French political discussion megathread: Yellow Vest Redux

[Hash]

First round of the LR leadership election

66,216 voters out of 91,110 eligible members

Éric Ciotti (Alpes-Maritimes deputy/fascist crook) 42.73%
Bruno Retailleau (Vendée senator/Catholic-conservative 'establishmentarian') 34.45%
Aurélien Pradié (Lot deputy/'young guard' party reformist and 'social right') 22.29%

Ciotti should not require an introduction but he is a crypto-fascist (zemmourista variety) creep (and also, unsurprisingly, apparently a crook leeching off public money) who surprised by doing so well in the 2021 LR presidential closed primary and ran, on paper, as the 'unapologetically right-wing/far-right and racist/fascist' candidate even though all three candidates sounded the same on those toxic immigration/identity issues, and Ciotti apparently lost some support by (surprisingly) clearly condemning the RN deputy's racist outburst about African migrants. Ciotti is very anti-Macron (being on record as saying he'd vote for his friend Zemmour over Macron in a runoff) known for his focus on security and immigration issues - he notably wants to create 30,000 new prison places, a bunch of new hardline security laws (with xenophobia thrown in for good measure), abolish jus soli, end family reunification migration, expel all illegal immigrants, 'fight Islamism' (by the totally not contradictory symbolic theatre of writing 'Judeo-Christian roots' in the constitution and putting 'laïcité' in the national motto). On education, he wants to fix the education system by fighting 'wokisme' and making it how it was in the Good Ole Days of the 1890s - with school uniforms, mandatory 'vouvoiement' of teachers, forcing students to stand when teacher, raising the flag and singing the anthem and 'focusing on the basics'. On the environment, his platform mostly talked about how Sandrine Rousseau is a bigger threat than climate change. Despite living off the state, he spews the usual neoliberal talking points about 'economic freedom' (along with dumb ideas like 'abolish 2 regulations for every new one'), hates social housing (you know why) and talks about the value of 'work' despite being a talentless career politician. Ciotti wants to abolish presidential primaries and appoint Laurent Wauquiez as the 2027 candidate as early as next year.

Retailleau, senator for Vendée since 2004 and leader of LR in the Senate since 2014, is a former diehard filloniste loyalist and, before that, a villieriste (he quit the MPF in 2010). Retailleau is a more traditional Catholic-conservative right-winger, and fairly consistently (and seemingly quite genuinely) Eurosceptic, and seeks to appear as more of a unifier than Ciotti (whose victory might spark another wave of people leaving LR) and has more establishment support, notably Gérard Larcher, the LR president of the Senate. Retailleau is also very anti-Macron and very right-wing, talking a lot about 'defending our ways of life against wokism and Islamo-leftism' and also sounding the usual anti-immigration, law-and-order hardliner and 'work and freedom' stuff. He's more openly socially conservative, having been part of a small minority of 28 senators to vote against banning conversion therapies and taking the risk of speaking out openly against the LFI-spearheaded proposal to entrench the right to abortion in the constitution.

Aurélien Pradié is the young (36) two-term deputy from the Lot in the southwest, twice winning a traditionally left-wing seat (something he talks a lot about), and was basically the outsider 'young guard' party reformist candidate. He is not well liked by party cadres who describe him as arrogant, individualistic and unlikeable, and wants to reform the party and would like for the party to be able to speak about topics other than immigration and Islam, even though he talked a lot about dumb wedge issues like school uniforms (even confusingly toying with mandatory uniforms in university before waffling around) and ranting about the 'wokistes'. He comes from the 'social right' tradition and was close to Xavier Bertrand, and wants to actively appeal to more people than just rich old people who hate everything (as a specific example of his politics, on pension reform he opposes raising the retirement age - unlike his two rivals - and wants for it to be based on length of contributions). Pradié said that the party needs to 'turn the page' on Sarkozy and also wants to abolish primaries.

Interestingly Ciotti won basically just as many votes as he did in the presidential primary (which had higher turnout: 112,000) and faces the prospect of a similar anti-Ciotti front against him just like in the 2021 primary runoff against Pécresse.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Pradié was the only one who seemed to have any idea for what to do with LR beyond turning it into a laundromat for Reconquête talking points, so of course he finished last.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

'fight Islamism' (by the totally not contradictory symbolic theatre of writing 'Judeo-Christian roots' in the constitution and putting 'laïcité' in the national motto)

This is the ultimate French Right moment.

