macron and all of that shit...

i'd like to have your opinions on french politics, your thought on Melenchon ? and on Macron and all of that shit,if you were French for whom would you vote? I want and need to know, BTW i'm new on this board be gentle (sorry for shitty english i tried my best)

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=qbk8KKfy5MI&t=1s
youtube.com/watch?v=Ca1lDW7ripI&t=2s
youtube.com/watch?v=vz4xR-NPcZA
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_education
youtube.com/watch?v=l3MK9vG0yJs
youtube.com/watch?v=FH8_n4OMJok
8ch.net/pol/index.html
laec.fr/)
youtube.com/watch?v=6_5gio3yd3A)
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

I'm French.
Mélenchon is pretty much the beginning of something rather than the thing in itself it that makes sense. I don't see Corbière succeeding, someone else will have to do.
Macron is your typical empty suit hired to further the neoliberal agenda.
If I were French (and I am), I wouldn't vote. I'd try to agitate and educate myself which is what I do.

i mean yeah, between Lepen and Macron i wouldn't vote but if he was on the second tour vs Macron or Lepen i would totally vote for him, no hesitation (even if it's too late)

IMO someone should figure out how to operate the synthesis between him and the least retarded part of the Front National without coming off as a racist himself.

The next phase of the neoliberal collapse is the neolibs forming coalitions with any popular right wing movement to cling to power. Idk much about french politics but this seems like their MO.

Leftist anti-immigration policy, without idpol bullshit, only socio-economics arguments.

It's already over for them. The RPR (Rassemblement pour la République) => UMP (Union pour un Mouvement Populaire) => Les Républicains (the republicans) is the old conservative right-wing but economically liberal block and they're all dying of old age and general irrelevance. The youth has no ties to them.


It's very easy to explain why immigration works for porky, especially given that porky exploited the colonies as well. This way you can integrate both criticisms (anticolonialism and anti economic immigration) into socialism without advocating for Nazi masturbation fantasy. Since porky caused colonialism and mass immigration both, you can get both sides at once. It's easy.

Unfortunately it's not, at least not in France, most of the France Insoumise are pro-immigration that's why there's so many proles who keeps voting for the Front National.

Then beat FI on their own turf by being more radical in your socialism (making fun of them as socio-democrats like Hamon, also exposing the fact Mélenchon did get closer to Hamon this very week). Also make it clear economical immigration is caused by capitalism, bourgeoisie, colonialism, the need to increase wage competition to drive them lower. Explain nobody leaves home for fun but be fair to both sides of the issue, arguing to send second or third generation-born french people back to countries they never visited is fucking stupid

How? Radicalizing FI? Socializing FN? You can't talk to both of them, hell you can't even talk to one of them because their only listens to their leaders, what's your praxis exactly?

Social democrat who sold out all the poor working class fools he managed to drum up for his campaign the second it turned out he lost. Worse than the PCF in many regards because at least nobody's been taking the PCF seriously since like the '60s.

His party is a failure because he puts ecology and feminism as a priority over the working class.

Hopefully, Melechon will be smart enough to learm from Corbyn and go back to the basic: The class war


This, but you still have to go out and vote you moron, the "it's useless" mentallity for kids it's one of their greatest weapons. Right now you sound like one of the useful idiots "i woudn't vote but i'll vote Macron because muh lepen"
If it really were useless you woudn't be reading masive propaganda anti-melechon/pro-macron

Yes. Hand out theory and leaflets with stronger thought debunking their socdem tendancies, radicalize the anti-EU stance significantly. Make euroskepticism sound legitimate and smart (build the narrative around the fact the EUROPEAN UNION is a neoliberal club while nobody wants war in Europe and we all want tourists, researchers to be able to circulate freely etc.) but adopte a staunchly hostile stance to the European Union.

Yes. The aformentioned points should make us sound legitimate in their eyes already. Make it clear globalism is bourgeois ideology. Also hand out more theory.

Both of their leaders suck. A semi-intelligent person could easily subvert their base.


Ecology lost, I don't really care about voting anymore. My point is I don't want to waste 5 years for another election. The clock has been ticking for far too long already and we're late.


They're losing control so they dump more means in those. The bourgeoisie is a decadent class right now. They cannot think or act effectively due to internal contradictions and are on the brink of their collapse. This propaganda has little to no effect, it's here to keep the politically illiterate within their reality bubble but it's going to get harder and harder to dismiss reality and it comes knocking down in its dialectical glory.

