The French right wins a parliamentary majority, but winds up losing seats relative to its pre-election position of strength. This tends to bolster my sense that the dawn of the Sarkozy Era will ultimately be less consequential than many seem to hope or fear.
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Mixed Results
17 Jun 2007 10:35 pm
Comments (11)
And in related news, it's a shame the Sarkozy campaign removed the Disco Sarko feature from their website.
Well, it was bad enough for the PS to be a paradoxical benefit, since it's likely to push out some of the party dinosaurs. Which sets up an interesting contest, now that Ségolène Royal and François Hollande have confirmed their separation, and she's likely to challenge for the helm of the party.
Plus, Sarko wants a summer legislative session (outside what might be called 'protest season') to ram through his first bills.
Even more interesting is that she (Segolene) chose that night (aka a surprisingly positive night for the Socialists who had been craving for good news for a while) to announce that they were seperating.
She has never been known for being particularly politically nimble but this tops everything she had done before. Instead of spending the night talking about the impressive resistance of the left, pundits have been talking all night about more of that pathetic private life soap opera, therefore reinforcing the idea that the PS was beset by personal dissensions instead of shored up by the election.
I would be surprised if her standing is not further damaged, especially after a series of other poor political moves she has made during this campaign for Parliament. She is a charismatic woman but boy is she politically daft !
This is too bad, now Fench voters are as dumb as American ones. It's only a matter of time before they lose that 35 hour work week and outsource everything to Algeria.
Last Monday night, a woman at a bar came up to me and asked me if I was single. Not to disparage her, but let's just say I was happy to shut her down right away with an abrupt "I'm gay." And you know what? THAT DID NOT DETER HER.
She LIT up and said, "We can go shopping together and you can watch me play with myself with my Rabbit."
Ugggggghhhh ... Do you ever not even know where to begin?
I wanted to say, "Yes, please, I am in the habit of befriending bar skanks in the first ten seconds of talking to them. And despite my lack of sexual attraction to women, I would simply LOVE to watch you get yourself off. JACKPOT!"
As far as the shopping thing goes: I love saying "I'm not really into shopping" and I just stand back and wait for their heads to explode. Their precious "Will and Grace" never prepared them for that possibility!
to nhuixnhuix:
The annoucement by Segolene Royal was carefully planned for tomorrow together with the publication of an interview book of her about the campaign, all elections being then over. But a leak on the website of a news magazine (Marianne) spurred the AFP to announce it sooner.
2 comments:
- COnspiration theorists thrive today on the motives of Marianne and AFP
- every political Journalist in Paris knew about it, and the undertone to the comment was more or less: "what the f*, the news was expected later"
That and the silences about Sarkozy -be it his G8 happy performance or his wife (not) voting - won't enhance the opinion of the French people about the reporting of the medias about the politic.
Worth pointing out that, in the seats contested last night, the Left got a majority of the vote overall. Damn, nonproportional representation sucks.
French conservatives are still way to the left of the Clintonian Democrats, i.e. Chris Dodd, Evan Buy, Harold Snored, Tom Ballsack, Hillary Clinton, and maybe Bill Clinton.
Worth pointing out that, in the seats contested last night, the Left got a majority of the vote overall. Damn, nonproportional representation sucks.
Posted by Alex | June 18, 2007 5:27 AM
Yeah but don't forget that up to 100 of the "deputes" had been already elected in the first round and of them only one was on the left. If you take into account *those* districts where the rightist representatives had already more than half of the votes right in the first round, then the composition of the Assembly is not that egregiously far from the actual vote (well for the small parties, not for the two big ones).
French conservatives are still way to the left of the Clintonian Democrats, i.e. Chris Dodd, Evan Buy, Harold Snored, Tom Ballsack, Hillary Clinton, and maybe Bill Clinton.
Yes, précisément. To quote Eric Alterman from a half-remembered BHTV appearance, "I'd love to live in France, 'cause then I could be a right-winger. And I think I'd make a real good right-winger.
Comments closed July 01, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
I mean, it's the incumbent party. The idea that he'll be a Thatcher figure just doesn't add up. He's likely to pursue a line similar to Chirac.
Posted by Freddie | June 17, 2007 11:01 PM