French legislative election 2012

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

Belle et rebelle!

Only entering in that thread right now, and couldn't resist to post about it (La Rochelle staying faithful to its motto!). The 1st time I heard Royal was running in La Rochelle, I thought '.k she definitely wanna show as a martyr??', if there was one leftist spot in France that wasn't sized for her, that precisely was that one. A rather modern and pragmatic leftist spirit with a strong bobo influence, then the total opposite of her mix of old school French teacher style and populist 'Antillais Televangelist' style.

And all the media agitation that is going on since the twit of Hollande's wife supporting her opponent, and all politicians, till the PM, more or less forced to react to this is just...insane (and one more hint, if that was needed, that this political system is just ****** up).

Would have been funny to have her doing the teacher at the presidencey of the Assemblée though, I wonder who could it be instead of her. Well, you never know, but it seems done for her so far.

After the loss of Aubry, the loss of Royal and it's the hypocrisy about the unity of PS which is blasting a bit more.

That being said, the biggest stake to me in those elections remains whether the 'fantastic trio' of the new FN will do it.

Seems to remain to doable for Marine Le Pen. A very discredited PS, a candidate of the classical Right which is a Centrist, while the Right is generally more and more turning Far-Right, only 8% to catch. Seems doable.

Same for Collard in Gard. Outside of the good FN scores in Présidentielle there, Collard is totally fit for the classical Southerner Rightist/Far-rightism populism, he has a regional implantation since he was lawyer in Marseille, a nationwide very good recognition, the UMP facing him is totally crumbling in term of age (amusing how his name fits him...), and more of that this is a triangular.

I'd be less sure for the last big name of the new FN, Fillipot, but still. The guy began to gain a significant enough media exposure since the last Présidentielle campaign, he showed as a very good debater (and I think he can still improve), who has a rather strong political culture, who is young but not too much, and who hasn't an extremist background (he was Chevènementist). He calls for UMP voters to vote for him, maybe that wouldn't be easy for him, but might be doable, he runs in the good region.

If one of those 3 enters in, then this new FN could consider it a victory, each one of this 3 could very well succeed to excite the whole assembly each time they speak, and in the same time showing all the unfairness and the contradictions of our institutions and of our classical politicians. Perfect for Marine's conquest of the Right if so, they would have a lot of visibility without the slightest power. And no matter they have 1, 2 or 10 députés, in all cases they could complain about the total lack of representativity of this assembly given they did almost 1/5 of the vote and couldn't even be able to form a group in the assembly, especially when you see the totally disproportioned place that could have Greens compared to their 2,3%.

Other than that I'd be surprised PS hasn't a clear majority, Greens enslaved themselves and FdG wouldn't be strong enough to have a lot of sits, Mélenchon kinda screwed himself with his rather stupid personal confrontation. A movement like FdG might very well have some future, but they still have too much contradictions within them. So far based a lot on a leader (which just took a slap, and which also have rather strong personal contradictions, notably on the international scale, not to speak about too strong ties to too old political references) while its promotes some schemes in which the leadership of one man is not the most important, and the big contradictions with the old PCF stuck in its very old psychological schemes, which remains an important part of this movement, notably thanks to its ability to mobilize militants (even if the Présidentielles showed that people supporting this movement went far beyond the classical PCF). And well, I'd consider more and more that the years to come on the short term are for the Far-Right first, a golden path is opened to Marine Le Pen and her 'ideas', let's see if she can walk it, Municipales and Européennes elections could be a major test.

3 days to know which big mouthes we gonna have in the Assemblée, 2 years for the PS or for Marine Le Pen to convince...

Oh and, I haven't followed this whole thing closely, so I don't know at all whether this could be possible but I'd love that there'd be enough PS dissidents to, eventually, form a group in the assembly. ^^. One more thing that would show how ****** up are our institutions...

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

One of my bros, who lives in La Rochelle, just posted this link to me:

http://www.arretsurimages.net/vite.php?id=14017

13 headlines for Hollande's wife twit.

...insane.

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

Yeah, I don't know enough about the constituency itself for Philippot (sorry for his name in my other post, might be part of those that hardly enters in my mind), I based most of my argumentation on his personality and the momentum he could have taken from the Présidentielle campaign which indeed might not be enough, but you never know.

