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the satiricals might pick it up occasionally, though it's been a while since i read french papers regularly
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Jun 12, 2019 00:08
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Once you hit realpolitik discourse, Françafrique is seen as a powerful asset for France that keeps us from being even more irrelevant than we are on the international stage, pretty much. There's also the usual arguments about helping with development through mutually beneficial partnerships, keeping order, how much of a shitshow Africa is, and how we're doing good there if you think about it, blablabla, and the various military operations against islamists strengthen that particular optic. There's also the simmering anxiety about China taking over the family business, which gets you into discussions over geopolitics and the coming evolution of global capitalism. Occasionally some corrupt African stateman gets in trouble and the curtain is lifted just a little bit (Sarkozy's still having problems with the judiciary over his relationship with Gaddafi, for example), and the Rwandan genocide in particular occasionally gets retrospectives that shed a little light over just what the gently caress we were doing during that time, but it's all rather difficult to parse. There's a lot of poo poo we'll probably never know. Squalid posted:or maybe someone can tell me what the far left says in their own publications? What's the French version of Jacobin Magazine? Do you read French? Not sure if there's a one-to-one comparison. Mediapart and Le Canard Enchaîné do good investigative journalism, though only the former is properly leftist. There's also regular left-wing newspapers like L'Humanité, Bastamag or Politis, and if you want long-form essays there's also La Revue Du Crieur which only releases issues thrice a year. Your best shot on the subject is probably Le Monde Diplomatique*, which focuses on international news and is generally both relatively leftist and well-researched, through it's not as radical as Jacobin. Don't confuse it with Le Monde, though, which is a den of useless libs. *Would you look at that: They just released an issue on the very topic you're looking for. Doesn't seem to be available in English though. YaketySass fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Jun 12, 2019 |
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Jun 12, 2019 00:34
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The European hysteria over Chinese investment in Africa is so absurd, I can only make sense of it as a manifestation of feelings of insecurity brought about by a fear of declining relevance and influence. If the Chinese are going to pay for a rail line or port expansion Europeans will obviously benefit. Their trade move along the same infrastructure after all. In French I can only read like academic articles or stuff with equally simple grammar and language. Not that I'm going to be buying any magazines anyway  what am I a grandma? I can't pay for news anymore, this is almost as bad as when I found out France still charges for the SPOT satellite image catalog. Oh well I guess if I want to read anything on the subject I probably have no choice but to buy a real book, I really can't find anything on the internet about France's post-colonial economic relationship with her colonies in English. At least I can't find anything detailed.
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Jun 12, 2019 01:35
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Squalid posted:and I was wondering what the response of the "mainstream" French government and economists would be? Toplowtech fucked around with this message at 06:44 on Jun 12, 2019 |
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Jun 12, 2019 06:10
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Toplowtech posted:The minute Franc CFA is gone, wouldn't an army of speculators start working on making money out of the new currencies, Zimbabwe Style? It look like capitalist interests are trying to guilt France over it's colonial past in order to make a few bucks at expense of Africans. I mean keeping inflation low is definitely one of the justifications for participation in the CFA. However the answer to your specific question is definitely no. Hyperinflation to my knowledge has never been caused by currency arbitrage, and while I am not an economist I don't think that is even theoretically possible. Thus far basically everything I have seen or read on the subject suggests the CFA is bad, but those sources haven't been particularly rigorous and I haven't heard very good explanations for why countries choose to participate if that is the case, so I'm suspicious I'm missing parts of the story. Unfortunately it's difficult to find much discussing these policies. I did find an article which covered a lot of the same ground as the Caspian Report video titled A New French Policy for Africa? by Xavier Renou, but it was published in 2002 so its pretty out of date. It was also SO similar to the Caspian Report video that I suspect it may have been one of that production's main sources. I would link it but its in an academic database, I could pm a drive link though if anyone was interested. Maybe you could expand a bit on this subject of guilt. Who would you say is trying to guilt France? Surely you are pointing at someone greater than just currency speculators. Also my impression is that much of French interests in Africa are entirely capitalist, or at least profit seeking. Do you believe socialists both in France and Africa should support arrangements like the CFA? If so, could you describe how they are socialist or anti-capitalist policies?
