French Legislative Election 2017

[Antonio the Sixth]

A flawless, beautiful mandate. I feel bad for Hamon and PS, but they were due for a wipeout when their president had a single-digit approval rating.

Perhaps in the not too distant future Corbyn can become PM, f**k everything up and alienate everyone, and then an upstart liberal party without the recent baggage of the LibDems can dominate everything like EM has. One can dream.

Get the f**k out of this thread you dumbass.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Can so successful first round to LREM backfire on them in next Sunday? People can vote to refuse to give so much power to them. Or old political hates can be stronger?

It's more that nobody seems to want to vote in this damn thing.

[Antonio the Sixth]

PS gets the beating it deserves for years of corruption at long last.

You have no clue what you're talking about.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I happen to live in one of only two metropolitan constituencies where the runoff will be between PS and FI. Sadly, I also happen to vote in one of the many where it will be LREM-LR, so at least I have my day free on Sunday !

Dude, I'm going to take a couple hours and pay $20-30 in car ride to get to my polling station and cast a spoiled vote in my LREM-LR matchup. Surely you can walk to yours and spend a couple minutes do the same. Don't be one of those lazy f**ks who are the reason our democracy is a joke.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I happen to live in one of only two metropolitan constituencies where the runoff will be between PS and FI. Sadly, I also happen to vote in one of the many where it will be LREM-LR, so at least I have my day free on Sunday !

Dude, I'm going to take a couple hours and pay $20-30 in car ride to get to my polling station and cast a spoiled vote in my LREM-LR matchup. Surely you can walk to yours and spend a couple minutes do the same. Don't be one of those lazy f**ks who are the reason our democracy is a joke.

I mean, the democratic system has become a total joke where a marketing product with no political idea can be elected president and have 75% of the legislative seats, where literally 40% of the population voted for someone who was facing big corruption scandals. So honestly, I understand why people don't bother to vote,  french politics are a massive joke.

It's a matter of principle. Democracy only works if most people willing to sacrifice a little something to participate in it. The cost of voting in France (at least in mainland France) is so minimal that there's no valid excuse not to make this sacrifice. If people can't even be bothered to do that, then what they're saying is that they might as well live in a dictatorship.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Principles are bullsh**t,

Principles are the only thing that truly matters.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Principles are bullsh**t,

Principles are the only thing that truly matters.

The decapitated head of Ned Stark sends its regard

Ned Stark is great. Thanks for proving my point.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Not voting is obviously profoundly dumb

That's the worst argument you could use, because it's actually not dumb at all. Every attempt at calculating of the expected utility of voting suggests that you're better off staying home. Vote because it's the right thing to do, not because it's "rational".

Windjammer's opinions on GoT are vile and despicable, but we knew already.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Not voting is obviously profoundly dumb

That's the worst argument you could use, because it's actually not dumb at all. Every attempt at calculating of the expected utility of voting suggests that you're better off staying home. Vote because it's the right thing to do, not because it's "rational".

Windjammer's opinions on GoT are vile and despicable, but we knew already.

Y'know, when this thread descends to dreary dork discussion of Ned Stark and GoT,  all I can recommend to the lot of you is: go lose your virginity.  I'll take the reality world of elections and psephology anyday.

This election is such a complete snoozefest that I really don't see what you find so exciting to discuss.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I happen to live in one of only two metropolitan constituencies where the runoff will be between PS and FI. Sadly, I also happen to vote in one of the many where it will be LREM-LR, so at least I have my day free on Sunday !

Dude, I'm going to take a couple hours and pay $20-30 in car ride to get to my polling station and cast a spoiled vote in my LREM-LR matchup. Surely you can walk to yours and spend a couple minutes do the same. Don't be one of those lazy f**ks who are the reason our democracy is a joke.

Ok, so let me explain this, because I've had this debate several times, and it's absolutely not lazyness : I've stood in line for quite some time to make my proxy to vote for fukcing Emmanuel Macron in the presidential runoff ! It's a well thought position.

I think we can agree that democracy is about making choices that can be heard, and if possible implemented. When I have a choice, I vote. In my constituency, the runoff is between generic LREM candidate #7502 and fukcing NKM. From my point of view, they are literally the exact same thing. There's not a single discernible political discrepancy between them. So I cannot make a choice between those two.

Now, I can make a democratic choice between 3 options (2 really) : blank vote/null vote, abstain.

And we come back to my definition : a choice that can be heard. There is very very little talk about the blank and null votes in the election coverage in France. I was gonna say "nobody talks about them", but this is a serious debate and I won't exaggerate. There was a bit of talk about blanks and nulls in the presidential runoff. But what everybody's talking about between those 3 democratic options I have, is turnout. We compare elections between them on turnout, not on blank and nulls. The turnout figure is nearly always annexed to the results, whereas you can often struggle to find the blanks and nulls.

