Scandals in Communist Frenchystan
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OK, here's a tiny fun tidbit.
The left is tearing itself to shreds. Some of them want to have some sort of primary. Some people have started first a petition, then organising for a vote (in 10 days or so). Half of the left' declared candidates don't want to hear about it.
So you might think whoever is organising that would just put the names of whoever supports it, right? Ah ah ah who am I kidding...
From their website:
"[the 3 biggest names of the list] have not given their agreement and don't want to recognise the result of this vote."
(also of the 4 others, 2 are absolutely totally unknown to me, and the other two are tiny minor second-rank figures, the best-known of the two was minister 20 years ago and nothing else)
But wait, there's more!
The party of one of those 3 (Mélenchon) just put out a press release saying that they are officially asking that organisation to stop putting his name in the primary.
It's funny to see them bickering about such stupid things, but at the same time it's sad to see anyone bickering about such stupid things.
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@Gąska said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
FYI, the Catholic Church translates (or used to translate until 100 years ago?) each saint's name to local languages.
It's not just Catholic Church, and not just names of saints. Everything used to be translated to local languages until relatively recently. And, especially for places, the translations are sometimes particularly egregious and silly. For example the Czech name for Konstanz was Kostnice, which means ossuary – apparently the translators used an existing word that sounded somewhat similar, creating false etymology. There is a couple more similar examples, but this one is particularly confusing to history students due to the meaning – and of course it appears under the German spelling on modern maps.
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@Bulb the bottom line is, if two countries spell it very differently, it's probably traditional, otherwise it's probably not.
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@Gąska … two countries that normally use original spelling for loan words that is. Countries that use different script than Latin usually transcribe phonetically and some countries also do that even when they do use Latin script (IIRC e.g. Slovenia).
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@Bulb said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
apparently the translators used an existing word that sounded somewhat similar, creating false etymology.
Oh, oh, I know an amusing one!
There's an area in the Rhône valley called the "Tricastin." That actually comes from the name of a Gaul tribe that lived there. But then at some point (at the end of the Middle Ages or so)
/
types decided that it actually came from latin for "three castles" and therefore the main village in that area is named St Paul Trois Châteaux (lit. "three castles").
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@Bulb said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
@Gąska … two countries that normally use original spelling for loan words that is. Countries that use different script than Latin usually transcribe phonetically and some countries also do that even when they do use Latin script (IIRC e.g. Slovenia).
Dunno about Slovenia, but Russian have lots of loan words that are very obviously not simple transliterations. And a lot that are transliterations. It mostly overlaps with the traditional/non-traditional split in western languages.
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@remi said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
Trois Châteaux (lit. "three castles")
It's also funny how English appropriated the word châteaux for the more modern noblemen residence that isn't a castle (does not have defensive features).
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@Bulb To be fair, French also does it (see Château de Versailles and many other). But we still use the word château for "proper" defensive castles (even some from the modern era when they are purely military and no longer status symbols), whereas English doesn't.
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@Gąska said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
Russian have lots of loan words
False, they have stolen words only, nobody is crazy enough to lend to them.
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@Bulb said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
@remi said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
Trois Châteaux (lit. "three castles")
It's also funny how English appropriated the word châteaux for the more modern noblemen residence that isn't a castle (does not have defensive features).
Not more funny than using the word "lock" for that manor type, as several slavic languages do (and German arguably does it too, but Schloss is also used for the good old fortified castle). Especially since the original meaning was "especially very heavily fortified castle or fortress of paramount strategic importance" (hence the name: it "locks" the enemy forces out or down).
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@Gąska said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
@acrow saints aren't biblical. Most of them at least.
That was actually partly what I have meant. English names are often straight-out biblical, with no saint of that name.
The other part is quite a number of traditional gaellic or slavic names with no saint of that name (yet). Although, singling out Russia is probably unfair.
On the other hand, after some googling, I have found out that this is usually covered by a creative etymology. For example, the name Sidonius is apparently the same as Sean, Shawn, Shaun, Zdenko or Zdeněk. TIL.