[Continential]

If Ciotti wins, how could the LR’s relationship with the RN/Reconquête change? Could there be cooperation between LR and the far-right?

[Oryxslayer]

If Ciotti wins, how could the LR’s relationship with the RN/Reconquête change? Could there be cooperation between LR and the far-right?

Theoretically possible,  Ciotti deep down is no doubt closer to her than Macron,  but couldn't publicly say so during the runoffs.  The issue with this line of thinking is that it goes back to the Zemmour-Le Pen split in the far right last year, and how there was only enough space for one survivor in that conflict.  

Zemmour came to represent the old-guard panzer-daddy types within the RN, whereas Le Pen was elevating a bunch of comparative youngsters who saw things her way. On a simplistic level, it is a classist divide between the wealthy extremists and the less-advantaged 'globalization victims,' a regional divide between the Mediterranean coast and the north, and a power divide between those who wanted to preserve their position in the party and those who they saw as upstarts.  However,  sitting here at the end of 2022, we can recognize a deeper ideological gap: between that of a testimonial party focused on perceived purity and a parliamentary party that can compete for access nationwide.  

A lot of RN higher-ups believed Zemmour was the way. They had only ever been part of a testimonial party. But Zemmour lost. More importantly,  he lost without pulling large numbers of voters from RN. His coalition more resembled a old LR map or a older FN map, with electoral strength in the west of Paris for example. He was the wealthy ticket for monied old LR types. Le Pen followed the voters, brought her party historic results, and won complete internal control with the elimination of the Zemmourites to the wilderness.

Now they are back, in the form of Ciotti. To be fair, he recognizes the obvious - that Zemmour voters are likely former LR voters so there is some desire for his ideology. The issue is that with Le Pen as a successful and perceived better ticket for the modern far right voter - who is more a 'globalization victim' than a LR hardliner - Zemmour style tickets have a hard ceiling thanks to all the divides between them and Le Pen previously mentioned. Fundamentally,  it's a great movement for if the goal is expressing the anger of wealthy reactionaries, but it's a poor vehicle for winning far right votes.

[NewYorkExpress]

Starting next year, condoms will be free for those 18-25.

Young people in France will be able to get condoms free of charge from next year in an effort to reduce the spread of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday.

"In pharmacies, condoms will be free for those aged 18 to 25 from January 1," Macron told reporters during an event about young people's health.

[Sir John Johns]

* The LFI has renewed its whole ‘coordination’ (the leadership of the movement) and it turned as well as expected: the position of coordinator, left vacant since the resignation of Adrien Quatennens (whose return into active politics, desired by Mélenchon, appears as uncertain since his wife is now accusing him of repeated violence happening during several years), has been attributed without internal consultation to Manuel Bompard, a loyal supporter of Mélenchon and his successor as deputy for Bouches-du-Rhône fourth constituency.

Even more controversially, most bigwigs of the party (François Ruffin and Clémentine Autain who have always somewhat critical of Mélenchon’s leadership, but also Éric Coquerel, Alexis Corbière and Raquel Garrido) have all been sidelined from the LFI new coordination and its ‘poles’ which is now populated by Jonluk’s loyalist young guard with the likes of Antoine Léaument, Bastien Lachaud, Mathilde Panot, Manon Aubry or Sophia Chikirou (notwithstanding the fact the latter could be formally charged with fraud over the 2017’s LFI presidential campaign finance management). Not many experienced politicians in the LFI’s new coordination raising strong suspicions of Mélenchon taking full control of the movement’s apparatus and finances to prepare yet another presidential bid.

Still didn't prevented Bompard from explaining the absence of an electoral process to designate the coordination by ‘the level of requirement to animate the poles and represent them at regular meetings is high’ and argue that ‘the democracy isn’t going just through votes, we are working by consensus’. You will note the irony of a party that is promoting citizens’ initiative referendum and a more democratic ‘Sixth Republic’ but is in practice EVEN LESS democratic than the RN.


