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.
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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.
I expected better from them.
Vietnam is in a difficult position and is dependent on good economic relations with the imperial core. Unapologetically standing on the right side of history might come with a steep cost for a place like Vietnam if the empire lashes out in revenge and making a despicable display like this might have earned them some form of reward from the empire.
Still, I had expected better.
Let us hope that Sino-Vietnamese relations can be mended, enabling Vietnam to pivot towards BRICS and the free world.
Eh i dont think thats an excuse tbh. Bunch of SEA nations, especially with large muslim minorities or majorities have at the very least taken a stong and loud pro-palestinian stance, even if its surface level and trade continues to go as is. Yeah they got some pressure from the west but nothing too dangerous. Vietnam could afford to have a better position on the issue than it does, comfortably. Cutting back from their way to extensive military cooparation and trade with Israel for example that even in nominal figures is one of the most extensive globably. Lib countries have done so , even performatively.
The real issue is ,and it often goes unnoticed, that Vietnam got into the capitalist,pro west and liberal brainrot comfortably more so than China during their oppening up, and hasnt really had a “course correction” like the Xi era has been for China. Of course they had huge issues to content and very hostile conditions after the Vietnam war but the current situation is what it is. Its seems weird but at the street level as well as in various official circles there is less pronounced distaste towards the western led neoliberal world order then in most of their non socialist neighbours. Free market good, foreign investment good , bamboo diplomacy good has been drilled a little to deep in most political and public life even if it started as pragmatic and controled choices by the communist party and it basicaly has put dogmatic blinders of the wrong ideology in a lot of their decision making . China had and still has this problem as well. Even the changes under Xi and the new cold war still havent managed to shake it off in a satisfactory degree. Regarding Israel there is a prominent view in liberal and west friendly market loving circles, that arent an unimportant force in Vietnamese politics and party, that its a enterprenaur nation that knows to get rich and technologicaly advanced and strong despite their size so there is a dumbass soft-admiration towards it
To end on a positive note tho, last i heard there has been an ongoing power stuggle inside the party and the less american/liberal friendly wing has been coming out on top and cleaning house. It wont cause some noticable shift, at least not one that they wanna show since America already is buying that Vietnam is an ally or whatever but it seems like there wont be a rightwing, neoliberal slide for the next decade at least there and there probably be more China intergration
I fully understand the need to develop the productive forces after the revolution in a country that has not experienced a fully developed capitalist phase. And in a world dominated by capitalists, it makes sense to play ball with them until those productive forces are sufficiently developed. BUT… this is precisely the thing that worries me about it. You are essentially inviting the capitalist disease into the party, and you just have to sort of trust that party won’t succumb to the disease. And as successful as this approach has been in China and Vietnam, maintaining ideological purity in the party seems incredibly difficult.
Their military cooperation largely consists of obtaining domestic weapon production. Few countries are willing to transfer their tech to Vietnam which makes Vietnam dependent on their partners for supplies.
Vietnam censors pro-israel content in the country