French presidential election, 2017

[Pérou Flaquettes]

French presidential election, 2017

Diable Rouge wrote: Latest Assembly poll:
En Marche 32% (+3)
LR 19% (-1)
FN 19% (-1)
FI 15% (+1)
PS 6% (-1)

Another 2 polls this week were more measured for En Marche (~ 27% I think) but yes, he could well end up with an outright majority next month, which would be quite something (but relatively low confidence ratings for both Macron and his Prime minister have to be factored into these projections ).

[Pérou Flaquettes]

French presidential election, 2017

Diable Rouge wrote: Seat projection (535 mainland France seats):
En Marche 280-300
Republicans 150-170
Socialists 40-50
France Insoumise 20-25
FN 10-15

Impressive (notwithstanding what I've just written about his confidence ratings).

Especially as En Marche could do well too in the 42 missing constituencies in your poll, 38 of them Overseas French Territories (27 seats) or constituencies for French residents overseas (11*), except of course in the 17 Overseas French Territories where En Marche won't be fielding anyone! (sorry for this Lapalissade...).

I reckon he could win at least 15 of the 23 (?) seats where En Marche will be present (candidates who let’s not forget may not always appear under they En Marche label – I know, it’s confusing… – for instance Macron’s new Overseas Territories minister whom I was talking about 2 days ago, Annick Girardin, will be running in St Pierre et Miquelon constituency under the Parti Socialiste banner (well, the PRG one to be anally precise).

I can see him winning for instance the 3rd constituency for French residents overseas, in other words “our constituency”, the British one (there are also another 9 countries in it, all the Scandinavian & Baltic countries + Ireland but the UK represents 80% of the voters, 140,000 out of 173,000).

[*a Sarkozy creation to have more seats at the Assemblée Nationale as the French abroad are/were traditionally thought to be fairly right-wing, at least those who are registered voters – before that, it was just the senators, 12 of them, who represented the French abroad –, except his little wheeze backfired and the right only won 3 seats/out of 11 in 2012, the Socialists winning 7 and the Greens 1]

[ursus arctos]

French presidential election, 2017

Wonderful stuff as always

I've been to the Actes Sud space in Arles, and it is indeed marvelous. Nyssen's involvement is a good sign.

The US system is Gaullist in effect, if not inspiration. Cabinet secretaries (i.e., ministers) can be chosen from Congress, but any who are must immediately resign their seats (thus a number of the special elections we have this spring).

I would argue that we don't have a true "civil society" in the French sense of the term, but cabinet secretaries tend to be chosen from business, think tanks (the traditional refuge of senior officials when their party loses power), state and local government, the military and (to a lesser extent) academia. Many of those people would not have attended what we consider he closest equivalents to the grandes ecoles (though there are very real differences), so our pool of potential candidates is broader.

One effect of the rule about resigning one's seat is that a President guarding a narrow majority will not appoint anyone from an anything but very safe seat. Another is that senior members of Congress will often prefer their current positions to a cabinet seat.

As someone who has worked with (not for) EdF and Areva, I can only imagine what effect Hulot's appointment is Having in their executive suites.

[Tubby Isaacs]

French presidential election, 2017

I'd be pleased if the Socialists beat those Insoumise clowns.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

French presidential election, 2017

ursus arctos wrote: Wonderful stuff as always

I've been to the Actes Sud space in Arles, and it is indeed marvelous. Nyssen's involvement is a good sign.

The US system is Gaullist in effect, if not inspiration. Cabinet secretaries (i.e., ministers) can be chosen from Congress, but any who are must immediately resign their seats (thus a number of the special elections we have this spring).

I would argue that we don't have a true "civil society" in the French sense of the term, but cabinet secretaries tend to be chosen from business, think tanks (the traditional refuge of senior officials when their party loses power), state and local government, the military and (to a lesser extent) academia. Many of those people would not have attended what we consider he closest equivalents to the grandes ecoles (though there are very real differences), so our pool of potential candidates is broader.

