Jacobin Magazine: Macron’s Anniversary

It might seem odd for a democratic leader to refer to “people who are nothing,” but from the beginning of his presidency Macron has embraced this arrogant posture. His muscular liberalism adopts a tough “pull yourselves up by your bootstraps” line. In similar recent provocations he has called public-sector workers “slackers” and told students missing their studies for protests that they could not expect easy “chocolate-coated exams.”[...]

Twenty-five universities have been occupied in protest at the reforms, fearing the eventual creation of an American or British-style system in which the student-consumer takes out a massive debt as an “investment” in their education and future career. The occupiers fear that students will become a bit like a start-upper at Station F, not the recipient of a public service but a private entrepreneur selling themselves as a product. [...]

6.6 million French citizens are either unemployed or chronically underemployed. This figure has fallen slightly since 2017 but remains above pre-crisis levels. Alienation from the old parties has hardly won such voters to Macron, whose agenda entrenches the very processes that caused the disaster of ex-industrial France. Nor do Macron’s plans for European reform seem likely to survive contact with German opposition. [...]

The Front National remains beyond the pale for large swathes of the population. This toxic, xenophobic force was Macron’s ideal opposition as he sought to rally the Left to his “open,” neoliberal project. However, an IPSOS study after last May’s election found that just 16 percent of his vote owed to agreement to his program, 33 percent to “political renewal” and 43 percent to opposition to Le Pen.

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Social Europe: Renzi’s Last Call

“Within proportional electoral systems,” household-name Law professor Gustavo Zagrebelsky told the anti-Renzi Il Fatto Quotidiano newspaper, “everyone is called into play to try and win, even against all odds. In the end, of course, you can go into opposition if you’ve failed to negotiate. But [opposition] is not the default choice.”  [...]

Parallels with Spain are in fact multiple. Five Star share with Podemos a powerful anti-establishment rhetoric: the old system is portrayed as a caste of self-interested politicians. These are set against the general interests of ordinary individuals – society at large. According to this narrative, both socialists and conservatives are responsible, in equal measure, for the political and economic crises in Italy and Spain: Podemos and Five Star want to surpass what they define as the “fictional differences” between left and right. The real chasm lies – here they are in unison with UKIP’s Nigel Farage, their Strasbourg allies, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of euros from the EU – between the “people” and the “establishment.” [...]

So, maybe there is a slim chance for PD to regroup, from the high-backed opposition benches or not. Those PD deputies around outgoing prime minister Paolo Gentiloni are in favour of negotiating, but they’re in the minority. Although Gentiloni was always a “Renziano” himself, belonging to a certain current does not involve, on this specific issue, following or rejecting Renzi’s view by default. It’ll be a personal choice. Regrouping, after this, may thus commence on an individual basis. The sheer force of dialogue could restart a centre-left party that, after 11 years, is going through a middle-age crisis (politicians are still fairly old in Italy, but organisations are very young indeed).

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Business Insider: Theresa May's cabinet in chaos as Boris Johnson calls her Brexit plans 'crazy'

"If the EU decides to impose punitive tariffs on something the U.K. wants to bring in cheaply, there’s nothing you can do. That’s not taking back control of your trade policy, it’s not taking back control of your laws, it’s not taking back control of your borders and it’s actually not taking back control of your money either, because tariffs would get paid centrally back to Brussels. [...]

Johnson's preferred alternative of creating a new 'maximum facilitation' system would involve a new 'trusted trader' system, but would also produce border checks in Northern Ireland, which politicians from all side have warned would be a serious risk to the peace process in the province.

Both options would take up to five years to implement and have already been ruled out by EU officials as "magical thinking," with the Irish government threatening to veto any deal that does not retain current loose customs relations between Northern Ireland and the Republic. [...]

However, his public denouncement of plans being personally pushed by the prime minister is the clearest public test of her authority yet by a senior member of her cabinet and is likely to prompt a public response from May's spokesman when he appears before journalists on Tuesday lunchtime.

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Deutsche Welle: Germany: Crime rate drops, but fear rises

"Steepest decline of crime in 25 years," [...]

"It's crazy," he said. "Not a night goes by without some sort of crime movie on TV. We're being flooded with murder and homicide." [...]

According to the criminologist, Germany is currently going through a process that every migrant nation experiences when a lot of immigrants arrive at once. "It's a phase of insecurity because humans have learned for millennia that foreigners could be dangerous."

The sense of insecurity is especially high in large cities, where the proportion of immigrants has increased significantly in recent years. The reason, Pfeiffer said, wasn't an actual rise in crime, but "a perceived loss of "Heimat."

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Reuters: In India, boy victims of sex crimes don't get talked about

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government last month introduced the death penalty for rape of girls below 12 and increased the minimum punishment for those whose victims were under 16, after the rapes of an eight-year-old girl and a young woman in two states ruled by his party led to public protests. [...]

"I have interacted with adult male survivors and social workers who have cited police hostility, ridicule and even lack of trust when it comes to believing that a boy was sexually abused," she said. "The most common perception dished out to male survivors is that they may have enjoyed it."

The Mumbai police investigating the boy's rape, however, said officers are regularly trained on how to handle sexual abuse of children of both genders. The federal government is also running workshops for police that cover all children, said Stuti Kacker, head of the government's National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, which advises on child-related policies. [...]

A 2007 survey by the ministry of women and child development, which sampled 12,447 children in families, schools, at work and living on the street, found that more than half had faced sexual abuse, and 53 percent of victims were boys. For the capital Delhi, the figure was 60 percent. [...]

An unidentified father who was resistant to psychological care for his nine-year-old son after he had been raped, was quoted by the journal as saying: "He neither lost a hymen nor will get pregnant. He should behave like a man, not a sissy."

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