International Politics Thread - Disease and Disaster

[Great Rumbler]

True Story: Americans are still wondering who won the British election

It was The Queen, obviously:

https://twitter.com/eedrk/status/872955951292104704

[Raist]

Jeremy "Cunt" freudian slip again on the BBC

[VomKriege]

French first round of voting for the National Assembly :

So first a subtility I forgot : To qualify for the second round (provided one is necessary), you must either finish in the top 2 places in the first round OR have above 12,5% of all the voters on the ballot in your district (regardless of whether they did vote or not). In short, if you have a 50% turnout, a candidate would need at least 25% to go into the second round provided he's not among the two top vote getters.

And as it turns out turnout ( ) is low for the election this year, slighty below 50%. And as expected, Macron's party La République en Marche (LREM) is trailing ahead with 30%+ of the total votes. In short : this year there won't be a ton of runoffs with 3 candidates or more (so far only one for sure, while there was 34 last election).

The Macronist wave is already pretty much in and on track to be perhaps the largest majority in the history of the 5th Republic (depending if all future elected MPs file as a single group in the Assembly or if the center-right MoDem keep some autonomy), possibly over 400 seats out of 577.

The national tally is along those lines :
La République en Marche (LREM) 32%
Right wing Les Républicains (LR) 21%
Far right Front National (FN) 14%
Far left France Insoumise (FI) 11%
Parti Socialiste (PS) 10%
Green Europe Ecologie Les Verts (EELV) 3%
Parti Communiste de France (PCF) 3%
Right wing Debout la France (DLF) 1%

Revised projections for seats ([min] to  [max]) :
LREM (& MoDem) - 415 to 455
LR (& UDI) - 70 to 110
PS (& EELV) - 20 to 30
FI - 8 to 18
FN - 3 to 10
PCF - 1 to 5 (?)
Others - 7 to 12

- So far (votes are still counted), only 3 people have been elected in the first round, which is very low.

- There will be a lot of new blood and people being elected to their first mandate.

- All parties (Except Macron which is probably fine and dandy with the results) hope for a better turnout and frantically call to not give all powers to the new President. Fat chance...

- It's a bloodbath for the Socialists & Greens (which are projected to get 15-30 seats), with a lot of experienced personnel, recent ministers, and big names losing jobs tonight. I won't bore you with obscure french politicians so we'll just name two : Hamon (candidate in the recent presidential election) and Cambadelis (First Secretary of the Party) are already out of their respective races.

- Nicolas Dupont Aignan, leader of DLF and the only prominent candidate to the presidency having sided with far right Marine Le Pen, is being unusually roughed in his district (which he is holding since 1997, including a few wins in the first round) : He's apparently in second position with 25% (EDIT : 29%), trailing behind a LREM candidate. Probably some voter fatigue and his deal with the FN in the presidential election (a deal since then dissolved... A FN candidate was running against him too) shocked a lot of people.

- The FN is not doing great either and should have at most 10 MPs come next week, if that.

- FI leader Mélenchon is personally doing better than a lot of the other failed presidential bids (he's ahead in the Marseille district he chose to run in and the incumbent Socialist has been eliminated) but his national score is meh. They're still above the Socialists  so there's that. FI and the Communists rivalry was bitter this time round and except a few select cases they each ran candidates in the same districts. They'll probably become "allies" again in the Assembly if needed to form a group (you need at least 15MPs to do so and it is used to determine speaking times and who gets to get into committees). The most depressing part is that we went through all of this 5 years ago almost down to the letter.
Always the rhetorician, Mélenchon is spinning the low turnout as "No majority of voters came forward to reform labor law".

- Henry Guaino, former member of President Sarkozy's inner circle, ran as a dissident and was flattened. He went to TV a few minutes ago to announce that he retired from politics and said the voters in his Paris district were all either "selfish bobos" (Bobo for "Bourgeois Bohème") or "Pétainists (ie Fascists) fundamentalist Christians bourgeois" and that they were all "sickening" 

[Great Rumbler]

I don't understand any of what you just posted, but I appreciate you for posting it, VomKriege.