Still, I cannot find any Saint Přemysl / Przemysław, so... outlaw them or not?
Edit: One interesting tidbit about biblical names: My grandmother remembered that the growing popularity of names like Eve in 1930s was met with astonishment and even disapproval (at least in the more conservative villages) as a pagan name.
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@Kamil-Podlesak said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
Still, I cannot find any Saint Přemysl / Przemysław, so... outlaw them or not?
Interesting. I was pretty sure there is a saint with that name. But further googling revealed it was a lie. Like, actual, thoroughly documented lie. Some 14th century fucker was spreading a myth that a dead duke of something or other was a saint when in fact he was not. Weird.
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@Kamil-Podlesak said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
@Bulb said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
@remi said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
Trois Châteaux (lit. "three castles")
It's also funny how English appropriated the word châteaux for the more modern noblemen residence that isn't a castle (does not have defensive features).
Not more funny than using the word "lock" for that manor type, as several slavic languages do (and German arguably does it too, but Schloss is also used for the good old fortified castle). Especially since the original meaning was "especially very heavily fortified castle or fortress of paramount strategic importance" (hence the name: it "locks" the enemy forces out or down).
Fortified castles are usually called a "Burg". A "Schloss" is a building built by nobility - this may be fortified, it may also not be.
"Burgen" may also be single fortified buildings. If we're talking about something like this:
That's a "Festung" (i.e. fortress).
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@acrow said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
@Gąska said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
@Kamil-Podlesak said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
@Gąska said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
@remi said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
the polemicist (Zemmour) who wants to ban non-French first names (whatever that means)
Oh that's easy.
- Did that name exist in 18th century?
- Is there a Catholic saint with that name?
- If there was some French person in 18th century with that name, would the English translate it to a local counterpart rather than keep original spelling (e.g. Pierre -> Peter)?
If yes to all, then it's a traditional name; otherwise it's some new age made up shit. Works with 99% of names in almost every European country.
Almost =~ neither UK nor Russia?
According to this page, the 3 most popular Russian names right now are Alexander, Mikhail and Maxim. All three very traditional. And is the UK part a joke about Muslim immigration or what?
Can you also quote the relevant Biblical names in English? Because for those of us who don't speak East-European languages, the connection isn't that obvious.
The names in English are Alexander, Michael, and Maximilian.
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@GuyWhoKilledBear A more obscure connection would be Ivan.
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@Rhywden said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
@GuyWhoKilledBear A more obscure connection would be Ivan.
The English translation is John.
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@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
@Rhywden said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
@GuyWhoKilledBear A more obscure connection would be Ivan.
The English translation is John.
Well yeah I mean they're basically spelled the same once you account for 2 prior alphabets and a vowel shift. The implied intermediary "Juan" makes sense given the geography.
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@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
@Rhywden said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
@GuyWhoKilledBear A more obscure connection would be Ivan.
The English translation is John.
TIL.
And then the names get imported via multiple languages as different. John would be translated to Czech as Jan, but we also have Ivan as a separate name, and Johan from the German form Johannes. And all three female variants too.
And then back to English got Ian and Jon that most likely evolved from the same name too.
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@Gąska said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
Some 14th century fucker was spreading a myth that a dead duke of something or other was a saint when in fact he was not. Weird.
Note that for a long time in the Early Middle Ages, sainthood was mostly by "public acclamation" i.e. the Church was just recognising whatever people said (see also "folk saint" for more local/recent examples), so your example is probably not as fanciful as it looks.
Related, TIL about Saint Guinefort, an (unrecognised, of course) French folk saint that is a dog.
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@Rhywden said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
Fortified castles are usually called a "Burg". A "Schloss" is a building built by nobility - this may be fortified, it may also not be.
"Burgen" may also be single fortified buildings.And in French, a "bourg" is a city (nowadays it's a bit old-fashioned, but it's still a word, and it's part of many city names). It's been used in this sense for long-enough that it spawned all sorts of derived words, such as... bourgeois!
