My latest on the state of France in The New Republic.
Photo Credit: Copyleft and Foto-AG Gymnasium Melle, Macron & Le Pen, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
My latest on the state of France in The New Republic.
Photo Credit: Copyleft and Foto-AG Gymnasium Melle, Macron & Le Pen, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
2 Comments
If I may, I would suggest, it is not just Macron, or France that has a “problem”, most of European countries are either run or challenged by populist movements, right, left or both combined. Why ? Because democracy doesn’t work anymore as it used to. Elections do not garantee a truly democratic functionning of the state. The electoral majority doesn’t impose its legitimacy anymore. It is indeed questionnable. The demands are many because they come from all kinds of different groups and life styles and not just from clearcut social classes as they used to. Neither liberals nor social-democrats have the key to this new situation. The various fears and demands are mostly legitimate, the populist solutions are wrong, but the governments can’t offer much better… Therefore one can’t just discard these movements as “populist” with a snear… They don’t smell good but they won’t go away soon or easily. Not in France, not in England, not in Italy, not in Germany, not in Austria, not in Poland, not in Hungary… Etc.
Unfortunately you are completely right.