France General Discussion III: Tout doit disparaître

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As usual after a legislative election the government resigned, Philippe was immediately renamed as PM.

But so far two major change in the next government: Richard Ferrand will leave to join the National Assembly as leader of LREM deputies and this morning Sylvie Goulard (Defense minister) has resigned to defend herself over allegation of MoDem's fake jobs in the EU Parliament.

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Bayrou and De Sarnez will also leave the government.

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Bayrou and De Sarnez will also leave the government.

I was shocked about Bayrou. Trouble in paradise already between LREM and MoDem?

No, there is a judicial enquiry against MoDem over some fake jobs allegations, Bayrou, as chief of MoDem, is directly involved (same for Goulard and De Sarnez).

The new government is totally in the spirit of the title of this topic:
-no major political figure (except Le Drian)
-2/3 of the members of the government come form civil society

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Some news today:

-De Rugy has been elected President of the national Assembly, Valls will seat with LREM group but not as a full member of LREM.
-25 senators form a LREM group in the Senate, the number could rise
-Macon has invited Trump for Bastille Day.

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Simone Veil was out of public life in 2013, so we didn't hear exactly why she opposed to gay marriage, but this is what she said about homosexuality.
"How would you react if one of your son told you that he lives with a man?
-I'll invite them for dinner. The deportation made me think a lot about homosexuality, if there was homosexual relationships in the camps it's the proof that there was still some love, some humanity"

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/03/emmanuel-macron-to-set-out-his-vision-for-french-renaissance

What might that mean? Mixed-member proportional?

It means he'll forget about it a couple months from now and never bring it up again.

So in his first major public address he said that the Parliament has to pass this reform within a year or he will call a reform, but he will drop this in two months? Yeah, sure, it would be a great way to sabotage himself.

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Confidence vote on the Prime minister's speech

For: 370
Against: 67
Abstain: 129

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Vote by group

LR
For: 1
Against: 23
Abstain: 75

Constructifs (LR-UDI)
For: 12
Abstain: 23

Nouvelle Gauche (PS)
For: 3
Against: 5
Abstain: 23

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Also lol at the typical bargain basement populist "what if we just cut the number of MP's!!!".

God I hate that refrain. Hate Hate Hate Hate HATE. I'd vote against the whole proposal even if I agreed with everything else.

I'm also against this, but the idea is not "if we cut 100 MPs we will save 2 millions per year" but to reduce the number of MPs and to keep the same budget to give more power to the MPs (to hire more assistants, etc.)

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Also lol at the typical bargain basement populist "what if we just cut the number of MP's!!!".

God I hate that refrain. Hate Hate Hate Hate HATE. I'd vote against the whole proposal even if I agreed with everything else.

I'm also against this, but the idea is not "if we cut 100 MPs we will save 2 millions per year" but to reduce the number of MPs and to keep the same budget to give more power to the MPs (to hire more assistants, etc.)

The don't need to give "more power" to individual MPs. If anything we need to give less power to individual MPs while increasing the power of the parliament as a collective. And more importantly, guaranteeing meaningful representation by not having MPs be elected in giant constituencies.

If you really want to cut the number of MPs, just abolish the Senate for f**k's sake.

You can give all the powers you want to the Parliament but if you don't give to each MP the ability to effectively use these powers the Parliament will remain what it is today.
The French Parliament isn't powerless but it suffered until now of MPs not fully committed to their mandate. Let's hope that will change with the end of dual mandates.
To give to each MP more ability to form a team of qualified assistants for example, can't hurt the Parliament if that means that the MP will be able to perform a better work in all of his missions.

I would have prefer to keep the actual number of MPs and simply increase the budget, but that's not really possible now in France.

As for this proportional representation dose, with the French electoral system that will probably be a mess, for just a symbolic results.

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Also lol at the typical bargain basement populist "what if we just cut the number of MP's!!!".

God I hate that refrain. Hate Hate Hate Hate HATE. I'd vote against the whole proposal even if I agreed with everything else.

I'm also against this, but the idea is not "if we cut 100 MPs we will save 2 millions per year" but to reduce the number of MPs and to keep the same budget to give more power to the MPs (to hire more assistants, etc.)

The don't need to give "more power" to individual MPs. If anything we need to give less power to individual MPs while increasing the power of the parliament as a collective. And more importantly, guaranteeing meaningful representation by not having MPs be elected in giant constituencies.

If you really want to cut the number of MPs, just abolish the Senate for f**k's sake.

You can give all the powers you want to the Parliament but if you don't give to each MP the ability to effectively use these powers the Parliament will remain what it is today.
The French Parliament isn't powerless but it suffered until now of MPs not fully committed to their mandate. Let's hope that will change with the end of dual mandates.
To give to each MP more ability to form a team of qualified assistants for example, can't hurt the Parliament if that means that the MP will be able to perform a better work in all of his missions.

I would have prefer to keep the actual number of MPs and simply increase the budget, but that's not really possible now in France.

As for this proportional representation dose, with the French electoral system that will probably be a mess, for just a symbolic results.

Oh come on, don't tell me MPs don't have enough resources to do their job well if they wanted to. A few of them have been doing admirable work actually (René Dosière, Gérard Bapt). It's just that most of them don't give a sh*t about their job besides rubber-stamping what their leaders want to pass. And that sure won't be helped now that FBM has completely personalized French politics and 350 MPs owe their political future to him alone.

