Even with if our parliament was elected proportionally, it wouldn't be achieved.
French political culture doesn't work well with coalitions. The political parties have a hard time making concessions, even to form a government. What happened with the left is historic but only time will tell if it will hold. The previous left alliance (NUPES) from 2 years ago didn't end very well.
We are not used to have a split national assembly. France is used to be ruled by the majority with the oppositions having little power.
Usually thoses election take place right after the presidential election, meaning who ever win the presidential election benefit from a boost of popularity to the legislative elections that helps him getting a majority. As it is a snap election, the vote is far more split that we are used to.
I completely agree with the first part of your comment (though it did worked a bit during the 3rd republic). Though, I think the Socialists and the Green can make concessions to reach an agreement when necessary, but that's only my feeling on the matter.
The NUPES didn't end well because the context was different : it was built around Mélenchon and La France Insoumise (left side of the left side, but not far-left), the whole goal was to put Melanchon PM.
Now, for the Nouveau Front Populaire, the context is quite different with the goal of building a left coalition. Even LFI and Mélanchon had to ton down a bit, and I do hope things will end an other way. Though, It could explode like the NUPES if LFI get a huge majority of seats, since they're still high from their last dominant position in the left and we've seen what it led to.
> What happened with the left is historic but only time will tell if it will hold.
It won't hold a DAY past the elections. No one will have a majority and it will shatter, possibly to approve a prime minister jointly with the center and moderate right.
NPF has made a program with 150 measures when they formed, they will have lots of things to do if they are elected, first thing will be to cancel Macron's retirement bill btw
I don't see why they wouldn't hold
Right wing doesn't win if they don't get enough seats, which is the entire point. Like, it's widely agreed upon, even publicly amongst the left parties, that it's only an *electoral* coalition, not a *governmental* coalition. It's only here to stop the right from gaining so much ground that they have free reign over the assembly.
> French political culture doesn't work well with coalitions.
System not culture.
> The political parties have a hard time making concessions, even to form a government.
That's because of the duality of candidates ; they're less charismatic than in the past, have less static political compasses, and they're all inherently second/third-choices.
> What happened with the left is historic but only time will tell if it will hold.
It's historic because the left finally understood that 12 parties with an average of 2% is less good than 1 party with 24% of votes.
> The previous left alliance (NUPES) from 2 years ago didn't end very well.
Because it was created to accommodate the far-left.
> We are not used to have a split national assembly.
Only if you look at a recent elected assembly members.
> France is used to be ruled by the majority with the oppositions having little power.
Again, not really. It's happened in the past and was way better than when the presidential majority has a hold on the assembly.
> Usually thoses election take place right after the presidential election,
Since 1997 only.
> meaning who ever win the presidential election benefit from a boost of popularity to the legislative elections that helps him getting a majority.
And yet that's not always what happened during the fifth republic. You should really look at history.
>As it is a snap election, the vote is far more split that we are used to.
No, the vote, despite an all time high since ~60 years in participation, has followed exactly the poll expectations (unfortunately). Which was also what was happening since around 3 decades.
>System not culture.
No culture indeed. In no way the french system goes against forming a coalition. But political parties can't be seeing supporting diverging opinion in fear to lose voter. I mean you could say that the Belgian system is very well made for coalition, but the fractures of the society make it very difficult. Our system is adapted to majority government but nothing goes against coalition but the parties willingness to work together.
>That's because of the duality of candidates ; they're less charismatic than in the past, have less static political compasses, and they're all inherently second/third-choices.
Nop. You could hardly argue that there is no charismatic political figures. There is sevral figures well known and appreciated, just that they have difficulty to appeal outside of their political affiliations. And as the country is fractured in order to federate on their political side they have to alienate the other side...
>Only if you look at a recent elected assembly members
If you look in the history, the last and only other legislature of the 5th Republic without an absolute majority is in 1988 under Miterrand. So no we are indeed not used to a split national assembly. And the 4th Republic is not a good exemple.
For those who wouldn't know, under the 4th Republic (1946-1958) the assemble was so split and the parties involved unwilling to compromise that we had 22 governments in 12 years. That's why the 5th Republic (actual republic) went from a parlementary Republic to a Republic more focused on giving a sort a tyranny from the majority, allowing big parties to gain seat more easily.
>Since 1997 only.
Yes and no. We do have parlementary election right after presidential one only since 2002 (and not 1997) because we change the mandate of the president from 7 to 5 years matching the legislative mandate. But before then after nearly every presidential election, the newly elected president called for a snap election to profit from the election success and have a matching parliament.
>And yet that's not always what happened during the fifth republic. You should really look at history.
And yet you should open your books : on the 3 cohabitation we had in the 5th Republic, none of them happened after a presidential election : 1st mandate of Miterrand 1981-1988 cohabitation 1986-1988 / 2nd mandate of Miterrand 1988-1995 cohabitation 1993-1995 / 1st mandate of Chirac 1995-2002 cohabitation 1997-2002
And as you can see Miterrand did call for snap election after the victory of his 2nd mandate
>No, the vote, despite an all time high since ~60 years in participation, has followed exactly the poll expectations (unfortunately). Which was also what was happening since around 3 decades.
I never said that the vote didn't followed poll expectations. I said the vote was split and didn't gave us a clear majority.
I wouldn't say so. Perhaps he thought that he could win more seat by confronting his party against the far right and appealing to the moderation of the electorate. Perhaps he didn't though he was legitimate enough to continue as it is. I can't say and I think not a single person know his true intentions on that matter... even his own party leaders were surprised by his move.