[benjipwns]

again in the Assembly if needed to form a group (you need at least 15MPs to do so and it is used to determine speaking times and who gets to get into committees)

Saw that some Socialists were organizing their second round campaigns around promoting this fact. I can't think of a bigger L for an outgoing party in power. (I mean, other than being wiped from existence*.)

The combined elections are going to be one of the worst electoral defeats for a party in power in Western political history.

*My favorite rise and fall of a party is still this from Canada:
1984: Progressive Conservatives (the then Tories) win 211 out of 282 seats, which is +111 seats, AND they get 50% of the popular vote. (Which has only happened like twice post-war.)
1988: They lose 34 seats and fall to 43%. but still doin' alright since still have majority of seats. New PM takes over in 1992.
1993: They lose 154 seats (which is six more than you need for a majority) and wind up with a grand total of 2 seats. (New PM loses re-election in her seat.)

[Madrun Badrun]

That's cause Chrétien is a dreamboat

[benjipwns]

That's cause Chrétien is a dreamboat

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[Madrun Badrun]

I'm not even joking.  He was my first PM and in my mind how a PM should look.

[VomKriege]

So a couple of things heard on the radio on the first round of National Assembly elections in France :
- Turnout was especially depressed with the youth, workers and the unemployed.
- It was however excellent for people with a monthly revenue of 3000 euros or more. Median revenue in France is roughly at the 1800-2200 euros.

So in that sense one can be skeptical that Macronism is really adressing the issues faced by most Western liberal democracies that the "dangerous classes" are feeling alienated. It's really more about the middle class finally being united to push its agenda through.

Hot take and anecdotal : Marine Le Pen probably hurt the chances of her party with her terrible debate performance. Some Frontistes militants are still talking about it...

The FN has over a hundred candidates in runoffs but are expected to get 1 to 5 seats, maybe 10 if they do really well.

As usual after every vote for the assembly, we're debating using some mesure of a proportional system to counterbalance the fact that 5th Republic institutions are designed to produce clean majorities. Macron has promised to look into it... as per usual : IIRC Hollande promised the same and lip service has been paid to the idea for decades. Once in power, there's much less urge to do so... and the unspoken consensus is that the current system is very good at shutting the far right out. No one really wants to be the guy who "gave" the Front National dozens of seats, even in the name of fairness for all.

[benjipwns]

The Finns/True Finns/whatever just elected a rather...controversial...new leader. And they were part of the Finnish government until today because they hold 38 of the 200 seats and it's near impossible to form a government without them without it being a grand coalition of some type.

edit stolen from Finnish people on GAF:

Both Prime Minister Juha Sipilä and Finance Minister Petteri Orpo took to Twitter Monday afternoon to announce that the government coalition would no longer include the nationalist Finns Party. According to new Finns Party chair Jussi halla-aho, the coalition stumbled over the thorny issue of immigration policy.

The election of hardline anti-immigrant Eurosceptic Jussi Halla-aho last weekend to replace outgoing chair Timo Soini has introduced a new complexion to the nationalist Finns Party – and created a political headache for Sipilä’s pro-EU government. It also propelled PM Sipilä into a huddle with Halla-aho, Orpo and opposition parties to decide on a way forward.

"Discussions held. Our joint proposal to Centre/NCP Parliamentary groups: no ground to continue cooperation with a Finns Party led by Halla-aho," Sipilä and Orpo wrote in identical tweets Monday afternoon.

I really wouldn't want to be in this country, if it was lead by a man with statements like this:

Rough translation:
"As I was standing next to a gay person, I was wondering, if I should take a gun from upstairs, and shoot him in the head. Would the euphoria be big enough, that it would be worth the jailtime? Violence is these times an underrated way of solving problems"

[VomKriege]

http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-cabinet-decides-to-heed-pa-request-to-cut-gaza-electricity/

An Israeli official told the daily Haaretz newspaper on Sunday that the security cabinet earlier in the day had accepted the recommendation of the Israeli military to cut the supply at the request of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas whose confrontation with Hamas has escalated in recent months.