Tell me how a single person could subvert the bases of two big french political parties.

Do you even participate in FI in someway or do you just want to change their base without even being part of it?

We see people on YouTube rising to fame and gathering millions of followers in months. There's never been as much exposition for a convincing man, we have incredibly powerful and easily accessible soapboxes, it's not even funny anymore.
A person providing high-level content with decent production value, subversive and fresh enough material while bringing a new political perspective encompassing a large spectrum could definitely, with a strong personality, garner a large following. And then, other personalities would be sure to defect etc. As it always happens in history, it's all about finding a common affect (in Spinoza's meaning of affect) for the group to cristallise around.

The latter. Even being part of an FI-stamped activity would erode my legitimity. I want to appear as a non-partisan force, standing for my own agenda.

Because it's pure entertainment, if it was really subversive with a revolutionnary potential it would not be popular.
Here's two examples, the first one is a short political satire but without a real theory support, the second one is a long reading on how to build a revolutionnary movement :
youtube.com/watch?v=qbk8KKfy5MI&t=1s
youtube.com/watch?v=Ca1lDW7ripI&t=2s
Guess who's the popular one?

Politics is all about affects. If you can summon the affect in the other, you're charismatic. Theory is all about how to be right and how to sound like you're right.
A charismatic leader with a strong theoric formation and good humour could very easily rise and garner strong support in one year, maybe even less.

So you wait the reincarnation of Marx and Lenin in the same person?

Do you even take socialism seriously? History is the playground of historical people. Either you are a historical person, either you're not.

This.

We're not, I really doubt that any Holla Forums posters can be a historical person, or more generally that a charismatic leader with a strong theoric formation who serves our cause will comes.
Maybe I'm the pessimistic or you are the messianic.

I think anyone can be educated enough to sound convincing and to be able to defend sensible opinions. IMO a political ideology needs to have some explicative power and the typical strength of materialist thought is its explicative power. Explaining politics, history through marxism helps building a strong thinking framework, things that liberalism typically fail to do.
There's also the appeal of being truly subversive while not referring to jews or obscure conspiracies to make your points but simple concepts, clear and concise explanations of seemingly advanced political thought and theory will gain you much more allies than fancy flags and cute folklore.
IMO we need to refound a socialist international. The Internet is the framework that will bear class consciousness and there is NOTHING the bourgeoisie can do to stop it.

There's nothing messianic about saying I shouldn't do everything but start what is essentially a viral model, showing exponential growth. Like a ponzi scheme but instead of running out of people to scam, you run out of proles to convince because you just happen to be right every time.

Which is basically what the alt-right is desperately trying to do to achieve relevance but fail due to lack of general theory, education and also advocating for stupidly edgy policies nobody really wants.

So you're saying that anyone can be the charismatic leader? Why don't you start your movement then?

THIS IS A SHIT POST

Anyone can agitate and be the leader of his own revolutionary group, yes.
What do you think I'm doing? Studying, learning, thinking on how to proceed to make sure we win. It's inevitable.

So if I sum up all your posts, your praxis to subvert FI and FN, is to be the leader of our own revolutionary group, and by revolutionary group you means making Youtube videos and reading books?

YouTube videos are actually good praxis. Maybe not be the one making videos but having a propaganda channel that is one of main aspects of the group would be great. Imagine if your content is VERY good. As in, genuinely captivating, intelligent, in-depth and still entertaining.
But yes, the point is to subvert society by subtly subverting contradictions inherent to capitalist/fascist/conspirationist thought. Always be one or two dialectical steps ahead so it's very easy to make fun of Mélenchon/Le Pen or mainstream opinions.
Reading books can't really a bad praxis anyway.
I'm personally graduating in history and philosophy atm after a solid scientific formation.

