As I write, people are voting in the UK and soon will be in France on Sunday. I am feeling a bit 'election weary'. Even though we live in Canada, we were forced to endure the dreadful US Presidential election banter and even some ads, and then it all ended so very badly. Then, just before we flew to Paris last month, provincial elections were held in British Columbia, but the voting was so close that the recounts were not completed for two weeks. France had presidential elections not too long ago and the country is now poised for its first round of elections for the National Assembly Sunday.
We don't have access to TV here, but I understand that no political ads are allowed on either the TV or radio except during a weekly specified 30-minute slot, and even these slots are available only during specific weeks. So the French airwaves are not filled with the venom and hatred we endured for months last year. There is plenty of information available on the internet and in articles, and radio and TV programmes call in representatives from the various parties for reasoned discussions. The Presidential elections did have the well-publicized debates, which Aaron enjoyed following by internet. I understand that the final debate cost Marine Le Pen the election. She apparently interrupted continually, and lost her newly-assumed presidential cool, while Macron kept his calm.
The first thing I notice about politics in France is the number of parties. It is not uncommon to have 15 candidates running in the first round. In a sense, this sometimes means that people can vote their conscience in Round 1 and then vote strategically in Round 2 (which I rather like). To see if I could get a better idea of what is happening, I walked to the local school this afternoon, where people will be voting on Sunday. In France, large metal panels are set up for each election at each polling place, and the parties are each given one specific numbered panel on which they can post their information. This usually consists of a large photo of two people, the Candidate, and (this is new to me) the suppléant (literally, the substitute, but possibly someone who will stand in or substitute for the main candidate under certain conditions.)
I took photos of the posters for the candidates running in Saint Maurice. I noticed that boards 1 and 2 were vacant, so I assume that nobody is running locally for those national parties, whatever they might have been. So let's skip that and begin with
No. 3: PS, Parti Socialiste. The Socialist Party is the nation's largest political party on the centre-left. When we lived in France for a year, Mitterrand was its leader and the President of France. The party then did less well under François Hollande, who stepped down after one disastrous term (his popularity rating of 4% is hopefully where Trump is headed). Dominique Strauss-Kahn had been considered the party's leader-about-to-be-crowned until his escapades with women mad international headlines. I see that the familiar red rose and red letters "PS" now have additional words, "Socio-Ecologie" [their bold type] with emphasis clearly placed on ecology. I wonder whether this in response to the surging interest in ecology, and more specifically, in the Green Party. No matter, the party is floundering.
No. 4: 577, Les indépendants de la droite et du centre (577, The Independents of the Right and Centre). There are 577 seats in the French National Assembly. This past April, the "577" party was renamed to specify that this organization or umbrella group supports independent candidates to the right and center. This reminds me that the whole notion of a politician being on the left or right goes back to the way legislators are seated in the National Assembly in Paris. The terms are also used in the US and Canada, even though their seating arrangements are totally different. The page to the right of the photo is the candidate's statement (which was also distributed at the two local markets) telling us that this candidate has lived in Saint Maurice since 2002, is married, the father of two children, is 42, that he received his training in finance, etc., and then there is something said about Anne Buclin (48), is his suppléant. It goes on to talk about his positions. This is the most information given on any of the panels.
No. 5: La République En Marche! (Forward, On the Move, etc.) I believe this party was recently renamed, but they are still known mostly as En marche! This is Macron's centrist party, which is bringing elements of the right and left together. This is an ideal, in so many ways, but we don't yet know if he can make it work, for the problems are profound. Since he was recently the big winner in the presidential election, his photo features prominently on every poster for his party. In fact, many people seem to expect En Marche! to win, and some are even suggesting a possible landslide similar to the one enjoyed decades ago by Charles de Gaulle. Time will tell. So far, people are impressed by Macron, and especially by his reasoned and quiet responses to the unpredictable (and internationally illiterate) Trump.
No. 6: La France insourmise avec Jean-Luc Mélenchon. This is a somewhat strange poster because you have to look carefully to find that the local candidate, Renaud Péquignot. Jean-Luc Mélenchon is the party's leader and overshadows all else. This party (I'll call it 'The Rebellious France') was founded in February 2016. This is a radical leftist party with keen interests in eco-socialism, social-republicanism, humanism, antiliberalism, populism of the left, etc. They had more than 530,000 members at the last count, but will not be playing a major role this weekend.
