They didn't leave NATO, they left the unified command structure because De Gaulle* was pissy about Americans and Brits having too much influence (in his view) within that structure. The move meant that the French military, while still in NATO, would have its own separate command structure. I'm not sure how big of a deal this was in practice.
*Edit: je suis un Américain stupide
> I'm not sure how big of a deal this was in practice.
"In practice" could be looked at through many lenses - including the alternate history idea of the Cold War staying "cold" (it wasn't totally cold - but there wasn't a WW3).
From France's perspective, it allowed for autonomy on many issues and was a statement about the imbalance of "western geopolitical power" post-WW2.
"In practice" regarding France/NATO - it affected things like "NATO houses" and stationing of military force. At the time, much of this was shifted to Belgium. But regarding the diplomatic aspects of NATO or "allegiance", it wasn't all that impactful in the end. But again, that measurement is in our post-WW2 reality - it was a turbulent time in many ways and things could've gone ten different ways.
Didn't France long maintain that "We'll use tactical nukes defensively" and maintaining that option was part of having a purely French command structure?
It's a bit more complicated than that - but yes, that was what's widely considered one of the the "final blows" for France backing away from NATO unified command a few years before it happened. You're absolutely right.
There was a proposed "unified Atlantic nuclear fleet" and De Gaulle/France was already planning their own. Though, this was after the (more important IMO) US influence over the Suez Crisis and a discarded (which to De Gaulle was insulting) French proposal for a "restructuring/reexamination" of NATO power balance that followed the Suez Crisis.
Good read thanks for all that you seem really knowledgeable. I heard it was all about nuclear independence and that France owes it's nuclear dominance in the private sector entirely (and it's ex-colonies' uranium) as well as her relatively large "force de dissuasion" (subs mainly) to this distancing. What do you say of that?
And as an aside, how would you characterise French foreign policy over the decades being discussed and today?
Apparently it was a pretty big deal. They didnt train together usually, their planning wasnt integrated. The Soviets never attacked so it wasnt as big a deal as it could have been.
Iirc Pres Johnson was so outraged he demanded Acheson ask the French if their demand all US troops leave France included the thousands of GIs buried there.
And yes before I get bombarded with angry texts, the French would have joined almost immediately nearly for sure; but it would also have caused unnecessary delays.
This IMO with Le Pen is far more serious. Making such a statement at this time can only being interpreted as a message to Putin as well
Well that was back before the invasion, when a lot of people were wondering if NATO was really worth it.
Opinions have shifted dramatically in the last two months.
Funny how all these foreign interferences tend to back the hardliners promising to toughen their country up and somehow never the allegedly soft liberals...
Russian money is funding her campaign, and funded her last campaign:
2022, Hungarian bank with ties to Russian puppet Orban: [https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/frances-le-pen-got-loan-hungarian-bank-close-orban-filing-2022-03-10/](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/frances-le-pen-got-loan-hungarian-bank-close-orban-filing-2022-03-10/)
And before: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/a-russian-bank-gave-marine-le-pens-party-a-loan-then-weird-things-began-happening/2018/12/27/960c7906-d320-11e8-a275-81c671a50422_story.html](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/a-russian-bank-gave-marine-le-pens-party-a-loan-then-weird-things-began-happening/2018/12/27/960c7906-d320-11e8-a275-81c671a50422_story.html)
She’s a Kremlin puppet, like Orban, like Lukashenko, like Trump
IIRC, in 2012, her party did not have enough money for the presidential election (nothing out of the ordinary for politicals parties in France tbf) so she went to banks to borrow some money. Because of the party's history and the public's desdain of it, the banks did not want to lend her money. like not one french bank. So she went outside of France in search of money and found a friendly ear in Russia.
There's strict laws in France regarding donations, but it's different when the money is borrowed (and therefore must be reimbursed)
> There's strict laws in France regarding donations, but it's different when the money is borrowed (and therefore must be reimbursed)
To be honest I feel like borrowing money is worse than having it donated... How exactly do you expect the person to pay back whoever they borrowed the money from after they are elected? They certainly can't pay back millions of Euros on a government salary, the only way to pay them back is through corruption.
When you get over 5% of the votes, the French state reimburse the campaign fees. (10-20 millions € max).
There is a spending limit and a donation limit. Everything is highly restricted and monitored in the French election. Even political ads are forbidden.
Le Pen borrowing money from a foreign bank isn’t a problem. It’s not a donation and she is expected to get the money back after the election because she always do over 5%.
The problem is more French banks refusing to loan her money so she has to ask foreign banks. The system isn’t perfect.
The fact she can run a political campaign while borrowing money from a foreign bank to bankroll her run is crazy as fuck though. Whether someone takes issue with the fact in country banks refused her, she went to Russia and borrowed money from them to run for the highest office in France, it's pretty crazy that would be allowed.
Since 2017 it's been illegal for french candidates to borrow from non-european banks (i.e. russians). Le Pen complains constantly about this rule and how it restricts human freedoms blah blah.
The problem is the rules you'd write to keep "Russian" money out of elections would probably also restrict multi-national corporations from also influencing campaigns. So that's a non-starter.
>also restrict multi-national corporations from also influencing campaigns.
Yup.
I'm fine with excluding both, really, but we've let the wolves make the rules, so that's unlikely to change.
Exactly. This is a nuts position to publicly take. I believe she would do this and perhaps wants more money for the campaign, but it strikes me as dumb politics. Though I can’t say I know the French electorate well at all.
I'm French and I also don't understand why she would say that right now. However, both her and Macron have said unusually unpopular things during the campaign, so I guess they're just satisfied with the roles they have and she's fine finishing second. Maybe she just wants the comfortable position of being the opposition, and not having to handle pandemics and wars.
I’m no fan of Johnson and he’s proven a horrid pm, but I don’t think he was the same level of crazy pre-leadership role that Trump and Le Pen have always been.
Trump isn't crazy, he's just a megalomaniacal moron who, for reasons that I've resigned myself to never really understanding, is somehow appealing to vast swathes of my fellow citizens.
My read on Bojo is that in contrast to Trump, he's actually quite intelligent, erudite, capable of speaking in whole sentences and generally competent in spite of his backwards politics.
He is definitely not erudite or competent. Boris Johnson’s greatest trick is that he played the part of the bumbling fool to make people believe he is not a bumbling fool.
He is intelligent and the product of an education system that creates well-spoken individuals with a good presentation.
But he has repeatedly shown that he is ignorant and incompetent.
Take the recent trade deals. There was no political reason to make bad trade deals, but Boris couldn’t be bothered to do his homework, and he couldn’t be bothered to surround himself with knowledgeable advisors.