The endgame is to be such an overwhelming majority and political actor we don't really need elections but we don't need a bloodshed either. Just manifest political power coming from the sheer numeric superiority. A multi-million members political force in France + millions of federalist movements in other countries is a force that is pretty much unstoppable. We need to create our own political juggernaut that cannot be ignored.
Keep in mind historical conditions are unique, we have incredibly powerful tools to lead international socialism to fruition. The kind of things Lenin couldn't have dreamt of. Everyone has internet at home, think of how much of a revolutionary project the first French Encyclopedia was, or even the invention of printing. Internet is something of a similar calibre in terms of raw class consciousness potential.
All we need to do, is convince people to read books, make obscure leftist jokes, get our own culture, memes etc, whatever it takes, we need to make the other side look like the drooling retards they actually are, which is easy thanks to theory, once again.
In situationist terms, we need to subvert the spectacle. We need to force its audience to stare at us because we actually talk to them and not their alienated self. Which is what being subversive is.

Simply put, we need to gather intellectual and numeric forces to build up a force that would have a strong supremacy, both intellectual and numeric to start the revolution. Also providing a healthy political base to start writing a constitution and have a democratic process that isn't rigged by private property, porky ideology etc etc.
This is probably the easiest way to gain legitimity, strength, to have a healthy avant-garde to safeguard the dictatorship of the proletariat. As I said, it can be done within two years, maybe less.

The other option is to wait for Trump's mandate to be over and have Zuckerberg be elected POTUS and then the terrifying dystopia begins.

Do you realize how powerful the cultural hegemony of capitalism is?
Do you think you're the first one to think like that? How old is the leftist movement and why we are still in capitalism? And you show up and said it can be done within two years.
Except with a major crisis (and I'm not talking about 2008 crisis, I'm talking about something bigger like World War I), you can't do it.
With your praxis you won't not need two years, you will need two centuries.

Ideology is invisible, that's how it got so strong. For most people, their day to day life is exempt of ideology. Make it appear. Explain why do we hold this or that opinion for true. Then every occurence of said ideology will be recognised by the educated person for what it is : a myth designed to trick honest people in servitude.
The more ideology there is, the more we win, because every single time people will see a homeless person next to a Mc Donald's, it will fit in a larger theoretical framework, therefore making it obvious.
See Zizek for more considerations about ideology, Nietzsche, Foucault and Roland Barthes about the genealogy of morals, myth and its use in political theory.
Nope. But historical conditions were not ripe yet. They had no way to achieve massive class consciousness quickly.
See above. Historical conditions not ripe for international democratic socialism.
We can seize power in a major western European country in possession of nuclear weapons, therefore making it immune to direct imperialism.
Who knows. If we can stop a World War, sure. And you know a major capitalist crisis is looming already. Those plus the ecological clock ticking.

Nah, I'm right and you know it.

Also there will be quick and direct action, by stepping in where the state has given up (providing education, food, shelter, work etc. to populations left to fend for themselves by neoliberal policies), become a state within the state. This is how you win.

Yes and we still have no way to achieve massive class consciousness quickly, you clearly overestimate the Internet and act like it was a place without the cultural hegemony of capitalism, so most people keep their life exempted of ideology and so the historical conditions are not gonna ripe for a long time.

It probably has something to do with left-liberals adopting and agitating for vulgar-defeatist sentiments like this without objection by actual leftists.
Does that sound similar to you?

You act as if it was never this easy in the history of mankind to radicalize people on a massive scale to an unparalleled level of theoretical solidity.
Especially if you can convince people they learn by themselves, see attached pdf.

Another factor I want to bring up, the case of gifted children.
Being myself gifted, I see the obvious potential they represent within the proletariat and other classes. Through subversion of gifted individuals, we can pretty much sneak our way into political relevance with a much higher efficiency. They will be both easier to convince since they're rational individuals who can be reasoned with and will willingfully engage with learning activities. Marxism provides both a framework that helps understanding history, philosophy and politics and a political project to expand and develop. Much like the adoption of heliocentrism in the 16th century, we have a theoretical framework that makes the contemporary world much simpler to explain and understand. We need to operate this revolution which is economical, political and intellectual. Much of the issue here is to break those conditioned instincts that basically are the remaining roadblocks left by the ruling classes to keep the masses in the ignorance of their own servitude.

let it be known lads: politics is entirely based on optics and every significant historical figure had prominence just because they were really good at convincing people. therefore, the next revolution begins on the fierce political battleground of youtube.

also, theory is just about winning arguments and getting people to join your side

this groucho poster is next level retarded


my god

Since this is a French thread, I direct you to Frederic Lordon for a Spinozist analysis of politics within a marxist point of view : youtube.com/watch?v=vz4xR-NPcZA

You guys also seem to have forgotten what is the historical group of the Communist Party : be the link between intellectuals and the proletariat, which is the essential key to class consciousness. You can dismiss my ideas but I know I'm right about this, the Internet is obviously something that fundamentally changed society and the social structures of yesterday, we're only at the beginning of a much more important historical process, but we need to seize the opportunity that lies here.

