More political idiocy in France

[Die Neue Zeit]

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/05/france-sarkozy-socialist


To the left of the PS, the presumptive candidate of the Front de Gauche, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, remains stuck on 4 per cent and appears not to have benefited from Olivier Besancenot's announcement that he would not be standing as presidential candidate of the Nouveau parti anticapitaliste (Besancenot received 4.08 per cent of the vote in the first round of the 2007 election).

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/may2011/besa-m12.shtml


Marine Le Pen of the neo-fascist National Front (FN) is rising in opinion polls, as mounting oppositional sentiment in the working class produces no increased support for the discredited so-called “left” parties.

[...]

Thus, news magazine Marianne commented: “To whom will [Besancenot’s] electorate go? [Left Front candidate] Jean-Luc Mélenchon? He’s a fraternal rival of the NPA. The Greens and Nicolas Hulot? [Green Party leader] Daniel Cohn-Bendit is not sure that their movement needs a candidate. Dominique Strauss-Kahn? A gulf separates the striking postman from the very pro-business director of the IMF! Nicolas Sarkozy? His friends at Fouquet’s [a luxury restaurant where Sarkozy held his post-electoral victory dinner] are not really anti-capitalists. Why not Marine Le Pen? Her discourse is a break with existing elites, a desire to deconstruct Europe, positioning itself with the losers in the system. Let’s wait and see what polls say.”

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

1) Besancenot himself has decided not to run; last time I checked the NPA had not decided whether or not to field a candidate.

2) All of this maneuvering has to do with positioning one's candidate into at runoff with Le Pen: she has little chance of reaching more than 25% of the electorate in any case, so any party that isn't eliminated in the first round (less than 10%) stands a good chance at the Presidency. Marianne's question is stupid, as are all the polls (French polls are notoriously inept and misleading, viz. those that argued that DSK would be the nominee of the Socialists, when all they showed was that he was more popular with the Right than the other Socialist candidates.

At this point in time my money's on François Hollande, a kind of "Old Faithful on the Rebound" who's leading the Socialist pack. Not a personal preference, of course.

[Who?]

Yikes.

I heard the La Pen was polling at over 25% earlier this month. That coupled with the apparent weakness of the NPA spells distaster for the left in 2012.

[Die Neue Zeit]

2) All of this maneuvering has to do with positioning one's candidate into at runoff with Le Pen: she has little chance of reaching more than 25% of the electorate in any case, so any party that isn't eliminated in the first round (less than 10%) stands a good chance at the Presidency.

What about the National Assembly, then? Without electoral reform, where are the parties to the left of the PS, especially the Parti de Gauche?

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

What about the National Assembly, then? Without electoral reform, where are the parties to the left of the PS, especially the Parti de Gauche?
Dunno. For reasons I don't quite figure (they have to do with a different way of allocating seats, plus a fair amount of skewed representation), the National Assembly is dominated by the Right, whereas regional representation is dominated by the Left. So the PC, which barely hits 2% in national elections, has thousands of local elected positions. The strategy of the PC with the PdG is little more than an attempt to protect their electoral positions anyhow, it's purely a rearguard action, both in the Assembly and locally.

The electoral system was devised to exclude the Left from power, and this works fairly well (or rather, badly) in national, winner-take-all elections; it may well backfire on the Right this time around, all this fear-mongering around the FN only helps if you have a strong candidate of the Right in second place, which is what Sarko and his media have been trying to set up, e.g. by trying to foist a ticking time-bomb like Strauss-Kahn on the Socialists. The problem is, Sarko's chances of coming in second, or even third, in the first round of the presidential primaries are not so hot. Unfortunately I don't believe Melenchon's are, either. He's a "left" Socialist blowhard with a lousy temper, and he's resented by PC loyalists who, for some reason, still haven't figured out that the only purpose of the Party now is to keep its higher-ups employed for a few years more.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Come 2012, all roads to France will say "welcome to vichy" if the NF wins.

[Obs]

FN neo-fascist? Seriously?

[Delenda Carthago]

FN neo-fascist? Seriously?
No. Far right, yes. Fascist, no. LePen was a typical De Golist. After May 68 the political frame moved so much to the Left that nowdays DeGol would be considered extremist. Le Pen's daughter, leader of the NF, is less edgy than her father.

