Local Elections in France.

[maxque]

Mar 24, 2014 8:18:21 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

Having lived in Wallonia, I think it'd be the best thing possible for Flanders, and for the German-speaking area (which Wallonia rules as a satrapy).  It'll be a disaster for Wallonia, as they will be unable to bilk Flanders for money any more.

Let's not talk about the decades where the roles were reversed. Flanders as a poor, undevelopped rural area and Wallonia as a wealthy mining area.

[Devil Wincarnate]

Mar 24, 2014 8:51:00 GMT doktorb🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ said:

Mar 24, 2014 8:18:21 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

Having lived in Wallonia, I think it'd be the best thing possible for Flanders, and for the German-speaking area (which Wallonia rules as a satrapy).  It'll be a disaster for Wallonia, as they will be unable to bilk Flanders for money any more.

What say you about Flanders merging into the Netherlands, and Wallonia France, rather than the two becoming independent state(lets)?

An interesting question.  I think that there is a stronger chance now of Flanders joining the Netherlands then there has been for generations.  A number of high-profile NV-A MPs and senators adhere to this view, which is now known as Orangism.  A unification of the two would have enormous economic benefits for both.  It would be an interesting new political landscape as well: a unified Greater Netherlands would probably be a more clear-cut CDA/CD&V- VVD/VLD- PvdA/SP.A battle, with a diluted left-liberal vote, diluted hard-left vote and increased Green vote.

As for Wallonia, I sense that it won't join France.  France has nothing to gain from shackling itself to a corpse.  The cost of taking it on would be huge- its industries have steadily collapsed for nearly 40 years, it would be lost without Flemish subsidy, and it has remarkably little going for it.  The language skills of Walloons, despite living at the crossroads of Europe, are abysmal compared to the Flemish, Bruxellois and the the Germanophones, so I doubt that it will quickly make the most of its location.  My bet is on Wallonia turning into a semi-associated state of France, maybe subordinating certain services to Paris.  

There's surprisingly little interest in joining France amongst the populace- this is based on electoral results as well as anecdotally.  The RWF, the main "rattachiste" party, gets very few votes, but this may be because the PS hoovered up a lot of Walloon nationalist activists over the last 30 years.

Brussels is a mystery.  No matter how much I try and work it out, I get no closer to working out what I think will happen, so afraid I can't give you much of an informed opinion there.

But to take a punt- I'd go for a union of Flanders and the Netherlands, a semi-detached Wallonia in federation of sorts with France, Eupen and district rejoining Germany, and Brussels as a city state (or to keep Iain happy, a Free State!)

[Devil Wincarnate]

Mar 24, 2014 8:59:43 GMT maxque said:

Mar 24, 2014 8:18:21 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

Having lived in Wallonia, I think it'd be the best thing possible for Flanders, and for the German-speaking area (which Wallonia rules as a satrapy).  It'll be a disaster for Wallonia, as they will be unable to bilk Flanders for money any more.

Let's not talk about the decades where the roles were reversed. Flanders as a poor, undevelopped rural area and Wallonia as a wealthy mining area.

Indeed.  The key difference though being that during that time, Wallonia treated Flanders as fief full of second-class citizens.  The constitution was not officially produced in Dutch until 1967, 80% of all Belgian GDP was spent in Flanders until 1918, and Flanders was left undeveloped- I'm fairly sure that there was no predecessor to "equalisation payments" in those days.  During this time, the French-speaking elite also pretty much wiped out the Walloon language, as an aside.

If Flanders behaved now towards Wallonia in the way that Wallonia once behaved towards Flanders, there would be uproar.

[cibwr]

As ever the excellent world elections site - welections.wordpress.com/ has some excellent stuff on the French municipal elections.

[andrewteale]

Whenever I go to Belgium on holiday or for quizzes or both, I go to Flanders (virtually the entire Belgian quiz scene is a Flemish quiz scene). I've been doing this for so long that I now call Brussels landmarks by their Dutch name.

I went to Charleroi once. I won't make that mistake again.

[iainbhx]

The thing is that Eupen-Malmedy is increasingly less and less German-speaking every year. I suspect if you held a vote, all but the Greater Eupen area would stay with Wallonia.

[Devil Wincarnate]

Mar 24, 2014 9:56:42 GMT iainbhx said:

The thing is that Eupen-Malmedy is increasingly less and less German-speaking every year. I suspect if you held a vote, all but the Greater Eupen area would stay with Wallonia.

That's true.  A lot of younger people there tend to up sticks and head for Aachen and the Ruhr.  There's nothing in Eupen and Sankt Vith for a young German speaker.

[Devil Wincarnate]

Mar 24, 2014 9:51:12 GMT andrewteale said:

Whenever I go to Belgium on holiday or for quizzes or both, I go to Flanders (virtually the entire Belgian quiz scene is a Flemish quiz scene). I've been doing this for so long that I now call Brussels landmarks by their Dutch name.

I went to Charleroi once. I won't make that mistake again.

A truly hideous place.  Mons is possibly less bad, but not by much.  Charleroi has the bizarre abandoned Metro lines as well.

I lived in Liege, which whilst a bit dicey, is quite a good city and probably would be capital of an independent Wallonia (despite Namur being its current administrative centre).

[Devil Wincarnate]

The decline of the PCF seems ever more terminal.  Looking at some of its old strongholds, it's nowhere.  

