France General Discussion IV: Yellow Fever

[brucejoel99]

Édouard Philippe deciding to 49.3 the pension reform is worth marking surely? Nothing like taking advantage of people being distracted, to override the concepts of representative democracy.

It took a whole month to pass one article of the law... out of 64. Is it democratic for the Parliament to be unable to function despite the government having a clear majority therein?

And 49.3 has been routinely used by previous governments. It's not ideal, but it's the way that the Constitution provides the government with the ability to accelerate the legislative process & pass legislation once a minority (no matter how significant) has decided to obstruct, & the governments of the Fifth Republic have been stronger for it.

[brucejoel99]

Macron has lost his majority in the Assemblee, he and Philippe can still govern but are depended on Bayrou party MoDem now

https://www.politico.eu/article/emmanuel-macron-loses-absolute-majority-in-parliament-france/

Bayrou has long been an advocate for a proportional electoral system for deputies, so I wonder if he'll negotiate for it in exchange for his support of the upcoming constitutional reform that Macron wants.

[brucejoel99]

The Fillions found guilty of embezzling public funds.
François Fillion is sentenced to 5 years in jail (three years suspended) and €375,000 fine, his wife Penelope is sentenced to three suspended years and a €375,000 fine.
Fillion's assistant, Marc Joulaud, is sentenced to three suspended years and a €20,000 fine.
The three must also reimburse more than 1 million euros to the National Assembly.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/29/francois-fillon-found-guilty-of-embezzling-public-funds

They're appealing, too.

[brucejoel99]

And on a somewhat related note, Didier Raoult is now alongside Nicolas Hulot and Édouard Philippe as one of the most popular "political" figures in the country.

I can't see this ending badly at all 

A man can dream, if he likes nightmares.

This looks like a wikipedia infobox of sequel trilogy Luke Skywalker beating Paul McCartney in an election.

[brucejoel99]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/25/french-minister-defends-precious-right-to-sunbathe-topless

[snip]

Why is this even an issue?

[brucejoel99]

https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-nw-france-horse-killing-20200829-pwqsidbeq5aifavns3roje2cna-story.html

Armed with knives, some knowledge of their prey and a large dose of cruelty, attackers are going after horses and ponies in pastures across France in what may be ritual mutilations.

Police are stymied by the macabre attacks that include slashings and worse. Most often, an ear — usually the right one — has been cut off, recalling the matador’s trophy in a bullring.


Up to 30 attacks have been reported in France, from the mountainous Jura region in the east to the Atlantic coast, many this summer, the agriculture minister said Friday. One attack was registered in February, according to the newsmagazine Le Point. With each attack, the mystery only seems to grow.

“We are excluding nothing,” Agriculture Minister Julien Denormandie said Friday on France-Info, before heading to a riding club in the Saone-et-Loire region, in east central France, where a horse was attacked a day earlier.

IIRC there was a string of similar "horse-rippings" in the UK in the early 2000s/late 1990s that was never solved either. It had the exact same modus operandi, the same speculations & theories, but nobody was ever caught for it.