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

No. Far right, yes. Fascist, no. LePen was a typical De Golist. After May 68 the political frame moved so much to the Left that nowdays DeGol would be considered extremist. Le Pen's daughter, leader of the NF, is less edgy than her father.

Yes. Fascist. In a concession to our liberal friends, the FN has requested that its members not make the Nazi salute at meetings.

No. Le Pen was not a Gaullist, he got his start as an associate of Poujade (righ-wing shopkeepers party in the 'fifties) and was staunchly pro French Algeria.

[Delenda Carthago]

Yes. Fascist. In a concession to our liberal friends, the FN has requested that its members not make the Nazi salute at meetings.

No. Le Pen was not a Gaullist, he got his start as an associate of Poujade (righ-wing shopkeepers party in the 'fifties) and was staunchly pro French Algeria.
Yeah. No. No fascist. They are not antisemitic, amongst other things. They are not based on a popular basis, they are anti-West. They are conservatives, far rights,racists. But not nazis. Everything on the right is not nazism yaknow...

And to be honest, I dont see many things that they could do worse than Sarkozy. I mean, the French had to chose between them two and Stos Kahn(until last week). And an NPA which doesnt seem to can control its own leader.

[OhYesIdid]

Wait, I'm confused: Melenchon's with the NPA, right? What is the political and class, character of the NPA? I´ve only heard of them as anti-globalization, so that would put them on even ground with the NF, no?

[Crux]

Why is Besancenot not standing?

[Demogorgon]

What about the National Assembly, then? Without electoral reform, where are the parties to the left of the PS, especially the Parti de Gauche?
I think speculating much about the National assembly is pointless as voters tend to vote in that election based on the result of the Presidential election. It would be interesting to see what happened in the event of Le Pen winning though (not that she will, mercifully) because the FN simply can't win many seats under the current electoral system. I wonder what she would do then?

I suppose the Electoral system for the National Assembly will be changed again in the not so distant future, though I am not sure where the PS currently stands on that. They seem to have changed their minds rather a lot.

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

Yeah. No. No fascist. They are not antisemitic, amongst other things.
Oh, yes they are; you just don't follow the logic of their philosemitism, is all - or didn't you know that Nazis have traditionally been among the biggest enablers of Zionism?


They are not based on a popular basis, they are anti-West.
Hate to burst your bubble: in Northwest France their biggest draw is with disaffected CP voters who, of course, are traditionally anti-West in the sense of "anti-Yankee."



And to be honest, I dont see many things that they could do worse than Sarkozy.

Sarkozy has played to the far-right, with the result that he's encouraged the fascist monster that will devour him first of all. At least he has the option of moving to the center again.


I mean, the French had to chose between them two and Stos Kahn(until last week).
No, they didn't, that's just media manipulation. The Socialists haven't even announced for the primaries, yet.


And an NPA which doesnt seem to can control its own leader.
Uh????? Besancenot decided not to run. There are many possible reasons for that, some of them personal no doubt, many of them political and/or strategic. But if you're trying to say that Besancenot's decision comes in spite of, or against the interests of the NPA as a group you don't know the man.

[Q]

Yeah. No. No fascist. They are not antisemitic, amongst other things. They are not based on a popular basis, they are anti-West. They are conservatives, far rights,racists. But not nazis. Everything on the right is not nazism yaknow...

Facism is not equal to nazism. Nazism is a particular German expression of fascism. The original fascists (that is, the Mussolini gang) had no anti-semitic positions (overtly, considering that anti-semitism had a long running history throughout Europe and the nazi's didn't exactly drop out of the blue sky with this), as far as I'm aware.

Front National is quite obviously grounded in French fascist traditions (which did by the way have anti-semitic tendencies). To call them fascist today though is another matter. Do they still maintain thug groups for instance? I don't believe so. The label "neo-fascist" is quite meaningless to me.

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

Do they still maintain thug groups for instance? I don't believe so.
You better believe it.

[Q]

You better believe it.

Do you have any sources of FN thugs smashing, for example, immigrants? Or strikers for example? I have the impression that the FN is solely focusing on the electoral level. This is how many fascist formations have evolved these last 30, 40 years all over Europe.