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Jun 12, 2019 07:11
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Nathalie Loiseau se fait des copains au parlement européen https://www.liberation.fr/amphtml/p...impression=true https://twitter.com/Brevesdepresse/status/1138566225984925697
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Jun 12, 2019 07:23
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Yeah, rebooting the macronbot isn't going to fix the arrogance problem. We've tried.
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Jun 12, 2019 07:32
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Squalid posted:Also my impression is that much of French interests in Africa are entirely capitalist, or at least profit seeking. Do you believe socialists both in France and Africa should support arrangements like the CFA? If so, could you describe how they are socialist or anti-capitalist policies? Ideally it's the African nations themselves who should decide to have or not have a unified currency. * in a really modern neo liberal sense even. **see the other UR-example: Haiti *** Derp vvvvv I even thought "most of the Jules government were like super pro colonialism". gently caress Luc Ferry anyway. I blame his current and hilarious failures to enter l'Academie for my brain farts. Toplowtech fucked around with this message at 08:38 on Jun 12, 2019 |
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Jun 12, 2019 08:22
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*Jules Ferry Luc is very much alive and very much right-wing.
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Jun 12, 2019 08:30
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Squalid posted:I couldn't think of anywhere better to ask about this than this thread, but I saw this video recently about Francafrique: There's a lot of things about the CFA that's just extremely exaggerated or outright invented (take a look at the ideology of Kémi Séba, the most influential opponent to the CFA) so I generally don't bother watching English-language Youtube videos about it, I expect a lot of sensationalism and very little fact-checking. The main problem of the CFA is the main problem of the euro, to which it's tied: it's a one-size-fits-all currency that fails to fit all. Its strength penalizes African exports while making imports cheaper, which is a double-whammy of bad for the development of the local economy. The advantage is stability, low inflation (not necessarily a good thing, mind, but elites tend to like it), and more favorable interest rates when borrowing (also not necessarily a good thing in the long term).  Interesting things to note: take a look at the Guineas. Equatorial Guinea was a Spanish colony which had its own currency, the ekwele (a renamed peseta), since independence. They joined the CFA in 1985. Guinea-Bissau was a Portuguese colony, the Guinean peso, since independence. They joined the CFA in 1997. Amusingly, the one Guinea that was a French colony was the first country to leave the CFA in 1960, two years after independence. Mali is another interesting case: it left the CFA in 1962, and rejoined it in 1984. The Malian franc had lost 50% of its value during the intervening 22 years, as the Malian franc was at parity when they left and was at 2 M. francs for 1 CFA when they rejoined. Two other countries left the CFA, Mauritania and Madagascar. Another thing to note: the western African states in the CFA are planning on leaving it together to the Eco whenever that currency will become feasible, which would then be left for the Afro when that one becomes feasible. Something that might interest you: a defense of the CFA by an African economist, in 2016. https://www.financialafrik.com/2016/09/07/le-franc-cfa-fantasmes-delires-et-realites/
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Jun 12, 2019 09:56
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Kassad posted:As a bonus, the social security deficit is about to explode thanks to Macron's bullshit BTW, @Le Trésor Public, my income is between ten euros a year and five hundred thousand a day. Who's counting zeroes anyway ?
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Jun 12, 2019 11:09
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Cat Mattress posted:Interesting things to note: take a look at the Guineas. Equatorial Guinea was a Spanish colony which had its own currency, the ekwele (a renamed peseta), since independence. They joined the CFA in 1985. Guinea-Bissau was a Portuguese colony, the Guinean peso, since independence. They joined the CFA in 1997. Amusingly, the one Guinea that was a French colony was the first country to leave the CFA in 1960, two years after independence. That article was just the kind of thing I was looking for, thanks. Equitorial Guinea is the kind of country I would think would most benefit from the CFA. It's economy is completely dependent on oil exports and it is relatively wealthy for west Africa (per capita gdp of over $9,000, compared to $1,485 for Senegal). Oil economies are prone to wild fluctuations in the value of their currency, so I'd think the stabilizing effects would be particularly welcome. I remember learning about the Eco years ago in a Political-Economy class, and it is kind of funny it hasn't gone anywhere since then. Not sure how likely it will ever be feasible. Toplowtech I'm not sure I understand all your points about colonialism. In the article A New French Policy for Africa? Renou criticized France for hiring mercenaries to support Mobutu in the nineties, and also militarily and politically supporting the genocidaires in Rwanda. The primary motivations for these modern day polcies, Renou argues, was fear of French influence being supplanted by the United States. He characterized this as a "new cold war," though I thought that was a bit overly dramatic, and the war on terror probably nipped that rivalry in the bud before it could really grow. Your rejection of French guilt regarding the colonial past and insecurity regarding criticism of France's Africa policy appears to suggest the contest for influence is still an overriding concern of French policy-makers. Although today I suspect competition with China is seen as just as much of a threat as competition with the United States. and Toplowtech, if I come across as hypocritical making these statements as an American, perhaps you'd like to see the literally thousands of words I've written criticizing US Africa policy, especially regarding Somalia? Unfortunately I have never yet managed to get anyone to care about that subject, which is entirely ignored domestically.