The PA has been paying 40 million shekels ($11.3 million) a month for 125 megawatts, but recently said it was now only prepared to pay for 20-25 million shekels ($7 million) a month for electricity to Gaza.

The hours of electricity supply in Gaza will now likely be reduced from six hours per day to between two and four hours a day.

Jesus.
Fucking.
Christ.

[Great Rumbler]

https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/874242414806020096

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Although, it's apparently written onto goat-skin parchment after it's read before Parliament.

[close]

[Madrun Badrun]

WTF is this shit. 

edit:  about Gaza

[benjipwns]

http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-cabinet-decides-to-heed-pa-request-to-cut-gaza-electricity/

An Israeli official told the daily Haaretz newspaper on Sunday that the security cabinet earlier in the day had accepted the recommendation of the Israeli military to cut the supply at the request of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas whose confrontation with Hamas has escalated in recent months.

The PA has been paying 40 million shekels ($11.3 million) a month for 125 megawatts, but recently said it was now only prepared to pay for 20-25 million shekels ($7 million) a month for electricity to Gaza.

The hours of electricity supply in Gaza will now likely be reduced from six hours per day to between two and four hours a day.

Jesus.
Fucking.
Christ.

So glad Trump pulled out of Paris now.

[VomKriege]

Another funny bits from the French election.

In the 18th legislative district of Paris, Socialist Party candidate Myriam El Khomri (former minister of Labor, gave her name to the latest unpopular reform pushed a year ago) has claimed a few hours ago that she had "Macron's official backing". She is facing right wing Les Républicains Pierre-Yves Bournazel which posted a few days ago on his twitter account a video... of the Prime Minister (also a member of LR before accepting the office from Macron) Edouard Philippe supporting him.


In the 1st legislative district of North, the Front National candidate Eric Dillies actually called for his supporters to vote for the far left France Insoumise Adrien Quatennens. "Sending another LREM (Macron's party) MP to the Assembly is neither useful nor healthy for democracy". North and the Straits of Dover are former Socialist stronghold : they had 18 MPs there from 5 years ago. Not a single candidate made it to the runoff yesterday.

In Marseille's 4th district (Where Mélenchon is running), the city judges have opened a procedure to investigate a fight that broke out in a polling station before a vote disparity (and potential tampering) was noted.

[VomKriege]

WTF is this shit. 

edit:  about Gaza

I can't comment on the merit of each party arguments but it highlights just how poor quality of life is in general over there and how absurdly tight the Israeli occupation still is.

[Rufus]

WTF is this shit. 

edit:  about Gaza

I can't comment on the merit of each party arguments but it highlights just how poor quality of life is in general over there and how absurdly tight the Israeli occupation still is.

At this point, neither player in this game can back off, it seems.

[VomKriege]

Leave it to Brits to be excited about 3 months of heat.

[benjipwns]

The Finns Party split in half:

Finland's nationalist Finns party will be split into two parliamentary groups following a change of leadership, MPs in the planned new group told reporters on Tuesday.

Lawmaker Simon Elo said the new group would take 20 of the Finns party's current 37 parliamentarians, and added that it was ready to participate in the coalition government.

The Finns party was on Monday thrown out of the country's three-party government after it picked a new hardline anti-immigration leadership.

[FStop7]

http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-cabinet-decides-to-heed-pa-request-to-cut-gaza-electricity/

An Israeli official told the daily Haaretz newspaper on Sunday that the security cabinet earlier in the day had accepted the recommendation of the Israeli military to cut the supply at the request of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas whose confrontation with Hamas has escalated in recent months.

The PA has been paying 40 million shekels ($11.3 million) a month for 125 megawatts, but recently said it was now only prepared to pay for 20-25 million shekels ($7 million) a month for electricity to Gaza.

The hours of electricity supply in Gaza will now likely be reduced from six hours per day to between two and four hours a day.

Jesus.
Fucking.
Christ.

Hamas is going to take over, aren't they?

[toku]

https://twitter.com/chunkymark/status/874640582819426304

[VomKriege]

"Germany plans to fingerprint children, spy on personal messaging"

http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-germany-security-encryption-idUKKBN1951VG

 

[Rufus]

Can't be outdone by the UK, now, can we?