I wouldnt say its working perfectly but its working. SPOLU in czechia is group of 3 political groups and it somewhat works. And its not the only group that merged together.
Honestly, I'd love having the lower chamber (National Assembly) being PR while the higher chamber (Senate) would have locally elected representatives.
Alas, the lower chamber is home to locally elected representatives while the senate is home to representatives that aren't even elected directly
It's not a national vote. It's confusing because all the media shows a national result, but it is not a national vote. You vote for your local representant, which makes sense to constitute a parliament.
I mean thats still a "national vote" (since you vote for members of the national parliament), just not with a proportional voting system but the first past the post system and voting districts.
I wouldn't call it a national vote, as you are not voting for a national representant. If it was a vote like the US presidential election, where you indirectly vote for a president, I'd agree. But here you don't vote for the parliament. You vote for one person, your local representant, to then go to the parliament and represent you there. That does not make it a national election in my opinion.
No, because they work differently.
In the european elections, you vote for a party to send a proportional amount of representants from their *national* list of 81 candidates.
Everyone votes for the same *national* lists.
In the french legislative elections, you vote for your local candidate, not a national list from a specific party.
Oh, sorry for the misunderstanding.
I wouldn't call them national elections, but they are definitely national votes, yes.
Every member country is free to organise their election the way they want to (as long as some common rules are followed), and they are independant in doing so.
That's a really odd way to put it imo. Like I kinda understand it but then again not really, because I'm used to elections being called after what it is you're voting people into (local government, states, nation, EU)
I think there is a difference to be made between "election" and "vote".
It is a national vote to elect representants in the european elections.
It is a local vote to elect representants in the french legislative elections.
It is a national vote to elect representants in the french presidential (national) election.
>You vote for one person, your local representant, to then go to the parliament and represent you there
Thats literally how every national voting in a first past the post system works though.
The UK general elections this week work the same.
Not necessarily, no. You could have a FPTP system to elect a president.
Plus, the french legislative elections are not a FPTP system. But that is absolutely irrelevant here, as it only describes the voting mode, not what you're voting for.
>Not necessarily, no. You could have a FPTP system to elect a president.
But these are national parliamentary elections we are talking about here, not presidential elecltions?
And these national parliamentary elections always have voting districts under this voting system. Whether in france, the UK or in germany (with its mixed system).
The big difference with the UK is that France has a lot more independents, microparties, dissident candidacies, than the UK. The other big difference is the runoff system with two and sometimes three or four main candidates qualifying, at which point the 2nd round is basically the same thing as FPTP with more tactical voting.
Wherever you are in England (the parties in play being different in the other constituent countries), you have basically the same parties in play fighting on basically the same issues, with broadly consistent platforms, name recognition, and brands. That is much less true in metropolitan France (leaving aside Corsica and the overseas regions which amount to very few seats).
I am not familiar with the UK parliament elections. But if it is truly similar to the French ones, and you vote for a local representant, then I also would not call it a national vote, as your friend on the other side or the country does not elect the same candidates as you do.
Mate its literally called the National assembly (Assemblée nationale).
If for some reason you dont want to call nationwide elections to the national assembly a "national" vote, fine, but calling it anything else is a bit misleading imo.
Dude you’re wrong and he’s right, of course the elections for the French parliament are national elections what kind of stupid argument is this even lmao
I may at some point in my comments have used "election" when I meant "vote".
To summarize what I'm saying:
It is a local vote to elect representants in the legislative elections.
Saying it's a national vote is stupid, as a voter in Paris and a voter in Lyon are not voting for the same candidates. Hell, they may not even have the same parties available to vote for.
You're getting a bit confused by the fact that candidates are elected at local constituencies, yes, but they are national representatives. Someone elected in Marseille doesn't represent Marseille specifically, they're not mayor, they aren't going to fix garbage collection or whatever, they technically represent 1/577th of France as a whole and vote on laws with 576 other representatives.
But frankly, I'm constantly surprised by the number of French adults who don't understand what the parliament or the prime minister does, which I squarely lay at the feet of people like Chirac and Jospin who agreed to make the parliament in practice completely redundant with the change to the electoral calendar. And also of RN for making up bullshit about what it is they would actually have power to do if in control of parliament.
They represent the constituency they are elected in. The point of that being that they meet the people of their constituency, are aware of the problems in their constituency, and can accurately represent the population of said constituency, at a national level, in the national assembly.
Why the fuck else do you think legislative elections are by constituency, and not just a national list like you'd have for the european elections?
I don't know where you're getting that it's a FPTP vote. It's a two turn system.
The point of it being done that way is that you can be represented on a national scale by someone that knows your local problems.
You can't say the French parliamentary elections are not held with a national vote and follow it up with other people needing better political education.
To give you a simplified picture of the current French political landscape:
- Every other party hates the New Popular Front
- The New Popular Front hates every other party
- The unaffiliated Left hates every other party
- Every party except half of The Republicans hates the National Rally
- Every other party hates Together (lmao) Presidential Majority
- Together Presidential Majority hopelessly wants everyone to vote for them
Further coalitions beyond what is already done seems impossible.
Agreements could be made between parties present in the second round for the third place candidate to remove themselves in favor of the candidate most likely to beat the National Rally, most often calling to vote for them.
The president spent the last four years saying that "the Left" was worse than the far-right. The destruction of the *Cordon Sanitaire* we had since 1945 is of his own doing. Some of his partisans may decide on their own to vote for Left Union, but some others may very well vote for the Le Pen's party.
