French Legislative Election 2017

[Former President tack50]

Valls officially sells out.

For those of you who don't know: Valls formally leaving PS to join République En Marche and is running as a REM candidate in the législatives.

First of many, I fear.

Valls has officially joined REM?

It's then end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine).

"Manny are you goofin' on Macron? Are you havin' fun?"

Well it's the end of the Socialist Party as we know it, certainly. The center of the PS will now probably all defect to REM, leaving the Hamon and Montebourg wing firmly in charge of what's left of the party.

Any chance of the rest of PS fusing (or at least running in a common platform) with Melenchon (or whatever is left of his movement)?

That seems like a good thing to get as many left wing MPs as possible. Might also lead to a weird hung parliament (or even an LR majority with the opposition split)

[Former President tack50]

Valls won't be LREM candidate in his constituency.

Could he run in another constituency? Or just say " it" and run as an independent in his own constituency? (is he well liked there in the first place?)

[Former President tack50]

La Tribune says Edouard Philippe, Republican mayor for Le Havre and deputy for Seine-Maritime, is the most likely to be appointed prime minister by Emmanuel Macron.

Shouldn't the PM be someone who isn't neither from PS nor from Les Republicains? (at least to keep with the "neither left nor right"/"centrist"/whatever theme)

François Bayrou maybe?

[Former President tack50]

Out of the 428 REM candidates there are 214 men and 214 women.  This is so typical and smacks of quota politics that I deplore.  This by itself is enough for me not to want to back REM.  If having equal number of men and women are so important then why does Macron not demand that the presidency alternates between a man and a women.  Oh yeah, if they did that it would mean they will have to all vote for Le Pen in the just finished Prez election.

Yeah, I agree. Quotas are a terrible method of having women as MPs.

Not like that would stop me from voting REM if I liked them though (I don't)

[Former President tack50]

2020 will be a different shyt altogether. By then, the government will be massively unpopular, as they always are after 2-3 years in power, and you'll have to distance yourself from it as much as possible to keep your city.

To be fair, didn't Sarkozy win his election after like 12 years of Chirac? (who was from his party)

Or is this something new?

[Former President tack50]

I hope Hamon rebuilds the party, he is a good politician & a decent person & more preferable to Melenchon!

I hope so too, but what Mélenchon is doing is to make sure that this rebuilding never happens. He wants to kill the PS outright and leave no room for any political force between him and FBM. This is, again, the best way to ensure that the French left remains irrelevant.

A space between Macron and Melenchon is just a Muslim vote bank.

Really? Are there even 7% (Hamon's percentage) of muslims in France with the right to vote?

And was Hamon basically a muslim candidate? >.>

[Former President tack50]

Parliamentary groups have been finalised; The UDI-Constructifs group has 38 members. The PC has formed the Democratic and Republican Left group with Martinician, Réunionese, and Guianese deputies.

Is there a reason why MoDem has its own group and not part of REM's group? Also, does anyone know if the EELV deputy joined the Socialist group or is a non-inscrite?

Why didn't the far left (Melenchon's FI and PCF) unite?