It would be nice if you had some analyses on the side of this shitpost.

...

There are history papers being written on the role of newspapers and the printing industry workers in the French Revolution 1830, 1848 and the October Revolution. Underestimating cultural presence in a terrible mistake. As I said, the omnipresence of capitalistic ideology is a tool we can subvert. Educate people about seemingly insignificant aspects of their day to day lives and tell them how does it fit into a wider, political, historical, economical perspective and they'll remember it every single time they're confronted with that "insignificant aspect of their day to day life".
Also it has a self-reinforcing effect as people will start to question more and more aspects of their lives, probably start to be more curious. On a large scale, this can lead to synergy within the movement too.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_education

Also why you can have education without teachers : see Jacques Rancière's essay, it should be clear as day now it is not only within the realm of possibility, it has become inevitable.

You are right, yet, this works this way: If you don't vote we're going to have 5 + 5 years because

1º Fascism&decadent leftism is the way they fight the left, don't expect a decadent class die peacefully, there's going to be the exact same we have today. Violent represion and leftist division portrayed by idpols
2º We don't know how is going to take until another crisis or if another crisis will change the mentallity yuppie kids have on their leftist "muh opressed black vagina is what matters" mentallity

my point: Voting is not an excuse to not be a militant and being a militant is not an excuse to not vote. We desperately need both

Fascism is for white proles excluded from the economy who are bored and want to LARP. They have no serious ideology and will very easily turn into commies once they read a fucking book or two.
You can't win over reality and theory with repression, not forever. They literally cannot win because it will happen time and again. Internal contradictions increase tension, tension causes more major crisis while keeping the individuals alienated. Capitalism never goes backwards, towards more and more frequent psychotic states, this isn't sustainable in any way. You can't dismiss dialectics, that's precisely the point, there is an economy of the inherent theoretical contradiction and there's always a breaking point.
There are oppressions that aren't strictly class oppression, you know. Also these people have no theory, ignore them and they'll go away. It's really an education problem, nothing more.

Any more FUD?

I've been to France, and it's my assumption that any far-left revolution in the country will most likely start in the southwest countryside. Gascons and Languedociens were the first victims of French colonialism (croisade des albigeois) and today they overwhelmingly vote for communist and far-left parties.

Eh I dunno, Parisians almost started on in '68.

Vive Mao-Spontex

How much of an autist are you?

Politics is as easy as figuring out the point of tension and apply your own potential into it. I'm not saying I'm going to change anything. I'm just going to make it happen, which is different. Dialectics do apply and I only watch it unfold and act out of my own interest as well as the general interest (due to obvious ecological concern).

youtube.com/watch?v=l3MK9vG0yJs
threadly rappel

Of course FI is socdem, even the PCF is socdem since the 90's, the only radical leftists in the french elections are the NPA and LO.

I know. I participated in the Paris riots back in May.

Reform never works. Ever.

Reform does work, read Zizek.

good, now take that logic and apply it to the real world
youtube.com/watch?v=FH8_n4OMJok

You know neoliberalism has won when the primary question circulating the left is whether or not the welfare state is 'colonial' vs. how to strategize in order to save the welfare state from being dismantled. Turd Worldism, postcolonial theory, and critical theory are cancers.


Good for you! I'm sure smashing all those windows totally advanced the lives of the French working class!

It works in delaying the inevitable.

The February Revolution didn't delay the October Revolution. Reform is necessary for building consciousness.

Even Lenin admitted the Russian Rev was just a peasant revolution which is why the NEP was necessary. Genuine internationalist socialism will never happen in the East before it happens in the West.

For that you expect that a bunch of angry poor people encited by mass media and "leftist" idpol hatred is going to take a second and read a book. That's faith
You are right but i think that's the wrong conclusion, "not forever" means the nazi capitalist state that would come after could take centuries to be military defeated, and that includes a civil war
They were created by the corporate "leftist" media, they are not going away just like there's no other CIA conspiracy going away, drugs, false flags.. as long as they are useful they are here to stay

I agree on everything but that there's a natural social and economic trend into socialism/comunism, we face the end of the current capitalist state, there isn't written anywere that the left is destinated by the stars to succeed. I have no point here to be honest. Just rambling.

