Posts Tagged "Xavier Garcia"

Estrosi and the price of a stamp

It is a cruel coincidence that on the same day I have to spend 45 euros on “fiscal stamps” for official documents and suchlike (hence lack of blogging), Mayor of Nice Christian Estrosi gets into trouble for not knowing the price of a normal stamp. Rather, he gets in trouble for not knowing when to say he doesn’t know the price of a stamp.

See the video here:

A classic weasel gaffe. “Um, well it depends on the size and weight of the letter.” etc. etc.

The journalist played a bit of a cruel trick. Estrosi guessed 52 cents, which is pretty close to the answer of 56 cents, but the interviewer called the bluff and asked “Really? 52 cents, are you sure?”

It is obvious what the response to this trick question should have been. “Look, I’m the Minister for Industry and the Mayor of Nice among other things. It’s been a long time since I’ve posted a letter and if you think I have time to go to the post office to buy a few stamps you’re dead wrong!”

He could then have gone further and said “I don’t know how much a stamp costs, but as Minister for Industry, does it matter? It’s surely much more important that I know how many jobs are going to be lost when a firm closes, and how many we can save…”

Sadly, he couldn’t admit that he didn’t know the answer.

It’s not a serious scandal, just very humiliating because the post office is part of his mandate.

As such, the press officer of the Parti Socialiste, Xaier Garcia, has sent him a “don’t get ripped off” style book, “Combien ca coute?” (How much is it?), in the post.

The Next Step: Moving on from Question Time

I said the Internets would be ablaze with analysis and accusations over Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time. It didn’t take Nostradamus to know that prediction would come true.

Hopefully this post will be the last I need to say on the matter, as I’ll just add this little contribution to the debate: A while ago I was asked to compare the BNP and my experience dealing with the Front National.

Yesterday I was discussing the program with my friend Xavier Garcia, Spokesperson for the Parti Socialiste in the Alpes-Maritimes, who is also a university lecturer on politics in Nice. He wrote his doctoral thesis in Sheffield on the Labour Party of the 1980s.

The conclusion we came to was resolutely against No Platform (Who would have thought?) Here’s a summary of our conversation:

The rise of the BNP was impossible in the 80s and 90s because of the political landscape in Britain. Now, the Labour Party has become a middle class intellectual party and lost/losing its working class credentials (exactly like the PS), meanwhile, the Tory Party, which used to occupy the Right, has moved into the centre.

Most people think it is mainly old people who vote far right, in fact it’s very significantly young people from the working class (for reasons and fear that are discussed to death, like jobs and immigration) and so this space combined with far-rightists are why the BNP is “rising”.

On No Platform, the French parties boycotted the Front for years, and it grew and grew until it established a foothold, feeding and thriving from the notoriety and being “underground” from the mainstream parties.

Then No Platform ended, and the Front enjoyed a little boost (the same boost the BNP might experience after QT) but the FN has been in terminal decline ever since, further accelerated by Sarkozy poaching FN votes. Cameron’s Tories seem centrist, but only time will tell, they could erode the Far-Right electorate. If Labour gets its act together, the BNP will have nowhere left to go provided they are not given the No Platform lifeline of the protest-vote.

It’s incredibly short sighted to claim “told you so” from a 1% increase in the polls immediately after such a media spectacle. Which leads us to…

Tom Miller (a parliamentary candidate) has been asking me to respond to an article in the Guardian: “Ministers warn of poll boost for BNP after Question Time” who seems to have missed this quote from Darth Mandelson:

“In the short term, he [Griffin] may have done himself a favour. But in the long term he has done himself no good at all.”

Not to mention missing this (much better) piece from the UK Polling Report, YouGov verdict on BNP’s Question Time which highlights:

The topline voting intentions, with changes from the poll last weekend, are CON 40%(-1), LAB 27%(-3), LDEM 19%(+2), BNP 3%(+1). So while the BNP support is up, it is nothing significant. 2-3% has been pretty much the norm for their support over the last couple of months, and the most recent YouGov/Telegraph poll at the end of September also had them at 3%.

