In a dictatorship, running against the leader involves more personal risk than in a country that is already democratic. Also, democracies tend to be more peaceful than dictatorships; my understanding is that efforts to transition from dictatorship to democracy may be regarded as a contribution to peace.
She also received the Sakharov Prize not long ago; if she had to receive only one, the latter would be easier to explain.
Russia is the aggressor in this war; if it stopped its aggression and withdrew from Ukraine, the war would stop. So the responsibility for deescalating falls squarely on Russia.
Russia has no intention to stop; on the contrary it is ramping up the production of military equipment. As only military means can stop a military aggression, it makes every sense for European leaders to support Ukraine militarily.
If anything, European leaders deserve criticism for not supporting Ukraine enough.
Which war? Yes, between Russia and Ukraine, Russia is the aggressor, and bigger. Between NATO and Russia, NATO is the aggressor (from Russian perspective) and bigger.
Russia started the war in Ukraine to stop the NATO expansion. It's against the international law, but this intent was made pretty clear also in Georgia.
EU and NATO then reacted with more NATO expansion, and supporting Ukraine militarily. They didn't offer any deescalation. (IMHO NATO should have kicked Turkey out of NATO - not a democratic country - in exchange for Ukraine to continue being sovereign neutral state.)
Neither side wants to deescalate. I think both sides behave as little children. But with rockets and nukes.
> NATO has not expanded into Russia. Russia has expanded into Ukraine.
Morally you're correct, but on a practical level, Russia didn't want the NATO to be in Ukraine. Morality (or international law) doesn't always win - look at the Cuban missile crisis.
> People join NATO in self-defence against Russia.
Yes, the motivation of the joining countries is clear. What is less clear (and you should question), why they should be accepted - if such offers pose a risk of eventual escalation into a war. (I know it's not fair, but that's geopolitics.) It was the U.S. announcing in 2007 NATO expansion to Ukraine and Georgia, despite Germany and France being against and no public/democratic discussion of this in Ukraine and Georgia (or any other NATO member). Is it hard to believe this is done for any reason other than imperial vanity?
> They wouldn't have to if Russia didn't keep attacking its neighbours.
U.S. have attacked unprovoked countries all over the planet, why trust them more than Russia? Seems quite shortsighted.
"I only burglarized your home because you threatened to join the neighborhood watch" isn't the ironclad defense of Russian imperialism you seem to think it is.
> Nobody is forcing anyone to join the "Resist the violent bully in your doorstep" club.
That kind of club might be fine, but NATO simply isn't it. Again, you're not asking the question, what is in it for the U.S. (to promise protection - with nukes - to those countries).
Look at my country - Czechia. After the end of Cold war, in the context of NATO, we have done more for American security than America did for ours. We had soldiers in Afghanistan and 11 of them died. During the same period, no American soldier has died defending Czech Republic.
> It just seems to happen naturally when the violent bully starts attacking their neighbours.
NATO continued expanding after the end of Cold war, without Russia attacking anyone. I think it was a mistake - EU should have created its own defense, and start from a clean slate.
Anyway, I don't care much about the question of historic guilt. I commented here because I think western "leaders" should be honest about their goals vis-a-vis Russia and Ukraine, and they aren't.
Peace and stability for about 100 million people in Central and Eastern Europe, who will in turn consume American products and services and cheaply write code for American companies instead of designing nuclear missiles for Russians to target Washington DC. All that the Americans have to do is give a guarantee that essentially costs nothing, if it's believable enough.
> NATO continued expanding after the end of Cold war, without Russia attacking anyone.
NATO is not some loaf of bread sitting on a windowsill that expands on its own. Most countries in Eastern Europe worked feverishly to join NATO. Why? Because their leaders had seen the grainy VHS tapes from the 1994–1996 First Chechen War, showing horrific Russian atrocities against civilians, similar to what many had personally seen or even experienced in the 1940s and 1950s. These images dispelled any illusion that the Russian Federation was more civil than the USSR or that it would respect the sovereignty and self-determination of other peoples.