Yeah, MMLP, Maréchal, well, I didn't count her because I don't know her enough to say whether she could have a charismatic impact on the Assemblée, while I'm quite sure that even if only one of the 3 I mentioned do it, it could shake it. But yes, objectively she seems to have a chance.

And who knows about some eventual surprises here or there about FN Rassemblement Bleu Marine...

In case a charismatic FN one enters, it will be also interesting to see the behavior of the UMP députés of the Droite Populaire (far-right wing of the UMP) in parliamentary debates, basically there is no major difference between them and FN RBM (which if I believe Aliot wouldn't keep this name after the elections), heck there is even less and less difference, at least in term of tone and of kind of topics, between the Sarkozist/Coppé/Morano UMP and MLP (lol, even Fillon went to support Morano in Moselle after she said that UMP and FN voters were closer from each other than UMP was to PS, and I don't know if it was me or Fillon who could hardly do what he was doing but I just couldn't find a freaking sense in the sentence he stated about that on France Info), this could put all of this in light and helps an eventual conquest of the Right by Marine Le Pen.

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

Yes, it makes sense to add up PS-FG-EELV-Whatever totals (at least as an indication of something), but doing that with the UMP and FN misses the point that a lot of FN votes are 'fyck you!' votes.

Well, in the 1997-2012 French politics that was definitely how it happens.

In the 2012-something French politics, it's up for a new era.

The FN raises more and more an adhesion than a f**k off feeling, maybe it's not clear electorally so far, but in the debates, in the media, in what people say, in polls, that's apparently more and more the case, and you hear more and more people saying that they could never vote for Jean-Marie but that Marine is decent to them. And 18% with 81% turnout shows something. That kind of 'populist patriotism' perfectly fits the French cultural mood that is going on in this country for years, and by which I'm particularly fed up (and all the problems I had with the regional mood that's going on in this country in the last years were in this sense). A guy like Philippot, who clearly was the 2nd most important FN guy in the Présidentielle campaign, perfectly illustrates this. This plus the fact that what is supposed to be the classical Right tries to suck more and more at the Far-Right ideas, with clear groups (Droite Populaire) and even big figureheads like formerly mainly Sarkozy-Guéant and now mainly Coppé-Morano, regardless of the future of those latter figureheads, the 'ideas are living. All of this makes the FN having more and more the image of a regular party in France.

On the Left side, Jospin's 'majorité plurielle' is more or less over too, Greens, regardless of their last scores and of their enslaving agreement, took more an ideological self-assurance and don't want to see anymore as the petty green touch of painting on a corner of the PS logo. And FdG gave really a new psychological turn to the Far-Left too, and the time when PCF was the classical little puppet or 'leftist consciousness' of PS seems to be over, Mélenchon is a perfect embodiment of this, regardless of the fact that it's PCF who would have the most sits and who wouldn't be fan of having their comfy habits disturbed. So technically, electorally, it's rather safe to add them in an election, that's for sure. Politically, culturally, no.

The point is that French institutions and electoral system is very hardly representative of the political life of the country, which, outside of the fact that I wouldn't really believe anymore in the kind of Modern political systems in which we are living, is an other of those things that have been particularly annoying to me along years (heck, even considering the German electoral system and institutions, which remains part of the classical nowadays democracies, look like making a civilizational gap compared to French ones).

In France you have the Président, and the Street.

Some elections not really representative of the political life which are like a big cover on a pressure-cooker, the pressure grows and grows and grows in the society (the Street), when it's too much the Président/Elected Mornach/Half-God all powerful person listens to the Street and change some things. That's the way it goes. And during the few very relative representative electoral moments of those country (Présidentielle election mainly), you have Marine Le Pen doing 18% with 81% turnout, or JMLP making the 2nd run in 2002 and thus depriving the country of any true debates during at least 5 years...

France is a country that apparently like to go by à coups:

Pressure-BLAST-Pressure-BLAST-Pressure...etc.

There is a famous saying in France when people are fed up, they say:

Ca va péter! ('Gonna blast!')