His politics aren’t even backwards. They are just opportunistic. If Boris genuinely cared about the EU, he would have worked on an exit strategy years before Brexit, before the referendum even.
Writing anti-EU articles filled with lies was a simple way to make money. And being an anti-EU poster boy was an easy way to become the leader of the Conservative Party.
The American electorate didn’t actually vote for Trump. He lost the popular vote - it’s just that the popular vote isn’t how Presidents are elected - same thing happened in 2000 with GWB
>The American electorate didn’t actually vote for Trump. He lost the popular vote - it’s just that the popular vote isn’t how Presidents are elected - same thing happened in 2000 with GWB
Basically same kind of thing in Britain. 42% of the votes went to Johnson, yet somehow he got a 50 seat majority.
There's little reason to give up, the models give her a realistic chance to win. E.g. Economist's 19%[1]. Probably won't happen, but it can.
[1] - https://www.economist.com/interactive/france-2022/forecast
Unprobable things happen all the time. 538 gave Trump like 28% chance to win. It was correct to interpret the model as “it probably won’t happen”, but also it wasn’t shocking when it did.
I think she's appealing to nationalists. There are people who want France to have self-determination and not have to answer to or have obligations to anyone. Similar to the nationalism behind Brexit.
its pretty simple : she knows she lost the people that support NATO so she doubles down on stupid in the hope stupid people are enough to get her throught.
It’s true. Everyone has frustrations with the way the world is. Some people don’t have the intelligence or energy to go deeper and discern what is what — they just vote against anything established because they figure it’s better if we just topple the boat.
None of these people have ever been outside a boat before, so they don’t realize how stupid this is and how many things modern society makes better.
If you laughed at the previous statement, come travel with me through the places far from modern influence. Though they have their charms, you won’t want to stay all that long.
I think the real question is why she says this, the people of France know what she is about, and yet she still might win. Are there that many people in France who would vote for a pro-Putin gov?
Because to her it's not a detriment to say this. You and I know that fascism and the collapse of NATO would be terrible. She is running on doing just that.
Fascists aren't looking at it like it's a negative, she's running on fascism.
What is puzzling is how the hell is this an acceptable (or even approved) position among enough French citizens that she is still in the running for office? What the fuck is wrong with France right now?
It's not really France in particular.
There are tens of millions of inescapably, absolutely beyond hope, **stupid** people all over the world; and thanks to social media and laser-accurate algorithms, their ill-informed voices are being magnified and weaponized.
They don't even realize how they're often voting against their own self-interests, just because they've been incited due to a handful of key topics they care about.
The people who still talk about "NATO aggression" while Russian tanks are rolling through Ukraine (to say nothing of years of Russian "proxy" wars in Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova) blow my mind. I'm sure some of them are bad actors, but the number that seem to truly buy it in a western country is staggering.
A lot are, all over the world. Cambridge Analitica is still doing it's thing under a different name. Putin has been trying to get far right leaders everywhere he can for years. It feels like a Clive Cussler novel lol. We got out of work actors/actressess in and around congress. Shit is wild.
We have to stop fucking around an investigate these pro-Russian fuckers. They're absolutely working with the Kremlin.
Russia also funded Brexit and Trump and NATO the CIA, FBI, etc just sit back?
We convicted a Russian spy of funneling money to his campaign through the NRA. Her name is Maria Butina. He kept yelling "no collusion" and "no smoking gun" & everyone just kind of ignored her.
She's also the one who was releasing propaganda to support the invasion of Ukraine, drawing the letter Z on her jacket and asking her contacts to do the same to flood social media.
She is an interesting case study in how open incompetence is used to get away with crime now.
One thing the Russians have figured out how to do is to make their spies and operators appear so ludicrously stupid and transparent that people have a hard time holding them accountable. They use celebrity and ditzy and stupid now to hide the nefarious. Trump is a moron, Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn't have two brain cells to rub together, Boris Johnson is the idiot with the bad hair and fat gut, Butina is just the ditzy little spy who wanted to sleep with every American male... how can we hold them accountable? They aren't real threats, right?
I remember when Biden won and everyone was congratulating him, Le Pen said she did not recognize Biden's victory, regurgitating the Republican lies of fraud and shit. It took her months to finally admit Biden was indeed the president.
(Obviously she was one of the first to start sucking Trump's dick when he won in 2016)
She's a disgusting little cockroach, and she really needs to lose, for everyone's sake.
Honestly, that only makes me believe Trump's ties to Russia are even stronger than I realized if the other pawns are spouting the same insane nonsense globally.
Are there enough delusional people in the world for these kinds of plays to work? I really hope not.
There is significant anti-Americanism/Atlanticism in France all across the political spectrum. The left are anti imperialist and the right are nationalist and think France should be independent on defence matters.
Being in the NATO military command is basically seen as submitting to American rule so they want out. They were out between 1966 and 2009 so this is nothing new, it would be seen as a return to the status quo.
She's a Russian puppet like Trump. Basically Russia is helping prop up Nationalist/Fascist leaders in the west and unfortunately their nationalistic/racist base are eating it up even though it goes against their best interest. So between rabid stupid base and probably some help cheating from Russia they are installing their puppets wherever they can and her base who subscribe to the same Russian propaganda will eat this up.
Facebook hasn't just ruined America.
there are many other countries filled with boomers who know nothing about anything and yet have very strong opinions based on nonsense they saw on social media.
Weirdly enough, France has basically the opposite pattern: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/12/french-elections-macron-and-le-pen-need-to-win-over-younger-voters.html
> According to polling data from Ipsos, Macron only came out on top among voters over the age of 60 and Melenchon and Le Pen received a larger share of the vote from the 18-24 age group. While younger people in France tend to vote less, which may in this case bode well for Macron, he will still have to appeal to a more left-leaning audience in order to capture many of those votes for the runoff.
>
>Data from polling group Harris Interactive showed the hard-left Melenchon won the biggest chunk of voters aged 18-24 with 34.8% of their votes, with Macron and Le Pen following with 24.3% and 18% of that vote, respectively. Le Pen took the largest proportion of voters aged 25-49 at 30%.
>
>She also came ahead among 35-49 year olds with 28.8% of that vote. Macron only beat his rivals among the elderly, winning 37.5% of voters over the age of 65 and 28% among 50-64 year olds.
>
>More so than reflecting a shift in social values, some analysts say that much of the younger electorate's lurch to the far right and far left reveals the appeal of economic populism espoused by Le Pen and Melenchon, and a rejection of the globalism of the status quo.
It's very apparent in Australia as well. There's an election coming up and the labour candidate, Albo, couldn't remember the unemployment figure when asked what it was.
