• @[email protected]
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    4314 hours ago

    I would definitely be in favor of France taking the US’s place on the world stage. They’re a more appropriate leader of the free world anyway

    • troglodyte_mignon
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      247 hours ago

      Hm, I don’t think there’s such a thing as an “appropriate leader of the free world”. (Not even talking about how problematic the notion of “the free world” is.) We’re in this mess because one country has this much power over the rest of us. Replacing it with another (I’m saying this hypothetically, because France is in no position to gain as much power as the US anyway) doesn’t solve the problem.

      Also, and I’m saying this as a French person, France has its issues, even though they’re not as cataclysmically bad as the United States’s problems right now. The far right is getting a lot stronger here too (as in many other countries) and I’m frankly worried about the future. Many people here are fighting against this, and I hope we can turn the tide somehow, but… never depend on one country.

    • @IndustryStandard
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      -28 hours ago

      Last time France got to be a superpower they enslaved the west of Africa.

      • troglodyte_mignon
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        7 hours ago

        Yep, and while we did progress from the mindset of that time, I don’t think we made as much progress as we should have, and the recent political atmosphere is… worrying. I mean, I don’t think we would enslave Africa again, but I shudder to think of what a superpower with our far right as its head would do. Also, superpowers are intrinsically dangerous, imho.

            • acargitz
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              1 hour ago

              The West African Franc and the Central African Franc and how France is using them to hold the economic keys to huge parts of its former colonial empire.

              Not sure if that’s what the previous poster referred to, but that’s what I’d guess.

    • @pyre
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      -68 hours ago

      can it be literally anyone else please? I worry that is the French get any more pompous they’ll explode so fiercely that we won’t need any nuclear weapons

  • @[email protected]
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    3816 hours ago

    They should oopsie whoopsie give Ukraine one. Seems fair since Ukraine only gave theirs up in exchange for American protection.

    • @[email protected]
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      2115 hours ago

      Just having one would be more dangerous then having none. It’s not enough for actual deterrence but it is enough for Russia to “justify” using its arsenal against them.

  • @Valmond
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    9418 hours ago

    He said a lot of other good stuff too IMO.

    Finally someone taking the russian and slso the american threat seriously.

    • ShadowRam
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      4118 hours ago

      UK has typically bowed to US.

      France may our only Security Council Veto hope.

      • @[email protected]
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        2518 hours ago

        Bowed? I think its more of a strategy, to try to win the Americans back, act as a bridge. IMO it is too late. But even if it is only a 1% chance, its worth it. Meanwhile UK is investing in defense, standing by allies and being unwavering in its support for Ukraine.

      • @Raiderkev
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        1117 hours ago

        UK isn’t in the EU anyway

        • @Valmond
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          56 hours ago

          FYI the EU is not about military, only about economics.

          The UK has made the recent JEF with sweden and others for example, so no problem joining up militarily.

          • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝
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            129 minutes ago

            The EU is both. There are EU joint battlegroups and a stronger mutual defense clause in the treaties than NATO.

          • @shalafi
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            1210 hours ago

            What in the world makes you think a sovereign nation (UK) has to ask permission from the US to use their military arsenal?! We might have agreements in place, but no way in hell does the US control the UK’s nuclear launch capability.

            • HelloThere
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              8 hours ago

              It’s not as straight forward as asking permission, but you should read about Trident as a missle platform.

              To say the UK has a genuinely independent nuclear deterent is not as clear cut as you’d think. But that’s not the same as being absolutely beholden to the US.

              That all said, we really do need to swap to the french missle system, but that will take time to retro fit the subs.

              • @[email protected]
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                57 hours ago

                The UK outsourced maintenance of the delivery mechanism (the missile body) to the US.

                The warhead is built & maintained by the UK.

                The missiles have a life span so eventually they will stop working without US help.

                • HelloThere
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                  26 hours ago

                  Sure, the crux is how long is eventually. We may need that sooner than we previously thought.

      • c1a5s1c
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        1310 hours ago

        I can’t take her seriously, the EU needs a strong face and she’s not doing it for me. This isn’t a woman VS man thing, I thought Merkel was tougher than Scholz to be fair.

    • Pup Biru
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      -414 hours ago

      i meeeeean idk much about french politics, but from everything i heard the biggest shit show was the pension thing, and that was more an individuals being annoyed about getting less, but the pension situation was unsustainable so they either do something or it all imploded and macron tried to do something and people hated it because it effected them personally but now they’ve still got to deal with it and it’s just getting worse?

      • troglodyte_mignon
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        77 hours ago

        that was more an individuals being annoyed about getting less

        Not, that was about Macron trampling on the democratic process to pass a controversial law. (And yes, things needed to be adjusted with the pension system, but it didn’t have to be done this specific way, there were several options besides the one His Highness Macron curtly chose for all of us. It also didn’t need to be done that urgently.) Also, for some of these individuals, “getting less” will, concretely, mean “dying before reaching retirement age” or “falling into poverty because their company or their health won’t let them work until retirement age”, so I think it’s a bit unfair to present it like you do, as if it were mere discontentment over getting slightly less than they were hoping for.

      • @[email protected]
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        2212 hours ago

        He’s consistently been the president of the wealthy, he could have chosen to make wealthy pensioners take some of the financial burden but decided to put it all on the working population.

        He also deleted a wealth tax, consistently slashed benefits for unemployment and social minimums.

        On a personal level, he’s had too many dealings with quite a few people implicated in criminal scandals (Sarkozy, notably) to be clean.

        All that to say, I can appreciate his talks about Europe, but he’s not been a good president for the french workers, and it’s likely to lead to the far right being in control in a couple years, which could be a disaster for said European project.

        • Pup Biru
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          25 hours ago

          ahah righto well yeah that’s all super shit