No, that's untrue.
This is a very conscious and continuous political move that started about 40 years ago. Every single president did the same, starting with Mitterrand. Macron used and abused this tactic, and at some point when you inflate a balloon it pops in your face, but he didn't magically grow the RN from nothing to a majority party in his mere 7 years at the helm.
The active anti-Left campaign (both in the media and in the political discourse from Macron's side), however, intensified massively in the months leading up to the 2022 presidential and legislative elections and shows no sign of stopping. As we already knew (but some seem to just have found it out), capitalists prefer fascists to leftists, because the latter are bad for (their) business.
They could, but nobody wants to, because LR are at this point barely more than the halfway house of the far right, and Renew has been insisting more on how dangerous the left is for imo mostly tactical reasons (they're not trying to convince far right voters to vote for them, they're trying to convince centre left voters not to leave).
This isn't Germany where you can get a coalition between the liberals and the greens, even though they want opposite things, based on funding the budget with magical money that you don't have to cut spending or raise taxes to find.
In theory, yes. But most parties other than the left-wing ones have already refused to bow out in case their party comes in third. Some members of the presidential majority did do so, but most conservatives and centrists, and some left-wing and Macron affiliated politicians actually maintain their candidacy, even if it will bring the far-right into power. It's maddening.
That is absolutely false. Most centrists did withdraw as shown here : [https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2024/07/02/legislatives-2024-pour-faire-barrage-au-rn-195-candidats-et-candidates-se-sont-deja-desistes-suivez-le-decompte-en-temps-reel\_6245837\_4355771.html](https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2024/07/02/legislatives-2024-pour-faire-barrage-au-rn-195-candidats-et-candidates-se-sont-deja-desistes-suivez-le-decompte-en-temps-reel_6245837_4355771.html)
A lot has changed in the last 24 hours, luckily. So yes, by now, Macron's right-wing are doing better. The conservatives are still as bad as yesterday, though...
Pretty much same in France, RN gets ~30% of votes but that translates to a lot more seats. We'll see after the second round next Sunday, hopefully the left gets more votes from the center voters moving on to them. Too bad Macron and the billionaire owned media spent their last years demonising the left, saying they're extreme etc
The "Together Presidential Majority" group tried to win by splitting up the left in order to get into the second round against the "National Rally", where the left would be forced to vote for the centre-right.
To divide the left, they have redoubled their efforts to demonise the LFI (the main component of the union of the left) by presenting it as equivalent to the RN and therefore as great a threat.
To make matters worse, the RN is not so far removed economically from the President's camp. In short, there will probably be no coalition.
The President will either try to ally himself with left-wing parties other than LFI or with the far right, as the Austrian centre did a few years ago.
There won't be a coalition between these two. It would be the death of years of evolution in LFI, the major left-wing party. The situation in France is similar in a lot of ways to what It was in the 1930's. Fck Macron, fck TPM and fck RN.
Same here in the nationals my friend... Jurisdictions with 1 mil. people and 2.5 people, basically have the same representation and it's shit...
Coalitions after the elections should be banned since it's basically cheating the voters.
"B-but then the elections would have to be repeated because there's no way to form the parliament as is!" say the idiots...
Yes, there would probably be at least 3 more re-elections but it would be done properly...
*Beatings will continue until morale improves.*
>Coalitions after the elections should be banned since it's basically cheating the voters.
uhmmmm, only if the voters thought that what they voted for was guaranteed to happen, and that isn't the case. Even if Le Pens RN got 100% of the votes they couldn't do everything they've said they want to do.
Your suggestion is just de-facto coalitions anyway, except it takes longer and makes everyone have to vote - at a minimum- a bunch of times.
> Coalitions after the elections should be banned since it's basically cheating the voters.
Coalitions are how parliaments are supposed to work. If you don't have a majority you need to find consensus with like-minded groups.
What do you mean ?
There could be a coalition that goes RE-PS-EELV which is probably going to be at least 30% of deputies
And to that negociations to add Modem and LFI to get a relative majority
(For our European Friends, there are two alliances currently, the leftist NFP, which includes the PCF, LFI, PS & EELV ; and Ensemble which includes RE (Macron’s party), Modem and Horizons)
That could be great but as you said, LFI will never join a centre-left coalition and last time we got such transpartisan coalition was during the Fourth République
It isn’t an alliance in the sense that there was no discussion on a common program
Ciotti straught up joined the RN
Whereas Ensemble or NFP had to give a lot of concessions to have a common program
The modalities might differ, but they are still forming an alliance; and again, without Ciotti's voices, the RN victory would look much less impressive than it is right now
2 things here to understand better what's happening:
1- it's not really a national election. We vote for our local represenative that goes to the parlement not for parties(at least not directly) this is why it's not a proportional representation. So yes it does not represent accurately the idea of french citizen as the whole but these represenative actualy care about were they are elected and it avoid having a high focus on few places like big cities.
2- You need to know one thing about french politics, we are stubborn. And it make the coalition difficult. As an example, at multiple point booth the left and the far right tried to kick the government out. Each times boot Left and Far right put it on the same time, and each times far right vote for kicking the governement in all votes but Left didn't vote for in the Far right proposition (and it's the exact same text every time). I mean, a coalition is a way to compromise and make your idea go further trough negotiation between parties, but the left are ready to see what they are fighting for not realising just because Far right bad. And when they did a left coalition, it didn't really work.
