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Arnaud Bertrand Profile picture
@RnaudBertrand
Jun 13 • 24 tweets • 8 min read • Read on X
These have undoubtedly been the wildest 72 hours in French politics in my lifetime. Pretty incredible stuff.

A 🧵
So after losing big time in the EU elections to Le Pen's Rassemblement National (RN), Macron decided to dissolve the National Assembly, calling the French to elect new MPs on the 30th of June 👇
This started what can only be called a movement of total panic throughout the French political class, because parties only have until this weekend to present candidates, and therefore decide on a strategy, who to ally with, etc.
The left got their shit together fairly fast, almost immediately announcing the creation of a "Popular Front" that gathers all the left-wing parties 👇
Hilariously, Raphael Glucksmann, the head candidate of the Socialist Party for the EU elections, tried to prevent the alliance by going on TV to list some ridiculous pre-conditions for it, but literally no-one listened to him and they went forward with it.
Many memes on Glucksmann effectively putsching himself out of the French left (he was never actually on the left anyhow)...
It's on the right that things really started to go wild after Éric Ciotti, the president of Les Républicains, the party of Chirac and Sarkozy, announced that they would do an alliance with Le Pen
Almost immediately top officials in his own party started saying that Ciotti was speaking in his own name only and said he needed to resign from the party's presidency.
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Ciotti reacted by literally shutting down party headquarters to prevent his destitution. This is Aurélien Pradié, a Républicain MP in front of the closed doors of the headquarters saying they'll get emergency services to break open the door for them 😅
So many memes around this on French twitter 😅
Finally, the general secretary of the party @AnnieGenevard, who had spare keys, got to the party headquarters and managed to open the doors.
The "political desk" ("bureau politique") of Les Républicains announces that they've met, decided to fire Ciotti as President of the party and that he is not a member of Les Républicains anymore.
Ciotti begs to differ and says that the meeting that fired him didn't conform with the rules of the party so he in fact "is and remains president of [the party]"...
The infighting in Les Républicains continues, it's still completely unclear who actually manages the party at this stage and whether they'll ally with Le Pen. Ciotti claims that 80 Républicain MPs are with him and ready to campaign under Le Pen's banner...
One thing is sure though, Ciotti still controls Les Républicains' twitter account: "The President of the Républicains is and will remain Éric Ciotti."
He also has the Vice-President of the party @GuilhemCarayon on his side: "With Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, we share 90-95% of the same ideas."

All in all, the party seems extremely divided and is imploding in real time...
Further right, things are pretty wild too. Marion Maréchal (granddaughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen who had joined Zemmour instead of her family), announces on live TV that she wants to ally with the RN, next to a Zemmour whom apparently hadn't been consulted.
Later that day, Marion Maréchal announces that she met with the RN and heavily hints that the condition they set for an alliance is to get rid of Zemmour... Bear in mind that the party Reconquête that Maréchal and Zemmour are part of was founded by Zemmour
Zemmour goes on TV and calls Marion Maréchal's behavior "the world record of betrayals" and says she's surrounded by a team of "betrayal professionals"
Zemmour decided to not to go for an alliance and to present his own candidates. Marion Maréchal calls it "a triple mistake" and calls on everyone to vote for those candidates that did ally with the RN.

In short Reconquête just imploded...
Meanwhile Macron shoots at the newly formed "Popular Front", essentially saying that those who join it are antisemites🤦 Because LFI (Mélenchon's party) campaigned a lot for Palestinians so obviously that makes them and everyone with them antisemites...
In other wild news, Alain Finkielkraut, one of France's foremost Jewish intellectuals says he might be "obliged" to vote for Le Pen in order "to block antisemitism".

As a reminder Le Pen's party was co-founded by Pierre Bousquet, a former Waffen-SS... Image
There you go, 72 hours in France's political life... And that's not even half of it!

No doubt that this circus show will continue for the next 2 weeks until the elections. It's widely entertaining but obviously shows just how dysfunctional and lost France is right now...
Interesting late addition to the thread on what voters actually want.

Huge majority of voters on the left favorable to the "popular front" alliance (97% of LFI voters want it, as well as 86% of Socialist voters and 77% of Greens)

Les Républicains voters about half split on an alliance with Le Pen (53% agree so presumably 47% disagree).

