neilm
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Post by neilm on Mar 24, 2014 18:43:03 GMT
They aren't party members any more, but are very much flying the flag for fascism. Bompard is also a deputy. Aah, yes, I remember. My stepmother is French. My father and her are retiring there in a few weeks (they have a property and have spent a lot of time over there in the last few years). These elections are giving us something to chat about at the pub later. |
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Mar 24, 2014 18:56:40 GMT
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% Interesting to see the size of place that they are now appearing in. One-horse no-mark towns like Digne are one thing, but Avignon, Perpignan and Beziers are a different kettle of fish. Of course, there is another factor here- those are amongst the big towns that were major destinations for pieds-noirs... |
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Post by Robert on Mar 24, 2014 20:08:09 GMT
Can the pieds-noir be an influence in 2014? Algerian Independence was officially achieved on July 5th 1962 although De Gaulle actually declared it an independent country 2 days earlier.
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Post by Devonian on Mar 24, 2014 21:21:38 GMT
Can the pieds-noir be an influence in 2014? Algerian Independence was officially achieved on July 5th 1962 although De Gaulle actually declared it an independent country 2 days earlier. The geographical pattern is quite striking. Two towns far apart in the North with the other 10 all near the Mediterranean and six of those clustered quite close together  |
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Mar 24, 2014 21:22:42 GMT
Can the pieds-noir be an influence in 2014? Algerian Independence was officially achieved on July 5th 1962 although De Gaulle actually declared it an independent country 2 days earlier. Oh, they definitely can be despite that time lag. Some of the top brass of the OAS are still alive. There will be a large bloc of voters aged 55-80, I would say, for whom it will still be a lasting memory. Not to mention their kids. It's regarded as one of the major reasons why some of the South Coast towns have tended towards the FN in the last few decades. Especially as their former leader is a veteran of the Algerian War. |
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 14,772 
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Post by J.G.Harston on Mar 24, 2014 23:09:38 GMT
I have been told ... 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. ... 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. If the Security Services are occupying all their time sorting through several million ballot papers for the dozen or so they are looking for, I'm tempted to say: keep them doing it. It's a larger task than you imply. For a general election it would mean getting an electoral court order, or subverting them, and then going through typically 50,000 ballot papers looking for the one with the correct number on the back. Ballot papers are stored after the election in any order, not connected to any ballot box (and, only for six? twelve? months). The count process explicitly mixes them all up in the process of producing separate piles for each candidate. They are not then resorted back into ballot boxes before being put into storage, they just go straight into storage in the non-ballot-box order that they ended up in, the only connection is to the whole 70,000-75,000-elector constituency. At counts I've attended even each candidate's pile is mixed with others, so you can't even just go through "the" pile for a particular candidate. "All" the task involves is to do: ( pick up ballot paper, read the number, not the right one, put it down on a different pile ) a potential 50,000 times. Admittedly, a parish council election with a 300-vote turnout would be a lot easier to plough through than a general election. |
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 16,029
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Post by Sibboleth on Mar 25, 2014 0:06:46 GMT
Yes, the pieds noirs (including their children and grandchildren) are the electoral base of the FN (and the wider far right) in the south of France and have been since the party first emerged as a significant political force in the 1980s.
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Mar 25, 2014 8:36:50 GMT
Yes, the pieds noirs (including their children and grandchildren) are the electoral base of the FN (and the wider far right) in the south of France and have been since the party first emerged as a significant political force in the 1980s. That arguably is the reason that the FN has been the most consistently powerful far-right/hard-right movement in France in electoral terms arguably since the dawn of the Third Republic. Take a base of Poujadists, add those disillusioned with the end of Algerie francaise in the metropole, plus the remnants of Action francaise, collaborationists and anti-Gaullist hard-right types, and you've got the largest, most united and probably most educated far-right activist base in French history. Then add in an embittered and (broadly) impoverished, sizeable group in the pieds noirs who have a grudge against the French State that will not be going away quickly, who have ended up being settled in a defined geographical area, and you have a solid, ready-made electoral base to work from: possibly up to 800,000 people not including their descendants and sympathetic relatives back in the Hexagon. This is especially true around Marseille, where the longshoremen's union harassed a lot of pieds-noirs as they entered the country. It's probably the strong roots in Poujadism and the pieds-noirs that makes it hard to classify the FN as a neo-Nazi organisation. In fact, it would be interesting to see if there's any sizeable FN vote amongst Jewish pied-noirs. An interesting point you make there as well Sib is about the electoral base being in the south solidly since the 1980s. Intriguingly, you can see signs of it prior to then. If you look at this here: uselectionatlas.org/WEBLOGS/hashemite/category/far-right-fn-mnr/...you can see that Tixier-Vignancourt's highest scores mirror the map that Devonian put up earlier, as well as the previous few elections. The Poujadist scores in 1956, prior to the arrival of the pieds-noirs, are highest in areas like the Vendee and the north of Poitou-Charentes, arguably the heartland of the hard-right prior to the arrival of the pieds-noirs. That's ignoring Alsace of course, for whom voting for a left-wing candidate probably means De Gaulle! |
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Mar 25, 2014 15:03:41 GMT
Montpellier looking likely to be a four-way battle between the PS, dissident socialists (Frechists, I presume), UMP and FN.
