NewLife

FRANCE: The left hopes to get its hands on the Senate

This is a crucial vote which is played Sept. 25 in the Senate. As part of the Senate elections held Sunday, just over 70,000 electors are called to renew half the seats of the upper house of the French Parliament that could, on this occasion, the left switch for the first time in its history.

"It would be a thunder in our political life," commented Monday Socialist Senator David Assouline headquarters of the PS.Because since the introduction in France of the Fifth Republic 53 years ago, the Senate, which represents local authorities in the institutions of the nation, has remained mostly on the right.

The left is gaining ground in local communities

But since the 2004 regional elections marked by a "pink tide", the left nibble slowly the grip of the right of local governments. In the 2008 municipal, one year after the victory of Nicolas Sarkozy in the presidential election, it had conquered new cities such as Toulouse, Caen and Strasbourg, after removing Paris and Lyon in 2001.In March 2010 regional, it has increased the overwhelming success it had won six years ago, leaving the right one region, Alsace. As for the cantonal March, after which the left manages 60 departments against 40 for the right, they have only confirmed this trend.

"Since 2004, most local governments - which are mostly from the electors - are passed to the left, confirming Tangui Morlier, co-founder of the site Nossenateurs.fr.So logically it is expected that their representatives vote for senators on the left. "

As the latter also notes, the calculation is not so simple: the voting for the Senate tends to be more favorable to rural communities - traditionally more conservative - than urban areas - more progressive. In addition, to enjoy an absolute majority in the Senate, the left should win over 25 seats. A kind of challenge ...

"It should be 27 or 28 seats [further to the left] to flip the Senate. Nothing will happen before the 25th seat," explained Gerard Larcher late August, President (UMP) of the Senate, the daily Le Figaro.Of the 343 seats in the chamber, the left currently has 164, against 179 for the right.

The UMP, however, has a limited scope: since 2008, it lost the absolute majority in the Luxembourg Palace and must deal with the centrist Union.

It therefore seeks to close ranks and prevent the emergence of dissident groups in several regions of France.Losing the Senate to eight months of the presidential election would represent a serious setback for the government ...

Budget and social security: the challenges of size

Still, if "the situation is a little difficult for the executive since the right has lost the absolute majority in the Senate in 2008, the flexibility of the left, if they win, will be very much reduced as well," Françoise analysis caries, co-author of "The Battle of the Senate" (ed. Robert Laffont, 2011).The 1958 Constitution provides, in effect, that the legislative level, the National Assembly may ultimately have the final say on legislation at the request of the government, even though the Senate has the power to stop adoption and to significantly change the text.

"If the left goes to the Senate, it may act in opposition force, takes Françoise cavities.It may, for example, delay and amend the draft law on state budget or the next Finance Act Social Security, the two big issues in the coming months in this chamber. "

Communist group, the Republican senators and citizens of the Left Party (CRC - GSP) hears him use a pink Senate as a bastion of resistance to the policies of Nicolas Sarkozy. "If - and I stress if - the Senate switch on the left, the government will have a hard time getting the tight budget he announced. We will live while a new form of cohabitation. And we hope that this will stop the political activity of head of state before the presidential election ....", Announces Hainigue and Marc, the general secretary of the CRC-GSP group in the Senate.

But he is cautious above all: "We do not want to sell the chickens before they're hatched," he continues, before concluding, trying to avert the fate "Nobody knows what that it will happen, and strength to talk, we'll miss! "