[Great Rumbler]

"Germany plans to fingerprint children, spy on personal messaging"

http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-germany-security-encryption-idUKKBN1951VG

 

Fingerprinting? What, is this the 1930's and somehow they can't take DNA samples? This is why no one takes Europe seriously.

[FStop7]

WTF is this shit. 

edit:  about Gaza

I can't comment on the merit of each party arguments but it highlights just how poor quality of life is in general over there and how absurdly tight the Israeli occupation still is.

Except the bit about further reducing the number of hours with electricity was pushed forward by Abbas against the recommendation of Israel.  That makes it sound like the Palestinian Authority is losing whatever control they had of the territories to Hamas and they're becoming increasingly desperate, to the point where even the Israelis are like "yo this isn't a good idea."  That sounds really grim. 

[VomKriege]

For all the talk of changing the paradigm, Macron's tenure is going through some of the usual baby pains.
One minister (Ferrand) has been engulfed in the suspicion of past shady practices (may have employed a relative, rented an office he owned with public funds, kept his post in the health insurance industry as he voted laws foavorable to health insurance companies...). Another (De Sarnez) has been said to be connected to the abusive use of her European Parliament aides, paid by the EU but really working for the MoDem party. In fact the MoDem is alleged to have a dozen people concerned in that investigation. (No one so far is indicted however, investigation is ongoing).

MoDem leader François Bayrou, and new Minister of Justice, called the direction of the public radio network to complain about their "aggressive investigating" (apparently they questioned some people in an inquisitive manner) and tried to downplay the inappropriate interaction by claiming he was calling "not as the minister and a politician but as a concerned citizen" (because concerned citizens all have access lines to the heads of media conglomerates to bitch). The Prime Minister went on the same radio network the next day to say this was not an acceptable behavior and that members of his cabinet ought to leave free press alone. Bayrou didn't stand down however and said "he would speak up whenever he felt it justified". Things were left hanging there with no conclusion as the spokesperson for the government said the whole incident was closed after the weekly Cabinet meeting with no publicized mea culpa.

With regard to the labor law reform and its interaction with unions which are currently meeting the governement to prepare negociations, Macron reportedly said "It's going well with unions so far... because I haven't told them anything precise yet".

[benjipwns]

With regard to the labor law reform and its interaction with unions which are currently meeting the governement to prepare negociations, Macron reportedly said "It's going well with unions so far... because I haven't told them anything precise yet".

If he can keep that up I imagine nothing but success.

[Raist]

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ed-balls-michael-gove-gangnam-style-the-last-leg-video_uk_59426886e4b0d3185487305c?ncid=tweetlnkukhpmg00000007

 

[Brehvolution]

Ed Balls is a real name? 

[Raist]

Ed Balls is a real name? 

Yes. But it gets better.

On 28 April 2011, Balls, urged by an assistant to search Twitter for a recent article about him, accidentally entered his intended search term in the wrong box and sent a tweet reading only "Ed Balls".[59] The tweet was retweeted by thousands; Balls was unaware that it was possible to delete tweets. The tweet has never been deleted. The incident is now celebrated as "Ed Balls Day" every 28 April, with followers retweeting his original message and commemorating the occasion in other ways.[60][61] When invited to send something to be auctioned to raise funds for the party in 2015, Balls submitted a framed, signed printout of the tweet.[62] To celebrate "Ed Balls Day" in 2016, Balls baked a cake featuring the tweet.[63] Six years on from the original tweet, Ed Balls Day 2017 drew tweets from organisations including Virgin Atlantic and the National Trust - the latter in response to a tweet parodying Prime Minister Theresa May's berating of the National Trust for omitting the word "Easter" from promotional material for Easter egg hunts. His participation in the 2016 series of Strictly Come Dancing, featuring as it did the unconventional sight of a former member of parliament mimicking the Gangnam Style dance, provided material for several wellwishers.