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I found a Reddit post where someone made a 2022 French political compass. As always we can endlessly bicker about where each candidate is (I disagree with a couple of those), but on the whole it doesn't seem unreasonably inaccurate (don't try to look at small differences, just the big picture).
Quick recap of the main ones: Le Pen/Zemmour are conventionally seen as far-right (Zemmour being the newcomer that messes up all predictions, though he's not shaping up to be able to pull the same result as Macron last time), Pécresse is the "mainstream" right-wing (the party of Sarkozy), Macron is seen as centre(-right), Hidalgo is what's left of the "mainstream" left-wing (the party of Hollande), Jadot is the Green Party, Mélenchon is far-left.
Quick brush up of the rest (they won't get more than 2-3% each): Philippot is a splinter from Le Pen, Dupond-Aignan is also very close to Le Pen (ideologically, not politically!). Montebourg and Taubira are splinters from Hidalgo (not really, but let's keep it simple), Roussel is the Communist Party, Poutou and Arthaud are the "revolutionary left" (of the "Lenin wasn't left-enough" sort).
In both "quick" lists above I've listed them in the conventionally accepted right-to-left order. Good luck trying to map that to a single line on the plot.
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OK, now that I'm paying a bit of attention to it, there are some fun bits in this. Or maybe it's just a coincidence.
Anyway. You know the movement that's organising a primary for left-wing candidates, half (or more) of which explicitly refused to participate but are still listed?
Well, a video was leaked today (but... by whom and why?) of one of the founding members saying in an internal meeting that their goal was actually to prevent those slightly-more-visible left-wing candidates from getting their 500 signatures (and thus become official candidates).
It's great. It obviously discredits that campaign. But then again, taken at face value, it's a ludicrous claim: out of the targeted candidates (according to TFA), one is on the verge of throwing the towel, and the 4 others are from parties with existing local elected officials so they cannot fail to get their 500 signatures.
Which leads to the question, why was this video leaked, just a few days before the date of this primary? Does one (or more) of those candidates actually feel threatened by that vote and needs to preemptively discredit it, more than by just saying they don't want to hear about it? Or is it just about revealing a hidden agenda?
Cui bono?
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@remi Don't attribute to malice which can also be explained by plain stupidity.
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@Rhywden On one hand, you're right (and I'm usually the first one to say that).
On the other hand, we're talking about politicians. In full campaign mode. Who know they don't have any chance to win so are just jockeying to position themselves for the future.
Really, no malice?
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Right, it is getting better and better.
Breaking news! One member of the Green party, who was last in their internal primary last autumn (with a whopping 2.5% of votes...), just announced that he will be candidate.
His official press release says "in the face of the incredible division of the left that shocks me, [...] I've decided to be candidate."
Also, usually readers' comment on newspapers are something to avoid at all cost, but the first (at the time of writing...) comment on the article above made me LOL:
KIBBLES FOR ALL!
This is the rallying cry of my Golden Labrador, left-wing dog who claims the right to be candidate in the left's primaries. Dog shelters have already promised him to gather more than 500 signatures.
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Btw, this is what giving a speech to the EU looks like:
I know that it's no coincidence that the flag looks like this, and that the room has obviously been designed to get this effect, but still.
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I'm just an atheist, but I thought a necessary condition to achieve sainthood was making miracles happen. Not plagues.
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@Zerosquare
The miracle is that they keep getting votes
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The hunt for the 500 signatures needed to run for candidate is on!
Though I'm mostly making a post about this to caution everyone trying to read too much into that. In a nutshell, if you hear someone (polling more than 2-3%) whining that they struggle to get theirs, it's likely political manoeuvring.
Background: to run for candidate, you need to get 500 elected officials to back you. That's always been the case since 1965 (the first time the president was elected directly,
to search for before) and is intended to weed out obvious loonies -- if you can't get at least 500 people to back you, you're probably not really representing a very useful voice in the public debate, and give that being a candidate gives you access to some public resources, it doesn't seem unrealistic to have some safeguards. Those officials can be mayors (of which we have 36 000!), but also members of regional councils (6000), and MPs, senators, MEPs and a few other groups. Since 2017 the list of those supporters is made public, before only the office in charge of validating them would see them. "Supporting" a candidate just means you're one of the 500 signatures, it doesn't have any other legal consequence at all, in any regard.As in every election, we have the usual whining about how boohoo I'm such a victim of a conspiracy that I can't get them! from both sides: on the right, Zemmour and Le Pen are playing this game, while on the right it's mostly Mélenchon doing it.
They're all saying (because of course until the deadline no one knows) that they are around 400 and struggling soooooo much.
Meanwhile, Dupont-Aignan, another tiny far right candidate who is polling between 1 and 2% says he has 450, while a candidate for the "animal's right party" (yes, there is one... you learn something new every day!) who doesn't even register above 0% in most polls says she has 250.
To be fair (
), since support is now public, a lot of small mayors are likely wary of supporting very contentious candidates, which for example the animal's right one is not (basically, you're unlikely to get too much shit by backing her, while backing either Le Pen or Mélenchon will attract some heat). But even that didn't prevent those guys from running last time, and many times before that (including in times when backing Le Pen was very contentious) -- and while the list wasn't officially public, things always ended up being more or less known.So yeah, those big guys saying they're struggling? Take that with a huuuuuge grain of salt.
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@remi said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
"animal's right party" (yes, there is one... you learn something new every day!)
Yup, we've got one of those as well. Mostly just a different type of greens.
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@remi said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
"Supporting" a candidate just means you're one of the 500 signatures, it doesn't have any other legal consequence at all, in any regard.
Is an elected official allowed to support more than one candidate? i.e.
: "I think that the petition system is stupid and the voters should choose who wins the election. Not politicians. I'll sign any petition from any candidate that presents me with one.Is that allowed?
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@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
Is an elected official allowed to support more than one candidate?
No.
: "I think that the petition system is stupid and the voters should choose who wins the election. Not politicians. I'll sign any petition from any candidate that presents me with one.In theory, I agree with you that the system is not ideal. But the flip side of being candidate in France means you have access various public resources. For example each and every polling station must have one display board (of standardised size and disposition) per candidate, where they (and only they) can display their posters. Also for example, each candidate has a time slot on public TV for their campaign ads (with complex rules to ensure they all get the same exposition).
If there is no barrier to entry, you'd get about a million candidates and the system would entirely break down -- with no change in the actual result as people would still only vote for the 5-10 big ones (for example the "no rules" campaigning in the US doesn't really split the vote onto more candidates in the end, and arguable doesn't really produce a better system).
Plus, as often when something foreign seems weird, remember that there actually is something somewhat similar in the US, where each state has their own rules as to which candidate is on the ballot. It's based on public support, which is arguably less of a barrier than already elected officials, but OTOH it can sometimes be replaced by just money, which isn't very democratic either (paying is equivalent to getting a few thousands people to support you!!). Yes, there are write-in candidates on top of that, but in any case all those independents never get more than a couple of percents overall, and by any other measure I fail to see that their presence really makes any difference (be it in facts or feelz) in the system.
In the Real World everything is a matter of compromises, and outside of the realm of theoretical ideas, that one doesn't seem much worse than others. Finally, I'll note that even parties who struggle to get those 500 signatures aren't really saying they want to remove the system entirely (maybe they want to remove the publication of them, or change the number, or add the alternative of a petition by enough voters, but they're all OK to keep some sort of barrier).
(note that all this only applies to presidential elections, other elections have different rules and in particular no other require backing from elected officials)
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@remi said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
small mayors
I hope your small mayors are better than Atlantic City's. From October 2019:
Mayor Marty Small, who took office earlier this month after Mayor Frank Gilliam resigned following his arrest on wire fraud charges, has never been convicted of a crime but has been charged or arrested at least 14 times since 1993.
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@remi said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
Is an elected official allowed to support more than one candidate?
No.