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Post by Devonian on Mar 25, 2014 15:04:09 GMT
An interesting point you make there as well Sib is about the electoral base being in the south solidly since the 1980s. Intriguingly, you can see signs of it prior to then. If you look at this here: uselectionatlas.org/WEBLOGS/hashemite/category/far-right-fn-mnr/...you can see that Tixier-Vignancourt's highest scores mirror the map that Devonian put up earlier, as well as the previous few elections. The Poujadist scores in 1956, prior to the arrival of the pieds-noirs, are highest in areas like the Vendee and the north of Poitou-Charentes, arguably the heartland of the hard-right prior to the arrival of the pieds-noirs. That's ignoring Alsace of course, for whom voting for a left-wing candidate probably means De Gaulle! Apparently the map I linked to missed out a few towns. Apparently they also came first in Montigney-en-Gohelle Villers-Cotterets Hayange Cluses Brignoles Cogolin Map here showing percentages, where they arrived first and where the got to the second round  www.lemonde.fr/municipales/infographie/2014/03/24/les-bons-resultats-du-front-national-dans-le-nord-et-le-bassin-mediterraneen_4388899_1828682.html |
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Mar 25, 2014 15:15:25 GMT
That's really interesting, thanks for that. Arguably that section in the north is the old PCF, but there's a rather inexplicable cluster in Haute Normandie.
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 16,029
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Post by Sibboleth on Mar 25, 2014 15:47:26 GMT
Montigney-en-Gohelle is in the Hénin-Beaumont constituency, I note.
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 16,029
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Post by Sibboleth on Mar 25, 2014 15:58:32 GMT
Same as before:
Cogolin - 39.0%, 27.2%
Brignoles - 37.1%, 27.0%
Villers-Cotterêts - 32.0%, 31.4%
Cluses - 31.4%, 23.3%
Hayange - 30.4%, 23.4%
Montigney-en-Gohelle - 28.9%, 43.1%
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Mar 25, 2014 21:31:51 GMT
Same as before: Cogolin - 39.0%, 27.2% Brignoles - 37.1%, 27.0% Villers-Cotterêts - 32.0%, 31.4% Cluses - 31.4%, 23.3% Hayange - 30.4%, 23.4% Montigney-en-Gohelle - 28.9%, 43.1% Some seriously material increases. Villers-Cotterets, cradle of the centralised French State... |
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myth11
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too busy at work!
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Post by myth11 on Mar 25, 2014 21:32:16 GMT
Looking at the French local system
Things i don,t like
1.Strange form of pr with the winning party getting 50% of the seats just for winning plus a pr % of the other 50% .
2.The other thing is you have to have a full list for areas over a 1000 or you can,t stand .
Things i like
1. its a national local election covering the whole nation far better than the bits and bobs we have
2.The 6 year terms could work well at parish level in the uk esp below 1000 voters where elections are uncommon.
3.The list system as i have gone off fptp wards as its leads to " spending in certain wards".
overall i think French have the the edge over us with the locals esp with their higher voter turnout.
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
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Post by J.G.Harston on Mar 25, 2014 21:44:05 GMT
Looking at the French local system Things i like ... 3.The list system as i have gone off fptp wards as its leads to " spending in certain wards". "At Large" elections would probably ensure that Whitby Town Council actually had a full slate of councillors. It's taken three years to fill the final unfilled seat from the last full elections, when only one ward was contested with an arms-length of candidates, all the others were uncontested, but four out of those five wards didn't have enough candidates. There was one seat with no candidates at all. |
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Post by carlton43 on Mar 26, 2014 0:24:55 GMT
Yes, the pieds noirs (including their children and grandchildren) are the electoral base of the FN (and the wider far right) in the south of France and have been since the party first emerged as a significant political force in the 1980s. I know women half my age who are quite as bitter as their grandfathers that I knew in the 60s. Think how many of the right here feel about bloody Grocer Heath, multiply it a 1000-fold and you have an inkling of their opinion of de Gaulle and the Gaullists. Provence has a slight political feel of Ulster about it at times. Wonderful result at Orange. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2014 6:32:51 GMT
JG, I have often wondered if Parish/Town Council are past their sell-by date and if they ought to be abolished and their responsibilities absorbed by the appropriate District or equivalent Council.
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Mar 26, 2014 9:15:35 GMT
JG, I have often wondered if Parish/Town Council are past their sell-by date and if they ought to be abolished and their responsibilities absorbed by the appropriate District or equivalent Council. Parish and town councils don't have any duties or responsibilities. They only exist to organise those local things which the parish wants done and no other public body is doing. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2014 9:41:41 GMT
Much as I thought so no wonder there is difficulty in finding candidates and a low turnout in their elections in many places. I have thankfully always lived in large boroughs and cities, and live in a large town now in France and next to a large City, so have never encountered a Parish or Town Council and would not be interested in standing for one.
This proves my point that they should be abolished as being of little purpose and the District, Borough, Unitary etc for that area should take on their work.
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