* Meanwhile, Marine Tondelier has been elected yesterday the new national secretary of EELV with 90.8% of the votes after her motion has received 47% of the votes in the internal election of last 26 November against 18% for the motion endorsed by Yannick Jadot and only 13.5% for the motion endorsed by Sandrine Rousseau. In the pure Green/PS tradition, Tondelier was elected after the emergence of a 'synthesis' between the five motions still in contention after the first round.

Tondelier, a 36-year-old regional councilor in Hauts-de-France and an opposition councilor in the RN-led Hénin-Beaumont municipal council, has expressed her reluctance for a broad left-wing alliance with LFI and the PS for the 2024 European elections (an idea strongly lobbied by Mélenchon and co to cement the hegemony of the LFI on the French left) while Rousseau has been opened to it. So, probably a setback for LFI and a victory for the EELV ‘establishment’ which is wanting a greater autonomy of the ecologist party.

* Hervé Marseille, a 68-year-old senator, has been elected the new president of the UDI phone booth (6 deputies), with 93.4% of the votes. Nobody (rightfully) cares because the UDI is a useless party largely redundant with Hervé Morin’s Les Centrists in the overcrowded niche of ‘fake centrist parties that are actually right-wing’ but it is an opportunity to give some news of Jean-Christophe Lagarde.

Atlas’s favorite French centrist has resigned from the UDI presidency on last October because of several judicial problems.

Firstly, he has been charged (and sentenced this week to a ten months suspended prison term, a €60,000 fine and two years of ineligibility) for having give a fictive job of parliamentary assistant to his mother-in-law (Lagarde’s wife has succeeded him as mayor of Drancy).

Secondly, he is also sued in a defamation case against the LFI deputy Rachel Garrido (who defeated him in last June for the fifth seat in Seine-Saint-Denis) and her husband Alexis Corbière after the publication in the Le Point weekly just before the 2022 legislative election runoff of an article accusing Garrido and Corbière of exploiting at home an undocumented migrant as a cleaning lady. The problem is that the totally bogus accusation was based on particularly dodgy proofs (screen captures of a chat between the journalist and the alleged cleaning lady who got in the discussion the actual address of Corbière-Garrido wrong) while the information was communicated to the journalist by Lagarde’s former driver with or without the knowledge of his former employer. Le Point has rapidly acknowledged the article was complete bullsh**t and immediately proceed to fire the journalist responsible of it (he is now also suing Lagarde).

You may add to the mix: Lagarde's 2021 police custody for unlawful detention of firearms against a backdrop of rumors of a suicide attempt, past accusations of connections with former members of the 'gang des barbares' anti-semitic murderer group; and, finally, public comments he made in November 2021 in which he said that if Pasqua would be alive he would fired a bullet in the head of Éric Zemmour. So, yeah, probably time for him to stop politics.

* The NPA is also on the verge of split, torn apart supporters of an alliance with the NUPES (led by Poutou and Besancenot) and supporters of a more classical ‘revolutionary’ alliance with LO.

* And also, today, the results of the runoff for the presidency of LR.

[Hash]

Ciotti elected leader of LR with 53.7% to 46.3% for Retailleau.

[Zinneke]

I imagine there will be a split in the party. He will call for a stop at cooperating with Macron and some will reject this and create a splinter group.

This is the final nail in the Gaulliste coffin.

[Zinneke]

https://mobile.twitter.com/AnttonRouget/status/1602358941136162837

[Angel of Death]

'fight Islamism' (by the totally not contradictory symbolic theatre of writing 'Judeo-Christian roots' in the constitution and putting 'laïcité' in the national motto)

This is the ultimate French Right moment.

Sounds like the perfect counterpart to this classic.

[Hash]

Still didn't prevented Bompard from explaining the absence of an electoral process to designate the coordination by ‘the level of requirement to animate the poles and represent them at regular meetings is high’ and argue that ‘the democracy isn’t going just through votes, we are working by consensus’. You will note the irony of a party that is promoting citizens’ initiative referendum and a more democratic ‘Sixth Republic’ but is in practice EVEN LESS democratic than the RN.

Another wonderful quote, this time from Mélenchon cultist (manager of his YouTube career) Antoine Léaument: "Le mouvement n'est pas nécessairement un espace dans lequel s'exerce une forme de démocratie au sens du vote."

The cultists going through all kinds of contortions to justify the authoritarian internal workings of their movement is truly quite something.

