| Party | Seats | % of Seats | Swing |
|---|---|---|---|
| UMP | 293 | 51% | +99 |
| PS | 190 | 33% | -90 |
| FN | 67 | 12% | +65 |
| FdG | 20 | 3% | +10 |
| Others | 7 | 1% | -84 |
Despite fears among the UMP leadership that they would ultimately lose the legislative election due to the National Front splitting the right-wing votes, this has not been demonstrated in the results, with the UMP winning a small majority of seats with two-hundred and ninety-three seats in the five-hundred and seventy-seven seat National Assembly. The Socialist Party has lost ninety of its two-hundred and eighty seats it won in 2012, but has avoided the complete disaster predicted by some polls. The Left Front (FdG) has made impressive gains, doubling its number of seats. The National Front has also made amazing gains, rising from only two seats to sixty-seven seats. This was in spite of polls demonstrating falling support for the far-right. Other, smaller parties fared the worst, with candidates of minor parties numbering only seven in the National Assembly. Notably, the liberal and centrist elements of French politics are almost entirely absent from the National Assembly, with only one centrist politician now residing in the National Assembly. Alarmingly for some, two of the elected members of the National Assembly are part of pro-monarchist parties, receiving much support from the Brittany region of France.
September 1956
##A New Normal
Election season in France, and France has embraced the new normal.
At the local Catholic Church, banners of the Popular Republican Movement flew outside. At the club for Resistance members, banners of the Democratic Union of Labour and French Republican Workers’ Party. And at the factory, the iconic Red flags and symbols of the French Republican Workers’ Party. To most Frenchmen, the life in a People’s Democracy had become normal, this is France.
With the Democratic Union of Labour branding itself as the party of the “nation François/Franc”, they no longer ran in the National Autonomous Republics, instead focusing on the north of France in the François/Languedoïl regions. Charles DE GAULLE’s Rally of the French people had been disbanded 13 September 1955. With De Gaulle now partyless and once again defying party politics altogether, this has allowed the Democratic Union of Labour to sweep up some of the more moderate and less anti-communist Gaullist vote. Jacques SOUSTELLE, former Secretary of the RPF, lost his seat to a UDT candidate. The Democratic Union of Labour is found to be particularly popular among the François in Algeria.
Meanwhile, with the support of the Catholic revival and loosening of certain restrictions by the government in recent years, the Popular Republican Movement and his ideas of “Social Catholicism” has proven to be popular with the devout and rural in places like the N.A.R. Brittany and the Poitou Region.
Meanwhile, the fiery upcoming PROF member from Occitania, Pierre POUJADE, has been able to successfully prevent the intrusion of American capitalist “supermarkets” into France. Leading a populist faction of Frank and Occitan peasants, shopowners, and artisans within the PROF, Poujade has consistently worked against the “Anglo-Saxon world elites of America and Britain.” This has only further solidified PROF support in Southern france.
The death knell of the Rightist parties came in late 1955, when Antoine PINAY, leader of the CNIP, was arrested on charges of collaboration with Germany during the War and with assisting terrorist attacks. Antoine Pinay had been previously barred from running by Free France until 1945. He had slipped under the cracks and put up a fierce resistance against the socialist regime. With CNIP offices raided and its leaders arrested for association with the Armed Secret Organization, the party was declared illegal.
[Seating chart of the National Assembly](https://publi
... keep reading on reddit ➡JUNE 1951
Everyone knew that France was at a turning point. June would decide the fate of France.
De Gaulle’s Rassemblement du peuple français (Rally of the French People) had formed in 1947, doing well in the 1949 local elections. Claiming to be neither left nor right, the RPF championed the cause of French nationalism, anti-communism, and anti-atlanticism. However, De Gaulle’s party was not without its own internal issues. The left-wing of the Gaullist movement, disavowing his anti-communism had formed their own Democratic Union of Labour - Labour Party joining the ruling Popular Patriotic Front of the Republican Left coalition as another bloc party. The media had begun a cordon sanitaire against the RPF, boycotting any real coverage of the movement and instead showing the UDT-PT as the real face of the Gaullist movement.
