Macron has recently called a snap parliamentary election in the aftermath of the far-right getting a large proportion of the votes in the EU elections. Why exactly he called an election at a point of profound weakness is a little beyond me. Explanations that I've seen range from "He thinks the element of surprise will benefit his party and not others," to "WW3 is about to start and he doesn't want to be leader for it," (which, like, isn't true - Macron is the President of France, not Prime Minister, he won't be unseated by this election and he has said he will not stand down regardless of result), to "He doesn't want to swim in the shit-filled Seine."
While we still have a couple weeks to go, the polling I've seen generally puts the far-right in first place with the left-wing coalition slightly behind, with Macron's party all the way back in third place. Anybody who knows anything about French politics knows that while France does actually have something of a left opposition in aggregate (in contrast to the two wings of the Capitalist Party in the UK and the US, for example), French left coalitions are profoundly unstable and this one will inevitably split - perhaps even before the voting begins - meaning they aren't nearly as useful as they otherwise could be.
Living in a France governed by far right parties would be awful, but maybe they might at least be against the carnage in Ukraine, and sue for peace with Russia? Well, possibly not, if the example of Meloni in Italy is anything to go by. It seems that the differences between the "centrist" parties and the fascist ones truly are not that great, beholden to the exact same set of capitalists regardless of which party wins, and will likely bend the knee to NATO, though they may grumble a lot. Would a left coalition be better on Russia/NATO? They have already helpfully told us that they won't (only opposing sending French troops to Ukraine but otherwise being full steam ahead), and additionally are genocidal Zionists. Western leftists have long been hampered by a dramatically faulty misunderstanding of how geopolitics works, with many seemingly believing "imperialism is when countries interact with other countries" and "democracy is when you can vote between two parties even if widely popular policies aren't at all represented by either of them, and if those popular policies are enacted but it's by a one-party state then that's authoritarian evil" and other such strange ideas, making them terminally useless on foreign issues and pretty unremarkable on domestic issues too. France is no exception.
And just to top it all off, this is coming in a period of further imperial decline for the tattered remains of the French empire, with West Africa rebelling and Kanaky (New Caledonia) deeply unhappy with recent French decisions.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is France! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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The bulletins site is here!
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Last week's thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
(From 2023) https://archive.ph/Qy0vH
I'm highly doubtful that Russia will actually do anything about it though, other than just shooting them down.
Russian doctrine says they would begin launching nuclear warheads if they thought they were being attacked with nuclear capable weapons platforms. They aren’t shooting down anything, they’re going to press the big red button.
I would personally guess it's a bluff, but maybe I'm just hopeful. A bluff that shouldn't be called, of course, but only shooting down the planes (and expending all force to do so) is likely
The thing is it is very clear to everyone that NATO cannot win against Russia with conventional forces. Nuclear arms are the only thing it has left to actually harm Russia, if you were in a position of power in the Russian federation, would you think the F-16 coming towards you is a bluff?
I would, to a degree. I don’t believe that the west’s corporate backers would be thrilled having to live inside their bunkers for centuries because they had to protect a country they don’t give a shit about (and were in fact, hoping the war to end so they can gobble up the land and industries). Arms companies definitely would welcome the apocalypse, but what about the other powerful bourgeoisie and corporations that haven’t benefitted from this war yet?
I don’t think a coup against Biden would happen lol. Definitely funny, which is why it can’t happen. I don’t know. Maybe they’ll collude with the enemy like WWII.
NATO should not use F-16s unless they want to be annihilated, literally.
I agree with that other comrade, if we look at this from a materialist perspective, almost none of the power structures actually would benefit at all from such actions. It's gonna be real hard to exploit a nuclear bombed area in any timeframe which the current western powers work with. Russia would be more likely than the US to do so, because they have little to gain from the west's existence/non-existence because of current sanctions and no ambitions to take over western lands. But I think that Putin and the Russian government understand that the west would not easily pull the trigger and so will actually not assume that all f-16s are nuclear armed. Just act as so until the last moment.
But again, nobody should call that bluff, it's dumb as shit and only prolonging suffering to help imperialism of the west.
It’s specifically Russian nuclear doctrine to not use a first strike policy. That’s why it’s materialist to assume the west, who actually do have a first strike policy, would do that.
But were talking now about an exception to the first strike policy? As in, Russia will assume the first strike is happening when an F-16 comes to attack and retaliate. My comment is just about whose blind interests are aligned with any sort of nuclear fallout (anywhere in the world). And that Russia (ruling class) is more likely to accept a world where the US is just fallout than the other way (US ruling class wants Russian sources, not non-existence).
This is not an exception to first strike policy because Russia is openly saying they will consider an F-16 to be an American nuclear attack. It may not seem like a big difference, but it is now in Americas hands if they want to send an F-16 over there or not. Even if they did send a non nuclear F-16 over there materially it may as well be a first strike. You have to understand that over the course of the war the American ruling class has only doubled down on its decision in aggressive posturing toward Russia. It might not make sense to us that playing with nuclear war is beneficial for them (because it’s not) but that doesn’t mean it will stop them from doing it. The ruling class know that a Russian victory in Ukraine, an Israeli loss in the Middle East, a failure in Taiwan is basically the end of their hegemony. The only thing that could maintain it is using a nuclear weapon in Russia to make them submit because conventional arms are not enough. These are people who TRULY believe the last world wide conflict was put to an end because America had the will to use atomic weaponry. These people think that doing this will benefit them materially.
Wow.