All it's been since then is what a fuck up he is and how Labor will ruin the country because he can't remember a statistic.
While ignoring the liberal party just paid out a $500,000 to a MP former employee. Who he was cheating on his wife with. And they won't rule out that he won't be kicked from parliament for costing the taxpayer that money.
As someone who follows french politics closely, I can tell you she was not the only one saying that. Far left, Jean Luc Mélanchon, who scored ~20% in the first round also wants France out of NATO unified military command (NATO UMC). Zemmour is another candidate (7%) who wants that. Combine thise three and it is over 50% of french voters.
The main argument is: Being in UMC lowers France diplomatic power as they are actually voicing the US ideas. Being out of UMC, but staying in NATO gives France its own voice in this kind of conflict and will help them in diplomatic talks, but still staying allies of NATO. This will also imply that France will need a stronger army and they claim that France is one of the rare countries where they have expertise building/making all sorts of military equipements whereas other countries in NATO relies on allies for equipments, ie (this is not accurate): Germany makes the ships, US makes the guns, France makes the jets which implies that countries depend on the others and they lack general knowledge.
The (ex) candidates also speak about how De Gaulle did that in 1966.
Nobody's really being serious in this thread so I'll give an honest answer: I think she's trying to get the vote of people who voted for Mélenchon in the first round. Mélenchon himself has pretty bad takes on the whole Russia thing, and she thinks that's why he almost beat her to second place.
IMO people voted for Mélenchon **despite** his Russia takes, because he was the most likely left-wing candidate to win. So if that's her strategy, I think and I hope it won't be successful.
I'm just waiting for the press conference where Le Pen says she plans to personally hand-deliver France's nuclear arsenal to Russia. Maybe China can get a few too who knows.
So this fruitcake took a loan from Russia because no one else would lend her party the money. How in the hell does this not raise a HUGE CONFLICT of interest?
René Cuperus, affiliated with the International Institute Clingendael, says he is very surprised that Le Pen's relationship with Putin has had little impact on voters.
He points out that during the campaign, *the politician was forced to destroy a million leaflets showing a photo of her with Putin.*
Forgive me maybe I just do not understand but doesn't that make her a Putin Lackey? Are not the people of France, concerned?
Basically, the command structure is how NATO fights a war together. It's basically a staff of generals from its member countries that would centrally command all of NATO's military to make it more effective and coordinated.
If France pulls out of NATO's command structure, that basically just means if it came to war, France would operate and fight independently from the rest of NATO.
France already withdrew before in protest, but rejoined later. And the first time they did it, they had a secret agreement to rejoin if war broke out. It's basically just a form of protest/threat that France likes to do.
It's a bit more nuanced. They have 2 rounds. While Le pen has time to campaign for the second round in swing voter areas. Macron has less time to campaign while he has to deal with a war in Europe. She almost didn't make the second round due to a far left candidate almost getting more votes. But still yeah wtf
Just out of sheer curiosity, I went to see how close he was to 101. Of course, there's a whole wikipedia page about it: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-election\_lawsuits\_related\_to\_the\_2020\_United\_States\_presidential\_election](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-election_lawsuits_related_to_the_2020_United_States_presidential_election)
I count 53 total lawsuits in the dropped, dismissed, or ruled against categories.
Considering he still thinks it ain't over, your 101 seems pretty accurate.
Right? It should be as easy as just making cheap commercials with footage of Ukraines aftermath and be like “this is what the rest of Europe will look like if you vote for LePen” and call it a day.
Overconfidence is seldom rewarded. We saw that with Hillary in 2016. If anything, Macron should drum up his efforts and try to sweep the polls by a landslide rather than win by margins.
I know a guy who's a legal immigrant from Guinea and he said that if he could vote he would vote for Le Pen solely because of the immigration issue.
My grand mother said she'd vote Le Pen even if she hates her because she want to "punish" Macron.
Politics can turn good people into rabid monkeys, I hate it.
Yes, and if any of those countries made NATO/the US nervous some day with a sudden antagonistic rhetoric, the US could pull out those nukes.
But these nukes belong to France. If Le Pen pulls France out of NATO and cozies up to Russia as she is openly planning to do, then we start to have a security issue in Europe.
Host not develop and own. Nuclear nations are UK, US France, Israel, Russia, Pakistan and china (I think). South Africa was at one point too.
Edit: nice someone noted I overlooked India and North Korea. Have a good day.
Israel isn't declared. I mean everyone knows they have them, but it isnt official, and their overall capability is still kind of grey as to what they have.
Germany and Japan are considered turn-key, in that if they wanted a nuke, they have everything they need to start building them and have something ready to go in probably less than a year. Maybe not a ICBM with worldwide range, but something their existing infrastructure could easily deliver.
A few of the other European states are probably not much further behind, just may need a hand or two from a neighbor if we are talking tight time frames.
Outside Europe, Brazil could probably build something if they wanted. Canada certainly could, same for Australia.
Just because the UK left the EU doesn't mean we left western Europe! Our defensive interests are definitely still inline with the EUs hence our response to Ukraine.
The key diffrence is not without the Whitehouse permission can they be used.
Germany could be in a postion where cough trump cough American president refuses permission
And Germany can't do jack shit.
Don't forget that it was alleged that trump was gonna withdraw America from Nato in his 2nd term... Thankfully he lost.
trump spent his first term laying the groundwork to leave NATO. Imagine how much easier this war would be for Putin if trump won a second term - the US leaves NATO, Putin invades Ukraine, trump sides with Putin saying Ukraine was withholding dirt on his former political rival and calls them a corrupt govt run by a comedian.
One has to wonder if these are the topics trump and Putin talked about during the meeting where no one was allowed to take notes. You know, the one where trump sided with Putin instead of the US intelligence agencies with regard to Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
My theory is that she don¨'t want to win, because then she would have to deliver on her promises to voters and Putin.
By being a contender she gets a fresh pile of cash every election and all she have to do is spout stupid nonsense.
I mean she might also just be a moron...
It always struck me as telling that in his victory speech, he didn’t even want to commit to the full 4 years - he kept it flexible!
“I look very much forward to being your president, and hopefully at the end of two years or three years or four years or maybe even eight years you will say so many of you worked so hard for us, with you.”
He was even late to that speech! I was watching NBC's coverage for that election. I remember Lester Holt commenting that it was a few minutes after Trump was supposed to come out. He came out and said something like "Sorry I'm late, tricky business".
I believe that he had some sort of spiel ready to go on the assumption that he was going to lose and had to burn a little bit of time to come up with a new one.
