French Regional Elections 2015

[Sibboleth]

Note that the Commies and the Greens ran together in Languedoc and Provence. Anyway, a lot of deeply weird patterns, but that's always the way with Regional elections; they really are just local polls done over a huge area.

[carlton43]

Ah! Alsace-Lorraine and Provence,,,,,,,,,the very heart and soul of France. My favourites.

[Devil Wincarnate]

Dec 8, 2015 23:35:06 GMT carlton43 said:

Ah! Alsace-Lorraine and Provence,,,,,,,,,the very heart and soul of France. My favourites.

I've still never been to Provence. I do like Alsace, but my favourites are the Loire Valley and Normandy. I've developed quite a taste for Toulouse though, and am heading back there in the New Year.

[neilm]

Toulouse, and the broader south west (Cathar country really), is my favourite part of France. I used to have an Occitan speaking customer.

[neilm]

Dec 8, 2015 1:06:36 GMT johnloony said:

Dec 7, 2015 20:23:21 GMT jollyroger93 said:

These Results, suggest to me that Marine le Pen is well on her way to winning the first round of the presidental election in 2017.

Absolutely no way is that even remotely possible. The best she could get would be perhaps 35% or 40% in extreme circumstances, but I cannot even conceive of circumstances where she would get 50+%.

That isn't what he said though, it's quite clear that the post refers to the first round and not the election as a whole.

[neilm]

Dec 7, 2015 22:12:15 GMT johnsmith said:

The elephant in the room here is probably the terrorist attacks in Paris. I strongly suspect that this has bolstered the Front Nationale vote on the crest of a reactionary wave of Islamophobia. Imagine the political impact if something happened on such a scale here.

Sadly, a strong showing for the Front Nationale on a wave of Islamophobia is exactly what ISIS wants, yet was probably inevitable.

Of course there are other factors too, eg the relative unpopularity of Hollande, and the fact that the current FN leader has a much more human - indeed more "respectable" - face. But the political impact of the Paris attacks was surely substantial.

Not really, it's been building for ages. It's hardened things but the impact hasn't really been substantial.

[Devil Wincarnate]

Dec 9, 2015 10:24:21 GMT neilm said:

Toulouse, and the broader south west (Cathar country really), is my favourite part of France. I used to have an Occitan speaking customer.

Never encountered a live Occitan conversation. I wonder how prevalent it is. Toulouse now has bilingual street signs.

[neilm]

Well, you can hear it in the Aran Valley allegedly but when I went there I thought they were speaking Catalan, which it is apparently very similar to. I think the correct term is macro language?

My step mother is from Carcassonne and she can understand it a little: when she was growing up it was spoken locally but she speaks to her family in French. The guy I knew certainly used to speak to one of his relatives in it.

[Merseymike]

I love Alsace, particularly the wine, but really, its about as French as Germany. Its one of the amusing factors about the region that most people have German names, the food is German-influenced, the place names German, the architecture is German and Alsace wines totally different to anything produced in France, but very similar to German in both style and presentation.

[neilm]

Dec 9, 2015 10:26:44 GMT neilm said:

Dec 7, 2015 22:12:15 GMT johnsmith said:

The elephant in the room here is probably the terrorist attacks in Paris. I strongly suspect that this has bolstered the Front Nationale vote on the crest of a reactionary wave of Islamophobia. Imagine the political impact if something happened on such a scale here.

Sadly, a strong showing for the Front Nationale on a wave of Islamophobia is exactly what ISIS wants, yet was probably inevitable.

Of course there are other factors too, eg the relative unpopularity of Hollande, and the fact that the current FN leader has a much more human - indeed more "respectable" - face. But the political impact of the Paris attacks was surely substantial.

Not really, it's been building for ages. It's hardened things but the impact hasn't really been substantial.

I forgot to add earlier that MLP has been consistently scoring in the mid to high 20s for a while now (over 30 a few times, before the attacks) and these results reflect that.

[Devil Wincarnate]

Dec 9, 2015 13:47:29 GMT neilm said:

Well, you can hear it in the Aran Valley allegedly but when I went there I thought they were speaking Catalan, which it is apparently very similar to. I think the correct term is macro language?

