French regional election - December 6 and 13, 2015

[DavidB.]

I really don't know enough about French politics, but at the risk of asking some dumb questions I'll go ahead. I have the impression that so far, FN's big "shocking" election victories (except for the one in the European Parliament) were considered impressive in terms of vote percentage, but due to the nature of the French electoral system(s) didn't translate into actual representation, except for some special cases (like Marion Maréchal-Le Pen being elected), which makes FN basically irrelevant solely in terms of representation and governing, both on the national and the local/departemental level. Is that correct?

Second question: FN's margins in many polls for the regional elections seem big enough to win runoffs. That would render this election the first one in which FN will become a party that is also relevant when it comes to representation and (possibly) governing, and not only because of its "symbolic power". Is that correct?

[DavidB.]

Thanks for explaining this, Zanas!

[DavidB.]

PACA (Odoxa, 12-16 Oct.)

Panzermiss (FN) 35%

Panzermiss in PACA? I assume this is Marion, and Marine didn't move from the North?

[DavidB.]

These names of the new regions are monstrous.

[DavidB.]

What percentage does the third party have to reach in order to make the runoff a triangulaire?

[DavidB.]

I'm a bit suprised (and dissapointed) that LR didn't win the popular vote nationally and PS held on to Bretagne. Wouldn't they be upset about the regional gerrymandering reorganization?

Bretagne eventually remained intact as a region, without any changes. Why would they be upset about this?

[DavidB.]

And about comparing PiS and FN actually most of the foreign news papers were saying a lot of bullsh**t calling PiS nationalist, xenophobic etc. that is why I am wondering what will be reaction of biggest newspapers, especially German ones for the French results.

Yes, of course all liberal Western newspapers are currently complaining in a similar way as when PiS won the Polish election. That is the best part about the French election results. The fact that people are still so clueless as to where such Western European election results stem from, on the other hand, makes me sad (the Polish case is rather different in that regard; Eastern Europe and Western Europe are still hardly comparable).

[DavidB.]

Amazed by people's overreaction. This is 2015, radical right-wing parties have been proved popular in European elections for over a decade now. Regarding France, this isn't so different from the European election in 2014. The people who love to ramble about fascists are missing the point insofar that their revulsion often impairs their capabilities of analyzing where results like these come from.

Peter Mair's take on the emergence of an electoral void is highly relevant: during the last decades, the processes of European integration, globalization, privatization, new public management and (in some instances) decentralization have drastically reduced the scope of parliamentary decision-making, hollowing out the hearts of European parliamentary democracies. In addition to that, as political scientist Andeweg states, political parties, which are conceptually seen as standing between civil society and the state, have moved toward the state and have come to function as representatives of the state to society rather than as society's "bridgehead" within the political realm. This has fundamentally changed the structure and functioning of Europe's democracies. It has benefited the higher educated, the cosmopolitans, the well-off, yet processes like these inevitably led to drawbacks that are being felt on the other side of society, both economically and socially. Thus, a new sort of class-based societies have been created, in which the Danish and French elites have more in common with each other than with the working classes in their own countries. People "on the other side" of society face the consequences of the aforementioned processes, which all steer to one direction, and feel "the elites" have abandoned them, which both leads to distrust in politics and disengagement from politics (note that political parties, too, are disengaging themselves from society by moving toward the state; the disengagement is mutual).

Of course, this is going to have political consequences, and because globalization and immigration lead working-class people to believe elites are "selling out" things that are part of their identity (symbols that are considered redundant by the cosmopolitan class) this often (but not always) leads the radical right to profiting from this process rather than the far-left, even if the far-left has more attention for the underlying economic changes than the radical right. Anyway, the people who now ramble about fascism only perpetuate the existing image that people "on the other side" of society have regarding the cosmopolitan class, the idea that elites are forming a cartel in order to bring about changes that benefit the cosmopolitan class yet are deemed negative for the working class (political scientist Christope Guilluy said reasonable things about this in regard to the French election). Instead, it is high time for people to address the real issues that lead people to vote for parties like Front National. These parties are going to change nothing, but they form a vehicle of resistance for the "losers of globalization" by merely existing, and to many people the fact that they are not able to change anything even when winning elections only proves that "elites" are "against the people". Of course this is way too simplified a picture, but there is some truth it insofar that politicians on both the left and the right have been responsible for diminishing the scope of parliamentary decisionmaking, a process which has fundamentally altered the functioning of democracy and which has arguably benefited the cosmopolitan class, to some extent at the expense of "the other side of society". We should not talk about immigration or about this or that European treaty (which is, of course, what the far right and the far left do) but instead see the bigger picture and conclude that this is essentially about democracy. This does not mean that Front National is a nice party or has good "solutions", and it also does not mean that Front National is going to address issues or even has an understanding of the bigger issues that have changed our democracies (I doubt they do). It does, however, mean that people who analyze elections should be able to see the FN's rise in the light of a certain number of developments, and start thinking about the new class conflict that has emerged and is only going to be enhanced in the next decades.

[DavidB.]

Sure its an error to act as though this came out of nowhere - as is always done - given that the FN has been a serious political force in France for thirty years now, but I'm not quite sure how pseudo-academic waffle helps to bring greater understanding (no one actually votes for the FN to protest against managerialism in the public sector ffs).

This analysis is not "pseudo-academic", it is actually at an academic level and basically solely draws upon widely accepted academic work of renowned political scientists... The simple remark that "the electoral power of the FN has its roots in French history" (?), by contrast, does seem waffle, even if it does not even reach the level of being pseudo-academic. Of course I never said that people vote FN "to protest against managerialism in the public sector". Either you are deliberately mischaracterizing my analysis, or it is simply at too high a level of abstraction for you, in which case I am truly sorry. I will explain it once more. The point is that privatization, new public management and globalization are, among others (most notably European integration), factors that have reduced the scope of parliamentary decisionmaking, thereby fundamentally altering (and weakening) European democracies. People understand that things are changing. They also understand that their governments are both unable (which is connected to the notion of parties moving toward the state and elites disengaging from society; also, parties lost their emancipatory function to certain societal segments) and unwilling to steer this process (political elites are "winners of globalization" and belong to another class than people who experience the downsides of these developments; this is also connected to the idea of the "diploma democracy") . People who experience the downsides of these changes (job on the line due to globalization/privatization; crime in poor neighborhoods -- which "winners of globalization" do not experience) will be inclined to vote for anti-establishment parties.

[DavidB.]

At least I hope horrible Marion doesn't win. Philippot and Marine, on the other hand...