 Okay, now, Madame Zemeissure, let's continue our stuff on representation and participation. Now that we've covered governance and policymaking, now let's see what the legislature looks like. We have a bicameral legislature. The upper house and the lower house, the lower house, I'm turning my back against you, I feel so bad. Perhaps I should do it like this. The lower house is called the National Assembly, Assemblee Nationale. The upper house is named the Senate. There are over 570 members in the National Assembly, 577 I think in the current assembly. And about 350 senators in the Senate. Remember we talked about the fact that in advanced national societies and elsewhere too, we have the lower houses. So whenever we refer to the parliament, we generally refer to the lower house, which is the more powerful of the two houses. Members are elected for five year terms and there is voting along, excuse me, party lines. So there is in fact the institution of, excuse me, party discipline. Party discipline is very important in the French system. Members of the Senate are not popularly elected, 340 something of them. They're chosen by local elected officials at the department level. So their composition is overwhelmingly rural. So there is in general a conservative bias because of the rural cleavage, urban rural cleavage in French politics. So the Senate is generally has a conservative bias to it because of its membership. Each of whom are elected by the local elected officials. The legislature in fact has a limited role. And in the sense that there is the Euro limitation imposed by the constitution. So the constitution enumerates, in fact lists, the number of areas that the legislature can pass legislation on. So all areas, all policy areas, all fields of policy, your sectors of policy are all enumerated by the constitution. And the constitution effectively prohibits legislation in areas that are not enumerated in the constitution. The constitution says, this area, that area, this area, that area, the legislation can pass legislation. And in other areas, no, the legislation cannot act in those areas. So in that respect, the legislature has De Jura limited powers or limited roles. The legislature can also have de facto limits in case of executive domination. So in general, we have, yes, this is a semi-parliamentary system. Remember, I mentioned that when there is cohabitation, it looks more like a parliamentary system. When there's unified control, it looks more like a presidential system. But there is, in a way, in principle, executive domination, de facto executive domination by the executive of the legislature. Because it's the government as representing the executive that sets the priorities, the parliamentary agenda. So it is the executive that sets the agenda in conjunction, I mean, the cabinet or in line with or under presidential leadership, especially under circumstances of unified control or united control. So it is the government that sets the parliamentary agenda. The constitution also provides two institutionalized rules or privileges to the government, to the executive. One is called what's called vote bloke, block vote or policy package or package deal. The government proposes a bill with, let's say, 40 items in the bill. The government can say, I propose it as vote bloke. Meaning, I propose it as one set of bills or one set of articles in one bill. And I don't want any amendment. I want it to be discussed in one. And I propose it as one. There will not be any voting on an article by article basis. There will not be voting as such. We vote for once. Okay? So I don't want or I don't need many questions. I don't like amendments. I propose it as vote bloke, as one block vote, a package deal, take it or leave it. As long as I, as the head of government, have or enjoy parliamentary majority, the fate of the bill is guaranteed, right? It's sealed. So vote bloke is one institution that the constitution provides for two, as a privilege to the executive. But the government can also call a matter or a bill a confidence matter or a confidence vote. What happens is the government says, look, I propose this bill or a piece of legislation. And I propose it as a confidence vote. So unless there is a motion to censor, unless there is a vote of no confidence introduced, unless the opposition or a majority proposes a motion of censor, then the government passes the bill more or less automatically. There is no actual vote on the bill. In the Fifth Republic, there has been some increase in time in resorting to these two institutions, to institutionalize rules, the vote bloke and the confidence vote. These in a way, given the privileges of the government, i.e. the executive, and therefore its dominance of or by the government of the legislature, the French legislature is increasingly seen as a rubber stamp institution. So it basically, you know, it adopts what the government sets as the agenda. So from, I mean, many see the government, I'm sorry, the legislature as highly ineffective institution. So it basically does whatever the government says or sets. Let's look at the legislature, how a bill is introduced to the parliament. Well, a bill is generally introduced by the government to the parliament, to the lower house, the assembly national. It is reviewed by a parliamentary commission or parliamentary commissions depends on the type of the bill. It is debated. It may be amended in the lower house. If majority of the parliamentarians, the assembly national, members of the assembly national, okay it, say yes to it, support it, then it goes to the second chamber, goes to the Senate. If both houses of the parliament pass the bill, then the bill becomes law. This is very similar elsewhere too. So that's the legislative process. In parliamentary elections, how do the parliament, or how are the members of the parliament elected? The members of the parliament are elected in two ways. One is members of the national assembly. These are basically just like the presidential system. We have smaller districts, two ballot plurality. Two ballot system, we've discussed the two ballot system. The first round, if a candidate receives, or unless a candidate receives more than 50% plus one, simple majority, there is a runoff elections. And in that district, in that round, the second round, those that have won the largest two votes, highest number of votes, will be running in the second run, in the second vote. And whomever gets plurality will become a member of the national assembly. And in time, as a result of this, a cohesive coalition wins or gains majority. I'll explain this as I talk about the parties in