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Comment by ekianjo | Hacker News Reader

> but it'd also include Americans telling you how great Trump is and how they can't wait for him to get rid of Mexicans,

> Or the 36% (currently) of Americans who support Trump's policies? [1]

You are making a shortcut. There are probably various reasons why people favor a candidate, and you should not underestimate the "I hate the other one even more" factor.

> French people going on about how muslims should all be imprisoned

This is a preposterous statement. Even the FN's proposed policies is not about putting folks in prison, but to make them leave the country if they had the power to do so. Plus, French prisons are already over-capacity and most prison sentences are not applied because of that. Do you know what you are talking about or do you read tabloids?

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Just a French guy who's lived 10 years in the US here. Yeah, they don't want to send the arabic kids to prison, they want to send them back to where they come from. Oh wait, they were born in France. Well, they want to send them somewhere, that's for sure.

I believe we may have gotten drunk together after a HN Kansai meetup last year, but my memory of the night's hazy.

> Just a French guy who's lived 10 years in the US here

Yeah, you're probably the best person to talk about France then.

Just remember about 10% of citizens have been voting for FN for the past 30 years with little evolution one way or another (it has been getting a little more votes since the leader isn't the openly racist founder anymore, which is actually a good sign isn't it?). Also, judging someone on one of their parents is very bad form, would you also criticise people for voting for a candidate whose mother was a playmate?

The real difference, the reason why they are getting better scores than they used to, is that most moderate people are stopping voting altogether because the moderate parties are disappointing everyone is every way.

10% of citizens is too little IMO to generalise as "the French", especially if you're not even living in France.

> Also, judging someone on one of their parents is very bad form

Come on, she took over her dad's party very happily, you know very well that this argument doesn't apply here.

As far as popularity goes, we'll see what happens next year.

It seems that in your eagerness to comment, you missed on the fact that my original post never said that all French people supported FN - just that the French population includes a non trivial subset who do.

> Yeah, you're probably the best person to talk about France then.

I'm glad there are people on this forum who are the best person to talk about anything!

>Yeah, they don't want to send the arabic kids to prison, they want to send them back to where they come from. Oh wait, they were born in France. //

That makes them French, not Arabic then.

The problem is somewhere in that distinction I imagine.

That the French wouldn't be so bothered if people came to France to be French and adopt the local manners and attitudes; instead people seemingly are coming to the liberal and liberated countries with a distant goal of making them as backward and oppressive as the countries they left/fled.

> That makes them French, not Arabic then. The problem is somewhere in that distinction I imagine.

Yes, precisely. To recap very roughly: France brought in a lot of cheap labor from North Africa (a lot of Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria) to rebuild and develop at low cost after World War 2. These immigrants were housed together, at the periphery of large cities (what are now known as "banlieues"). These neighborhoods still exist, and a lot of the children and grandchildren of these immigrants still live there. These areas are typically poorer than the cities they're next to, have poor education, higher crime rates, etc.

Of course, they're French citizens, but they don't feel particularly French because the rest of French society tends to look down on them and segregate them. And they might speak a bit of Arabic at home (or not), but they don't really feel Arabic because, well, they've spent their whole life in France, and even if they go to Tunisia/Morocco/Algeria/etc. a few weeks in the summer to visit extended family, people there don't see them as belonging there anymore.

It's a thorny situation.

You are not telling the whole story though. Immigrant workers in the first place were not supposed to stay forever but the whole situation changed when Mitterand introduced the Regroupement Familial to make it OK for their families to come and live in France. That accelerated the movement of people and that certainly did not help for them to integrate.

Yup, that's a good thing to point out. Certainly not the smartest move.

> That the French wouldn't be so bothered if people came to France to be French and adopt the local manners and attitudes;

Maybe the non-assimilators wouldn't come to France if the French had not gone to North Africa and convinced them that France is awesome[1] in the first place.

1. Majority of France's Muslim population comes from it's ex-colonies.

Holy shit, can't believe you're getting downvoted (comment is grey atm) just for pointing out France's colonial past. I don't know what's up with HN today.

I guess he doesn't get downvoted for stating that France had a colonial past, but for implying that the colonial past is an excuse for not integrating into the society you live in.

Not an excuse; rather, a contributing cause. Failed cultural integration is a global symptom, not a collective of individuals who consciously refuse to integrate.

what do you mean by not integrating?

part of the colonisers spiel to the colonised is aboyut human rights, freedom and liberty.

>> instead people seemingly are coming to the liberal and liberated countries with a distant goal of making them as backward and oppressive as the countries they left/fled.

I see this line in "liberal" countries and find it hypocritical.

Part of being liberal is the freedom to adopt any legal practices that makes you happy. If "liberal" countries think XYZ practices are backward or oppressive, make it illegal and file cases against people violating it.

Asking others to follow unwritten rules isn't fair.

Many liberals are unhappy that immigrants haven't integrated and by this, they want immigrants to adopt language, dress, food and religion(mainly Atheism) of the majority. It is hard to make these things illegal and still call yourself as a liberal.

>Part of being liberal is the freedom to adopt any legal practices that makes you happy. //

Yes, sort of.

Let's take a slightly extreme example - liberal societies outlaw slavery. Suppose I come to France and want to keep slaves; how hypocritical of the French to talk about liberté and not allow me to keep the slaves that I wish to keep.

I'm not sure it's true hypocrisy; it's just a innate part of liberalism that there are limits to the liberties allowed.

well it is outlawed, which mean illegal.. its illegal because it violates some aspect of freedom, liberalism or human rights..

so it is not hypocritical.

It is hypocritical to claim liberalism but outlaw a person right to wear clothing of their choice in public areas...

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