One effect of the rule about resigning one's seat is that a President guarding a narrow majority will not appoint anyone from an anything but very safe seat. Another is that senior members of Congress will often prefer their current positions to a cabinet seat.

Thanks for the info. The US political mores re the civil society involvement in politics are comparable to the UK example judging from your reply. No Grandes Écoles or ENA (or equivalent) fast-track route to power here in the UK either, although the road to the political top is equally well mapped out, particularly since the 1960’s (public school, then Oxbridge), so I suppose we might as well have an ENA in the UK as we seem to have the same sort of Énarquie-heavy type of administration at the highest echelons in the way it functions and comes across, ie hopelessly and viscerally disconnected from everyday reality.

And come to think of it, “Enarchy in the UK” would have quite a nice ring to it… Though I’d hate to see Brexit-Farage-Trump supporter Johnny Rotten coming back to our UK shores to cash in on that, I’m more than happy for him to stay stateside forever.

[ursus arctos]

French presidential election, 2017

Quite.

It would seem that reading PPE at Oxford may correlate even more with high political office in England than attending ENA does in France.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

French presidential election, 2017

Possibly, yes (ENArques are ubiquitous though, it's like a cult, Macron's 4 top advisers that he appointed first thing on Wednesday are all ENArques, namely Ismaël Emelien, 30; Alexis Kohler, 44; Philippe Etienne, 61; Patrick Strzoda, 65).

I’ll add or reiterate one thing about the French situation (not sure I’ve mentioned it) re those cabinet ministers who have to win their parliament seat in order to keep their portfolio: they do not get to sit at the Assemblée Nationale, it’s their suppléant (substitute) who does, de facto (a controversial measure, as up to now or a few years ago, I can’t quite remember when exactly, there was a by-election), they just couldn’t do both, especially now with the new and less new anti-cumul des mandats directives & legislation, it’s for instance no longer possible since March of this year to be both MP and mayor or head of the regional/departmental council, no more “député-maire” or “sénateur-maire”, it truly is the end of a very well-anchored French tradition (for obvious reasons people like their mayor to be an MP too, it gives you more exposure, more clout as a town/city/department – therefore more money, more jobs etc. – and being an MP is a springboard for higher functions too – such as minister – which could yield the area substantial benefits if you are in office long enough or several times (a French classic). Then you’re potentially talking serious extra little perks. One instance that springs to mind: François Fillon, who managed to get a TGV station for the small town (pop: 12,000) of Sablé-sur-Sarthe, whereas there are already two TGV stations within 30-odd miles of Sablé (Le Mans and Angers). Sablé has been his fiefdom since the early 80’s, that was in the mid-2000’s when he got the TGV station (he wasn’t Prime minister then, just a sénateur but the whole thing of bringing the TGV to Sablé took the best part of 2 decades, and he had already been minster five times (!) in that period).

I understand where Fillon’s coming from and they’re all at it anyway (it’s called “clientélisme” in French political jargon) but that 2-mile detour that the TGV line Le Mans-Rennes had to do to get to tiny Sablé + the necessary transformations to make the small Sablé station TGV-compatible cost the taxpayer some €40 million… (and I think that the same sort of TGV-deviation carry-on happened again in Sablé a few years ago, this time to get Sablé connected to the Le Mans-Nantes TGV line. God knows how much that bit cost as well...).

[ursus arctos]

French presidential election, 2017

But Fillon wasn't the only important political figure in Sablé.

There was his wife, and his kids . . . .

Far be it from me to claim any superiority at all for the US system, but when the official in charge of Newark Airport coerced United Airlines into providing a direct flight to and from his South Carolina weekend home, both he and the United CEO lost their jobs and the public official narrowly avoided jail time.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

French presidential election, 2017

ursus arctos wrote: But Fillon wasn't the only important political figure in Sablé.

There was his wife, and his kids . . . .

