2022 French legislatives

[rob in cal]

  What's Macrons excuse for not implementing proportional representation for the legislature when he campaigned for it in 2017 and should have had the votes to push it through by now?

[Oryxslayer]

  What's Macrons excuse for not implementing proportional representation for the legislature when he campaigned for it in 2017 and should have had the votes to push it through by now?

Same reason why no part of Canada has it despite second-place parties making it a campaign promise for some time.

[DL]

Its interesting how a two round system can favour a centre party like LREM at the expense of the more ideologically extreme parties on the right and left as long as the centre party is strong enough to make it into most run-offs. The long run danger for a party like LREM is if their vote share drops and they start coming in third everywhere and most second round contests start to be far right vs far left...

[Vosem]

He’s also been convicted in a court of law for racism, and not even for that incident. But I’m sure the cross-Atlantic folk know better! You guys are so desperate to make any vaguely ancap Left work you’re cheerleading a social fascist pro-Putin demagogue in France. I can understand this , but it’s  it’s like going abstinent in lockdown and then going out and settling for the 60 year old washed out hooker. Have some decorum and standards guys, and expect better from people who call themselves left wing.

...

...

very thankful for America so often in these sorts of threads.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

He’s also been convicted in a court of law for racism, and not even for that incident. But I’m sure the cross-Atlantic folk know better! You guys are so desperate to make any vaguely ancap Left work you’re cheerleading a social fascist pro-Putin demagogue in France. I can understand this , but it’s  it’s like going abstinent in lockdown and then going out and settling for the 60 year old washed out hooker. Have some decorum and standards guys, and expect better from people who call themselves left wing.

"Convicted in a court of law for racism" is about as morally comprehensible as "Convicted in a court of law for thought crimes." As much as I dislike this guy, I don't view that as indicative of anything but European contempt for free speech.

[Zinneke]

He’s also been convicted in a court of law for racism, and not even for that incident. But I’m sure the cross-Atlantic folk know better! You guys are so desperate to make any vaguely ancap Left work you’re cheerleading a social fascist pro-Putin demagogue in France. I can understand this , but it’s  it’s like going abstinent in lockdown and then going out and settling for the 60 year old washed out hooker. Have some decorum and standards guys, and expect better from people who call themselves left wing.

...

...

very thankful for America so often in these sorts of threads.

He’s also been convicted in a court of law for racism, and not even for that incident. But I’m sure the cross-Atlantic folk know better! You guys are so desperate to make any vaguely ancap Left work you’re cheerleading a social fascist pro-Putin demagogue in France. I can understand this , but it’s  it’s like going abstinent in lockdown and then going out and settling for the 60 year old washed out hooker. Have some decorum and standards guys, and expect better from people who call themselves left wing.

"Convicted in a court of law for racism" is about as morally comprehensible as "Convicted in a court of law for thought crimes." As much as I dislike this guy, I don't view that as indicative of anything but European contempt for free speech.

[parochial boy]

On the flip side, I think the French, even as degraded as there's is, generally appreciate having a functioning democracy of the sort the Americans can only dream of.

You know, the president is the guy who gets the most votes, no gerrymandering, no voter suppresion, no having election results decided in the courts, no partisan justice system, no black hole of lobbying and party funding. I think they generally figure those things are all more important to their freedom than not being fined for calling someone an "uncle Tom" on Twitter is.

[brucejoel99]

He’s also been convicted in a court of law for racism, and not even for that incident. But I’m sure the cross-Atlantic folk know better! You guys are so desperate to make any vaguely ancap Left work you’re cheerleading a social fascist pro-Putin demagogue in France. I can understand this , but it’s  it’s like going abstinent in lockdown and then going out and settling for the 60 year old washed out hooker. Have some decorum and standards guys, and expect better from people who call themselves left wing.

...

...

very thankful for America so often in these sorts of threads.