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Jun 12, 2019 18:33
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Squalid posted:The primary motivations for these modern day polcies, Renou argues, was fear of French influence being supplanted by the United States. quote:and Toplowtech, if I come across as hypocritical making these statements as an American, perhaps you'd like to see the literally thousands of words I've written criticizing US Africa policy, especially regarding Somalia? Unfortunately I have never yet managed to get anyone to care about that subject, which is entirely ignored domestically. vvvvvvvvvv LOL post the whole thread it's hilarous: https://twitter.com/TurcanMarie/status/1139073349479538688 Toplowtech fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Jun 13, 2019 |
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Jun 13, 2019 16:33
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Another scandal is rocking the country! https://twitter.com/TurcanMarie/status/1139072155008872449
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Jun 13, 2019 16:34
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Hey you fuckers it’s time to embarrass the government further by actually voting in favor of the referendum on the privatization of Aéroports de Paris. The media doesn’t give a poo poo and macron wants this to fail hard. They made it as hard as possible. Tell em to go gently caress themselves. We need 5 million people in support of this, now go do some semblance of democracy or something. https://www.referendum.interieur.gouv.fr/
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Jun 13, 2019 21:15
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Flowers For Algeria posted:Hey you fuckers it’s time to embarrass the government further by actually voting in favor of the referendum on the privatization of Aéroports de Paris. Je ne peux pas toujours voté mais je le dirai aux gens. Thanks for the heads up!
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Jun 13, 2019 21:40
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How accurate is this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42_-ALNwpUo
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Jun 13, 2019 23:25
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punk rebel ecks posted:How accurate is this? I was just asking about that on the last page! Synthesizing my impression and the response I received, I would say that the criticism in the video probably has some merit, however I think the author was drawing from only a few sources, and some of the points he makes may be arguable/disputed or poorly supported by evidence. In particular he doesn't adequately explain why west African nations participate in the arrangement, hand waving their decision away as a result of threats and bribes. In short, he summarizes the critical perspective on France's Africa policy but we never see the other side of the coin, we never hear the apologetics. I also found more of the Chirac quote in the magazine shared by YaketySass, and it doesn't look as bad in context. Chirac wasn't saying the money in French banks came from modern exploitation, but exploitation in the colonial period. Squalid fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Jun 14, 2019 |
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Jun 14, 2019 01:40
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Squalid posted:I was just asking about that on the last page! Synthesizing my impression and the response I received, I would say that the criticism in the video probably have some merit, however I think the author was drawing from only a few sources, and some of the points he makes may be arguable/disputed or poorly supported by evidence. In particular he doesn't adequately explain why west African nations participate in the arrangement, hand waving their decision away as a result of threats and bribes. In short, he summarizes the critical perspective on France's Africa policy but we never see the other side of the coin, we never hear the apologetics. Sorry. I didn't bother to check to see if the video was posted because the Youtuber seems obscure. Thanks for the response. And I read the responses and they were really good. Thomas Sankura was screwed though.
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Jun 14, 2019 02:32
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A la surprise générale, Christophe Castaner est un tas de merde I'm just going to leave this here: quote:Emmanuel Macron semble juger insuffisante la loi sur l'asile et l'immigration adoptée sous votre prédécesseur, Gérard Collomb. Partagez-vous ce jugement?
