France General Discussion IV: Yellow Fever

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Hidalgo leads in the first round, with the LREM candidate right behind her (24% and 22% respectively), and LR have lost a lot of support in the capital (polling at 16%) in the last couple of years: Fillon did much better in 2017 (he got 26% of the vote, 6 points above his national average), and NKM did to when she ran for mayor 5 years ago (she got around 35% of the vote).

It's also a dreadful result for LREM, which is perhaps even more surprising than LR's bad numbers - FBM won over 34% in Paris in 2017, his best result of any department, and given that LREM is holding up relatively fine all things considered in EP polling (23%, which may imply up to 10 points higher in Paris). The reason, according to this poll's crosstabs, is that a lot of Macron's 2017 voters would support Hidalgo or EELV - which isn't too surprising, given that a lot of Macron's 2017 voters in Paris (and elsewhere) came from the 'moderate' left (Flanby et al. 2012).

And I think this trend should be very worrying for LR, who have lost a huge chunk of their support in Paris and over half their support nationally since 2017 (for Paris though it doesn't help that it looks like the LR are going to be running a pretty divisive Sarkozy loyalist as their top candidate).

Nothing is settled about the LR (or macronista) candidacy yet. Dati has a lot of enemies in the Parisian right (which is always in the midst of various internal conflicts and dramatic intrigues), who will probably do everything in their power to prevent her from being the party's candidate. Florence Berthout, the LR mayor of the 5th arrondissement, hasn't made her intentions public but she is also said to be interested by the mayoral candidacy - and she could, perhaps, be a better candidate than Dati, who is lousy (and lazy) and incompetent. The poll tested one scenario with Berthout and despite, I imagine, lower name recognition, she polls only 2 points less than Dati.

Also to note that Pierre-Yves Bournazel, the Agir ('constructifs') deputy and city councillor in the 18th arrdt. (running as a consensual, wishy-washy centrist/centre-right candidate), is polling 6-7% in all scenarios in which Dati is the candidate, and is also capturing a lot of votes from the right (and, to a lesser extent, macronismo). Interestingly, he drops to 4.5% in the matchup with Berthout, which suggests to me that Dati is pushing away more moderate/centre-right voters. According to the crosstabs, Dati is only holding a bit under half of Fillon 2017 voters, with 22% going LREM and 18% going for Bournazel.

Anyway, this is all a bit silly and meaningless so far out, especially given the decomposed dumpster fire that is the current French party system. It also doesn't take into account that Paris (and Lyon/Marseille) has a special electoral system in municipal election so it isn't actually a straight city-wide contest. The only sort of conclusion I'd draw from these numbers is that they presage a real hot mess.

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A somewhat misleading headline: the question asked by the pollster was not a traditional popularity question (favourable/unfavourable) but rather asked, for each name listed, if respondents supported him/her, felt sympathy, felt indifferent or reject him/her. Sarkozy topped the list with 30% expressing support or sympathy (and 36% expressing rejection). Granted, he is once again massively popular among right-wingers (82% support or sympathy). But a better interpretation of the result is that most politicians are unpopular (or, at the very least, do not elicit mass support or sympathy) - 30% isn't that impressive.

In more traditional popularity polls, Sarkozy does rank pretty high (top 5 or 10), but with a majority of respondents still having an unfavourable opinion of him - 61 v. 33 in Ipsos, 54 v. 46 in Ifop and 57 v. 32 in Elabe. In every single poll, it is because he is extremely popular on the right (80%+). He is more popular, by these measures, than active political leaders, but that's easier when you're out of the limelight (in the role of a former statesman occasionally opining on political events), not a party leader and not in power.

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In the ongoing saga of privatising Paris Airport - as the bill launched by both right and left against Macron's plan has gone through, a petition has been launched to potentially hold the first ever référendum d’initiative partagée to block the privatisation.

All it needs to do for the referendum to be held is collect the signatures of 10% of registered voters, or 4.7 million in all. About 350'000 have been collected since the launch, and the limit must be reached by the 12th March 2020. lol, I mean, good luck.

Even if it does get 4.7 million signatures, there wouldn't necessarily be a referendum: all it would do is put the bill on the order paper of both houses for them to adopt or reject it. Only if the bill has not been examined at least once by each house within six months would there be a referendum. It is basically an unnecessarily complicated and pointless petition. On the plus side, it is very easy and straightforward to sign (it can be done online, and doesn't require uploading any copy of an ID card or passport).

The whole 'shared initiative referendum' is a funny scam cooked up by politicians (initially Sarkozy in his 2008 constitutional reform) to give people the illusion that they can have their say on legislation. It's pretty funny.

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I must say, as much as nearly all interior ministers in recent memory have been repulsive individuals - Poison Dwarf, Hortefeux, Guéant, Valls, Collomb, Castaner - Darmanin is such truly horrible scum that he manages to make them look better in comparison. So, congratulations, Macron.

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While France appears to be vaccinating one person a week, the selection of the "citizens collective" charged with commenting on the coronavirus vaccination strategy has started! What is this thing, you ask? Well, you're in for a treat.

The 35 members of this 'collective' will be selected... at random (respecting the criteria of age, gender, region, education, occupation and residence). They will then be asked, on a scale of 1 to 5, if they intend to get vaccinated...

This 'collective' will be able to advise the government and to make comments about it, but it will have no decision-making powers.

Yes, it's really f_cking stupid. The 'vaccination strategy' should be very simple: manufacture the stupid thing, vaccinate people and repeat until we get rid of this dystopian nightmare. There is no need to waste everybody's time by selecting 35 random people off the street.

Of the populist miracle solutions proposed for France's democratic representivity/political apathy woes, selecting a group of citizens at random (including, hypothetically, for the election of deliberative or legislative bodies), is definitely the most annoying and stupidest ones - so, it makes sense that galaxy brain Macron will be enamoured with that one.

Mélenchon's 2017 platform made mention that his proposed constituent assembly to create a sixth republic was to be drawn at random (but did not offer much more details beyond that), and drawing people at random was among the plethora of direct democracy ideas supported by gilets jaunes factions.

Macron, in stead of any coherent and substantive political reform ideas (like the citizens' initiative referendum, RIC, a much more prominent gilets jaunes direct democracy idea) in the aftermath of the gilets jaunes protests, embraced the idea of 'drawing people at random'. They did that, iirc, for parts of his silly 'Grand débat' in 2019 (remember that? No?good, that was the point) and for the 150 members of the 'Convention citoyenne pour le climat'. I suppose it's a useful idea to provide a vague semblance of [fake] "citizen participation" without it having any real direct policy consequences