"Convicted in a court of law for racism" is about as morally comprehensible as "Convicted in a court of law for thought crimes." As much as I dislike this guy, I don't view that as indicative of anything but European contempt for free speech.

...

To be clear, he wasn't merely convicted for the "thought crime" of "racism" or being a racist because, of course, that's obviously just not how anything works in a free, contemporary Western country like France, & I think posters like the two of you are smart enough to know that (or rather should be; maybe there's something to JosepBroz/Zinneke's meme). Article 33 of the Law on the Freedom of the Press, pursuant to Article XI of the Constitution's Declaration of the Rights of Man & of the Citizen, prohibits anybody from publicly insulting a person for belonging to - among other classifications - a race; this may sound like a foreign concept to somebody who thinks of themselves as somebody who must subscribe to the stereotypical rugged, individualistic nature of the U.S., but France - like most modern Western European countries - is a society whose citizens feel a genuine desire to collectively relate to one another in good faith (y'know, because they don't wanna kill each other again, since it kinda goes badly for the entire Continent every time), as opposed to our country, which is slowly degrading into a pack of wolves yelling at each other for all of the wrong reasons, which is probably why we have the IHDI of Poland & the life expectancy of Colombia while Western Europeans prosper in their comparative unity.

very thankful for Google/just a correct understanding of what's being talked about at the outset in these sorts of threads.

[Horus]

He’s also been convicted in a court of law for racism, and not even for that incident. But I’m sure the cross-Atlantic folk know better! You guys are so desperate to make any vaguely ancap Left work you’re cheerleading a social fascist pro-Putin demagogue in France. I can understand this , but it’s  it’s like going abstinent in lockdown and then going out and settling for the 60 year old washed out hooker. Have some decorum and standards guys, and expect better from people who call themselves left wing.

...

...

very thankful for America so often in these sorts of threads.

"Convicted in a court of law for racism" is about as morally comprehensible as "Convicted in a court of law for thought crimes." As much as I dislike this guy, I don't view that as indicative of anything but European contempt for free speech.

...

To be clear, he wasn't merely convicted for the "thought crime" of "racism" or being a racist because, of course, that's obviously just not how anything works in a free, contemporary Western country like France, & I think posters like the two of you are smart enough to know that (or rather should be; maybe there's something to Zinneke's meme) . Article 33 of the French Constitution prohibits anybody from publicly insulting a person for belonging to - among other classifications - a race; this may sound like a foreign concept to somebody who thinks of themselves as somebody who must subscribe to the stereotypical rugged, individualistic nature of the U.S., but France - like most modern Western European countries - is a society whose citizens feel a genuine desire to collectively relate to one another in good faith (y'know, because they don't wanna kill each other again, since it kinda goes badly for the entire Continent every time), as opposed to our country, which is slowly degrading into a pack of wolves yelling at each other for all of the wrong reasons, which is probably why we have the IHDI of Poland & the life expectancy of Colombia while Western Europeans prosper in their comparative unity.

very thankful for Google/just a correct understanding of what's being talked about at the outset in these sorts of threads.

Are they really relating to each other in good faith or are they just scared of saying the wrong thing and getting a fine? While I'm sure the intentions are noble, unity shouldn't be forced. It should develop organically.

Also our low life expectancy probably has to do with the American healthcare system being an ultra capitalist joke. I doubt it has much to do with people not being fake nice to each other.

[Zinneke]

Actually my meme was trying to ensure the thread didn't derail into a discussion about freedom of speech in the US vs France, but you've hit the nail on the head regarding Vosem and generic blue avatar's ignorance in intervening on the matter.

[Mike88]

Opinionway poll:

https://twitter.com/mathieugallard/status/1524069237223997441?cxt=HHwWgoCyna-5yq...
https://twitter.com/mathieugallard/status/1524062399376019459

[brucejoel99]

He’s also been convicted in a court of law for racism, and not even for that incident. But I’m sure the cross-Atlantic folk know better! You guys are so desperate to make any vaguely ancap Left work you’re cheerleading a social fascist pro-Putin demagogue in France. I can understand this , but it’s  it’s like going abstinent in lockdown and then going out and settling for the 60 year old washed out hooker. Have some decorum and standards guys, and expect better from people who call themselves left wing.