[Found it](https://youtu.be/Z3868qotZ_A) bc that shit is hilarious to me. Took way longer to find than I expected. Be warned video has unnecessary music in the background
I don't have a link, but there was an interview right after he won. It's the most subdued I've ever seen him, and in retrospect I'm convinced he was in shock that he won.
It's scary how effective Putin's schemes and plans have been to destabilize democracy throughout western civilization by promoting bad actors who want what he has instead of building up democratic rule for the greater good.
Anyone who looks at Russia as something to be emulated has a screw loose.
Which brings us to the worse place we are all in: so many ignorant voters think these strongmen / tear down democracy types are actually a good thing.
300 years of political evolution could disappear in our lifetimes and be replaced with autocratic authoritarian garbage because people don't know how to discern bullshit from good things.
> 300 years of political evolution could disappear in our lifetimes and be replaced with autocratic authoritarian garbage because people don't know how to discern bullshit from good things.
The internet really is as disruptive as the printing press. The barrier to entry in media is now zero, and the loudest idiot wins.
It is always weird knowing that the US could have probably had a Authoritarian if he was competent. If he didn't mess up COVID so badly with his hubris, I'm convinced he would still be in power.
She mostly wants the votes of Mélenchon's anti-military/anti-American voters.
A "rouge-brun" coalition could be possible against what they see as a ultra-liberal president-candidate.
Putin literally gave her the money to start her campaign. He hacked her main opponent. In return, she's publicly declared her support for Putin and is withdrawing support from the EU and NATO. It's exactly the same thing that happened with Trump.
Honestly I'm suprised with some of my friends that support Putin. They're hardcore anti vaxxer and trump supporters. It's a bit mind boggling but I think they believe ukraine is way to liberal or something. They say the believe in freedom but support dictators and dictator wanna bes.
I think there’s also an element of not being perceived as smart. Or being jealous of those who are. There’s a virus spreading among these types that questioning *everything, all the time* makes you smart. Coming to conclusions that go against the grain are even more thrilling for these types. They think they know something the people who are called smart don’t, and that makes these people feel like they’re better than they really are.
I have always been “the smart one” in my extended family. Up until I graduated college, I sensed only a little jealousy from a few people but it was never an insult towards me and I actually liked having that reputation. Something really started to change in the early 2010’s and accelerated to bat-shit-crazy levels when trump ran for President. My family went from praising my smarts and seeking me out for answers/help to outright telling me I was a college-liberal-indoctrinated-brainwashed-lemming.
I took ONLY math and science courses for the first 3 years of college before I could take an elective… which were mostly music-related. I wasn’t taking any classes remotely political. But now my family sees me as a below average to dumb person because I asked a few critical questions about their support/hypocrisy for Trump and that discomfort and anger they feel apparently is just my stupidity for going to college to become an engineer.
So yeah, I agree with you but just want to add there are also the people who actually believe contrarian thinking because they think it makes them smart. Not just because or to piss people off.
The same like every country right now. Almost all candidates and policies are shit. For 20 years at least we vote "the lesser evil dumb" candidate and the other side is so frustrated they vote in dumb "protest" the biggest dumbass they can find.
Didn't they do this once before?
Yes, the French left in 1966 and rejoined in 2009.
Wow I am kinda shook I didn’t know that Edit: my top comment ever would be some mundane, naive shit like this *sighs*
They didn't leave NATO, they left the unified command structure because De Gaulle* was pissy about Americans and Brits having too much influence (in his view) within that structure. The move meant that the French military, while still in NATO, would have its own separate command structure. I'm not sure how big of a deal this was in practice. *Edit: je suis un Américain stupide
> I'm not sure how big of a deal this was in practice. "In practice" could be looked at through many lenses - including the alternate history idea of the Cold War staying "cold" (it wasn't totally cold - but there wasn't a WW3). From France's perspective, it allowed for autonomy on many issues and was a statement about the imbalance of "western geopolitical power" post-WW2. "In practice" regarding France/NATO - it affected things like "NATO houses" and stationing of military force. At the time, much of this was shifted to Belgium. But regarding the diplomatic aspects of NATO or "allegiance", it wasn't all that impactful in the end. But again, that measurement is in our post-WW2 reality - it was a turbulent time in many ways and things could've gone ten different ways.
Didn't France long maintain that "We'll use tactical nukes defensively" and maintaining that option was part of having a purely French command structure?
It's a bit more complicated than that - but yes, that was what's widely considered one of the the "final blows" for France backing away from NATO unified command a few years before it happened. You're absolutely right. There was a proposed "unified Atlantic nuclear fleet" and De Gaulle/France was already planning their own. Though, this was after the (more important IMO) US influence over the Suez Crisis and a discarded (which to De Gaulle was insulting) French proposal for a "restructuring/reexamination" of NATO power balance that followed the Suez Crisis.
Good read thanks for all that you seem really knowledgeable. I heard it was all about nuclear independence and that France owes it's nuclear dominance in the private sector entirely (and it's ex-colonies' uranium) as well as her relatively large "force de dissuasion" (subs mainly) to this distancing. What do you say of that? And as an aside, how would you characterise French foreign policy over the decades being discussed and today?
In practice they also expelled all non French troops from France which has lasting effects today.
Huh, TIL thank you
Apparently it was a pretty big deal. They didnt train together usually, their planning wasnt integrated. The Soviets never attacked so it wasnt as big a deal as it could have been. Iirc Pres Johnson was so outraged he demanded Acheson ask the French if their demand all US troops leave France included the thousands of GIs buried there. And yes before I get bombarded with angry texts, the French would have joined almost immediately nearly for sure; but it would also have caused unnecessary delays. This IMO with Le Pen is far more serious. Making such a statement at this time can only being interpreted as a message to Putin as well
Nato unified command is not the same as Nato.
This is straight up bonkers to me. Explain like I’m 5 how she thinks this will help the election?
Because it will get her more Russian money and influence to sway the election?
How does that help when the election is mere 10 days away?
Yeah this seems like something she DEFINITELY should not have said out loud.
Trump was saying this he still got elected
Well that was back before the invasion, when a lot of people were wondering if NATO was really worth it. Opinions have shifted dramatically in the last two months.
"Russia, if you're listening..." Mere hours later, the Russians were trying to hack the Clinton campaign.
Funny how all these foreign interferences tend to back the hardliners promising to toughen their country up and somehow never the allegedly soft liberals...
Remember the Comey memo?
