E253 - Populaire Frontin' w/ Henry Wallis
Added 2024-06-26 10:00:08 +0000 UTCOur France correspondent/flaneur Henry J. Wallis takes us on a leisurely derive through the French political spectrum and explains his support as an Appelist for the Popular Front opposition to Le Pen and Macron in the upcoming snap elections.
Check out Henry's Forms Podcast and his essay on the Popular Front
Macron and Lula support billionaire tax: https://www.politico.eu/article/emmanuel-macron-brazil-lula-da-silva-global-minimum-tax-billionaires-wealthiest-people/
Recent clashes in New Caledonia: https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/24/new-caledonia-unrest-independence-activists-france-detention https://x.com/illwilleditions/status/1804965294672347603
The Hollande campaign song mentioned: https://pitchfork.com/news/46275-watch-french-presidential-candidate-uses-jay-z-and-kanyes-niggas-in-paris-in-campaign-ad/
Andy's Bordiga/Antifa article: https://communemag.com/anti-anti-antifa/
Song: Brazz - Killing In The Name (French Version) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj-C2O4YSuc
Comments
yep
The Antifada
2024-07-28 18:57:38 +0000 UTCi gotta know what’s going on on the ground after the big win and what’s the vibes the french population feels/thinks
Saadcringe
2024-07-27 16:12:45 +0000 UTCwe gonna have our boy wallis back on since the popular front won over the la pen ??
Saadcringe
2024-07-27 16:11:51 +0000 UTCThank you Henry
MoldyTolge
2024-07-15 02:36:15 +0000 UTChttps://www.formspodcast.com/ is back up I just needed to pay the bill
Henry Wallis
2024-07-14 22:17:11 +0000 UTCThanks, and congratulations! It looks like the Popular Front held (with the left exceeding expectations, likely due to skewed pre election polls, like you pointed out in the interview.) France still looks pretty screwed, but the left stopped the fascists today. I hope y’all have good wine to celebrate!
Isaac Suárez
2024-07-07 20:12:46 +0000 UTCThis guy took the real-movement pill; based
M.R. Alchemist
2024-07-05 22:51:48 +0000 UTClooks like its down but here's his youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsDatp5ZTmU&feature=youtu.be
The Antifada
2024-07-04 15:39:29 +0000 UTCIs it just me or does the Wallis podcast go to a dead link. So sad, otherwise a rollercoaster of an episode, love a foreign (fraternally foreign) update
MoldyTolge
2024-07-04 06:10:35 +0000 UTCI'm not enthusiastic for "a capitalism for and of The People". I'm enthusiastic about class struggle against both the neoliberal power of today and the neofascist power of tomorrow. Is the 40-hour work week a "weapon of the bourgeoisie?" What about universal healthcare or even suffrage? The workers' movement has historically won concessions through and for struggle. You can choose to see real gains as traps if you want, but I think that's objectively ahistorical. The Popular Front is not Syriza, France is not Greece, and the bourgeoisie are not little gods who dictate reality unopposed. They have their weapons, and so do we.
Henry Wallis
2024-07-02 09:21:36 +0000 UTCI was referring to the enthusiasm of many ‘communists/anarchists’ for a capitalism for and of The People. Such promises are always a weapon of the bourgeoisie to reinvigorate class peace, regardless of how well-meaning the dupes that buy into it are. Syriza’s platform turned to dust within days of their election, because it was always rooted in falsehood.
daytorn
2024-07-01 23:19:10 +0000 UTCin 2014 the Golden Dawn wasn't leading
Henry Wallis
2024-07-01 23:10:25 +0000 UTCBig 2014 syriza stan energy from this ep
daytorn
2024-06-29 23:31:01 +0000 UTCHenry talks in this like a true Frenchman: interruptive and at the same time conciliatory lol Great ep, great guest
Baron
2024-06-27 18:45:56 +0000 UTCSalut Henry, thanks for taking up the difficult task to explain French politics to a mostly American crowd. You did a pretty good job and I hope I'll have the chance to hear you more on the Antifada or with C. Derick Varn, which another of my favorite podcasts. One remark though, when you compared the party Les Républicains to the Democrats, that party was Sarkozy's party and took its name after his presidency probably on the model of the US Republican party. To my knowledge Dominique de Villepin is not even a member of it. (Villepin was the former adviser of Jacques Chirac who advised him to dissolve the National Assembly and later became Chirac's PM. He's rather respected in the left for opposing G. W. Bush's Irak war and recently denouncing Israel atrocities. In terms of respectability, he's an exception among the right. Otherwise, Les Républicains are a typical racist, law and order party.
Yves Chan-You
2024-06-27 12:11:11 +0000 UTCThis was a book I found very interesting on the topic: https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745326962/fidels-ethics-of-violence/
Henry Wallis
2024-06-27 07:38:39 +0000 UTCThanks for the kind words. Honestly I was beat tired and hopefully next time I come on the show I can be clearer and better answer Andy and Sean's questions.
Henry Wallis
2024-06-27 07:37:13 +0000 UTCGreat episode! I admire your guest’s passion and I have been watching the LFI with great interest (“Hegemony and Socialist Strategy,” a work that strongly influenced LFI and the European left populists was a big part of my move away from liberalism toward the left.) I hope to hear more, and I envy France for still having a strong left. Also, I can think of few more Quijotic things than being an American leftist lol. I’m struck by that last question, I think regarding ethics and the left, we could do better if we laid out a leftist project in terms of a materialist ethics. US politics tends toward moralism (ie the use of moral and individualist language to bludgeon opponents, while disregarding the actual practice of those morals, ethics, on your own side)- but it seems reasonable to me to argue that a leftist position is one that tries to instill a more ethical society through mass political action and material economic policies that overcome capitalism. To acknowledge the insufficiencies of neoliberal capitalism, and to work to overcome them through a new communist order- in my view- is a position that has an embedded ethical stance that’s worth laying out. I think the American left could benefit from this, particularly if we use the ethical commitments that supposedly define liberalism to attack existing political and economic relations under “actually existing liberalism.” To tease that out a bit (without writing more than I have) I think you can make an ethical claim in regard to “vote blue no matter who” which asserts that supporting Biden and Democrats actually undermines the supposed morals which Democrats claim to stand for. The ethical position is not to vote for the “lesser of two evils”- but to do whatever is possible to overturn the existing system which trades one immediate evil (Trump) for a more diluted, but longer term and no less insidious one (Biden and the Democrats.) So long as our ethical proposals are immanent (arising from the conditions of daily life, specifically the shared needs all people have as human beings to enjoy “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”) we shouldn’t shy away from ethics.
Isaac Suárez
2024-06-27 04:51:12 +0000 UTCJust want to say I respect the fucking hell out of your conviction and critiques. You say you're "just an engineer" but you're obviously much more than that. You're a proletarian warrior. Godspeed to you and the people of France. Solidarity. Forever.
GolfBaller
2024-06-27 03:44:54 +0000 UTCReally good episode
Pat
2024-06-27 00:37:34 +0000 UTCThanks to Andy and Sean for having me on. Here's the article I wrote about my motivations: https://www.helotage.com/why-i-support-the-new-popular-front
Henry Wallis
2024-06-26 21:48:52 +0000 UTC