No. 7: Parti du Vote Blanc (White Vote Party). These folks advocate casting a protest vote. A 'white vote' means that you have neither abstained, destroyed or mutilated your ballot. Instead, you just turned it in blank--without a mark. This shows that you have participated in the election, but found none of the parties or their candidates satisfactory. These blank ballots are counted as part of the total number cast, making it a bit more difficult for any candidate to get an absolute majority. In the last Presidential election, 12% of the ballots were blanks. This type of protest is particularly popular in countries which require all citizens to vote. (Appropriately, I find I now have a blank space which I simply cannot delete, so it goes.)
No. 8: Front National (far right, nationalist party). This party has been synonymous with the family name 'Le Pen' for decades. Marine Le Pen's father founded the party in 1972. Since the 1980s, she has devoted much of her energy to softening the party's image, downplaying her father's antisemitism, etc., and at one point even booted her father out of the party, trying desperately to distance the party from his rugged old ways. In the last presidential election, some of her posters simply used her photo and her first name, Marine (trying not to conjure up the Le Pen name which so many have learned to avoid). This rupture led to the joke comparing the year's two presidential candidates in Round 2: Le Pen and Macron. 'One killed the father, the other married the mother" (recalling Greek mythology). This party is known for wanting to close the nation's borders to immigrants and for voting to leave the European Union. I notice that Marine's photo is not on the posters for this local candidate, possibly because she had to step down as party president in order to run nationally for President.
No. 9: Union of the Right and the Centre. This candidate is the Mayor of Maisons-Alfort (the city just across the River Marne from us) and his suppléant is the Vice Mayor (?) of Charenton-le-Pont, the city adjacent to Saint Maurice and where we get the métro. His nomination is supported by various mayors. This makes me wonder whether the mayors are getting together, hoping to put local interests on the national agenda.
No. 10: Union populaire républicaine. These candidates are Eurosceptics, preferring the République (meaning put France first). The party was founded in 2007, in response to unease with the ever-growing powers of Brussels and the European Union.
No. 11: Debout la France! (Arise France!) It took a while to get this party going. It went through several names until its current one was selected in 2014. The fellow on the poster is the party's founder, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan. This party recalls some of the former Gaullist themes giving precedence to France. They will apparently be doing well if they can get even 4% of the votes in any given town.
No. 12: PCD, Parti chrétien-démocrate (Christian Democrat Party). This right-wing party was founded in 2001 (you can see how many parties are relative new) and renamed in 2009. They presently have only one member in the National Assembly, so this party is nothing like parties of similar names in other countries.
No. 13: Europe écologie les Verts. This party is a merger of several parties, including the Green Party. It gets candidates elected at various levels (local, national, European), often attracting younger voters, but the party is not yet a major force on the political horizon of France, and is known to have hot debates internally. However, I sense that its goals (and gains) have prompted other parties to pay more attention to ecology.
No. 14: PCF, Parti communiste français. This party used to be a force nationally, especially between the two wars, but now it occasionally seems to be about as old and tired as the man on its poster. However, that is a misleading statement because the party actually has the third most paid-up members of any political party in France. The PCF is particularly effective at the local level in the south of France. It presently has 18 Senators and 7 in the National Assembly.
No. 15: Parti Animaliste (the party that supports the animals--not to be confused with the film Animal Party). I met a lady handing out flyers for this party, plaintively saying over and over, "For the poor animals". In Paris and elsewhere, animals are important family members. It is estimated that there are more animals than children in Paris. The party was formed in 2014 and has candidates running in some 50 ridings.
I can only hope that I am sort of on the right track for at least a few of these parties. They have always confused me, so I decided it was time to try sort them out a bit. I find several to be attractive, and wish we had many more parties in Canada. I supposed we are fortunate to have five.
On my way to the school, I following this mother and son, and wondered if and how she would vote.
We are off to Burgundy, and will not have access to the internet until the following week, so, this is all for now, with love from us both,
Evan
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