“Old” politics to dominate TV and radio airtime in French general election campaign

It’s election time - again - in France.

Just a few weeks after the two rounds to choose the country’s president (done and dusted - Emmanuel Macron, in case you weren’t paying attention), the French totter off to the polls again.

Not once, but twice (very French) in the space of eight days…June 11 and (if there’s no 50 per cent plus majority in a constituency) June 18.

This time around it’ll be to elect a new lower chamber, the Assemblée nationale (national assembly), with Macron’s (rebranded party) La République en marche (LREM) favourites, among the pollsters, to assure him and his newly-appointed government a majority.

Assemblée nationale (screenshot)

But with campaigning for the 577 seats underway, there’s something of an anomaly in the allocation of time for (don’t yawn) party political broadcasts.

The Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel, or CSA, is the body that regulates TV and radio in France and gets to decide how much airtime each particular party is allowed.

And that decision (made even more complicated in this explanation…in French) is based primarily on the size of each party or group’s representation in the current national assembly.

So, even though the second round of the presidential election was fought out between Macron and the far right Front National’s (FN) candidate, Marine Le Pen, it’s the two main parties in the “old” parliament who stand to gain most time for their campaign clips.

The Socialist party (at around six per cent in the polls) will have a full two-hours worth of airtime.

Meanwhile Les Républicans (19 per cent in the latest surveys) one hour and 44 minutes. That’ll be bolstered somewhat by their centre-right “partners”  Union des démocrates et indépendants (Union of Democrats and Independents, UDI) 22 minutes.

Politics as usual then with, if you so choose to interpret the opinion polls, most of the electorate more concerned to hear what those parties that won’t have very much airtime have to say.

Just look at the figures…or rather the disparity.

The centrist LREM - leading the polls with 32 per cent will get 12 minutes.

The far right FN - at around 19 per cent in the polls will also get 12 minutes.

And the far left La France insoumise - currently at 15 per cent…12 minutes.

And if the French were to vote in parliamentary elections today...?

Warning - this piece contains so many numbers, it could serious "do your head in"

A polls has been published in France today which, in and of itself, means very little because it's based on a false premise.

But (and you knew there would be one) it's enough to give the current government, the Socialist party (PS) and in fact the whole of the political Left, the heebie-jeebies.

If (conditional) there were a parliamentary election in France today (and the next one isn't due until June 2017) the Left, and in particular the PS, would suffer a humiliating (to say the least) defeat.

All right, so the poll appears in Le Figaro, a national daily not exactly known for it's love of the PS and whose chairman happens to be Serge Dassault, a member of the opposition centre-right Union pour un mouvement populaire (Union for a popular movement, UMP) and a member of the Senate since 2004.

And was it was carried out by l'Institut CSA (conseil, sondage et analyse) part of the Bolloré group whose president and Chief executive officer, Vincent Bolloré, just happens to be a friend of the newly-elected leader the UMP - Nicolas Sarkozy.

But don't start reading too much into those "facts". They're just an aside as, after all, a poll is just a poll - isn't it?

It has to be both objective and representative.

So what does the Le Figaro's poll "indicate" - bearing in mind that the imaginary election is not going to happen today.

Well...

Using the current two-round majority system, the centre-right Union pour un mouvement populaire (Union for a popular movement, UMP) and the centrist Union des démocrates et indépendants (Union of democrats and independents, UDI) would win between 485 and 505 of the 577 seats in the national assembly.

"A level never obtained by the centre-right" points out Le Figaro which published the poll. "Better even than the 1993 parliamentary election results (when the two centre-right/centrist parties of the time, the Rassemblement pour la République and the Union pour la démocratie française, won 257 and 215 seats respectively)."

The far-right Front National, FN (currently with just two members of parliament) would see it numbers increase to anything from 14 to 24 seats.

And the Left - including the Socialist party, the Greens and the Front de Gauche?

Well they would have to be satisfied with between 56 and 66 seats.

The make up of the national assembly if an election were held today (screenshot "La Nouvelle Édition" - Canal +)

And the "debacle" for the PS would hardly be avoided (although it would be less humiliating) if a system of proportional representation were used.

UMP and UDI - between 208 and 248 seats.
The Left - (PS, Greens and Front de Gauche) - between 180 and 220 (hardly respectable...but)
FN - between 138 and 159 seats.

Draw your own conclusions as to how to interpret the figures and even the value of the (yet another) poll.

But a clearer picture will emerge next year as...guess what.

There will be elections...departmental on March 22 and 29 and regional...at some later date once the territorial reform (the proposal to reduce of the number of regions from 22 to 13 in metropolitan France) has finally been signed, sealed and delivered.

Friday's French music break - Indochine, "College boy"

This week's Friday's French music break has been chosen not so much for the quality of the song - you can be the judge of what you think about that - but more for the controversy surrounding the accompanying video.

It's "College boy" the latest release from one of France's most successful rock bands, "Indochine".

In essence, the song is about the bullying experienced by a schoolboy realising that to be accepted by his peer group will be an uphill struggle, to say the least.

But the video, filmed in black and white and shot by young Canadian director, Xavier Nolan, deliberately uses violence and relies on certain clichés to get its message across.

And therein lies the heart of the controversy.

(screenshot from "College boy" video)

Writing in Nouvel Observateur, François Jost describes what happens in the video.

"The victim of bullying is a boy coming to terms with his sexuality," he writes.

"He becomes the scapegoat, is tortured by some of his classmates, spat and urinated on while others 'watch with their eyes bound'," continues Jost.

"Finally he's crucified: two bullets through the body."

