French Elections

The parties of the left are (mainly) making the necessary moves to pull candidates where it will help stop RN, but that hasn’t yet been reciprocated properly by those to the right of them.

The parties of the left are (mainly) making the necessary moves to pull candidates where it will help stop RN, but that hasn’t yet been reciprocated properly by those to the right of them.

quite a few centrists have now pulled out in favour of leftists and  theres only 20 odd seats in 3 way constituencies that dont have a centre/left pact of some sort against an RN candidate, Macron has 2 of his ministers who still wont budge on a pact with the left- a sign of how weakened he is & one of them is probably angling to become president in 27 and wants the centre right vote

Question is whether the centre/left voters will get behind these candidates to keep LePen out

lemonde has a really useful tool here to look at it all (google translate in chrome for us monoglots)

https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2024/07/02/legislatives-2024-qui-sera-candidat-au-second-tour-apres-les-desistements-suivez-le-decompte_6245837_4355771.html

and their live blog is great

https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/live/2024/07/02/en-direct-legislatives-2024-lfi-refusera-de-participer-a-une-grande-coalition-comme-l-a-propose-gabriel-attal-repond-manuel-bompard_6245747_823448.html

Thanks.

And Molgrips who has absolutely nothing to say about the French Elections piles on in all the same.

That wasn’t a pile on, trying to point out what the issue is.

I’m here to learn about the elections, since I don’t know much.

And to update, with an hour to go before the submission deadline

theres 300ish 3 way run offs

of those 130 left/far left & 82 centrist have withdrawn candidates  which is roughly proportional based on the numbers  won in the 1sr tound

of the 100 or so remaining most have some sort of pact in place if not a full withdrawl and some rw parties are staying in to try& split the far right vote, its madness!

RN came first here followed by Macron and Front populaire.
Should be tight on sunday .

Edit. Front populaire has withdrawn .

The RN guy lives in Switzerland and never came here .
People voting for him are fcing idiots .

How much of it is genuine support and how much of it is simply a vote to give the establishment a bloody nose?

Many Brexit voters were fed up here and just voted for something different, irrespective of the consequences

@ElShalimo it certainly is an anti Macron protest vote, to a certain extent. He hasn’t exactly showered himself in glory over the years with his lack of empathy.  Tapie’s broom wagon analogy is still relevant, probably even moreso nowadays.

Le Front National, c’est la voiture-balai du Tour de France. Vous savez, la voiture-balai, c’est celle qui ramasse tous ceux qui n’ont pas réussi. Le Front National, c’est pareil, il ramasse tous ceux qui sont déçus par la gauche et par la droite, ceux qui ne se retrouvent nulle part ailleurs. Mais il ne faut pas se tromper, cette voiture-balai, elle ne mène nulle part, elle ne fait que suivre le peloton et ramasser les débris.

Thanks

assuming the centre/left turn out and vote, theres a good chance LePen wont get near enough for her majority

But Macron will be weakened and blocked from implementing what he wants at home and in Europe, that will make life tougher for the EU & Ukraine

As of last night's deadline, we have now seen a total of 221 qualified candidates pulling out to avoid splitting the vote:

?Nouveau Front Populaire – 132
?Diverse left – 1
?Ensemble – 83
?Les Républicains + Diverse Right – 2
–
⚪️Front Républicain total – 217 withdrawals
-… pic.twitter.com/zSJRQyFu5b

— Julien Hoez (@JulienHoez) July 3, 2024

Is this going to be a Brexit moment?

FR_NF_it ?

Is this going to be a Brexit moment?

Doubtful, the right have moved away from that idea, e.g. Geert Wilders in the Netherlands rowed back after his election. Most polls suggest a hung national assembly in France, however, the electorate might not do what the establishment expects, which is to vote to keep RN out

France and a few others are running their economies in contravention of EU fiscal rules on debt and have been for a while, so expect that to continue whether left or right gain sufficient traction. Debt will probably worsen, reversal of certain Macron policies, reduction in co-operation within the EU, etc

I don’t mean Frexit, I mean a point that splits the country in two.

You could say that already happened with the gilet jaune movement @molgrips. They were back out on a roundabout near me last week, i’d almost forgotten about them!