...

...

very thankful for America so often in these sorts of threads.

"Convicted in a court of law for racism" is about as morally comprehensible as "Convicted in a court of law for thought crimes." As much as I dislike this guy, I don't view that as indicative of anything but European contempt for free speech.

...

To be clear, he wasn't merely convicted for the "thought crime" of "racism" or being a racist because, of course, that's obviously just not how anything works in a free, contemporary Western country like France, & I think posters like the two of you are smart enough to know that (or rather should be; maybe there's something to Zinneke's meme) . Article 33 of the French Constitution prohibits anybody from publicly insulting a person for belonging to - among other classifications - a race; this may sound like a foreign concept to somebody who thinks of themselves as somebody who must subscribe to the stereotypical rugged, individualistic nature of the U.S., but France - like most modern Western European countries - is a society whose citizens feel a genuine desire to collectively relate to one another in good faith (y'know, because they don't wanna kill each other again, since it kinda goes badly for the entire Continent every time), as opposed to our country, which is slowly degrading into a pack of wolves yelling at each other for all of the wrong reasons, which is probably why we have the IHDI of Poland & the life expectancy of Colombia while Western Europeans prosper in their comparative unity.

very thankful for Google/just a correct understanding of what's being talked about at the outset in these sorts of threads.

Are they really relating to each other in good faith or are they just scared of saying the wrong thing and getting a fine? While I'm sure the intentions are noble, unity shouldn't be forced. It should develop organically.

Well, as was the intended implication by what I proceeded to state immediately after the bolded portion which you're responding to, it's a genuinely good-faith attempt "because they don't wanna kill each other again, since it kinda goes badly for the entire Continent every time." Avoiding the kinda sh*t that fostered the growth of Italian fascism in the '20s & German Nazism in the '30s is pretty organic to the people who bore a significant brunt, if not the brunt of their impacts.

Also our low life expectancy probably has to go with the American healthcare system being an ultra capitalist joke. I doubt it has much to do with people not being fake nice to each other.

Well, why do you think our healthcare system is such a joke in the first place? We have to actually be willing at the individual level to care about the rest of society as a collective enough to not make something as crucial to society as our healthcare a joke. The French did it as soon as the war ended in '45, the Brits did it a year later in '46 after Attlee & Labour came to power, the (West) Germans started their unique multi-payer system in '56, Canadians got Medicare by '68, & we...

Actually my meme was trying to ensure the thread didn't derail into a discussion about freedom of speech in the US vs France, but you've hit the nail on the head regarding Vosem and generic blue avatar's ignorance in intervening on the matter.

Ah, my b. Realizing that I'm now sorta derailing the thread myself, I'd like to make clear my intent to not do so any further.

[Vosem]

I apologize for derailing the thread -- it felt noteworthy of a comment since it was passed over so generically but is so absolutely foreign to American values or ideas of freedom or for that matter ideas about law. (I don't mean this in a "blue avatar" way either; virtually all of the current edifice of American free-speech law was built by court systems dominated by the American left and is at least on paper supported by everyone, with debates about free speech always emphasizing that things are never to be literally illegalized, and instead about what settings they belong in).

There are lots of gaps between American political culture and that of western Europe and it distinctly feels like they are growing over time, or at least like they grew over the course of the 2010s. But this is the France thread -- the formation of NUPES has sincerely been fascinating to follow and reading about their travails in picking candidates is fascinating, so more about that, please.

[Oryxslayer]

To try and change the topic, a third pollster has entered the fray.