Something like an Hollande presidency would make evolve it, but slowly, and also chaotically if MLP and her 'ideas' take more and more importance in the political debate, regardless of her electoral scores. Amusing how (thankfully!) all the trends go toward the end of that kind of things, either by a weakening of this, embodied by Hollande, or by an overdose of it, very much embodied by Sarkozy during the campaign and now by MLP, the Guignols de l'info are less and less funny, but still sometimes they remain good, and the way they portray that former one like 'Miracle maker Televangelist' is quite good. What's presents the most constructive political (economical things aside) evolution is FdG (and within them overall PdG) and Greens, but still no clear trends succeeds to emerge so far.

The point now is to see how this political system will crumble.

Or in a more constructive way, what could follow...

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

Oh and want the last 'gate' (that also goes in the sense of what I was saying about UMP and FN getting closer and closer)?

http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/le-reveil-politique/20120615.OBS8732/morano-piegee-je-n-ai-pas-envie-que-ca-devienne-le-liban-chez-moi.html

Morano trapped by the famous humorist/imitator Gerald Dahan (famous for having already trapped several famous people including some politicians.

He called Morano on phone and imitated Louis Aliot (MLP's husband, 2nd of FN hierarchically) to negotiate a FN support to Morano against a withdrawal of UMP against Collard, and then the conversation goes, and Morano loves to discuss politics, and is a very...spontaneous...person, so she very openly says to the supposed Aliot that:

'Marine Le Pen has a lot of talent'

'There are society projects on which I agree with you'

And in the end she says in a very heart-broken tone that:

'They [PS & friends] gonna put France in a sh!t like it's never been! Right and Left aren't the same! They gonna pass the voting right to foreigners! I don't want it becomes Lebanon here!'

Enjoy...

The most pitiful part is that, no matter the fact that it's rather close of what she already openly said, she now attacks the humorist in justice, saying it's a manipulation of her words (well the record is available on Internet, hard to access though, technical problems), an usurpation of identity and that she never gave her agreement for this (^^), so it makes her all looking as 'No! No! I never said that!', which discredits still more, in case it was needed, her camp on those topics and making FN looking like 'at least those are straight on what they think'...just what UMP needed.

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

Benoît, the FN isn't more respectable now than before 2011: all the guys around Marine really want power (contrary to Jean-Marie Le Pen), but they are at least as mad as the former team. And they are even far less intelligent.
Though they were cr*p, at least, people like Le Gallou, Blot, Martinez, even devil Stirbois, were clever guys.
So, as for leaders, middle and local politicians, rank-and-file, the transfers between UMP and FN may be, at a certain point, as impossible as ever.

And FN voters aren't likelier to transfer to the UMP than before, as it's again a mix between popular vote and "strong right" vote, plus (it's new in 2012) a rural and far-exurban vote. What Sarkozy did in 2007 was to appeal DIRECTLY to popular voters, apart from his traditional bourgeois base. It wasn't the FN rank-and-file or appartachiki who rallied Sarkozy.
So, today and for some years to come, adding UMP+FN hasn't any more relevance than before.

Of course, if the Droite populaire-wing of the UMP was a party of its own and if France had PR as electoral system, then you could add FN+Droite+populaire+UMP+even centre-right MPs, though still not the voters.

Well, yes, never said it was more respectable than before, just that the trend would be that more and more people would be finding it is, Marine Le Pen and the new generation might be as 'mad' as old FN's but they live in a new paradigm, both in term of content than in term of form, and are also far better communicants than before (unless anybody dare pretend Golnich was a good communicant), before FN was 'THE DEVIL ON EARTH!' (JMLP) and nobody else around, and was a kind mix of all the different streams of the hardcore French Far-Right fascinated by all the darknesses of French history, plus some different kinds of strong rightist people, plus all those who effectively wanted to say 'F**K ALL OF YOU!' (with different kinds of sociology existing for each category apparently).

Marine Le Pen is arriving like a storm in all of this and wants to conquer, she has 'the talent' to do so as said Morano (hey speaking about her, doesn't Fillon want to go back supporting Morano after what she just said 'on phone'?), she knows what to say to gain to catch the most possible populism, and she finds a country which is apparently, culturally (I care always more about what's going on in the culture than in elections personally, especially with the French electoral system), more and more opened to her ideas.

That being said, she only opened an important electoral gate with her 18% of 81%, as I said, if she wants to conquer she has a whole path to do, and still a lot of job to do, to find a new clear and more consensual line, but you can't watch FN right now and say it won't work, it's something in full mutation.