What's your point?

Actually it does the exact opposite: it helps advance the dialectic. Read Lenin 2017 by Zizek.

Action Française respecter here, ama if you have any questions.

Fuck off, monarchists are not welcome here.
8ch.net/pol/index.html

LE VIET-NAM BRULE

ET MOI JE DANSE MAO MAO

read Lys Rouge

This.

Anti-reformism plays into the logic of neoliberalism as does postcolonialism, Maoism 3rd Worldism, indigenism, post-Marxism, religious communism and all these other gimmick ideologies. Even these white kids who prance around in kefiyahs and reject the Enlightenment on the notion that its the product of white European guys are just unintentional shills for neoliberalism.

Socialism can only come out of the West and Christianity. Every non-western non-Christian nation which tried to implement socialism turned fascist, and for good reason too.

user YOU STARTED SO WELL FUCK ME.

JOHNSON RIGOLE ET MOI JE VOLE MAO-MAO
Godard might be a complete shithead but he's definitely the greatest film-maker of the 20th century.

Interesting take, but how exactly are you going to bring pre-Adorno and pre-1968 communism to life. At this point you're not much more of a historical anachronism then me

By re-introducing secular Western Christian values into the Left. We need to return to the idea of progress and gradualism and fight for what the ruling class is trying to take away.

>/ourguy/ missed the 2nd round by less than TWO PERCENT
Ignorant burger here, from what little I understand, Jean-Luc's performance was only so weak because last election because he was in the process of splitting from his old party and building a new one, both of which competed against each other. Has he consolidated control over the filthy revisionists yet? If not, will he?


Not for the sake of immigrants (they're scabs, cowards, and parasites), but for the sake of international solidarity, we should emphasize whatever common ground is shared between the Western Rational Humanist Enlightenment and the legacies of other cultures. Even if the most important victories for socialism will ultimately be the conquest of great world powers, eliminating strife and gullible desperation in the peripheries of the global economy would greatly ease this task.

We have to fight against the sort of "leftism" that's capable of shitting on people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali in her struggle to free her comrades from repression, then turning around and appointing as community representatives fundie clerics that are regarded as backward extremists even by the standards of their homeland.

Okay this is far better. I think we need to look at localist thinkers like Sun Yat Sen: a man who created what we would describe as an enlightenment model for a state while being firmly planted in Chinese tradition and cultures.

No, you've got it wrong that's not what happened at all here's a quick resumé:

Until 2016 Mélenchon and his party were in an electoral coalition called Front de gauche/Left Front. The coalition was dominated by the 2 main parties - PCF/Communist Party of France (Communism without labels) and Mélenchon's PG/Left Party (composed of people that split off from the Socialist Party because it wasn't socialist enough). Along for the right were also 3 way smaller parties (listed by size): Ensemble ! (Eurocommunism), R&S (Republican Socialism) and PCOF (Hoxhaism).
The Left Front tried to appear outwardly as a united formation but was actually rife with internal sectarian struggle, really it's a miracle it existed as long as it did (2008-16). The first crack was when the Stalinists-Hoxhaists from the PCOF declared their participation over in 2016 because the FdG program wasn't radical enough. Soon after Mélenchon's Left Party split too, citing too much infighting and an inability to reform the organization into an effective force. In the same statement they also announced the creation of France Insoumise/France Unbowed. FI was built around 2 things a common ecosocialist program (laec.fr/) and the figure of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Unlike the FdG the structure of the party is way more centralized and is afaik the Left Party might just completely dissolve itself into this new formation. While France Insoumise is mainly built from Left Party cadres it was also joined by some leftover Ensemble! cadres (the party self-disolved some time before the PCOF left) as well as various syndicalist cadres "lent" to them by various trade unions.
The PCF was obviously pretty pissed about the ☭TANKIE☭s splitting while screeching about Hoxha, PG giving them the middle finger and telling them they're incompetent and Ensemble! basically self destructing. The Left Front still officially exists, but at this point it's just the PCF + some 4'000 memesters from R&S.
A bit of a civil war ensued in the PCF if they should support Mélenchon and the result was a compromise - the PCF would campaign for him, but not with him essentially telling its voters he's the least bad candidate. The PCOF ☭TANKIE☭s decided that the elections should take seconf place to organizing workers in the workplace and thus decided against endorsing any candidates, but did not explicitly go against Mélenchon (besides they barely have 2'300 members and no outreach beyond that, who cares what they do really).

