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Putin visits France for talks; Macron does not give an inch, calls out Russian media

G

Gurgelhals

Member
tbh, I think it's worth noting that Macron is still very much in campaign mode at the moment. Legislative elections are coming up in two weeks, so he's jumping at these opportunities such as the G7 Summit or this meeting with Putin (which was arranged on short notice afaik) in order to increase his chances of gaining a majority in the National Assembly.

On the other hand, he really seems to be putting in the work, campaign mode or not. Hope he keeps this up.
 
K

Kain-Nosgoth

Member
not a fan on macron politics at all, but can't really criticize him here, he's right, and that takes some balls to stand up to putin
 
S

starchild excalibur

Member
Between Macron and some of the West's other elected leaders, us having Trump to represent us is like having [whoever was the weakest player] on the '92 Dream Team.
 
O

oti

Banned
Occam said:
Nice. I wish Merkel acted the same way.
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Nah. Merkel does what Merkel does best. Diplomacy, Realpolitik, using her influence behind the scenes. Look at her Bierzeltrede. That speech was Merkel not being Merkel for once and look at the shock waves it has caused. Merkel is smart. She's planning her every move.

Besides, Merkel and Macron could balance each other out pretty well.
 
W

Widdle Puppy

Banned
Tovarisc said:
Propaganda and intelligence ops (human, signal, hacking) are what Russia are throwing at West and it's threat to stability of West and democratic processes. Just look at latest US election or UK BREXIT, Russia played part in both. They also tried their hand in France, but for our good they failed there and Le Pen lost hard.

They may not be huge threat from perspective of amount of allies and state of their military, but they try create divides and abuse new and old divides between Western allies. Trump's brain dead actions in NATO and G7 meetings didn't help.
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While they did play a role in both the US election and BREXIT it has yet to be determined how pivotal they were in deciding the outcomes for these events. Would these weaknesses and divides been as apparent regardless of Russia's meddling? Yes. Russia benefits from people thinking they are a threat more so than they actually are a threat because in reality their sphere of influence is marginal.
 
guggnichso

guggnichso

Banned
Widdle Puppy said:
I don't get how Russia is being made out to be this huge threat to the west. They have a tiny economy, Syria is their only ally and they lead no coalitions. The government there is just a sneaky rat and they have nukes from the Soviet eta so it's easy to make them appear more powerful than they are.

Division in the west are real but it is because of us, not them.
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Their pouring massive amounts of money in EUs anti-EU parties, waging a psyops war against western values on social media is enough. For fucks sake, they now control the US government, or at least installed a guy there that is at this very moment working hard on destabilizing the west. Of course it's in the end because of idiots in the west, and the USA were ripe for taking with their inherent nationalism and lack of education in the wider populace, but come on.

However, putting up Hillary Clinton as a candidate and her incompetence incarnate team helped them a lot.
 
P

Palette Swap

Member
I remember when a few months ago, people (not necessarily here) were concern trolling about how unpresidential he would be given his age. People can disagree with his domestic policies, but at least he acts the part so far.

He said any use of chemical weapons in Syria — where Russia is propping up the government of President Bashar Assad — is a “red line” for France and would be met by “reprisals” and an “immediate riposte” from France.
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Not a fan of this, though, given how things went down last time someone said this.

oti said:
Nah. Merkel does what Merkel does best. Diplomacy, Realpolitik, using her influence behind the scenes. Look at her Bierzeltrede. That speech was Merkel not being Merkel for once and look at the shock waves it has caused. Merkel is smart. She's planning her every move.

Besides, Merkel and Macron could balance each other out pretty well.
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Yeah, I'm fine with complimentarity here. Synergies!
 
LordOfChaos

LordOfChaos

Member
Macron said he spoke to Putin about LGBT rights in Chechnya, and about the rights of embattled NGOs in Russia and vowed that he would be “constantly vigilant” on these issues.

Speaking with remarkable frankness, Macron also tore into two Russian media outlets — Sputnik and Russia Today — that he said had spread “serious untruths” during the French presidential campaign that he won on May 7.

“When press outlets spread defamatory untruths they are no longer journalists, they are organs of influence. Russia Today and Sputnik were organs of influence during this campaign which, on several occasions, produced untruths about me and my campaign,” Macron said.

“I will not give an inch on this,” he said. “Russia Today and Sputnik ... behaved as organs of influence, of propaganda, of lying propaganda.”
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Wish our own poster child handsome prime minister, Trudeau, had those nads to go with it.
 
N

N7.Angel

Member
Damn Macron has some balls, attacking Trump and Putin in less than 2 weeks ? Holy shit...

macrontrump.jpg
 
B

Buckle

Member
Must be nice having a president who isn't a senile old man.

We lost that luxury over here last year.

*sigh*
 
S

Sesha

Member
Widdle Puppy said:
I don't get how Russia is being made out to be this huge threat to the west. They have a tiny economy, Syria is their only ally and they lead no coalitions. The government there is just a sneaky rat and they have nukes from the Soviet eta so it's easy to make them appear more powerful than they are.

Division in the west are real but it is because of us, not them.
Click to expand...