Overwhelming support among Zemmour voters for an alliance with Le Pen (89% want it) so it looks like Marion Maréchal represents voters' will more than Zemmour with her move.Image

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More from @RnaudBertrand

Arnaud Bertrand Profile picture
Nov 15
Absolutely perfect illustration of what we enable with the way the media and the Western political class framed what happened in Amsterdam.

There was a football match between Israel and France yesterday and this 👇 happened at the beginning of the match: a horde of Israeli supporters openly lynched some French supporters in the stands.

Macron himself was in attendance at the match to show his commitment to "fighting antisemitism" after Amsterdam... He made no public comment that I know of on these French supporters getting lynched in front of his eyes. And the police made no reported arrests.

Had the reverse been the case, had this been some Israeli supporters getting lynched by a horde of French supporters, you can absolutely bet 100% that he (and all the French media) would have made a huge deal out of it.

You cannot overstate the absurdism of it: because we've so gaslighted ourselves around "antisemitism" and so distorted the meaning of it, Western countries would literally rather let our their own citizens get lynched on their own soil - in front of the president's eyes (!) - than face accusations being "antisemitic" in their own definition of the term.
French TV interviewed after the match an Israel supporter (wearing an IDF t-shirt) who participated in the lynching, who commented that "the security [in the stadium] was magnificent. I'll even say even too much... We had a small problem in the block K, directly it was settled, the police came and directly they solved the problem".

No comment...
Another video where French fans explain to the police, with video for proof, that the Israel supporters started the fight and that they arrested the French victims.
Read 5 tweets
Arnaud Bertrand Profile picture
Nov 9
This is hugely important and no-one is paying attention.

Philippines President Marcos Jr. just signed 2 new bills (the "Maritime Zones Act" and the "Philippine Archipelagic Sea Lanes Act"), backed by the U.S. State Department (via a press release by the infamous Matthew Miller: state.gov/on-the-philipp…), that claim to implement "international law" but actually are a direct violation of international law in that they attempt to legitimize expansionist claims at the expense of virtually all its neighbors.

Let me explain 🧵Image
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First, some context.

The Philippines exist as an independent country since 1946 when they gained their independence from the United States. They had never existed as a country before.

The establishment of the Philippines was officialized by the Treaty of Manilla.
Crucially, the Treaty of Manilla also defined Filipino territory as based on the earlier Treaty of Paris, when Spain ceded the Philippines to the US at the end of the Spanish-American War of 1898.

You can see these boundaries as defined in the treaty of Paris illustrated here 👇 Image
Read 30 tweets
Arnaud Bertrand Profile picture
Nov 8
This is crazy: Israeli police arrests 2 French military personnel ("gendarmes") with diplomatic status in a Christian church (the Eleona Church) that has officially belonged to France for 160 years and is protected by diplomatic immunity: x.com/sambklf/status…

To make things worse the church is located in occupied East Jerusalem - theoretically Palestinian territory - and the arrests occured as the French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot was due to visit it. He cancelled his visit due to the presence of Israeli police on site and the breach of diplomatic immunity.

Yet another unarguable proof that Israel respects absolutely zero rule.
Live reaction by France's foreign minister, who looks very shaken: "I will not enter the Eleona domain today because Israeli security forces entered it armed without first obtaining authorization from France and without agreeing to leave today."
x.com/sambklf/status…

In normal language, given this is officially French territory, it's called an armed invasion of sovereign territory...
In this other video you can see the French side asking the Israeli police: "Are you sure you want to arrest French military personnel, in France, on French territory?"

Their reply: "Yes".
Read 6 tweets
Arnaud Bertrand Profile picture
Nov 4
As our 2-week road-trip in China's Sichuan came to an end, time to do a small retrospective to summarize what we've done in case anyone wants to do a similar trip one day, or just needs inspiration for when they travel to China.

A small 🧵 of what we did and saw, day by day. Image
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But before I start, a few practical observations.

I did this trip visa-free, as French nationals don't need visas anymore for stays in China of less than 15 days. Check for yourself if you need a visa.

Anyone can do this trip, we did it ourselves with 2 young kids, but I'll admit we're definitely not the relaxed type of travelers who like to tan on a beach somewhere. We like to actually visit stuff 😊

You do need a Chinese driving license to drive in China (I have one). It's really easy to procure one nowadays, in some places like Beijing you can even convert your foreign driving license into a Chinese one upon landing at the airport. Otherwise you have myriads of other ways to get around in China.

