So a small update on French politics :
- Though Macron had a lot of missteps, fact is that on the labor reform he played the union for fools. The CFDT (in short, Christian Democrat tradition) was already on board as the most reform inclined union (they're big on "more democracy inside companies"). Macron sort of snobbed them and mollified the leader of FO by having the most secret meetings with him. As a result, only the communist CGT is calling for protests. A memo written by all 3 major unions has leaked with all sorts of "red lines" they agreed upon and most of them have been crossed. The leader of FO had a rough meeting with his council and the CFDT accepted very watered down baby steps for "work democracy" (smoothed a bit by he fact they're apparently the biggest union in the private sector since last week). Macron even reintroduced some of the most controversial bits of the reform attempted last year, like having a ceiling to the indemnity a labor court can award an employee over his firing. The truth sadly is that there's a lot of weariness and people are tired of protesting every 6 months. But people are pissed too and the unions are never seemed so useless and out of touch as of now.
- By the way, it's not a reform (because our wise president stated that France cannot be reformed) but a "transformation" or a "revolution" according to the majority.
- So 10 days ago the big discussion was whether the 12 September protest (jointly managed by the CGT and Mélenchon's party of la France Insoumise) was a flop or a hit. It drew a similar crowd to 2016 protest and considering only one major union (against 3) are calling for it this time around, it was well above average.
Alas, as you can guess, opposition is a mess : CGT can't suffer Mélenchon anymore, Communists can't suffer Mélenchon anymore (he made a big show of his absence at the Fête of the Humanité, the communist yearly festival -top billing Iggy Pop-, the 1st Secretary had a few choice words for that who created a furor) so Mélenchon is having
his solo protest tomorrow. Former Socialist candidate for the Presidency Benoit Hamon (now an independent) still can suffer Mélenchon and will be there Saturday. Much to the delight of Mélenchon that couldn't help himself, however, to remind that if Hamon had forfeited his bid, Mélenchon would have been Président de la République
.
- The Socialist party is selling its headquarter building in the Solférino street (which they bought in 1981), close to the National Assembly, to save their cash flow. They should move into Paris suburbs.
- Right wing LR is a mess, with dissident conventions all over the place. It seems the next party head will be Laurent Wauquiez, yet another living dead "Sarkoboy" so expect more explicit dogwhistles to the far right soon.
- Florian Philippot just left the far right Front National. I probably talked about him quickly before but in short : he's young (born 1981), his parents worked for publcic schools, he graduated from some of the best schools (ENA, HEC, Dauphine) directly into the nobility of career public servants, he drifted from supporting former Socialist / Left independent "sovereignist" Chevénement (and even, according to wiki, attending to Mélenchon's meeting in Paris in 2005) to joining the far right party and Marine Le Pen's inner circle in 2011. He was a prominent figure of the "FN cleaned of its black legend" but with the thorough discredit suffered by Marine Le Pen in the campaign (people, including her supporters, are still speaking to this day of her horrible performance at the debate), she is returning to appeal openly to her party's base of racists she pretended not to see.
Philippot bailed with a handful of office holders and a few others to fund hiw own micro-party. The FN survived bigger splits in the past and might well be in a strong position come the next major national election but they're headed for a couple of rough years.
TLDR : Macron is a megalomaniac, Mélenchon is a dick, Socialists are clinically dead, the conservatives and far right are experiencing molecular division.
