French Politics

I... I can't even fathom how this first sentence was supposed to end in the original American English.

And nothing sets off French speakers like English speakers pretending to have command of the language.

That said, I've seen how my brother writes... I'm not sure awful writing will be a red flag for today's 18-25...

The first sentence is obvious "Blind Idiot" Translation, even with poor grammar it is nonsensical.

That said, it is not the greatest news going on right now: national treasure Le Canard Enchaîné (think satyrical newspaper, but with real & confirmed news) revealed that Mrs Fillon earned more than €500k as her husband's parliamentary assistant over the years.

First, note that this "manoeuver" is legal^but in France, in the EU parliament it has been banned after some people abused it, and it is now forbidden to hire family members. A deputy - like Fillon - has more than €9k/month to directly hire anyone he wants, up to five people. It can be a member of his/her (let's face it, mostly his) family, and those people are the deputy's employees, not the National Assembly's.

However, there are two major "buts":

• There must be an actual job
• The sum perceived must be "decent"

And there is the problem: Mrs Fillon, for years, proudly admitted to be a "mère au foyer" - at-home mother - for the kids, including during the right-wing primaries (as a counterpart to pop star singer Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, among other things). Which doesn't exactly fit what a parliamentary assistant is supposed to be. Also, at some point, when Fillon was a member of the government and as such ceased to be his deputy and was replaced by his suppléant, Mrs Fillon kept the wages...which increased to almost €8k a month. Considering a deputy has less than €10k a month to give, it doesn't exactly fit the "decent sum" criterion.

Now, factor in that she also earned €100k in twenty months as a collaborator of magazine La Revue des Deux Mondes - whose owner is a friend of Fillon - and produced...two short texts. The then-redactor-in-chief said that "he never saw her at the workplace, and didn't even know she was employed by the magazine".

And then cross that with Fillon's ultraliberal program who loves to accuse fonctionnaires to be a bunch of lazybums - which is why he wants 500k less of them.

And you get something that gave me a smile for the entire day.

It even looks like all his supports didn't get the same memo: some said that "Mrs Fillon regularly came to the National Assembly" while others claimed that "the reason Mrs Fillon never was seen in the National Assembly is because she worked from her home in the Sarthe".

Priceless, I tell you. Icing on the cake, Mrs Fillon is named...Penelope.

edited 25th Jan '17 12:36:00 PM by Julep

Fillion is a normal politician (in the sense of "not-a-populist", from what you're saying he's significantly to the right of most French politicians), right? can this sink him the way it does other normal politicians? (and hopefully if it does those votes go to Macron, not to Le Pen)

When you repeatedly call fonctionnaires lazy yet give your wife a fictional job paid by the State, you pretty much become Cahuzac 2.0.

Just an update to say that the Fillon affair is still on the news, which means that unlike, say, one of the zillion absurdities Trump said during his campaign and which disappeared a couple hours later when he said something else equally offensive, it has become a big deal.

Yesterday, Fillon was on the first channel for an interview, and detailed what her wife was doing - which is, essentially, private stuff that you cannot verify (correcting typos in his speeches, "talking about strategy", read the newspapers to give him a summary...). Problem is, she only was his assistant between 1998 and 2002. After that, she was his suppleant's assistant - so it would be weird - and funny - if she did the "private stuff" with her husband's assistant too. Said suppleant is completely silent right now, so I assume there is a preparation going on about what he is going to say when he inevitably has to meet either the media or the justice system.

Also, there are records of Mrs Fillon saying in about 2014 that "now she would start assisting her husband in politics". And she stopped being paid in 2013, the same year a law started to look closely at the way the politics were using public money (a coincidence I assume).

The next few days are going to be entertaining.

So, does this mean that Fuhrer Le Pen is likely?

Well...Marine Le Pen is under similar investigation for doing the exact same thing with her companion in the European Parliament. Actually, she ''supports'' Fillon during this crisis (yes, you read right). The most likely winner of that is, as of now, Macron, who isn't suspected of being dishonest. Yet.