A far lower percentage for the NUPES than other polls, but a larger share of the seats. I won't comment on the totals for them, since I would like to see the other two pollster's next polls and compare them to this and their pre-NUPES polls, to see what the result of unity is on the percentages and seats. However, I will note that unity does not seem to be that beneficial in terms of winning, just in terms of round  advancement, because the consolidation of the opposing blocks just happens at the ballot box rather than at the negotiating table.

The other side of the spectrum however seems to be wonky. The Far Right is getting on of it's best percentages, but one of its weakest seat counts. Meanwhile, LR+ is doing considerably better. These two are tied, since LR+ presently holds a lot of the seats where Le Pen got significant percentage of the vote in both rounds. Even though the voters will consolidate against them, Le Pen's presidential results contrasted enough with Melenchon's and were overwhelming in enough places to put RN at least double the expected seats. One thing that might facilitate such a result is disproportionately adverse turnout, perhaps facilitated by the election becoming a Macron-NUPES dual, but this to can only be proven by seeing results from pollster like Harris and comparing their new results to their pre-NUPES numbers.

[brucejoel99]

I apologize for derailing the thread -- it felt noteworthy of a comment since it was passed over so generically but is so absolutely foreign to American values or ideas of freedom or for that matter ideas about law. (I don't mean this in a "blue avatar" way either; virtually all of the current edifice of American free-speech law was built by court systems dominated by the American left and is at least on paper supported by everyone, with debates about free speech always emphasizing that things are never to be literally illegalized, and instead about what settings they belong in).

To be completely fair to JosepBroz/Zinneke, I think that they only said "generic blue avatar" as a cheeky joke about Haley/Ryan because, unlike you, they arguably lack an individual posting presence & personality beyond typically offering generic blue-av takes (although they, of course, are obviously the one to correct me if I'm wrong on the matter)

[Sir John Johns]

Beyond the controversy over the candidacy of Bouhafs, there are some indications of discontent among left-wingers in the banlieues about the strategy followed by the NUPES and LFI to shun local activists of immigrant background and ‘parachute’ white bourgeois party bigwigs as candidates in popular constituencies they have no particular connection with. I know parachutage is a tradition in French politics but this isn’t boding well for the LFI that is pretending founding ‘a Sixth Republic’ and is clearly repeating the exact same bad practices than the parties of the ‘old’ left (PS and PCF). Probably also not the best way to encourage turnout in said banlieues.

See for example, this thread:

https://twitter.com/Aziz_Oguzz/status/1521402676692594688

In the detail, there has been the already mentioned case of the PS incumbent Lamia El Aaraje in Paris-15 who has been sidelined to the benefit of Danielle Simonnet (criticized for occupying a public housing rented at a below market-price rent) while the constituency Simonnet was a candidate in 2017 (Paris-6) has been awarded to Sophia Chikirou, Jean-Luc’s presumed girlfriend as well as a commentator on BFM-TV and the head of a communication agency currently prosecuted for overcharging during the LFI 2017 campaign. Incumbent deputy Danièle Obono, that the far-right really really hates, is however running for reelection in Paris-17.

In Seine-Saint-Denis, the fifth constituency has been awarded to Raquel Garrido, the partner of Alexis Corbière, the incumbent LFI deputy of the seventh constituency (running for reelection, obviously) and close associate of Mélenchon. A particularly unpleasant hack, Garrido once made a joke about Venezuelan anti-government demonstrators being run over by an armored vehicle to draw some asinine parallel with the French police response to the Yellow Jackets protests (totally in line with the Orwellian though widespread among both far-right and far-left according to which Western democracies are actually the worst conceivable totalitarian regimes while genuine ruthless dictatorships are a political model to be followed). She is also employed on Bolloré’s C8 television channel as a commentator in one the trash talk-shows anchored by Cyril Hanouna. The NUPES has also nominated on the LFI quota Thomas Portes (ex-PCF, ex-EELV), who is apparently living in Agen, in the Seine-Saint-Denis-3 and has ‘parachuted’ in Seine-Saint-Denis-9, Aurélie Trouvé, a former spokesperson for the anti-globalist ATTAC organization. Out of eight known LFI candidates in Seine-Saint-Denis, it seems only one (Nadège Abomangoli) is a person of color, ironically the same number than for the supposedly awfully xenophobic and racist PCF and the PS which have for their part obtained the NUPES nomination in respectively two and one constituencies.