So the problem was obviously not salty FdG voters.
1/?

Today I learned we've got to get spooked to get un-spooked.

Pretty FI during the election was pretty woke about how these immigration is happening and is far less open to it than say Macron

The actual problem for Mélenchon was two-fold, competition from the trotskyist left and from the right.

2 trotskyist of Mélenchon presented candidates to the 2017 election, Nathalie Arthaud (Lutte Ouvriere - 0,64 %) and Phillipe Poutou (Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste - 1,09 %). Most of my info for these 2 comes from party sanctioned material so some actual members of these orgs are invited to correct me if I'm wrong (youtube.com/watch?v=6_5gio3yd3A)

Nathalie Arthaud was the candidate of the Lutte Ouvriere/Workers' Struggle. LO is the "pure" vanguard trotskyist party and one of the 3 active trotskyist parties. Their cadres, strategy and doctrine have remained essentially unchanged from 1968 (they refuse to acknowledge the existence of the internet and still think the way to win is by selling newspapers at the gates of factories). They are not obsolete however, they consistently maintain their membership pool into the "no we're not a joke party" numbers however because of their autistic cultish behaviour they will forever be unable to actually achieve anything, so they just wait until the Revolution(tm) finally comes and they can enact their revenge fantasies, in the meanwhile they continue to larp as the vanguard party(tm) (c) Lenin, 1917. They're a thorn in the back of any left party since they always manage to get their 0,5% of the votes which can fuck up entire elections, as it did the 2017 one.

The second trotskyist candidate was Phillipe Poutou from the NPA/New Anticapitalist party. Unlike their cultish cousins from the LO they embrace another current of French trotskyist politics namely Pablism. Pablism is a strategy that aims to enter and subvert as many "secondary fronts as possible" (alter-globalization, feminism, anti-racism, trans politics, ecologism, etc). While the NPA started as a fairly bog standard trotskyist party this strategy has led to their party essentially alienating everyone but old boomer hippies and college campuses and more importantly has led to the party almost completely losing its anti-capitalist character as it has become completely consumed by identity politics. Unlike the LO which are seen as cult members, NPA members are seen as complete clowns outside their voter base (Poutou was agitating for dissolving the Police on air while a terrorist attack was happening ffs), so despite getting a larger vote share than the LO because identity politics are the issue of the day and they can get a lot of hairdyed butch trans liberal arts students to vote for them they're even less of a threat to the system because everyone sees them as a bad joke.

I'm going to mention a third party here, Jacques Cheminade's Solidarity & Progress (S&P) which got a meager 0,18% of the vote. Jacques Cheminade was originally a cadre from the third trotskyist party the POI (Independent Workers' Party). The POI is almost never on any ballot because unlike the cult and the clowns they follow a third, rather insidious tactic, Lambertism. Lambertism is essentially a tactic that involves sending your party cadres to more centrist parties and subverting these parties from the inside, eventually taking over the state with them. tl;dr their tactics are miserably unsuccessful because 99% of their cadres end up converted by the parties they went to or simply stop giving a fuck about your irrelevant party and try to grab power for themselves (Lionel Jospin is a famous example).
Anyway Cheminade essentially got fed up and started his own party S&P which afaik banks on baiting centrists and right wingers on voting for them. Their ideology is an incredible syncretism of values taking inspiration from Left Gaullism, Dengism and Humanism. It's not even marxist at this point, but Cheminade however still manages to get some leftist votes as he often goes on furious rants against international banking cartels which win him adherents left and right, the problem is his platform is so specific he will never convert a bigger amount of people to his side.

So as you can see, combined, these 3 small candidates took away 1,91% of the vote meaning that if their voters went to Mélenchon instead, the man would get 21,49% of the vote, beating Fillon's 20,01% and Marine's 21,30% propelling him from 4th to 2nd place and putting him in the second round.
1/?

