France General Discussion II: Living under Marxism

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I was thinking that the real 'anti-establishment' peril in France was Panzergirl and not the innocuous FdG. The French electoral system might produce a supermajority for the UMP, instead of 'saving' the PS from a terrible fate. As for PSOE, ask me after the 2015 elections, especially if a 'Grand Coalition' materializes from the air.

I think, as anti-establishment and "hip", the Front are at present; they're not going to steal PS's core vote like Syriza did to PASOK, and I don't think any existing French party really can.

[Velasco]

I was thinking that the real 'anti-establishment' peril in France was Panzergirl and not the innocuous FdG. The French electoral system might produce a supermajority for the UMP, instead of 'saving' the PS from a terrible fate. As for PSOE, ask me after the 2015 elections, especially if a 'Grand Coalition' materializes from the air.

PSOE going into Grand Coalition with PP will be the signing of their death warrant. No way are they stupid enough to do that unless they are pressured by the European centre-left clique that seems to govern what these parties do. What's more likely to happen is that Podemos, PSOE and Izquierda Unida form a very small majority government with nationalist parties as constructive support. After that it's anybody's game. Spanish politics is going to get very, very interesting...

Asked on electoral coalitions with Podemos, Pedro Sánchez said that he's not going to make deals with "populism". Actually, he said that PSOE is "incompatible" with Rajoy's "resignation" and with said 'populistic' peril incarnated by Podemos. However, Susana Díaz was more ambiguous on the issue, stating that she doesn't want to be distracted by "lucubrations". That's important, because she's likely the shadow boss of the Spanish socialists. Also, a PSOE+Podemos+IU majority is hard to achieve, as I tried to explain in the Spain's discussion thread, and nationalistic parties such as ERC are not in a 'constructive support' phase. We have left behind the Zapatero years. Don't discard pressure from the "European centre-left clique", of course (Sorry for the off-topic).

[Hash]

20 minutes ago, Poison Dwarf announced his candidacy for the presidency of the UMP.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[politicus]

Marine le Pen vs. Sarkozy in the second round?

[swl]

That would be a real nightmare.

There is no doubt he will be elected president of the UMP (the election is only open to party members and there is no big challenger), but the open primaries against the bigwigs of the party will be disputed (if he avoids judicial problems before that).

[Hash]

In other news, Valls had his 'discours de politique générale' and confidence vote on Tuesday.

The same usual crap which we've come to expect from these people, and nobody really seems to care all that much. Re-hashing the stuff about giving free money to employers (Valls' new BFFs), continuing to pretend that what they're doing is not austerity but actually 'reform' (proving it by providing a grocery list of things which aren't being cut), offering a few little goodies (marginally increasing the base pension by 8 euros a month for poor seniors, getting 1 million more poor households out of income taxes in 2015), once again changing his mind on "territorial reform" (departmental elections in March 2015, regional elections in December 2015; and now we're gonna keep some of the 'departmental councils' created and later abolished by Valls in some rural departments because the PRG was being bitchy about that ) and pretending to be left-wing by talking tough against evil Merkel and the Medef.

Anyhow, he passed the confidence vote with 269 votes for, 245 against and 53 abstentions... in details:
SRC: 253 for, 32 abstentions, 4 not voting
UMP: 198 against, 1 not voting
UDI: 27 against, 3 not voting (the 3 French Polynesians)
Ecolo: 1 against (the Nouvelle donne deputy), 17 abstentions
RRDP: 13 for, 1 against (Jérôme Lambert, Mitterrand's grandnephew and PS dissident), 3 abstentions (the MUP deputy; Jacques Krabal, PRG deputy from the Aisne; Thierry Robert, MoDem deputy from La Réunion)
GDR: 11 against, 2 abstentions (Huguette Bello, the former Reunionese Communist; Jean-Philippe Nilor, one of the the Martinican nats), 2 for (Bruno Nestor Azérot, Martinican DVG; Gabriel Serville, Guyanese Socialist)
NI: 1 for (Sylvie Andrieux, the expelled PS deputy convicted of embezzlement), 7 against (Jean Lassalle, the FN/Bompard, NDA and 'maybe Hitler didn't kill enough gypsies' Bourdouleix)