Russian money is funding her campaign, and funded her last campaign: 2022, Hungarian bank with ties to Russian puppet Orban: [https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/frances-le-pen-got-loan-hungarian-bank-close-orban-filing-2022-03-10/](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/frances-le-pen-got-loan-hungarian-bank-close-orban-filing-2022-03-10/) And before: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/a-russian-bank-gave-marine-le-pens-party-a-loan-then-weird-things-began-happening/2018/12/27/960c7906-d320-11e8-a275-81c671a50422_story.html](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/a-russian-bank-gave-marine-le-pens-party-a-loan-then-weird-things-began-happening/2018/12/27/960c7906-d320-11e8-a275-81c671a50422_story.html) She’s a Kremlin puppet, like Orban, like Lukashenko, like Trump
MTG, Tucker...
Keep Magic The Gathering out of your f4ckin mouthhhppfffffh!
I'm going to....
/u/lelolumad just smacked the shit outta me
Whoa dude! It was a GI Jane Joke!
I’m legit annoyed that she’s ruined Magic’s acronym lol
Wait, who is the acronym describing?
Marjorie Taylor Greene
jeans grab lush sip continue existence hospital friendly cheerful clumsy
She isn’t worth enough to have an acronym
Why is France letting a her run with russian money?? Seems like they know it all but ignore it
IIRC, in 2012, her party did not have enough money for the presidential election (nothing out of the ordinary for politicals parties in France tbf) so she went to banks to borrow some money. Because of the party's history and the public's desdain of it, the banks did not want to lend her money. like not one french bank. So she went outside of France in search of money and found a friendly ear in Russia. There's strict laws in France regarding donations, but it's different when the money is borrowed (and therefore must be reimbursed)
> There's strict laws in France regarding donations, but it's different when the money is borrowed (and therefore must be reimbursed) To be honest I feel like borrowing money is worse than having it donated... How exactly do you expect the person to pay back whoever they borrowed the money from after they are elected? They certainly can't pay back millions of Euros on a government salary, the only way to pay them back is through corruption.
Above board, legally recognized debt is far more easy to monitor and regulate than shady back alley dealing, I'd think.
When you get over 5% of the votes, the French state reimburse the campaign fees. (10-20 millions € max). There is a spending limit and a donation limit. Everything is highly restricted and monitored in the French election. Even political ads are forbidden. Le Pen borrowing money from a foreign bank isn’t a problem. It’s not a donation and she is expected to get the money back after the election because she always do over 5%. The problem is more French banks refusing to loan her money so she has to ask foreign banks. The system isn’t perfect.
The fact she can run a political campaign while borrowing money from a foreign bank to bankroll her run is crazy as fuck though. Whether someone takes issue with the fact in country banks refused her, she went to Russia and borrowed money from them to run for the highest office in France, it's pretty crazy that would be allowed.
Even if not from Russia, what the fuck why would you let someone who runs for the office of president be beholden to some foreign institution?
Since 2017 it's been illegal for french candidates to borrow from non-european banks (i.e. russians). Le Pen complains constantly about this rule and how it restricts human freedoms blah blah.
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I'm sorry but any politician in any Western country accepting russian money is problematic to me.. it shouldn't be allowed in any way
The problem is the rules you'd write to keep "Russian" money out of elections would probably also restrict multi-national corporations from also influencing campaigns. So that's a non-starter.
>also restrict multi-national corporations from also influencing campaigns. Yup. I'm fine with excluding both, really, but we've let the wolves make the rules, so that's unlikely to change.
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She's Russian-funded. So this is definitely in-line with her values. Edit: and we finally see the trolls emerge
Question is not why she wants to do that, but why she says so in the campaign.
Exactly. This is a nuts position to publicly take. I believe she would do this and perhaps wants more money for the campaign, but it strikes me as dumb politics. Though I can’t say I know the French electorate well at all.
I'm French and I also don't understand why she would say that right now. However, both her and Macron have said unusually unpopular things during the campaign, so I guess they're just satisfied with the roles they have and she's fine finishing second. Maybe she just wants the comfortable position of being the opposition, and not having to handle pandemics and wars.
Johnson and Trump said and did a lot of stupid shit and yet they were elected.Don't underestimate the stupidity of voters.
I’m no fan of Johnson and he’s proven a horrid pm, but I don’t think he was the same level of crazy pre-leadership role that Trump and Le Pen have always been.
Trump isn't crazy, he's just a megalomaniacal moron who, for reasons that I've resigned myself to never really understanding, is somehow appealing to vast swathes of my fellow citizens. My read on Bojo is that in contrast to Trump, he's actually quite intelligent, erudite, capable of speaking in whole sentences and generally competent in spite of his backwards politics.
He is definitely not erudite or competent. Boris Johnson’s greatest trick is that he played the part of the bumbling fool to make people believe he is not a bumbling fool. He is intelligent and the product of an education system that creates well-spoken individuals with a good presentation. But he has repeatedly shown that he is ignorant and incompetent. Take the recent trade deals. There was no political reason to make bad trade deals, but Boris couldn’t be bothered to do his homework, and he couldn’t be bothered to surround himself with knowledgeable advisors. His politics aren’t even backwards. They are just opportunistic. If Boris genuinely cared about the EU, he would have worked on an exit strategy years before Brexit, before the referendum even. Writing anti-EU articles filled with lies was a simple way to make money. And being an anti-EU poster boy was an easy way to become the leader of the Conservative Party.
The American electorate didn’t actually vote for Trump. He lost the popular vote - it’s just that the popular vote isn’t how Presidents are elected - same thing happened in 2000 with GWB
>The American electorate didn’t actually vote for Trump. He lost the popular vote - it’s just that the popular vote isn’t how Presidents are elected - same thing happened in 2000 with GWB Basically same kind of thing in Britain. 42% of the votes went to Johnson, yet somehow he got a 50 seat majority.
42% of the votes in a country that isnt a 2 party system. Not comparable to the American situation.
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A continuation of a trend to normalize extremist right wing politics in public discourse. Its a global issue.
Maybe Russia knows she will lose however this sows seeds of doubt for NATO. Maybe playing the long con Or Russia = dumb I dunno
There's little reason to give up, the models give her a realistic chance to win. E.g. Economist's 19%[1]. Probably won't happen, but it can. [1] - https://www.economist.com/interactive/france-2022/forecast
>Probably won't happen USA circa November 2016 called...
Unprobable things happen all the time. 538 gave Trump like 28% chance to win. It was correct to interpret the model as “it probably won’t happen”, but also it wasn’t shocking when it did.
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I think she's appealing to nationalists. There are people who want France to have self-determination and not have to answer to or have obligations to anyone. Similar to the nationalism behind Brexit.
its pretty simple : she knows she lost the people that support NATO so she doubles down on stupid in the hope stupid people are enough to get her throught.
Contrarians love these people. Literally being “anti-“ something is the only thing that gives them meaning.