: "I think that the petition system is stupid and the voters should choose who wins the election. Not politicians. I'll sign any petition from any candidate that presents me with one.In theory, I agree with you that the system is not ideal. But the flip side of being candidate in France means you have access various public resources. For example each and every polling station must have one display board (of standardised size and disposition) per candidate, where they (and only they) can display their posters. Also for example, each candidate has a time slot on public TV for their campaign ads (with complex rules to ensure they all get the same exposition).
If there is no barrier to entry, you'd get about a million candidates and the system would entirely break down -- with no change in the actual result as people would still only vote for the 5-10 big ones (for example the "no rules" campaigning in the US doesn't really split the vote onto more candidates in the end, and arguable doesn't really produce a better system).
Plus, as often when something foreign seems weird, remember that there actually is something somewhat similar in the US, where each state has their own rules as to which candidate is on the ballot. It's based on public support, which is arguably less of a barrier than already elected officials, but OTOH it can sometimes be replaced by just money, which isn't very democratic either (paying is equivalent to getting a few thousands people to support you!!). Yes, there are write-in candidates on top of that, but in any case all those independents never get more than a couple of percents overall, and by any other measure I fail to see that their presence really makes any difference (be it in facts or feelz) in the system.
In the Real World everything is a matter of compromises, and outside of the realm of theoretical ideas, that one doesn't seem much worse than others. Finally, I'll note that even parties who struggle to get those 500 signatures aren't really saying they want to remove the system entirely (maybe they want to remove the publication of them, or change the number, or add the alternative of a petition by enough voters, but they're all OK to keep some sort of barrier).
(note that all this only applies to presidential elections, other elections have different rules and in particular no other require backing from elected officials)
I wasn't making the argument that
mayor was making.I only asked if someone with that thought process was allowed to sign multiple petitions.
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@HardwareGeek said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
I hope your small mayors are better than Atlantic City's.
We have 36 000 of them. They're all politicians, even if they're tiny ones (and to be fair to them, in tiny villages most of them really do it out for public service, not for any advantage they get out of it).
So yeah, there's a fair share of shitty ones.
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@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
I wasn't making the argument that
mayor was making.I quoted the
to keep this distinction, I didn't assume you were the one making it (though it's not really clear in my answer and I wasn't sure you were not making it). I took this opportunity to expand a bit on the system, as I know it's one thing that is a bit different from how other places do it.I only asked if someone with that thought process was allowed to sign multiple petitions.
I hope the answer to that question was clear enough
Mind you, people like
do exist, and some of them may sign for any candidate that will stir shit (such as one of those who complain about the signatures).After all, some small mayors, being small mayors with no global support and being in direct contact to their electors, may not want to create waves by publicly supporting one contentious candidate, but on the same measure some small mayors, being small mayors with no global support and being in direct contact to their electors, have no qualms about saying things how they see it and supporting anyone.
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@remi said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
We have 36 000 of them. They're all politicians, even if they're tiny ones
Huh. I guess France is very different than the US. I was only able to find one named Small, and none that were tiny.
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Nicely played. I
ed entirely.
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So, the left's primary has ended. Not much juiciness there.
The organisers made a big show of saying they had more voters than any of the other primaries (implied: "our primary is more representative"), to which opponents made a show of saying that even that big number (around 500k) was a tiny proportion of the overall electorate (which it is, obviously, but has always been for any primaries in France, so I'm not sure it says much either way).
I read at least one article that claims that the party of one "candidate-against-her-will" (Hidalgo) secretly encouraged their members to go and vote, so that the candidate would win. Even if she says she's ignoring the result, it would still look good for her. If they did, they're even weaker than they thought as she didn't win.
The winner was Taubira, the only somewhat known figure who said she'd accept the result. She was the one who gave that primary some impetus, but of course if she actually ends up running for President (which sounds likely now), she'll just add even more fragmentation. So the left is just sinking more and more into obvlivion.
The only interesting thing about that vote is the method they chose, "majority judgement." The way it works is interesting, in an abstract discussion of voting systems.
