|
Welcome to the French Politics Megathread! I decided to make this thread because my fellow French goons and myself are annoying everyone in the EuroPol megathread by obsessively posting about France and French politics. Also, the Germans have their own thread, and since we're AT LEAST as important as they are in world politics, it's only normal we'd have ours as well. If you don't want a primer on French institutions and want to start shitposting right now, feel free to skip to the end of this huge ungainly post, where you will find a single rule for posting in this thread (hint: it's about posting while fascist). France is a great country! A former colonial Empire on which the sun never set either, it still maintains a couple colonial possessions here and there and has a lot of influence on international politoh who am I kidding. 65 million people and maybe 100 million native French speakers worldwide, let's be serious. Our economy is mediocre, our politics are petty, and our international entanglements are bumbling. France is a Our current President is Emmanuel Macron, a babyfaced former banker who stabbed a lot of people in the back to get where he is now, including his mentor, former President François Hollande, and the senior members of the Socialist Party whom he had been governing with and under as Minister of the Economy. He is a, uh, "social-liberal", which is a nebulous term that is meant to obfuscate his resolutely pro-business and pro-employer bent. He owes his election to the fact that his main opponent, François Fillon, crashed and burned a few months before the election when it was revealed he The President is elected every 5 years in a national election in two rounds. The first round eliminates all but two candidates, and the second round decides the winner. His role in the French 5th Republic is theoretically limited: he chooses the Prime Minister out of the parliamentary majority, he can dissolve the Assemblée Nationale (one chamber of parliament), he signs the laws, he's the head of state and leads the armies. And a bunch of minor stuff. Technically, he's not supposed to be the one in charge of setting policy, because that's the job of the Prime Minister, but it turns out that the Prime Minister is more often than not an obedient soldier who bends to his will. Speaking of the Prime Minister, here is our current Prime Minister, Édouard Philippe: A former member of the right-wing Les Républicains party, he quit it (or was excluded from it?) upon his nomination. He's a former high level civil servant, who turned to the private sector and later on was elected mayor of Le Havre, a coastal city. A technocrat who will probably remain obedient and spend his time turning Macron's ideas into actual policy. The Prime Minister's job is to get policy through Parliament, and then enact it. He is also in charge of the adult daycare full of bloated egos that is called the French government. He arbitrates disputes. The Assemblée Nationale has the power to destitute him, which is why he is usually selected from amongst the ranks of the majority. In this instance, it is not exactly the case, but the current Assemblée is fine with him. When the Assemblée and the President are not from the same party, then the Prime Minister is the one with all the actual power. This has happened three times since 1986, and will never happen again since the presidential and parliamentary elections now take place almost simultaneously and the Président and the Députés are all elected for 5 years. The current government is kinda weird. It's full of people from both the PS and LR, with a bunch of centrists, an ecologist, and a few other unaligned folk. The right wing is in control of the money (they've got the Prime Minister, the Economy and the Finances), arguably also of the Interior (police and so on, Collomb's policy being a continuation of vallsian and guéantist policies before it), but they all have macronist drivers behind them. The PS holds foreign affairs and the army. Ecologist Nicolas Hulot holds the ministry of Ecology, but he's also handled by two mahouts. Who can tell what's going to happen with this weird Frankenstein's monster of a government? I certainly can't. Anyway. The President and the Prime Minister are the two ugly heads of the executive hydra. The legislative branch is also divided into two: the Assemblée Nationale and the Sénat. The Assemblée (composed of Députés) is the "lower" chamber of parliament. They write the laws. It often turns out that the Assemblée will more or less blindly follow the lead of the government. It is uncertain what the current Assemblée will do - whether it will think by itself or blindly obey, because it is made up of a lot of novices and who knows? They might decide to rebel a bit? Here's what it looks like:
The other half of the parliament is the Sénat. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it, because it's boring, full of old people and it smells like pee, but basically it's a solidly right-wing institution that can be easily circumvented through a clever application of constitutional tools. Its members are not directly elected by the people. LREM has not had an occasion to establish a foothold in there yet, but it's unlikely that they will because the Senate favors well-established parties. Whatever. Who cares about them, right? I'm also not going to provide any information on the judicial branch. Click on the wikipedia links provided above if you want more details. SPECIAL THREAD RULE: Other than the regular forums rules, I'd like it if the mods enforced an additional rule ITT: Please don't post while under the influence of fascism. Thank you very much. NEW RULE: Starting on page 2, every page must have a youtube link to some good music. Flowers For Algeria fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Jun 30, 2017 |
# ? Jun 27, 2017 21:45 |
|
|
# ? May 4, 2024 13:12 |
|
Reserving this to copypaste good effortposts by people who want to contribute to our understanding of this shitshow. EDIT: best posts ITT: x420ReDdIT_Br0nYx posted:«Et la séparation des pouvoirs ?!» m'écrié-je, alors que je rapetisse et me transforme en épi de maïs Flowers For Algeria fucked around with this message at 06:26 on Sep 13, 2018 |
# ? Jun 27, 2017 21:46 |
|
So, I know nothing of French politics but I'm eager to learn. Why was Hollande considered such a failure? I actually had a bit of hope when I heard you guys had elected a left-winger back in the day.