By the mid-1990s, Russia had already employed its strategy of setting up fake separatist movements to instigate armed conflicts in Europe, and a good chunk of Moldova remains under Russian military occupation to this day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistrian_War
Nobody wanted to become the target of the next artificial "separatist movement" that would drain resources, hinder economic development, block EU integration, and leave the country vulnerable to full-scale invasion like Ukraine experienced in 2014 and then again in 2022. In an alternate timeline, Eastern Europe could have ended up like a series of Moldovas. Very poor, stagnating countries, constantly battling Russian meddling in their internal affairs.
Even 30 years ago, this threat was obvious to anyone familiar with Russia. For example, here's Chechen president Dudayev, a former commander of a Soviet nuclear bomber base, predicting the future in a 1995 interview as the Russians were hunting him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IavEOx3hUAk
Sorry, but what you're describing is American exceptionalism, in line with PNAC for instance.
> Peace and stability for about 100 million people in Central and Eastern Europe, who will in turn consume American products and services and cheaply write code for American companies instead of designing nuclear missiles for Russians to target Washington DC. All that the Americans have to do is give a guarantee that essentially costs nothing, if it's believable enough.
Precisely what led to this conflict, the idea that the Eastern Europe (or now specifically Ukraine) should be "owned" by some superpower.
I am not a fan of Russia, in fact, I work for American company and I got rich thanks to that, and I generally like Americans, but if you don't see how incredibly patronizing this is, I don't know what to tell you. (I mean, Eastern Europe aside, the idea that for example Germany (or France), one of the largest economies in the world, needs some help from Americans to defend themselves is ridiculous.)
And paradoxically, the islamophobic sentiment is so strong in Eastern Europe today that most people would actually agree with the Russian approach to the Chechen war, unfortunately. Keep in mind Russia is not that different from U.S. when it comes to waging foreign wars.
The idea that war is in any case justifiable is just something that never works out as a consistent moral principle, and that's true for NATO's support for Ukraine as well (though I don't have a problem with Ukrainians defending their country, I think it's the right thing to do).
But once you start using violence as a means to revenge, or to regain the territory, you have morally lost it (which is what NATO is being asked by Ukraine). In Palestine, most of the world recognizes that the problem of Israeli colonization and apartheid has to be resolved through peaceful means (my preferred solution would be one state), not through Palestinian violence, despite all the Israeli violence (which is more than 10x) towards Palestinians. The same principle should be applied to Ukraine-Russia relations.
Ukraine was left out of NATO. When Russia first invaded in 2014, European leaders looked the other way. Claims that there plans for Ukraine to join NATO and that Russia felt threatened and was forced to attack are just lies to attempt to justify this war.
At the time fictions like "Russian-backed separatists" were made up to deny the reality: that it was a foreign invasion. Yet all the signs were there: for example, "separatist" leaders like Igor Girkin were citizens of Russia, not Ukraine; OSCE observers found military vehicles containing documentation indicating that the equipment had been maintained in Russia.
European leaders called for "deescalation", "political resolution"; seeing weakness and appeasement in the Minsk agreements, Putin escalated. That's the problem with aggressive leaders like Putin: if you look weak and vulnerable, they will attack you.
Russian leaders see Russia as an empire and regularly say Eurasia should extend from Lisbon to Vladivistok. Putin tries to terrorize us, stating that if we resist it will lead to "World War III" or "nuclear apocalypse". We must not fall for this, or we will gradually lose our freedoms.
Look it up, in 2007 G.W.Bush invited Ukraine and Georgia to NATO. Also look up PNAC. Unfortunately, there was little interest from the U.S. side to end the cold war - they had to be a "world policeman".
Yes EU leaders called for deescalation, that is true. But the U.S., the most important NATO member, did not. There is a 2018 report from RAND that suggests Ukraine should be used as a tool to weaken Russia.
