Category: Elections

France Goes Communist, Too

Elections, Marxists, Mocking Furriners

As always, whenever there’s the slightest chance that the Frogs will vote for anything other than Lefty government, the normally-fractious Socialists (of which there are many, to cater to all the flavors of Big Brother) suddenly close ranks, declare “Nous sommes tous de gauche!”  and the “Rightwing” party is put back in its place.

Which is what happened yesterday.  Andrew Neil explains:

The traditional French fallback when Marine Le Pen’s populist National Rally does well in the first round of elections as it did last Sunday – of ganging up against it in the second round – was more effective yesterday than anybody expected.

Far from making the hard Right the biggest party in parliament, as was widely expected, the French people gave first place, according to the exit polls, to the hard Left. Almost nobody saw it coming.

Nobody, that is. except people who understand the Frogs and their love of socialism.

Instead of coming first but without an overall majority the National Rally came a poor third.

So, what next?

For all the celebrations on the Left…

 

…France now has a hung parliament, which condemns it to political paralysis or worse for the foreseeable future – a lame duck president and a parliament that will be so consumed by battles between hard Left and Right that coalition government will probably be impossible.

Welcome to Back to the Future, French style. The Fourth Republic, cobbled together in the aftermath of the Second World War, only lasted from 1946 until 1958. During its 12 years there were 21 governments.

Which is probably what we’re going to see in the foreseeable future.

General Charles de Gaulle changed all that in 1958 by creating the Fifth Republic, with a strong president and a diminished National Assembly. He had himself in mind as president when he designed it, though the Fifth Republic has endured to this day.

After yesterday’s elections, France is going to look a lot more like the weak and chaotic Fourth Republic than the stronger, more stable Fifth.

And so it goes.  Pass the vin rouge, Pierre.  Foutu alors.

Round One To The Good Guys

Elections, Mocking Furriners

When Charles De Gaulle stated that it was impossible to govern a country which produced 246 types of cheese, he was really talking about politics.  So in a country where there are at a rough guess about five political parties per voter, national elections are two-rounders:  the first round eliminates most of the outliers, and the thing gets serious in the second round.

Even so, I was surprised at the first round results:  National Rally garnered a full third of the votes cast, with FrogPres “Granny-Shagger” Macron’s “globalist” party a distant third (after the Socialists).

Marine Le Pen‘s far-right* National Rally party led France’s snap parliamentary elections on Sunday with 33% of the vote, according to the interior ministry, with the leftist alliance New Popular Front following in second place at almost 28%. President Macron’s ruling coalition trailed in third place with 20%.

Of course, the Left accepted the election results stoically… nah, just kidding, they went all hair on fire and screaming riots, as is their wont when the people don’t vote the way they want them to.

The French people may have spoken at the ballot box, but the result clearly left some feeling very upset. Protests erupted in several French cities overnight, most particularly in Paris, where thousands gathered. The New Popular Front, which represents a spectrum of left wing parties from the pro-European Union centrists to full-blooded communists has earlier threatened they would “resist” the result if the RN won, and the protests may be the firs throes of that, although given there is a week to run until the second round of the election actually allocates the majority of the seats and decides whether Le Pen’s RN can command a majority in the house or not, perhaps expect more violence next week.

Comment of the week:  “Every dead cop means one less vote for Le Pen”, thus combining support for lawlessness with political terrorism in one pithy sentence.

On a parallel note:  the Greens got no votes at all (being part of the 3.1% “Other”, which encompasses over a dozen parties.

Roll on, Sunday.

*they aren’t, except by the standards of the Howling Left.

Next Week: Armageddon

Elections, Mocking Furriners

…for the Brits, anyway, as they are going to vote the Communist Labour Party into power because reasons.

After Bill Clinton was elected President, I remember expressing my amazement to a friend that almost the very first thing he did was increase taxes.  My friend’s response was withering:  “Of course he raised taxes:  he’s a fucking Democrat, and that’s what they do.”

Now back over The Pond…

Here’s the opinion of the Greatest Living Englishman on the topic:

Anyone who thinks that Labour will behave in any way differently to what Clarkson says needs to jump off a cliff.  And in fact Labour may do worse, much worse.

I’m not taking any bets on that.