First poll on the 2nd round has RN falling pretty well short of the majority

Anyone able to give an intelligent summary of what the recent exit polls mean?

Le Pens boys took one hell of a beating

TLDR:  Vivè le France!

Mèlenchon is a bit of an arse but he’s in a different league of terrible to the result that was feared.

Great example of what progressives can do if they stop bickering for once.

Haha. I’ve been thinking this for a while

Each poll saw the popular front numbers grow and the RNs shrink

Tres ironique, if fear of LePen ends up giving the left the most number of seats the the assembly, something they'd never have got whithout the RNs 1st round success

— Chris Kimberley (@ChrisKimberley) July 7, 2024

Proper fashy tears, how sweet they fall

Absolute scenes

Now certain that RN will come third. Ouch!https://t.co/wi8U2tfGNM pic.twitter.com/FMy8c8B2Pf

— Owen Winter (@OwenWntr) July 7, 2024

I bet Reform have wasted a whole lot of time creating content ready to put online in preparation for an RN victory.

Wonderful.

Anyone able to give an intelligent summary of what the recent exit polls mean?

I am not sure its anything to celebrate,

After a battering in the first round the left and centrists have just about managed to make a fragile coalition for round two.

It came close to failing and I wouldnt be surprised if in the presidential elections in a couple of years time it does.

Thank **** for that.

Last thing we needed was a bunch of fascists only 21 miles away.

Now need the Americans to see sense and not elect the orange sub-human felon again. That may be a big ask as there’s LOTS of inbreds that are too dumb to see it for what it really is.

Thank **** for that.

Last thing we needed was a bunch of fascists only 21 miles away.

Now need the Americans to see sense and not elect the orange sub-human felon again. That may be a big ask as there’s LOTS of inbreds that are too dumb to see it for what it really is.

I fear the EU will have to go it alone against Russia, we can’t bank on the USA for support.

Yep.

Really need Biden to send all thr kit this year and put lots into storage in Germany and Poland if needs be (not under USA control so the Felon can’t retract it)

I am not sure its anything to celebrate

Not losing to the far right is always something to celebrate, even if it you need to win next time as well.

France has to be governed in the meantime and it would appear that the reality to be able to do this is very shaky. As said above, these alliances are very artificial and the general view seems to be that they won’t hold together and agree very much at all.

Maybe having the spectre of the far right just over their shoulders will make them more pragmatic!

I am not sure its anything to celebrate,
After a battering in the first round the left and centrists have just about managed to make a fragile coalition for round two.
It came close to failing and I wouldnt be surprised if in the presidential elections in a couple of years time it does.

It isn’t just me then! There’s a lot of back-slapping going for what isn’t a great result for a roll of the dice.

France has to be governed in the meantime and it would appear that the reality to be able to do this is very shaky. As said above, these alliances are very artificial and the general view seems to be that they won’t hold together and agree very much at all.

This was exactly the problem that France had yesterday, with the added bonus of an increased number of seats for RN, the resignation of the PM, the loss of centrist seats, the strong possibility of a President co-habiting with the left, rather than his own party, etc.

He’ll have to watch key policies rolled back on pension age, and minimum wage, etc. The economy will worsen and be further outside EU rules, etc.

With nothing heard from the President (who hasn’t been seen yet) and a period of paralysis just before the Olympic Games, c’est magnifique!

France has to be governed in the meantime and it would appear that the reality to be able to do this is very shaky. As said above, these alliances are very artificial and the general view seems to be that they won’t hold together and agree very much at all.

This was exactly the problem that France had yesterday, with the added bonus of an increased number of seats for RN, the resignation of the PM, the loss of centrist seats, the strong possibility of a President co-habiting with the left, rather than his own party, etc.

He’ll have to watch key policies rolled back on pension age, and minimum wage, etc. The economy will worsen and be further outside EU rules, etc.

With nothing heard from the President (who hasn’t been seen yet) and a period of paralysis just before the Olympic Games, c’est magnifique!

The economy will worsen

Why should raising the minimum wage and rolling back pension ages make the economy worse?