[jackbenimble]

Macron wants to be the Uber of France

https://twitter.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/875394454110294016

[benjipwns]

Macron wants to be the Uber of France

https://twitter.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/875394454110294016

i think that was robespierre's original pitch before things got all out of hand

[VomKriege]

I forgot to mention : François Bayrou, the new Garde des Sceaux (Guardian of the Seals, Minister of Justice in normal parlance) -who came under fire for complaining directly to the direction of the public radio network for their inquiries into his party alleged misuse of public funds- is the one carrying the latest bill for "moralizing public life" (anti-corruption/nepotism law for elected officials, in short) to be soon debated. He also made a big show, when asked about the suspicions surrouding Minister Ferrand, of reading an article of law about how the Justice Minister can't comment and meddle in ongoing investigations when he was intronised a few weeks ago.

The investigation around the MoDem party are a major crank in the wheel for this government because they've been given three important Cabinet positions (Justice, Defence and European Affairs). MoDem is a middle size party and any widespread felony is likely to implicate them.

Macron has also said that he will discontinue the tradition of the President being interviewed on the 14th of July. The trending buzz word with regards to our new President is "Jupiterization", a figure akin to a god in Olympus. It makes sense as it counterbalances his age and besides I think it's pretty clear he will try to administer us a pretty stern reform package, and it's easier if people believe in your authority. But honestly, that yearly interview was a boring and often pointless exercice where the anchors of the two biggest networks came in to make the President look good.

lol he wants france to be the exact opposite of what it is now? good luck macaroni

Heh I wouldn't be so sure. Macron was elected in a triumph and he's gonna control 60-80% of the National Assembly in 3 days (even if his only ally, the MoDem, turn on him). The new Assembly first order of business will be to vote to allow him to govern by decree for some time. Sure you can always argue about the meaningfulness of those scores (running against a lepered far right candidate / low turnout for the Assembly election) but all those legitimacy debates often amounts to a molehill in reality. He was given a massive mandate and a free hand to implement his policies. The candidates he endorsed flattened incumbents and experienced politicians almost everywhere even when they're young unknown quantity.

Not to deny that labor law, unemployement and pension reforms are all potentially explosive in France. But there's no guarantee that protests will reach the critical mass needed. All the more since Macron staked his whole agenda on this and his credibility will be stillborn if he bows out. I sadly wouldn't be too surprised if people weren't in the mood for it, unions lost the battle over the latest labor law "El Khomry" reform (despite OK-to-good -albeit slow- mobilization and a notable "Occupy" event lasting for weeks), there's a lot of discouragement and resignation in the air. I mean if there's one thing to take away from the ongoing election, it's that voters are fairly apathetic to the traditional parties being dismembered or the Macronist wave. It's kinda shitty how the Presidential election is really the only thing that matters, but that's the system we have for now.

Misc. :
- Apparently the right had a "shit on Fillon" day today. Shooting departed ambulanced is a free action and I guess a lot of them were eager to vent. Right now the LR party is trying not to comment on internal divisions to save what can be but as soon as the election is done we're promised a lot of fireworks. The hard conservative / christian wing is maybe gonna split altogether.
- Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, former Minister under Sarkozy and currently running in Paris 11th district, was apparently roughed up by a bystander as she was campaigning on a market (he threw back her leaflets to her face, called her a "gentrified piece of shit", she fell and was unconscious for several minutes). She is hospitalized for the night (at least).

Misc. 2 :
A reporter told on the radio that one of Macron's candidate balked when he learnt what the wage of a MP is (5000 euros / month, give or take) because he's winning double that as a business owner. He was already considering keeping his business on the side to not lose revenue.
 

[Rufus]

Macron wants to be the Uber of France

https://twitter.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/875394454110294016

Hm. Raise a bunch of funding to inflate your name, then get bought out by a bigger company? Greece has been there and done that. Something tells me France won't appreciate a stubborn old man with crusty ideas changing the company culture.

edit: gerund-und-und~

[VomKriege]

Invent overdesigned weapon systems with African and Arab angel investors. In a broken English accent.

...wait a minute.

