Marine Le Pen: Objective and Honest Appraisal?

[Gluestick]

Now this ought to galvanise yet some more heated debate!

See here:

(It is from the Telegraph, BTW)

Now, for those who love la belle France, as it always used to be (moi included), what is there to honestly and without pre-extant bias and prejudice to disagree with these objectives?

[quote]

Major policies

• Withdrawing from the EU and the euro
• Protecting the French economy from “unfair” competition and globalisation
• Giving priority to French citizens in jobs and housing
• Ending mass immigration
• Taking a tough stance on law and order issues
• Reasserting French cultural identity
• Being a strong and independent France in defence and foreign affairs

---

“The National Front is the only party to defend

an authentic French Republic, a Republic with only one vocation: the

national interest, the development of French employment, the

conservation of our way of life, the development of our tradition and

the defence of all the French.”

- Marine Le Pen, December 2015"

[/quote]

In the North particularly, over the past 16 years Mrs Gluey and I have watched the traditional French lifestyle eroded at an accelerating rate, as globalisation and the invasion of American products, take-overs by the usual enemies, Pepsico, CCS et al, American media junk, dumb loud noise masquerading as "music" and the rapidly growing market for ready meals in local supermarchés. Obesity is now growing at an almost exponential rate (no pun intended!).

Good home cooking? Our French friends bemoan that their children once they leave home, don't cook.

Good for a country?

[alittlebitfrench]

Ending mass immigration ???

Good, there are too many British living in France today for my liking bringing their sky boxes, large satellite dishes, and selling those disgusting pork pies on markets. Not forgetting those weirdos having their own food delivered direct from Angleterre. LOL Was not like that years ago. I blame Ryanair.

It is funny, forums and social media are populated with moany Brits complaining about this that and the other about 'today's' France.

BLIMEY, they would have absolutely hated La Belle France 20 years ago. LOL. No internet, no sky, the driving was terrible, rudeness was a sport. They would have never of lasted a week.

[Cathar Tours]

It's called change, the British don't like change and the French really don't like it especially amongst the over 60's. I rather hope my generation are different when we get to that age but probably not.

I heard or read, I don't remember which, that Brits like France because it's like the UK was 30 or 40 years ago. Reading up about it then it may well be. British Leyland always on strike as were the dockers, coal miners and just about everyone else. Rubbish piled up in the street because nobody would empty the bins as they were on strike.

Globalisation means companies place their manufacturing in countries where they have to pay the lowest wages. In another post you mentioned working for Dyson in R&D, well you don't much know about that world either as Dyson has a terrible reputation with regards to not just the way it treats it's production workers in Asia but also it's R&D engineers in the UK. That's the beauty of getting placements at Uni, you get to see how bad some of these companies are and how good others are. You also said you need to speak German to work in R&D in Germany, true it's helpful yet strangely phone interviews for British students are done in English. Indeed on the application forms for many German R&D jobs it says a degree level of English is required for those coming from non English speaking countries.

Music, well I wonder what music you listened to and what you parents thought about it? They may have called that a load of noise. To decry all modern music is stupid because music is down to personal taste. If people didn't like it then it would not be on the radio and people wouldn't buy it. If American TV programs were so bad people wouldn't watch them.

If you complain about France so much why bother visiting especially when you might, after the UK leaves the EU, have to pay an extra £10 for the privilege.

I was going to answer some of the points raised in your post about LePan (did you watch the interview or were you out at a remembrance day service, I recorded it by the way to watch when I returned) but to be honest it's not worth the effort.

Looking at your recent posts whinging on about this and that much of which you have a very strong opinion of yet little knowledge it seems to have turned it to a grumpy old man. Being old does mean your always right because experience is actually historic and a lot of the time not relevant within days let alone 40 or 50 years.

I think you should go to the George and Dragon in Downe, Kent one Sunday lunch as there is man I feel you would have a lot in common with there. You can have a right old whinge and moan together.

[Gluestick]

[quote user="alittlebitfrench"]Ending mass immigration ???

Good, there are too many British living in France today for my liking bringing their sky boxes, large satellite dishes, and selling those disgusting pork pies on markets. [/quote]

I fear it is not Brits Marine le Pen is talking about...

Have you ever been to Borough Street Market, in Southwark?

[quote]BLIMEY, they would have absolutely hated La Belle France 20 years ago. LOL. No internet, no sky, the driving was terrible, rudeness was a sport. They would have never of lasted a week.[/quote]

Well, I for one didn't; I loved it. from the late 1950s onwards.

Internet: few people in Europe, Britain included, had internet connections in 1996. (Pipex introduced the first sloooow dial-up in 1992 and I had it in 1998. And broadband was a future dream... large users in main commercial towns had ISDN. (Pipex: by November 1993 provided Internet service to some 150 customer sites.)

Driving: have you been around the Périphérique in Paris recently? Or in Caen? Or driven in rush hour in Toulouse?  Or the cross link between the A16 and A26 heading towards Calais and the port and Eurotunnel in rush hour?

Pyrénées-Orientales was wonderful in the late 1980s and even up to 1991 and on: Perpignan, Argeles Sur Mere, Port Vendre, Collioure et al.

However, whilst amusing, all this badinage has little connection to what the French citizen and voter feels.