Moreover, to me, voting blank or null means you care about the process, but think the candidates are equally good (blank) or equally bad (null). It's my little memento, nothing more. But I happen to actually not care about the process of this flawed to the core legislative election ! So while in the first round I could still make my choice heard by voting for a candidate who support a change in this process (an FI candidate), now that she hasn't made it to the runoff, I'm left with no choice whatsoever between two identical candidates, in a process I want to be abolished as soon as possible.

So I abstain. Only thus can my choice be heard.

To be honest, with nearly every LREM candidate making it to the runoff and a large majority of them set to win their seats, what's the only real political choice that was heard and discussed in this first round ? The choice of 30% of all voters who voted in April and wouldn't consider it in June. Of course their motivation can be diverse, and of course you can say "bloody lazy fukcs". But that's what the political class has been saying for the past decades, and it hasn't helped the turnout, on the contrary...

When the turnout drops so much between elections, you can pinpoint that the people don't consider their deputies as useful anymore. They don't believe in the legislative process as it is laid out by this constitution. And when the turnout reaches a new all-time low next Sunday, perhaps as low as 40%, said deputies are gonna have a hard time saying they represent the people.

Of course, they won't have any legal difficulty, as no quorum is required, but we all know politics is only partially about legal matters. Once the people realize that the legitimacy of this system is deeply flawed, albeit legal, they might be a tad more willing to make it change later on.

I strongly disagree with your rationale, but I understand it and I apologize for making assumptions.

[Antonio the Sixth]

If I lived there, that might be the only FI vote I'd be willing to cast. He needs to be gone.

[Antonio the Sixth]

What a brute. I'm far from a NKM fan but I hope she's all right.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I have to say, it would be pretty hilarious if MoDem managed to get more seats than LR.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Hollande's coalition in 2012 won ~57% of the seats, at ~57% turnout. That means that statistically speaking, he in total got 32.8303812824957% of a mandate. If Macron wins 430 seats, 74.52339688% of the seats, and gets about 48% turnout, he will have a 35.77% of a mandate. 81.45580589% of the seats, 470 seats, times 48% turnout is a mandate of 39.0987868284229%. Turnout would have to be ~44.05% and his seats won would have to be 430 in order for Macron's mandate to reach Hollande's mandate.

This is a ridiculous metric.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Hollande's coalition in 2012 won ~57% of the seats, at ~57% turnout. That means that statistically speaking, he in total got 32.8303812824957% of a mandate. If Macron wins 430 seats, 74.52339688% of the seats, and gets about 48% turnout, he will have a 35.77% of a mandate. 81.45580589% of the seats, 470 seats, times 48% turnout is a mandate of 39.0987868284229%. Turnout would have to be ~44.05% and his seats won would have to be 430 in order for Macron's mandate to reach Hollande's mandate.

This is a ridiculous metric.

How do you propose finding the mandate? Turnout alone is nonsensical, and I believe 430 seats would be the largest majority since World War Two.

LREM-MoDem's vote as a percentage of registered voters would be slightly more defensible (that puts it at 15.4%, while PS+PRG+EELV was at 22.5%), but even that doesn't really mean that much. Reading the legislatives as reflecting the strength of a mandate is impossible because voters simply don't care about them.

[Antonio the Sixth]

LREM's policies are simply more of the same stuff that every government since 2002 has pursued. So if you think those governments were failures, I don't know what you're expecting.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Joke country. Again, England should have won the 100-year war.

[Antonio the Sixth]

So, is there any chance a part of Macron's deputies will revolt if Macron's economic agenda becomes unpopular? Or does France have very strong party discipline?

I mean, LREM candidates are complete nobodies with no party experience, so party tradition would be pretty irrelevant.

[Antonio the Sixth]

LREM at 355? Wow.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Elabe has LREM/MoDem 395-425

Well that's a huge gap between exit polls. Curious to see who's right.

[Antonio the Sixth]

LASSALLE IS REELECTED!!!

[Antonio the Sixth]

Cambadélis resigns (duh).

[Antonio the Sixth]

I would ask about Manuel Valls, but on these numbers he's almost certainly lost his seat anyway, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Fingers crossed! That would be a silver lining.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The map with the most seats filled so far is Marianne's, btw: https://www.marianne.net/politique/en-direct-elections-legislatives-2017-carte-des-resultats-du-second-tour-par-circonscription

[Antonio the Sixth]

Valls reelected

OH FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK