France General Discussion III: Tout doit disparaître

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Yeah, I hadn't watched them for years. Maybe it's because of the time at which I used to watch it religiously, but I've always kind of associated Les Guignols to the Chirac/Sarkozy era, particularly the former. At that time, it was a classic.

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Well, 20 years ago these were Chirac's approvals...



+14 between June and August 1998.

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I'm not quite sure that saying FBM is a spoiled rich kid who got away with anything (except his love affair with his teacher, at first) is a 'biased perception'. It's much closer to an objective fact, and FBM confirmed that with his outburst at the kid who called him 'Manu'.

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How would recognizing blank votes mean that "a lot" of elections would be voided? The effects of a blank vote would depend on what the enabling legislation says but, more likely than not, an election would only be voided if blank votes were an absolute majority or a plurality of votes cast over all other lists/candidates - something which has never happened in a national election in France and which would still be extremely unlikely to happen in a national election even if blank votes were to be counted as valid votes. It would probably happen, hypothetically, in some local elections with few candidates in small towns or those runoffs with only a single candidate. I don't believe that recognizing blank votes would massively increase the number of blank votes in the long term, certainly not from 5-ish% to 30% or something.

I also don't see the issue with recognizing blank votes with a PR system (besides, FBM's 'PR' idea is most likely some bullsh**t 'dose' of PR under a ridiculously convoluted system which would make a farce of the whole thing). Several countries which use PR recognize blank votes in legislative elections, like Spain and Colombia, and it doesn't necessarily imply leaving seats blank. In both of those countries, blank votes only increase the number of valid votes, which effectively raises the 'real' threshold and probably hurts small parties hovering right around the threshold (i.e. a party which wins 5.01% of the vote without blank votes being considered would win less than 5% if blank votes are recognized and therefore not get seats). In Colombia, the only real effect blank votes would have on legislative elections is if they were a plurality/absolute majority (still not legally clear which it is) over all other lists, then the election would have to be repeated. It's never happened, and will probably never happen.

The major serious issue with the blank vote is in the event of a close presidential runoff in which the winner's margin is narrow and the number of blank votes is high, which could bring the winner's percentage of the vote below 50%. I guess they could say that blank votes don't count in runoffs (and referendums) - a more esoteric argument could be made to justify this - but people would be pissed off, given that blank votes are understandably higher in runoffs (at least in France).