|
Post by kerouac2 on May 26, 2019 12:45:55 GMT
At noon, they said participation in France was 4 points higher than at the same time in the last European election. But will that hold true until the end of the day?
|
|
|
Post by whatagain on May 26, 2019 12:59:18 GMT
I have never heard of anybody getting a fine fir not voting - INC myself - but we are liable to one if authorities choose to pursue.
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on May 26, 2019 13:00:21 GMT
I heard on the radio today that although voting is mandatory in Belgium, there are no consequences or fines if you don't vote. I think that countries do this the wrong way around. If every voter received a gift voucher for say, 3 euros, I'm sure that participation would increase. (5 euros would be too much.)
|
|
|
Post by lagatta on May 26, 2019 13:33:56 GMT
People were queuing at the French consulate here. A long while back, the FN had a strong vote here (among those damned IMMIGRANTS) but now it is more Macron and the left. The composition of French migration here has greatly changed.
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on May 26, 2019 14:09:41 GMT
Was the vote yesterday in the French consulates? I know that the French overseas departments and territories voted yesterday. Of course very few people voted, because when you live in the West Indies or the Indian Ocean, "European elections" just does not compute.
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on May 26, 2019 14:12:05 GMT
I just read that the Green Party apparently got 23% of the vote in Ireland.
|
|
|
Post by bjd on May 26, 2019 15:22:12 GMT
People were queuing at the French consulate here. A long while back, the FN had a strong vote here (among those damned IMMIGRANTS) but now it is more Macron and the left. The composition of French migration here has greatly changed. I remember in the 2017 presidential election, Macron got a huge majority among the French voters in Quebec.
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on May 26, 2019 16:14:44 GMT
Looks like participation in France will be above 50% this time. Last time it was 42%. Good news? Or bad? We'll find out in less than two hours.
I saw that participation was up in quite a few countries. My guess would be that it is thanks to Brexit, which made people understand that Europe is more important than they thought.
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on May 26, 2019 16:46:39 GMT
Hmmm, it looks like the Greens are doing very well in Germany also. The exit polls are saying 34.5%.
Are we seeing a sea change in Europe tonight?
|
|
|
Post by lagatta on May 26, 2019 18:33:21 GMT
Macron will still get a majority, but I think less than last time. Some people, not Gilets jaunes, are quite disenchanted with him. Before Macron, the Socialist Party came first, but they are toast for the time being, though I rather liked Hamon. In any case, it isn't the extreme right. There are Yellow Vests in Canada, but those are very far right and anti-immigrant (no, I'm not implying that people who question immigration levels, screening etc are anti-immigrant). Nobody wants to import gangsters or violent fundamentalist extremists.
By the way, the worst terrorist act ever initiated on Canadian soil was not by Islamists, but by extremist Sikhs: the Air India bombing. That was also worse in terms of casualties than the total of FLQ attacks.
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on May 26, 2019 18:42:56 GMT
Update! Update!
I need this thread to know what is happening, as European politics is terra icognita to me. I see that Kerouac said we'd know more in two hours. Well?
|
|
|
Post by lagatta on May 26, 2019 19:05:11 GMT
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on May 26, 2019 19:06:30 GMT
Le Pen came in first in France again, just like last time. While this is always disappointing, I marvel at how she can make it sound like a triumph to just be one percentage point ahead of Macron who has "suffered a crushing defeat." One point makes all the difference, it seems.
|
|
|
Post by lagatta on May 26, 2019 20:08:37 GMT
That is NOT a crushing defeat.
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on May 26, 2019 20:35:06 GMT
And even less so for a party that did not even exist during the last European elections.
As for Le Pen, she seems to have forgotten that in 2014 her party got 24.86% of the vote. Tonight they are saying that she scored 23.60% (not the final result yet), so she is going down in strength.
|
|
|
Post by bjd on May 27, 2019 6:03:58 GMT
I just had a look at the final totals and the FN (far-right) got less than one percent more than Macron's grouping. But overall the map of France looks more FN. However, in the area I live and where we lived before are among the few that are not right-wing majority areas. Neither is Kerouac's Paris.
The ecologists indeed got over 13% of the vote. The gilets jaunes got peanuts, as they deserved. Where we live, the animal party got more than a far-right dissident, Philipot.
