French Politics

It applies to people (usually Jews) who have lost German citizenship due to the Nazis, though apparently if the right was passed down the female line and you (or the relevant ancestor) were born prior to 1953 (when the law was changed that citizenship could passed down from mother to child instead of the child automatically getting the citizenship of the father and only the father) you are out of luck.

There are a few British Sephardic Jews with Portuguese ancestry who are also in the process of getting Portuguese citizenship, iirc.

edited 20th Jun '17 6:38:40 AM by Quag15

I was more curious than anything, since I have no compelling interest in becoming a German citizen. Also, my great-grandfather (who was sent to a camp for being a Communist rather than a Jew - and was lucky enough to come back) never was a German citizen. And even if he had been, he was my mother's mother's father and all 3 of them were born before 1953.

Since the current political situation is kinda hard to explain to French people, I am going to try and explain what the f*ck is going on right now so you get at least a basic idea at what is happening.

• The Parliamentary Elections

As what said, Macron's LREM/LRM/REM (depending what acronym you prefer, the three are being used right now) won but did not triumph as expected. He still has a majority even without relying on its MODEM allies (Bayrou's party). The breakdown goes as follow:

• LREM (center): 308 MP (the absolute majority is at 289)
• LR (Republicans, right-wing): 112 MP
• MODEM (Democratic Movement, center): 42 MP
• PS (Socialist Party, center-left): 31 MP
• LFI (France Insoumise, far left): 17 MP
• UDI (Union of Independent Democrats, center-right): 17 MP
• Various left: 12 MP
• PCF (Communist Party, far left): 10 MP
• FN (National Front, far right): 8 MP
• Various unaligned: 8 MP
• Various right: 7 MP
• PRG (Left Radicals, center-left): 3 MP
• Ecologists (left): 1 MP
• Far-right but not FN: 1 MP

Now, the subtlety is that deputies want to belong to parliamentary groups, because it gives their opinion a much larger weight in debates. To create a parliamentary group you need at least 15 deputies...and that's where it is becoming funny.

• LREM, obviously, will have one group (probably led by Richard Ferrand, former minister who is under scrutiny for real estate operations - he is not formally under investigation yet). LREM will, obviously, vote the confidence to the government.
• The MODEM will have one group (probably led by Marielle de Sarnez, former minister who is under scrutiny for illegally financing european parliamentary assistants along with other members of the party). The MODEM will vote the confidence to the government.
• Part of LR (~90 deputies) will have one group led by Christian Jacob (has had the job since 2010), who will oppose the government
• Part of LR (~20 deputies) and the UDI will have one group probably led by Thierry Solère (LR). They call themselves "constructive" and announced that they will either vote confidence or abstain - but they will not be part of the opposition
• PS, PRG and Ecologists (I think) plus maybe some various left-wing deputies will have one group, and will likely oppose or abstain the confidence to the government
• LFI will have one group, led by, who else, Jean-Luc "Me! Me! Me! Me!" Me-lenchon. They will oppose the government
• The PCF along with some various left-wing overseas deputies will have one groupe too, because they can't stand Melenchon (and who can blame them?). They will oppose the government.

The FN is unlikely to manage to bring 7 deputies to form a group, so they won't have one, and as such, will have less speaking time while in Assembly. But rest assured, we'll see Collard or Le Pen's ugly mugs on TV often enough.

• The new government

As mentioned earlier, the MODEM is under heavy scrutiny as they might have used european funds to pay for jobs that had nothing to do with the EU. As such, the three MODEM members of the previous governments which were supposed to keep their jobs, resigned - Sylvie Goulard was in charge of the Armies, de Sarnez had European Affairs (lol) and Bayrou had Justice (double-lol) - note that Goulard resigned by herself, which more or less forced de Sarnez' and Bayrou's hand. So what should have been a minor change ended up with several moves to fill the vacant seats. I will give you the names but I know nothing about most of these people - they are not prominent politicians.

Our new minister of justice (or, as it is called, "Guard of the Seals") is Nicole Belloubet, 62, who is a jurist who was historically from the left-wing. The new minister of the Armies is Florence Parly, center-left (she was part of Jospin's government) but not a professional politician. European Affairs go to Nathalie Loiseau, former diplomat and director of the National School of Administration. Several other new names have been added, mostly from center-right LR or LREM.

• Mélenchon's latest idiocies

Seriously, LFI members should read Freud and kill the father pronto, because he is quickly becoming embarrassing. His first fait d'armes was his overplayed outrage while seeing the EU flag prominently displayed in the Palais Bourbon (the National Assembly), comparing it to the Virgin Mary for reasons unknown. But more importantly, he decided to randomly insult one of the new LREM deputies, namely Cédric Villani.

Villani is one of the most prominent LREM faces because he was famous before getting elected. He often appeared on TV and was easy to recognize because he always wore extravagant pins and used a lavallière instead of a regular tie. But the guy kinda earned the right to look strange as his claim to fame was to be the 2010 laureate of the Fields Medal - and I am nowhere near good enough at math to explain why he got it, but I assume they don't hand it to random guys since it is commonly called the "Nobel prize of mathematics".