|
# ? Jun 27, 2017 22:17 |
|
So is this thread officially the Frexit from Europol? Has Marine won after all?
|
# ? Jun 27, 2017 22:19 |
|
Gort posted:So, I know nothing of French politics but I'm eager to learn. Why was Hollande considered such a failure? I actually had a bit of hope when I heard you guys had elected a left-winger back in the day. because he was more an obama-style "left-winger"
|
# ? Jun 27, 2017 22:25 |
|
Flowers For Algeria posted:Also, the Germans have their own thread, and since we're AT LEAST as important as they are in world politics, it's only normal we'd have ours as well. Germany has been more important than France in world politics since 1940. Only French persons think France is important.
|
# ? Jun 27, 2017 22:59 |
|
BluesShaman posted:
|
# ? Jun 27, 2017 23:02 |
|
BluesShaman posted:
I can't argue that Germany has had a big role as an international victim ever since 1945. Not a role as an international actor though EDIT: we whooped your country's rear end in 1944 and we're ready to do it again
|
# ? Jun 27, 2017 23:05 |
|
BluesShaman posted:
|
# ? Jun 27, 2017 23:32 |
|
That was a good first post. As a BritGoon, can I ask: how hosed are the people of France with Macron in charge? He seems to have swept in on a wave of 'radical change' but almost all the policy I've heard about is rabidly pro-business and anti-worker. As a socialist who voted for Corbyn, having someone like Macron in charge would be my nightmare. Is it going to be a shitshow, or could his extreme brand of neolibralism actually work?
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 00:01 |
|
jabby posted:That was a good first post. I was listening to the bbc world service and someone described him as the French Tony Blair and I instinctively recoiled as the realization hit me.
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 00:04 |
|
Is he better than Fillion?
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 00:06 |
|
Lawman 0 posted:I was listening to the bbc world service and someone described him as the French Tony Blair and I instinctively recoiled as the realization hit me. he's even helping an american idiot wage war around the world!
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 00:09 |
|
Condiv posted:he's even helping an american idiot wage war around the world! my favorite macron moment so far is he has literally damned hundreds of thousands of people to an early death because he to out-alpha the man with biggest inferiority complex in the world, Donald trump and made him so mad that he quit the paris deal. lol Justin Trudeau has realized that praising dear leader will get him at least some goodies.
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 00:23 |
|
The thing to know about Macron is that voter turnout for the legislative election was 48,7%. I'm not one of those people that's saying Le Pen will get in at the next election, she never will. But democracy can die even if outright fascists aren't the ones pulling the switch.
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 01:53 |
|
Flowers For Algeria posted:I can't argue that Germany has had a big role as an international victim ever since 1945. Oh! Are the brits jumping in to save you this time, too? Under PM Corbyn, hopefully. I for one wouldn't mind surrendering to the great jam man.
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 02:18 |
|
Lawman 0 posted:I was listening to the bbc world service and someone described him as the French Tony Blair and I instinctively recoiled as the realization hit me. He's probably worse than that, Blair's position basically just accepted the changes that Thatcher made as a fait accompli and the new status quo, this guy promises to actually, actively do the things that Thatcher did in the 80s
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 03:39 |
|
Gort posted:So, I know nothing of French politics but I'm eager to learn. Why was Hollande considered such a failure? I actually had a bit of hope when I heard you guys had elected a left-winger back in the day. You want my honest answer? He and his team had zero charisma and were unable to control the narrative about their successes and failures. Hollande has a goofy face and a goofy voice, and there lies the reason of his unpopularity. Because let's be honest, he was not very competent and his New Labour-ish policies were ineffectual at best and harmful at worst, but he was certainly not as bad as Sarkozy. And yet Sarkozy still kept a core of popularity. The right hate him because he's a Socialist, and therefore a leftist idiot. The left hate him because he betrayed everything he stood for and followed a deeply liberal agenda and furthered the overton window shift to the right. The "center" will prefer Macron, a young-ish technocrat who speaks their language. Even the PS hate him, because he's a useful scapegoat. Poor François Hollande. I pity him. He's unpopular, but transparent at the same time: in the end, people simply didn't care about him. I remember back in 2012, I woke up one morning and looked at my ex and said "Sarkozy isn't President" and we shared a smile. Not so with Hollande today. Dommolus Magnus posted:Oh! Are the brits jumping in to save you this time, too? I'll readily admit that the British contributed to the liberation of France in their way. But let's be honest. It was mostly a French effort. The X-man cometh posted:Is he better than Fillion? Yes, but only in the sense that dying in your sleep with a pillow over your face is better than dying in a ditch after a severe beating. Flowers For Algeria fucked around with this message at 07:44 on Jun 28, 2017 |
# ? Jun 28, 2017 07:41 |
|
friendly reminder Hollande turnednfrance into a proto venezuela.
