France General Discussion III: Tout doit disparaître

[Antonio the Sixth]

What a boring thread name. People had plenty of better suggestions.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I like the new title. Appropriately optimistic.

Also, kudos for not forgetting the circumflex accent!

[Antonio the Sixth]

RIP Simone Veil

Yeah, RIP FF.

[Antonio the Sixth]

RIP Simone Veil

Yeah, RIP FF.

Meh, you missed the time she walked with Christine Boutin to oppose gay marriage?

I mean, she's not my kind of politician and I'd never have voted for her or anything, but her legacy for women's rights remains invaluable.

[Antonio the Sixth]

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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.

[Antonio the Sixth]

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.

[Antonio the Sixth]

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

F**king useless. Hamon was right to leave.

[Antonio the Sixth]

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.

[Antonio the Sixth]

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.

[Antonio the Sixth]

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

F**king useless. Hamon was right to leave.

Can you flesh out Hamon's motivations, and what state the PS is in, ideologically? I must say that vote is at odds with how I expected the current PS to act (mainly informed by electing Hamon as their leader).

Hamon is from the PS' left, unlike most of the MPs that were reelected last month. He opposed all of Hollande's right-wing legislation and resigned the government when it became clear he was going to go full supply-side. His campaign was centered around UBI, shortening the workweek, tackling workplace stress, taxing the rich, and radical measures against climate change. It's clear now that the PS will never provide an effective platform for these ideas.

[Antonio the Sixth]

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

F**king useless. Hamon was right to leave.

Can you flesh out Hamon's motivations, and what state the PS is in, ideologically? I must say that vote is at odds with how I expected the current PS to act (mainly informed by electing Hamon as their leader).

Hamon is from the PS' left, unlike most of the MPs that were reelected last month. He opposed all of Hollande's right-wing legislation and resigned the government when it became clear he was going to go full supply-side. His campaign was centered around UBI, shortening the workweek, tackling workplace stress, taxing the rich, and radical measures against climate change. It's clear now that the PS will never provide an effective platform for these ideas.

Thanks, I wasn't too far off, just didn't realise the political collapse had hurt the parliamentary PS left more than the right. What do you think of the prospects for his new party? I wonder (no doubt wishful thinking) if it might counter-intuitively allow for/force more cooperation on the Left since they're so disunited that they'll never get in the second round unless voters rally around one.

I don't have very high hopes for his movement (or the non-FI French left in general) right now, but I try to keep up some hope. Hopefully he ends up as an ally and potentially a voice of sanity within a broader left alliance, but it's a long way to there.

[Antonio the Sixth]

What about a curcial part of the electorate: Cheminade's voters?

I'd honestly love to know.

[Antonio the Sixth]

...wow, that is f**ked up. I genuinely had no idea. Hope they change it soon.

[Antonio the Sixth]

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%

The PS didn't even bother to run a list??

[Antonio the Sixth]

muh great liberal hero

[Antonio the Sixth]

I mean sure, RIP, but idgaf tbh.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I love French bread in general, but the baguette specifically is overrated.

[Antonio the Sixth]

oh my God please not Ségogo

[Antonio the Sixth]

If the Communists take over the Left Front,

hahahahahaha

[Antonio the Sixth]

#LockHimUp

[Antonio the Sixth]

A huge change is happening right now.
As you know, France is a laïc Republic, the State and the churches are separated.
But Macron decided to go to the annual conference of French bishops, and said “the bond between the [carholic] Chuch got damaged. It is incumbent upon us to repair it”.
The Left is on fire. Macron was seen as a defender of the low of 1905 that separates the State and the churches. A lot of moderate socialists voted for him because Hamon was unclear about laïcisme (especially with muslims). Then Macron said there was a danger of “radicalisation” (a word often used for terrorists) for the defenders of this law. And now this...

He talked about the dialogue between the State and the Church not the formal relationship between them.
There is no huge change happening, really.

Yeah, as much as I despise FBM this strikes me as a nothingburger. It's shameless pandering, sure, but it doesn't really mean anything.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Officially updating my nickname for him from Flawless Beautiful Macron to Flawless Beautiful Manu.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yeah, I hadn't watched them in a long time and I'm not too heartbroken about this, but it's still sickening that they ended the way they did. Bolloré is a piece of sh*t.

[Antonio the Sixth]

May I be the first to say, lol?

Couldn't have happened to nicer guys.

[Antonio the Sixth]

One more reason I was rooting for Croatia...