The French Republican Workers’ Party suffered a blow with the stroke and resignation of hugely popular party leader Maurice Thorez. The Party, fearing that a Thorez-less party would see a dip in popularity, chose to replace him with Marshal of France, Henri Rol-Tanguy, the Liberator of Paris. In many ways, Rol-Tanguy has the capacity to be even more popular than Thorez, owing to his fame in the Resistance. Rol-Tanguy since 1950 has continued the moderate course of Thorez. The PROF has campaigned on their continued progress of the “People’s Democracy”, with PROF posters showing Stalin, Thorez, and Rol-Tanguy with the words:
“Continuez avec Démocratie populaire contre le fascisme et l'impérialisme, pour une République démocratique et sociale !”
17-28 June 1951
National Assembly Seating Chart
The Popular Patriotic Front of the Republican Left has won an absolute majority of seats, the PROF gaining 29 new seats, and the UDT gaining 75 seats. The coalition as a total (PROF+MRP+PPA+UDT) holds now a total of 473 seats. President of the Council of Ministers will continue his premiership, forming a new cabinet.
It seems that the UDT was able to split the vote of the Gaullists massively, and although De Gaulle’s RPF has been able to hold a total of 84 seats, the pro-Communist UDT siphoned off 75. It also seems that the cordon sanitaire
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According to the Revolutions podcast, turnout in the elections to the National Assembly in 1791 were extremely low, with only about 10% of eligible voters actually voting. Furthermore, there was basically no membership from the classes of former nobles.
What was the reason for this? It seems to me that one would expect very high turnout for what was in effect the first democratic elections in the country's history. Was the lack of noble participation a result of their small numbers and thus an inability to get elected, or did they actively stay away from the elections?
##The Election
###First Round Vote
| Candidate | Party | % of vote |
|---|---|---|
| Marine Le Pen | National Rally | 30.1% |
| Emmanuelle Macron | La République En Marche! | 25.6% |
| Bertrand | Independent (Right Wing) | 17% |
| Jean-Luc Mélenchon | La France Insoumise | 11% |
| Others | 16.4% |
###Second Round Vote
| Candidate | Party | % of vote |
|---|---|---|
| Emmanuelle Macron | La République En Marche! | 48.4% |
| Marine Le Pen | National Rally | 51.6% |
In a stunning yet expected victory Marine Le Pen has been voted in as the next President of the French Republic. Thanking every single voter who voted for the defence of French christian values she vowed to protect the nation from foreign influence and strengthen traditional christian values in the country. She decried the liberal malaise of the Macron presidency and vowed to ensure that France would change for the better.
###Legislative Election
| Party | Number of Seats |
|---|---|
| National Rally | 269 |
| La France Insoumise | 17 |
| La République En Marche! | 155 |
| Democratic Movement | 22 |
| The Republicans | 52 |
| Union of Democrats and Independents | 4 |
| Misc Right | 2 |
| Socialist Party | 20 |
| Misc Left | 12 |
| Radical Party of the Left | 3 |
| French Communist Party | 10 |
| Regionalists | 5 |
| Misc | 3 |
| Ecologists | 1 |
| Debout La France | 1 |
| League of the South | 1 |
Despite delivering a landslide victory the National Rally has fallen just short of a majority (around 19 seats short) and thus will have to govern with right wing allies in The Republicans as well as in other Right Wing parties. Large turnouts amongst the right wing base alongside a depression of turnout amongst youth and more liberal voters it seems has handed the National Rally many seats they would not have won in the event turnout was up. Already the new President and her party (along with their allies) have proposed and passed several new laws in the weeks after their victory.
Passed:
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Increased punishments for attacks on police.
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Set a goal of reducing foreign non-EU immigration to France to 15,000 a year by 2026.
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Increased funding for deportation and immigration services.
Proposed:
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A Referendum on the death penalty
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A Law to ban same-sex marriage and replace it with a “unique” civil union
##The Consequences
In a stunning blow to the new Presidency and the Republic, the Island of New Caledonia voted in favor of independence with a majority of 50.5% of the vote in the last referendum that could have been held on the issue. With such a controversial
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France 24 - French Legislative Elections 2017
The Guardian - French parliamentary election polls point to Macron landslide
NYTimes - France’s Legislative Elections: What to Watch For
Politico - How to watch the French parliamentary election like a pro
AlJazeera - French parliamentary elections: All you need to know
Alright, today is the second round of the French Legislative Election 2017. According to all sources, Macron is set for a landslide victory tonight while all other major parties are predicted to suffer a major defeat. The turnout for the second round is significantly lower than the turnout five years ago.
