President Emmanuel Macron to end France's state of emergency later this year - Polidicks

[quote]French President Emmanuel Macron has promised to lift the country's state of emergency, cut the size of the national parliament and reinvigorate the European Union as part of a wide-ranging speech that set out his vision for the future of France. Speaking in the opulent setting of the Palace of Versailles outside Paris, Macron told newly-elected members of the Assembly and Senate that France that he wanted to "re-establish the freedoms of the French people."[/quote] [url]http://edition.cnn.com/2017/07/03/europe/macron-versailles-speech/index.html[/url]

Well I mean when you put the state of emergency into the actual law of course you can look good when you "end it".

It's been more or less a couple years, right ?

[QUOTE=Nabile13;52429746]It's been more or less a couple years, right ?[/QUOTE] Since the November 2015 attacks, yes.

[quote] cut the size of the national parliament [/quote] What? That seems like a much bigger deal. Someone French, please explain.

[QUOTE=Crazy Ivan;52430177]What? That seems like a much bigger deal. Someone French, please explain.[/QUOTE] Straight from the horse's mouth. I don't think anyone knows how he intends to do that. All we get as an explanation is an excerpt from the speech itself in 'inspiring quote' format for everyone to fawn over. Bleh.

[QUOTE=Crazy Ivan;52430177]What? That seems like a much bigger deal. Someone French, please explain.[/QUOTE] Not french but the national assembly will go down from 577 members to 385, and the senate 348 to 232. Along with it he said something about making it more "proportional." That's the detail that seems to me like it'll make or break this as being "good" or not. Otherwise it's a mixed bag. Fewer MPs can mean more accountability and a more efficient house. But larger districts, under the French election system, can make the country more susceptible to gerrymandering.

[QUOTE=thelurker1234;52431383]Not french but the national assembly will go down from 577 members to 385, and the senate 348 to 232. Along with it he said something about making it more "proportional." That's the detail that seems to me like it'll make or break this as being "good" or not. Otherwise it's a mixed bag. Fewer MPs can mean more accountability and a more efficient house. But larger districts, under the French election system, can make the country more susceptible to gerrymandering.[/QUOTE] The French election system doesn't exactly allow for gerrymandering. And the whole country has been under the process of cutting down the number of regions and departments by fusing a bunch of them under wider areas since that made administration a lot easier down the line.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;52433071]The French election system doesn't exactly allow for gerrymandering. And the whole country has been under the process of cutting down the number of regions and departments by fusing a bunch of them under wider areas since that made administration a lot easier down the line.[/QUOTE] Why doesn't it? For the MPs I thought it was done with that 2 round system, which doesn't really eliminate the possibility of gerrymandering. Unless there's some other way that French districts get drawn that deal with it at least.

[QUOTE=thelurker1234;52431383]Not french but the national assembly will go down from 577 members to 385, and the senate 348 to 232. Along with it he said something about making it more "proportional." That's the detail that seems to me like it'll make or break this as being "good" or not. Otherwise it's a mixed bag. Fewer MPs can mean more accountability and a more efficient house. But larger districts, under the French election system, can make the country more susceptible to gerrymandering.[/QUOTE] I think the point of adding a "dose" of proportionality is that the associated candidates aren't going to compete in specific districts, rather the proportion of seats each party is given will depend on the overall votes. [editline]5th July 2017[/editline] Personally I don't really see the point of a half-proportional system. Just go the whole way, local representation is not the point of the assembly anyway, otherwise candidates wouldn't be allowed to compete in districts they do not reside in.

[QUOTE=thelurker1234;52434144]Why doesn't it? For the MPs I thought it was done with that 2 round system, which doesn't really eliminate the possibility of gerrymandering. Unless there's some other way that French districts get drawn that deal with it at least.[/QUOTE] Well, a few things really. - Redrawing districts (or as we call them, circumscriptions) is rare and not systematic. Under the current republic it's happened only twice thus far. - There are safeguards to prevent ultra-specific drawing that would clearly discriminate voters and regroup them (can't draw inside of a canton that has less than 40,000 inhabitants, for instance) - Political parties in France evolve and shift constantly, making deliberate gerrymandering nigh impossible.