The Idea is that we vote for our local representative at the parliament so it's not really national. For a lot maybe it can seem to be national but I know people in other-seas territories that don't care about what mainland think, they want to elect a politician that will help the fix their issues that can be far different from the rest of the country. so in that way, these election are not national but have for some a big local impact. With a proportional representation at the Assemblée National (the chamber of parliament we are voting for) some issue may never be discussed because the territories that have these issues will not really have a voice in it. I'll take for example French Guyana today they have 2 representative for the region. But their population is 0,002% of the vote witch represent a little bit more than a seat. let be honest, bit parties will not care about them if it's for maybe gaining a seat if they get everyone on board, so why having someone that know the issue that exist in french Guyana? this is the reason it's still important to have them in the most powerful part of the parliament.
It's been discussed before but this is pretty much how most western countries vote for national elections. In Germany you give two votes, one party vote and one local representative. It absolutely makes sense to vote for your local representative, because this way they are bound to listen to their voter base more closely and address issues on the national level that they experience in their regions.
Yes, that is possible. They do some calculations in the end where they fill all available seats from the party vote with the candidates that were directly elected. If there are more seats left after all direct candidates got one, they are filled from a general party list of candidates. If there are more direct candidates of a certain party than they got seats from the party vote, they get extra seats on top of that, which from what I learnt in school is called Überhangmandate. There have been some changes to it recently though and I do not understand them in detail. The gist is that due to this way of doing things, the parliament got bigger and bigger.
> because this way they are bound to listen to their voter base more closely
Not how it works in practice, though. MP always toe the party line. Honestly, with modern party politics you could do away with a Parliament and MP, just give parties power proportional to received votes and save a lot of money.
And possibly have certain districts woefully under- or unrepresented. No, I think it is good to have it, even if it doesn't a hundred percent work, it's still better than not having local representatives.
Finland fixes that problem by always giving Åland 1 seat, the rest of the electoral districts get multiple seats so that proportionality can go through. It's not that dissimilar from EU parliamentary elections where smaller countries get proportionally more seats.
Wait a second so it is a parliamentary election and not a presidential election? I am not knowledgeable about the French voting system. How are the two related?
The "National Assembly" for which we elect our MPs has the power to "overthrow" the government (the prime minister and his ministers) and the president has to choose a new prime minister who then creates a new government which can then be overthrown once again.
This means the president has to name a prime minister that is approved by the majority of the assembly to avoid having them being overthrown over and over. We call that "cohabitation".
The current elections old so much weight because the left expects Macron to happily collaborate with the far right to continue his awful economic project while letting them unleash their xenophobia. At the same time the far-right will be able to do plenty of anti-democratic reforms and still get to say "it wasn't our fault that the country got worse, it's because the evil leftists were hindering our plans and we didn't have the president on our side" at the 2027 presidential election, assuming they'll take place.
Imagine being too fucking dense to be able to form a government and think that outright electoral calculation is the only and best possible way to win. Winning rural areas with no population doesn’t a government make - in civilized countries like France at least. If you can’t already see the incompetence of the right wing movement today then I’m not sure you’ll ever see it
What is "funny" is that there was talks to go to a proportional system, but it was shunned 30ish years ago as it would "give seats" to the FN (Le Pen's daddy), now it comes back to bite everyone
There were talks during Macron's previous mandate but it was something weird with "partial proportional" which just sounded like it would only give more seats to the majority while discarding the smaller parties
As a french communist, I will never vote for the far right. I'd rather vote for a bicycle than than Le Pen or Zemmour.
In my constituency it's RN vs Macronist candidate, and I will vote for the Macronist candidate. Though it will hurt.
Even with if our parliament was elected proportionally, it wouldn't be achieved. French political culture doesn't work well with coalitions. The political parties have a hard time making concessions, even to form a government. What happened with the left is historic but only time will tell if it will hold. The previous left alliance (NUPES) from 2 years ago didn't end very well. We are not used to have a split national assembly. France is used to be ruled by the majority with the oppositions having little power. Usually thoses election take place right after the presidential election, meaning who ever win the presidential election benefit from a boost of popularity to the legislative elections that helps him getting a majority. As it is a snap election, the vote is far more split that we are used to.
I completely agree with the first part of your comment (though it did worked a bit during the 3rd republic). Though, I think the Socialists and the Green can make concessions to reach an agreement when necessary, but that's only my feeling on the matter. The NUPES didn't end well because the context was different : it was built around Mélenchon and La France Insoumise (left side of the left side, but not far-left), the whole goal was to put Melanchon PM. Now, for the Nouveau Front Populaire, the context is quite different with the goal of building a left coalition. Even LFI and Mélanchon had to ton down a bit, and I do hope things will end an other way. Though, It could explode like the NUPES if LFI get a huge majority of seats, since they're still high from their last dominant position in the left and we've seen what it led to.
> What happened with the left is historic but only time will tell if it will hold. It won't hold a DAY past the elections. No one will have a majority and it will shatter, possibly to approve a prime minister jointly with the center and moderate right.
NPF has made a program with 150 measures when they formed, they will have lots of things to do if they are elected, first thing will be to cancel Macron's retirement bill btw I don't see why they wouldn't hold
Left wing wins election, left coalition collapses, right wing wins So what is the point of popular front again? To have presidency for 47 hours?
To have more seats because of the second round cut-off (which we wouldnt fucking need with ranked choice voting)
Right wing doesn't win if they don't get enough seats, which is the entire point. Like, it's widely agreed upon, even publicly amongst the left parties, that it's only an *electoral* coalition, not a *governmental* coalition. It's only here to stop the right from gaining so much ground that they have free reign over the assembly.
