Now let's hope he'll actually be able to govern.
Let's hear from Claire Mathieu from her part of France!
UPDATE 5/9: A telling addendum to France's election: There was a huge document dump from hackers on Friday, two days before the election. The materials were from Macron's campaign. According to an NYTimes story Tuesday, this seemed to have little impact on the race. "Why the Macron Hacking Attack Landed with a Thud in France."
First, it was very late in the campaign and second, there is a black-out period before French elections so that voters can think! The candidates fall silent. In this case, so did the media though they were not barred from publishing or discussing the hacked material. Le Monde, France's premier newspaper has said they will report on these when they have been through them, hence no SHOCKING HEADLINES!
Correspondent and commentator David Leonhardt of the Times has an op-ed piece contrasting French and U.S. media practices suggesting he and his colleagues can learn something from the French. And France does not have an equivalent of Fox News....lucky them.
The question now is, Can this non-party guy get a major party to roll over for him the way the Republicans are trying (in their inept way) to roll over for the Party of One who was elected in their name?
ReplyDeleteSeems there is a multiparty system but that there are stable coalitions blocking the success of new parties. The only outsider party to achieve any success was Le Pen's party. Terrific. Disappointing to someone like me, looking to multiparty in the US to reduce our present problems. Heck, I'd love a prolife socialist party.
ReplyDeleteLe Pen's party doesn't seem to have much representation in the legislature. That could change in June. Macron could have resistance from the Socialists (largest party) and the Communists, unless, of course, his new party rounds up a legislative contingent in June. I wonder if the system allows people to run on more than one party, as in NY.
ReplyDeleteI'm more struck by the reports of the historically low turnout on what seems like a big election. Why?
ReplyDeleteVoters didn't like their choices? Always curious that many / most European elections are on Sunday. Vote instead of going to church?
DeleteLow turnout is a relative thing. The turnout for our election last November was 57%. It was 74% in France - and they called it low.
DeleteDon't forget that there is an election for their National assembly in June. Macron's party has to win enough seats to have any meaningful kind of say in the part of French governance.
ReplyDeleteMajor parties are becoming irrelevant to elections, and perhaps also to governance.
ReplyDeleteTrump took over the Republican party; Sanders almost took over the Democratic party. Macron, Trump and Sanders are all outsiders to the party system.
Candidates are increasing dependent upon the media (paid and unpaid). At least in the US they are dependent upon contributions that fund paid media. So the media increasing controls our politics. It essentially elected Trump by providing him with media coverage. It de-elected an equally strong populist Sanders by not covering him.
What is the role of the party? They still have platforms but they are becoming increasing irrelevant to elections, and even more to governance. Candidates, before and after election have their own agenda, which may change (even day to day and hour to hour in the case of Trump).
Does the party choose the candidate? Seems like it is becoming more like that the candidate chooses the party as their vehicle, maybe even as a hostile take over bid. Or perhaps bypasses the party? Could Sanders win in 2020 by running as an independent? If he did, how would he govern?
Are we headed toward one-person celebrity governance? How can that actually work? A national leader obviously needs many people both to vet issues for them, and then to actually implement decisions. Where do all these people come from?
One model seems to be the corporate raider model. A corporate raider buys up sufficient stock to force a company to do its will. The political raider accumulates enough voters to try to coerce the bureaucracy to do its will, treating it as an ailing “administrative state.” Will the political raiders do the same with legislatures? Forcing them with threats of having primary opponents for their next reelection? or PACs running adds against them? Trump appears headed in that direction.
Where does this leave the people? What meaning is left to a party? What meaning is left to an election? Are we headed to politics as a glorified media show ? What will its relationship to be actual governance. Stay tuned!
Macron is an largely unknown quantity. I fear he is a postmodernist. I wait with some anxiety to see whether his new government will trend left-wing or right-wing. It could go either way!
ReplyDeleteClaire, not a socialist or a communist but a postmodernist. Only in France. With his not respecting objective truth, is Trump some sort of uneducated postmodernist?
ReplyDeletePrime minister is right-wing.
ReplyDeleteThe Prime minister, minister of Taxation and minister of the Economy are all right-wing. The one in charge of work (and who will be at the frontline of the upcoming reform of work legislation) is a former administrator at large French companies. To balance this, the minister of the Interior is left-wing (and a freemason).
ReplyDeleteMore interesting perhaps: at first glance it seems that a number of the government members, in college, were humanities majors.
Should we better understand the distinctiveness of "right" wing and "left" wing in France? I am assuming that U.S. definitions are probably not on target when it comes to French politics.
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