France General Discussion

[MaxQue]

The new major thing for today is the scandal caused by a bunch of "French" citizens supporting the Tunisian soccer team in yesterday's France-Tunisia game and them booing La Marseillaise.

All parties are very pissed. Mark this day. The PS agreeing with the UMP.

The government says they're going to take measures.

La France, tu l'aime ou tu la quitte, as the Viscount would say.

I thought than that was forbidden by the FIFA?

[MaxQue]

France currently holds the European Union's six-month rotating presidency, which it is supposed to pass on to the Czech Republic on January 1. However, it seems that Sarkozy is pushing to extend France's presidency for at least another year (rather than pass it on to the Czech Republic, which would then pass it on to Sweden on July 1) due to crises such as the conflict between Russia and Georgia, the Irish referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon, and the recession.

Sarkozy wants to push the Czech Republic and Sweden aside because he believes that the presidency should be held by a member of the Eurozone, and he has also pointed out that the Czech president and prime minister are eurosceptics.

At the very least, Sarkozy wants France to remain president over economic affairs, as is customary when a non-Eurozone member holds the general presidency (Belgium in lieu of Sweden in 2001, and Greece in lieu of Denmark in 2002). I don't recall this happening with Britain in 2005 or Slovenia in 2008. In any event, Belgium came after Sweden, and Greece came after Denmark, so shouldn't the presidency go directly to Spain?

Sarkozy has proposed a dual French-British leadership of the EU's council of financial ministers because of London's role as the financial capital of Europe. It seems that he wants to push aside Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg's prime minister and minister of finance.

As of Wednesday, Merkel had not commented. Obviously, she is not expected to approve.

http://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/2008/10/22/nicolas-sarkozy-veut-diriger-la-zone-euro-jusqu-en-2010_1109655_0.html

Awful person. I hate his authoritative side, bur he is better than Royal, the crazy person who tries anything to destroy her opponent and who see complots everywhere.

[MaxQue]

News from FNland. Marine Le Pen, MEP representing the Ile-de-France EU constituency, has carpetbagged to the North-West constituency (Nord, Picardie etc) to be the top candidate on the 2009 FN list and where she stands a better chance of winning re-election (she wouldn't stand a chance running again in Paris). However, this has pissed off her rival and one of the two current FN MEPs for North-West, Carl Lang, who was the top candidate there in 2004. He is now running a dissident FN list (while technically staying a FN member) against the official FN list, which will be led by Marine Le Pen.

Remember, a list needs 5% of the votes in a constituency to be eligible for a seat.

Yay! Hopefully, they will divide their vote and they will not be elected.

[MaxQue]

A word from the xenophobic drunkard, Jacques Auxiette had this to say about the tragic disappearance of Loire-Atlantique and his trash can region is saying that it's "modern-day annexation, almost colonization".

This guy is a joke.

That is understandable. He would loses his power in his region, Poitou-Aquitaine.

[MaxQue]

Yes, sadly. The Vichyist Pays de la Loire councillors will vote against a rightful reunification.

Please stop it. It's a terrifying vision to all my fellow Angevins to be merge with the Centre which is nothing more than a desert...

What is Vendée if not a flat desert?

The kingdom of Philippe de Villiers. His army is based at Puy-du-Fou.

And the Fou is Philippe de Villiers.

[MaxQue]

There has been talk in Bretagne against Le Guen, with some proposing the candidacy of the former prefect Bernadette Malgorn (which BRTD would probably hate very, very, very much). But the local UMP has united behind Le Guen (a Villepeniste).

By reading on Wikipedia, BRTD would be right to hate this thing, who pretend to be a person.

[MaxQue]

Had Mitterrand cheated in every election, had he did a French watergate, I would still admire him for having been the only french politician who had the courage to abolish death penalty.
But, furthermore, he perfectly incarned the "force tranquille" he promised : able to lead great social reforms, but also resolutely pro-American and pro-European, he was a very cultivated man, and intelligent in every sense of the word.

He was also a crook.

Which French politician isn't a crook?

[MaxQue]

Well, the two CPNT general councillors are sitting with the left. CPNT general councillor in Gironde is sitting with the left, in the ''Majorité départmentale'' and the CPNT general councillor in Hérault is ''PS apparenté''.

So, they could lose all their elected officials. Sad, I know than rural regions are often forgotten by the big parties and governments.

[MaxQue]

Well, the two CPNT general councillors are sitting with the left. CPNT general councillor in Gironde is sitting with the left, in the ''Majorité départmentale'' and the CPNT general councillor in Hérault is ''PS apparenté''.

The website of the Herault general councils does not list Christophe Morgo as PS but as CPNT, but I digress. The CPNT vote here is left-wing, check how poorly Libertas did her compared to say, Somme or Manche.

The Somme CG doesn't seem to list partisan affiliations, probably 'cause they suck, but Wikipedia has the CPNT councilor there as an Independent.

And all of them seem relatively safe, fwiw.

As CPNT, but apparenté to the PS group, in Hérault.

[MaxQue]

A few things:

http://cache.20minutes.fr/img/photos/20mn/2009-09/2009-09-15/article_desirssego.jpg

http://www.vistawallpapers.com/img6558.htm

That is all.

So Ségolène is wanting to become a wallpaper. Good, since I never heard a wallpaper talking.

[MaxQue]

I put it in another thread but immediately realized it was totally off-topic. So :

BTW, guess which system Sarko wants to use for election of the newly-created "territorial councilors ? FPTP !
How democratic ! How fair ! How intelligent and elaborated ! See how this guy cares about the fact the people's opinion is represented ! But probably he doesn't even know who Condorcet, Hare or Sainte-Lagüe are.

FPTP=evil.

Old news, I highlighted that the day he proposed it. And the only reason he wants FPTP is because the UMP would win.

I don't know if I posted my rant of the 'territorial reform' bullsh**t on here of I posted it on a French forum. Eh.

Nah nah, you did here. Antonio sometimes comes after the battle.

True. I probably just wasn't around there when you posted this.

However, insisting isn't bad : FPTP=evil and undemocratic.

Yep, and well, this is not the thread here, but if left is enough smart to well use it, it could be a working argument against UMP in the régionales.

Guess what : they won't be smart enough !
...

For now, left doesn't even need to use arguments against UMP, since UMP is damaging itself.

Régionales are really looking good for the left. In 2004, I would have said than the left would lose more than half of the regions than they won in the 2004 elections in the 2010 elections.

[MaxQue]

Lots of buzz on teh interwebs about the Jeunes Pop's new lipdub clip featuring cabinet ministers singing, raping and the like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29rmTMegr-A

Also, it's a Quebecois song and the accent is clear at some moments, adding to the hilarity of lipdub. Now, why can't Young Liberals of Canada do this?

The song has a clear Quebec accent, true. Anyways, lipdubs are stupids.

[MaxQue]

I'd much prefer if Harper was a not so-incompetent slightly insane/erratic and somewhat corrupt figure similar to Sarkozy; instead of the dangerous hard-right ideologue incompetent failure he is.

How the hell is Sarkozy not-so-incompetent ?

Sarkozy is actually competent, compared to Harper.