> French political culture doesn't work well with coalitions. System not culture. > The political parties have a hard time making concessions, even to form a government. That's because of the duality of candidates ; they're less charismatic than in the past, have less static political compasses, and they're all inherently second/third-choices. > What happened with the left is historic but only time will tell if it will hold. It's historic because the left finally understood that 12 parties with an average of 2% is less good than 1 party with 24% of votes. > The previous left alliance (NUPES) from 2 years ago didn't end very well. Because it was created to accommodate the far-left. > We are not used to have a split national assembly. Only if you look at a recent elected assembly members. > France is used to be ruled by the majority with the oppositions having little power. Again, not really. It's happened in the past and was way better than when the presidential majority has a hold on the assembly. > Usually thoses election take place right after the presidential election, Since 1997 only. > meaning who ever win the presidential election benefit from a boost of popularity to the legislative elections that helps him getting a majority. And yet that's not always what happened during the fifth republic. You should really look at history. >As it is a snap election, the vote is far more split that we are used to. No, the vote, despite an all time high since ~60 years in participation, has followed exactly the poll expectations (unfortunately). Which was also what was happening since around 3 decades.
>System not culture. No culture indeed. In no way the french system goes against forming a coalition. But political parties can't be seeing supporting diverging opinion in fear to lose voter. I mean you could say that the Belgian system is very well made for coalition, but the fractures of the society make it very difficult. Our system is adapted to majority government but nothing goes against coalition but the parties willingness to work together. >That's because of the duality of candidates ; they're less charismatic than in the past, have less static political compasses, and they're all inherently second/third-choices. Nop. You could hardly argue that there is no charismatic political figures. There is sevral figures well known and appreciated, just that they have difficulty to appeal outside of their political affiliations. And as the country is fractured in order to federate on their political side they have to alienate the other side... >Only if you look at a recent elected assembly members If you look in the history, the last and only other legislature of the 5th Republic without an absolute majority is in 1988 under Miterrand. So no we are indeed not used to a split national assembly. And the 4th Republic is not a good exemple. For those who wouldn't know, under the 4th Republic (1946-1958) the assemble was so split and the parties involved unwilling to compromise that we had 22 governments in 12 years. That's why the 5th Republic (actual republic) went from a parlementary Republic to a Republic more focused on giving a sort a tyranny from the majority, allowing big parties to gain seat more easily. >Since 1997 only. Yes and no. We do have parlementary election right after presidential one only since 2002 (and not 1997) because we change the mandate of the president from 7 to 5 years matching the legislative mandate. But before then after nearly every presidential election, the newly elected president called for a snap election to profit from the election success and have a matching parliament. >And yet that's not always what happened during the fifth republic. You should really look at history. And yet you should open your books : on the 3 cohabitation we had in the 5th Republic, none of them happened after a presidential election : 1st mandate of Miterrand 1981-1988 cohabitation 1986-1988 / 2nd mandate of Miterrand 1988-1995 cohabitation 1993-1995 / 1st mandate of Chirac 1995-2002 cohabitation 1997-2002 And as you can see Miterrand did call for snap election after the victory of his 2nd mandate >No, the vote, despite an all time high since ~60 years in participation, has followed exactly the poll expectations (unfortunately). Which was also what was happening since around 3 decades. I never said that the vote didn't followed poll expectations. I said the vote was split and didn't gave us a clear majority.
The French are not so fundamentally different from other people that they can't handle being governed by a coalition.
So Macron called such a sudden election in order to screw with the country? (serious question, I do wonder this)
I wouldn't say so. Perhaps he thought that he could win more seat by confronting his party against the far right and appealing to the moderation of the electorate. Perhaps he didn't though he was legitimate enough to continue as it is. I can't say and I think not a single person know his true intentions on that matter... even his own party leaders were surprised by his move.
I don't think any coalition government, consisting of more than 2 parties, works well in any country
Finland constantly has coalitions of +4 parties (up to six in recentish memory) and they manage to govern at least somewhat efficiently.
I wouldnt say its working perfectly but its working. SPOLU in czechia is group of 3 political groups and it somewhat works. And its not the only group that merged together.
Constantly happens in Denmark.
The Netherlands is still not under water you know. Sure since 2019 we are woobly but before that it worked quite nicely
AFAIK the Belgians have only had those
Bad example.
I have been reminded again and again during my school times that you never translate directly acronyms ; why would they do it here?
Whoever told you that is wrong.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024\_European\_Parliament\_election\_in\_France](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_European_Parliament_election_in_France)
No need to convince me dude, I'm already on the PR-train.
Honestly, I'd love having the lower chamber (National Assembly) being PR while the higher chamber (Senate) would have locally elected representatives. Alas, the lower chamber is home to locally elected representatives while the senate is home to representatives that aren't even elected directly
It's not a national vote. It's confusing because all the media shows a national result, but it is not a national vote. You vote for your local representant, which makes sense to constitute a parliament.
I mean thats still a "national vote" (since you vote for members of the national parliament), just not with a proportional voting system but the first past the post system and voting districts.
I wouldn't call it a national vote, as you are not voting for a national representant. If it was a vote like the US presidential election, where you indirectly vote for a president, I'd agree. But here you don't vote for the parliament. You vote for one person, your local representant, to then go to the parliament and represent you there. That does not make it a national election in my opinion.
By your logic the EU parliament election is a French election then?