The Ukraine conflict, although there is a contribution from other causes (russian and ukrainian nationalism), is a proxy war between U.S. and Russia, a continuation of the cold war.
I don't disagree with you on Russia, but the US and EU (currently) is unfortunately not interested in deescalating.
Why would the US want to fight a proxy war with Russia? Before the recent Ukraine invasion, nobody really cared about Russia. They were just kind of around, cheating at the Olympics was like the big news if anyone talked about Russia.
What does Russia have that US would want to fight a proxy war over? Certainly isn’t technology or natural resources.
The military industrial complex in the U.S. is constantly lobbying the American government to start and participate in wars. So after Afghanistan, some other place had to be found where to cause trouble, so that ḿilitary contracts can be made.
Now that Ukrainian resolve to fight is cooling off, you can see Trump administration planning more wars - in Palestine, Yemen, Iran, Venezuela..
These operations benefit wealthy class in the U.S. (the profit from government contracts) as well as a fat layer of middle class Americans who are involved in making wars.
Every country that exports weapons has this incentive, including Russia, but the U.S. is by far the largest country producing weapons it doesn't need internally. International arms trade should be IMHO completely banned, because it gives (capitalist) countries strong motivation to cause wars. It's a negative externality.
> Russia started the war in Ukraine to stop the NATO expansion.
You do realize NATO doesn't expand by itself? It's always a country that asks to join so that Russia can't attack it, not the other way round. NATO is not going around asking new countries to join. On the contrary: Ukraine already asked before the war and was rejected.
(Not to mention the absurdity of this argument when you consider why Finland and Sweden joined NATO.)
NATO is not expanding on it's own. It is expanding because states around Russia does not want to be attacked by Russa.
Or you think that Putin would be trying to swallow Ukraine, if Baltics would be outside NATO? Of course not, he would be going after Baltics. Easier prey.
"Russia started the war in Ukraine to stop the NATO expansion."(c) - tell me now, exactly which NATO expansion has happened before the invasion of Ukraine, to trigger the war? You are lying, that's what it is.
PS: to anyone else reading this, the last NATO expansion in the Russian direction has happened 10 years before the invasion, when Putin was hugging western leaders and not bothered at all by the "scary NATO". This user is posting a retcon propaganda by a Kremlin. A lie.
Russia started those wars to prevent Georgia and Ukraine joining NATO, which was announced by G.W.Bush in 2007. I am not lying, read my comments more carefully.
This is an insane take. No one, not a single country, has even entertained an idea that Ukraine may join NATO. Not even in 2025, when everyone repeatedly tell Ukraine that NATO is out of the question, stop asking us. Even more, between 2010 and 2014 Ukrainian parliament has officially adopted a neutral status regarding NATO, just because it was clear it will never happen, NATO was too afraid.
So basically on one hand there is factual evidence that NATO did not expand towards Russia for 10 years before invasion, and that Ukraine got a firm rejection about joining NATO and resigned to it 4 years before invasion. And on the other hand is some remark of one person, no longer in charge of anything for a decade and who's remark contradicts all factual actions of his country and his government.
Yet again a kremlin lie, desperately trying to justify a war by looking for literally anything as a pretext and disregarding facts.
Also, there is no need to speculate about my opinions - I am on this forum and can answer questions. I am quite decidedly not imperialist. :-) I understand that some people have difficulty understanding that somebody might take a position that doesn't conform to tribalistic friend-enemy distinction; but I do (and I am not alone). I think I have morally consistent stance on Ukraine/Russia, which is in fact in line with my stance on Palestine/Israel, for instance.
The article you linked is from 2007. Bush did indeed express strong support for offering Ukraine and Georgia a path to NATO membership at the 2008 NATO summit, but he was overruled by other allies[1] who caved in to pressure from Russia, and the topic was taken off the table and remains there.
