Well thank you for the thoughtful, respectful and engaging response.
I do not advocate for the state surrendering its authority, far from it. The problem lies, to my mind, within some very abuse prone legal frameworks that are currently being put into place. For example, in France, local “préfets” (which are unelected officials that act as local governors) have been steadily gaining more and more powers that cannot be democratically countermended, or at great expense: they can limit people’s movements, forbid demonstrations, etc.
That could be seen as a necessary measure against the rising polarization you talk about (a point on which we agree btw, 100%), but then again whenever the far right happens to be the one doing the agitating, the préfets are suspiciously slow to act.
For example, in Paris, the prefet did not forbid a neo Nazi march ending in an Aryan rock concert whereas a week before that he had forbidden multiple démonstrations against Macron’s pension reforms. And the list goes on. Our minister of the interior refused yesterday to condemn a police union campaign labelling rioters in Parisian suburbs as “pests to be eradicated”. This is not moderate.
Macron is not really a moderate. He acts like one and manages to feel like one from abroad perhaps. But here he is more and more leaning towards the exact type of authoritarian doctrin a moderate should, as you do, strive to impede. And the thing is, his actions, and the general apathy of many towards them, are reinforcing Le Pen’s chances come 2027. And that scares me.
Well thank you for the thoughtful, respectful and engaging response.
I do not advocate for the state surrendering its authority, far from it. The problem lies, to my mind, within some very abuse prone legal frameworks that are currently being put into place. For example, in France, local “préfets” (which are unelected officials that act as local governors) have been steadily gaining more and more powers that cannot be democratically countermended, or at great expense: they can limit people’s movements, forbid demonstrations, etc.
That could be seen as a necessary measure against the rising polarization you talk about (a point on which we agree btw, 100%), but then again whenever the far right happens to be the one doing the agitating, the préfets are suspiciously slow to act.
For example, in Paris, the prefet did not forbid a neo Nazi march ending in an Aryan rock concert whereas a week before that he had forbidden multiple démonstrations against Macron’s pension reforms. And the list goes on. Our minister of the interior refused yesterday to condemn a police union campaign labelling rioters in Parisian suburbs as “pests to be eradicated”. This is not moderate.
Macron is not really a moderate. He acts like one and manages to feel like one from abroad perhaps. But here he is more and more leaning towards the exact type of authoritarian doctrin a moderate should, as you do, strive to impede. And the thing is, his actions, and the general apathy of many towards them, are reinforcing Le Pen’s chances come 2027. And that scares me.