French Legislative Election 2017

[mvd10]

Les Republicains will run on a new and more moderate platform for the legislative election instead of using Fillon's platform. While I loved Fillon's platform it's probably the smart thing to do. Fillon's platform was borderline unelectable, I think he would have had a lot of trouble getting elected even without Penelopegate. Slashing taxes by €50 billion (€40 billion for businesses, €10 billion for households) while also balancing the budget and rewriting the entire labour code isn't a very electable platform I'm afraid.

[mvd10]

   In a nutshell why do so many posters on this board not like Valls?

Right-wingers hate him because he is a member of the Socialist party. Left-wingers hate him because he governed as a centrist third way PM (tax cuts for businesses, some labour reforms and some deregulation).

[mvd10]

Jean Pisani-Ferry, chief economic adviser to French President-elect Emmanuel Macron, says the new administration’s goal is to cut public spending by EU60 bln by the end of his term.

If so that really should mean that Macron should target a PM from the center-right with a REM majority or a REM-LR-UDI alliance if a REM majority is not possible.

Does that target also take into account his €50 billion investment plan? From what I understand he wants to cut taxes by €20 billion, pass a €50 billion investment program and pay for it by €60 billion in spending cuts and €10 billion in savings generated by lower unemployment, but my French is crappy.

So who would get the other top jobs if Philippe is the PM? Pisani-Ferry, Ferrand, Collomb and Le Drian?

[mvd10]

It could just be a post-election surge. Hamon also surged to 15-18% in the polls after his primary victory and Fillon even surged to 30% in some polls after he won the primaries. We'll see whether LREM still is at 29% in a month. I think they will win a majority though, like Tintrlvr said they will win nearly every run-off.

[mvd10]

what kind of conservative is phillippe?

He was a Juppé supporter so probably a centrist. Definitely no Fillon or Sarkozy. Anyway this is a smart pick. People like Philippe are close enough to Macron to not upset centre-left voters and he might convince a bunch of centre-right voters with a centre-right PM.

[mvd10]

All the LRs who have joined the gvt have been fired.

From LR?

I think so. Baroin threatened to throw everyone who joined Macron out of the party.

[mvd10]

Le Maire at the economy ministry is great. He apparently had a pretty ambitious economic reform agenda so I'm more optimistic now. Macron has said he won't compromise on his agenda, but I was afraid that he was going to shift to the left.

[mvd10]

Le Monde, on why LREM could get a landslide majority, based on the Ipsos-Cévipof poll.

-LREM is way ahead in the first round (31% to 22% to LR, in the constituencies where LREM is actually opposed to LR it's 33% to 21%) and the LREM vote is high everywhere  with no area of weakness: LREM is ahead or slightly behind in the strongholds of PS, FI, FN or LR. Also that means that there is no incumbent advantage.
-Low turnout prevent high numbers of triangulaires, so in majority it will be duels with LREM gaining votes from every other parties.

Also in this Ipsos-Cévipol poll there is some interesting results about French society
-Homosexuality is an acceptable way to live his sexuality: Yes 71% (up 8 since 2015)
-Childs of immigrants born in France are as French as others: Yes 58% (+8)
-There is too many immigrants in France: Yes 53% (-7)
-France needs a strong leader who doesn't care about parliament or elections: Yes 42% (-10)
-Reinstate the death penalty: Yes 35% (-4)
-If the EU were abandoned tomorrow, what would you feel? Big regrets 53% (+9 since 2016), don't care 31% (-2), big relief 16% (-7)

It's pretty depressing that large amounts of people still disagree with them even though it's going in the right direction.

[mvd10]

Is it really that surprising that Macron will win a majority? Sure, his candidates are all new but he just got elected president and the French always give their presidents a majority the month after their election. And LREM is uniquely positioned to win a lot of run-offs. The right prefers LREM over the left, the left prefers LREM over the right and everyone prefers LREM over FN.

[mvd10]

LREM seems like the kind of personality cult party that descends into civil war and splits up once it's founder and strong leader (Macron) leaves. Macron probably will completely dominate the political scene for the next decade, but when he goes LREM goes with him imo.

[mvd10]

From Le Canard Enchaîné, the mood of political leaders

-Macron projects more than 400 deputies, "almost too many"
-Cambadélis (PS) considers PS having less than 15 deputies
-Baroin (LR): "we are going to take a big trashing"

That means Le Pen will be the official opposition to Macronisme, which is not good...

I really doubt the FN will have more seats than LR. LR probably will still win 100-120 seats or so.

[mvd10]

There will be a lot of LR-LREM duels with these numbers right? I hope LR atleast wins over 100 seats. But surely this campaign will hurt Baroin's chances in 2022?

[mvd10]

Macron has got his majority so there is no excuse for not passing deep labour market reforms. It'll be interesting to see whether Macron actually will liberalize the French economy or whether he'll end up as another Chirac or Sarkozy.

[mvd10]

Macron has got his majority so there is no excuse for not passing deep labour market reforms. It'll be interesting to see whether Macron actually will liberalize the French economy or whether he'll end up as another Chirac or Sarkozy.

