this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2025
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[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 60 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Russia has demonstrated it doesn't actually desire peace so many times by now that it's a bit pointless to mention it, really.

[–] RunawayFixer@lemmy.world 18 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It still needs repeating to counter propaganda from Russia and Russia's western supporters. If you leave propaganda unchecked, worse things tend to happen.

[–] GoodEye8@lemm.ee 8 points 6 days ago

Yeah. You don't need to look far (to lemmy.ml) to find people who argue that Russia is perfectly justified in not respecting the ceasefire. Clearly we won't be changing the mind of those people because to them anything Ukraine related (from the west) is 100% propaganda which means Macron stating the obvious is also just "propaganda" to them. But for people who aren't keeping up with the news it's useful to remind them that the world doesn't believe the tankie sauce certain people seem to think is the truth.

[–] Jakule17@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago

Hence “once again” in the title

[–] AlolanYoda@mander.xyz 64 points 6 days ago (6 children)

Man, I know people dislike Macron, and I still think his handling of the Le Penn situation last year was a dramatic misplay, but I've always had a huge amount of respect for him. Maybe because I don't live in France (although I was almost accepted into a job there earlier this year!), but he seems like such a role model in terms of political leadership. He's been handling the Trump/Putin situation much better than most other world leaders, in my opinion

[–] IcyToes@sh.itjust.works 45 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I think he demonstrates global leadership in a number of things, but leadership of France on a range of things including privacy is not good.

[–] A_A@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago (3 children)

i approve at what you say, yet, i would add :
... it might be impossible to be a loved president of a so much divided country as today's France.

[–] SomethingBurger@jlai.lu 12 points 6 days ago

He is greatly responsible for the division.

[–] IcyToes@sh.itjust.works 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Domestically, what has he done to be loved?

Easy to blame the country, but no one is entitled to be loved by default.

[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

OTOH, I don't think we've ever liked any of our presidents. Their approval ratings are so abysmal that they would horryfy US politicians (where 40% is low). Macron is quite bad, but is he actually worse than the rest? We might end up regretting him when LePen gets elected in a couple years.

[–] jinarched@lemm.ee 15 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Ehhh... I don't think you would say that if you were paying close attention with how he handled opposition the couple of last years.

For instance, he used special laws about 20 times to cripple any opositions when his party lost his majority to pass unpopular laws. They tried to make it illegal to film police and they pushed insane surveillance laws during the Olympic games that is most likely to stay. He refused to let the opposition name a prime minister even if the opposition won the legislative elections. He went against the clear will of the people regarding the age of retirement by forcing it with a special law (90% of workers were against it). Hell... he crippled public hospitals by removing beds during the Covid19 pandemic. He is a typical neo-liberal that mostly has the interest of his own social class. People really wanted him gone and he did everything in his power to stay. He's still there because people were scared of the far right. I'm skipping so many things because there are so much mess to report I can't actually remember it all of it on the top of my head.

The people are so pissed about him that there are talks about the 5th republic being a failure and needing to be changed for a 6th republic.

He has a good image on the geopolitical scene, but I would find another role model if I were you. I'm not French, but I can confidently say that he's a lying piece of shit and most people in France hate him.

[–] AlolanYoda@mander.xyz 4 points 6 days ago

Genuinely appreciate your and the other commenters' inputs, I really did only focus on his image outside of France. Thank you for all these examples!

[–] britaliope@kourjetez.bzh 15 points 6 days ago

I'd like him as a foreign affairs minister, eu ambassador or somewhere in the EU governing body. I think he'll be great there.

As a president for France, he's definitively not and for so many reasons you qan't list them.

[–] Dremor@lemmy.world 14 points 6 days ago

He is a very good diplomat... And a disappointing politic.

[–] nuko147@lemm.ee 3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Man he is only making business. The current goal now is the rearming of Europe as huge and as fast as possible. Russia making peace can slowdown that. I don't say that he is wrong, but he is just a businessman (France is i think in the world top 3 of weapons selling). Also he fucked Frances democracy, and he kept the colonialism attitude of France in other continents.