[toku]

https://twitter.com/labourlewis/status/875758693693960193

[Raist]

How the fuck was this approved for publishing.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-16/beware-of-blaming-government-for-london-tower-fire

[benjipwns]

Megan McArdle, the lesser half of The Suderman

her old Atlantic blog was fun because of the comment section of cross-ideological unity always trashing her "skimmed an article, now an expert on ethanol" type posts, also where blighter first started I think

she once argued that one of her biggest problems "as a libertarian" with Ron Paul is that he wanted to eliminate the income tax

[Rufus]

How the fuck was this approved for publishing.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-16/beware-of-blaming-government-for-london-tower-fire

Now, I won’t defend the folks who go 90 in a 50 mph zone.  But in less extreme cases, the broader calculation is probably correct. Auto accidents cost lives. But automobile transport has also saved a lot of lives, by enabling the economic growth that has made us richer and healthier. Slowing traffic down to a crawl would make a lot of that economic activity impossible, or at least, unprofitable. Very few people would like to lower a very small personal risk of death 1  by agreeing to live in the economic equivalent of 1900.

Car analogies have a higher accident rate, too.

[Great Rumbler]

Fun fact: automobile fatalities per year actually peaked more than four decades ago [54k in 1972, versus 35k in 2015] and has been trending downward during that time period, despite far more drivers on the road, far more miles driven per year, and increased highway speeds.

[Rufus]

Man, can you imagine how much better all our lives could be without safety regulations and engineering?

[Brehvolution]

Can you imagine how much better Zoos would be if they got rid of the cages?

[Madrun Badrun]

yes

[Brehvolution]

Can you imagine no religion? 

[Madrun Badrun]

OMG zoo bears just eating all the children, their little screams and no God to embrace their little souls? 

Go on,... you monster. 

[VomKriege]

A further point to illustrate what I talked about earlier :
A recent poll says that 58% of the French citizens sampled don't want a Macronist wave in the Assembly.
Yet turnout will likely be between 50% and 46%.


Meanwhile Jacques Toubon, the "Defender of Rights" (an independent administrative authority safeguarding individual rights), has made a statement denouncing the "exceptional and unprecedented infringement on the fundamental rights", "inhumane conditions of life" and the "hunt" suffered by the migrants stuck in the Calais region after a visit there.

As you may know, lots of migrants (hundreds to thousands depending on the period) are massing there in the hope of crossing the Channel to the UK, stirring a lot of resentment among the inhabitants and a lot of worries as to their health and safety in general. Up until recently they were centered in the so-called "jungle", a slumtown, but President Hollande ordered it razed officially because of its poor safety conditions. But of course closing it didn't make the people vanish with it and now they're roaming the region on a day to day basis trying to escape police (who often can't do much anyway besides transporting them a tad farther away to make their presence less obvious). Exactly the same scenario than after 2002 when President Sarkozy ordered the closure of the Sangatte refugee center that was nearby.

Oh and a man was arrested as the potential agressor of candidate for the National Assembly Nathalie Kosciuzco-Morizet while she was campaigning on a market : he's the mayor of a small village of 33 people in Normandy. He's, apparently, one of the few supports of Henri Guaino who ran as a candidate in the same Paris district as Kosciuzco-Morizet and insulted all of the voters of said disctrict on TV after he lost badly.

[VomKriege]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-twitter-idUSKBN1980U1?il=0

Pro-Maduro Twitter accounts (including ambiguously semi-official outlets) have been banned for unclear reasons.

[Raist]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40316934

Huge forest fire in central portugal. Death toll is at least 43.

[VomKriege]

Well, color me surprised but French citizens put votes where their mouth is : The Macronist wave is slighty less impressive than expected.

First estimations and polls are as follow (approx. numbers) :

La République en Marche (President's party) : 311 seats out of 577 in the National Assembly
MoDem (center-right, Macron's ally) : 43
Right-wing Les Républicains (+ centrist UDI) : 120
Socialists and allies : 49
Far left France Insoumise : 19
Communists : 11
Far right Front National : 8
Right wing "without label" : 7

Edit : shit turnout too. Probably 44% or so.

Edit : Other polling institutes have larger projections for LREM.

[Raist]

Mélenchon going full crazy

[VomKriege]

Also of note : 3 Corsican nationalists (autonomists & independentists) out of 4 seats on the island. The nationalists also control since 2015 the local assembly.

4 of the 8 Front National MPs are elected in the Straits of Dover districts (+1 in the North). Marine Le Pen is elected, as well as her partner.

Cédric Villani, who won the Fields Medal, is elected for the majority (LREM).
Bruno Bonnell, former CEO of Infogrames is elected for LREM too.
Laurence Vichnievsky, a former judge specialized in financial affairs (including several high profile cases like the PCF occult funding, the Elf affair and the Taiwanese frigates) who entered politics with the Greens several years ago, was elected for LREM.
Eric Halphen, another former judge (prominent in the scandal of the Paris public housing office), running for LREM, was beaten.

All of the members of the current governement running in those elections won.

Mélenchon is elected.
Valls claims he won (with a margin) 139 votes but her FI opponent will file a claim for a recount and an investigation into alleged irregularities.

[VomKriege]

And some stats on the new National Assembly (barring that the results for Manuel Valls or his female opponent are up in the air).

Out of 577 seats total :
- 224 women elected.
- 180 people coming from Management, 129 Public Servants, 88 Independants (Doctors, Lawyers, etc...), 51 Employees, 40 Retired, 14 Farmers, 11 Artisans and shop owners & 0 Factory Workers
- 146 incumbents reelected, 204 with no experience in an elected office.
- 145 aged 40 or below, 349 aged between 40 and 60, 83 aged over 60.

[Human Snorenado]

Has there ever been that many non-office holders elected at once before? I'm trying to think of an analogous "wave" type election to American Congress where 1/3 of the class are new to politics and can't.

(I'm also not sure if France has term limits, which would lead to more turnover naturally.)

[VomKriege]

Has there ever been that many non-office holders elected at once before? I'm trying to think of an analogous "wave" type election to American Congress where 1/3 of the class are new to politics and can't.

(I'm also not sure if France has term limits, which would lead to more turnover naturally.)

No term limits for any office except the President (2 successive max.). There's laws that forbid holding several certain offices at once. One of those laws was voted in 2012 and entered into effect with this election and basically forbids the previously very popular combo of being a mayor on top of a MP. As a result, a non negligeable number of incumbents opted to keep their mayoral mandate and didn't run here. 40% of the incumbents did not seek re-election.

I don't have the answer to your question but reading a couple of articles, it's probably one of the biggest renewals since 1958 (with the first Assembly elected along De Gaulle to forst the Vth Republic).

Of course, some people were never elected but are not new to politics. For instance and AFAIK, Hugues Renson (New representative for Paris 13th district) never ran in an election but worked as an advisor to President Jacques Chirac. There's no denying though that a lot of new blood is brought in, for ill and good. There's some worries that there's gonna be a couple of hiccups in the fine-tuned machine of the National Assembly (notably to compose the committees) though I think it's overblown : there's some experienced personnel in LREM and more is probably gonna flock to the triumphant new president.

The other major questions is whether Macron's MPs will rubberstamp everything and react well to being whipped, and if politics are gonna be micromanaged from the blackbox of thePresident's office at the Elysée (As I said, Macron is keen on presenting himself as a "Jupiter" and there's hints he will reduce media access. Hollande was famously very talkative to his press detail. Much too much in fact since a book of his interviews published during his mandate and titled "A President souldn't say those things..." was a mini-scandal for a couple of months).

[Raist]

The Government is to privatise the NHS’s in-house, publicly-owned provider of agency staff, ministers have announced.

NHS Professionals, the health service’s main staffing agency, provides 90,000 health workers to around a quarter of NHS trusts, covering two million shifts a year.

In a written statement issued on Thursday as most MPs headed back to their constituencies, the Government announced it would sell off a majority stake in the orgnaisation to the private sector with the aim of “creating a profitable business model”.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nhs-privatisation-charges-professionals-in-house-agency-a7426966.html

But the £350M

[VomKriege]

A man tried to ram his car into a law enforcement van on the Champs-Elysées. His car took fire on impact and the man is dead (no other casualty) and arms & explosives were in the car.

