European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 866

The radical/critical left is still dispersed. Mélenchon's movement, la France Insoumise, presents candidates almost everywhere (557), with 63% of them having no party. Mélenchon wants a national campaign linked with his result at the presidential (19,6%), and on the same program. The direction of the PCF wanted alliances with the whole critical left (ecologists and people who supported Hamon) and local arrangements, PS included; the PCF also has its own program. After several (6) attempts, no deal was reached and even talks about mutual withdrawals somewhat failed. There are a few constituencies where local deals were concluded; the FI won't present candidates against the PCF députés who sponsored Mélenchon (the PCF has 7 députés), same as some PCF candidates withdrew to support a FI one. The PCF has 484 candidates.

The FI has every FI candidate sign a charter which includes signing an anti-corruption charter, obeying to collective discipline on critical points, adopting the same program as the presidential, the same visuals and the logo φ. Basically the FI was opened to anyone on the left, but only if you defend their program (with a few local exceptions). The PCF refused the FI framework, perceiving it as a new hegemony within the left. They also have a few key programmatic disagreements on the EU, they don't want to abandon nuclear power, don't want a Constituent Assembly for a VIth Republic, etc. There's also a tactical collision: the FI is a new force, they want to settle in and aim at occupying the space left vacant by the collapse of the PS; while the PCF wishes to preserve his last strongholds and autonomy. The old disagreements and rancors from the Front de gauche (particularly from the 2012 presidential to 2015) are also not forgotten. The PCF gets 1-2% in polls compared with 14-16% for the FI.

As candidate, Mélenchon dropped himself in the poorest constituency of Marseille (the second biggest city in France, in which he arrived first), one where he scored almost 40% at the first round of the presidential. The incumbent député is a PS one who immediately started protesting on the theme “Mélenchon doesn't want to battle against the right or the far-right, instead he comes for a fratricidal fight within the left”. Mélenchon replied, “I don't want to weaken the PS, I want to replace it”. In 2012 he had chosen to fight Le Pen in her constituency; he had narrowly failed to advance to the second round, and the local bland social-democrat had won 50,1 : 49,9 against Le Pen in the second round (a 118 votes gap…). This time he chose a much easier constituency to lead the campaign. Two polls gave Mélenchon ahead in the first round with 35 and 38%, then winning 56:44 or 53:47 against Macron's candidate, with the outgoing PS député collapsing from 33% in 2012 to 13%.

Mélenchon aims at becoming Macron's number one opponent. (Well, he says that he wants to win the législatives, but…) A few minutes after Macron announced his right-wing Prime minister, Mélenchon held a brief priess conference saying: “Macron just took command of the whole traditional political class of this country. The old world is back under new and young garments. The right has just been annexed with a Prime minister coming from its ranks. The PS was already absorbed since dozens of its elected representatives or candidates asked Macron's investiture; and most of them just wait their election to join him. Last, the FN voters, after this party fulfilled the scarecrow role it's supposed to play, were abandoned as all their leaders deserted.” [Marine Le Pen had not yet announced her candidature at this time.] He thus claimed that he was the only serious opposition left to Macron. He warned two times: “do not give Macron the full powers” and concluded with a “let each of your ballots be a broom to sweep them all”.

Ecologists present 459 candidates, support 52 PS ones and 16 PCF ones. They offered a deal to the FI (25% of the constituencies for them and the PS), which was refused. Ecologists had 17 députés thanks to their 2012 deal with the PS, and had an autonomous group until Hollande's mandate made it explode. (Ecologists are torn between socialist, social-democrats and liberal sensitivities: 38% of EELV sympathizers had voted Mélenchon, 22% Hamon and 19% Macron.) Ecologists existed as a satellite because of a still functional social-democracy, so this time they will be wiped.

After their worst score since 50 years, the PS is in shambles. As soon as Hamon failed, the party apparatus whistled the end of the game and tossed overboard his program: the universal base income and various ecological measures such as leaving nuclear power or the end of diesel vehicles were ditched. The referendum on popular initiative was also removed, which at least shows some coherence: when your party was stomped in the last 6 elections, better not trust too much the people indeed.

The PS is now divided between no less than 4 lines. 1) People around Hamon will join the left-wing opposition; 2) the soft underbelly wants to survive; 3) some want a “critical support” to Macron, i.e. a disguised satellisation; 4) and some openly want to join Macron, yet are not excluded.

