Ok, fine, but how many French citizens are affected by their government's foreign policy stance regarding Israel? How many of them even care about this issue?

Sorry if I'm sounding more aggressive and hostile than it's intended, I'm genuinely asking this in good faith: can you name me relevant policy differences between Macron and Sarkozy? (Not rhetorical differences, but actual policies.)

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on May 26 2019 01:00pm

It goes far beyond a simple program, it's structural: a large part of macron voters are from old classic socialist party -ps- and a well know, old, classic centrist party -modem-

I know that his voters are different from Sarkozy's.
But my question was if the policy those voters got out of voting for Macron does actually differ from what they would have gotten out of another Sarkozy term.

i would counter that voting directly at the ballot box, when you have so many different (up to three i think) local election, plus european parliament elections, that all require some contemplation and attention (if you don't just brainlessly vote for one party), unfairly favours already established parties and candidates on the top of their respective party lists - to a much larger degree than absentee votes could ever violate our voting principles.
i get the main reasoning for his criticism and wouldn't even object to a stricter timetable for absentee votes (maybe restrict it to one week before the election), but i think that even in its current form, the benefits (higher turnout / less time consuming for the voter / favouring 'informed' over 'rushed' votes...) outweigh the drawbacks - and i'm saying that even though i'm fully aware that in this specific case it might have saved the right wing parties from some damage after the strache scandal.

Agreed. When it comes to national or european elections, most voters know exactly what each party stands for, who their leading candidates are, and so on. But in regional and municipal elections, it is good to take some time to look up certain candidates, who they are, which wing of their party they belong to and so on.

I would maybe limit absentee ballot voting to 16 days.

fair enough, i will say that i was pretty confused when i got the ballot paper today

it was so large
i dont even know who the small parties at the bottom were and yes, i would agree that this is a disadvantage for them

in the end somebody has to be on the top, but maybe we should list the parties with the lowest amount of votes from the last election and the new ones before the rest

i think the principle of voting at the box has the idea in mind that you have informed yourself and made a decision before
restriction of the timetable is a good idea

Ohhh i understand now lol

Our best friends

Yep yep, I know.

One thing our European friends should keep in mind when they see this result is that our entire mainstream media has a ridiculous pro-Greens bias. Their topics are constantly pushed, their candidates and leaders are constantly invited to political talk shows and interviews on TV and in newspapers, all while they currently are only the 6th-largest party in the German parliament. Their policies are presented in favorable terms, the weaknesses and snags of their agenda are either ignored or downplayed.

And the Greens are campaigning very well since their new leadership duo took over in 2017. They are also benefitting a lot from voters being fed up with the conservative CDU and the social democrats (SPD), which have been governing the country in a grand coalition for the last 6 six years, and 10 out of the last 14.


And another thing to keep in mind is that our social democrats are currently disintegrating in slow-motion, they lost 11% since the last EP election, while the Greens (which historically have been their ally and "natural" coalition partner) gained 10%. The leftists (Die Linke) also lost sligthly, so it's not like Germany has seen a huge move to the left in this EP election.

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The macro trends when looking at the developments of the last 5 years are relatively easy: the CDU has lost roughly 10 percentage points, mostly to the populist AfD and the Greens. The SPD has likewise lost 12 percentage, but coming from a lower base, so that their losses are even more dramatic than those of the CDU. The voters they lost mostly split between the Greens and the AfD. The AfD has established itself in the German political spectrum at 10-12%, but their ascent seems to have stopped for now. The Greens are the flavor of the month party and have gained roughly 10%, mostly by picking up the remains from the stumbling CDU and SPD. They are now the undisputed leading force among the left-of-center/progressive parties. The Leftist party is stable but stagnating on a low level.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on May 26 2019 03:14pm

after all that talk there was about that youtuber's video about the cdu (but also spd, fdp, and afd), don't you think that the support for our green party might be more than just frustration with the established parties and a flavour of the month, but rather an acknowledgement that their main issue is the one that people realise is the single most important challenge that all of us face in the foreseeable future?

the kind of dismissive attitude might be what has the young generations so frustrated, fair enough - but while such frustrations in the past had lead to non-voters, trends clearly suggest that the younger generations in particular make a very conscious choice supporting the green party, at least here in germany...

This post was edited by fender on May 26 2019 03:41pm

Everywhere the old parties are disintegrating, which is supposed to be a good thing if it doesn't happen too quickly...
What is worrying me the most is when it splits in 2 extremes, but it's probably temporary: Maybe At some point you will get a real new big moderated party.