- Le Havre: its list is down to 16%.  19 years since they had a Communist mayor, after 24 years of unbroken Communist administration.
- Saint-Etienne: 4.18%.  Another former stronghold, although no PCF mayor since 1983.
- Lille: 6.17%.  I'd have expected higher, traditionally, although Lille is a PS fief.
- Seine St-Denis: apparently reduced to standing on united left tickets in some cases, including in heartlands like Le Blanc-Mesnil and Stains (the focal points of Marie-George Buffet's seat).  Continuing strength in the likes of Aubervilliers and La Courneuve, but the Ceinture Rouge is not what it was.

They did put in a very strong showing in Dieppe, winning 45.18%, and in Calais, winning 22.6%.  But the latter is a former PCF bastion and was for decades- and yet they were 17% behind the UMP.

[neilm]

I didn't realise Pau had such large population. I went to the races there a few years ago and was surprised to learn/see that the oil industry had a presence.

[Sibboleth]

Mar 24, 2014 10:57:45 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

The decline of the PCF seems ever more terminal.  Looking at some of its old strongholds, it's nowhere.

Well, yes. It's basically a party of pensioners now.

[J.G.Harston]

Mar 24, 2014 8:07:16 GMT @gannetfrancais said:

... voting in the UK is not REALLY a Secret Ballot as each Ballot Paper ... has a counterfoil with the number printed on it and ... the Clerk writes the voter's number ... on it

Practically secret, as after getting an Electoral Court Order you would have to sift through 50,000 ballot papers from a general election to try and find the one you want. Easier as the electoral districts get smaller, 5000 or so in a Sheffield local election.

[Sibboleth]

Thought it might be an idea to compare results in towns where the FN 'won' with how they polled in the last legislatives. First figure is yesterday, second is the legislatives.

Hénin-Beaumont - 50.2%, 48.2%
Béziers - 44.9%, 21.2%
Saint-Gilles - 42.6%, 48.4%
Fréjus - 40.3%, 28.0%
Tarascon - 39.2%, 39.8%
Forbach - 35.7%, 25.3%
Perpignan - 34.2%, 24.4%
Beaucaire - 32.8%, 33.0%
Avignon - 29.6%, 22.1%
Digne-les-Bains - 27.7%, 13.4%

And another branch of the same ghastly tree:

Orange - 59.8%, 44.0%
Bollène - 49.3%, 23.8%

[Deleted]

Yes, I didn't fancy going down that conversational cul-de-sac but it's not completely accurate to say that we don't have a secret ballot

[J.G.Harston]

Mar 24, 2014 16:41:41 GMT doktorb🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ said:

Yes, I didn't fancy going down that conversational cul-de-sac but it's not completely accurate to say that we don't have a secret ballot

We did once investigate getting a ballot paper examination for what looked like a suspiciously high turnout at a geriatric care home, but the hurdles are huge, and as we'd actually won the election it wasn't worth it. The turnout the next year dropped to much more "normal" levels, so if somebody had been messing about, just the fact that it had been pointed out as a possible anomaly had scared them off.

[myth11]

good turnout for a local election far better than what we get here in a non-general election year

[Sibboleth]

It's because France is an incredibly parochial country. Of course, and at the same time, you have the strong tradition of state centralism and of (historically outside certain big cities) weak local government.

[neilm]

Mar 24, 2014 16:40:46 GMT Sibboleth said:

Thought it might be an idea to compare results in towns where the FN 'won' with how they polled in the last legislatives. First figure is yesterday, second is the legislatives.

Hénin-Beaumont - 50.2%, 48.2%
Béziers - 44.9%, 21.2%
Saint-Gilles - 42.6%, 48.4%
Fréjus - 40.3%, 28.0%
Tarascon - 39.2%, 39.8%
Forbach - 35.7%, 25.3%
Perpignan - 34.2%, 24.4%
Beaucaire - 32.8%, 33.0%
Avignon - 29.6%, 22.1%
Digne-les-Bains - 27.7%, 13.4%

And another branch of the same ghastly tree:

Orange - 59.8%, 44.0%
Bollène - 49.3%, 23.8%

Why separate the last two? Are they outside Metropolitan France?

[Sibboleth]

They aren't party members any more, but are very much flying the flag for fascism. Bompard is also a deputy.

[Deleted]

I wasn't referring to activists of a Political Party, or even Councillors or Backbench MPs etc discovering how "Mrs Smith of 123 Any Street" voted in May 2010. I'm sure there are safeguards to prevent this, but to "The Powers that Be" such as MI5, Special Branch etc. I have been told by a number of people that back in the 1950s and 60s when Communist Candidates were quite common, the local Special Branches where they stood used to check and cross reference the Ballot Papers of those who had voted for the Commies in their area. This may be an Urban Legend but it would not surprise me if this still happens, perhaps these days those who voted BNP? Also it would not be such a big task as if the target was the said "Mrs Smith" of that address at the time all that would be needed would be that year's Electoral Register for that Polling District and that gives her Polling Number. Once that is known all that is required is to look for that number on the counterfoil and thus obtain the number of her Ballot Paper then scan for that. This can also be done in reverse if you have the relevant Ballot Papers, e.g. thsoe who had voted for an "Extreme" Party be that Left or Right and wanted to know who the voters were as the number of the counterfoil is on the back thereof,  n,d that has the Electoral Roll Number written on it. I agree that there would have to be a very good reason such as someone being suspected of terrorism for the "Authorities" to go to all that bother but it could be done.