While Jost insists the video is no worse (and no better) than some US films which portray violence for its own sake and that it in fact depicts to an extent a reality which exists (he gives the example of the behaviour by some in France during the recent demonstrations against same-sex marriage), others have been more critical.

"The video is simple 'trash'," says editor-in-chief for culture at Le Figaro, François Aubel.

"From the paper balls thrown at the boy by his classmates through a whole series of images until his death...even though Indochine insist they're not looking to create a scandal, the whole thing smacks of being a marketing ploy," he added, pointing out that the group will embark on a sell-out tour in the Autumn and will also play Stade de France (one of the few French acts capable of filling it) next year.

Former education minister, Luc Chatel, is none too impressed either.

"Imagine a crucifixion, imagine a murder filmed at the heart of a school. That's not acceptable," he said on national radio when asked about his reaction to the video.

"I'm not certain that the extreme violence of some of the images is the appropriate response to the issue of bullying and harassment," he added.

The Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (CSA), the regulatory body for the media in France, is still determining whether the video is suitable for broadcast on either television or on the Net in this country, so for the moment the full version is unavailable, unless you happen to live in Canada, where it was shot.



On Le Figaro's site though you can see so-called "soft" edited portions of the video - if you really feel so inclined.

Even those images don't make easy viewing.

Maybe though, the last word on the video should be left to the group's front man, Nicola Sirkis.

"We're not looking to be censored or to create a scandal," he says.


"We just wanted to address a problem that exists.  When it's possible for a person to buy weapons on the Internet and then turn them against innocent people, it's time for some urgent and serious political thinking."

French presidential election 2012 - too many opinion polls - says survey

Now there's a headline that's bound to shock.

How could anyone imagine for one moment that the French would feel that way about opinion polls?

After all in the run-up to the first round in this year's presidential elections there were only 375 according to the Commission des sondages, the regulatory body which, as its name suggests, oversees opinion polls.

One of many, many opinion polls (screenshot BFM TV)

That figure is a record (surprise, surprise) far outstripping the total number in both rounds during recent presidential elections; 293 in 2007, 193 in 2002 and 111 in 1981.

And the commission sure has its work cut out with newspapers, television and radio constantly turning to the likes of BVA, CSA, Harris, Ifop, Ipsos, Opinion Way and TNS-sofres to question French voting intentions.

In a world that's far from being perfect those conducting opinion polls seem to be...well even less perfect.

Oh yes they might be congratulating themselves at the moment on getting it "almost right" but several of them underestimated by a couple of percentage points the support for the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen and others overestimated for the far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

The numbers aren't so dramatic according to pollsters who always give themselves that all so important "margin of error" but that doesn't stop the French from being fed up with the frequency of published polls and the perceived impact they have on voting intentions.

That's according to - of all things of course - a poll.

You just can't get away from them can you?

Even though talking to anyone on the street in France would probably give you much the same result, that would only be anecdotal of course and lacking the "objectivity" of the poll conducted by Ifop.

Anyway, according to this, in a manner of speaking, "poll of polls" 63 per cent (of those questioned) think the media publish too many of them and 60 per cent believe they have an influence on the way people vote.

But here's the thing.

By and large those questioned only consider polls can influence the way other people vote; only 15 per cent say their choice can be swayed.

As far as Frédéric Dabi, the general deputy director of Ifop is concerned, that's proof that polls have a value without distorting the outcome.

(you might need to read the following quote a few times because it seems like a classic case of doublespeak)

"Even if that percentage (believing polls can influence the way people vote) isn't negligible, the fact that the overwhelming majority believes that the surveys do not affect their vote undermines the whole discussion about the influence of polls," he says.

"It's the sort of debate that occurs every time a party or a candidate is in trouble."

Right. Understood.

So 375 opinion polls which reflect (more or less) voting intentions without having an impact on the outcome in the first round and more - many more - to follow in the second.

Whoopee!

Red Bull cartoon commercial is too sexy for French TV

Well who would have thought it?

The French being "prudish" about nudity and sex on TV - at least when it comes to commercials.

The latest offering from the makers of the energy drink Red Bull is not being allowed to air on French telly even though there has been self-censorship to cover the appendages that might cause offence to those of a sensitive disposition.

The commercial, with the theme "Plage Nudiste" (or nudist beach) features two cartoon characters in the altogether.

Plage nudiste, (screenshot from Red Bull commercial)

A young man politely asks a woman lounging in a deck chair if he may spread his towel next to her, and she gives him the go-ahead, lowering her sunglasses to get a better look.

As she offers him a Red Bull, which she says, "stimulates the spirit and the body," the man becomes...well sexually excited...before rushing off embarrassed.

And she's left laughing, remarking that "unfortunately Red Bull also gives you wings", the slogan used in all publicity for the energy drink.

Harmless stuff you might have thought especially in a country where real-life floppy bits and dangly pieces haven't exactly been hidden from viewers - young and old - during the past 10 years of tasteful reality TV.

While the television watchdog Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel, CSA might find the commercial unsuitable for the small screen, comments to the site of radio host Jean-Marc Morandini seem, by and large, to find it "amusing'" and "far from shocking".

What do you think?



Red Bull only became available in France three years ago.

The country slapped a ban on the sale of the drink back in 1996 because of concerns about the one of its key ingredients, taurine, which it feared could cause a health risk.

It wasn't until 2008 after pressure from the European Commission that France lifted the ban and allowed Red Bull to appear in shops for the first time - in its original recipe.

Plage Nudiste won't be aired on television but it will reportedly be shown in cinemas from February 9.

Go figure!