Putin's former senior advisor Illarionov maintains that the idea of invading Ukraine goes back much further than the 2008 summit. He says that he personally first heard of the idea from Putin during a closed meeting of senior staff in September 2003, when Russia first violated Ukraine's sovereign territory during the Tuzla Island conflict.[2]
[1] Like Germany under Schröder, who was later rewarded with the well-paid position of chairman of the board of Rosneft, Russia's state-controlled oil company.
I have heard this move characterized as "horizontal escalation". Putin is stuck in Ukraine (hasn't taken anything strategically significant, controls less territory than 3 years ago). So he tries to widen the confrontation geographically.
I found that surprising when I learned about it. Grass did not exist yet at the time of the dinosaurs. In good documentaries, artistic representations of dinosaurs may show them among ferns and trees, that did exist. But if I see grass I will know the team did not do a good job!
Le Pen's far-right National Rally (RN) has had ties with the Kremlin for a long time. That alone should have discredited this party a long time ago, but no, it is ranking as high as ever, even after russia's overt invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Mélenchon's far-left "France Insoumise" party ranks very high too, and is similarly pro-russian, anti-EU, anti-NATO.
In the town where I live, more than half the votes have gone to the RN these past elections. I often feel like a Cassandra.
As it's the first time I read about mixing wine with cremated remains I thought it was not a widespread funerary practice. So it looked to me like a request the person may have made before dying. But yeah, just a guess.
I think it depends on the underlying filesystem. Unicode (UTF-16) is first-class on NTFS.
But Windows still supports FAT, I guess, where multiple 8-bit encodings are possible: the so-called "OEM" code pages (437, 850 etc.) or "ANSI" code pages (1250, 1251 etc.). I haven't checked how recent Windows versions cope with FAT file names that cannot be represented as Unicode.
That's a common misconception. The European Convention on Human Rights guarantees freedom of expression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_R... and is legally binding in all member states.
Sure, there are exceptions but in the USA too freedom of speech is not absolute either.
> there is more freedom of speech in most EU countries than in the USA
A quick look at Steam says otherwise. All the games that credit cards companies pressured to get removed from Steam, were already long gone in Germany. Because that's the level of government censorship that is completely normal in Germany.
The only reason why one might get the idea that Germany ain't so bad is because Germany doesn't do (much) Internet censorship, so we have access to the much less censored outside world. If German law would apply worldwide half the Internet would be wiped out.
Germany has a rich history, particularly in the gaming industry. Not the best example for "EU countries" since most of their censorship was blood and gore and anything related to Nazi symbolism, which was a plague of video games in the 1980s-2000s, since they were always the bad guys in video games, leading to heavy censorship in video games. In 2018, they lifted it significantly, and the list of censored or banned video games in Germany is relatively short.
Including things like "media bias" and other dubious criteria in freedom of speech rankings is obviously skewed.
Whatever the ECHR might say what I wrote in my previous comment is factual. In Europe "freedom of speech" comes with a long list of small print.
In fact, this is so embedded that the article of the ECHR you quote provides for restrictions and even states that they are "necessary": "subject to certain restrictions that are "in accordance with law" and "necessary in a democratic society"." QED
The distinction is academical. As I wrote, freedom of speech is not absolute in the USA either, think copyright law or gag orders etc. And arguing about this day after Colbert's show is cancelled...
The internet will never run out of idiots arguing that there is no freedom in the EU and freedom of speech is a uniquely US thing. The German constitution guarantees Freedom of Speech? Doesn't matter. The US limits plenty of types of speech? Who cares.
> Categories of speech that are given lesser or no protection by the First Amendment (and therefore may be restricted) include obscenity, fraud, child pornography, speech integral to illegal conduct, speech that incites imminent lawless action, speech that violates intellectual property law, true threats, false statements of fact, and commercial speech such as advertising. Defamation that causes harm to reputation is a tort and also a category which is not protected as free speech.