Anyway, out of the blue, Mélenchon said "I saw the egghead" - well, egghead might not be the most accurate translation, but he called Villani le matheux, which is a mostly derisive slang for people who enjoy maths - "and I am going to explain to him what a working contract is, he is not going to believe it. He does not know that the 8-hour workday, it's a hundred years of struggle. The guy thinks that it has always been like this".

Note that I wouldn't dare to think about what goes in the head of Nobel prize or Fields medal winners, but apparently the great JLM knows, because such is his wisddom.

To which Villani answered that as a former director of the Henri Poincaré Institute, he knew what a working contract looked like, but that it was always a pleasure to receive private lessons.

Mélenchon doesn't respect a mathematician? Why am I not surprised. His lack of respect for math might explain his economic platform.

What an asshole.

So, he called one of his peers a nerd?

Classy.

Seriously, what a pathetic insult.

Fun fact, a lavallière is called a 'cravat' in English.

I do feel a slight dislike for Melenchon in the air...

seriously, though, I just checked the web to see what that is about. While the whole comment is pure melenchon classiness, I don't understand why the news seems to focus specifically on the "matheux" word.

I mean the rest of the commentary may give it a derogative sense, but initially it does not even begin to have the negative meanings of "egghead" or "nerd". The first translation I would give it is "math guy". Heck, in my entourage, it has always been used as a compliment (my entourage may be a bit weird, though).

edited 21st Jun '17 3:09:30 PM by jaff

Same here. Egghead is fayot.

He said le matheux, which is slightly different from saying that someone is matheux. As an adjective it is indeed used to say that someone enjoys mathematics, but when you add le it becomes much less sympathetic.

Does France have proportional representation rather than having each MP represent a specific geographical area? The number of different parties seems like something you're more likely to get from a proportional system.

Also, I love that you have a Communist Party that actually gets members elected. More members than the FN, even!

edited 21st Jun '17 3:22:16 PM by Galadriel

I would assume that his tone and body language would mean quite a bit as well.

I believe its district by district, but its a two round runoff FPTP if someone doesn't score an absolute majority in round one.

edited 21st Jun '17 3:23:35 PM by Rationalinsanity

I like the sound of that system! It means you need two elections, which people here (Canada) might find annoying because they're not used to it, but it gives you a government that is much more representative of public opinion, avoids the problem of vote-splitting, and doesn't require giving up local representation.

No it's a district by district with two rounds if no one reached 50% of the vote and 25% of the people on the electoral lists during the first one. It has been crafted to make it far more likely for one political side to have a majority instead of having to rely on coalitions - it was the case during the Fourth Republic and it was a mess with governments changing every three months or so.

The number of parties come from various agreements between parties on the same side, such as LR and the UDI usually not running against one another. Some of the "various" come from local personalities (such as the very racist mayor of Orange, who is the "various far right" guy as he is not a FN member - believe it or not he is too much of a loony for them). Another case is Corsica who sent three independentists to the NA. Overseas counties also tend to vote quite differently from the mainland.

And finally you have guys like Manuel Valls who was kicked out of the PS when he said that he would be the candidate for LREM, but was not welcomed by LREM, so he ran as "Various Left". Another case is Olivier Falorni from La Rochelle (also Various Left) who was supposed not to run in 2012 to let Ségolène Royal become a MP, but ran anyway and won, which got him kicked out of the party.

edited 21st Jun '17 3:32:43 PM by Julep

Pff, amateurs ^note Check the amount of MP's from the CDU - the Unitary Democratic Coalition - which is a permanent coalition of Communists and Greens, with almost all of those being from the Portuguese Communist Party

edited 21st Jun '17 3:32:39 PM by Quag15

Cool!

Communists used to be a huge deal in France. They held back from winning on purpose so as not to escalate the Cold War.

Now they're dinosaurs.

edited 21st Jun '17 3:36:51 PM by TheHandle

@ The Handle: I would have translated Egghead by intello myself (it does not fundamentaly denotes a servile eagerness to please)

@ Galadriel: regional elections (the ones that nominate the council in charge of administering a specific region) are nominally proportional. I do not remember any other election where that is the case.

x4 Yeah but if you count former communists, then several LFI deputies count - Clémentine Autain was on the Communist list when she got elected to the Council of Paris for example.

Also, one of the eight FN deputies is a former communist too. Does that count?

edited 21st Jun '17 3:38:48 PM by Julep

Uhh... We have Trotskyites who get elected to congress, does that count?

[Analysis:] Macron puts national security at heart of foreign policy:

edited 22nd Jun '17 2:04:03 PM by Quag15

Hngh, not a fan of that.

Admittedly, Europe didn't really get the memo that the Syrian war was a European security issue despite the evidence marching across and through their borders.

Not a fan of getting to close to Russia - Germany learned that lesson the hard way and I guess France will too. As long as Putin (and whoever is behind Putin) is in power, Russia needs to be kept at arm lengths.

I am a fan though of focussing on regions where not everything is lost yet. Secure what is possible, create a baseline of economic success in said areas. It is better to prevent another Syria than throwing yourself into a war by proxy in which there won't be any winners least of all the Syrians. There we can only do damage control until Russia, the Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey come to their senses.

I guess he figures Putin will be easy to handle after dealing with Nestle.