Yes, it immensely help to speak Chinese or travel with someone who does to get around in China, very few people speak English. Although I can imagine you can manage to get around with instant translation apps (never tried it myself). Most people are typically very friendly and helpful to foreign tourists.

For the most popular attractions in China make sure to think about booking tickets in advance (or ask a travel agency to do it for you) as places are limited. Typically attractions release tickets a week ahead of time, although it depends.

Lastly, if you travel to China for the first time (not at all my case, I've been coming to China for 16 years and lived during 8 years in the country) you need to be prepared to a dramatically different tech and payment ecosystems from the rest of the world. At the very least set-up WeChat before you depart on your journey and connect your debit/credit card to it, as WeChat is the ubiquitous payment method in China. Also be sure to download a VPN that works in China, or alternatively roam on your foreign sim card so the great firewall won't apply to you, and so you'll keep being able to use all your usual apps.

With that out of the way, here's what we did 👇
DAY 1 (21st of Oct)

We started our trip with 4 days in Chongqing.

What we did that day
1) Our very first visit in Chongqing was a place called "French Charity Hall" (Ren Ai Tang) because it seemed fitting as a French citizen but also because it's a great introduction to Chongqing, on top of a hill with views over the city and with charming small streets full of F&B options.
2) We then headed to a really cool Chongqing shopping district called Shibati (literally "18 stairs"), that mixes traditional architecture with modern shops and restaurants.
3) For our first dinner in Chongqing, we obviously had to try world-famous Chongqing hotpot, and not just any Chongqing hotpot, we went to a Chongqing institution called 周师兄 (zhou shi xiong), which is famous for having one of the best hotpots in the city.

My posts of the day
- On Ren Ai Tang: x.com/RnaudBertrand/…
- On Shibati: x.com/RnaudBertrand/…
- On our dinner: x.com/RnaudBertrand/…Image
Read 17 tweets
Arnaud Bertrand Profile picture
Nov 3
I'm genuinely amazed that some places like this still exist in China.

On our drive to Chongqing airport back from SanXingDui we decided to check midway a spot called "Qian Fo Zhai" ("Thousand Buddhas village") in an area named Anyui. And it turns out to be an entire hill with some amazing Tang and Song dynasty grotto carvings that are completely free to access, with virtually no tourists.

I thought that at this stage most of those had been organized in touristic attractions, similar to Dazu, Mogao or Longmen grottoes but no, turns out you obviously have a number of those which are still unorganized, which is quite an amazing experience. Probably won't remain the case for long, if only for purposes of protecting the artifacts.
And at the bottom of the hill we just stumbled upon a Buddhist monastery and listened to the monks singing a beautiful prayer 🙏
Genuinely incredible song actually, although I'll admit I have a soft spot for liturgical music, not everyone enjoys it.
Read 6 tweets
Arnaud Bertrand Profile picture
Nov 2
Last full day of our 2-week Sichuan road-trip and we end it on a high point: a visit of SanXinDui, one of the greatest archeological discoveries of all times, anywhere in the world.

Unfortunately SanXinDui is bizarrely unknown in the West, even though it ranks on par with things like the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb or the Terracotta army in Xi'an.

SanXinDui used to be the capital of China's ancient Shu kingdom which ruled here between 1,700BC and 1,200BC so everything in the museum is 3,000 to 4,000 years old.
The artifacts found here - and they uncovered an incredible 17,000 objects already - are beyond extraordinary, almost otherworldly, revealing a unique culture unlike anything that had been found in China before. And a culture much more advanced for that time period of Chinese history than had been assumed before.

Here you can see 4 pieces we just saw in the museum:
- A monumental bronze mask in pure SanXinDui style, with protruding eyes that archeologists believe symbolizes a far-sighted leader or shaman
- A typical SanXinDui mask with a gold plated mask on top of it
- A monumental 4m tall bronze "tree" with dragons for its roots and birds with 9 fruits and birds on its branches
- A wheel with 5 beams thought to represent the sun

More artefacts we saw in the museum in the 🧵 below 👇Image
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You can see many, many bronze masks, all with similar features but all unique Image
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You also have more complete statues like this guy who looks like a 4,000 years old weightlifter 😊 Image
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Read 16 tweets

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