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on May 27, 2019 10:35:34 GMT
I think Le Pen came in 5th or 6th in several arrondissements in Paris.
16 arrondissements put the Macron list on top while 4 put the Greens on top (10, 18,19,20). Paris is very different from most of France!
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on May 27, 2019 15:31:33 GMT
I see that the Austrian government was just overthrown in a no-confidence vote by parliament, even though the chancellor's party came in first in the European election.
Since it is a far right government, it is perfectly fine with me although I don't really understand the point since a new election was already set for September after the even more extreme right crisis. Who are they going to dig up for the interim caretaker government?
|
|
|
Post by patricklondon on May 28, 2019 7:01:45 GMT
Probably inspired by Whatagain's finger injuries, I cut a fingertip this morning for the first time in many years, and as I was voting I saw that there was a bit of blood on the envelope, which would invalidate my vote. So I asked for a new envelope, but this is not a simple matter. Every envelope is carefully counted, so I had to go through the bureau supervisor. Just as I was closing the new envelope with my ballot in it, I saw there was also a tiny trace of blood on my ballot, but I didn't want to pass for a complete idiot and start over, so I just hope that they won't notice it. But probably my vote will be invalidated anyway. Do they really bother about things like that? The only thing that matters here is whether the voter's intention is clear and whether they've put anything on the paper to identify themselves. There shouldn't be other marks on the paper, but I believe a vote has been counted if, outside the box, there are rude remarks about other candidates, and the like. Official examples of votes allowed and rejectedMy blog | My photos | My video clips | My Librivox recordings"too literate to be spam"
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on May 28, 2019 7:39:48 GMT
Who knows? I know that anything that can identify the voter is disallowed. Probably the envelope is more important than the ballot, though.
|
|
|
Post by bjd on May 28, 2019 8:53:17 GMT
They can only track you down if they do a DNA analysis on the blood stain on the envelope. I guess they may have better things to do.
|
|
|
Post by lagatta on May 28, 2019 11:18:02 GMT
The animalist party more than doubled their vote. I could certainly see voting for them as a protest vote; and while I'm not remotely a vegan, I do care a lot about the treatment of non-human animals. Interesting that the gilets jaunes movement had so little influence on the vote. Here, the student movement definitely influenced the vote in 2012, but there was very little violence during that movement (the usual black-block troublemakers, but the movement made it clear that their presence was not welcome).
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on May 28, 2019 19:03:17 GMT
It's fascinating how things change as the years go by. I checked with my two closest friends on how we voted this time. In the past, all three of us voted for the Trotskyist party, basically as a protest vote. In the last presidential election, I went for Macron while they went for Mélenchon (more radical left). It should be noted that I am 14 years older than both of them. And so this time, I voted for Macron again, although I really wanted to vote for the Socialists. One of my friends voted for the Socialists, who did well enough to gain representation in the European parliament, so I am a bit sorry that I didn't do it. The other friend voted for the Greens, who did twice as well.
I am happy that all three of our choices will be represented in the EU parliament, so there will be no acrimony whenever we get together next time.
|
|
|
Post by bjd on May 29, 2019 6:33:30 GMT
I almost voted for Macron, to keep a vote in the middle and to weigh against the right, but at the last moment I voted for the Greens. I think it's important for ecological issues to be decided on a Europe-wide basis.
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on May 29, 2019 10:26:09 GMT
I see that various countries are continuing to clean house. Liviu Dragnea, the leader of the Social Democratic Party of Romania has been put in prison for a three and a half year sentence for embezzlement of public funds. He was president of the parliament and was hoping to become prime minister or even president in a few years.
|
|
|
Post by lagatta on May 29, 2019 11:46:32 GMT
Good. While I wish Italy would do the same, that might benefit the fascists. As for Austria, it is another country where the main city votes very diffrently from the provinces.
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on May 29, 2019 17:05:09 GMT
|
|
|
Post by mossie on May 29, 2019 18:52:34 GMT
That is just shitstirring by Euro creeps determined to keep us in the corrupt system.
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on May 29, 2019 19:19:46 GMT
Excellent. Can you provide a link to the correct information?
|
|
|
Post by whatagain on May 30, 2019 11:32:15 GMT
That is why I like you Mossie - you have polished speeches that are like mine very mild. 😇
|
|