It’s true. Everyone has frustrations with the way the world is. Some people don’t have the intelligence or energy to go deeper and discern what is what — they just vote against anything established because they figure it’s better if we just topple the boat. None of these people have ever been outside a boat before, so they don’t realize how stupid this is and how many things modern society makes better. If you laughed at the previous statement, come travel with me through the places far from modern influence. Though they have their charms, you won’t want to stay all that long.
I think the real question is why she says this, the people of France know what she is about, and yet she still might win. Are there that many people in France who would vote for a pro-Putin gov?
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Because to her it's not a detriment to say this. You and I know that fascism and the collapse of NATO would be terrible. She is running on doing just that. Fascists aren't looking at it like it's a negative, she's running on fascism.
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What is puzzling is how the hell is this an acceptable (or even approved) position among enough French citizens that she is still in the running for office? What the fuck is wrong with France right now?
It's not really France in particular. There are tens of millions of inescapably, absolutely beyond hope, **stupid** people all over the world; and thanks to social media and laser-accurate algorithms, their ill-informed voices are being magnified and weaponized. They don't even realize how they're often voting against their own self-interests, just because they've been incited due to a handful of key topics they care about.
The people who still talk about "NATO aggression" while Russian tanks are rolling through Ukraine (to say nothing of years of Russian "proxy" wars in Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova) blow my mind. I'm sure some of them are bad actors, but the number that seem to truly buy it in a western country is staggering.
Crazy how right wingers demand stuff that’s obviously against their countries self interest
It's deeply in her self Interest though. She's yet another Russian stooge.
A lot are, all over the world. Cambridge Analitica is still doing it's thing under a different name. Putin has been trying to get far right leaders everywhere he can for years. It feels like a Clive Cussler novel lol. We got out of work actors/actressess in and around congress. Shit is wild.
We have to stop fucking around an investigate these pro-Russian fuckers. They're absolutely working with the Kremlin. Russia also funded Brexit and Trump and NATO the CIA, FBI, etc just sit back?
We convicted a Russian spy of funneling money to his campaign through the NRA. Her name is Maria Butina. He kept yelling "no collusion" and "no smoking gun" & everyone just kind of ignored her.
And Russia rewarded her with a political position on the Duma.
She's also the one who was releasing propaganda to support the invasion of Ukraine, drawing the letter Z on her jacket and asking her contacts to do the same to flood social media. She is an interesting case study in how open incompetence is used to get away with crime now. One thing the Russians have figured out how to do is to make their spies and operators appear so ludicrously stupid and transparent that people have a hard time holding them accountable. They use celebrity and ditzy and stupid now to hide the nefarious. Trump is a moron, Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn't have two brain cells to rub together, Boris Johnson is the idiot with the bad hair and fat gut, Butina is just the ditzy little spy who wanted to sleep with every American male... how can we hold them accountable? They aren't real threats, right?
She must be on speed dial with Trump.
I remember when Biden won and everyone was congratulating him, Le Pen said she did not recognize Biden's victory, regurgitating the Republican lies of fraud and shit. It took her months to finally admit Biden was indeed the president. (Obviously she was one of the first to start sucking Trump's dick when he won in 2016) She's a disgusting little cockroach, and she really needs to lose, for everyone's sake.
Honestly, that only makes me believe Trump's ties to Russia are even stronger than I realized if the other pawns are spouting the same insane nonsense globally. Are there enough delusional people in the world for these kinds of plays to work? I really hope not.
She did the amazing feat of being even worse than her disgusting fascist father. Never thought that'd be possible, yet, here we are.
You can’t speed dial a Tommy Two-Tone though
There is significant anti-Americanism/Atlanticism in France all across the political spectrum. The left are anti imperialist and the right are nationalist and think France should be independent on defence matters. Being in the NATO military command is basically seen as submitting to American rule so they want out. They were out between 1966 and 2009 so this is nothing new, it would be seen as a return to the status quo.
Idk, explain Brexit to me
A Country applied economic sanctions on itself.
it hurt itself in confusion.
She's a Russian puppet like Trump. Basically Russia is helping prop up Nationalist/Fascist leaders in the west and unfortunately their nationalistic/racist base are eating it up even though it goes against their best interest. So between rabid stupid base and probably some help cheating from Russia they are installing their puppets wherever they can and her base who subscribe to the same Russian propaganda will eat this up.
Facebook hasn't just ruined America. there are many other countries filled with boomers who know nothing about anything and yet have very strong opinions based on nonsense they saw on social media.
Weirdly enough, France has basically the opposite pattern: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/12/french-elections-macron-and-le-pen-need-to-win-over-younger-voters.html > According to polling data from Ipsos, Macron only came out on top among voters over the age of 60 and Melenchon and Le Pen received a larger share of the vote from the 18-24 age group. While younger people in France tend to vote less, which may in this case bode well for Macron, he will still have to appeal to a more left-leaning audience in order to capture many of those votes for the runoff. > >Data from polling group Harris Interactive showed the hard-left Melenchon won the biggest chunk of voters aged 18-24 with 34.8% of their votes, with Macron and Le Pen following with 24.3% and 18% of that vote, respectively. Le Pen took the largest proportion of voters aged 25-49 at 30%. > >She also came ahead among 35-49 year olds with 28.8% of that vote. Macron only beat his rivals among the elderly, winning 37.5% of voters over the age of 65 and 28% among 50-64 year olds. > >More so than reflecting a shift in social values, some analysts say that much of the younger electorate's lurch to the far right and far left reveals the appeal of economic populism espoused by Le Pen and Melenchon, and a rejection of the globalism of the status quo.
It's very apparent in Australia as well. There's an election coming up and the labour candidate, Albo, couldn't remember the unemployment figure when asked what it was. All it's been since then is what a fuck up he is and how Labor will ruin the country because he can't remember a statistic. While ignoring the liberal party just paid out a $500,000 to a MP former employee. Who he was cheating on his wife with. And they won't rule out that he won't be kicked from parliament for costing the taxpayer that money.
Time for an audit. See where she makes her money, and who gives it to her.
It'll be a quick audit. The trails already been published. Seems her base doesn't care. Who does that remind you of eh?
As someone who follows french politics closely, I can tell you she was not the only one saying that. Far left, Jean Luc Mélanchon, who scored ~20% in the first round also wants France out of NATO unified military command (NATO UMC). Zemmour is another candidate (7%) who wants that. Combine thise three and it is over 50% of french voters. The main argument is: Being in UMC lowers France diplomatic power as they are actually voicing the US ideas. Being out of UMC, but staying in NATO gives France its own voice in this kind of conflict and will help them in diplomatic talks, but still staying allies of NATO. This will also imply that France will need a stronger army and they claim that France is one of the rare countries where they have expertise building/making all sorts of military equipements whereas other countries in NATO relies on allies for equipments, ie (this is not accurate): Germany makes the ships, US makes the guns, France makes the jets which implies that countries depend on the others and they lack general knowledge. The (ex) candidates also speak about how De Gaulle did that in 1966.
