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Comment by Erazal | Hacker News Reader

"Given that an ISIS attack in Paris just helped fuel the sweeping election victory of an actually fascist party in France". What is this low level journalism doing on HN ? 1. The "Front National" is an extremely conservative party with racist undertones but certainly not fascist. The Republican Party seems far more conservative on certain subjects. However the "Front National" does have quite a statist vision of the economy. 2. It is far from having won a "sweeping victory". It may win, worst case scenario, 4 regions out of 13 next Sunday, which is unprecedented but not a sweeping victory.

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"Fascist" means "right-wingers I don't like" similar to how "socialist" means "left-wingers I don't like."

Unless you're in Europe, here "socialist" mostly means government.

'What is this low level journalism doing on HN?' is a bizarre way to phrase a question that's really saying 'I disagree with the assertion/characterization' - which is one that is made routinely, over the course of many years, both through news outlets and in various forums of more substantive debate.

Some examples of using the 'fascist' label: From The Financial Times, quoting Sarkozy: “Are 6.5m French people fascists?” [http://blogs.ft.com/the-world/2012/04/is-the-front-national-... ]; In 2014,German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble on Tuesday branded the French National Front party fascist: [http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-elections-fascism-idUSK... ]; French court ruling they can be called 'fascist': [http://www.english.rfi.fr/france/20140410-front-nationals-le... ]; 'Donald Trump is Now America's Marine Le Pen':[http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/could-donald-trum... ]

The internet tells me there are about 1 million other references one could use to, in fact, make the claim this is not low-level journalism.

So the sentence should be the unprecedented electoral success of an extreme right wing party in France? That's not a big stretch. And his point, for what it's worth, stands.

That same party has had their candidate make the run-off rounds in the presidential election. (Chirac v Le Pen, 2002)

> So the sentence should be the unprecedented electoral success of an extreme right wing party in France?

Its not even clear that the particular results are tied to the attack. While the connection seems attractive to draw, it leaves out consideration of the fact that, while the result was unprecedented for this particular kind of election, FN won a unprecedent success in a different set of French elections last year -- being the leading party in France in the European Parliament elections (following a series of successes in France municipal elections earlier in the year) and securing more than a third of France's seats; it seems a lot more like the FN is just having a surge of popularity that predates the attacks by a least a year, and that that was the source of the results earlier this month, rather than the attacks led to the results this month.

Also more importantly, the FN is eurosceptic, or more precisely keen on France sovereignty.

Since the crisis, Euro skepticism sentiment is quite strong in Western Europe. The handling of the Cyprus, Greece, ... has split in people mind Europe, the region and Europe, the political construct. So even people very pro Europe as an identity are against Europe as currently implemented ( that is quite striking in my circle of all expats friends ). Parties like the FN are boosted by the traditional extreme-right voters, the traditional eurosceptics now joined by those Euro disappointed.

ISIS and the refugees is yet another botched handling by Europe (regardless if you want to help or want to keep them away, the handling is a disaster). The anger of the attack followed almost immediately by an election has probably tilted the balance for a lot of people.

Agreed. The quality of journalism at The Intercept is really pretty disappointing and often (as here) smacks of ax grinding. Most importantly, the article gives extraordinarily thin support for the claim in the headline, apart from bald assertions and a handful of similar ideas from other people.

In addition, I'm no Trump fan, but I'll also add that this is very misleading, and only true in the most useless sense:

The Intercept:

> His spokesperson later clarified that this exclusion even includes Muslim-American citizens who are currently outside the U.S.

The Source that the Intercept itself links to to support this claim:

> Asked by The Hill whether that would include American Muslims currently abroad, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks replied over email: “Mr. Trump says, ‘everyone.’ ”

> During a Tuesday morning interview with ABC's "Good Morning America," however, Trump clarified that American Muslims would still be able to travel freely under his plan.

> "If a person is a Muslim and goes overseas and come back, they can come back. They are a citizen, that is different," Trump said.

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