The Weekly Dispatch - 24 October 2021
The Weekly Dispatch - 24 October 2021
Is a Left Bloc still possible? Does Michel Barnier have a chance at leadership? Is Eric Zemmour as dangerous as he seems? and which hot-topic policy has returned to the public arena?
The Weekly Dispatch is your weekly summary of the major events taking place in French politics, published on Sundays in order to give you the perfect way to catch up with French news and events.
Left Bloc going bust?
Things are not looking good for the French left, with their own supporters beginning to lose belief in their capabilities to unite to fight the upcoming Presidential Election.
With lackluster polling across the board showing that any candidate would struggle to come out on top in the first round of voting, it’s assumed by many of us that the only way for a left-wing candidate to become president would be for several candidates and parties to unite behind one candidate.
Unfortunately, it seems that left-wing voters don’t believe that this is possible. 64% of the left-wing electorate don’t believe that this is possible, with 72% of the wider French electoral believing that the bloc is not possible due to the various different beliefs of the parties. However , two thirds of the left-wing electorate would want this to happen.
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Barnier picking up steam
Initially written off as a troubled candidate, particularly as he appeared to abandon his pro-European credentials and was employing an electoral strategy aimed at placating portions of the Les Républicains electorate that had a more ambivalent feeling towards the EU, Michel Barnier has since become a viable candidate to lead his party.
With the December 1-4th “Congrés Pour La France” fast approaching, Barnier has been putting his team to work on rallying the votes he needs from elected officals from at least 30 departments, whilst also working hard to convince the party membership of his credentials.
And so far, it seems to be working.
Being one of the three “main candidates”. alongside Xavier Bertrand and Valérie Pécresse, he has been putting a lot of weight on his loyalty and dedication to the party, compared to the other two major candidates who both abandoned the party in 2017 and 2019 respectively before recently re-joining.
This has not gone unnoticed either, with the 101 presidents of the federation of Les Républicains having been polled by FranceInfo regarding who they were supporting, and with 28 supporting Barnier to Bertrand’s 18 and Pécresse’s 13 (with 33 refusing to comment).
L’Opinion also highlighted a recent consultation from mid-September by former candidate to the presidency of Les Républicains, Julien Aubert, where 7,775 party members were asked about their preference and where Michel Barnier came out on top. Whether this is indicative of what the 93,000 strong membership thinks is anyone’s guess, but I don’t think we can count Barnier out of the running yet.
Zemmour: The Ascendant Radical?
Recently filmed pointing a high-powered sniper rifle at journalists in Paris this week, Eric Zemmour has continued his ascendant rise in the polls despite his currently non-existent candidacy in the upcoming presidential election.
This week, I took a look at who Zemmour is, what he wants, and what his actions could mean for Emmanuel Macron and other candidates.
Retirement returns to the agenda
Pension reform is back on the agenda, just in time for the upcoming elections.
Having recently been put on the back burner by President Emmanuel Macron due to the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, La République en Marche Executive Officer Stanislas Guerini was recently defending the reform and the need to reform a “pension system that is unbalanced and which creates a deficit”.
The reform includes several changes, including extensions to the contribution period, an increase in the contributions made, as well as an increase in the legal age required for French citizens to retire.
With the reforms currently being incredibly difficult to implement due to our proximity to the 2022 Election, the likelihood is that this will feature as part of Emmanuel Macron’s next quinquennat, and will be a point of debate in the lead up to the first round vote next April.