Basically, you give a rating for each and every candidate ("no rating" is equated to the worst one), and then each candidate gets as their final result the median rating (i.e. the rating where at least 50% of voters gave them this rating or a better one). There is a rule to break ties (since obviously as soon as you have more candidate than ratings, there will be some!), which is formulated in a complicated way but ends up being fairly intuitive -- essentially, for the same median rating, the candidate with more votes in better ratings wins.
This has several consequences: it removes the need for any "tactical voting" (voting for your not-preferred candidate to avoid a hated candidate winning), adding more candidate doesn't "split the vote" (and cause a major candidate to drop out because their share is progressively eroded by tiny candidates -- which is exactly what happened in 2002 and was caused, in part, by a candidature of... Taubira!), voters can express disagreement (and not just agreement with the candidate they're voting for)...
Overall, the method strongly favours consensual candidates. For example a couple of polls were made in France and they show that extremist candidates (left or right, e.g. Mélenchon or Zemmour) get extremely low ratings even though in "conventional" polls they are around 10% each (so quite high). This is because they both get a very large share of very bad ratings, while more consensual candidates get possibly a lower share of extremely good ratings, but very few very negative ones.
(see the graphical representation in the page above, it's fairly intuitive -- the right-most column "1er tour" is not "1st round" but "polls for 1st round" done at the same time as the other poll, so it's some sort of like-for-like comparison)
Overall this can be seen as a bad or a good thing. But in any case, the method is certainly interesting.
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@remi said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
Amusingly, that page says that while overall about 65% of voters thought this method was good (I assume that whoever made that poll also polled people on what they thought of the method itself), there was a higher share of agreement in extremist parties (far-left/right agreed at 80%), even though the method turns out to be actually bad for them! (obviously people wouldn't have known, when polled, what the overall result would be)
I'm guessing they just bought the whole "the system is rigged against us" mantra and would have agreed with any alternative system -- and similarly voters for moderate parties (who hold power) thought "if it's working (=we're winning), don't break it" and thus would disagree with any alternative system.
Which makes the whole thing quite depressing, but I'm not sure anything else could be expected.
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@remi said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
This has several consequences: it removes the need for any "tactical voting" (voting for your not-preferred candidate to avoid a hated candidate winning), adding more candidate doesn't "split the vote"
Not completely. You slightly increase chances of your most preferred candidate by giving the others the lowest grade, but giving them better grades gives you some control over the outcome if your most preferred candidate isn't going to win. So there is still some tactics to consider. But it can be expected that adding more candidates will make voters grade potential compromise candidates high so they'll win.
@remi said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
Overall, the method strongly favours consensual candidates.
I consider that definitely positive. Leader with whom most people is at least content is better then one whom third of people love, but the rest hates to the marrow of their bones. And even more so in primaries, because you need to pick someone who has a chance of getting further support from the yet undecided.
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@Bulb said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
@remi said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
This has several consequences: it removes the need for any "tactical voting" (voting for your not-preferred candidate to avoid a hated candidate winning), adding more candidate doesn't "split the vote"
Not completely.
Yeah, there are still ways to sort of "game" the system (I'm saying "sort of" because the rules of voting never specify what the spirit of the rules are, only the actual rules, and whatever thinking (or lack thereof...) leads people to vote what they vote is just part of the system, so it's not really "gaming" the system, just using it). The French wiki page has some more details about it, and a couple of hypothetical situations highlighting some weaknesses (or at least somewhat counter-intuitive results) of the system.
Still, that method is less sensitive to those things than the classical voting system. Maybe the only way you can "tactically" vote is by giving a worse (or better) rating than you really think to someone, but then again it's the whole point of the system, so it's hard to say it's more "tactical" than just, you know, voting (if you love/hate someone to the point you absolutely want/don't want to see them elected, then giving them a very high/low rating is perfectly fair).
Overall, the method strongly favours consensual candidates.
I consider that definitely positive. Leader with whom most people is at least content is better then one whom third of people love, but the rest hates to the marrow of their bones.