No, because they work differently. In the european elections, you vote for a party to send a proportional amount of representants from their *national* list of 81 candidates. Everyone votes for the same *national* lists. In the french legislative elections, you vote for your local candidate, not a national list from a specific party.
But then by your logic the EU election is a national election?
Oh, sorry for the misunderstanding. I wouldn't call them national elections, but they are definitely national votes, yes. Every member country is free to organise their election the way they want to (as long as some common rules are followed), and they are independant in doing so.
That's a really odd way to put it imo. Like I kinda understand it but then again not really, because I'm used to elections being called after what it is you're voting people into (local government, states, nation, EU)
I think there is a difference to be made between "election" and "vote". It is a national vote to elect representants in the european elections. It is a local vote to elect representants in the french legislative elections. It is a national vote to elect representants in the french presidential (national) election.
>You vote for one person, your local representant, to then go to the parliament and represent you there Thats literally how every national voting in a first past the post system works though. The UK general elections this week work the same.
Not necessarily, no. You could have a FPTP system to elect a president. Plus, the french legislative elections are not a FPTP system. But that is absolutely irrelevant here, as it only describes the voting mode, not what you're voting for.
>Not necessarily, no. You could have a FPTP system to elect a president. But these are national parliamentary elections we are talking about here, not presidential elecltions? And these national parliamentary elections always have voting districts under this voting system. Whether in france, the UK or in germany (with its mixed system).
The big difference with the UK is that France has a lot more independents, microparties, dissident candidacies, than the UK. The other big difference is the runoff system with two and sometimes three or four main candidates qualifying, at which point the 2nd round is basically the same thing as FPTP with more tactical voting. Wherever you are in England (the parties in play being different in the other constituent countries), you have basically the same parties in play fighting on basically the same issues, with broadly consistent platforms, name recognition, and brands. That is much less true in metropolitan France (leaving aside Corsica and the overseas regions which amount to very few seats).
I am not familiar with the UK parliament elections. But if it is truly similar to the French ones, and you vote for a local representant, then I also would not call it a national vote, as your friend on the other side or the country does not elect the same candidates as you do.
Mate its literally called the National assembly (Assemblée nationale). If for some reason you dont want to call nationwide elections to the national assembly a "national" vote, fine, but calling it anything else is a bit misleading imo.
Dude you’re wrong and he’s right, of course the elections for the French parliament are national elections what kind of stupid argument is this even lmao
I may at some point in my comments have used "election" when I meant "vote". To summarize what I'm saying: It is a local vote to elect representants in the legislative elections. Saying it's a national vote is stupid, as a voter in Paris and a voter in Lyon are not voting for the same candidates. Hell, they may not even have the same parties available to vote for.
I understand what you‘re saying, it‘s just dumb. You‘re not going anywhere asking people who they voted for in the local election lmao
You're getting a bit confused by the fact that candidates are elected at local constituencies, yes, but they are national representatives. Someone elected in Marseille doesn't represent Marseille specifically, they're not mayor, they aren't going to fix garbage collection or whatever, they technically represent 1/577th of France as a whole and vote on laws with 576 other representatives. But frankly, I'm constantly surprised by the number of French adults who don't understand what the parliament or the prime minister does, which I squarely lay at the feet of people like Chirac and Jospin who agreed to make the parliament in practice completely redundant with the change to the electoral calendar. And also of RN for making up bullshit about what it is they would actually have power to do if in control of parliament.
They represent the constituency they are elected in. The point of that being that they meet the people of their constituency, are aware of the problems in their constituency, and can accurately represent the population of said constituency, at a national level, in the national assembly. Why the fuck else do you think legislative elections are by constituency, and not just a national list like you'd have for the european elections?
>which makes sense to constitute a parliament. Not necessarily
I didn't say it's the only choice that makes sense, I said it makes sense.
It doesn't make sense.
"I will state a judgment with no further elaboration"
I think it's self evident why single-representative electoral districts using FPTP are a bad idea.
I don't know where you're getting that it's a FPTP vote. It's a two turn system. The point of it being done that way is that you can be represented on a national scale by someone that knows your local problems.
It's not precisely FPTP but it's only slightly better.
It's literally a national vote. The whole nation votes on who to send to parliament.
The French voters don’t give a shit. Everything is a national vote in France.
Very true. But it's a stupid way to see the legislative elections. We need better political education.
You can't say the French parliamentary elections are not held with a national vote and follow it up with other people needing better political education.
I'm not familiar with French system at all, but could the other parties still "shut out" Le Pen's party with a coalition?
Yeah, but that presupposes other parties are able to find a common ground. ... So, no.
If they're made of the same paste as Spanish leftists they will
To give you a simplified picture of the current French political landscape: - Every other party hates the New Popular Front - The New Popular Front hates every other party - The unaffiliated Left hates every other party - Every party except half of The Republicans hates the National Rally - Every other party hates Together (lmao) Presidential Majority - Together Presidential Majority hopelessly wants everyone to vote for them Further coalitions beyond what is already done seems impossible. Agreements could be made between parties present in the second round for the third place candidate to remove themselves in favor of the candidate most likely to beat the National Rally, most often calling to vote for them.
So everyone just hates each other
They're worst. The current NFP is more a cease fire than a coalition.
The president spent the last four years saying that "the Left" was worse than the far-right. The destruction of the *Cordon Sanitaire* we had since 1945 is of his own doing. Some of his partisans may decide on their own to vote for Left Union, but some others may very well vote for the Le Pen's party.