Far be it from me to claim any superiority at all for the US system, but when the official in charge of Newark Airport coerced United Airlines into providing a direct flight to and from his South Carolina weekend home, both he and the United CEO lost their jobs and the public official narrowly avoided jail time.

Yes, you're right, his wife especially (BTW, Fillon's suing the Canard Enchaîné, for defamation I think, but I haven't checked, heard it on the radio last week I think it was. Well, good luck to him because many have tried but few have managed to successfully sue the chained duck).

There's more accountability in the US I reckon.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

French presidential election, 2017

ursus arctos wrote:
As someone who has worked with (not for) EdF and Areva, I can only imagine what effect Hulot's appointment is Having in their executive suites.

Hulot certainly has got his work cut, I wonder if he hasn’t bitten off more than he can chew though. I cannot see how he’s going to smoothly implement the main thrust of Macron’s programme (what programme?...) without ruffling many many big, powerful feathers (euphemism of the week). Seriously, how long can Hulot realistically hope to last, have you seen what Macron wants to do with the nuclear energy stuff? It's bold... Apparently, Macron wasn't too keen on including the "energy" bit in Hulot's ecological remit (sounds like, just like Hollande, that he was going to drag his feet to get on with and implement the 2015 law, the "law on energy transition and green growth", see below) but Hulot twisted his arm on this one and got assurances from Macron that he could go ahead with this energy transition from nuclear to renewables. Macron's not particularly pro-nuclear but I think he's worried about the short-term effects on the economy this could have and the job losses this nuclear downsizing programme could cause (and the turmoil all of this could generate of course, incl. with the unions).

For his biggest challenge by far will be to implement Hollande’s government’s “loi relative à la transition énergétique pour la croissance verte” (law on energy transition and green growth) adopted in 2015 (needless to say, not much has been done since then). On paper, it already looks an uphill task (going from 77% nuclear to 50% by 2025) but in concrete terms, it’s even scarier: it means shutting down 20 nuclear reactors out of 59 currently in activity, in just 8 years, whilst sourcing at the same time a much higher % of energy (well, just electricity for the minute if I’m not mistaken) from renewables, i.e via solar, wind + hydroelectric power (which stands at approx. 15% at the moment in France, so switching to 45-50% renewables in barely 10 years will be an uphill task).

I’m no expert but technically, apparently, it’s just about feasible as building solar and wind power farms doesn’t take decades (although sourcing quality solar panels/installations in huge quantity can’t be that easy I would imagine) but politically it’s a different kettle of fish altogether, tens of thousands of jobs would disappear, huge financial losses too, so yeah, I can see why the big players are very nervous these days, there’s already some negative noise coming out of Nuclear Energy Plc Towers about the current unit 3 at the dodgy Flamanville nuclear plant in Normandy (incidents a few months ago), Areva has confirmed 2 days ago that they want to go ahead with it whereas Macron's & Hulot's plan is to progressively shut down the ageing or troublesome plants (not quite sure where that’ll leave to Hinkley Point C either in the UK, an EDF-Chinese venture, as it’s linked to Flamanville if I’ve understood correctly but I may well have got my wires crossed on this one).

We should find out reasonably soon anyway, I would expect Hulot to be given his “feuille de route” (action plan) in the coming days or weeks.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

French presidential election, 2017

Another community of interest who are said to be unhappy at Hulot’s appointment is the hunters, who number about 2 million people in France, they have rural clout and can be pretty vocal. Apparently, Hulot has got some beef with them or against the "pro hunting lobby", am not sure how and why though, I haven't googled it or anything, it was a French friend of mine who was telling me that yesterday.