[–] index@sh.itjust.works -1 points 6 days ago (2 children)
[–] xor@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

There's loads of issues with Macron, but I don't see how he's responsible for any of the above

The president doesn't legislate, and he doesn't command the police, he's the executive head of state.

[–] index@sh.itjust.works -5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

In case you have missed it macron is the president of france since 2017

[–] xor@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I wasn't claiming that he hasn't been the president of France; I did, in fact, notice.

I said that's not what the president of France does.

It's like getting mad at the King of England for Canadian laws, that's just not his responsibility, even if he is head of state.

[–] index@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It’s like getting mad at the King of England for Canadian laws, that’s just not his responsibility, even if he is head of state.

Yea same thing, blaming the president of france for his government policies is like getting mad at the king of england for canadian laws...

[–] xor@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

They're both the respective heads of state, and they're both not members of the legislative branches.

So yeah, in this context they are effectively the same.

[–] Uruanna@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

You're not getting it. Macron does in fact control the legislation.

Sure it's not what the president is supposed to do, there's a prime minister and speaker for that to decide what laws will be voted on in what calendar. Except when Macron forces his pick on both (and straight up ignores when a new national vote says the left wing opposition gets to name the prime minister), forces the voting calendar, forces passing his laws by skipping a vote he knows will fail, etc.

The 5th French Republic has laws like this that give the president some exceptional powers to get over the head of the parliament. And Macron uses those exceptional powers all the time.

So yes, Macron does do all the things you say the president doesn't do. And that's why people are mad at him.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Respect ≠ "role model"

Try again.

[–] Wilco@lemm.ee 23 points 6 days ago
[–] nuko147@lemm.ee 6 points 6 days ago

Now that they own USA ? They go for maximum profit.

[–] ProfHillbilly@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It is really time for Europe to come together and put and end to Russia and liberate the people wgo they can enjoy the prosperity that the rest of Europe offers. Will it be WW3? Yes. With the condition of the Russian military it will not be for long.

[–] NimdaQA@lemmy.world -1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

The Americans warn against listening to 'idiot politicians' who claim the Russian Army has been degraded.

The condition of Europe is not really good.

The UK practically sent their entire stockpile of SPGs to Ukraine (they had to beg Sweden to rebuild their fleet) and Poland thrown half of their stockpile of SPGs to Ukraine for example. Russia is producing more artillery shells than the entirety of Europe combined according to even pro-Ukraine sources. Almost every European country has complained about massive shortages of ammunition due to it all being given to Ukraine. France stated they could only fight Russia for a few weeks before running out of ammo.

Europe can’t even produce their own ballistic missiles which have been a game changer in Ukraine as shown by the effectiveness of ATACMS and Iskander-M. And Russia has been massively out producing Europe in terms of air-launched cruise missiles so don’t bring up Storm Shadow (Kh-101 is longer range than Storm Shadow anyways) or other similar weapon systems.

Russia produced more T-90Ms (a very good tank mind you) last year than the amount of tanks the entire German military has. Production was 20-30 per month last year but this has likely since doubled. Losses for T-90Ms have been low as per Oryx with production massively outpacing losses (one to two months of production last year was enough to replace yearly T-90M losses).

Even T-72B3 has a superior fire control system than the forty year old system used on the Leopard 2A6.

Ukraine has a stronger military than France, Germany, Italy, and the UK combined. There is a reason why these countries state a Ukrainian defeat would be the end of Europe.

Most of Russian Armed Forces aren’t even in Ukraine, majority of forces in Ukraine are from irregular volunteer formations recruited from regions across Russia.

Hence why casualties amongst Russian professionals are low:

(tad old numbers from like weeks ago)

Motorized Rifles: 6,457

VDV: 3,257

Naval Infantry: 1,305

Tank Crew: 1,806

Artillery: 851

Special Forces: 736

Engineering: 291

Navy: 291

VVS: 265

Other: 957

Total: 16,216

Source: MediaZona

For comparison:

US losses from 2003-2005 mainly against insurgents: 5175

Source: Defense Casualty Analysis System