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 07:48 |
|
LeoMarr posted:friendly reminder Hollande turnednfrance into a proto venezuela.
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 08:12 |
|
no regionalist group in the assembly the dream is dead
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 10:20 |
|
I didn't realize Mélanchon was so rabidly anti-EU that he'd throw poo poo fits for seeing the flag hanging at the Assemblée Générale lol.
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 10:40 |
|
there are 18 non-inscrits députés, those who haven't joined a political group.
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 10:41 |
|
Deltasquid posted:I didn't realize Mélanchon was so rabidly anti-EU that he'd throw poo poo fits for seeing the flag hanging at the Assemblée Générale lol. One grumpy remark upon seeing the flag in the middle of the floor of the Assemblée Nationale is not really "a poo poo fit".
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 10:49 |
|
R. Mute posted:The thing to know about Macron is that voter turnout for the legislative election was 48,7%. I'm not one of those people that's saying Le Pen will get in at the next election, she never will. But democracy can die even if outright fascists aren't the ones pulling the switch. Democracy is already dead, it's just not aware of it yet and keep walking as a rotten corpse. I hope I'm wrong, but I think it's too late to change course now and we'll have to crash and burn before we can rebuild, both for France and for the UE.
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 10:58 |
How closely do députés typically stick to the party line when voting on legislation?
|
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 10:59 |
|
That is a glorious OP. Any bets on how long Hulot will last before he's strangled by France's agricultural interests?
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 10:59 |
|
Junior G-man posted:That is a glorious OP. i give him six month tops before he quits in disgust
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 11:00 |
|
Kurtofan posted:i give him six month tops before he quits in disgust Sounds about right. I was at least very happy to see the back of Segolene Royale; I'd have thought she'd have turncoated her way to EM has well.
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 11:03 |
|
Junior G-man posted:Sounds about right. I was at least very happy to see the back of Segolene Royale; I'd have thought she'd have turncoated her way to EM has well. the guy who unseated her five years ago, olivier falorni, is one of those left radical party (read center-center-left) mp who wants to work with macron. i don't know about royal but i'm not sure she's a macronist. the left radical party had a group five years ago but now they're reduced to four non-inscrit députés, you'd think they'd causus with the "new left" group or the modem
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 11:06 |
|
Junior G-man posted:Sounds about right. I was at least very happy to see the back of Segolene Royale; I'd have thought she'd have turncoated her way to EM has well. She has! She's been given a sinecure created by Sarko for Rocard "ambassadrice chargée des pôles arctique et antarctique", aka ambassador to penguins.
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 11:12 |
|
Bulbo posted:She has! hahaha
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 11:14 |
|
Bulbo posted:She has! Wait. What the gently caress? Is that a full-time, remunerated gig? Do you have a few more details?
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 11:19 |
|
Junior G-man posted:Wait. What the gently caress? She's in charge of the international negociations regarding the arctic and antarctic zones (drilling rights, new waterways opening due to melting icecaps...). And of course it's remunerated: 47000€/y + 30000€/y for expanses related to her mission.
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 11:26 |
|
Bulbo posted:She has! also, polar bears. Clearly, her pay should be doubled
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 12:01 |
|
And here I was thinking that the French were all effete wine-drinking socialists.
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 12:14 |
|
unwantedplatypus posted:And here I was thinking that the French were all effete wine-drinking socialists. Nope, they're just as mean, spiteful and nasty as everybody else. The wine is better though.
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 12:42 |
|
exmarx posted:How closely do députés typically stick to the party line when voting on legislation? It really really depends on how powerful the government is. Under Sarkozy, the members of the then-UMP majority were fully under control. Fillon may have been grumpy as Prime Minister and he may have resented and despised Sarkozy, he was overall an obedient tool. Not so under Hollande: a significant (but not significant enough) fraction of the PS députés were in open rebellion against the rightwards shift of the Valls government, going so far as to vote against key pieces of legislation and almost managed to file a motion of censure that could have brought the government down. As for "Party lines", it's a bit more complicated. The government and the party are different beasts, and the government takes precedence and the party follows the government. The opposition generally follows party lines.
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 13:03 |
|
Bulbo posted:She's in charge of the international negociations regarding the arctic and antarctic zones (drilling rights, new waterways opening due to melting icecaps...). She literally just watches penguin videos all day.
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 13:05 |
|
|
# ? May 4, 2024 13:12 |
|
Flowers For Algeria posted:She literally just watches penguin videos all day. do you need an ambassador to dogs by any chance? asking for a friend
|
# ? Jun 28, 2017 13:08 |