A quick glance shows the situation sounds pretty similar in other départements of Île-de-France. In Val-de-Marne, Rachel Kéké, a leader of the French-African maids strike in a Paris hostel, has been nominated in the seventh constituency, one of the less favorable to the left in the département with not much chance of victory. Meanwhile the more winnable second and third constituencies have been attributed to Clémence Guetté (the general secretary of LFI close to Mélenchon ‘parachuted’ from Deux-Sèvres) and Louis Boyard (a 21-year-old former high school union leader and a commentator in one of Hanouna’s trash talk-shows where he confessed having sell drugs to pay his studies; they really haven’t found better???).

In Essonne, the tenth constituency, where Mélenchon received its second best result, had been attributed to Antoine Léaument, a former Modem member and now the head of Méluche’s communication team who ran in Châteauroux (Indre) in the departmental elections of last year. The constituency is covering Grigny, a very poor banlieue with large communities of Sub-Saharan African background, not really matching Léaument’s own white bourgeois origins. Meanwhile, Essonne-7 has been attributed to Claire Lejeune, the young leader of marches for climate, maybe not the best profile to defeat the incumbent LR deputy Robin Reda, running for reelection for LREM, who is building with his wife (his successor as as mayor of Juvisy-sur-Orge) an electoral stronghold on the model of what Jean-Christophe Lagarde previously did in Drancy (a similar profile at least: a very young, ambitious and opportunist right-wing candidate who wins the mayorship of a banlieue commune after decades of management by the left, get elected a deputy in the wake and give his mayor office to his own wife).

Other controversial nominations are including Gabriel Amard who is currently living with Méluche’s daugher and will run in Rhône-6 after having previously ran for deputy in Essonne (his first political basis) in 2012 and in Jura in 2017, for mayor of Villeneuve-d’Ascq (Nord) in 2019 and for a regional councilor in Isère in 2021. There has been also uproar among LGBT groups over the nomination by the NUPES of Jérôme Lambert, the incumbent PS deputy of Charente-3 (and grand-nephew of François Mitterrand), who is hence running for reelection. Lambert has voted against same-sex marriage while also expressed support for Bashar al-Assad regime and previously openly call France to recognize the annexation of Crimea by Russia, even participating in electoral observation missions in the peninsula (also in Kazakhstan with Thierry Mariani) when he found absolutely nothing to object to these rigged elections. Impersonator Gérald Dahan, famous for his prank calls, is running as a LFI candidate in Charente-Maritime-3, five years after having unsuccessfully ran in Hauts-de-Seine-10.



In my own constituency (Finistère-8), a former socialist stronghold that resisted the 1993 and 2002 ‘blue’ waves before electing a Modem candidate in 2017 (51.4% of the vote, the weakest result in the département for Macronism which won then every constituency), the NUPES has decided to nominate some 60-year-old or so LFI guy I can’t find much details on, except that he is a unionist in the postal services who ran in only a cantonal election (that he lost by large margins), wrote for Ruffin’s garbage newspaper (I go to its website to see if it was as bad as I remembered and, well, I immediately came across a book on Macron’s record in office they have edited whose cover is illustrated with a cartoon of Macron next to a ‘Sanofi’ syringe...) and signed two petitions, one in 2012 to reiterate support to the ‘no’ in the 2005 UE referendum (because their 2005 analyses ‘were right’; also a reference to the ‘masters of the world’ and participants to ‘meetings in Davos, of Bilderberg, of Trilateral Commission and of Le Siècle [French think tank]) and another one to oppose the expulsion of Gérard Filoche from the PS after he had retweeted an anti-Semitic photomontage coming from the website of Alain Soral (self-described national socialist and a denier of the Holocaust). I personally feel he is a bad fit for his constituency (this is rather a center-left and relatively moderate land even if the LCR/NPA used to achieve some local but ephemeral and limited success in the 2000s), just like apparently quite many NUPES candidates. But since the last legislative when literal unknowns were elected only because they have the LREM logo, I guess everything could happen.