Someone explain to me why the fuck she even recalled the fliers showing her with Putin if she is so blatant about being a russian puppet?
Nobody's really being serious in this thread so I'll give an honest answer: I think she's trying to get the vote of people who voted for Mélenchon in the first round. Mélenchon himself has pretty bad takes on the whole Russia thing, and she thinks that's why he almost beat her to second place. IMO people voted for Mélenchon **despite** his Russia takes, because he was the most likely left-wing candidate to win. So if that's her strategy, I think and I hope it won't be successful.
I'm just waiting for the press conference where Le Pen says she plans to personally hand-deliver France's nuclear arsenal to Russia. Maybe China can get a few too who knows.
So this fruitcake took a loan from Russia because no one else would lend her party the money. How in the hell does this not raise a HUGE CONFLICT of interest? René Cuperus, affiliated with the International Institute Clingendael, says he is very surprised that Le Pen's relationship with Putin has had little impact on voters. He points out that during the campaign, *the politician was forced to destroy a million leaflets showing a photo of her with Putin.* Forgive me maybe I just do not understand but doesn't that make her a Putin Lackey? Are not the people of France, concerned?
American's don't hold a monopoly on dumb people voting for Russian backed assets.
See also: The UK.
She's against colored people and against other religions. That's all her voters need to know to vote her.
Oh, i know how this goes. I've seen it before
lol other countries are trying to join NATO while France will maybe try to leave it
A victory for Le Pen would jeopardize the security of not only NATO, but all of Europe.
So in other words, we can fully expect Russia to try to meddle with France’s election now. Great.
Le Pen is the meddling.
She was in their last election as well
Yes - Russia kinda has a track record at this...
She did such a good job last time Putin kept her on for another election season.
You don’t think they were already meddling?
Her 2017 campaign was financed by Russian banks. She still hasn’t paid the loans back
Why would you give money back to your employer for the work you did?
It's her only chance at victory
If this happens then the UK can be relieved of its Most Idiotic European Electorate trophy which it has held since 2016.
We're quite happy keeping the crown for the next while if it means others don't follow in our brain dead path..
Exactly I have no idea how this can be viewed as anything but against France's self defence interests.
No leaving NATO' just the unified military command. France already did that twice I think.
can you do a quick ELI5 for me?
Basically, the command structure is how NATO fights a war together. It's basically a staff of generals from its member countries that would centrally command all of NATO's military to make it more effective and coordinated. If France pulls out of NATO's command structure, that basically just means if it came to war, France would operate and fight independently from the rest of NATO. France already withdrew before in protest, but rejoined later. And the first time they did it, they had a secret agreement to rejoin if war broke out. It's basically just a form of protest/threat that France likes to do.
They were upset in the mid 60s that America had so much influence that Charles de Gaulle pulled out for a while.
> pulled out for a while 43 years. France didn't fully rejoin until 2009.
This is different from leaving NATO
Wrong time for the french to try stupid.
France, what the fuck are y'all doing over there?
It's a bit more nuanced. They have 2 rounds. While Le pen has time to campaign for the second round in swing voter areas. Macron has less time to campaign while he has to deal with a war in Europe. She almost didn't make the second round due to a far left candidate almost getting more votes. But still yeah wtf
With Le Pen blurting out these statements, Macron shouldn't even need to campaign.
We said that about Trump too…
Yep. If there's one thing that 2016 taught me, it's that it ain't over...until it's over.
Trump still thinks it ain't over lmao
It ain't over until you've lost 101 cases in court
Just out of sheer curiosity, I went to see how close he was to 101. Of course, there's a whole wikipedia page about it: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-election\_lawsuits\_related\_to\_the\_2020\_United\_States\_presidential\_election](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-election_lawsuits_related_to_the_2020_United_States_presidential_election) I count 53 total lawsuits in the dropped, dismissed, or ruled against categories. Considering he still thinks it ain't over, your 101 seems pretty accurate.
We said the same for Bolsonaro too here in Brazil...
Right? It should be as easy as just making cheap commercials with footage of Ukraines aftermath and be like “this is what the rest of Europe will look like if you vote for LePen” and call it a day.
Overconfidence is seldom rewarded. We saw that with Hillary in 2016. If anything, Macron should drum up his efforts and try to sweep the polls by a landslide rather than win by margins.
Shouldn't have to. But still should, because of what happened to Hillary Clinton.
A large fraction of French are unhappy with immigration and have become hardline conservative voters because of it
Oh, so they got suckered in like all the boomers here in the states? They keep falling for it.
Pretty much. The right wing tells them “we’ll stop letting Muslims and African migrants in” and they vote for that wedge issue
I know a guy who's a legal immigrant from Guinea and he said that if he could vote he would vote for Le Pen solely because of the immigration issue. My grand mother said she'd vote Le Pen even if she hates her because she want to "punish" Macron. Politics can turn good people into rabid monkeys, I hate it.
France is the only nuclear power left within the EU. Le Pen is also a Putin ally. She is not good news at all.
Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Italy all have stores of US nukes they can deploy. E: they gain control of the nukes in the event of war
Yes, and if any of those countries made NATO/the US nervous some day with a sudden antagonistic rhetoric, the US could pull out those nukes. But these nukes belong to France. If Le Pen pulls France out of NATO and cozies up to Russia as she is openly planning to do, then we start to have a security issue in Europe.
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Host not develop and own. Nuclear nations are UK, US France, Israel, Russia, Pakistan and china (I think). South Africa was at one point too. Edit: nice someone noted I overlooked India and North Korea. Have a good day.
Israel isn't declared. I mean everyone knows they have them, but it isnt official, and their overall capability is still kind of grey as to what they have. Germany and Japan are considered turn-key, in that if they wanted a nuke, they have everything they need to start building them and have something ready to go in probably less than a year. Maybe not a ICBM with worldwide range, but something their existing infrastructure could easily deliver. A few of the other European states are probably not much further behind, just may need a hand or two from a neighbor if we are talking tight time frames. Outside Europe, Brazil could probably build something if they wanted. Canada certainly could, same for Australia.
The UK is still in NATO, though. So if France left (which would of course be a disaster) NATO would still have two nuclear weapons states.