And when you add to this the fact that UMP would be totally crumbling to me, and that its Far-Right wing seems to be more and more fascinated by this new efficient leader, now that they have lost one, now that the whole classical Right has lost a strong leader, while they always worked this way.

All of this said, no matter how far Marine Le Pen would be able to go, our luck is that, in Europe, Far-Rightist populisms remain quite empty and can't be as nasty as they have been in the past, we're kinda vaccinated, which is why I use to say that I feel safer to be in Europe than in Northern America...

Once again, the major test for the new FN would be both Européennes (who knows what can happen in 2 years, but if the context remains kinda the same, those elections could be 'wow!'), and overall Municipales (I can't help thinking about Marseille...all the ingredients are there), a far more accessible election for FN and the 2nd most important elections for French people.

Oh and, it's my party that won last Sunday, about 52%!

I would have been home I might have continued my FdG vote, but I wasn't and am still not, so I guess my party will win again, and apparently I don't have much conscience troubles with that...

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

lol, Ségolène Royal speaking before 20h, which is forbidden on French TV, so we have the image and not the sound ^^.

Amusing to see this censorship about results in French media kinda teleported here.

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

So...2 FNs?

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

And La Rochelle rebelle!

Royal lost.

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

Coppé elected 59,6%

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

Lang beaten! by 49.something

Lang, Royal, it's all the 'special ones' of PS that are leaving...

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

Damn it, Bertand does it, very short though, 50. something.

Morano beaten! (maybe not a so good news, it's not the kind to surrender...)

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

Ministers:

Moscovici
Le Foll
Lebranchu

...elected.

Glavany too. Maybe future president of the Assembly.

lol at Morano, spending 3/4 of her speech to accuse Dahan ^^.

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

Collard makes it.

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

Marine Le Pen beaten according to France 2

Yup, same on Le Monde

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

MMLP, Maréchal la voilà, elected, becomes the youngest députée in France's history (22 years old).

Alliot-Marie lost!

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

Updated:

Elected Ministers:

Moscovici
Le Foll
Lebranchu
Filippeti
Pinel

Sego lost? Actually disappointed, although I expected it.

Yeah, she was a fancy one ^^.

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

Elected Socialist dissidents:

Falorni
Dosière

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

Guéant junior beaten.

And overall Guéant senior beaten. (yay!)

Marine Le Pen beaten according to France 2

by 118 votes. Ahem.

Philippot said 114 on France2, and said they gonna recount, while 114 would remain significant enough, he enjoyed to push on 'you know, Nord-Pas-de-Calais' PS fairness in elections...'. Then it wasn't that far to reach for MLP anyhow.

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

lol, Aubry said Falorni (Royal opponent) would be excluded of the PS, that affair might haven't finished to be poisonous.

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

Ah and, about Maréchal la voilà, heard her speech on France2, she is quite good, really, in a totally different style than MLP, a calm but efficient and rather sympathetic style.

Her and Collard can really have an impact on the Assemblée.

Bompard (Vaucluse), former FN, strong Far-Right, elected by 58%, that's 3 official Far-Right in the assembly. And we'd still have to see how many unofficial ones (Droite Populaire) we could have...

lol, Aubry said Falorni (Royal opponent) would be excluded of the PS, that affair might haven't finished to be poisonous.

Since weeks, I think than Falorni should ditch PS and join PRG and put himself in the line of Crépeault.

He said he wanted to stay in presidential majority, so could I guess, yeah the Crépeault reference could be a good legitimacy.

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

Enjoy the sweetie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5uAyqp1vqc&feature=player_embedded

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

I don't find her particularly hot for her age.

In the French politics that might be the hottest we have...

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

I don't find her particularly hot for her age.

In the French politics that might be the hottest we have...

Quite possibly. But then she's not much more than half the age of ordinary "young" politicians.

Well, yes, when I remember about some threads here on this forum I always felt kinda jealous ^^.

A real shame about Collard. I had kind of hoped to be able to gloat at a completely undeserved PS sweep of the Gard. Oh well, at least the UMP is locked out in that beautiful place.

Him in the Assemblée gonna be something. The guy is a professional exciter, he also won a lot of famous and popular cases as lawyer, spent a lot on TVs before his political career, he knows what to do and how to do it.

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

This is a subjective appreciation, of course.

Uf, I'm reassured...

^^