Especially since left-wing Hamon is the most likely winner of the PS primary, and as such, Macron can hope to gain the voices of the center-left (and probably the support of politicians from the right of the PS).

edited 27th Jan '17 6:41:29 AM by Julep

Fillon has said that he would withdraw from the elections if a legal action was raised against him, and Juppé has also said he would not replace Fillon if he stepped down. So basically, either Fillon will be cleared (most likely - they will find some scapegoat or other) and everything will proceed as planned with this story getting buried in the months to come under various other niceties dug up for each candidate, or he will actually be bothered by the justice and withdraw from the elections (two things I would find quite unlikely)... and I guess our beloved Sarkozy would offer his services...

edited 27th Jan '17 6:44:28 AM by C105

I think the third option, he stays but his popularity is very significantly affected by this news, is another possibility.

I've started calling her Marine le Pétain myself.

It gets better. To prevent another potential scandal, Fillon said that he also hired two of his children while he was a senator as he needed their expertise as lawyers. Problem is, Fillon was senator from September 2005 to June 2007 but his children only became lawyers in November 2007 and June 2011.

Facepalm.

Hey, François, I've got a shovel I don't need anymore, if you want.

If Fillon does go down hard, can Marcon stand a chance against Le Pen?

It was an internship! They needed the practice!

That would depend on how the voters that would've gone to Fillion split I guess (I don't imagine them going to, for example, Melénchon).

edited 27th Jan '17 2:23:54 PM by IFwanderer

Man, fuck that Putinist.

I was talking about a hypothetical second round, where Marcon (who does seem to be surging) overtakes Fillon thanks to this scandal.

edited 27th Jan '17 2:27:56 PM by Rationalinsanity

I'd say he'd have pretty good chances. Ultralibertarian economic policies aside, he pretty much has rather moderate views on pretty much everything, meaning he doesn't have that big bad boogieman aura. And him going as an "outside the system" candidate (*snickers*) can win him some votes, as many people vote for Le Pen precisely because they're fed up with the stagnant political landscape. (Well, there's another reason they vote for her, but I don't think I can express it without losing my temper and get thumped)

Now, a big problem with Macron is his personnality. The guy's condescending as hell, as he frequently belittles entire social groups, like when he replied to a protester that he could buy a fancy suit because HE was working, or when he said that an entire region of France was plagued with tabagism and alcoholism, implying that it's imprinted in its inhabitants' genes.

edited 27th Jan '17 2:30:13 PM by purplefishman

I don't think you should ask that question because this new (awesome) information proves once more that the prediction game has pretty much become obsolete.

But I'd say Macron would fare well against Le Pen. He isn't hated on the right because he is, at heart, a banker, so pro-business (even if he isn't as "rich people first" as Fillon). Le Pen would get the very catholic vote, but Macron would get the moderate right that is going Fillon right now, and pretty much the entirety of the left (including some Mélenchon voters, who would cut their hand before they vote Fillon even if Le Pen is the opponent).

I don't think it will be a problem for him honestly. Well, the suit one was crappy, but the one about alcoholism in the North, just like the one about the problem of illiterate workers he said while he was a minister, was IMO the result of some sensationalist editing - he linked the alcoholism problem to the high unemployment rates, not to Ch'tis being innate heavy drinkers. And it's a bit silly to deny it. It is more a case of Brutal Honesty, which isn't a problem nowadays since everyone can find footage of the entire scene and decide whether he was insulting or not.

20 years ago, education minister Claude Allègre lost all credibility when he talked about "dégraisser le mammouth" (thin out the mammoth? Hard to translate) when talking about National Education. All the syndicates swore they would get his head - and they did. Yet when I hear my mother and her companion talk about the way National Education works nowadays - not the teachers, everyone around them - it's hard to deny that Allègre was kiiiinda right.

edited 27th Jan '17 2:50:00 PM by Julep

Why would Catholics vote for Nazis? I was under the impression that both groups did not get along at all, even during the Concordat. Or is that only true in Germany?

Since the Taubira law, the hardest catholics have pretty much moved towards the right of LR & the FN. It is important to know that while MLP herself isn't a devout catholic, her niece is - and she represents the "hard" FN, much closer to grandpa Jean-Marie than MLP does. MLP is more on the Philippot line of, well, nationalist socialism (yes, I know how those words sound together, but that is by far the best way to describe her program), but is smart enough not to alienate herself from the hard line FN because she needs them. Most of the militants belong to that hard line, they are the ones ensuring security around FN-organized events, etc etc.

edited 27th Jan '17 2:50:27 PM by Julep

Catholics did alright under the Reich if they stayed in line, Hitler had to tread somewhat carefully because Catholics are quite well represented among the upper classes in Germany IIRC.