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.
The Country of the Week is France! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week’s thread is here.
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.
Seen a video of a released palestinian hostage that was kept by “Israel” for some time. He’s showing clear signs of torture, both physical and psychological. His eyes are wide open, he’s constantly moving and he’s having trouble speaking and recalling his own identity. Much love and care to these men and women.
That just makes me think about the immense psychological damage “Israel” is inflicting upon the palestinians in general and gazans in particular. Even if the bombings and shootings end tomorrow, the damage is impossible to calculate. Lots of people are fully broken inside, they’ve seen hell with their own eyes. You can’t easily go back from that, if at all.
Death to the Genocidal Entity that is “Israel”. They will answer for their crimes.
US Government blocks the unsealing of evidence related to the 9/11 attacks.
A recent letter reveals the US government opposed the release of evidence concerning the 9/11 attacks.
Article
Families of the victims have initiated a lawsuit to uncover evidence they believe implicates the Saudi government in the attacks.
Fifteen out of nineteen hijackers involved in 9/11 were of Saudi origin, and the leader of al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden, also had connections to the Saudi royal family. Despite these connections, the Saudi government has consistently denied any involvement in the attack that resulted in nearly 3,000 fatalities.
The Department of Justice and the FBI have written to the judge presiding over the lawsuit between 9/11 victims and Saudi Arabia, urging him not to disclose the materials sought by the families for public release.
The letter, obtained from court records, argues that previously undisclosed evidence should not be made public until the agency has had a chance to review it.
"The FBI believes it is not appropriate to request a blanket Privacy Act order to unseal a large collection of documents before the FBI has had the opportunity to review them.
The materials cited in the plaintiffs’ filings, including their 564-page averment, and the documents marked at depositions are extensive, and they involve a wide range of privacy interests and information of varying levels of potential relevance to the issues in the pending motions," the letter states.
“Furthermore, while the majority of the redactions identified through the FBI’s review to date have been subject to the Privacy Act, the FBI has a broader law enforcement interest in preventing the wholesale public disclosure of the personally identifying information of U.S. persons who were witnesses or of investigative interest in FBI investigations.”
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Checking the megathread every morning to see if Israel has been destroyed yet
“They’ve gone full mask off: do not ever trust OpenAI or its products,” Snowden — emphasis his — wrote in a Friday post to X-formerly-Twitter, adding that “there’s only one reason for appointing” an NSA director “to your board.”
“This is a willful, calculated betrayal of the rights of every person on earth,” he continued. “You’ve been warned.”
https://futurism.com/the-byte/snowden-openai-calculated-betrayal
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Remarkably sober analysis in foreign affairs
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/middle-east-robert-pape
Hamas Is Winning Why Israel’s Failing Strategy Makes Its Enemy Stronger
The Al-Jazeera documentary (on YouTube, presumably on the AJ website too) The Night Won’t End: Biden’s War on Gaza is very good and is a good video to show libs who might be sympathetic but have largely tuned out to what’s happening. CW for the fact that you see the Gazans’ suffering up close.
Orano, a French uranium mining firm and nuclear fuel producer, has been ordered by Nigerien authorities to pack their bags and hit the road:
https://twitter.com/african_stream/status/1804231367015960971?mx=1China sinks US warship with ballistic missiles
in simulations, claims PLA
Lula da Silva will visit AMLO in Mexico
The trip to Mexico promised by President Lula da Silva right after the Claudia Sheinbaum election, to “thank” comrade Andrés Manuel López Obrador, should take place in September.
The president wants to combine his visit to Mexico City with a trip to the UN General Assembly in New York. AMLO’s successor will take office on October 1st.
It still amazes me that the general public/mainstream media just forgot about Nord Stream like nothing happened or it never even existed.
This is like undeniable proof of the invented reality of the western public consciousness.
No real investigation by journalists (apart from Hersh), western state agencies said they’ll drop the case, walk away, nothing happened.
I bet that at least half of liberals never even heard the official cover story and they still think it was Putler.
Mindblowing.
Damn. Allegedly China Just Cured a Patient’s Diabetes for the First Time. Using stem cells.
A taste of things to come as climate change gets more insane
PODGORICA, June 21 (Reuters) - A major power outage hit Montenegro, Bosnia, Albania and most of Croatia’s coast on Friday, disrupting businesses, shutting down traffic lights and leaving people sweltering without air conditioning in the middle of a heatwave.
Montenegro’s energy minister said the shutdown was caused by a sudden increase in power consumption brought on by high temperatures, and by the heat itself overloading systems. Power distribution is linked across the Balkans for transfers and trading.
“This was just waiting to happen in this heat,” Gentiana, a 24-year-old student in Montenegro’s capital Podgorica, told Reuters. Temperatures hit 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) across the southeastern European region.
Electricity and wifi networks went down from around 1 p.m. (1100 GMT), officials and social media users said. Suppliers in the four countries said they started restoring supply by mid-afternoon and power was largely back by the evening.
At the start of the blackout, traffic light failures caused gridlock in Bosnia’s capital Sarajevo and the cities of Banja Luka and Mostar, Reuters reporters said.
Many lost water in Podgorica as pumps stopped working, locals reported. Air conditioners shut down and ice cream melted in tourist shops. Cars also ground to a halt in the Croatian coastal city of Split, state TV HRT reported. Ambulance sirens rang out across the city, it added.
“The failure occurred as a result of a heavy load on the network, a sudden increase in power consumption due to high temperature and the high temperatures themselves,” Montenegro’s energy minister, Sasa Mujovic, said in a TV broadcast.