Quite a few parliamentarians are hunters themselves or very pro-hunting, especially the senators, renowned for being bon vivants, eg the legendary Gérard Larcher, the current president of the Sénat, a keen hunter-gourmet himself, photos below

– photos taken from a TV programme where they showed him cook, in the Sénat superb kitchens, partridges that he’d just shot in the Rambouillet forest near Paris (fucking state-of-the-art stuff these kitchens! I visited them many years ago now as an uncle of mine used to work at the Sénat, he's long retired now but his son works there too now. Exceptional building BTW, if you’ve got a chance to see it, great location too on the edge of the Gardens of Luxembourg in central Paris, the whole interior is breath-taking but the Sénat library is particularly stunning. You can actually visit parts of it on the heritage weekend in September (long queues though, get there as early as poss) but also via your local senator if you live in France, some senators/their staff love to take groups there and show them around; just like in England with the Lords, French people are usually dubious about the usefulness of the 348 senators, so the Sénat tries to make up for that distrust somehow by taking time to show groups around this fabulous place, go into its history, explain the role of the Sénat etc. as well as trying to persuade those visiting citizens that yes, they do work hard in there and are dead useful! Some senators/staff are great raconteurs and historians – as in fond of history – so it usually makes for a very interesting visit).

Gérard Larcher, the president of the Sénat, hard at work in his office…

[Pérou Flaquettes]

French presidential election, 2017

I bet the farmers aren’t too keen on Hulot either... Hulot has long questioned the dominant (intensive and pesticide-heavy) forms of production in French farming and would like to see far more agro-ecological practices being implemented, that sort of thing. About the hunters, I've just found this:

http://www.liberation.fr/france/2017/05/18/nomination-de-hulot-une-provocation-pour-les-chasseurs_1570526

La Fédération nationale des chasseurs a elle aussi parlé de «provocation» et dit craindre d’avoir «le premier ministre de l’Ecologie anti-chasse» mercredi, après la nomination de Nicolas Hulot.

I bet all of these people (EDF, Areva, the hunters, the farmers etc.) can’t wait to see Monsieur Hulot go on some vacances for a long while (sorry for this tatty comment).

[Diable Rouge]

French presidential election, 2017

The FN quietly scrap both Frexit and the franc.

[Tubby Isaacs]

French presidential election, 2017

It's just us and America riding the populist backlash then, for sure.

[ursus arctos]

French presidential election, 2017

Nah, you've still got the strange bedfellows of M5S and the Lega Nord in Italy, not to mention all kinds of nutjobs in Central Europe.

[Tubby Isaacs]

French presidential election, 2017

I'd forgotten about Italy.

[Lang Spoon]

French presidential election, 2017

Is Grillo actually working with the racist scumbags in Lega Nord? Shameless bastard.

[Tubby Isaacs]

French presidential election, 2017

It's not the only scumbags he's working with,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe_of_Freedom_and_Direct_Democracy

[Diable Rouge]

French presidential election, 2017

He then applied to join ALDE, but unsurprisingly, they rejected 5 Star's application.

[ursus arctos]

French presidential election, 2017

This is a pretty remarkable poll, from a usually reliable source

If Macron actually wins 400 seats, what happens next will be fascinating.

[laverte]

French presidential election, 2017

Crikey.

If Macron makes a success of this administration, I do wonder what the future holds for the Parti Socialiste. It could be staring at oblivion. Ironically the last time a French political party was eclipsed it was the Parti Radical, outflanked by the Socialists/SFIO after world war two. The Radical tradition is now led by François Bayrou and J-L Borloo, high-profile supporters of Macron and his organisation. (Bayrou is the new minister of state.)

In terms of the share of the vote it looks like the main parties will be En Marche (centre-right), Les Républicains (traditional right) and Front National (far right). Grim.

[linus]

French presidential election, 2017

The PS brass has engineered its transformation into a blairite modern party combining identity politics with neoliberal economic policies, so that it can run those policies unhindered, with Macron as the fresh horse. he has had the full support of people like Hollande, Fabius, Delanoë, Valls or Royal right from the start. The funny part is that people like Robert Hue, who has been the leading figure of the venerable Parti Communiste, are also on board.