[Sir John Johns]

Also, I have criticized a lot Mélenchon but, in stark contrast, while he was very active building a coalition in the aftermath of the runoff, Marine Le Pen just vanished during two weeks, preferring going into holiday. She’s not even attended the traditional 1 May march in honor of Joan of Arc, the first time no member of the Le Pen family was present in such event. The party hasn’t at the moment a clear and particularly inspiring message (beyond Macron sucks and doesn’t deserve a parliamentary majority) and its main goal now seems to utterly destroy Zemmour’s concurrent party and punish the ‘traitors’ who dared decamp to the enemy or even only contemplated doing it. Hence why the RN has announced it would field a candidate against Zemmour wherever he ran and discarded any agreement with Reconquête.

There is however some ‘interesting’ local variations: in Alpes-Maritimes-3, this is pure madness as the RN snubbed its natural candidate, Philippe Vardon (a pretty well-known figure, a candidate for mayor of Nice several times and the RN leader in the regional council) guilty of having advocated an alliance with Zemmour, to nominate instead Benoît Kandel, a deputy to the then-LR mayor of Nice Christian Estrosi (since converted to Macronism)... who had joined Zemmour’s Reconquête in last February but left just one month later and is now a member of the RN, it seems. But Vardon is still maintaining his candidacy while Reconquête has for its part nominated its own candidate, Hermine Falicon, a former collaborator of Joachim Son-Forget, the madman elected by expats in Switzerland as a LREM candidate and now a member of Reconquête. So three far-right candidacies in a constituency where the incumbent LREM deputy hasn’t been renominated but is apparently still running against the new official Macronist candidate, a member of Édouard Philippe’s Horizons. Apparently, same mess in Vaucluse-5 where the official candidates of the RN and Reconquête will face a third far-right candidate, a RN member whose substitute is the local head of Reconquête.

Anyway, Zemmour’s party is already in a bad shape, with several bigwigs having left Reconquête the last month: Antoine Diers (ex-LR), Jean Messiha (ex-RN) and Philippe de Villiers who lost his role in the party leadership after only a dozen of days. Zemmour is seeking a constituency but may ultimately not even running, having successively renounced to a hypothetical candidacy in Paris, in the expat constituency covering Israel and in Alpes-Maritimes. Samuel Lafont (in charge of Zemmour’s campaign on Internet) is now renouncing to run in Gard while Marion Maréchal has discarded a candidacy in Vaucluse to officially dedicate herself to her future child. And no news of Son-Forget since his weird trip in Ukraine in last March. At this rate, Reconquête would be lucky if it even had a single deputy in the next legislature and may be doomed to the same fate that Mégret's MNR.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

He’s also been convicted in a court of law for racism, and not even for that incident. But I’m sure the cross-Atlantic folk know better! You guys are so desperate to make any vaguely ancap Left work you’re cheerleading a social fascist pro-Putin demagogue in France. I can understand this , but it’s  it’s like going abstinent in lockdown and then going out and settling for the 60 year old washed out hooker. Have some decorum and standards guys, and expect better from people who call themselves left wing.

...

...

very thankful for America so often in these sorts of threads.

"Convicted in a court of law for racism" is about as morally comprehensible as "Convicted in a court of law for thought crimes." As much as I dislike this guy, I don't view that as indicative of anything but European contempt for free speech.

...