The second problem and probably much more important one that Mélenchon faced was competition from the party he originally split from the Socialist Party/PS.
When Emmanuel Macron, Hollande's very unpopular economy minister stepped down and started his own party (EM) and bid for the presidential elections, the PS was shaken to its very core. In the biggest paradigm shift seen in the last 50 years of French politics, a good half of the "Socialist" Party split and joined the openly neoliberal En Marche. In this chaos a relative nobody in teh public eye but still an ex-minister Benoit Hamon, won the PS primaries. Nobody knew exactly what was going on Hâmon included when even the ancient PM Valls spoke in favour of Macron instead of supporting his own party. This however gave the PS the historical opportunity to move from Blairite-style neoliberalism back to social-democracy. Hamon knew very well that his role was not win the election but purely to preserve the PS from completely dissolving and falling into irrelevance.
To boost their shrinking numbers they decided to partly fuse with the Green Party /EELV who also suffered a minor drain to McRon's EM. Together they crafted an ecologist, social democratic charter and program axed on youth unemployment and future technologies, it was quite honestly too well made for what should've been an election based on survivability and it gave Hamon, a nobody elected in the primaries because everyone else left for Macron, some leverage which he's trying to use now.
However his main role was keep the PS from dying which is why he fiercly refused any cooperation with Mélenchon (which was completely stupid, a pact like the one between Marine and NDA in the second round would've been completely adequate). Mélenchon was pretty pissed off about this. Since in the end, Hamon's program wasnt *that* different and his voters would've rallied Mélenchon for sure.

In the end, Hamon got 6,36% of the vote. If that went to Jean-Luc instead, he would get 25,49% of the vote, getting forst place, even in front of Macron's 24,01%.
So in the end the PS proffered to ensure the continuity of their formation rather than helping Mélenchon, costing him the second round. Never trust a rose I guess.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not actually a leftist, I got these infos mainly from reading the news, AF material and Wikipedia, so if any actual leftist (I know we have a few LO members on here and I wouldnt be surprised if there were any PCOF members either) are here do correct me if I got anything wrong.

Poutou is based. I would have voted for him during the first round if I could legally vote in France.

You dropped your flag Anfemanon

Thank you for the rundown, that is somewhat bleaker than I imagined.


I can't imagine what else he could possibly mean by "secular Christian values"

He's even more open, he wants a better reception for migrants and regularize illegals :

-rétablir la carte de séjour de dix ans comme titre de séjour de référence pour les étrangers, respectant le droit au regroupement familial, régularisation automatique pour tout conjoint marié ou pacsé
• régulariser tous les travailleur·se·s sans-papiers et faciliter l’accès à la nationalité française pour les personnes étrangères présentes légalement sur le territoire ;
• rétablir l’unicité de la loi sur le territoire en soumettant l’octroi des titres de séjour à des critères objectifs ne souffrant aucune différence d’interprétation d’une Préfecture à l’autre ;Nos propositions : une politique migratoire respectueuse des droits fondamentaux
-mettre en place une commission du titre de séjour pouvant être saisie de tous les cas de refus de délivrance de titre, dotée d’un pouvoir de décision, lieu d’un débat public et contradictoire ;
• restaurer la liberté de circulation au sein de l’espace Schengen (avec un encadrement strict de sa suspension temporaire)
• mettre en œuvre un accueil digne des migrants avec une répartition sur l’ensemble du territoire européen mettant fin aux hot spots qui sont devenus des « centres de détention » ;
• dépénaliser le séjour irrégulier et en finir avec le placement en centre de rétention, en priorité pour les enfants, même accompagnés de leurs parents ;
• construire des centres d’accueil aux normes internationales sur le modèle de celui de Grande-Synthe, pour proposer aux migrants des conditions dignes ;
• arrêter les opérations de Frontex dont les missions et les actions ne sont pas compatibles avec le respect des droits fondamentaux ;
• remplacer Frontex par une agence dont la mission première sera le sauvetage en mer ;
• remettre en cause le fichage des étrangers et la biométrie dans le contrôle des frontières de l’UE ;
• assouplir les politiques de visas « au titre de l’asile », en veillant notamment à empêcher que les coûts des visas nationaux soient utilisés comme des mesures de dissuasion.

Also, the main condition Mélenchon required to do an alliance with Hamon, was that Hamon leaves the PS, which it was at the elections unacceptable for Hamon who would have become the biggest traitor of the PS.
Even if some months after the elections, Hamon finally leave the PS.

np user, looking back i shouldn't have written this at 5am tho, the quality is horrid.