The last thing progressive parties should do is continue to voice the framework of neoliberalism that has brought the right so close to power. The right are focussing on the problems and giving false answers, it is time the left (and especially the centrists) stopped burying their heads in the sand about the problems of neoliberalism and started arguing for progressive solutions.

Why should raising the minimum wage and rolling back pension ages make the economy worse?

Increasing the minimum wage tends to increase inflation, you’re not just raising minimum wage, you’re having to raise each level after that usually due to the gaps being reduced between staff and staff with more responsibility. There is a weird circular effect that means those getting payrises, then tend to gain additional costs due to inflation.

The pensions age is a huge issue, in France it went up from 62 to 64, so to go back down without the working years guarantee would bring a lot more costs onto the governments books over the period in office.

Increasing the minimum wage tends to increase inflation,

That is just neolibral dogma, and frankly absolute bollocks.

The following is just a few anecdotes from a recent trip – not 100% sure why I’m sharing, but some of it’s given me things to think about.

I happened to be staying in Nantes for a few nights last week.  On the 1st night, me and my mate went for a wander and found a local event called Les Jeux de Bretagne (The Brittany Games), there was lots of fun stuff going on (bands, booze, pottery-based-basketball), but on the way in someone tried handing us National Rally flyers.  Other than that it was a great event.

We wandered on from there to do some sight-seeing, after a while we spotted a street with lots of bars/cafes etc so headed down there (many had rainbows, so I assumed a pretty liberal area).  We spotted the Euros playing on a screen in one bar and went in to catch the 2nd half.  While in there we got chatting to the locals, it was one of those random nights – someone get a round of drinks in – it turns out to be the landlords birthday – another round – much merriment – left a lot later than intended – woke feeling pretty rough the next morning, but we’d had a good time.  We decided to try to find the bar again a day or 2 later, and found it with the shutters down – shutters that had “RN” in huge graffiti bubble-writing on them.

shutters that had “RN” in huge graffiti bubble-writing on them.

Round here (Germany) the graffiti artists have been painting the EU flag on telekom boxes.

This looked like a commissioned piece rather than random graffiti, in fact they have it set as their cover photo on their Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/auplaizhere/

(not sure why Andy Capp is on it…)

Why should raising the minimum wage and rolling back pension ages make the economy worse?

They weren’t specifically linked sentences, however, the European Commission noted the following in its review of the European economy:

“France continues to experience imbalances. Vulnerabilities related to high government debt, and competitiveness and low productivity growth…”. Increasing the retirement age would help increase productivity because there would be less frequent churn of experienced workers.

Pensions are also linked to debt, “According to the September 2022 projections by the pension advisory council (Conseil d’orientation des Retraites, COR), the current pension system would accumulate deficits in the long term of EUR 12.4 billion in 2027, EUR 13.5 billion in 2030 and EUR 21 billion in 2035. The measures envisaged by the reform are expected to bring the system back to balance by 2030, thanks to net savings…” https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2023-05/ip213_en.pdf

President Macron has broken his days of public silence with a letter to the press, so clearly not the result that he gambled on https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/french-left-centrists-tussle-form-government-2024-07-10/

He can say that as a result of the election that France doesn’t have a far-right PM, but that wasn’t the case before the election anyway.

The election put the far-left France Unbowed (LFI) ahead on seats in the left-wing alliance (NFP). The LFI has views on NATO, the EU and Israel that aren’t mainstream in France

@edukator choice, Raphaël Glucksmann has suggested the more moderate Laurent Berger as PM, what’s your take, Ed?

The LFI has views on NATO, the EU and Israel that aren’t mainstream in France

How much out of odds are they with mainstream public opinion? According to a YouGov poll a week ago only 13% of French voters sympathise with Israel most:

https://yougov.co.uk/international/articles/45869-attitudes-israel-palestine-conflict-western-europe

And whilst I don’t doubt that NATO membership is popular how widespread is that popularity? I can’t imagine that it is that popular, certainly not as popular as in Britian, even  conservative politicians have a long history of holding NATO at arms length due to US dominance over the alliance. When I did my military service France wasn’t even a member of NATO and that was under a right-wing president. Obviously it did work closely with NATO though, but it wasn’t integrated into the NATO command structure.