My step mother is from Carcassonne and she can understand it a little: when she was growing up it was spoken locally but she speaks to her family in French. The guy I knew certainly used to speak to one of his relatives in it.

I think Aranese is indeed closer to Catalan, but Occitan is just distant enough to be its own language. It's definitely a continuum though.

[Devil Wincarnate]

Dec 9, 2015 14:07:39 GMT Merseymike said:

I love Alsace, particularly the wine, but really, its about as French as Germany. Its one of the amusing factors about the region that most people have German names, the food is German-influenced, the place names German, the architecture is German and Alsace wines totally different to anything produced in France, but very similar to German in both style and presentation.

Alsace wine for me too. Gewurztraminer being my favourite one.

[Merseymike]

Dec 9, 2015 14:21:44 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

Dec 9, 2015 14:07:39 GMT Merseymike said:

I love Alsace, particularly the wine, but really, its about as French as Germany. Its one of the amusing factors about the region that most people have German names, the food is German-influenced, the place names German, the architecture is German and Alsace wines totally different to anything produced in France, but very similar to German in both style and presentation.

Alsace wine for me too. Gewurztraminer being my favourite one.

Me too. Spent a week there in Bergheim, the best grand cru Gewurztraminer village - the Fete de Gewurztraminer was fun. Brought back lots of wine, and if the anti-EU wallahs want to stop that, then a good reason to vote to stay

[carlton43]

Dec 9, 2015 14:07:39 GMT Merseymike said:

I love Alsace, particularly the wine, but really, its about as French as Germany. Its one of the amusing factors about the region that most people have German names, the food is German-influenced, the place names German, the architecture is German and Alsace wines totally different to anything produced in France, but very similar to German in both style and presentation.

I agree all except the wine. I really haven't found a good Alsace wine yet. The names are very German but the tenor of the region is oddly very very French. Possibly to compensate or because of execises in Frenchification? I tend to stay near Phalsbourg where the son-in-law of the hotel family is from Rhone and agrees and keeps plenty from there. 

[neilm]

I've got some Trimbach at home.

[Merseymike]

I think Alsace wines are a love or hate thing. Very distinctive.

[Devil Wincarnate]

Dec 9, 2015 22:22:38 GMT Merseymike said:

I think Alsace wines are a love or hate thing. Very distinctive.

I would agree there.  Have you been to Riquewihr?

[Merseymike]

Dec 10, 2015 0:08:15 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

Dec 9, 2015 22:22:38 GMT Merseymike said:

I think Alsace wines are a love or hate thing. Very distinctive.

I would agree there.  Have you been to Riquewihr?

Certainly have. Had an amazing tasting menu at a restaurant there. It was a quiet weekday night and the chef kept trying out new creations on us.
We spent a week in Alsace, and intent to do a repeat once the wines are finished - another point about Alsace wines is that they keep well for white wines, because although they are not made to be sweet, they have become sweeter and more floral over the past few years, particularly the Gewurztraminer. No-one knows why!

[Hash]

Dec 7, 2015 7:08:37 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

Dec 7, 2015 1:17:42 GMT Sibboleth said:

French voting patterns are more a very strange amalgam of historical habits, cultural traditions and personal votes than anything else. Its not a country where you can usually work out how somewhere votes without prior knowledge within ten seconds of visiting the place.

Nail on the head. Although broadly speaking, to answer Carlton, the PS vote in Brittany and the Cevennes in particular is a remnant of the anti-clerical tradition in those parts, whereas you'd not expect the equivalent areas in the UK to follow that pattern.