[Sir John Johns]

Still didn't prevented Bompard from explaining the absence of an electoral process to designate the coordination by ‘the level of requirement to animate the poles and represent them at regular meetings is high’ and argue that ‘the democracy isn’t going just through votes, we are working by consensus’. You will note the irony of a party that is promoting citizens’ initiative referendum and a more democratic ‘Sixth Republic’ but is in practice EVEN LESS democratic than the RN.

Another wonderful quote, this time from Mélenchon cultist (manager of his YouTube career) Antoine Léaument: "Le mouvement n'est pas nécessairement un espace dans lequel s'exerce une forme de démocratie au sens du vote."

The cultists going through all kinds of contortions to justify the authoritarian internal workings of their movement is truly quite something.

There is also, this gem from Bompard in a radio interview from yesterday:

https://twitter.com/franceinter/status/1602207366761652225

‘That some persons who wished to be members of this operative direction are not, this is a problem of wealthy people’, answering to Clémentine Autain and François Ruffin who are excluded from the new direction of the France Insoumise.

Internal democracy and pluralism have now become just ‘a problem of wealthy people’. That was worth all the previous attacks against Macron’s Playmobil legislators...

Grumpy Jean-Luc also replied on Facebook on a post of Clémentine Autain in which she shares an interview to Libération criticizing the absence of democracy in LFI, with a short ‘the whole front page to muddy us’, continuing the populist strategy of never acknowledging a mistake and instead attacking the medias, even when it is a rather friendly newspaper.

Anyway, Adrien Quatennens has just been sentenced to a suspended prison term of four months for physical and psychological violence against his wife.

[Sir John Johns]

And the LFI parliamentary group has decided to suspend Quatennens from the group for four months and to condition his reintegration in April 2023 to ‘the commitment to undergo a course of responsibility about violence against women with feminist organizations’. A symbolic and kind of ridiculous sanction (already compared to the courses given to reckless drivers for enabling them to recover their driving license) that is pleasing neither EELV (which is demanding the resignation of Quatennens from his seat) nor the PS (which is ‘only’ demanding his expulsion from the NUPES).

Anyway, Quatennens, who has not spoken in the medias since weeks, has given an interview to La Voix du Nord to be published tomorrow and, from what is known of it, he is totally excluding to resign his seat and is now accusing his wife to have blackmail him destroying his political career. He is additionally talking about ‘media lynching’ and is hinting the whole case may have been remoted-controled from the Interior Ministry.

[Sir John Johns]

Meanwhile, in the Macronist parallel universe, movers, roofers and public works employees are now fully equipped with exoskeletons rendering their jobs less physically demanding and providing a justification for the government to rise retirement age to 65. This is what has seriously explained François Patriat, the 79-year-old head of the Macronist group in the Senate, during an interview on the Senate’s television channel to justify his support to the rising of retirement age while he has voted in 1981 for the reduction of retirement age at 60.

https://twitter.com/paul_denton/status/1602337981653827588

The Macronist François Patriat justifies retirement at 65 by the ‘exoskeletons of the movers’. Even the presenter of Public Sénat has trouble hiding her disbelief.

The worse part may be that this isn’t coming from one of the usual sociopath urban yuppies who are constituting the backbone of Macron’s party but from a former longtime member of the Socialist Party who has served as a minister under Jospin and used to be for decades a local elected politician (general councilor and mayor of a tiny rural commune in Côte-d’Or).

Unbelievable how these people are disconnected from reality and have learned absolutely nothing from the Yellow Jackets’ protests. This is like they are trying to provide as much ammunition as possible to the upcoming social protest movement against the pension reform.

[windjammer]

Regarding Jean Luc Melenchon,
It's obvious that he simply doesn't want to retire from politics so he's appointing as his heir Manual Bompard who is his not particularly smart groupie.
I truly wonder what is going to happen. I wouldn't be surprised if some splits happen in the future.

[windjammer]

Regarding the left,
I have the feeling the NUPES is going to be completely reshaped in the next few years. There are so many ideological different factions inside it I do not expect to live in harmony with each others in a post Melenchon World.
Bompard doesn't have Melenchon 's skills and doesn't have his legitimacy either

[CumbrianLefty]

In their own ways, both Macron and Melenchon seem pretty irreplaceable. Of course, this is always likely to be a problem if you have moved so much towards "boss" politics as France currently has - strong party systems are often criticised, but they also have their uses.