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The last polling stations will close at 8 p.m., the election night should be over before midnight. All constituencies apart from the big cities will be called before 10:30 p.m.
The results will be published on the website of the French Interior Ministry.
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France24: Polls open in France for second round of parliamentary elections
The Independent: French parliamentary elections: Emmanuel Macron to expand power with landslide at the polls
The New York Times: French Parliamentary Elections: What to Watch For
The Telegraph: French election: Macron on track for massive parliamentary majority as National Front's fortunes fade
Politico: How to watch the French election like a pro: the sequel
We are pleased to announce an upcoming AMA with Tony Thommes and his running mate, Xavier Rollin, the FN candidates in the French legislative elections, to be held on 4 and 18 June 2017, in the '3rd constituency for French residents overseas' covering Northern Europe.
The AMA will take place here on /r/europe on Saturday, April 29th at 17.00 BST / 18.00 CET.
>Tony Thommes is 24 years old and works as a senior engineer for a telecommunication company in Cambridge, UK where he has been living since 2015.
> Xavier Rollin is 33 years old and works as a consultant for a technology company. He is married, father of 4 children, and has been living in Lithuania for 12 years. He studied in the United Kingdom and has worked in Italy and the Czech Republic in the past.
For more information:
[(FR) Candidate Profiles] (http://fn-francaisdeletranger.com/circo3/nos-candidats/)
(FR) Front National's manifesto regarding French citizens overseas
[.pdf] - Press Release (FR/EN/SE)
Wikipedia - Third constituency for French residents overseas
Wikipedia - French legislative election, 2017
[Wikipedia - Front National](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Front_(France) )
We will welcome questions in either English or French.
Countdown to the AMA courtesy of /u/Gaguja
PCF AND SFIO VICTORY, THOREZ COMES TO POWER
2 June, 1946
As French men and women leave their polling stations, results have come in.
The victory of the SFIO and PCF in the referendum have caused them to see large successes in the elections. The PCF gained 27 seats and the SFIO gained 16. The MRP, campaigned on a No vote saw a massive collapse in their number of seats as some of the party has fallen to infighting between Christian-Democrats and Gaullists.
It is seen by many that the good will of the USSR towards France and General de Gaulle during the Potsdam Conference is what helped boost the PCF. The Communist newspaper La Voix du peuple founded in February by former Resistant Jean Lozach played an important role in publishing the story of the “Betrayal of Albion and America” to the French public. Lozach wrote of the “unredeemed West Bank of the Rhine and Sarre” taken away unfairly by the two western powers. The French Communist Party soon reprinted parts of the article in its daily paper, L'Humanité. Other publications followed suit, with many smaller or regional papers publishing Lozach’s article.
Indeed, General de Gaulle himself has been rumored to be writing a short book of his experiences at Potsdam.
The MRP, owing to their loss in the election, pulled out of the Tripartisme agreement, forcing the SFIO into an alliance with the PCF. Owing to the PCF-SFIO majority, Thorez has been voted in as President of the Council of Ministers, forming the first communist-led government in France’s history.
Thorez has created a cabinet made up of PCF and SFIO members. With the MRP leaving the coalition, the coalition has devolved into Bipartisme between the PCF and SFIO only. Talks suggest that the PCF and SFIO will solidify Bipartisme into the government grouping of Front national de l'indépendance de la France or National Front of the Independence of France.
Thorez was sworn in as the first official President of the Council of Ministers of the Fourth Republic. In a report given to the British newspaper, The Times, stated “for the march of socialism, there are other paths than the one followed by the Russian communists.”
France may still one day need an image that is pure… Had Jeanne d’Arc married, she would not have been Jeanne d’Arc.
Staying true to their promise to the French electorate, the provisional coalition of National Accord has hosted legislative elections in the early summer of 1948, without much delay or any major outbreaks of significant violence. Despite eerie memories of the street brawls that occured in the streets of various urban centres during the chaotic hours of the Consulate coup, worries about extremist violence, political intimidation, or an intervention by armed loyalists of the Thorez regime have mostly proven unfounded, save for a few isolated incidents. France, it seems, merely wished to move on.