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Jun 17, 2019 12:10
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Heureusement qu'on a du pognon à depenser pour cette connerie de SNU https://twitter.com/filsdeminerve/status/1141287586071273472?s=19 Dixit l'ambassadeur des jeunesses macroniennes https://twitter.com/April19th1775/status/1141279708836978690?s=19
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Jun 19, 2019 11:29
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quote:Qu’est-ce que la patrie signifie pour vous? 
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Jun 19, 2019 12:06
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en parlant d'humanisme https://twitter.com/JeanHugon3/status/1141026174145052672
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Jun 19, 2019 12:10
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A community that helps each other, in order to cope with the social disaster caused by the willful destruction of public services and privatization of state infrastructure.
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Jun 19, 2019 13:05
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Speaking of which, here are some links to share/use for the petition Aéroports de Paris. Here is a counter for the votes, with 5 to 7 days of delay given how the gov site works. Done by a member of la Quadrature du Net. (His code has to bypass 2 captchas to get the bloody info). http://adprip.fr/ And this site that has a complete FAQ and explanations on how to vote, share, participate. https://referendum-adp.fr/ And if you haven't yet, just loving vote.
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Jun 20, 2019 10:11
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Plus beau le SNU bientôt sur vos chaînes favorites https://twitter.com/Brevesdepresse/status/1141938114522484736?s=19
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Jun 21, 2019 09:02
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Llyd posted:And if you haven't yet, just loving vote. Stupid thing has the wrong postal code for my town, preventing me from voting.
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Jun 21, 2019 09:54
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Cat Mattress posted:Stupid thing has the wrong postal code for my town, preventing me from voting. Ah, be careful that it does not show the postal code but the Code Officiel Géographique, also known as the code commune. It's not aligned with the postal code but similar. Both are usually on the wikipedia page of you city.
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Jun 24, 2019 13:34
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https://twitter.com/LeHuffPost/status/1143159458509598721
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Jun 24, 2019 16:07
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Nice job not mentioning in the headline that one of the persons who fell in the river is still missing lol
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Jun 24, 2019 16:13
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How accurate is this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlFmYI_mS7Y
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Jun 27, 2019 23:21
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punk rebel ecks posted:How accurate is this? Didn't watch all of it, rolled my eyes and shut it down when the video's author reiterated that stupid myth about how "the French thought the Maginot Line was impenetrable and would protect them, didn't understand modern mobile warfare or defence in depth, hurr dee durr". The French army knew all about modern, mobile warfare (although, much like the British did early on, they mostly still thought of tanks as infantry support rather than a force of its own - I may be wrong about this, but I don't think we had anything resembling fully mechanized divisions at that point). Which is *precisely* why they built the Line. What the guy's talking about early in the vid is broadly correct : WW1 was p. bad for the French and left France with a severely depleted male population. We're talking 5 to 10% of its young men blown to bits and thus not having children, probably double or triple that mutilated too badly to be employable and thus support a family. It had not recovered by the 30s ; in fact, you can still see the big dent in the age pyramid today. To put it bluntly, it simply didn't have the means to defend itself or secure its entire border ; and it was poor, for various reasons. So, faced with that state of affairs, they decided that rather than expanding the army or making conscription longer (which would have been costly and hampered industry, plus we were all about workers' rights and social progress and similar peacenik commie poo poo at the time), it was a better plan to spend the money on upgrading what little army they did have and build the Line instead : a formidable defence system of interlinked forts that would be difficult and costly to breach quickly, even if severely undermanned and defended by guys who didn't know a grenade from a potato. Meanwhile the mobile, modern army would be deployed up north where the real fight was always expected to happen. The plan was thus : either A) the Germans try and break the line, in which case they would be stalled long enough for a hurried conscription to reinforce it while the army blitzed through the Low Countries and into Germany, the Germans are all pincer'd, the war is won quickly ; or B) the Germans would take one look at the Line, think "Verdammt. Vergessen about this Scheisse." and instead try to attack through Belgium and smack into the *real* army, which would then proceed to use mobile warfare to quickly respond to when and where the Germans attacked, split them up, try and cut off their supply lines and generally win quickly to please please please let it not become Verdun all over again. As it turned out, the Germans chose "D : go through an impassable natural obstacle" instead - namely the Ardennes forest, thought too thick to allow anything more than a trickle of infantry or small tanks through. Which it was - cutting a path through there *did* make German supply lines extremely linear and vulnerable ; France & the Brits just didn't have the time to capitalize on that before their own supply lines & air forces were overrun and overwhelmed. As for the Maginot Line, it performed exactly as designed : some elements of the German army did try to storm the more isolated parts of it and were easily repulsed by vastly inferior numbers.
