[Boiler]

God, she's shit. Keeps saying "Europe of Nations". Strange obsession with posted workers. Macron points out that it's not unknown for French people to work abroad.

I was a "posted worker" in France for a couple of months. As I was an EU citizen back then, the paperwork wasn't particularly difficult (form A1 rings a bell) but you had to make damned sure you kept it with you as you *would* get visited by the French equivalents of HMRC and DWP to make sure you were doing what you said. The main thing was that you were paying NI on your earnings in your home country on money earned in France. I dread to think what hurdles there would be now.

"Europe of Nations" sounds like what the Brexiters here talked about - a loosely-associated Europe not tied together by the EU.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Europe of Nations is a resonant phrase in French, associated with Gaullism. I don't know how far others have developed the idea, but her notion of it is France does what it wants.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Oh, she's on to wind farms. Absolutely laughable.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Funny how Macron's emphasizing offshore wind. I assume France has the same dogshit as we do.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Lost my link, but last thing I heard was that French fishing was going to be ruined by windfarms.

[kreuzberger]

Lost my link, but last thing I heard was that French fishing was going to be ruined by windfarms.

And they are bad for biodiversity, apparently. She just says stuff.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Here's Le Pen on information technology. This should be fun.

It was. France creates its own Google, apparently.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Lost my link, but last thing I heard was that French fishing was going to be ruined by windfarms.

And they are bad for biodiversity, apparently. She just says stuff.

Yep. That was basically "they kill birds", wasn't it?

She's now on to "uberisation". Which is fine except the question was "why do we get a French Google?" Uberisation isn't unknown in the US.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Hang on a minute. Isn't Uber a big tech company itself?

[Tubby Isaacs]

We're on to education and training.

I'm expecting that Le Pen's going to go for "stop doing critical race studies".

[Tubby Isaacs]

Lots of similarities with Brexiters, but striking how Le Pen goes for young voters, completely unlike Brexiters.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Bizarre bit there. She praised Macron's policy on training and then said it was only "transitional". Is it?

Now she's doing "too many kids graduate from schools". And she's got "McKinsey" in. She's making spending promises all over the place.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Le Pen was asked about funding. "You're the expert, you ran up Covid debt". Barely adult.

[Tubby Isaacs]

"You put all the money into cities". (assume that was a you give all the money to darkies)

"You removed mathematics and brought it back". What on earth was that?

[Tubby Isaacs]

She was pretty shit on law and order. Mentioned sheep rustling, and didn't want to talk about domestic violence (because it couldn't all be blamed on immigrants).

[Tubby Isaacs]

She's on to headscarves. Absolute racist horseshit. Incredible to me, having lived in Tower Hamlets.

[kreuzberger]

Depressingly, Fashy McFashVisage is ending on a high note. Parliament and the National Assembly being trashed on the alter of referenda. The miners and the apple farmers will love that.

[Youngian]

She was pretty shit on law and order. Mentioned sheep rustling, and didn't want to talk about domestic violence (because it couldn't all be blamed on immigrants).

Wind farms hurt fish, Mdm Le Pen also claimed. Is sheep rustling a big problem in France? A shady foreigner crime, no doubt.

[Tubby Isaacs]

God knows. I think her point was that even rural areas are seeing lots of crime. Or something. Maybe immigrants in France eat mutton curry.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Not sure when the first post-debate poll drops. The debates seem to be a very big thing in France. God knows how low expectations of Le Pen's performance were.