Valls' case is emblematic. He first declared that he wanted to be part of Macron's majority and asked the EM investiture. Macron's supporters were embarrassed, because Valls' return under their banner would have somewhat voided their PR talk about renewal, so they were like “uh, OK, but first you have to apply on the Internet page…” (The usual procedure.) Pundits started talking on the “Valls is being humiliated” theme while Internet was mocking Valls as, you know, the awkward guy who embarrasses everyone, yet no one dares to tell him he's too awkward and should go. EM finally decided not to decide: Valls didn't get the official EM investiture, but EM put no candidate against him. Valls publicly saluted the gesture, but privately sniveled to some journalists, saying Macron was “mean” (!).

The PS launched an internal exclusion procedure against Valls after he said he wanted to join Macron… yet didn't put any candidate against him! One of his closes, Malek Boutih, applied to join Macron, was denied… and still got the PS investiture afterwards. Chemically pure hypocrisy. Most of them are simply waiting Macron's triumph, then will make the move. There are dozens of PS candidates like that.

At any rate, Valls has no EM or PS candidate against him. Valls has been député of the 91-1 constituency for 15 years, winning 65:35 against the mainstream right in 2012. This year it looks like Valls, unlabelled, will face the FI candidate (Mélenchon arrived first in Valls' town with 34%, followed with Macron at 26%; 28,8% vs 24,5% for the whole constituency). Hopefully he gets stomped again. This would be so perfect, the ex-Prime minister beaten by a noname, woman of color with immigrant background and trade unionist on top of that; given that Valls spent his time bashing both while governing, his defeat would be karma embodied.

Various PS ministers don't have an EM candidate against them in their constituency.

Macron's movement, En marche (Onwards), rechristened itself La République en marche (~Republic onwards).

EM has 526 candidates (half of them are from the “civil society,” mostly from the upper classes of course), the remaining 51 being “a gesture of openness” for various PS or LR personalities. In many constituencies Macron actually has 2 or 3 candidates given that the PS or LR candidate is ready to vote Macron's bills. You can thus choose your flavor of Macron, just like you can buy the same product under different packagings.

Six ministers from Macron's government are candidates; they will have to resign if they lose (if they win, their substitute takes their place in the Assemblée). Two of them seem pretty much guaranteed to win, others could be upset.

The right is slowly capitulating. Their legitimism comes to bite them: after all, it is their beloved regime which makes the presidential monarch sacred… A few weeks ago, Macron was Hollande's heir and the continuation of “socialism” (lol) … Now, they stutter to find credible motivations to oppose him. Hard to claim that there are substantial differences when Macron's Prime minister and the two key posts holding the moneybox are from your own ranks… Especially as Macron is pretty much a younger version of Juppé, the runner-up of their primary; admittedly not the first choice for the social base of the right, as the result showed, but still.

They held their only national meeting yesterday, where they claimed that they were going for the win to impose a “clear majority” to Macron. They barely bothered to look convinced by their own words and overplayed their opposition posture, claiming that Macron was “smuggled socialism” [disguised left]. Their leader apparently said privately that reaching 150 députés would be “good” (they had 227 in 2012). From a promised triumphant win in November 2016 to breathing a sigh of relief if you get more than 100 députés in June 2017: misery and decadence of the French right. Being annexed in less than a year in your own regime, oh my aching sides…

After he rallied Le Pen, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan regoes full independancy and presents candidates pretty much everywhere (initially Le Pen and him were supposed to have a deal for 50 constituencies). A nice political suicide for nothing.

After Le Pen's failures, critical/dissident voices were pretty much smothered within the party, but tensions still simmer. Le Pen will once again lead the party to the defeat. They initially expected 40-50 députés, but it seems they might not even get 15… If their electorate is demobilized, they might get crumbs once again, like in 2012 where their 6,4 millions of votes at the presidential translated to 2 députés. The rival factions within the party only wait this to start devouring each other. The far-right is quite an unstable pole, without their momentum they can easily fall again into sectarian conflicts. Le Pen's father will for instance present between 150+ dissident candidates… including against her own daughter! For those people the FN is too soft and corrupted by “leftists” themes…