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.