To be clear, he wasn't merely convicted for the "thought crime" of "racism" or being a racist because, of course, that's obviously just not how anything works in a free, contemporary Western country like France, & I think posters like the two of you are smart enough to know that (or rather should be; maybe there's something to JosepBroz/Zinneke's meme). Article 33 of the French Constitution prohibits anybody from publicly insulting a person for belonging to - among other classifications - a race; this may sound like a foreign concept to somebody who thinks of themselves as somebody who must subscribe to the stereotypical rugged, individualistic nature of the U.S., but France - like most modern Western European countries - is a society whose citizens feel a genuine desire to collectively relate to one another in good faith (y'know, because they don't wanna kill each other again, since it kinda goes badly for the entire Continent every time), as opposed to our country, which is slowly degrading into a pack of wolves yelling at each other for all of the wrong reasons, which is probably why we have the IHDI of Poland & the life expectancy of Colombia while Western Europeans prosper in their comparative unity.

very thankful for Google/just a correct understanding of what's being talked about at the outset in these sorts of threads.

We're richer than every country in Western Europe not named Norway, Sweden, or Luxembourg, and all citizens have an inherent right to say racist things if they so desire.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Cease and desist, thank you.

[parochial boy]

[Oryxslayer]

Beyond the controversy over the candidacy of Bouhafs, there are some indications of discontent among left-wingers in the banlieues about the strategy followed by the NUPES and LFI to shun local activists of immigrant background and ‘parachute’ white bourgeois party bigwigs as candidates in popular constituencies they have no particular connection with.

SNIP

Sadly, another fault of NUPES being a pact of self-preservation. The Old Rich-Poor polarization is back, which makes the banlieues the safest seats in the country for the left, and the privileged quarters some of the safest for the Presidential Majority. In the latter, the REM+ (or now R+ for Renaissance?) could only ever really face LR+ candidates simply based on party appeal, and with LR in the gutter its not hard to imagine round 1 victories for REM+ there, or safe runoffs versus neutered LR+ challengers.

With Macron's appeal in the banlieues gone, the seats in these areas lack any viable alternative than the parliamentary Left. Without NUPES, all the parties to Macron's left would put up decent local candidates, and there would either be a runoff between two of them or one and REM+. Either situation prevents this type of snubbing, because another Left party would take advantage of another's failings. But with them all united behind NUPES, there is no alternative, and these seats effectively become 'free jobs' when viewed from party headquarters. When one is on high in party headquarters, and focused on the goal of getting and preserving as much as possible before the pact collapses, these safe seats become rewards to dole out to those most appreciated by the party and those who are most needed inside whatever caucus gets elected next month. After all, without effective opposition, these doled-out candidates should win round 1 or glide in through free round 2 runoffs - just like the Macron-backed candidates in the other side of the cities.

This screws the locals, since the effective primary happened in a conference room without input.

[PSOL]

Given that Macron will most likely not have a parliamentary opposition large enough to impeach him—as LREM+, LR, MoDem, EELV, and PS won’t impeach him—this is where I get off the tactical ride and do what the heart wants. I’m abstaining and I don’t see the good in voting for the NUPES opportunists.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

 What's Macrons excuse for not implementing proportional representation for the legislature when he campaigned for it in 2017 and should have had the votes to push it through by now?

Same reason why no part of Canada has it despite second-place parties making it a campaign promise for some time.

This is misleading. Trudeau didn't even try to implement PR, whereas Macron did but got blocked by LR in the Senate. https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2018-05-22/french-government-plans-to-introduce-proportional-representation/

[H. Ross Peron]

LFI opens an investigation regarding the allegations against Taha Bouhafs.

https://twitter.com/BFMTV/status/1524351440029982720

[DL]

It looks like Macron's party will get another majority - but does it matter who comes in second? is there such a thing as an "official opposition" in the National Assembly? In other words if NUPES is the clear second largest block with well over 100 seats and the RN and the remains of LR are way back - does that affect the tenor of French politics for the rest of Macron's tenure or does it not really matter?