About half the leadership of the LR are also on board, but their full absorption into Macron's "UMPS" is going to be more difficult (at least in the long run). EM having already absorbed the PS is now focusing on LR, its rebranding as "LREM" is not a coincidence. Their goal is to reshape the French political landscape into one dominant party opposed by two anti-establishment parties from the left (Mélenchon) and the right (leftover LR + rebranded FN).

These two opposition blocks are ideologically irreconcilable with each other and have individually a low ceiling by nature, making that big dominant party difficult to unseat, so the vision behind this reshuffling is really brilliant.

[Tubby Isaacs]

French presidential election, 2017

Hollande and all haven't done badly seeing he was on 4% a while ago.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

French presidential election, 2017

ursus arctos wrote: This is a pretty remarkable poll, from a usually reliable source

If Macron actually wins 400 seats, what happens next will be fascinating.

Impressive indeed, especially as he’s been polling about 30 % in the last week by the looks of it (I’ve just checked on the Net, I haven’t followed this Législative campaign closely at all), so it’s excellent really in terms of vote-seat translation for Macron.

On seeing your poll ursus, my first reaction was that 385-415 seats for LREM-MoDem must surely be the “fourchette haute” (the higher end of seat predictions) but I’ve just googled it and it’s in line with the last 3-4 polls https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_de_sondages_sur_les_%C3%A9lections_l%C3%A9gi slatives_fran%C3%A7aises_de_2017#Projections_2

eg this one (very recent, conducted Thursday and yesterday I think)

And holy vache, only 22-32 seats for the Parti Socialiste & their cronies! How the mighty have fallen and are still falling, and pretty damn quick: they got 331 parliamentary strapontins in 2012…

I assumed your figure was high ursus as the last time I properly connected with these Législatives (about 3 weeks ago), the figure was more in the 250-300 region, but, and a big but it is, we’ve had an “international break” since then (speaking of which, did you watch Sweden-France last night.. faaaacking hell!) and Macron has seriously impressed in France (cf the Trump and Putin shows) and what with the tradition of giving the new president “a chance” by enabling him to have a working majority, combined with a strong appetite for “renouveau” (many people have had their fill of seeing the same old faces and clearly want to “renverser la table”, shake things up), I suppose this prediction of a clean sweep by Macron’s troops makes sense. I also think Macron’s scored points with his planned legislation on “moralising” French politics asap, about effin time too (!) even if the new laws are unlikely to go anywhere near far enough (France is crying out for an IPSA, but that won’t happen anytime soon unfortunately, we probably need a great big fuck-off UK-type expenses scandal for this to happen).

But while this Macronmania shows little sign of abating (the real domestic tests are yet to come though, obviously), Macron must now tread very carefully as the first cracks (already 1 or 2 politico-financial scandals in the making + bouts of misplaced arrogance from Macron – eg his Apple or Facebook-like control freakishness with the media or his crass "kwassa kwassa" "joke" a few days ago that has particularly incensed the 250,000-strong Comorian community in France* – etc.) and negative signs are starting to appear in the general public and the honeymoon could as short-lived as it was for both Sarkozy and Hollande (their indice de popularité – popularity ratings – went from 60% of favourable opinion to ~40% within 3 months only, before plummeting to unprecedented levels, they’re still digging to find Hollande’s... I have a feeling Macron will fare better, various factors – such as Brexit… – should boost French & the Eurozone confidence as well as its economy, things seem to be picking up already, eg 0.4% growth for the 1st quarter, I know that the bloody growth rate is not, or should be anyhow, the be-all and end-all but Macron’s performance will be measured against this sort of data, unemployment % will also loom large on the statistical radars and that will be a tough one to crack for a number of reasons).

[*Half of whom live in the Marseilles area. It has not just incensed the Comorians in France of course, quite a lot of people have found his wisecrack totally out of order, although the media have been quite lenient with him on this one IMO but I may be wrong, I haven't had the opportunity to assess this one fully!]

[ursus arctos]

French presidential election, 2017

First IPSOS projection in line with that poll