> Under Title 18 Section 871 of the United States Code it is illegal to knowingly and willfully make "any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the president of the United States." This also applies to any "President-elect, Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President, or Vice President-elect."[45] This law is distinct from other forms of true threats because the threatener does not need to have the actual capability to carry out the threat; thus, for example, a person in prison could be charged.
> The German constitution guarantees Freedom of Speech?
Article 5 of the Basic Law guarantees freedom of expression, freedom of the press and freedom of reporting by broadcast and film. It immediately restricts those freedoms with "limits in the provisions of general laws, in provisions for the protection of young persons and in the right to personal honour." https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.h...
Many kinds of speech aren't covered by the enumerated freedoms in the first place, and "protection of young persons" is the basis for age-verification requirements.
Though given that the US constitution claims to guarantee freedom of speech while many things that people would ordinarily consider speech remain illegal, maybe "freedom of expression within limits" and "freedom of speech" is a distinction without difference in practice. But I think the former approach is more honest.
I am not a lawyer, but, including as in the US case the interpretations adopted by the constitutional courts, the "freedom of expression in spoken and written word and image" is considered to not enumerate a limited list of expressions but cover all forms of expression.
It is true that paragraph 2 allows limiting expression, but the point here is that generally it is not permissible to limit speech based on its content, but only due to other "general laws" that aim to do non-speech related things (including upholding other constitutional rights).
In the case of protection of honor, I find interesting the interpretation of the constitutional court that this does not limit speech if there are alternative non-demeaning ways to express your opinion. This to me seems the strongest divergence to the US concept of Freedom of Speech. If you can express the same content in a less demeaning way, the courts can force you to do so. Still: It is considered crucial by the constitutional court that general laws do not limit the freedom to criticize.
Overall the court has noted that the limits of freedom of expression need to be as small as possible, and that there always needs to be a balance of other (constitutional) rights being protected when there is such a limit placed. Laws can not arbitrarily restrict speech, and the special importance of the constitutional right to freedom of speech needs to be considered.
The protections around speech are constructed differently than in the US, but overall seem to arrive at roughly similar results. It is also important to note that protection of speech has varied quite a lot over the 20th century in the US. From 1919 for 50 years, Supreme Court precedent was that advocating against the draft was illegal:
"The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. ... The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree."
In this case the clear and present danger is that of "hindering the governments war effort". This was the status of Free Speech in the US at the time the German constitution was written.
So yeah, there are important differences, a ton of nuance, many similarities between German and US cases, etc... Which is why I can't really consider anything that boils down to "Well the US has free speech, unlike EU/Germany/...", without even hinting at the freedom of speech trade-offs that are made in both systems, as an argument made in good faith.
Well, the Internet will never run out who don't read because I can't see anyone arguing that there is no freedom in the EU. No-one is arguing there it is absolute in the US, either. I guess insults are easier than a thoughtful reply.
"in the US sense" being the key word. Hence my previous comment about people not reading...
None of the replies I got address the point. They are at best beside it, at worst they are misrepresentations and bare insults (guidelines, indeed!) for no apparent reason. Is it because "EU good, Trump bad"? I have no idea.
The restrictions on "free speech" that European countries implement, and which are increasing, would be unthinkable in the US because of their understanding of "free speech" and the legal protections in place.
>The restrictions on "free speech" that European countries implement, and which are increasing, would be unthinkable in the US
This is why you don't get a "serious" reply. You think too highly of US free speech, and it does not have a foot in reality, and you use "US good, Trump bad" crap when Trump is not even mentioned, it is more than you have a bias of "US good, EU bad".
>"in the US sense" being the key word
There is no difference; free speech is free speech. That is your core issue in the argument.
> The restrictions on "free speech" that European countries implement, and which are increasing, would be unthinkable in the US because of their understanding of "free speech" and the legal protections in place.
Concrete examples please.
Please also explain how examples differ fundamentally from limits on speech that have historically been and are currently imposed in the US.