Then just as a side note:

What has changed was attitudes to the BBC’s decision to invite Griffin onto Question Time. At the weekend 63% thought it was right, 23% wrong. Now the balance of opinion has shifted further in favour of the BBC’s decision, 74% thinking it was right, and only 11% wrong.

I can’t believe anybody would think that the first appearance of the BNP on the Question Time would be a make-or-break situation and then we could all go home. This was the first battle in the war against the Far-Right, and we can choose to fight it, or regress to No Platform.

PS. I am in Britain this week, hoping to spend it with my girlfriend. Sorry Tom for not replying to your incredibly urgent Tweet until you mentioned it three times!

The End of My Very French By-election

The results came in last night, I was at party HQ as our various agents rang in to tell us the result from the polling station as we filled in the data one piece at a time.

The final result:

Xavier Garcia, Parti Socialiste: 40.54%
Lauriano Azinherinha, UMP: 59.46%

A surprisingly good result for Garcia in fact, in the first round the entire left won 35%, so it means he had the support of the Left and then some more.

In terms of analysis, the Green Vote was split between the two. The Communists helped the PS.

As I predicted right at the very beginning, despite an impressive performance in Round 1, the Front National and extreme right did not come out and vote, neither for the Socialist (who would have guessed?) nor the “Establishment”. This didn’t especially damage the Estrosi candidate, but it did leave him with a weaker result than he would have hoped for. (A 70/30 split would have been the benchmark).

The level of participation was almost identical at 20.15%. Though instead of the large drop that could have been expected from the abstention of the (fairly large) extreme right, the gap was filled by voters who only came out for the second round, most of whom were ones that voted for Garcia.

My Very French By-Election: Round 1 Results

On Sunday night, I received the results to Round 1 of the by-election. They make for interesting reading!

I had to deal with it in an Excel spreadsheet and figure out who was who, but YOU get this nice handy chart:

So, there are a number of interesting conclusions I draw from this. (Note the French use a comma instead of a decimal point. Even punctuation translates.)

1. Unsurprisingly, the UMP candidate is way ahead with 40.54% compared to us in second place with 15.38%. This means that we go to the second round on Sunday, but it doesn’t look likely that we will win.

2. The Greens failed miserably. There score is way below what they should have expected considering their performance at the EU Parliament Elections. They have also (once again) refused to enter an alliance with us. In fact, in an interview a Green (not important who) said “The principles of the PS are not compatible with Europe Ecologie” – A barely veiled call to vote Right, I think.

3. The “Left” put together about 35%. I don’t know about “Modem” (Lib Dems!) but I think the Communists are willing to help.

4. Participation was 20%. Not surprising for a by-election taking place during the summer and just after the return to school, yet still despicable.

5. The Extreme Right is the really interesting one, in which I eat my own words. I had said not to worry too much about the FN because they had collapsed in 2007. You can’t argue that 8% isn’t a good performance, add it to his other fascist-friend (Nissa Identitaire) and you have a total of 16%. It seems they’re getting their act together once again.

Nevertheless, nothing is lost. Into the breach, camarades!

If you have any questions, I’ll answer them in the comments.

My Very French By-Election: Round 1

As voters in Pasteur, Cimiez and Libération vote in the first round of the by-election for Nice 6, I’ll take you through the choice they face. There are 11 candidates in total from the extreme left all the way to the extreme right. The two winners from today will go through to round 2 next Sunday. Meaning there’s still a week to go before we definitely definitely win.

The Heavyweights

The local press has framed the election mainly as a “duel between left and right” with the two main parties in France likely to go through.