I'm afraid that's not quite right. The Cévennes are anti-clerical, although distinct from other anti-clerical area in the region/country in that its opposition to Church interference in politics stems from it being a largely Protestant (Calvinist) area for centuries with a rather unpleasant relation to Catholicism and the State; the area has voted heavily for the left ever since there's been universal suffrage in France, while the rest of the Lozère, which (in stark contrast) was until recently one of the most heavily clerical parts of the country, was deeply conservative (to insane levels in past elections). The Protestant Cévennes don't very much like the FN (although I note with some concern that Aliot may have won 3 or 4 communes in the Cévennes in Lozère), and there is a very strong vote for the Communists/radical left in those parts - Mélenchon won the [old] canton of Saint-Germain-de-Calberte by a hair over Flanby in 2012, and there's also a substantial EELV vote in the same places (likely the influence of 'soixante-huitards' old hippies/'néo-ruraux' moving to tiny villages). Gérard Onesta (the EELV candidate in 'LRMP') won a number of communes in the Cévennes again this time, which had voted FG or EELV in the last Euros.

On the other hand, Brittany taken as a whole has certainly not been a left-leaning region for most of its history and its left-wing orientation has only been consistent since the late 1980s at the earliest and became very obvious in the early 2000s. Although Brittany's historical conservatism and clerical leanings are often overstated - only a few parts of Brittany were ever really Catholic-reactionary à la Vendée - it was clearly a right-leaning region until the 1980s (in 1965, de Gaulle won 63% of the vote in the 4-department region in the second round, and in 1974, Giscard won 58% of the vote in the second round [and then 51.1% in 1981]); only in the 1988 election did Brittany vote for the left above the national average, a trend which continued and grew in 1995, 2007 and 2012. You are right, however, that the left's strongest regions in Brittany to this day - basically in the Trégor, the Monts-d'Arrée, inland (Argoat) Haute-Cornouaille (Centre-Bretagne), the western confines of the Vannetais and the industrial areas of Loire estuary and the inland Brière in the Loire-Atlantique (which is obviously a Breton department  ) - were historically anti-clerical (this is especially the case for the first two regions I cited), with a rebellious tradition and have voted solidly for the left since the 19th century (with a very strong rural PCF vote in the Trégor and Centre-Bretagne). Nevertheless, the drivers of recent left-wing strength in Brittany -- Rennes and much of Ille-et-Vilaine (in good part because of the suburban expansion of Rennes' influence), the eastern parts of the Morbihan (like the city of Vannes), Nantes, Brest's hinterland in the Léon, the rest of the Côtes-d'Armor etc. -- were moderately right-leaning up until the 1980s. At its lowest ebb, in 2012, the right was left with a pathetic handful of coastal towns in the Léon (what was once the clerical/Catholic region par excellence), a few rich coastal retirees resort-towns, a declining number of small villages in the rural Vannetais (an old Catholic-reactionary area), a few wealthy precincts in the big cities, the old very right-wing eastern end of the Ille-et-Vilaine (Vitré; similar to the rural clerical-conservative Anjou). Quiet, peaceful, educated and well-off middle class suburbia of Rennes, notably, went heavily for Flanby, and the PS held their ground there this year (likely owes a lot to their candidate). Brittany, often characterized by academics as a 'Christian democratic humanist' and 'pro-European' region, has not taken well to Poison Dwarf et al's crass hard-right/populistic politicking (like other 'Christian democratic humanist' tradition regions in western France) and is not demographically, culturally or politically favourable to the FN (although the FN vote has been growing in Brittany, somewhat alarmingly, like in other parts of the western half of France hitherto unfavourable to the FN). All that being said, the geography of the vote in Brittany this year was heavily personalist/friends-and-neighbours (from a cursory observation of communal results of the first round, this election seems to have even starker personalist patterns than is usual) - Marc Le Fur (the right-wing candidate) did extremely well in his constituency (southern Côtes-d'Armor around Loudéac) but really didn't add much to the right's weak base elsewhere (and the FN seems to have eaten into the conservative fortress of eastern Ille-et-Vilaine quite badly), Christian Troadec dominated his stomping grounds in and around his town of Carhaix as expected (and as he had done last year) while Le Drian allowed the PS to hold tight in the cities, inner suburbs and other leftist regions. 

Basically, tl;dr, if the Cévennes has been voting for the left forever, Brittany as a whole except for a few parts thereof has been voting for the left consistently only since the 1980s).

[Devil Wincarnate]

Well,I'm happy enough to be proven wrong on that- a good read there, Hash.