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Chaos in France after Macron refuses to name prime minister from leftwing coalition
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2024
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So call a second election. The people will solve the impasse. Either a majority emerges or eventually the parties, exhausted by campaigning, will learn to compromise and make a coalition. Democracy will find a way.
But then he risks losing again.
Lol. You're new to French politics?
French Unity is when deGaulle has you dragged out back and shot for disagreeing.
Only in the colonies, so that was allowed!
As a Greek I have some familiarity. Our politics is just as adversarial (if not more) and there is no tradition of coalitions. But when push came to shove, they figured it out, if only for a bit.
While Greece was arguably mismanaged, it didn't deserve the harshness it got. But the same political mess could well be in the future of France.
100% agree
How are your trash cans looking? Are any of them on fire yet? Y'all really know how to protest
I expect that as a random US person, coming onto a native, you have at least spent some university time on European political systems to have some arguments?
And yes, it's a shitshow. Shall we go back to how you're about to elect an insane game show host along with a guy that's had half his brain eaten by a worm?
To be fair to us, the brain worm guy dropped out.
Hey now. There's slightly over a 50% chance we get the coconut lady, instead.
Could you explain please why another election is not allowed in France? I though Macron dissolved the parliament early for a new election, which brought us to this situation in the first place.
The constitution says that you can only do it once a year. Which makes sense as you have to deal with the stupid decisions you make.
Trump has no hope next to Harris, Biden stepping down has been the smartest move I've seen from Democrats since runnng Obama, people are energized, no one wants the other confused old guy.
That's what many people hope for. But then it's the US, so anything goes.
Not possible, there's a one year delay.
God damn it, De Gaulle really screwed you guys over, eh?
You can't repeatedly dissolve the chamber. I don't think that's a bad thing.
The real problem isn't with the constitution. It's with the fact that the French are no longer able to create coalitions around a project. The whole political system is built around the idea that one group has a majority and does as it pleases until the next election. Talking to others is completely alien to them. And that is a real problem.
Most of the other European countries work with coalitions. It makes much more sense (I understand that this is alien to US people).
Eh. Post WW2 European "coalitions" are largely just iterations of the modern Democratic Party subdivided by region and cultural touchstone. There isn't a huge ideological gap between German Christian Democrats, Christian Socialists, Free Democrats, and Greens, for instance. The real divide is between East and West, and that's where you get a rump AfD that grew out of the corpse of GDR Communists.
Similarly, Macron's En Marche party is itself this coalition of French business interests that are terrified of Melanchon and conservative nationalists who don't sit well with LePen's National Front. He's synthesized a position between his old boss Hollande's champagne socialism and Sarkozy's moderate business friendly white nationalism. But now all the half measures have dried up his base of support.
Spain's government is similarly bifricated along lines that go back to the civil war of the 1930s. Italy's is a hogpodge of parties that are still strictly aligned with the industrial north or rural south. You can repeat this pattern across the entire continent. Yeah, a multi-party system exists, but the coalitions are ultimately all defined by their relationships to international business. Are you the finance friendly international markets party or are you the angry proletarian outsiders?
The social policies of the parties might vary based on whether the base is liberally cosmopolitan or conservatively rural. But the root of the divide always comes down to questions of profit.
As a Dutch voter (who voted left) I’m happy with the coalition in the Netherlands if compared to a theoretical where the far-right party PVV rules alone shudder
The parties aren't the problem. Macron holds the presidency and appoints the PM. The largest (coalition) party is giving him a candidate AFTER compromises and he's refusing STILL because he only wants a PM from his own party, who came in second (edit: not third, my bad, they did beat National Rally. They did come in third in the first round of voting though).
The big debate is on whether he "appoints" the PM or "picks" the PM.
The constitution doesn't exactly specify which, and usage was that he would appoint the one issued from the majority vote (but there's no majority, there's just one group that's a wee bit larger). So he's having his fun, pretending to have a chat with everybody, while knowing all the time that they can really all fuck off and the he'll do as he pleases.
In the end he'll most likely have what they call a "technical" government made of non political ministers that will just do as they're told, because the chambers will be too busy infighting to do anything about it.
It sounds like the candidate PM would not have the confidence of the Assembly though because the center doesn't want to play ball with the left and the left doesn't have a majority.
That's why I'm suggesting elections. Keep going until either a majority is elected (in which case I assume the president is obligated to appoint its leader) or the parliamentary math changes.
If Macron and the center are serious about keeping the cordon sanitaire against the far right, they should obviously play ball with the left. The fact that they are not tells me that they are not serious. The left should be able to make that argument to the electorate and hope to convince a majority.
Edit: not only is Macron showing lack of seriousness in keeping the far right at bay, he is also undermining the legitimacy of the presidency by playing parliamentary shenanigans and triggering such a constitutional crisis. I never really understood the fundamentals of France's semi-presidential system, but in a parliamentary republic like Germany, or Ireland, or Greece for example, the president does not get to play politics with the parliament's confidence like this. I don't understand why the French think this is a good system.
Why the fuck are centrists and right wingers always holding hands to prevent any kind of leftist power?
Oh right, money
Good luck with that.