32 PS abstentions (including the 3 MRC deputies) - compared to 11 in his first confidence vote in April, 41 on the big austerity/50 billions in cuts package, and 33 in a social security budget. The table tracks the dissidents:

Pouria Amirshahi: Iranian-born aubryiste deputy for North and West Africa
Fanélie Carrey-Conte: young former student activist PS deputy for Paris, close to Hamon
Barbara Romagnan: left-wing PS deputy for the Doubs, close to Hamon (in the past)
Nathalie Chabanne: PS deputy for the Pyrénées-Atlantiques famous for beating Bayrou, close to Hamon
Pascal Cherki: PS deputy for Paris, close to Hamon
Suzanne Tallard: random backbencher PS deputy for Charente-Maritime
Henri Emmanuelli: a famous old-timer on the PS' left, deputy for the Landes since 1978. One time general secretary of the PS in the horrible early 90s and presidential primary candidate in 95, of course.
Jean-Pierre Dufau: PS deputy for the Landes, close to Emmanuelli
Gérard Sebaoun: PS deputy for the Val-d'Oise
Philippe Noguès: aubryiste PS deputy for Morbihan
Christophe Léonard: PS deputy for the Ardennes, close to Hamon
Jean-Pierre Blazy: PS deputy for the Val-d'Oise
Mathieu Hanotin: PS deputy for the 93, close to Hamon
Dominique Chauvel: PS deputy for the Seine-Maritime
Kheira Bouziane: aubryiste PS deputy for the Côte-d'Or
Linda Gourjade: PS deputy for the Tarn, close to Hamon
Hervé Féron: PS deputy for Meurthe-et-Moselle
Denys Robiliard: eurosceptic PS deputy for the Loir-et-Cher
Daniel Goldberg: aubryiste left-wing PS deputy for the 93
Laurent Baumel: aubryiste left-wing PS deputy for Indre-et-Loire
Jean-Marc Germain: aubryiste PS deputy for the 92
Édith Gueugneau: PS deputy for Saône-et-Loire (elected as a dissident with Montebourg's backing against a EELV-PS candidate)
Kléber Mesquida: PS deputy for the Hérault
Christian Paul: veteran left-wing PS deputy for the Nièvre
Serge Bardy: PS deputy for the Maine-et-Loire
Michel Pouzol: PS deputy for the Essonne, close to Hamon
Michel Vergnier: PS deputy for the Creuse, close to Hamon
Anne-Lise Dufour-Tonini: PS deputy for the Nord and mayor the very poor mining basin industrial city of Denain; she replaced Patrick Roy, the very colourful and crowd favourite PS deputy, after his death from cancer in 2011. Her first time voting against the government - it's weird because I associate her with the nobody trying to suck up to Flanby when he visited Denain in late 2013 (a visit only famous for the hilarious 'Flanby looking like a moronic Mr. Bean' photo)
François Lamy: PS deputy for the Essonne and former junior minister for the city under Ayrault. Aubryiste. First time voting against the government; his suppléant while he was minister was the very left-wing Jérôme Guedj, a top dissident since 2012.

Amusing to see Razzy Hammadi's transformation from leftie rebel to career politician wannabe. I wonder if his shift into becoming a good boy is related to his hilarious (probably career-ending) embarrassment in Montreuil in March.

[Antonio the Sixth]

20 minutes ago, Poison Dwarf announced his candidacy for the presidency of the UMP.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Megalomania is strong in this one.

[andrew_c]

Marine le Pen vs. Sarkozy in the second round?

Possibly another "Vote for the crook, not the fascist" campaign (like 2002).

[Zanas]

Marine le Pen vs. Sarkozy in the second round?

Possibly another "Vote for the crook, not the fascist" campaign (like 2002).

This wouldn't have nearly anything in common with 2002 actually, other than the party's acronyms on the ballot. For example, I wouldn't be bothered to vote.

Hoping for Juppé at this point...

