Saturday 25 May 2019

Euro elections tomorrow

It may be your last chance to vote in French elections, as "foreigners" are not allowed a vote (for readers with French citizenship nothing changes). Our current rights stem from the UKs status as a member of the EU. With no deal those rights will no longer exist. So please, whoever, make a deal!

But who to vote for? If you believe in omens a strange episode arose yesterday. The various manifestos arrived in the post on Friday morning and after perusing as many as there were (fewer than the 34 lists which have declared), I put them back on the coffee table. A sudden gust of wind scattered them about the room and even onto the stairs. As I picked them up I noticed a strange phenomenon; the sequence in which I picked them up corresponded closely to a possible result. Most of the leaflets had remained on the table, so I considered that as the base.`
As I gathered up away from the base the first I lifted was "La France Insoumise" a leftish party under Jean-Luc Melenchon' ;then a centre right grouped under Les Republican, Sarkozy's old party; then Les Europeens, a centre party dedicated to building up the EU's strength ahead of the might of America and China; the "Envie de Europe" a leftish party based on groups from the old PS puts forward many of the same points (adding Russia to the enemies). Then the green party, or EELV wanting to make climate change and green issues paramount.
The last two were overlapping on the staircase. Take this how you will: furthest away, therefore in pole position En Marche, the party of Macron then almost covering it the Rassemblement National - formerly FN. As with most of the lists it is not headed by party leader, Marine le Pen.
Sadly the Esperanto party remained resolutely on the table with many other parties more or less well known

Finally another phenomenon occurred as a second gust swept through, gathered them all up, tore them in two and dumped them in the poubelle.