We haven’t learned anything. We’re already caught in a radicalization spiral between the far left and the far right, echoing 1930s Europe. AfD is currently the most popular party in Germany, France is stuck between the National Rally and the openly communist New Popular Front, and if you think they won’t gladly exploit existing restrictions on free speech once they take power, you’re in for a rude awakening.
You argue about the EU as if we were still living in 2005.
Regarding France, it is a big stretch to paint the National Rally as "far right" at this point. The label is mostly over-used to create tactical FUD against them.
Likewise I would not say that the New Popular Front is communist, either, although as a coalition it does include parties that are.
> Regarding France, it is a big stretch to paint the National Rally as "far right" at this point. The label is mostly over-used to create tactical FUD against them.
Their main talking points are against immigrants. They have extremely suspicious connections to the Kremlin (Russian bank loans that literally saved the party from bankruptcy, and resulting lack of condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine). They've been caught in corruption scandals. They are anti-EU (used to be for leaving the EU, but after the disaster of Brexit, toned it down to just renegotiating everything the EU is for).
There are traditionally right parties in France that are much more mellow than them. If LR and MODEM are right, what else would RN be other than far right? Yeah they're not as extreme as the lunatic born in Algeria who wants to expel anyone not born in France and who wants to ban non-French names, but they're still pretty extreme for the French political spectrum.
And yeah, the NFP aren't communist. Even though they have socialist and communist parties in their coalition, they're barely socialist.
None of what you mention or claim make them "far right".
"Euroscepticism" used to be quite significant in the "traditionally right" and Gaullist parties in France, like Thatcher was in the UK. And that was before the massive EU power grab of the recent years.
MODEM is centre (I mean it's Bayrou's party, so as centre as can be!). LR has effectively split with the 'right' now allied with RN and the 'left' allied with Macron. The LR now allied with the RN is not so different from Chirac's RPR when they won the general election in 1986. It it right, not far right but not centre right, either.
The original National Front (FN) was far right but it has shifted left and now RN is the de facto main party of the right. It is the largest party in Parliament and it is difficult to argue that 30-45% (depending on elections) of the French are "far right": They are not and the party isn't.
Actually, I would say that your comment illustrates was I mentioned in my previous comment. There has been, and still is, a rather insidious narrative in France and Europe that labels anyone against the current level of immigration and against the current EU trends as "far right" to shut them down. The only result is to make those parties get more and more votes as people's concerns are ignored.
> It is the largest party in Parliament and it difficult to argue that 30-45% (depending on elections) of the French are "far right": They are not.
Objectively, they are. And another 30% are for centre/centre-right/right.
> MODEM is centre (I mean it's Bayrou's party, so as centre as can be!
They are more and more leaning centre-right to right as can be seen by their policymaking (prioritising business over people and ecology, e.g. by refusing to even discuss reducing government aids/tax cuts towards businessess, but instead proposing to cut public holidays).
> There has been, and still is, a rather insidious narrative in France and Europe that labels anyone against the current level of immigration... as "far right" to shut them down
> The only result is to make those parties get more and more votes as people's concerns are ignored
It's funny, because the minister of the interior has been very strongly anti-immigration for quite some time now. And anti-immigration laws have been passed, with support for RN. How is that "ignoring people's concerns". And it's always funny how the people most voting for RN are either from disadvantaged post-industrial areas, where there are few migrants, or from rich posh areas, where there are few migrants (other than rich foreigners buying property). RN are just successfully blending the message and advertising migrants as the single big thing that will "solve" all issues, regardless of how factually incorrect that is. While stealing public money to enrich themselves.
Subjectively (and subjectively anything can be anything so...), but not objectively because, as said, there is nothing "far right" in their manifesto. Again, being anti mass migration and eurosceptic does not make a party far right.
> by refusing to even discuss reducing government aids...
I would argue that their refusal to really cut government spending in general makes them more left-leaning... So perhaps they are indeed centrists overall, then?