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Jun 28, 2019 05:08
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punk rebel ecks posted:How accurate is this? *by reintroducing prayers and pledge to the flag in school.
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Jun 28, 2019 05:48
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Kobal2 provides a good summary. I'll add that French General Georges did notice the Germans moving through the Ardennes Forest and ordered bombers to prioritize hitting the Germans there instead of in Belgium before they could cross, but commanders in Belgium sent only part of the request amount. Which was refused by the general there. French reserves were moved up to reinforce the units there as well, but positioned to counter the Germans pivoting south and east in an expected swing behind the Maginot Line. Which left them unable to respond when the Germans pushed West and swung North toward the coast. The Germans really don't breakout until Charles Huntziger ordered the abandonment the defenses west of Sedan. I would recommend of the World War Two channel hosted by Indy Neidell if you want a detailed and understandable breakdown of the Maginot Line, France's Army and strategic considerations, the inexplicable decisions of some French generals.
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Jun 28, 2019 06:14
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Kobal2 posted:Didn't watch all of it, rolled my eyes and shut it down when the video's author reiterated that stupid myth This part basically applies to nearly every English-language video about French stuff. It's kind of astounding how terrible anglos are at groking French history and culture, despite how close France, the UK, and the US have been historically and culturally. Or perhaps it's this closeness that causes people to just go with the clichés and stereotypes they heard since childhood and never reexamined critically?
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Jun 28, 2019 13:12
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I always just assumed it's a cycle of academics unable to read French writing about it and being the sources to others who also can't read French resulting in the loss of a lot of primary and actual French sources. Same goes for other languages.
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Jun 28, 2019 13:28
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Cat Mattress posted:This part basically applies to nearly every English-language video about French stuff. It's kind of astounding how terrible anglos are at groking French history and culture, despite how close France, the UK, and the US have been historically and culturally. Or perhaps it's this closeness that causes people to just go with the clichés and stereotypes they heard since childhood and never reexamined critically? The UK's perception of France has pretty much been "those massive weirdos and their moon language are so weird holy poo poo" for the last two or three centuries. We clearly scared the poo poo out of them with all the revolutions and Napoleonic war shenanigans (since they can't stop bringing it up 2 centuries on).
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Jun 28, 2019 13:33
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My favorite bit of British understanding of French history is that there's only two or three battles in the Hundred Years War, Crecy, Agincourt, and sometimes Poitiers.
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Jun 28, 2019 13:52
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Cat Mattress posted:This part basically applies to nearly every English-language video about French stuff. It's kind of astounding how terrible anglos are at groking French history and culture, despite how close France, the UK, and the US have been historically and culturally. Or perhaps it's this closeness that causes people to just go with the clichés and stereotypes they heard since childhood and never reexamined critically? British author Terry Pratchett (PBUH) once quipped that the difference between British and American people was that Brits would go "I don't understand this person, what's wrong with me ?" while Americans go "I don't understand this person, what's wrong with them ?" - but really, I think most people in most countries do the latter and automatically assume that people doing things the observer doesn't fully understand (whether or not the observer is self-aware enough to realize they don't understand) or wouldn't themselves do *must* therefore be stupid, because the observer's way is implicitly correct/the best. EDIT : that being said, in the specific case of the Maginot line, I suppose some tolerance must be granted because the French army and politicos of the 30s did sell it to the general public as basically "Impenetrable Ubermechatrench 2000" - because the general public knew gently caress all about military strategy (although many were WW1 vets, so they did know something about trenches) but needed to approve the spending. Buf gently caress, it's now been 80 years of military historians repeating this nonsense as is... Kobal2 fucked around with this message at 15:22 on Jun 28, 2019 |
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Jun 28, 2019 15:03
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Cat Mattress posted:My favorite bit of British understanding of French history is that there's only two or three battles in the Hundred Years War, Crecy, Agincourt, and sometimes Poitiers. Agincourt being the most important in terms of combat evolutuon. But lol the brits probably want to forget all that wasnt the stunning victory of 1415
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Jun 28, 2019 15:51
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