French 2017 presidential elections: A primer
General context:
French elections work in two rounds (all the elections do this, including class representatives, ime). First round anyone can be candidate, provided they fulfill the criteria, for the presidential election that includes gathering 500 signatures from elected officials. Second round is the two candidates with the most votes in the first round.
For the presidential election the two in the second round are usually the candidates of the two main parties, the PS (left) and RPR/UMP/LR/whatever the fuck they're calling themselves this day (right). Usually doesn't mean always and back in 2002, Le Pen (father edition) placed in the second round due to infighting on the left. The whole country rallied against him and Chirac was (re)elected, but that was a tense two weeks.
Misc:
Elections are always on Sundays.
Voting happens in schools/other public buildings.
I really hate the new party name for the UMP -- Les Républicains ("The Republicans") -- and refer to it as "the party formally known as UMP" in everyday life. Nobody gets to claim a monopoly on the Republic, dammit. (Or democracy for that matter /inb4 "but that's how they do it in the US" do know, don't care, not from the US)
Presidential terms last 5 years.
Current President is François Hollande (served one term, decided not to run for re-election in early December 2015).
President before that was Nicolas Sarkozy (was only President one term).
Anyone who grabs more than 5% of the votes in the first round gets campaign funds reimbursed.
Talking time is equal between parties, by law.
Major players of this presidential election, from right to left on the political spectrum:
Marine Le Pen (FN): Our locally-sourced fascists. With real Nazism bits inside! (There's nothing antisemitic about making a "pun" that turns the name of one of JM Le Pen's opponents into meaning "of the crematory oven". Absolutely not. /sarcasm) Anyway, some time after Le Pen (father) got to the second round of the elections, his daughter kicked him out of his own party and started crying crocodile tears about how the party was totally reformed, you guys! Don't let the fact that the party is exactly the same fool you! THESE PEOPLE ARE FASCISTS DO NOT VOTE FOR THEM DO NOT BELIEVE ANYTHING THEY SAY
François Fillon (LR): Candidate from the main right-wing party. Formerly Sarkozy's prime minister. Voted Mister Eyebrows nine years running. Made his career on being An Honest Man TM. Turns out he was paying his wife public money -- legally he is allowed to do it the way he did it, provided she actually worked as parlimentary aide in exchange. She did not. He also paid his kids, but that's less important, because they "only" got ~80k, she got ~900k (over years).
Emmanuel Macron (EM): Candidate from his own party, En Marche! (yes exclamation mark included, yes he is the youngest of the candidates). Formerly a minister in Hollande's government, quit in early 2016 and decided to go it alone. Nobody's quite sure how he gained that much support, especially since so far his whole program is "neither right nor left". Thanks buddy, that's helpful.
Benoît Hamon (PS): Unexpected outsider at the PS primary. Hard left of the PS (main left-wing party). Pretty much a nobody before this. Since he got elected candidate Sunday before last the PS has been imploding/exploding, with party members calling to suport Macron instead.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon (FI): Communist. No, literally a communist. France has a pretty solid communist voting base, Mélenchon has been polling fairly consistently around 10% for this election. Which is not enough to get him into the second round, but is still significant.
Currently most likely to make it to the second round are Le Pen, Fillon and Macron, not necessarily in that order.
AND THAT'S FRANCE.
This entry was originally posted at http://dhampyresa.dreamwidth.org/171054.html and has
comments over there.
French elections work in two rounds (all the elections do this, including class representatives, ime). First round anyone can be candidate, provided they fulfill the criteria, for the presidential election that includes gathering 500 signatures from elected officials. Second round is the two candidates with the most votes in the first round.
For the presidential election the two in the second round are usually the candidates of the two main parties, the PS (left) and RPR/UMP/LR/whatever the fuck they're calling themselves this day (right). Usually doesn't mean always and back in 2002, Le Pen (father edition) placed in the second round due to infighting on the left. The whole country rallied against him and Chirac was (re)elected, but that was a tense two weeks.
Misc:
Elections are always on Sundays.
Voting happens in schools/other public buildings.
I really hate the new party name for the UMP -- Les Républicains ("The Republicans") -- and refer to it as "the party formally known as UMP" in everyday life. Nobody gets to claim a monopoly on the Republic, dammit. (Or democracy for that matter /inb4 "but that's how they do it in the US" do know, don't care, not from the US)
Presidential terms last 5 years.
Current President is François Hollande (served one term, decided not to run for re-election in early December 2015).
President before that was Nicolas Sarkozy (was only President one term).
Anyone who grabs more than 5% of the votes in the first round gets campaign funds reimbursed.
Talking time is equal between parties, by law.
Major players of this presidential election, from right to left on the political spectrum:
Marine Le Pen (FN): Our locally-sourced fascists. With real Nazism bits inside! (There's nothing antisemitic about making a "pun" that turns the name of one of JM Le Pen's opponents into meaning "of the crematory oven". Absolutely not. /sarcasm) Anyway, some time after Le Pen (father) got to the second round of the elections, his daughter kicked him out of his own party and started crying crocodile tears about how the party was totally reformed, you guys! Don't let the fact that the party is exactly the same fool you! THESE PEOPLE ARE FASCISTS DO NOT VOTE FOR THEM DO NOT BELIEVE ANYTHING THEY SAY
François Fillon (LR): Candidate from the main right-wing party. Formerly Sarkozy's prime minister. Voted Mister Eyebrows nine years running. Made his career on being An Honest Man TM. Turns out he was paying his wife public money -- legally he is allowed to do it the way he did it, provided she actually worked as parlimentary aide in exchange. She did not. He also paid his kids, but that's less important, because they "only" got ~80k, she got ~900k (over years).
Emmanuel Macron (EM): Candidate from his own party, En Marche! (yes exclamation mark included, yes he is the youngest of the candidates). Formerly a minister in Hollande's government, quit in early 2016 and decided to go it alone. Nobody's quite sure how he gained that much support, especially since so far his whole program is "neither right nor left". Thanks buddy, that's helpful.
Benoît Hamon (PS): Unexpected outsider at the PS primary. Hard left of the PS (main left-wing party). Pretty much a nobody before this. Since he got elected candidate Sunday before last the PS has been imploding/exploding, with party members calling to suport Macron instead.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon (FI): Communist. No, literally a communist. France has a pretty solid communist voting base, Mélenchon has been polling fairly consistently around 10% for this election. Which is not enough to get him into the second round, but is still significant.
Currently most likely to make it to the second round are Le Pen, Fillon and Macron, not necessarily in that order.
AND THAT'S FRANCE.
This entry was originally posted at http://dhampyresa.dreamwidth.org/171054.html and has
comments over there.