Excellent object lessons of recent; they laughed at Farage, Dave called him "A closet racist and a swivel-eyed loon!".

Dave?? Dave?? Dave who??

Same with Trump...

[andyh4]

CT wrote:

You also said you need to speak German to work in R&D in Germany, true it's helpful yet strangely phone interviews for British students are done in English. Indeed on the application forms for many German R&D jobs it says a degree level of English is required for those coming from non English speaking countries.

I was tempted to write something when Gluey first raised the point. You are right that many middle to large companies are happy and competent to work in English. Indeed many use English as their first language.

However, when you step out of the work environment it can be very different depending where you are. I was working in a cosmopolitan city for a section of the company that used English as its first language (at the time)*. If you wanted a tradesman, to know the best way to get to some particular town or just to talk about the weather or the state of the government, then you had to do this in German (no English plumbers in our region).

* After 2 years there, they formed a JV with a less progressive German company and German then became the working language for 3 years until the next merger. Just a warning that things do not always progress in a straight line.

[idun]

 This was ever the way the FN has thunk.

I remember in the 80's being told that McDo would never be in France, well, they were shortly after. The main cafe in the city I lived, which I used quite often, was taken over by McDo or Quick, cannot remember which and has thrived since.

Some things will appeal to the french. And maybe the FN  protest vote which it has often been in the past, will become a little more. Also Holland has been such a disappointment, and well, Juppe, not quite a tolard, but was close. Sarko managed to avoid being found guilty of anything, not sure how. So that leaves Fillon and now Macron.

None of it surprises me. Will she become president, I do not know now.

[woolybanana]

Fillon seems to be here the smart money is going at the moment. The polls in today's Figaro suggest he will win the right and centre vote.

Probably the far Left will try to knock out Macron with their usual hate filled rhetoric. Will this leave Valls to unite the left?

Which might leave a Valls and Fillon in the presidential with Le Pen.

Which would give us President Fillon?

[alittlebitfrench]

@ Glueystick

I used to commute everyday on the périphérique in the late 1990's in rush hour. That was a white knuckle job as well as the interior of Paris.

Today, I am on the périphérique weekly by car and in central Paris. It is nothing compared to today to what was in the 90's. Driving in Paris easy.

France is actually very safe to drive in today which always amuses me when I read the driving threads on expat forums.

Never had internet when we arrived or mobile phones. To be honest, that is the down fall of French and British culture.

BTW, I walk the kids to school (1 Km) everyday and back and the most common language you can hear on the streets is....well it is not French. Does not bother me.

There is France and there is France. The latter is not France.

[lindal1000]

CT I agree with you.. Age does not always make you wise.

I lived through the 70s and 80s and it was sh*t. I imagine it wasn't much better in France. Easy to look back with rose tinted glasses to times when the world seemed brighter and more lovely. Well it probably was because the cataracts didn't exist and we were young and beautiful. People died from cancers that are now treatable or from long term conditions that were not managed and the quality of housing was pretty appalling.

Food was pretty rubbish as well (sugar sandwiches, vesta curry, angel delight)

Nothing or no one can go backwards and recreate the past. We can change the future and I can see that there are people that want to do that. The west is broke and the countries they have exploited in the past are not interested in being exploited any more so things will have to change. I don't see Le Pen, or Trump offering anything constructive though, other than blame it all on the Jews, Muslims, gypsies, homosexuals and disabled and we know where that ends. Is that really the kind of society people want to return to? And it doesn't reassure me at all that Marine Le Pen will only pick on certain types of foreigner, because to pick on anyone is to pick on everyone.

I don't know that everyone will like the idea of the sustainable future that will be necessary however, because it will have to mean less dependence on fossil fuels, less waste, less variety in food and more expensive but perhaps better quality, stronger and more integrated communities, more work from home but working longer hours, smaller houses, ...that's the only way countries can move away from their dependence on globalization and imports.

[Cathar Tours]

Andy - Last year went to visit Ford R&D in Cologne for two days as a university visit. Everyone there spoke English and I don't mean just to us. The only time they spoke German was in the canteen. In the evening we went for a bite to eat and a wonder round the shops etc and everyone spoke English if we asked a question.

However you are right with regards to socialising outside of work and with the view of possibly working in Germany as it has some of the most advanced R&D engineering labs in the world I am also taking German in the evenings at Uni.

It was interesting to note that we were told the electric car R&D was to (and now has) moved to "Silicon Valley" from Dunton in Essex as has their graphics department. Apparently this is due to the lack of graduates available with the right skills in the UK applying for jobs. Basically the brighter students, those with masters, have left the UK.

I saw a bit about R&D in the UK today, think it was The Guardian although it seems to have been "pushed" of by Jeremy Clarkson (nice to see the country has it's priorities right). R&D spending has dropped significantly in the UK since Osbourne changed the system from grants to loans in 2015. Then there is the issue of EU funding for R&D not to mention the EU exchange program, both of which will be lost. The claim was that Britain was moving into “the industrial slow lane" due to lack of investment in R&D.

In a census at our university nearly 80% of those asked said they would be looking to move abroad (over 90% of those held masters degrees) once they finish their degree. This is very bad for the UK especially post EU exit.