Xavier Garica: Parti Socialiste

My team! Xavier Garcia is the press spokesman for the Parti Socialiste and grew up in the constituency. He seems to be the only candidate with a consistent slogan “Pour mieux vivre dans notre quartier” (To improve life in our neighbourhood”) and a very good poster designer (not me). His website is also first rate.

We put out a questionnaire at the beginning of the campaign and had over 500 responses. Guess whose task it was to put the answers in a spreadsheet? Yo. At least now I know this section of town better than most residents of Nice.

His only potential weaknesses are the image of the PS at a national level (a mess) and the fact that he has never run for anything before. However, this could of course work in his favour compared to our adversary.

Lauriano Azinheirinha: Union pour un Mouvement Populaire

The “favourite” in that the UMP won the election first time round but were disqualified (The PS did not field a candidate; see the Greens). They have glossy leaflets and incumbency on their side.

However, the candidate is not particularly well known despite already being a Deputy Mayor. He is relying on the charisma and name recognition of Christian Estrosi. As you can see in the picture “Estrosi avec Lauriano!” and on all his literature the name Estrosi has been in bold. Dirty Tricks abundant, Estrosi even wrote a letter to the residents of the canton telling them who to vote for. TSK.

The problem with riding on Estrosi’s coattails is that they are plenty of anti-Estrosi people out there!

The Lightweights

Though there are other minor characters we’ve seen out and about:

Vincent Péchenot: Les Verts (Greens)

When the elections were officially taking place, the PS decided not to field their own candidate but make an agreement with the Greens, as they work together in the group Changer D’ère in the Mayoralty.

From what I gather, this gent is not really a viable candidate to go against the UMP war machine so the PS decided to take it upon themselves.

I’ve seen them out leafletting fairly frequently, though it was off to a slow start. One particular occasion they were riding around Pasteur on bicycles with green flags. That might work in Cimiez (lots of richy-ecologist types) but not so much in Pasteur. D’oh!

Then we have this not very interesting assortment of right-wingers, most of whom pitch them selves as “UMP without the UMP part” or just plain “No to Estrosi”. (Spot the Lib Dem)

The Loonies

And you can’t have 11 candidates without finding a few comedy gems and plain old nightmares!

Communists

Though the Parti Communiste is typically considered mainstream, I just haven’t quite got used tot eh idea that Communists still exist. The PCF campaign hasn’t been great at all, and their literature has been AWFUL. It’s a nice poster though, if a little cluttered by logos.

We haven’t seen much of this guy apart from posters, but he’s definitely my favourite after Xavier (for a different reason); I don’t know why, but everytime I pass his poster I die from laughing, perhaps you can figure it out:

Hahaha. It’s just brilliant. First, contrast it with the others and you notice a certain rough-and-ready quality.

Second, compare it with the official Communist Party candidate: The Black-and-White photo, OLD-SCHOOL! For all those who feel that the Communist Party is just too damn right wing these days! We need a PROPER communist around here.

I think it’s the Hammer and Sickle that gets me.

The Fascists

So we have the extreme Left, now take a look at the extreme Right:

Jean-Louis Faudi: Front National

The bigger brother of the BNP, the FN has been the subject of many questions posed to me.

First, it has to be said that the FN has not got a huge presence in Nice any more. It just to be very strong, but due to local internal fighting the organisation all but collapsed. You tend to find pockets of FN activity, but I haven’t seen any obvious activism as I think they only come out at night. I have seen areas with “Le Pen: President” stickers on lamp posts, and they have covered a fair bit of ground in terms of paper, but nothing slick.

Click on the poster above though, and you’ll notice a few things: One, he just looks plain evil, what with the squinting. Two, some have asked about  whether, like the BNP they have tried to “reinvent themselves.” I’ll point you to the black shirt. I’ll also point you to the mini picture of the Muslim women. The slogan reads “meme emballée, l’immigration n’est pas un cadeau” which means “Even wrapped up, Immigration is not a gift.”

