French National Assembly Elections, 06/30-07/07

[Agafin]

Having both the UK and french elections on the same week will be quite a feast for euro election nerds. And France in particular will have the Olympics later this year, not to mention the concurrent euros. Quite an eventful summer.

I don't think the RN have the necessary infrastructure to get a majority (at least not yet) but they can certainly double their current MPs to somewhere in the 150-200 interval which would make the assembly even more of a clusterf**k than it already is. Also NUPES is probably dead as I don't see how the left can manage to coalesce again, LFI is way too toxic and they aren't as dominant as they were in 2022. In fact, given how russophilic and pro-Palestinian they are, I wouldn't be surprised if the "front républicain" is used against them even moreso than against the RN.

[Agafin]

I fail to see how LR survives this. The pro-Ciotti faction is probably just going to go ahead and vote RN at this point which divides the already much diminished LR party.

[Agafin]

What exactly can Ciotti do at this point?

If the vast majority of LR is against him and has been expelled, does he lose the LR "party line" in his constituency? does he run as an independent? It is possible that he goes as far as runs with the help (direct or indrirect) or RN?

This is such a weird situation that I guess you can't predict it, but curious what theories are there.

There's no proof that the "vast" majority of the party is against him. So far it's just the party executives/establishment and as we learned with Trump in 2015, both of those do not always align. If he believes he still has the confidence of the base, he has no reason to leave for now. Because deep down, while most LR dislike the RN, I have yet to see a single républicain who has unambiguously stated that they'd vote LFI over RN. But the opposite has happened already.

[Agafin]

So Quatennens is out (the problematic lfi candidate who plead guilty to slapping his wife).

https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=1264&v=nycfehpVLu8&feature=youtu.be

A good decision for the unity of the Left but his speech was sad 😭. I understand that DV is a big no-no but he seems repentant and his wife apparently forgave him + as he said, rehabilitation is a big part of left wing ideology. Oh well.

[Agafin]

So Quatennens is out (the problematic lfi candidate who plead guilty to slapping his wife).

https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=1264&v=nycfehpVLu8&feature=youtu.be

A good decision for the unity of the Left but his speech was sad 😭. I understand that DV is a big no-no but he seems repentant and his wife apparently forgave him + as he said, rehabilitation is a big part of left wing ideology. Oh well.

Wonder if Mélenchon gave him up as a tribute in exchange for getting away with his purge of Corbières, Garrido etc. If so he shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. FI dissidents need to be fully supported.

As for Quattenens, rehabilitation is fine but I don't think it has to be in the form of a political career. Being a prominent face for an overtly feminist political movement is just not very credible at this point.

I get it and yes rehabilitating someone is different from giving him a political career. But assuming that there's nothing he can do to be fully considered an "acceptable" again is proof that even the left is fine with a permanent punitive justice system.

[Agafin]

Mbappe is an elitist multimillionaire, I don't think the working class people who vote RN will care about what he has to say.

And yeah, that is more of a pro-Renaissance endorsement than an anti-RN one since he uses the same Macronist rhetoric of both-sidesing RN and LFI.

[Agafin]

Yeah this is exactly what I was talking about the other day.

SURVEY - LR supporters in favor of an alliance with the RN (article in french).

While the party officials' universal condemnation of Ciotti's move might have given the impression that no one supports him, polling is in fact showing that over half of the party is with him.

While the question wasn't asked, I'm willing to bet that less than 10% of republicains would vote for an LFI candidate against an RN candidate and it makes sense ideologically.

[Agafin]

I know this is not exact correct thread, please forgive , as I forumulate my question:  with collapse of Macron and so called Macronists, RN the right-wing including republican rump, and the left coalition banner are projected, everywhere I see, as top two, some places suggest Left coalition could win more seats than R.N..

So my question is about President election scheduled for 2027, is it likely that Melenchon runs for president one more time, if he does, we assume the le Pen runs as the R.N Candidate..  are these likely to be top two candidates, heading to runoff, in 2027?  Would Melenchon have a chance to defeat le Pen, how would Macron try to direct his voters in such scenario?

Thanks

Le Pen is almost guaranteed to make it to the second round in 2027. Mélenchon less so. If he has any sense he'll let someone like Ruffin run instead. If he does run, then he might make it to round 2 only if the the Renaissance (Macron's party) candidate is very unpopular. In that scenario, Le Pen would crush him.

[Agafin]

"Far-right" is the better translation for "extrême droite" I think. No one actually says "extreme right" in English.

And yeah those labels are somewhat arbitrary. The RN is far right but LFI is only left (and not far left). I get it that there are parties that are to the left of LFI on economics (like NPA and LO which are actually anti-capitalist parties) but none is to their left on identity/cultural issues. And in a similar vein, Le Pen's party is to the left of LR and Renaissance on Economics.

[Agafin]

"Far-right" is the better translation for "extrême droite" I think. No one actually says "extreme right" in English.

Er... what? The term is absolutely used here and generally as a way of distinguishing overt Neo Nazis from everyone else.

Really? I use this website a lot and I can't actually remember the last time someone said "extreme right" (other than this thread) rather than far right, right-wing extremist or just directly say neo-nazis.

[Agafin]

Turnout : 64%
Under these numbers there would be triangulaires in more than half of the constituencies.

I have to assume that the more 3 way second round races are the better it is for RN

Yeah and unlike previous years, I don't really see candidates dropping put to endorse the stronger anti-RN candidate as they did in 2022 (and before).

[Agafin]

Over 1 million proxy votes have been registered, already more than for 2022. Again, hard to know what to make of it exactly, but it means there are at least quite a few people taking it seriously.

I'll be casting two votes myself, as I'll be a proxy for my mom.

Proxy voting seems like the easiest thing in the world to abuse.  Even though you are her son, would your mom really trust you to cast an RN ballot for her if she knows you hate that party? Would you be fine with it? I wonder why there's no postal voting.

[Agafin]

It's hard to understand what Macron's plan was by dissolving the National Assembly when he did.

[Agafin]

It's hard to understand what Macron's plan was by dissolving the National Assembly when he did.

He felt the need to "do something" after the dire European results?

I mean, it was a democratic decision so I'm not criticizing him for it, but he was under absolutely no obligation to do it. Another leader might have waited to see if things would get better especially as the current legislature still had 3 years to go. Can you imagine Trudeau calling a general election because of a series of poor by-election results? It'd be a similar thing.