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

Do you have any sources of FN thugs smashing, for example, immigrants?
Every year on May 1 there's a ceremony held on the Pont du Carrousel in Paris to commemorate the death by drowning of a young Moroccan, Brahim Bouarram, who happened to be there when the FN left their own Mayday celebrations and was tossed into the river. The FN is part and parcel of a long tradition of right-wing goon squads going back to the early 1930s. Why should they change what works so well for them? The point of the electoral process is not to win seats (and you'd be amazed to know how few positions are actually held by the FN in France), it's to legitimize their positions.

[Demogorgon]

Sarkozy has played to the far-right, with the result that he's encouraged the fascist monster that will devour him first of all. At least he has the option of moving to the center again.

Do you think he will try this and if so could he win back centrist voters or has he alienated too many of them by now?

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

Do you think he will try this and if so could he win back centrist voters or has he alienated too many of them by now?

I'm sure he'll try anything - he already has. His only hope is in getting into the second round with someone even more unpopular than himself. What's likely to happen, though, is that the second round becomes a three-way race (viz, Le Pen/Sarko/Socialists) with Sarko coming in second or even third, in which case he'd have a choice of either bowing out as the Socialists did nine years back, or splitting the right-wing vote further. In either case, the Left wins. I suspect, BTW, that this is one reason Besancenot has bowed out of the race.

[Demogorgon]

I'm sure he'll try anything - he already has. His only hope is in getting into the second round with someone even more unpopular than himself. What's likely to happen, though, is that the second round becomes a three-way race (viz, Le Pen/Sarko/Socialists) with Sarko coming in second or even third, in which case he'd have a choice of either bowing out as the Socialists did nine years back, or splitting the right-wing vote further. In either case, the Left wins. I suspect, BTW, that this is one reason Besancenot has bowed out of the race.
I'm not sure what you mean by a three way race in the second round? Only the top two candidates go through after all, unless one bows out in favour of the third placed candidate.

In any event, from what I have been following of the race it is hard to predict who will go into the second round. If Le Pen makes it then her opponent will win the Presidency easily, so I suspect that will hurt the left vote (the real left that is) as voters vote Socialist to prevent a rerun of 2002. I may be wrong as I tend to dip in and out of following French politics and might have missed something but I would be very surprised if the Socialists don't raise the spectre of a Sarkozy v. Le Pen runoff.

[Iraultzaile Ezkerreko]

I'm sure he'll try anything - he already has. His only hope is in getting into the second round with someone even more unpopular than himself. What's likely to happen, though, is that the second round becomes a three-way race (viz, Le Pen/Sarko/Socialists) with Sarko coming in second or even third, in which case he'd have a choice of either bowing out as the Socialists did nine years back, or splitting the right-wing vote further. In either case, the Left wins. I suspect, BTW, that this is one reason Besancenot has bowed out of the race.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't part of Besancenot's reasoning that he didn't want to be the only leader of the NPA and thought other people should be national figures?

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

I'm not sure what you mean by a three way race in the second round? Only the top two candidates go through after all, unless one bows out in favour of the third placed candidate.
Am I wrong? My impression is, that any party coming in with 10% of the vote can stay in, though obviously there's enormous pressure not to be the spoiler. If the three top candidates were to be the FN/Socialists/Sarko (which is the most likely scenario), then the pressure on either the Socialists or Sarko to drop out would be enormous - that's what happened 9 years ago with Chirac and Le Pen in the second round.


... so I suspect that will hurt the left vote (the real left that is) as voters vote Socialist to prevent a rerun of 2002.

Sorry, when I wrote "the left," I meant the quote-unquote left. Though there's a slim chance (very, very slim) for the PdG.

[Demogorgon]

Am I wrong? My impression is, that any party coming in with 10% of the vote can stay in, though obviously there's enormous pressure not to be the spoiler. If the three top candidates were to be the FN/Socialists/Sarko (which is the most likely scenario), then the pressure on either the Socialists or Sarko to drop out would be enormous - that's what happened 9 years ago with Chirac and Le Pen in the second round. The parliamentary elections let everyone over 12.5% go forward, but the Presidential elections let only the top two go on. According to the Constitution:
ARTICLE 7.

