Which institutions would you prefer for France?

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

Sometimes I came to wonder what could be good instead of the 5th republic that I don't really like. I came to something like this:

A fully proportional National Assembly.

A Senate with the election process of the National Assembly today.

So that we have an assembly fully dedicated to parties, and the other one to territories.

Some commissions debate the laws in each assembly, some amendments are made by each assembly, and in the end laws are voted in a Congress of both.

Terms of 5 years for each assembly.

Election of Senate is hold in the middle of the 3rd year of the term of the National Assembly.

A president is elected by the Congress just after the election of the National Assembly, it has also a term of 5 years. The president appoints its ministers, it can be fired if 75% of the Congress votes it.

Well, not sure for the president not to have a direct election, but by now, it is what seems to be the most interesting to me.

Would you have some ideas about this question?

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

My wet dream:

A federal republic based on federalism in Spain, Canada, US or even Germany (or, also Scotland/Wales devolution). Redraw regions to make real regions: get rid of regions which are entirely artificial Parisian bureaucrat's creation (aka, get rid of Pays-de-la-Loire among others) and create new regions which mean something (a Region Savoie, a unified Bretagne, a unified Normandie, Poitou including historically Poitevin Vendee).

Héhé. So surprising...

Well, well, well...

Actually, what you call real regions are things from the past, they mean more or less, and anyways more and more, nothing now. Actually, I support region redrawing but according to present criteria. If we had to take decisions according to how it was in the past, the best we would obtain would be stagnation.

For example, I understand very much that from your point of view, Pays de la Loire is an awful stuff, but well, I don't know the place enough to give a clear judgment, but it seems it has some geographical and economical coherence, it is the Loire valley, it has more or less the same agriculture, more or less the same cities, some complementary industries with the harbor of Nantes/Saint-Nazaire at the end.

The history/past is important for the coherence of a territorial identity, but we're in France in 2009, so, not that much here. First, France, so a country that killed its regional identities long time ago now, we're not in Spain, or UK, or Germany, or Italy, we're in France. Second, 2009, in the world of today, in our societies, these old regional identities miss of sens to say the least, that doesn't go over "pleasant" "reassuring"  folklore, that are more or less old nicely colored flags pleasant to watch, and to hear about their history...

As for the regional languages, I find it very interesting to keep them and why not to study them, but, like we do with Latin or Greek, as what they are, some more or less dead language. The hell I'm fed up to see on France3 Midi-Pyrénées the weekly news in Occitan, and all what tries to make live Occitan again, to make youngs speak it, and so on...

Let's stop to try to make live again some things that have been killed, it's impossible. Waste of time...

Piece of sh**t! We can be happy that the conservatists of cro-magnon societies didn't win!

I know, that can be hard to cut with the past sometimes, but, you're clever, you can do it...

Well, back to the topic of this thread.

All of this make that concerning the regions, personally I don't care that much of historical borders. I would also suppress the départements as the political entities they are (when the hell will we do that?? At least!), keeping just the regions, and building the regions according to the coherence of their population, industry, agriculture, cities, well geographical criteria in short, just historical ones if some are still really vibrant.

Regions would earn the powers of départements while keeping their current ones, I don't think I would give them more.

All of this said, I haven't thought that much to all the changes that the net could carry/impose to such reforms on the more or less long term...

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

Now Hashemite will get mad and call you a Jacobin.

Let's be optimistic, he may have a... revelation...!

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

Honestly, though, I agree with him. Absent of a clear reason to break with tradition and split Brittany, we should not do so. I am Bengali, and bureaucrats in New Delhi and Islamabad have tried to suppress our language in favor of Hindustani. Linguistic cleansing is not something that appeals to me.

Yes, yes. And I do agree with that. But, you seem to know enough about France's history, so you may know a bit about the history of its region and its regional languages. The question here is not to kill something, as I said it has already been killed, the question is, as I tried to explain and I said why, whether or not we try to more or less resuscitate these things. In this, I just see stagnation.

And, well, beyond that, no matter whether or not the things have been killed, I think that sometimes we have to break with the past, to create and to watch toward future, of course, that are here general principles and it has always to be made when it makes sens.

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

I'll keep it at that. I don't have time for Jacobin rhetoric.

Haha. "Jacobin". Actually the revolution took place 200 years ago.

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

Héhé. See it the way you want, well, I gave arguments, free to each one to deal with it.

Luckily the conservatives of cro-magnon societies didn't win!

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

Luckily the conservatives of cro-magnon societies didn't win!

Good for you.

I'm afraid we'll just have to agree to disagree. I'm not a flipflopper and nobody will convince me to change my principles, not you, not anybody.

And that's not my goal in life, I would have at least expose the arguments of my point of view and, as I said, of course everyone is free to deal with it.

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

Personally, I explain my point of view concerning regionalism. What you're talking about Antonio is rather regionalisation, something I'm not opposed to, if it isn't aimed with regionalist purposes...

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

What you're talking about Antonio is rather regionalisation, something I'm not opposed to, if it isn't aimed with regionalist purposes...

Giving a little money to people outside of Paris to build little roads and have a cute little regional park isn't regionalisation.

Oh ya, I personally wouldn't be opposed to extended powers to regions, I could even be open minded to some more or less federalism. I'm just fed the hell up by "regionalism", by regionalism I mean the matter of old identities/cultures because I find it a waste of time to try to make live something that have been more or less killed, or just to try to make something survive just in order to make it survive, a waste of time and a miss of perspectives. Don't know whether this is to be called Jacobinism or not, but I think I already explained myself on that matter...