Benoit Loeuillet: Nissa Rebelda

But for those of you out there who think the FN is for softy pinkos, there exists an even further right candidate for you!

This is, to my knowledge, the NiceIndependence  movement. You can see that some enterprising individual decided reveal his little Hiter ‘stache. The funny thing is he gave the kiss of death to Xavier in an interview where he said (roughly):

The only good surprise about this campaign has been that Garcia. At last! A lefty who is not afraid to talk about security. 2nd round, we vote for him.

Round 2

At the moment, I (like everyone else) am assuming that it is the UMP and the PS who will qualify, though the results will be announced officially tonight. Then it’s a straight head to head until the winner is decided next Sunday.

If all goes well, the Greens and Communists will come rallying to us. Conversely, it’s unlikely that the UMP guy, on such an overly pro-Estrosi platform, is going to win the support of the Far-Right or even the Centre-Right minor parties.

My very French By-election: The Battle for Nice 6

On Sunday, habitants of the 6th canton (district of a town) of Nice will go to the polls to elect a new Conseiller Général (It’s kind of like a Local Councillor).

This is a by-election, after the elected UMP candidate was disqualified for breaking the rules on funding. The area in question is Nice 6, which is a big district spanning from Libération through Pasteur and up to Cimiez.

Obviously, I’m going to present to you a very impartial and balanced view:

Votez pour nous!

I’ve been on the Campaign Team for the Parti Socialiste; our candidate is Xavier Garcia. I’ve been particularly involved with this because he is also the man who welcomed me to France and offered my current job. I am thus especially indebted to him for his kindness and hope you will all join his Facebook group, even if you can’t vote, or even if you can’t understand French. Hopefully, I have helped him as much as he has helped me. (You might recognise his website from somewhere…)

The Candidates and Parties

There are 11 candidates, ranging from the Communist Party to the Socialist Party to the UMP and the National Front, with plenty in between.

Amazingly the Left is more united than the Right, (how is that possible, you cry?) with just the PCF (Communists) and the PS (Socialists) and the Greens.

The Right on the other hand, (as it would be) is privy to Sarkozy’s UMP, an independent friend-of-the-embittered-former-mayor, a whole host of other tiny independents and of course the National Front, the older brother of the BNP. I haven’t seen more than a poster from them, but I have heard they’ve been around.

How to say NO

A question I am frequently asked is “Don’t they all hate you?” The answer is in fact, no! Of course there is an abundance of right wingers, but they don’t get angry, they just say “no thanks, I’m from the Right” so we say “Okay, have a nice day” and move on. The Lefties are the ones who are generally more energetic, particularly the old ones against “the reactionary Right!”

One man does stick in my mind though, we knocked on his door and he told us that he “always voted but neither left nor right.” I think he was FN…

Leaflets and Literature

I’ve learned a great deal about effective campaigning (I’ve learned plenty of what-not-to-do as well, from the other parties of course). Perhaps it’s a French condition, but they all seem to love writing long letters with lots of text.

I’ve collected most of the literature I’ve seen while out and about which ranges from the very very good, to the very very bad. So here are a few of the highlights:

My favourite include an early leaflet from the UMP which focuses mainly on the personality of the mayor, Christian Estrosi, rather than the local candidate. In a style that suggests “Our glorious leader presents to you… some guy!” Estrosi’s name features first, is bigger, and is in a brighter colour than the gent who is actually running.

Then a Communist piece (in monochrome BLUE ink, just to add to the confusion) which spans four pages of nothing but text. Which a sort of questionnaire at the end of each proposition, where the choices are “I share this view” or “I do not share this view” or “I have a different view” – That’s Communism, I suppose!

Who is going to win?

I don’t know. I think the PS has put forward the best campaign, but there are a lot of UMP voters out there anyway. The French system dictates that there are two rounds of elections, so hopefully we will get through on Sunday to round 2, which will be between just two (maybe three) or the bigger candidates.

Stay Tuned.