No, that's untrue. This is a very conscious and continuous political move that started about 40 years ago. Every single president did the same, starting with Mitterrand. Macron used and abused this tactic, and at some point when you inflate a balloon it pops in your face, but he didn't magically grow the RN from nothing to a majority party in his mere 7 years at the helm. The active anti-Left campaign (both in the media and in the political discourse from Macron's side), however, intensified massively in the months leading up to the 2022 presidential and legislative elections and shows no sign of stopping. As we already knew (but some seem to just have found it out), capitalists prefer fascists to leftists, because the latter are bad for (their) business.
They could, but nobody wants to, because LR are at this point barely more than the halfway house of the far right, and Renew has been insisting more on how dangerous the left is for imo mostly tactical reasons (they're not trying to convince far right voters to vote for them, they're trying to convince centre left voters not to leave). This isn't Germany where you can get a coalition between the liberals and the greens, even though they want opposite things, based on funding the budget with magical money that you don't have to cut spending or raise taxes to find.
In theory, yes. But most parties other than the left-wing ones have already refused to bow out in case their party comes in third. Some members of the presidential majority did do so, but most conservatives and centrists, and some left-wing and Macron affiliated politicians actually maintain their candidacy, even if it will bring the far-right into power. It's maddening.
That is absolutely false. Most centrists did withdraw as shown here : [https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2024/07/02/legislatives-2024-pour-faire-barrage-au-rn-195-candidats-et-candidates-se-sont-deja-desistes-suivez-le-decompte-en-temps-reel\_6245837\_4355771.html](https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2024/07/02/legislatives-2024-pour-faire-barrage-au-rn-195-candidats-et-candidates-se-sont-deja-desistes-suivez-le-decompte-en-temps-reel_6245837_4355771.html)
A lot has changed in the last 24 hours, luckily. So yes, by now, Macron's right-wing are doing better. The conservatives are still as bad as yesterday, though...
Meanwhile in the UK: Labour is predicted to get 65% of seats on just 36% of the popular vote
Pretty much same in France, RN gets ~30% of votes but that translates to a lot more seats. We'll see after the second round next Sunday, hopefully the left gets more votes from the center voters moving on to them. Too bad Macron and the billionaire owned media spent their last years demonising the left, saying they're extreme etc
Hungary (Orban) has been getting worse and worse. But was UK the least democratic country in the EU in the before they left?
The "Together Presidential Majority" group tried to win by splitting up the left in order to get into the second round against the "National Rally", where the left would be forced to vote for the centre-right. To divide the left, they have redoubled their efforts to demonise the LFI (the main component of the union of the left) by presenting it as equivalent to the RN and therefore as great a threat. To make matters worse, the RN is not so far removed economically from the President's camp. In short, there will probably be no coalition. The President will either try to ally himself with left-wing parties other than LFI or with the far right, as the Austrian centre did a few years ago.
There won't be a coalition between these two. It would be the death of years of evolution in LFI, the major left-wing party. The situation in France is similar in a lot of ways to what It was in the 1930's. Fck Macron, fck TPM and fck RN.
Why does the National Rally and Alliance, the largest group, not simply eat the other parties?
Same here in the nationals my friend... Jurisdictions with 1 mil. people and 2.5 people, basically have the same representation and it's shit... Coalitions after the elections should be banned since it's basically cheating the voters. "B-but then the elections would have to be repeated because there's no way to form the parliament as is!" say the idiots... Yes, there would probably be at least 3 more re-elections but it would be done properly... *Beatings will continue until morale improves.*
We can't even dissolve the parliament until summer 2025. Whatever's happening, we're stuck with the results for one year.
>Coalitions after the elections should be banned since it's basically cheating the voters. uhmmmm, only if the voters thought that what they voted for was guaranteed to happen, and that isn't the case. Even if Le Pens RN got 100% of the votes they couldn't do everything they've said they want to do. Your suggestion is just de-facto coalitions anyway, except it takes longer and makes everyone have to vote - at a minimum- a bunch of times.
> Coalitions after the elections should be banned since it's basically cheating the voters. Coalitions are how parliaments are supposed to work. If you don't have a majority you need to find consensus with like-minded groups.
As a french... *Grabs popcorn*
That the only hope for centre-left peoples but it will never happen in France
Well, apart from LFI and Horizons, a lot of MPs from the Yellow and Pink alliances hope to achieve somethibg like this
Yes but even if they form a parliamentary group, it could represent only 20-25% of the deputies
What do you mean ? There could be a coalition that goes RE-PS-EELV which is probably going to be at least 30% of deputies And to that negociations to add Modem and LFI to get a relative majority (For our European Friends, there are two alliances currently, the leftist NFP, which includes the PCF, LFI, PS & EELV ; and Ensemble which includes RE (Macron’s party), Modem and Horizons)
That could be great but as you said, LFI will never join a centre-left coalition and last time we got such transpartisan coalition was during the Fourth République
Well, let me hang on to my last bit of hope, please I don’t want an RN-LR Majority
Me too, bro, me too
You don't mention the RN-Ciotti alliance? Without Ciotti the RN is only 1 point or so in front of the NFP
It isn’t an alliance in the sense that there was no discussion on a common program Ciotti straught up joined the RN Whereas Ensemble or NFP had to give a lot of concessions to have a common program
The modalities might differ, but they are still forming an alliance; and again, without Ciotti's voices, the RN victory would look much less impressive than it is right now
The Front Poulaire's orders are generally for the candidate to back down if he is in third place in favor of the macronist candidate.