A French député has only less than €10,000 to pay their assistants, a German MP has more than €20,000, a British MP around €15,000. You named René Dosière, a very good MP indeed, when the Fillon's scandal broke he said that he had to pay his assistants on his personal budget for the parliamentary expenses, because with €10,000 he couldn't hire a good team of assistants.
You're right when you say that most of MPs don't (or didn't, we can't judge yet for the new MPs) care about the Parliament but in my view it was because many of them had one, or several, local mandate.
And basically, since the beginning of the Vth Republic (and it's more obvious since 2002), any legislative majority is build around (or against) the President, not just with Macron but it was already the case with De Gaule, Mitterrand, ... And unfortunately any proportional representation will confirm that.

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Simone Veil will be buried at the Panthéon with her husband.

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Ipsos, election analysis

Fillon's voters: Macron 48%, Le Pen 20%, blank/void ballot 15%, abstain 17%
Mélenchon's voters: Macron 51%, Le Pen 7%, blank/void 17%, abstain 24%
Hamon's voters: Macron 71%, Le Pen 2%, blank/void 10%, abstain 17%
NDA's voters: Macron 27%, Le Pen 30%, blank/void 20%, abstain 23%

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Macron Job Approval (IFOP)
Approve: 54% (-10)
Disapprove: 43% (+8)

That is quite brutal to be honest. He was going to see his approval rating go down but not so quickly, that is likely the results of his recent controversies

How does the military cuts and the resignation of the Head of Armed Forces make such an impact? I always thought being Minister of FA and Minister of Defense was actually quite an easy portfolio to handle judging by Fabius and Le Drian's approval ratings as people didn't seem to care, but now it seems to have undone Macron's early momentum.

Probably a big impact, the resignation of the Head of Armed Forces was described by the media as a unprecedented crisis between the Army and the President since the beginning of the Vth Republic.
And it's probably not just the military cuts but the budget in its whole. First the government seemed to prepare a delay for the tax cuts, finally they decided to start the tax cuts as soon as next year in exchange of budget cuts. That leave a bad impression of improvisation.

For approval ratings, historic perspective by Ifop
Sarkozy 2007: 66%
Hollande 2012, De Gaulle 1965: 56%
Macron 2017: 54%
Chirac 2002: 53%
Mitterrand 1988: 49%
Mitterrand 1981, VGE 1974, Pompidou 1969: 47%
Chirac 1995: 39%

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Presidential election poll, 6 months after (Ifop)

Macron: 28% (+4)
Le Pen: 21.5% (=)
Mélenchon: 18% (-1.5)
Fillon: 15% (-5)
Hamon: 7% (+0.5)
Dupont-Aignan: 5% (=)

A little surprised by Le Pen, I was expecting a significant drop in her support since she is in a very bad shape since the presidential debate.

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There was a territorial election in Corsica today, the alliance of autonomists and separatists has a massive lead in the first round, they won more than 45% of the vote, another separatist list won less than 7% of the vote. They will probably gain a majority of the vote in the second round next week (and a huge majority in the next Corsican assembly).

The autonomists and separatists want to gain autonomy in the next few years but reject the idea of independence (at least for this decade).

The results: (all the lists winning more than 7% of the vote can be in the second round)
Nationalist alliance: 45.36%
Right-wing regionalist: 14.97%
LR: 12.77%
LREM: 11.26%
Separatists: 6.69%
Communists/Unsubmissive Corsica: 5.68%
FN: 3.28%

Turnout was low, 52.17%

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Macron becomes popular again.

50% of French approve the job of Macron as President according to Ifop for Paris match, up 6 points since November, 48% disapprove.

It's the first time in this poll that a President leaves unpopularity.

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Not a huge fan of him, but yeah a real icon in French music.

But they need to calm down, the media coverage is already insufferable, apparently a national tribute is in preparation, maybe with a procession on the Champs-Elysées...

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Xavier Bertrand leaves LR after Wauquiez’s election

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Maybe an update on Macron's popularity.

While he suffered a free fall in his approval ratings in the summer (unprecedented since Chirac 1995), and was on his way to become the most unpopular president in History, his numbers stabilized in September and since are improving.

A new poll released today (Ifop for JDD) shows that 52% of French approve Macron's job as president (up 6 points in a month, 10 points in two months), another poll (Ifop for Paris Match) has him at 50%. Other polling institutes (BVA, Harris, and Odoxa) have him on the high 40s and will release their December's numbers soon.
In two other polls (Ipsos and Elabe) his numbers are around 40%, but in those two poll, even after his inauguration, he never was at 50% and their undecided numbers are high.
His favorability rating is also improving, with 57% of favorability, 3rd among French politicians.

A such movement toward popularity after becoming unpopular is unique in normal circumstances. It only happens with Mitterrand and Chirac during cohabitation periods, and for Chirac with the Iraq crisis in 2003.

The reasons given by the pollsters to explain this movement are that the people are the feeling that Macron is doing what he promised during the campaign, they feel that his policy is coherent, and they approve his credibility as President especially on the international stage.

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First poll for the 2019 european election, Ifop for Le Figaro

LREM: 26%
FN: 17%
FI: 14%
LR: 12%
PS: 8%
DLF: 6% (Dupont-Aignan)
Greens: 4%
Center-right: 3.5%
Others: 3%
Communists: 2%
Patriots: 2% (Philippot)
UPR: 1.5%
Far-left: 1%

Obviously a very bad poll for LR and Wauquiez, but I have a hard time to believe that FN and DLF are that high.

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Marine Le Pen has made FN look credible to many. I'm not surprised they are doing so well at all.

Since the presidential debate Le Pen has lost a huge part of her credibility.

Is the Center-right UDI or are they the LR split-offs?

UDI and Agir, a new party formed by former LR members.

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Marine Le Pen proposes changing National Front party name to National Rally.

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Sarkozy is in custody since this morning, questioned by police over claims of an illegal financing of his 2007 campaign by Gaddafi.

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Sarkozy is indicted for passive corruption, illegal campaign financing and concealment of Libyan public funds.