Nice Things and Why We Don't (But Could) Have Them

Actually it's because we won't seize them, but this will do for now

I saw the Prestige Press freaking out that Macron’s partners in the New Popular Front coalition that just shut Le Pen’s fascists out of power are demanding some actual juice in the new government. There had already been a lot of “Laissé dans le désarroi” bullshit from the PP — e.g. “Macron’s gamble has kept the far right out of power, but plunged France into chaos,” bedwet CNN — reflecting the Prestige Press’ horserace mentality, amygdala-poking clickbait strategy, and reliance on American ignorance: The coalition wasn’t sorted the day after the election, chaos!

But the demand of Jean-Luc Melenchon of La France Insoumise (LFI) that he and his partners in the more leftist New Ecological and Social Popular Union (NUPES) part of the coalition get their hands on some levers, including the prime minister’s office, has driven the Prestige Press to new paroxysms.  

Take CNBC’s story, “France avoided a far-right election win — now the radical far left is demanding power”:

After the left wing’s election success in France on Sunday, all eyes are now on radical firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who has demanded the left be given the premiership and a chance to govern following its unexpected election win…

Emboldened by the unexpected election victory, Mélenchon — who in the past has praised late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, said he’d take France out of NATO and proposed 100% tax rates on France’s super wealthy — insisted the new prime minister should come from the left-wing alliance.

Of the three scare-factoids cited here, I’m not shocked CNBC chose to close with the mind-bending terror of heavy taxes on the “super wealthy.”

CNBC follows with harrumphs from expert stooges who insist such an appointment would blow a hole in the budget (“‘Market-friendly they are not,’ Tina Fordham, founder of Fordham Global Insight, said in a note”) and that the next PM must be a “moderate.” (It seems Macron feels the same way — though, given the nervy game he’s been playing, maybe he can be persuaded.)

(Also, here’s what Bloomberg News puked into my inbox last night: “But trouble might await [Macron]: Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the poster child for the Popular Front (a political salad of hard-left agendas), is firmly against ‘parasitic capitalism.’” Gasp! “‘It’s not at all clear that international capital markets should be any happier with this than the outcome they'd braced for with Le Pen,’ John Authers warns.”)

As it happens you can read the 2022 New Popular Union program online (I used Google Translate). For one thing, there’s nothing about Hugo Chavez there, and policy differences among the partners on major issues are acknowledged — including on NATO; the Communists, for example, want to swap in “a pan-European conference with a view to a common area of ​​peace and collective security in Europe,” and even the hardcore guys simply refuse “any [French] military intervention without a UN mandate,” which ain’t exactly an equivalent to the U.S. Republican/pro-Putin anti-NATO position.

Also, there’s no 100% tax, though there is a call for “wealth sharing and tax justice,” which includes lower taxes for 92% of French citizens, a return to the abandoned solidarity wealth tax, replacing the current broad VAT with a “luxury VAT,” “increas[ing] prosecutions and toughen penalties for white-collar criminals,” etc. Oh, yeah, and price controls on essential goods such as “food, energy, and fuel.”

But the basic domestic program, on which the partners generally agree, is mostly stuff like this:

… the restoration of the effective weekly working time to 35 hours, by increasing overtime…

Reaffirm the permanent employment contract (CDI) as the normal and general form of work…

Repeal the Pénicaud ordinances and the El Khomri law and re-establish the “principle of favor”: a company agreement [in lieu of regulation] must be more favorable than a branch agreement, itself more favorable than the law…

Ban golden parachutes…

Reject the Macron reform and compensate the unemployed according to their last salaries through insurance calculated from the first day of work

Extend occupational health to the unemployed, with compulsory visits after six months

Compensate the unemployed from the first day of the end of the contract

Remove the requirement to accept a so-called “reasonable job offer”…

Create a job guarantee: any long-term unemployed person will be able to be offered a useful job in an emergency sector, paid at least at the minimum wage, financed by the State and consistent with their qualifications, their professional background and their wishes, or follow a qualifying training course covered 100%..

And that’s just the first section! There are also plans to “include in the Constitution the green rule, which requires not to take more from nature than it can replenish in particular by recognizing a legal status for nature (possibility of defending it in court…),” “renationalizing” some government features that have been privatized, “creation of legal and safe migration routes [and] creating a sea rescue force,” etc.

In other words, with a few tweaks, it’s pretty much where all civilized nations, including ours, would be already if the international rightwing consensus — quickly turning now into an international fascist consensus — hadn’t been beating us back from it for 40-plus years.

Speaking of that, here in the Land of Liberty the Supreme Court’s reversal of the Chevron doctrine — which had basically allowed federal agencies to figure out the details of implementing federal legislation — is already starting its intended work of fucking up a bunch of gains we’d already made, emboldening rightwing courts to enjoin (probably permanently, now) the FTC’s ban on non-compete agreements (which, I remind you, have been used to kill job opportunities for fast food workers as well as white-collar types) and HHS’ health care protections for LGBTQIA+ patients.

The fact that, while this is going on, most of our Prestige Press chucklefucks treat France’s New Deal agenda as beyond the pale would lead me to despair if it didn’t piss me off so much. And I hope a lot more people learn to get mad at it, too, so we have some hope at least getting ourselves unfucked. Maybe the French will lead by example, if not in a peaceful transfer of power then with the return of the National Razor. It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve been an inspiration to us stateside sons of liberty.