Russia, Poland, French Politics

First, recommended listening—the fractured English would have taken too long to get into readable form. The two Slavic interlocutors communicate in their shared language—English:

ANDREI MARTYANOV on RUSSIA BEING THE ARK and PUTIN CLEANING UP THE HOUSE

The entire video is worthwhile, but I’ve cued it up at the 37 minute mark. This is a conversation between Ania K—the Pole from Szczecin who wants to emigrate to Russia and live in a little dacha outside Moscow—and Andrei Martyanov, the indefatigable booster of all things Russia (especially its military) but who prefers to live outside Seattle. The video is topical in light of recent comment exchanges re Putin and Russia. Martyanov maintains that Russia is the ark that is the refuge for all that is good in Western civilization. He also trumpets Russia’s economic advances. I believe he went on a cross Russia vacation last summer. Most pertinently to our comments section, he acknowledges problems in Russia, including the presence of “Middle” Asians:

Yeah, Russia has many problems. There are problems in Russia and they are being addressed—you know, that's the thing. They might not be worked out too fast, but they are being addressed, slowly but surely. Some of them are addressed really fast—like the Middle Asia immigration. Suddenly you have this situation of the real serious control, state control, of immigration and throwing out all those, you know, people who do not belong in Russia, back to their newly independent countries. So, but yeah, it's being addressed. It's nothing like this under straight immigration or anything, so you can see yourself how the state works on that. And, again, that's the difference, you know. While in United States which is also really, you know, kind of [ingratiating?] thing, you know, that, Oh yeah, that's libertarian streak, you know, we have the free from anything, but in Russia, Russians for thousand years they were building their state, okay, because in order to survive as a country you need to build State, you know, and so that's the difference, you know, cultural difference.

On to France. If I recall correctly, Le Pen’s party used to be the outcasts with whom no other party would do a deal—like the AfD in Germany. Things have changed. Macron has named a premier or prime minister or something, and he comes from a party that got 5% of the vote—he’s a Republican or Gaullist. Something like that.

Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand

The open secret about Macron's nomination of Barnier as Prime Minister is that it has to mean that Macron made an agreement with Le Pen's Rassemblement National (RN).

Why? Because if he hadn't, a Barnier government would be censured by parliament immediately given that the New Popular Front (NPF) on the left plus Le Pen have an absolute majority of seats and can therefore effectively fire any government if they vote for that together. And Macron sure as hell can't have made an agreement with the NPF to appoint a right-winger as Prime Minister...

Le Pen has back handedly confirmed this deal.

Which is pretty insane when you think about it because Macron allied with the NPF during the election to erect a "Republican Front" against the RN. Concretely, in the 2nd round of the election, when a RN candidate was running against either a NPF or a Macron candidate, the other party called on their supporters to vote for the non-RN candidate, regardless of political differences.

Fast forward to now: the NPF arrived first in the elections and not only does Macron categorically refuses to nominate a NPF Prime Minister but he allies with the RN to nominate Barnier!

Which really begs the question: why couldn't Macron do the same thing with a NPF Prime Minister? Why couldn't he get his own party to commit not to censure a NPF government like he undoubtedly got the RN to commit not to censure Barnier? His own party together with the NPF have 57% of the seats in parliament so that would have been easily censure-proof.

Which really demonstrates how undemocratic Macron's move is: he refused a NPF Prime Minister on the basis that it'd be censured but then demonstrates, almost in the same breath, that it actually didn't have to be censured, it was his own choice! He simply refused to respect the results of the votes, results which were a consequence of his own choice to do the "Republican Front" alliance with the NPF, it's just crazy 

And you ask yourself why a majority of the French population now believe France isn't a democracy anymore?...

Quote

Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand

Macron finally nominated a Prime Minister, 1 hour ago.

None other than Michel Barnier, whom most people will remember as the key Brexit negotiator on the Europe side.

It's sure to be a nomination that will displease the immense majority of French voters and will be seen as x.com/Elysee/status/…

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10:04 AM · Sep 5, 2024

The demolition of the West continues. Andrei Martyanov told us so.