[windjammer]

In their own ways, both Macron and Melenchon seem pretty irreplaceable. Of course, this is always likely to be a problem if you have moved so much towards "boss" politics as France currently has - strong party systems are often criticised, but they also have their uses.

To be fair,
This is why autocracies never last. The transition to a new political leader is Always a mess

[NewYorkExpress]

There was a shooting Friday at Kurdish Community Center in Paris

French police on Friday fired teargas amid clashes with agitated protesters outside a Kurdish community center in the heart of Paris, where a gunman earlier killed three people and injured four others in an attack with possible racist underpinnings.

All three people killed inside and near the Kurdish Cultural Center Ahmet-Kaya on Rue d’Enghien were Kurds, the center’s lawyer confirmed to CNN.

The suspected attacker, a 69-year-old French man with a long criminal record, has been arrested.

He was not part of any far-right groups monitored by the police, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told journalists at the scene. “He (the suspect) clearly wanted to take it out on foreigners,” Darmanin said.

Clashes with dozens of protesters, mostly from the Kurdish diaspora, broke out during Darmanin’s visit to the site of the attack on Friday.

Police and protesters have been clashing violently all day today.

Clashes between protesters and police have broken out in central Paris on Saturday, as members of the local Kurdish community took to the streets to call for justice following Friday’s deadly shooting at a Kurdish cultural center.

Live images from CNN’s affiliate BFMTV, as well as news agencies Reuters and AFP show damaged streets and smoke rising from cars as demonstrators clash with police.

The skirmishes, which are ongoing, are taking place in the area near Place de la République in the heart of the French capital, not far from the Ahmet-Kaya Kurdish cultural center, the site of Friday’s shooting.

CNN has reached out to the Paris Police department and the Kurdish community center for comment.

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/chrisschmitz/status/1611849835468017664?s=20&t=NVE0f9NoK...

[Antonio the Sixth]

In other good news for the French left, PS leader Olivier Faure, one for the architects of the NUPES, was narrowly reelected yesterday with 50.8% of members' votes. His opponent was gearing up to tear apart the agreement. With this victory, the French left still stands a chance to win in 2027, and hopefully the PS can support a candidate that gets more than 1.7%.

[Hash]

Not sure if it's entirely good news, given that this latest PS internal congress gives off real strong vibes of Reims 2008 (and Rennes 1990) - both candidates have proclaimed victory, with Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol denouncing irregularities and demanding that only a verification commission can validate and proclaim results (the results were communicated by party staff dispatched by the leadership), notwithstanding the fact that he proclaimed his own victory before saying that. Faure's entourage also claims there were irregularities in federations where Mayer-Rossignol won, and therefore says they won by a much larger margin (54%). It's obvious that there were irregularities, probably on both sides, because this is a PS internal election.

On official numbers, Faure won with a tiny majority of 393 votes. In the 93, a federation 'controlled' by his faction, Faure won 582 votes (84.4%). There were, of course, lopsided results the other way as well: in the Hérault, Mayer-Rossignol won 83%, supported by the mayor of Montpellier, Michaël Delafosse.

Laurent de Boissieu was able to make maps of the results of the earlier motions vote and the leadership vote:

https://twitter.com/ldeboissieu/status/1615248915338600449

https://twitter.com/ldeboissieu/status/1616353623713120258

https://twitter.com/ldeboissieu/status/1616391778990530561

I'm glad to know that even in its death throes, the PS is keeping the old traditions alive!

[Antonio the Sixth]

Eh, PS gonna PS, but if both sides stuffed ballots then the most likely outcome is that Faure still won. And that's what matters in the end. No guarantee that NUPES survives all the way to 2027, but at least it will shut up the naysayers for a little bit. It's not like Reims stopped PS from winning in 2012 anyway.

Cool maps. Some hilarious geographic oddities, but that's nothing new in internal and highly clientelistic elections. Interesting that most of PACA went for Faure, as the old machine there is usually closer to the right of the PS iirc.

[windjammer]

Both sides in the PS congress stuffing ballots. Really? How surprising!