Le Président de la République est élu à la majorité absolue des suffrages exprimés. Si celle-ci n'est pas obtenue au premier tour de scrutin, il est procédé, le quatorzième jour suivant, à un second tour. Seuls peuvent s'y présenter les deux candidats qui, le cas échéant après retrait de candidats plus favorisés, se trouvent avoir recueilli le plus grand nombre de suffrages au premier tour. "

In 2002 Jospin was third and he was out end of story. If he could have gone on I think he would have, with all the left wing candidates gone Le Pen would definitely have come third and he might even have been able to beat Chirac. Certainly in Parliamentary elections where three can go into the second round the Socialists and UMP never withdraw in favour of one another when the FN make it through I think.


Sorry, when I wrote "the left," I meant the quote-unquote left. Though there's a slim chance (very, very slim) for the PdG.
To be honest unless the Socialists really screw up (like having the actual candidate arrested for rape I suppose:lol: ) they will be able to scare those on the left into backing them. It may be tactically sound for left wing voters to vote PS actually because a Socialist President would normally make voters more willing to vote for smaller parties in National Assembly Elections and there is always the chance of the electoral reform they really need. Though hoping the PS actually make that change may be too much.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Dunno. For reasons I don't quite figure (they have to do with a different way of allocating seats, plus a fair amount of skewed representation), the National Assembly is dominated by the Right, whereas regional representation is dominated by the Left. So the PC, which barely hits 2% in national elections, has thousands of local elected positions. The strategy of the PC with the PdG is little more than an attempt to protect their electoral positions anyhow, it's purely a rearguard action, both in the Assembly and locally.

The electoral system was devised to exclude the Left from power, and this works fairly well (or rather, badly) in national, winner-take-all elections; it may well backfire on the Right this time around, all this fear-mongering around the FN only helps if you have a strong candidate of the Right in second place, which is what Sarko and his media have been trying to set up, e.g. by trying to foist a ticking time-bomb like Strauss-Kahn on the Socialists. The problem is, Sarko's chances of coming in second, or even third, in the first round of the presidential primaries are not so hot. Unfortunately I don't believe Melenchon's are, either. He's a "left" Socialist blowhard with a lousy temper, and he's resented by PC loyalists who, for some reason, still haven't figured out that the only purpose of the Party now is to keep its higher-ups employed for a few years more.

I'm surprised at the sheer lack of electoral reform campaigns in France.

Anyway, the only positive regarding Melenchon is that he's personal friends with Die Linke's Oskar Lafontaine. Beyond that, he can't even imitate Chavez.


I suppose the Electoral system for the National Assembly will be changed again in the not so distant future, though I am not sure where the PS currently stands on that. They seem to have changed their minds rather a lot.

[Demogorgon]

I'm surprised at the sheer lack of electoral reform campaigns in France.

Nah, it is there. At the last Presidential election for instance every candidate besides Sarkozy and Royal were promising full Proportional Representation with Royal opting for half the members elected by the current system and half by PR (on an MMM rather than MMP basis). Even Sarkozy was hinting at sixty members elected by PR when he was chasing the FN vote on all fronts, but he soon forgot about that. Indeed when the Balladur commission recommended having twenty to thirty members elected by PR (that's about 5% of the Assembly) he even ignored that.

As for the PS, they have gone back and forth a lot more. They fought the 1981 elections on a platform including full PR but initially forgot about that when they discovered they very much liked their majority, but when they realised they would definitely lose the 1986 election they brought in a rather weak version of it (the districts averaged five or six seats I think). Chirac immediately repealed that and went back to the old system when he became Prime Minister though.

When the PS came back in 1988 there was talk of 25% elected by PR but nothing came of it, at least partly out of fear of the FN, though when Jospin ran for President in 1995 he promised a "dose of proportional representation", presumably the 25% model, but again when he became Prime Minister in 1997 he didn't do anything on that front.

So I think it is safe to say there is plenty of talk on the subject, if little action. I wonder if the PS will trot out their "sixth republic" proposal again. If they do, they won't be able to avoid at least MMM and hopefully full PR.