While at a much lesser scale than the US election result, the outcome of the French Republican primaries of last weekend shows a similar shift to the right of the electorate, who thus favoured the arch-conservative [Thatcherite] François Fillion over the milder center-right Alain Juppé. Some proposals in his program are downright [very much down and very much to the right] scary, among which
- cancel the 35 hour legal working week and let companies “negociate” up to a 48 hour working week
- apply an increase of 10% of the VAT, this most unfair of taxes, against a decrease of 40 billions € on company taxes
- cut 500,000 public sector jobs, increase working hours in the public sector and restrict the status of civil servant to a few ministries
- prohibit adoption and medically assisted procreation outside heterosexual and married couples
- collaborate with Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin, including ending sanctions against Russia’s annexation of Crimea,
- turn the EU into a Europe of Nations (which happens to be the name of the extreme-right group in the European Parliament)
- rewrite history school programs to deliver a “story of the French Nation” that plainly replace teaching with State indoctrination
- strip French terrorists of French nationality (a proposal that goes against Article 15 of the Declaration of Human Rights)
- leave the European Court of Human Rights (as Theresa May),
- and ban burkinis from beaches, an obviously definitive answer to all secularism issues!
Scary enough to make me decide to vote against him at the second primary election next Sunday, as the winner is likely to be the next French president. (The alternative is simply terrifying!)
![flock of flamingoes taking off [because of my unsubtle approach], Palavas, June 15, 2012](https://i0.wp.com/xianblog.fr/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/img_0816-e1339789673864.jpg?ssl=1)
