French Elections
TurquoiseTastic
Kerygmania Host
in Purgatory
So, 33% for LePen in the first round of the French elections as against 28% for the left-wing alliance and 20% for Macron's grouping. Any predictions for next week's second round and beyond? Are we going to see an RN prime minister next week and what will the consequences be?
Comments
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/01/emmanuel-macron-marine-le-pen-france-far-right
Their publicly stated policies are almost irrelevant; the biggest dangers with fascists are what they don't say out loud.
Some massive horse trading is currently going on, because of the vagaries of our electoral system. To get into the second round, you need at least 12.5% of the first round vote. Given the number of parties, most of the time this leads to a run-off between two candidates. However, this time deals were done prior to the first round. The left-wing parties made a coalition and agreed to only field a single candidate in each constituency, and the centrists did the same. As a result, there are an unusually high number of three-way contests.
This is where it gets a bit unpredictable. Mélenchon has already given a clear instruction that left-wing candidates who came third in the first round should drop out in favour of whoever is not the RN. I think the same thing is happening in the centre, although the negotiations are still ongoing and we'll only know in a couple of days time when the official candidates are confirmed.
Worst case scenario is an absolute majority for the RN. Best case scenario is some sort of coalition of the left and the centre. Because Bardella doesn't want to lead a minority government, or he claims, this can happen even if they get the most seats.
*or more likely to my mind, his handlers. Bardella is 28 years old and doesn't seem very bright to me. I'm convinced he's a puppet for other people.
Well, the citizenship issue spreads out, since many things seem to hinge on it. Thus, housing, benefits, health, etc., could be restricted. Would they really say that Mbappe isn't French?
The reason Bardella needs a majority (and preferably the presidency as well) is that some of their signatures might well be thrown out as anti-constitutional.
Almost like they learned from the example of their neighbour 90 years ago.
I haven't yet spoken to my sister about her reaction, but I suspect she would say much the same as @la vie en rouge has posted above.
They get closer every time though. It looks like either this time or next time will be the one.
If they do get elected, they're not headed for an easy ride. This is France, after all. Protesting and going on strike are our national sports, and if there's a RN Prime Minister, there's going to be prodigious amounts of both.
Perhaps, but from what one hears and reads, there's a chance that the worst-case scenario may not happen.
Strikes would definitely come from the Trades Unions and the left. Don't know about riots.
Like I said, the whole situation feels very unpredictable to me.
Which neighbour do you mean? (Just for my education)
The one where other parties failed to squeeze out a far-right party about 90 years ago? We can probably rule out Spain, since Franco didn't rise to power electorally.
Germany, where the Nazis got into power initially with a vote in the 30%s because centrists and conservatives gave them house room.
What was the reaction to this on French media? Mixed, I daresay, but mostly hostile, hopefully?
The exception is anything owned by the media tycoon Vincent Bolloré, who is a very scary individual with IMO clear sympathies for the far right. I don't know what his channels are saying because I can't stand watching them.
One can only hope (and pray, if one thinks it might help) that Sunday's elections go badly for the RN.
Long years ago, I was at Mass in Perpignan Cathedral on a Sunday when some sort of vote regarding the EU was being held in France (it may have been 2005 or 2006).
In his homily, the priest referred to the vote, and sternly informed us in no uncertain terms *C'est votre devoir de voter non!* (It is your duty to vote No).
I don't think I've ever heard such a clear political message (or order!) in an English church (I'm C of E, but usually turn RC when in France).
In French Canada, Le ciel est bleu, l'enfer est rouge was reportedly how Catholic priests would telegraph "Vote Tory, not Liberal" to their parishioners.
Is Melenchon any more radical than Corbyn?
Red was associated with radical politics at least as far back as the French Revolution. Wikipedia has a hypothesis linked to military signalling but how reliable that is I'm not sure.
Well, in the British socialist anthem The Red Flag, the flag's colour is linked to the blood of the martyred workers. I've always understood this to be the reason for the hue of the old Soviet and current Chinese flags as well.
One of the ancestral parties to Canada's Liberals was the 19th Century parti rouge, who had some historical association with revolutionary martyrdom via the Rebellion Of 1837. I'm guessing, though, that the colouring was linked to the schematum from the French Revolution, though possibly that was blood related as well?