[Keystone Phil]

Sarkozy will be re-elected.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Marine le Pen vs. Sarkozy in the second round?

Possibly another "Vote for the crook, not the fascist" campaign (like 2002).

This wouldn't have nearly anything in common with 2002 actually, other than the party's acronyms on the ballot. For example, I wouldn't be bothered to vote.

Hoping for Juppé at this point...

Not even that, since RPR is gone.

[RogueBeaver]

Flamby at 8% in a hypothetical primary, Valls leads Aubry 38/25. Halfway through the term, that said.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Flamby at 8% in a hypothetical primary, Valls leads Aubry 38/25. Halfway through the term, that said.

ha

ha

haha

hahahahaha

hahahahahahahahahahahaha

ha

[Velasco]

Something must be going wrong when Manuel Valls is taking the lead, don't you think?

[Hash]

Something must be going wrong when Manuel Valls is taking the lead, don't you think?

Well, Valls remains popular with about 60-65% of PS sympathizers and he knows how to play up his fake left-wing credentials once in a while by vaguely saying something about Germany or appearing to be 'tough' on employers (when in reality he's in a collective circlejerk with them). At the same time, the good news is that Valls' popularity is crumbling quickly and it's only a matter of time, I think, before he becomes damaged goods

In that poll, btw, Valls is down 2% with PS sympathizers from May and Aubry is up 9 (Flanby is down 7 and Ségo is down 5). A recent Ifop poll asking the same question had Valls up 10 on Aubry with the whole sample (Flanby at 7%), but trailing Aubry by 12 with left-wingers and by 5 with PS sympathizers. Valls retains about 40-50% popularity with UDI people and 30-35% with UMP people (which is still very high for a PS politician).

FTR - it's not a primary poll, but asking people which candidate would be the best. Very similar, but not the same thing.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Flamby at 8% in a hypothetical primary

Wow.

[andrew_c]

Flamby at 8% in a hypothetical primary

At least that would save him from the embarrassment of becoming the first sitting president to lose a re-election bid in the 1st round.

[Zanas]

Flamby at 8% in a hypothetical primary

At least that would save him from the embarrassment of becoming the first sitting president to lose a re-election bid in the 1st round.

Which is approximately the one and only embarrassment he could still be spared now...

[Keystone Phil]

Flamby at 8% in a hypothetical primary, Valls leads Aubry 38/25. Halfway through the term, that said.

Hmmm. Why is Hollande doing so well?

[RogueBeaver]

Looks like the Senate returns to conservative control.

[windjammer]

Looks like the Senate returns to conservative control.

Expected.
And seriously, the PS didn't control the senate before.

[politicus]

Patrick Modiano wins the Nobel prize in literature. Fifteenth Frenchman to do it.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/09/patrick-modiano-wins-nobel-prize-for-literature

Only about a handfull of his books are translated into English - or anything else.. - even if:

"Peter Englund, the Nobel Academy’s permanent secretary, told the Guardian that Modiano was a very accessible writer. “He is not at all difficult to read. He looks very simple in a sense because he has a very refined, simple, straight, clear style. You open a page and see that it is Modiano, very straight, short sentences, no frills … but it is very, very sophisticated in that simplicity.”

Must admit I have never read any of his books, have any of you?

All the usual: "Another white, European male" complaints of course.

[Hash]

The glorious right-wing economy minister wants to gut unemployment insurance (this is the same rich moron who said that workers in some plant were 'illiterates'): http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2014/10/12/macron-relance-le-debat-de-la-reforme-de-l-assurance-chomage_4504807_823448.html

Can this government be any more of a joke?

[politicus]

14th  price for French language (one Belgian) and 16th for writer living in France some period of their life (Bunin, Beckett, Gao).

I got 15 Frenchmen when I counted, which is also what Wiki says.

[windjammer]

The glorious right-wing economy minister wants to gut unemployment insurance (this is the same rich moron who said that workers in some plant were 'illiterates'): http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2014/10/12/macron-relance-le-debat-de-la-reforme-de-l-assurance-chomage_4504807_823448.html

Can this government be any more of a joke?

A shame the "frondeurs" just abstained