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Macron really seems to be turning more into Trump as time goes on - Is Le Pen going to running against Macron as the moderate at this rate? This is truly shocking and her reaction on this little clip is priceless. Are there any French moderates left?
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Macron is a classic authoritarian centrist. Nothing strange about it, and not all that Trumpist, except—possibly—wrt the cynicism.
Strange definition of centrism to be attacking Le Pen of all people for not being xenophobic enough.
Don't think Islamophobia has to fall along the left-right political scale, any more than eg. antisemitism has to; it can be—and often is—orthogonal to that scale. Centrists can be aggressively secular or outright anti-religion, which can be expressed in the way they approach eg. laicite. Le Pen appears to have been criticized for not being sufficiently tough on Islam wrt those of the religion's practices & values that strongly conflict with French practices and values. It's an attempt to use xenophobia for political gain, sure—but it can be justified from multiple perspectives, several of which are eminently consistent with French centrism. The real difference might lie in how the two view and speak about Muslims as people (obv the difference might not seem to be particularly great to an outside observer with a more chill and inclusive view).Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
I'm not using the term left/right as I don't like it. Being xenophobic has nothing to do with being right wing, its to do with being xenophobic.
I despise Le Pen because she's a nasty xenophobic bigot - except now she's been attacked for not being xenophobic enough. The world is topsy turvy.
The French way of life is being attacked by jihadists, the fact that so many Muslims sympathize with actual terrorists over the Mohammod cartoons is a shocking wakeup call on the dangers of not gatekeeping extremist trash from the third world.