“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.

UDI leader Jean-Christophe Lagarde proves French politics is still a family affair

Some establishment French politicians just don’t get it do they?

With the new president, Emmanuel Macron freshly installed in the Elysée palace and his party,  La republique en marche promising a new kind of politics as it aims for a presidential majority in the upcoming French legislative elections, “morality” is pretty much top of the agenda.

So with that in mind, what does a leading figure from one of the country’s other parties do?

Here’s a clue. He (the name will be provided in a moment proves that the time-honoured tradition of political nepotism is alive and kicking and will undoubtedly  be a hard nut to crack (heavy on the clichés here) as it’s so ingrained with the political establishment.

No the talk isn’t of the Le Pen dynasty from the far right Front National - they’re well beyond redemption.

Nor is it of the Fillons, François and Penelope (and children), who successfully contrived to lose the rightwing Les Républicains a spot in the second round of the presidential elections with their seemingly never-ending stories of overpaid and underworked “family employment” (inverted commas because the case is now before the courts).

This time around it involves the leader of the centre-right Union des démocrates et indépendants (UDI) Jean-Christophe Lagarde.

Jean-Christophe Lagarde (screenshot BFM TV)

The 49-year-old is running again in June’s parliamentary elections and, as new rules kick in preventing politicians from simultaneously holding office at different levels (one of those other more-than-warped traditions of French political life), Lagarde has quite “magnanimously” offered to step down as mayor of Drancy (a town in the northeastern suburbs of Paris) and hand over power to the sixth in line among his deputies.

Yes, you read correctly, the sixth in line.

An odd choice?

Apparently not, Lagarde assured the popular daily, “Le Parisien”. The recommendation came collectively from his deputies as the “first in line didn’t want to succeed him” and numbers two to five “didn’t have the time”.

So “number six” it is then, Lagarde’s former parliamentary assistant (until 2014) and current regional councillor, Aude…Lagarde…wife of!

Bye bye Bruno - French interior minister quits amid “fake jobs” scandal

Well, well. Who would have believed it?

French politics delivers yet another dose of déjà-vu.

After little more than just over three months since taking office, France’s interior minister, Bruno Le Roux, has resigned.

Bruno Le Roux (screenshot)

And the reason? Employing family members as parliamentary assistants.

And not just any old family members - in fact far from being “old”. Rather his two daughters when they were still teenagers and at school, and later as university students.

“Of course, I employed my daughters during the summer or school holidays,” Le Roux admitted to Yann Barthès’ daily TV satirical programme on TMC “Quotidien” which broke the story on Monday.

“But never permanently.”

It was a defence he repeated when announcing his resignation on Tuesday.

Oh well, that’s all right then. Temporary contracts for a total of around €55,000. Not bad “pocket money”.

Does Le Roux’s story sound familiar?

French politicians taking advantage of a system which allows them to employ family members at the expense of the tax payer.

Um - think François Fillon and “Penelope gate”; the former prime minister and current presidential candidate for the rightwing Les Républicains, who apparently “employed” his wife, Penelope and children over a number of years for the modest sum of €800,000.

The inverted commas are required because Fillon is currently under investigation for “possible abuse of public funds” or in other words “employing his wife (and children) for potentially non-existent work”.

“Conspiracy”, “witch hunt” and “political assassination” are the terms that have been used by Fillon and his supporters over the timing of the revelations and the speed with which prosecutors have proceeded with their investigations.

But no such claims yet from Le Roux - who resigned within a day of the allegations being made public.

There again, he didn’t have much choice. As minister of the interior he would have been in the indefensible position of potentially having access to information relevant to the inquiry.

The problem in both cases is that neither man sees himself as having done anything illegal because employing family members as parliamentary assistants is…well, not illegal.

But what about the morality?

Oh yes...it's politics. How silly to think otherwise.