When Canada adopted its current flag in the 1960s, I believe some of the opposition was based on the suspicion that the Liberal colours were being given high prominence. Red did appear as the background and on the leafs of the old ensign, but on that banner it was offset by the Union Jack and coat of arms.
Literally: Have you seen the sky?
I wonder if French speakers hearing that today understand the original connection with Heaven, or if it's just that the sky is something that's really blue so it reminds them of the tories.
They know. The English-speaking Tories also know. That's why they do it.
I have voted. My constituency was a two way contest between the centre and the left. I voted with no great conviction for the left. I am going back later to count votes (and consequently will learn the results later than the people who are home in front of their TV).
I predict that the RN are getting the most seats but no absolute majority. Gridlock is the end result.
ETA the Constitution of the Fifth Republic will not allow another election for at least 12 months.
It certainly is dramatic. Macron will no doubt see it as vindication.
Well, the exit poll was spot-on here, so yes...
🙏
If the exit polls are right, then even with help from some MPs of the center-right Les Republicains, the National Rally can't get an absolute majority, so Bardella won't be PM. So there are two other possibilities:
1. Some kind of grand coalition is formed, at least for confidence and supply, between Macron's party and most of the New Popular Front, maybe excluding Melenchon and his core supporters in La France Insoumise but probably including at least some MPs in Melenchon's party such as Francois Ruffin that have already made their differences with Melenchon public. This would probably only work if Macron were willing to work with a PM from the Socialists or Greens.
2. An even more uneasy grand coalition were formed, if the first option is not possible, between Macron's party, the less radical parties in the New Popular Front (including the Socialists, not sure if the Greens would be willing or welcomed to join), and some part of Les Republicains. There would be pressure for the PM to not be part of Macron's party, given his unpopularity. Is there any way in the French system for Macron to appoint someone outside the parliament and therefore currently unaffiliated with any party to be PM, even if the rest of the cabinet is made up of parties in the Frankenstein coalition?
3. Macron says that there is no way to form a majority (after trying, or appearing to try), and appoints a technocratic government (has this ever been done in France, during or before the Fifth Republic? Does any government, even a technocratic one, need to survive a vote of confidence in the legislature? I think there is some kind of emergency rule by decree power that Macron has that he could use to appoint a technocratic government without the passing of a vote of confidence, but is that (which sounds very extreme) what French journalists mean when they mention the possibility of a technocratic government?
P.S. One more question: Macron himself cannot dissolve the legislature and call new parliamentary elections for a year now. But if the legislature itself cannot vote in a government or a budget, or if a government that is voted in falls in a confidence vote, can there be new parliamentary elections before a year passes?
I don't know if this is a good result as such, but it could certainly have been far worse. It has at least defanged the fash for the time being, but the big question is what happens next.
I think the most likely scenario is that Macron will try to find a Prime Minister from the left. Mélenchon is right out and probably wouldn't take the job even he was offered it. The leaders of the Socialists, Ecologists and Communists might accept. Getting anything voted through the Assembly is going to be complicated, though, and I don't think anyone fancies risking a confidence vote. This might not be such a bad thing, because the only way anything's going to get done is with consensus building, but time will tell whether this is going to happen, or whether we'll end up with complete paralysis.
Ever since Macron dissolved the Assembly, the question every political journalist has been trying to answer is "what the hell was he thinking?" I'm not sure we're all that much closer to an answer, even if he has taken the wind out of the RN's sails.
I see from the Noos today that President Macron has asked M Attal to stay on as PM for the time being, presumably on account of the difficulties faced in forming some sort of workable coalition.
I wonder if perhaps M Macron's gamble (for surely it was a gamble) will pay off?
This is an interesting test of the institutions of the Fifth Republic.
At one level, they've worked very well. The RN are busy decrying the other parties for gaming the system, but ISTM that the system has worked exactly as it's meant to. The whole rationale behind the two round system in France is that you can’t get elected without getting a majority of the vote. This election has again proved that the majority of us will vote for quite literally anyone else before we'll vote RN. They didn't get elected because most of us didn't want them.
At the same time, the Fifth Republic is rather based on the assumption that there will be a majority, which is why it looks like we're headed for a political quagmire unless somehow one can be put together.
*or, as I said before, I think it's more accurate to say the people pulling Bardella's strings.
My sister is in England this weekend, when I'll be able to hear her take on it all. She and her husband, who is Slovenian, are both of a left-wing persuasion, so I know they'll be cautiously optimistic...