Whereas, I’m sure we’d all agree that at Westminster recent male and female ‘ministers of colour’ have handled everything very competently…
Incidentally, ‘ministers of colour’ isn’t as silly a phrase as ‘artists of colour’ that was a favourite with a former colleague - “Oh do you mean the Fauves?”
We’ll see how he performs. Like others, I’ve been impressed by his calm and apparent mastery of his subject when speaking, but he’s never had “a proper job” as far as I can tell. He reminds me of a more competent Sunak, though he speaks much more seriously (and without the fake colloquialisms Sunak uses)./
I doubt his sexuality or his religion will make any difference to anything in France.
He is an orthodox Christian like his mother, but his father who is a Tunisian Jew said he’d always be identified as a Jew because of his surname. If anyone thinks about it at all I’d like to think they accept it’s good to inherit a mixture of things, but what counts is what you do.
Edited because I hadn’t put a to before inherit.
I was listening to him on TV the other day, when he was doing his thing in Accrington, and he was really trying hard to do the accent of the common man.
Many years ago when I was an undergraduate I found it very amusing (albeit mystifying, because why bother, everyone can tell it’s fake) hearing my little friends code-switching between talking to mummy and daddy and being right on with the comrades.
I don’t know if you heard PMQs tday, but there were a couple of times when Starmer very subtly included a reference to Sunak’s wealth and detachment (IIRC, talk of not knowing what waiting on an NHS waiting list was like).
I have no problem with people being very rich, but for Sunak the effect of his background, upbringing and enormous wealth has been to detach him from reality. I remember him admitting, when he was younger and less cautious, that he knew no working-class people.
Watching this again has wound me up… his level of arrogance, even back then, is astounding.
Can’t we at least have one thread about French politics without drifting back to the UK?
Yes, good point. Apologies.
You don’t think there are useful comparisons to be made between the two men?
PS Thread drift is quite a common thing on the internet. I’m surprised you haven’t seen it before.
No, apart from also being youngest PM for quite a while.
And this thread could drift wherever people like, I am just a trifle bored by repeated drift to the UK and would have thought there are more interesting directions to drift toward. There are a lot of threads on UK politics that people can waft about in. Do people living here really have so little interest in France?
You’re free to ignore threads when you find them boring. That’s what the rest of us do. I i
I’m puzzled by the (very few) people who complain about thread drift, references to the UK etc. This is an Anglophone forum and most people here are British. We have a substantial common reference-point (apart from the bots!) and, if you accept the dinner-party analogy, those are hardly surprising.
I imagine there are Francophone forums where there is no such common reference-point, if UK references really upset you.
I don’t think I have ever complained about thread drift before, or even UK orientated drift. After all I have been responsible for several of these 
. And of course I can mute threads, and do so with most if not all UK political threads.
The link between people here is that we have moved (or wish to move) to FRANCE. So just a few threads that explore French politics to set against the hundreds on UK politics is surely not that absurd? I think currently French themes are perhaps 5%. Several of them yours which suggests you are interested.
One of the things I find most interesting is that a lot of French politicians come from a much narrower background even than UK politicians. I would criticise Sunak for never having had (what I would consider) a proper job, and for not knowing anyone from outside his (perhaps unusual) milieu: for French politicians (apart from those at the extreme) you can take that narrow background and raise it by several degrees! Attal is a case in point.
I think it’s a problem for France because it exacerbates inequality. If you’ve had a privileged upbringing and education, you’ll find it very difficult to conceive policies which decrease inequality.
Yes, according to what I have read, the education system tends to funnel anyone perceived to be a “high-flier” (or whose family has money) towards the “Grandes Ecoles”, especially “Sciences Po” if they have political aspirations.
Some would perhaps say the GEs are more meritocratic than British public schools and Oxbridge, but the effect of training an elite for power is probably similar.
The observation has been made several times, it’s just that - for whatever reason - UK politics has more traction here than French. Perhaps if it were not such a mess at the moment the balance would be different.
Not worthy of you, Porridge, sorry to say
Just thinking of France and young PMs, I found it interesting to read the other day about Laurent Fabius who became Prime Minister in July 1984 at the age of 38 and held the record for 39 years of being the youngest head of government of the Fifth Republic.
Macron, Borne and several ministers have acknowledged half-heartedly that the text of the immigration law includes very right-wing provisions, possibly and probably contrary to the Constitution.
Now president of the Conseil Constitutionnel, Fabius’ has told Macron that the Conseil is not “*a chamber of appeal for the choices of Parliament, it is the judge of the constitutionality of laws.
“In an advanced democratic regime like ours, we can always modify the state of the law, but to do this, we must always ensure that we respect the rule of law.”
It is reassuring that France has such a body as the Conseil Constitutionnel.
We were with French friends yesterday and saying we were ashamed to be Brits at the moment, trying to explain the debacle of the Post Office and the sheer brutality of the behaviour of everyone involved and our friends have the view that it is just as bad here in France. They loathe Macron with a deep and abiding loathing.
I hadn’t noticed Macron giving billions of € to his mates for dodgy PPE, nor trying to withdraw from the ECHR, nor wasting 11 billion by not understanding interest rates, nor costing the country 74 billion in a disastrous mini budget, nor ignoring his own lockdown rules, nor having multiple MPs having to resign because of sex scandals, nor trying to illegally shut down parliament, nor - well need I go on?
To coin a phrase “they don’t know they are born”.