> It's funny, because the minister of the interior has been very strongly anti-immigration for quite some time now
Ah yes the nominally LR guy who's serving in Macron's government and who has objectively not done anything in practice (well he has no power to and has been in the job for less than a year...) although he is good at talking tough but that 'talk' is in fact mostly calling for existing laws to be enforced...
And so we get back on my previous claim that the narrative has been so skewed against any action on issues like immigration that he is described as "hardline"
> And it's always funny how the people most voting for RN ... where there are few migrants"
That's clearly not true since even the days of the FN. There are post-industrial areas that used to vote communist and switched to RN and there are areas with immigrants, historically the South East for instance. Now it is widespread, anyway: for instance in the 2024 general elections they came in first in the first round in 297 out of 577 (basically half) constituencies.
It's odd to see this refusal to face reality and to keep denying that immigration is an issue throughout Europe.
> I would argue that their refusal to really cut government spending in general makes them more left-leaning
That's a common misconception (that right leaning governments are somehow fiscally responsible. Some are, to a fault (austerity), but many are only paying lip service).
But in any case, the Bayrou government are trying to lower spending and raise revenue. Entirely with policies which are right-leaning, such as privatising government owned companies, and reducing the amount of public holidays, or lowering spending in the public sector. While the left leaning parties are crying to reduce government subsidies to businesses, which could be an easy budgetary win.
> Ah yes the nominally LR guy who's serving in Macron's government and who has objectively not done anything in practice (well he has no power to and has been in the job for less than a year...) although he is good at talking tough but that 'talk' is in fact mostly calling for existing laws to be enforced...
This is a concrete law voted in to curb immigration and make it easier to expel illegal immigrants or abusers of the asylum system. Yet, to people like you, and far right politicians, nothing is being done! We're being overran! People in power are ignoring the provlem!
> switched to RN and there are areas with immigrants, historically the South East for instance
Like Nice, where the immigrants are rich Russians, Brits and Arabs.
> It's odd to see this refusal to face reality and to keep denying that immigration is an issue throughout Europe.
It's extremely odd seeing how people focus so narrowly on this issue, and somehow think it's existential and nobody is doing anything about it and it's going to ruin the country... And have been saying the same thing for decades. Yet many things are being done, and it's obviously not that existential of a threat if the country is still there... And it's the main topic discussed all the time in political debate! And regardless of any measures, far right politicians just don't shut up about it.
It's just an easy distraction and an easy thing to point to as the source of all evils that can easily be fixed. And that is the hallmark of a modern European far right party, pointing the finger at the EU and migrants for any and all issues. Regardless of substance (like the fact that without migration, France would have had negative population growth for decades, which would have made the already difficult to handle public budget significantly worse).
I spent 10 days in Nice and the close suburbs in June, and have been there and in the area 5-6 different times over the past 10 years.
Nice attempt at invalidating my opinion, but you still haven't explained how a new law being passed to curb immigration is politicians ignoring "The Problem".
> I spent 10 days in Nice and the close suburbs in June
Considering that you claimed that in Nice "immigrants are rich Russians, Brits and Arabs", I must tell bluntly: Either this is not true or you didn't leave Le Negresco hotel.
Either way this perfectly illustrates my previous comment. Next time in Nice my humble suggestion is that you try to see the reality (Google "quartiers sensibles a Nice").
> you still haven't explained how a new law being passed to curb immigration
If you have lived in France long enough you would detect that this is the same as it always is: This is not a law to curb immigration and it won't curb immigration. This is a law for the show and to be able to claim that the government is tough on immigration. There are no "tough" measures against immigration.
It may do so in some of their written papers, but in practice I risk going to prison if I dare say some things. Soon enough it will be illegal for me, the grandkid of a devout communist party member, to say that I agree with what my grandad believed in, it is already illegal to do that in the Czech Republic.
She also received the Sakharov Prize not long ago; if she had to receive only one, the latter would be easier to explain.