That is also my opinion, but honesty requires admitting that it's really a matter of personal opinion. The whole question is whether it's better to be governed by someone backed by a weak consensus, or by a strong but divisive support. I prefer the former, but to reuse Marxist vocabulary, that's just what a petit bourgeois who benefits from the current consensus would say.
And even more so in primaries, because you need to pick someone who has a chance of getting further support from the yet undecided.
Experience (at least in France) shows it's not how people vote in primaries. Mind you, I agree with you that they should, but they don't really. Not sure what the lesson of all that is...
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@remi said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
Overall, the method strongly favours consensual candidates.
TIL consensual can mean "expressing a consensus", not just "by mutual consent". I'm glad I looked it up before calling you out on your ESL error (because it isn't really an error). However, it's rarely used that way in English (or at least American). It's almost always used to refer to having given consent, and almost always in a sexual context. So, while your usage is
, it's likely to be misunderstood by the reader.
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@HardwareGeek eh, try us in a less-partisan era, we used to know what that meant.
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@HardwareGeek said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
@remi said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
Overall, the method strongly favours consensual candidates.
TIL consensual can mean "expressing a consensus", not just "by mutual consent". I'm glad I looked it up before calling you out on your ESL error (because it isn't really an error). However, it's rarely used that way in English (or at least American). It's almost always used to refer to having given consent, and almost always in a sexual context. So, while your usage is
, it's likely to be misunderstood by the reader.I dunno, I just assumed that French politics was more about electing blonde bimbos than other countries
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@Gribnit said in Scandals in Communist Frenchystan:
@HardwareGeek eh, try us in a less-partisan era, we used to know what that meant.
Like back in the 1500s?
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@izzion Well, some people are apparently OK getting fucked (several times) by politicians, so I guess it's "consensual."
It's not specific to France, though.
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Quick (?) update.
The search for the 500 signatures needed to officially run for candidate ends up tomorrow, and with the up-to-date list being published every few days, it's now pretty clear who will, or will not be candidate (I could wait tomorrow for the exact list but I've got a bit of time to do a write-up now and
).The big not-at-all-a-surprise is that all candidates who are somewhat serious (polling above 1-2%) got their signatures, including all those who made a big show of "oh noes the Big Bad Establishment wants to block me!!11!" It's been a feature of every presidential election I can remember, small-ish candidates whine but in the end every semi-serious one gets their signatures.
There is still one candidate (Poutou, a tiny far-left one) who is at 450 signatures or so and may or may not get there, but he's a nobody anyway.
And the other big missing name is Macron, who still hasn't officially declared himself (but he already has more than enough signatures, all that's missing is his official declaration). Medias are saying this will happen tonight but given that he has until tomorrow evening to do so, it's not going to be a big surprise to anyone. He obviously wanted to wait until a suitable moment to start his campaign (his declaration will give him automatic media coverage for a few hours, so he'd want to time that with some big speech etc.), but obviously current events kind of ruined his timing.
So the field will be 11 or 12 candidates. I may do a detailed write-up but honestly, meh. They're the usual suspects.
Macron is still running miles ahead of anyone else in the polls, and there isn't much juiciness happening. And current events are probably going to dominate the next few weeks, killing any prospect of any internal politics "fun."
So right now it looks like it's going to be a boring campaign, but we still have a few weeks to go.
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One amusing feature of a French presidential campaign is that all candidates have to declare their wealth. So we get to know what the 12 candidates of this year own, see e.g. this article (in French) (but at least the numbers are easy to read).
Sadly, it's like I said in the previous post(s), there isn't much "fun" to be had here. They own their house/flat, most of them have a second house, they have some savings here and there, often in the form of another flat/house. Mostly what you'd expect from a bunch of 50-60 yo's (more or less) who held good jobs (some in the private sector, others as career politicians) all their lives and never knew real financial hardship.
It also tracks, generally speaking, their political ideas, with the richest one being the main right-wing candidate, who's married to a manager of a large international company and owns a lot of shares, and the far-left candidates only owning a small flat and some basic saving accounts.
I'm trying to find something to mock in this campaign but really, the candidates are not helping me.