In the early morning hours of June 28th, French citizens awoke from their sleep to confirm in the newspapers that which they had already expected to see when they went to bed; the Rassemblement du Peuple Francais, known also simply as “La Partie De Gaulle”, managed to come out ahead with a convincing plurality of the vote. Not tainted by the extreme measures undertaken by his wartime colleagues in the Consulate, nor associated with the diplomatic failures of the POF government, Charles de Gaulle, now officially Prime Minister, has swept the National Assembly clean of his political opponents and seems poised to bring his “Certaine Idée de France” to reality. Though his electoral victory has seen all other parties decline in popularity and seat numbers respective to the previous elections, some have remained stronger than others. While the POF itself has been reduced to a fairly minor opposition party, clinging to life by the enthusiastic voters of the Confédération Général du Travail and associated unions, the Left in general remains strong. In fact, it is the liberal Republican parties that have lost most during the elections. Both the Mouvement Républicain Populaire and the more left-wing electoral alliance Rassemblement des Gauches Républicains have seen their voter base flee to parties seemingly more equipped to steer France through her expansive network of issues. Nevertheless, both these parties have opted to join the RPF in the creation of a coalition government
... keep reading on reddit ➡
Since the end of WWII the French political system has effectively been in a state of slow decline. Really French politics has been in decline since the French Revolution deposed the Sun king in 1789, but let's keep things focused on the current century. Ironically the liberation of France, an event one would expect to unite the people, seemed to sow even deeper divides than those after WWI. The surge of the French communist party after WWII has been balanced out by the fact that the Atlanticist parties have mostly refused to cooperate with them meaning that unless they hold a majority they will be shut out of any functional government. However the fact that they are unlikely to secure the formation of a government has put a limit on how popular they might become.
On the flip side the expulsion of the Communists from government has created a system of "Musicale chairs" regarding the presidency, with a revolving cast of presidents from different parties carrying out functionally the same policies because of their reliance on the support of the same parties to prop up they're governments. Such a system has bred desire for a strong, unified, national government, while the new constitution was supposed to help remedy this situation the law itself was ineffective in this manner and it's devisive nature seems to have damaged the countries political landscape more than it helped, leading to surges in populism on both the left and right and the general decline of the more moderate parties that have ruled France.
Going into the 1956 elections Guy Mollet was fucked. His loss of Indochina angered the rightists while his continued dedication to Atlanticism angered the leftists. A rumor that he would be willing to form a popular front with the Communist Party was enough to nearly cause a revolt and remove him from power before he was able to quell it. Regardless polls have showed him down and any chance at a coalition with the Communists was thoroughly dashed by that Red Scare.
The center right parties have been doing quite well, profiting from the fallout of the Mollet government, despite the troubling times the country faces generally. Roger Duchet's CNIP has recovered and is now polling in first, although a way's away from a majority, promising to less the government burden on the economy and a militant defense of Algeria. While the party is officially supportive of the Strasbourg agreement many within the party oppose it on grounds that it undermines French sov
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The AMA starts TODAY at
| 9.00 PST | 12.00 EST | 17.00 BST | 18.00 CEST | 19.00 EEST |
Countdown to the AMA Start Time
We will welcome questions in either English or French.
Tony Thommes and his running mate, Xavier Rollin, the Front National (FN) candidates in the French legislative elections, to be held on 4 and 18 June 2017, in the '3rd constituency for French residents overseas' covering Northern Europe will be joining us today for an AMA!
>Tony Thommes is 24 years old and works as a senior engineer for a telecommunication company in Cambridge, UK where he has been living since 2015.
> Xavier Rollin is 33 years old and works as a consultant for a technology company. He is married, father of 4 children, and has been living in Lithuania for 12 years. He studied in the United Kingdom and has worked in Italy and the Czech Republic in the past.
For more information:
[(FR) Candidate Profiles] (http://fn-francaisdeletranger.com/circo3/nos-candidats/)
(FR) Front National's manifesto regarding French citizens overseas
[.pdf] - Press Release (FR/EN/SE)
Wikipedia - Third constituency for French residents overseas
Wikipedia - French legislative election, 2017
[Wikipedia - Front National](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Front_(France) )
Remember to be respectful! Any comments that violate the rules will be removed.