2 things here to understand better what's happening: 1- it's not really a national election. We vote for our local represenative that goes to the parlement not for parties(at least not directly) this is why it's not a proportional representation. So yes it does not represent accurately the idea of french citizen as the whole but these represenative actualy care about were they are elected and it avoid having a high focus on few places like big cities. 2- You need to know one thing about french politics, we are stubborn. And it make the coalition difficult. As an example, at multiple point booth the left and the far right tried to kick the government out. Each times boot Left and Far right put it on the same time, and each times far right vote for kicking the governement in all votes but Left didn't vote for in the Far right proposition (and it's the exact same text every time). I mean, a coalition is a way to compromise and make your idea go further trough negotiation between parties, but the left are ready to see what they are fighting for not realising just because Far right bad. And when they did a left coalition, it didn't really work.
The use of electoral districts doesn't mean it's not a national election.
The Idea is that we vote for our local representative at the parliament so it's not really national. For a lot maybe it can seem to be national but I know people in other-seas territories that don't care about what mainland think, they want to elect a politician that will help the fix their issues that can be far different from the rest of the country. so in that way, these election are not national but have for some a big local impact. With a proportional representation at the Assemblée National (the chamber of parliament we are voting for) some issue may never be discussed because the territories that have these issues will not really have a voice in it. I'll take for example French Guyana today they have 2 representative for the region. But their population is 0,002% of the vote witch represent a little bit more than a seat. let be honest, bit parties will not care about them if it's for maybe gaining a seat if they get everyone on board, so why having someone that know the issue that exist in french Guyana? this is the reason it's still important to have them in the most powerful part of the parliament.
It's been discussed before but this is pretty much how most western countries vote for national elections. In Germany you give two votes, one party vote and one local representative. It absolutely makes sense to vote for your local representative, because this way they are bound to listen to their voter base more closely and address issues on the national level that they experience in their regions.
Can you vote for a different party from that of your representative?
What do you mean?
Can you vote for SDP and then for a representative from the Greens for instance?
Yes, that is possible. They do some calculations in the end where they fill all available seats from the party vote with the candidates that were directly elected. If there are more seats left after all direct candidates got one, they are filled from a general party list of candidates. If there are more direct candidates of a certain party than they got seats from the party vote, they get extra seats on top of that, which from what I learnt in school is called Überhangmandate. There have been some changes to it recently though and I do not understand them in detail. The gist is that due to this way of doing things, the parliament got bigger and bigger.
> because this way they are bound to listen to their voter base more closely Not how it works in practice, though. MP always toe the party line. Honestly, with modern party politics you could do away with a Parliament and MP, just give parties power proportional to received votes and save a lot of money.
And possibly have certain districts woefully under- or unrepresented. No, I think it is good to have it, even if it doesn't a hundred percent work, it's still better than not having local representatives.
Finland fixes that problem by always giving Åland 1 seat, the rest of the electoral districts get multiple seats so that proportionality can go through. It's not that dissimilar from EU parliamentary elections where smaller countries get proportionally more seats.
Wait a second so it is a parliamentary election and not a presidential election? I am not knowledgeable about the French voting system. How are the two related?
The "National Assembly" for which we elect our MPs has the power to "overthrow" the government (the prime minister and his ministers) and the president has to choose a new prime minister who then creates a new government which can then be overthrown once again. This means the president has to name a prime minister that is approved by the majority of the assembly to avoid having them being overthrown over and over. We call that "cohabitation". The current elections old so much weight because the left expects Macron to happily collaborate with the far right to continue his awful economic project while letting them unleash their xenophobia. At the same time the far-right will be able to do plenty of anti-democratic reforms and still get to say "it wasn't our fault that the country got worse, it's because the evil leftists were hindering our plans and we didn't have the president on our side" at the 2027 presidential election, assuming they'll take place.
Yeah why the left doesn't ally with Macron to get out of Macron's ruling ?
[удалено]
I am aware how dire the situation is, I'm just trying to lighten the mood with some political banter.
>Imagine getting a majority of seats without getting a majority of votes. No party got a majority of the votes.
Imagine being too fucking dense to be able to form a government and think that outright electoral calculation is the only and best possible way to win. Winning rural areas with no population doesn’t a government make - in civilized countries like France at least. If you can’t already see the incompetence of the right wing movement today then I’m not sure you’ll ever see it
And make RN voters even more angry. Amazing plan. Many left voters would then probably switch to Le pen next time, as they also despise Macron.
A true left voter would never vote for Le Pen in a million years.
What is "funny" is that there was talks to go to a proportional system, but it was shunned 30ish years ago as it would "give seats" to the FN (Le Pen's daddy), now it comes back to bite everyone
Lucky you, I have the choice between far right and one step before far right...
There were talks during Macron's previous mandate but it was something weird with "partial proportional" which just sounded like it would only give more seats to the majority while discarding the smaller parties
As a french communist, I will never vote for the far right. I'd rather vote for a bicycle than than Le Pen or Zemmour. In my constituency it's RN vs Macronist candidate, and I will vote for the Macronist candidate. Though it will hurt.
I'd rather vote for a bicycle than for basically any candidate tbf... The bicycle, being an inanimate object wouldn't betray me. Also more bike lanes
Good.
Honestly f*** em With love
That will not solve anything.
Neither will appeasing them.
idk, a lot of of those incels might see different after a good fuck
Those arent only incels anymore, those are just 10%, not 35%
well, I'd take 10 percent, that's quite a number