Nothing has to change as long as France is willing to end the world for Finland and Russia believes they'll do it.
this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2025
465 points (100.0% liked)
Europe
3168 readers
1816 users here now
News and information from Europe 🇪🇺
(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)
Rules (2024-08-30)
- This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
- No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
- Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
- No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism.
- Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
- If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
- Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in [email protected]. (They're cool, you should subscribe there too!)
- Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
- No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
(This list may get expanded when necessary.)
We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.
If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.
If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the mods: @[email protected], @[email protected], or @[email protected].
founded 8 months ago
MODERATORS
Us too plz?
I'm sure we'll give you guys whatever you want in return, shit's getting really scary here in Canada.
They'll take Quebec off you.
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
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.
Yeah, 2 countries should be world leaders. Moldova and Romania
Last time France got to be a superpower they enslaved the west of Africa.
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.
France is still enslaving parts.
What are you refering to?
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.
can it be literally anyone else please? I worry that if the French get any more pompous they'll explode so fiercely that we won't need any nuclear weapons
LePen's party is on the cusp of taking the presidency.
It's crazy to see anymore excited about a more militant French government.
He said a lot of other good stuff too IMO.
Finally someone taking the russian and slso the american threat seriously.
UK has typically bowed to US.
France may our only Security Council Veto hope.
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.
UK isn't in the EU anyway
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.
The EU is both. There are EU joint battlegroups and a stronger mutual defense clause in the treaties than NATO.
I think the UK has to have US permission to use our nukes so they're useless now
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.
They did have to ask the USA for permission about giving permission to Ukraine using their Storm Shadows, because the guidance system is from the USA IIRC.
So not a totally crazy thought IMO.
I'm not expert, just remembered reading something to that effect. The other commenter seems to know more.
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.
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.
Sure, the crux is how long is eventually. We may need that sooner than we previously thought.
5-7 years iirc according to the article I read. After that failure rates start going up, not sure how long the curve from 0-100% is though.
Bottom line the UK (and the rest of the EU) need to start getting missile factories stood up. Not just for trident but for all the other arms we get off the US.
There is a joined nuclear planning group of NATO where France is not and never was part of (while the UK is) and thus, preserving independence in that matter.
They should oopsie whoopsie give Ukraine one. Seems fair since Ukraine only gave theirs up in exchange for American protection.
Say it fell out of the plane.
The Americans have lost a few over the years.
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.
Trying to imagine doing the Cuban Missile Crisis but we're replacing Castro, Kennedy, and Khrushchev with Zelenskyy, Macron, and Putin.
What could go wrong?
Oops, here's a couple dozen, looks like we mistakenly labeled a shipment.
I know he did some shitty stuff domestically, but hes one of the biggest eurobros.
Agreed. I'd like to see him in Von der Leyen's job once she's out.
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.
VdL was the Defense Minister in charge when the German military lost several subs to lack of maintenance from their ultimately not so big fleet in the first place.
She is definitely not the person who should be there, as she seems more interested in pushing through Chat Control than doing any kind of serious policy on Russia.
It's mostly a she's-corrupt-and-shouldn't-hold-any-public-office thing.
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?
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.
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.
ahah righto well yeah that’s all super shit
Frogs being based as always.