Russia is exploiting divisions to cause further divisions, with the aim of causing disruption to and mistrust in Western democracies, and weakening the European fellowship and Transatlantic relations. Most of these far right groups and parties across Europe wouldn't have gotten anywhere without outside help.

Yoshimitsu126 said:
Getting more reason to leave the states. Too bad I dont know any French or German though.
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A majority of Europe speak English to varying degrees, with a high degree of fluency. Besides that, the other Germanic languages like Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, German, Dutch are supposedly the easiest for native English speakers to learn.
 
T

Tovarisc

Member
Widdle Puppy said:
While they did play a role in both the US election and BREXIT it has yet to be determined how pivotal they were in deciding the outcomes for these events. Would these weaknesses and divides been as apparent regardless of Russia's meddling? Yes. Russia benefits from people thinking they are a threat more so than they actually are a threat because in reality their sphere of influence is marginal.
Click to expand...

Downplaying Russia tampering with free elections and/or votes isn't good either. Even if their tampering and intelligence ops didn't alone e.g. put Trump into office they still ran propaganda, hacking ops and other goodies in order to sway end result. Maybe they are less influential and not as big threat as they project themselves as, but you can't ignore what they are trying to do to West.

There is always divides between even close allies as people have differences of opinions, but they have grown lately and Russia is glad to abuse them. They need to be called out on their shit.
 
M

marc^o^

Nintendo's Pro Bono PR Firm
I love my president. On all subjects, any subjects, I find him inspiring, bold. Hearing him talk about classical music, economy, history, politics, etc. He's the most gifted guy aged 39 I've seen in his field.

And boy does he have courage, from being married with an older woman, suffering decades of mockery without caring, and now showing the same courage in front of Putin.

He's my new role model.
 
B

Buckle

Member
It always weirds me out when I see Putin in sunlight.

Always expect to see him start bursting into flames while hissing about the tyranny of the light before scurrying into the nearest crypt entrance.
 
M

Micael

Member
Nivash said:
Russia's military is largely equal to the entirety of the EU on a conventional level, except it's much more capable of operating in Eastern European EU member's territory than the EU is as a whole, ironically enough. If Russia ever decided to intervene in Eastern Europe the way it has in Ukraine, the EU would be utterly powerless to stop them without massive US support. The end of the EU and NATO would follow swiftly, and every nation eastward of Germany would have to realign themselves to Russia being the dominant power in the region. And that''s not even mentioning how large a role Russia is playing in fostering anti-European political powers within Europe itself.

Russia is the greatest strategic threat that Europe has on a short-term scale. Even on a longer time scale, the only greater threat would be climate change.
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Not quite sure how true that is, their ever tanking economy would go down even harder if they declared all out war like that, they would have a ridiculous hard time sustaining a war on such a large front, and even if we assume that the EU couldn't instantly repeal them, the EU could certainly afford to buy enough hardware and support to do it in a relatively small time frame, we are talking about an economy over 10x the Russian size, with roughly 4 times the population, even with the inefficiencies that come with a non unified army that is still a whole lot of difference in economic might.

In the end it doesn't matter they have nothing to gain from doing such a massively stupid move, which is why they have invested in communication warfare, much cheaper, easy to deny and in the modern world quite effective.

Yoshimitsu126 said:
Getting more reason to leave the states. Too bad I dont know any French or German though.
Click to expand...

Not as much of an issue as you might expect, you ofc have to eventually learn the language but for example in Sweden roughly 90% of the population speaks English, so its perfectly viable to move.
 
D

dakun

Member
Marcron is turning out to be awesome. I watched his behind the scenes documentary on the election. He seemed like a laid back guy, who is not afraid and has strong believes. Very reminiscent of Obama in some way.

Really like him so far
 
B

BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Okay this guy looks like an actual strong leader to me.

Take note, Donald. Your magic alpha handshakes and scowling face don't mean shit.
 
O

oti

Banned
BocoDragon said:
Okay this guy looks like an actual strong leader to me.

Take note, Donald. Your magic alpha handshakes and scowling face don't mean shit.
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While I want Macron to succeed I'd hold off of such praise at this point. Let's see whether he can push his agenda first.
 
M

Mass_Pincup

Banned
marc^o^ said:
I love my president. On all subjects, any subjects, I find him inspiring, bold. Hearing him talk about classical music, economy, history, politics, etc. He's the most gifted guy aged 39 I've seen in his field.

And boy does he have courage, from being married with an older woman, suffering decades of mockery without caring, and now showing the same courage in front of Putin.

He's my new role model.
Click to expand...

Please be sarcasm.
 
G

Gurgelhals

Member
oti said:
While I want Macron to succeed I'd hold off of such praise at this point. Let's see whether he can push his agenda first.
Click to expand...

This. International summits, meetings with foreign leaders, etc. are basically the bonus stages of politics: There's a relatively low risk of pissing off your voters at home and you just try to score as many points as possible. And being up against a moron like Trump helps with the point-scoring, of course.

Let's see him tackle domestic politics before we reach a conclusion. Reforming labor legislation will be the big test, I guess.
 
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