Anne Hidalgo, the French Socialist presidential candidate, has repeated her plea for her leftwing rivals to unite, saying the left risked collapsing amid the alarming rise of the far-right.
“We’re at a critical moment for our democracy,” Hidalgo said before a rally in Perpignan. “The left is at risk of disappearing. Hate speech and xenophobia have saturated the airwaves for months.”
Taking the stage, she appealed to other candidates on the left not to split the vote: “Wake up, see the danger that is facing us.” French voters felt “despairing and anguished” that the left was being drowned out of the political debate, she said.
She’s polling at 3% in a crowded field. But given the barking madness of the Green, Commie and I’m so nutty I’m not even a Commie Melenchon, she could even become that single candidate, if there were one. Thus the call.
After all, the only rational view of anything a politician suggests is what is in it for that politician doing the suggesting?
There was an item on Slashdot a couple of days ago on the same theme. Some Sci-Fi writer writing in the Graun wants the left to put aside it’s internecine squabbles in the face of supposed climate doom. Fat chance, I thought.
Isn’t this alarming rise of the far right caused by Hidalgo being so far to the left that even moderate lefties appear to be far right from her viewpoint?
The article keeps waffling about “a united left”. Now there’s a contradiction…
I’ve long thought a totally honest left wing slogan would be “the people, united, would be a bleeding miracle”.
Certainly Le Pen and Zemmour should come to some sort of arrangement. Combining his intellect and charisma with the NR’s party machine would give the right a better chance.
Right now it looks like first and second will be Macron and the ‘conservative’ EU globalist candidate, thus ensuring there’ll be no point even having a second round.
In Spanish, Hidalgo is a member of the inherited nobility immune from paying taxes.
Just for information, that’s all.
As an aside, if you’ve visited Paris recently you’ll see that it looks like a wasteland building site, with everybody complaining about the idiot Mayor who’s doing it and driving costs up and destroying the ability to deliver goods or even use taxis, so awful are the traffic jams..
Oh, Hidalgo is the Mayor of Paris. She got re-elected in an election with dismally low turnout (because of Covid).
So Paris now looks like London?
I’ve greatly enjoyed watching the three seasons of Le Baron Noir, a French political drama (with subtitles) – think West Wing meets House of Cards with a twist of The Thick of It and The Sopranos. It taught me a good deal about French politics – whether it’s true to life, I can’t honestly say, but it feels real enough. Although the eponymous (anti)hero is a lifelong Socialist, the left aren’t made into plaster saints (unlike West Wing) and the right and far right get a good kicking, too.
Its particular relevance to the current post, is that there’s much talk of left-wing candidates ‘siphoning’ the votes of others on the left. Under the French presidential system, it’s all about getting into the last two for the run-off vote, and so much tactical voting (and campaigning) can take place.
BiS
Fascist lefties in power in both places. Who knew!
Paris is far worse than London, but it is where London will be in 10 years.