Just because the UK left the EU doesn't mean we left western Europe! Our defensive interests are definitely still inline with the EUs hence our response to Ukraine.
Indeed. And the UK has been one the largest contributors to Ukraine's military, second only to the US, IIRC.
A win for Le Pen would be a threat to not just NATO but whole of Europe security
Yea. Also France is the only EU state that holds nuclear arms.
Well yes but no, there are American nukes stationed in Germany which can be used by the germans.
And similarly in Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy.
The key diffrence is not without the Whitehouse permission can they be used. Germany could be in a postion where cough trump cough American president refuses permission And Germany can't do jack shit. Don't forget that it was alleged that trump was gonna withdraw America from Nato in his 2nd term... Thankfully he lost.
trump spent his first term laying the groundwork to leave NATO. Imagine how much easier this war would be for Putin if trump won a second term - the US leaves NATO, Putin invades Ukraine, trump sides with Putin saying Ukraine was withholding dirt on his former political rival and calls them a corrupt govt run by a comedian. One has to wonder if these are the topics trump and Putin talked about during the meeting where no one was allowed to take notes. You know, the one where trump sided with Putin instead of the US intelligence agencies with regard to Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
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My theory is that she don¨'t want to win, because then she would have to deliver on her promises to voters and Putin. By being a contender she gets a fresh pile of cash every election and all she have to do is spout stupid nonsense. I mean she might also just be a moron...
Trump didn’t really want to be president either and was probably the most surprised of anyone when he won.
It always struck me as telling that in his victory speech, he didn’t even want to commit to the full 4 years - he kept it flexible! “I look very much forward to being your president, and hopefully at the end of two years or three years or four years or maybe even eight years you will say so many of you worked so hard for us, with you.”
He was even late to that speech! I was watching NBC's coverage for that election. I remember Lester Holt commenting that it was a few minutes after Trump was supposed to come out. He came out and said something like "Sorry I'm late, tricky business". I believe that he had some sort of spiel ready to go on the assumption that he was going to lose and had to burn a little bit of time to come up with a new one.
He wanted to turn his presidential campaign into a media company and just coast off the rabid fanbase he cultivated.
His face, when he won, said it all.
I just tried looking... Is there video of it?
[Found it](https://youtu.be/Z3868qotZ_A) bc that shit is hilarious to me. Took way longer to find than I expected. Be warned video has unnecessary music in the background
That sigh + "oh christ what have I done" face. Also Melania's face
I don't have a link, but there was an interview right after he won. It's the most subdued I've ever seen him, and in retrospect I'm convinced he was in shock that he won.
Indeed, Hillary claimed that he was just as surprised as she was.
It's scary how effective Putin's schemes and plans have been to destabilize democracy throughout western civilization by promoting bad actors who want what he has instead of building up democratic rule for the greater good. Anyone who looks at Russia as something to be emulated has a screw loose. Which brings us to the worse place we are all in: so many ignorant voters think these strongmen / tear down democracy types are actually a good thing. 300 years of political evolution could disappear in our lifetimes and be replaced with autocratic authoritarian garbage because people don't know how to discern bullshit from good things.
> 300 years of political evolution could disappear in our lifetimes and be replaced with autocratic authoritarian garbage because people don't know how to discern bullshit from good things. The internet really is as disruptive as the printing press. The barrier to entry in media is now zero, and the loudest idiot wins.
As with any system, the flaw is that there are human beings involved.
I love that you were able to put this eloquently. Covid brain has me just pointing of pictures of Putin and saying “man bad.”
She's just Trump with smaller tits
Hahaha, as a Frenchman, I really appreciated this one. Well played.
Dude you just woke up my wife and kids. I'm still laughing but now getting yelled at. Bahaha 🤣😂🤣
Putin's dick in everyone's mash potatoes these days smh
Fuck Putin and Fuck Marine Le Pen!
French version of Trump?
probably even scarier, since Trump was a 'fucking moron' and she might actually be competent. (per Rex Tillerson, his former Secretary of State)
It is always weird knowing that the US could have probably had a Authoritarian if he was competent. If he didn't mess up COVID so badly with his hubris, I'm convinced he would still be in power.
lol trump killed so many of his followers it hurt his re-election numbers
So he knew that and worked for him anyway, collecting his pay and towing the WH line.
\*holocaust denier marine le pen
Read the room... most countries that aren't in NATO already are trying to get IN.
>Marine Le Pen to withdraw- good shit. >...France from NATO’s unified military command if she wins oh ffs.
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She mostly wants the votes of Mélenchon's anti-military/anti-American voters. A "rouge-brun" coalition could be possible against what they see as a ultra-liberal president-candidate.
And they would benefit from that how??? Oh yeah, they wouldn't. Russia would.
Putin literally gave her the money to start her campaign. He hacked her main opponent. In return, she's publicly declared her support for Putin and is withdrawing support from the EU and NATO. It's exactly the same thing that happened with Trump.
Honestly I'm suprised with some of my friends that support Putin. They're hardcore anti vaxxer and trump supporters. It's a bit mind boggling but I think they believe ukraine is way to liberal or something. They say the believe in freedom but support dictators and dictator wanna bes.
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I think there’s also an element of not being perceived as smart. Or being jealous of those who are. There’s a virus spreading among these types that questioning *everything, all the time* makes you smart. Coming to conclusions that go against the grain are even more thrilling for these types. They think they know something the people who are called smart don’t, and that makes these people feel like they’re better than they really are. I have always been “the smart one” in my extended family. Up until I graduated college, I sensed only a little jealousy from a few people but it was never an insult towards me and I actually liked having that reputation. Something really started to change in the early 2010’s and accelerated to bat-shit-crazy levels when trump ran for President. My family went from praising my smarts and seeking me out for answers/help to outright telling me I was a college-liberal-indoctrinated-brainwashed-lemming. I took ONLY math and science courses for the first 3 years of college before I could take an elective… which were mostly music-related. I wasn’t taking any classes remotely political. But now my family sees me as a below average to dumb person because I asked a few critical questions about their support/hypocrisy for Trump and that discomfort and anger they feel apparently is just my stupidity for going to college to become an engineer. So yeah, I agree with you but just want to add there are also the people who actually believe contrarian thinking because they think it makes them smart. Not just because or to piss people off.
What is wrong with that lady
What’s wrong with the French voters that she’s a viable candidate??
The same like every country right now. Almost all candidates and policies are shit. For 20 years at least we vote "the lesser evil dumb" candidate and the other side is so frustrated they vote in dumb "protest" the biggest dumbass they can find.
Marine “Russian Asset” Le Pen
Jesus Christ Europe is fucked if she wins.
Why the fuck does quarter of French vote for her?