Ah yes, the famous French communist leaders of the post-war era: De Gaulle, Pompidou, d'Estaing...

De Gaulle had to strike a deal with the communists. They may not have been at the very top of the power, but they certainly were in governments.

What are you talking about? The only time France had communists in government was in 1981..

Nope. http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gouvernement_provisoire_de_la_R...

Also the PCF had 27% of the seats in the Assemblee Constituante of the 4th republic.

> a population who polls to the left of Cuba in terms of political opinions.

This no doubt accounts for the success of the extreme right wing.

> France is left with a few generations that have been force fed progressive propaganda from an early age.

Ah, yes. Like this fantastic law about the positive effects of colonialism? Clearly, conservatives would totally above any kind of revisionism...

Anyway, good luck in your country of adoption. Hope you don't get seriously sick.

The French extreme right wing takes its root in Poujadism. The closest equivalent would be something like Peronism. It's basically a mix of protectionist ideas mixed with a lot of welfare programs. It tend to be reactionary on many social issues, but it is anchored firmly on the left. Most supporters of the FN today are blue collar, and it's not surprise that one of their 'thinkers', Alain Soral came from the far left - they're pretty similar.

As far as the attitude of French people on economic issues, just look at the polls instead of making ad hominem an quips http://www.latribune.fr/actualites/economie/20110125trib0005... http://www.croissance-responsable.fr/commissions/sondage-les... http://www.ifop.fr/?option=com_publication&type=poll&id=2637

The FN has historically been a mix of economic liberalism and nationalism. They may surf on a more socialist way because it's fashionable nowadays, but that's all.

I looked briefly at the polls you linked to. People think that the current economic system profits unfairly to a small minority? Is that being far left now? A third thinking capitalism is not the way forward becomes "the population polls left of Cuba"?

The FN has a brief foray in economic liberalism in the 80's which was primarily an opportunistic way to capitalize on the shock of having the socialists in power. It didn't last and the success you allude too came after they turned towards an anti-capitalist and anti-free market rhetoric.

There's a specific poll that I'm trying to dig which was about attitudes towards free markets and capitalism where French citizens polled among the least favorable country in the world, below Cubans. I didn't just make it up as a quip.

In the 80s? LePen sr was all for lower taxes, the end of subventions, much less government intervention, drastic cuts in public spending well into the 2000s. It's only with the arrival of his daughter at the head of the party and her attempts at making it look more respectable that things changed.

You mean in 2002 when he was advocating a welfare payment equivalent to the minimum wage to all parents and heavy tariffs?

Mais ou est passé l'optimisme français /s

Seriously.I can agree with you(expect for the communist finger pointing,i mean the whole political class is responsible for the current situation).What is really stupid,is that,you could create a lot of job by easing a few regulations here and there.The problem is,the state created the issue with taxis at first place,with the limited license attribution.You shouldn't cap taxi licenses.Yes,they should follow all requirements needed,be inspected on regular basis and have the proper insurance.By I see little justification for the license cap thing.

You want people not to use their own car.And by the way there is that auto-lib thing,so why cap the taxi pool?

That can be said about a lot of other fields too.You want things to run smoothly,you want people to be able to rent a flat without having to produce 10+ years of payslips, you want people to be mobile to be able to relocate to find work easily, ... you want to create an proper environment for employment,investment,... and not just protect "your friends".That's not just a "communist" issue,all parties do the same mistake,but people need to want it as well.Today,I think we're too afraid of the future,and have some kind of "romanticized" vision of France that never really existed,and,that is also important,Paris is too snob, and self centered as well.So giving more power(and proper financing) to the regions is something important as well.

The optimism moved out. I spent the first 23 years of my life in Paris, before happily moving to NY about 10 years ago. My parents both vote for the Socialist party and pretty much everyone I interacted with growing up was heavily left wing.

It's not just cab licensing, that happens everywhere. What's different about France is that a few years ago the government tried to increase the cap, and cabs started grid locking Paris in protest. What did the government do? They caved. That type of thing would not happen in a place like NYC. Why did they cave?

Public opinion was after all against taxi cabs which are fairly unpopular in Paris. However, handling the issue with force would have turned public opinion against the government, and would have triggered the other syndicalist organisation to join in protest.

We're back at the root of the problem. Public opinion in France is strongly anchored to the left, and yes, it has to do with the far left's influence on the Education Nationale. Open a French high-school textbook in economics and you will see large sections devoted to Marxism, an economic theory that pretty much no modern economist support.

Left and right politics both have trade offs. I wouldn't give up my free health care or education for anything. But we get stuck with stupid regulations in certain areas which hurts job growth. On the other hand look at the USA. Compared to many European countries it's on the far right - however their taxi industry is still heavily regulated in most major cities. I've come to the conclusion recently that governments in general will always suck. Despite my high opinion of free health care the recent revelations on government spying have had to make me think whether I can tolerate big/left government.

>"What's different about France is that a few years ago the government tried to increase the cap, and cabs started grid locking Paris in protest. What did the government do? They caved. That type of thing would not happen in a place like NYC. Why did they cave?"

NYC with its taxi medallions is a really well known example of a taxi monopoly. So I'm not sure why you'd think that it's somehow better than in France and that they wouldn't "cave" to a cab strike.

In NYC, the taxi medallions have reduced in number since the start of the monopoly in 1937, and by 1996 (60 years later) it dwindled from an initial 16000 to a mere 11500. And since then they've added a paltry 2000 extra ones to bring the number somewhere above 13000.

If you have to choose between a conspiration of communists and jacobinists, and normal people that just disagree with you...

Nowhere have I mentioned a conspiracy.

Communists aren't normal people?

Not that the person I replied to was treating them as such.

I'm a socialist myself so I feel sympathy for a communist, even if I don't agree with him.

Of course they are normal people, that's what makes it terrifying. Communism killed hundred of millions of people. And yes, the French communist party supported Stalinism for a long time.

Communism - the utopian ideology - didn't kill hundreds of millions of people, because it has never existed. It has been used several times as a means to reach power, after which the dictator(ships) have chosen to either adopt it to his/their own liking (Stalinism, Marxist-Leninism, Trotskyism, <insert>ism) or practically abolish it as is the case with modern-day China. Fully developed communism is supposed to (alas, probably never will) be 'a stateless, classless and moneyless society, structured upon common ownership of the means of production.' [1]

That's about as far from Stalinism you can get.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism

After $event$, $bad_political_ideology$, who had been on the right side of $event$, got enormous power. This eventually percolated in the education system, and now $country$ is left with a few generations that have been force fed $bad_ideas$ propaganda from an early age. Combine that with a more ancient bend for $historical_ideology$ and $class_system_perspective$ and you have the current situation. Very powerful $group$ who can lock down $action$, and a population who polls to the $wrong_side$ of $example_country_on_wrong_side$ in terms of political opinions. Ce pays est foutu.