Macron government plans on voting into common law some of the measures contained into the exceptional state of emergency 

[VomKriege]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-us-medtech-exclusive-idUSKBN19A0RT

A group of U.S. lawmakers has backed medical device makers by urging India to reconsider its decision to cap prices of heart stents, raising the issue ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the United States later this week.

Before the pricing order, for example, Boston Scientific was selling its high-end Synergy stent for about $3,000 in India, well above its $750 cost, according to a company document seen by Reuters. The new cap reduces the price to $450, and the company says it would result in losses of at least $7 million this year.

Am I reading this right ?

[Joe Molotov]

Hospitals over here will charge you $3000 for a bottle of aspirin.

[VomKriege]

https://www.acast.com/warcollege/whatnorthkoreawants

Reuters's War College has a good episode on North Korea by a self avowed "contrarian" scholar. Fairly illuminating on the local context that is often lost in translation.

[VomKriege]

I spoke upthread about the problem with migrants roaming the Calais region. One van driver was killed yesterday in an accident involving a makeshift roadblock set up by migrants, a tactic commonly used to slow or stop trucks in the hope of sneaking onboard to get to the UK (4 million trucks transit through there per year). Sometimes migrants are hit by cars on the road leading to the harbour.

Otherwise French politics will be fun this summer.

Far right Front National had a party direction meeting today and they put chains on the entrance grid to prevent Jean-Marie Le Pen, still honorary president (a title he won back in courts after they tried to strip him of it), from making a scene. So he just made a press conference outside and said his daughter should step down.
 

As is customary, the cabinet resigned upon the results of the National Assembly vote to be very soon (tomorrow) reformed in its definitive form. But what was supposed to be a technical move (maybe adding some undersecretaries) is spinning a bit out of control.

First it was made clear that the Minister of Territorial Cohesiveness, Richard Ferrand, would not come back and is being "exfiltrated" back to his MP seat (he was reelected this Sunday) as a probable leader for the Macronist group. Ferrand is under investigation (but not yet indicted) in a number of possible violations including : employing relatives, voting laws as MPs benefiting health insurance while being on the board of an health insurance (something he often omitted to mention to his fellow representatives) and having the health insurance he was on the board of advance funds to buy a building to his wife through a rather complex scheme.
Conveniently, Ferrand has some immunity as a MP, though he swears he will answer justice's convocations.
In theory, Macron told it would abide to the now customary rule of people being indicted having to leave the Cabinet, but they're obviously trying to preempt that.

What wasn't expected however was that the Minister of Defence, Sylvie Goulard, asked to step down to "prepare freely her legal defense if need be". Herself and her party MoDem is under investigation for a systematic practice of having the people working for the party be hired as Europarliament assistants. By all accounts, Goulard never was at ease with this. But it begs the question for the two other MoDem heavyweights in the Cabinet including the new Minister of Justice. Also no indictment yet here but it might be forthcoming.
To note, the Front National is suspected of the exact same thing. Supposedly Marine Le Pen will now honor court convocations since the campaign is over...

Oh and today the story of Macron's trip to the CES held in Las Vegas last year also came up : seems that the entity Business France granted the organization of this event to advertising giant Havas without the mandatory open bid. Business France was then directed by Muriel Pénicaud, Macron's Minister of Labor.

Exemplary Republic indeed.

Meanwhile Macron is making moves to create a loyal group in the Senate. A senator (formerly Socialist) has been tasked with this and has already 20 fellow senators around him. They're aiming for 60 (out of 348).

And a right wing National Assembly member for the party LR has already said he has enough fellow MPs on board to create a dissident group of LR representatives that will broadly support the Cabinet (starting with voting confidence in a few days). LR is due for nasty infighting over the question of being staunchly in the opposition or being "constructive" (as the supporters of that stance like to call it). Socialists as well : the official party line recently adopted is opposition, but a number of individuals already made known they wouldn't abide.