Board 8 > France officially boned.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Well think about it this way, if it all falls apart your least favourite user v-man takes the brunt of it :D

and Redtooth...oh wait that is a secret.

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UltimaterializerX posted...
From: Mershaaay | #048
XFD Europe

This is what you get for forming the EU
America having the UN is no better.

I don't disagree, but Europe has the EU and the UN

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Curious voltch, how exactly are the French taking this? Would imagine you guys are more loose with the whole capitalism over everything stance, including your wealthy, so any insight to that.

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Well, I'm a french guy in London, so I'd say the vast majority of us were in favour of Sarkozy.

A lot of my french acquaintances who studied or are currently studying economics were also very pro Sarkozy.

HOWEVER, in mainland France from the people I know the general sentiment is that people despised Sarkozy

things like this:



never really helped his public image, basically old people were fed up with and him and thought of him as unable to keep his promises and young people well a strong chunk of them hated him for his strong authoritarian image.

But at the end of the day, with every possible PR error or Gafffe, he was still able to hit 48.50% of the votes. Newspapers and the older population were anti-Sarkozy and as such any kind of change gets highly publicized and Francois Hollande being from the PS evokes the memories of Francois Mitterand who is one of the single most polarizing presidents in the history of french politics.

IN GENERAL, more people see this as a good thing but the tendency seems to be BECAUSE they felt let down by Sarkozy instead of thinking Hollande was the answer. I would say a sizeable chunk voted in the "le moins pire" fashion.

What this ACTUALLY means is that now "Les Legislatives" became that much more important and we'll have some strong indications of the direction france will take from there. But even before that, the appointment of the next Prime Minister is what is going to count, because the PM is the head of the government and from the looks of it we'll get someone who ON PAPER should be fit for the job, but as with most PMs he'l prolly get torched soon enough.

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Isn't naming your kid "Francois" in France like naming your kid "America" in the US?

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Better than naming your kid Francois in England.

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Well when you name a kid Francois the first thing you think of is Francois II.

While considered a great king, there are a lot of other kings who are more fondly thought of than Francois II.

Aren't a few kids these days named after great American Presidents?

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It's just the French version of Frank.

French translates to français, not françois.

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voltch posted...
Well when you name a kid Francois the first thing you think of is Francois II.

While considered a great king, there are a lot of other kings who are more fondly thought of than Francois II.

Aren't a few kids these days named after great American Presidents?

yeah, the number of "George Walker"s has risen dramatically in the past few years

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Woodrow Wilson Paige.

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Well Francois II was a king from a long long time ago, I'm sure a couple of James or Johns come from dem liked doods.

But ya know what you gotta remember that Francois's an old dude In 15 years of french education i would say it was a popular name.

Of course I paid more attention to the names of hot chicks but overall names like Charles or Jean or even Pierre were more popular with the young guys.

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LeonhartFour posted...
Woodrow Wilson Paige.

I had no idea that was his full name.

Huh.

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From: muddersmilk | #063
I had no idea that was his full name.

Huh.

They've mentioned it on the show a few times here and there.

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I knew a guy named Paige, he was welsh and he was cool.

Irish>Welsh>English>Scottish people imo.

I know a ton of Williams all unrelated, all chill, but the paddy power is too strong man.

They told me to bet on Hedgehunter and i won a grand, they told me to bet on Ooija Board and i won 200 quid.

When people thought Kauto Star would win they said Denman, I won again. The irish have an eye for the horses man, it ain't luck its skill.

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This is pretty hilarious though (as a foreigner)

From: voltch | #054
IN GENERAL, more people see this as a good thing but the tendency seems to be BECAUSE they felt let down by Sarkozy instead of thinking Hollande was the answer. I would say a sizeable chunk voted in the "le moins pire" fashion.

So basically it's like American politics. "Anyone but Obama", but more extreme.

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Interesting development: http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/wh-france-dont-end-austerity-measures/525066

White House to France: Try not being so socialist there, eh?

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This is a good result since now the second biggest European country has a left leader which makes that, together with some other countries, European politics has shifted towards the left. A welcome sight, since now European politics is (overall) much more balanced towards the center which somewhat stops the worrying shift towards (extreme) right. The problem not really being there that it was right-wing, but that it bordered on the fascist and racist in several countries -and still do-, but at least there's some counterweight.

However, Greece is a major problem, especially after the elections. I would say to laugh at them instead of at France, but I'm rather sad and worried about it.

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From: JDTAY | #067
Interesting development: http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/wh-france-dont-end-austerity-measures/525066

White House to France: Try not being so socialist there, eh?

Completely ****ing ridiculous. More "do as I say, not as I do" from Obama. We haven't adopted ANY austerity whatsoever. He wants Europe to live within their means solely to subsidize our continued extravagance based on the Federal Reserve printing money.

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I think that makes him a true American patriot. He wants other countries to suffer so we can enrich ourselves.

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From: Bospsychopaat | #068
This is a good result since now the second biggest European country has a left leader which makes that, together with some other countries, European politics has shifted towards the left. A welcome sight, since now European politics is (overall) much more balanced towards the center which somewhat stops the worrying shift towards (extreme) right. The problem not really being there that it was right-wing, but that it bordered on the fascist and racist in several countries -and still do-, but at least there's some counterweight.

However, Greece is a major problem, especially after the elections. I would say to laugh at them instead of at France, but I'm rather sad and worried about it.

What's going on in Greece? I only know they're poor and stuff.

Also it makes me sad because the cradle of western civilization shouldn't suffer such a fate.

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Ayuyu posted...

What's going on in Greece? I only know they're poor and stuff.

Also it makes me sad because the cradle of western civilization shouldn't suffer such a fate.

Besides being nearly bankrupt, high unemployment rate, massive debt, etc., a lot of people are (obviously) unhappy with the way things are going, especially since the government had to substantially cut spending to avoid going bankrupt soon, which of course means that the Greek people are still paying the same (?) taxes (I don't know if they were raised) while losing their pensions, public facilities.
There's also the question if they should leave the Euro zone and go back to the Drachme. But it doesn't really matter if that would actually help (I've heard economists say both) since Europe will never allow that to happen, and quite right imo if we still want a unified Europe.
If that wasn't enough there have also been several scandals regarding politicians. I think it was their prime minister who only payed his housing tax on half of his houses (he has around 50 villa's or so) saying that that was enough, he already contributed his part. You can imagine that such a thing doesn't go well with the public.

Sunday were the elections, and well, the political landscape is completely scattered. Coalitions need to be formed while both extreme left-wing (even a communist-stalinist party) and extreme right-wing (including what appears to be a straight up fascist party) winning a lot of seats while the traditional parties got (more than) halved, although one of them is still the biggest with around 20%

Hmmm, probably just should have linked to a news article, but I hope you get the idea.
In short: it's a mess, people are unhappy & poor, riots and strikes, euro-problems and election results.

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Haven't read much of the topic, but I take it France is getting a 75% income tax rate in the highest tax bracket? Here's a graph for the some thing in the US:


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voltch | Posted 5/6/2012 4:54:13 PM | message detail | quote
80% turnout woo!

Glad to have been part of it.

voltch, you were born in France?

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XFD Europe

This is what you get for forming the EU

Forgive me for taking a Sephy political post seriously, but... what does France electing a socialist president have to do with forming the EU?

If the EU hadn't been formed, France wouldn't be in bad shape right now, so the voters wouldn't have turned to a Socialist.

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