The French govt is not the only organization with power to govern the labour market. The real question is how willing he will be to stomp on worker's democratic rights and how strong the worker's resistance will be.

Yeah, the protests will become a problem for him. If these reforms are stopped they will be stopped on the streets and not in parliament.

[mvd10]

The left's performance was so pathetic. Socialists should have just folded into FI.

and if they don't like putin-tolerating euro-sceptic egomaniacs?

Then they have flawless beautiful Macron

[mvd10]

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

Lol, sorry, but I really would like to see EM's success replicated elsewhere, particularly in the UK. Plus, Corbyn really could become PM soon enough, and I think it'd be a disaster.

"Flawless, beautiful" to a tyranny-of-the-centre fault.  That is, boring as f**k.  The only un-boring thing being the plethora of first-round knockouts for sitting parliamentarians (incl. Hamon).

Maybe you do, but I don't mind politics being boring at all.

The think is, Britain was led by Flawless Beautiful Centrists from 1997-2007 and from 2010-2016. In case you hadn't noticed,  on both occasions it ended in a complete disaster.

Didn't like all recent premierships end in disaster in the UK? 2007-2010 and 2016-(hopefully 2017) probably won't be remembered well either.

[mvd10]

And maybe NKM will vote against Macron's economic plans just because she is in opposition (like that one time US Republicans voted against Obama's temporary tax cut proposal). NKM doesn't seem like someone who would do that though.

[mvd10]

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.

Yeah, you're completely right. They should have elected Fillon.

But seriously, did Chirac, Hollande and Sarkozy attempt deregulation on the scale that Macron is promoting now? As far as I know Sarkozy abandoned his agenda two weeks in the presidency (instead focusing on unpaid tax cuts and some minor deregulation until the crisis hit) while Chirac didn't really do much either. And Hollande's labour reforms also were pretty minor even though you would think that he tried to return to gilded age standards judging the protests (people over here only would go to the streets on that scale if that were the case lol).

[mvd10]

Marcon is actually making Thatcherism acceptable in France is he not?

Macron's agenda is more ambitious than what the previous presidents tried, but it's by no means Thatcherism. Macron actually wants to pass a temporary stimulus package and he criticized Fillon's program for being too right-wing ("purging a country against it's own will). If Macron is a Thatcherite, what do we call Fillon? What Macron wants to do to France is more similar to what Schröder and Merkel did to Germany than what Thatcher did to the UK.

LREM is just another right-wing party, don't get all drama queen.

Girardin seems to have survived in Saint-Pierre et Miquelon, but just.

"Everyone to my right is a right-winger!"

well LREM ran on the same right-wing labor reforms that basically sent PS to single digit approval ratings, so...

It's not right-wing to reform labor markets when your labor market is as stultified as France's.

Yes it is. Destroying workplace democracy is a right-wing position.

Do you have any idea about heavily regulated the French labour market is? Even Paul Krugman thinks European governments should deregulate their labour markets and the French labour market is much more regulated than your average European labour market. But Paul Krugman obviously is a raging Thatcherite. My bad.

[mvd10]

LREM is just another right-wing party, don't get all drama queen.

Girardin seems to have survived in Saint-Pierre et Miquelon, but just.

"Everyone to my right is a right-winger!"

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not right-wing at all imo

Wow you actually just made me like him that much more

Fillon pledged €50 billion in tax cuts and €100 billion in spending cuts including cutting 500,000 public sector jobs. Why did you have to be so corrupt François, you could have made France great again ...

[mvd10]

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?

[mvd10]

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.

Yeah, this is why I wondered if there are chances of rebellions inside LREM. LREM undoubtedly attracted a lot of opportunists and I wonder how supportive of Macron they will be when his popularity slides. And most of LREM's voters and MP's probably were Socialists in the past, I really can't imagine they suddenly are infatuated with free markets.

So, is there any chance a part of Macron's deputies will revolt if Macron's economic agenda becomes unpopular?

"If"?

Yeah, you're right. The results will need to come before 2022. I've read somewhere that the main goal of Macron's economic stimulus plan (€50 billion of public investments) was to act as a sweetener for his deregulation agenda.

[mvd10]

Wat.

Well, I suppose things will be harder for Macron than expected.

[mvd10]

Kantar-Sofres:
- La République en marche : 315 sièges
- Les Républicains/UDI/Divers droite : 133 sièges
- MoDem : 45 sièges
- Parti socialiste : 32 sièges
- La France insoumise : 17 sièges
- Parti radical de gauche/Divers gauche : 13 sièges
- Parti communiste : 9 sièges
- Front national : 6 sièges
- Autres (Debout la France, régionalistes, extrême droite) : 6 sièges
- Écologistes : 1 siège

So 360 for the Presidential Majority right? That's in line with the 355 projection.

[mvd10]

125 seats actually is a decent result for LR given the circumstances. It's a lot better than the 70-90 seats they were projected to win according to the polls.