the system. In France, we have generally coalitions of parties running the executive in that respect, running the country. And if neither of the large parties, party socialists or UMP, gain enough of votes for parliamentary majority, there is going to be other parties going in a coalition with these parties and representing majority in the parliament. The Senate, as I briefly mentioned, members of the Senate are elected by mayors, town's councillors. Because of their strong rural representation, they've always had a traditional or conservative bias, a conservative side to themselves. Let's look at the political parties and the party system. Let me first talk about the party system. In Britain, we had what kind of a party system, ladies and gentlemen? Britain. British party system has traditionally been known as a two-party system. But in fact, we've always, I mean, we've been increasingly having two-and-a-parties, okay, running, I mean, like being very important. In the French system, we have a true multi-party system, which has been changing, but still a multi-party system in which we have more than two parties. Generally, we have two large parties and smaller parties on a political spectrum, on the political spectrum, we have center right, UMP, center left, party socialist. And on both sides of these parties, we have scattered smaller parties, okay? And in most of the cases, I think in almost all of the cases, we have coalitions running the government, okay, making up a majority and therefore running the government. So the major two parties are called Union for a Popular Movement, which is known by its initials, UMP, which is, in a way, which has inherited from the earlier parties, Rassemblement pour la République and other parties. So this is the center right or right wing coalition, which has been created by Charles de Gaulle, and it incorporated small parties in time. So 1945, the center right party was formed by de Gaulle, General de Gaulle, and there were smaller parties joining the ranks of this larger party. This has been the conservative party in France. In the 50s, 60s, 70s, it had been staffing both institutions, both organs of state, both the presidency as well as the parliament, the national assembly. But in time from the late 90s, well, from the 1970s onwards, it had been weakening. But later under Monsieur Chirac, President Chirac, from mid-1990s, 1995-ish, Chirac really regained control and has ended the process of a decline, a secular decline in the popular support for the UMP party. So it has been quite popular with its own coalition. It has been in power, I'm sorry, 2000s, 1990s, 2000s, until Monsieur Hollande came to power. Late 1990s, except for late 1990s, then again changing in the 2000s. So that's basically the conservative coalition. The second largest party is the party socialists, social democratic party, which had been created over a century ago, late 19th century. It had been ineffective in staffing the presidency for 20-something, 23 years from 1958 till 1981, okay? So both organs of the state had been dominated by the predecessors of UMP, right wing coalitions. The party socialists had not been able to gain control of either of the two organs of state. So no president coming from the party socialists until 1981, and the legislature had not been dominated by the party socialists until then, until the 1980s. So created over a century ago, as I said, had been in decline, but it had been revamped by President Mitterrand since 1980s. From the mid-1980s, in part because of Mitterrand's U-turn, had been losing its grip on its traditional basis of political support. But it has made a somewhat come back in the most recent elections, 2012. So that really changed the fate of the party. But in general, many scholars argue that the party socialists had lost its ideological rigor, ideological power, ideological grip, ideological force over the French electorate. As you can see, both parties are seen as losing their grip on the electorate. Smaller parties have been gaining strength from the left, the Greens, ultra-left Trotsky, its party communiste française, to the Front National. Marine Le Pen's now what used to be her father's Jean-Marie Le Pen's party, now led by Marine Le Pen, which has been really exciting for many, many French men as well as French women. So this is in a way what the party system looks like. And these are the largest parties with the smaller parties. The fact that you see two large parties, two large coalitions, and smaller parties should not lead you to the perception that this is a two-party system, not at all. These parties themselves are coalitions too. But also, the smaller parties make up the running coalitions. So neither of these two parties can run only by themselves, the government. They always ally with making alliances with the smaller parties. The electoral system, please, yes. Well, they won't be able to gain majority. They've never gained majority. I mean, it is possible. I mean, it is absolutely possible. What if what used to be a small party Front National, the 2002 presidential elections, what if Jean-Marie Le Pen, I may have told you the story of this, there were three candidates. Mr. Chirac, right wing, Mr. Jospin, left wing, and the papa, the father, Le Pen, Front National, right wing, ultra-right, extreme right wing party. These three candidates, everybody was expecting that the first two, the highest number of votes would be shared by Mr. Jospin and Mr. Chirac. But what happened was, Mr. Chirac was there as the highest, I mean, who got the highest number of votes, highest ratio of votes, highest share of votes, but it was Mr. Le Pen who came second, which meant that Mr. Jospin dropped out of the race. And then in the second round, everybody, I mean, more than two-thirds of the French electorate voted for Mr. Chirac. So small parties can make a huge difference. And Mr. Chirac got a huge amount of votes because the parties socialist declared that, OK, we want to reach our supporters to vote for Mr. Chirac, our chief opponent. But that was the case. And the small party really made a huge difference in the lives of Frenchmen for the next five years. So we'll see. Elections are coming up in 2017. In less than a year, actually, around June, I think. So we'll see how it turns out, who is going to get the highest number of votes. And we'll wait and see. The electoral system, things have been changing. Nothing is stagnant as expected. There is Americanization of French politics in the sense that there has been a trend toward a two-party system. Remember that there were two large parties. But still, we do not have a two-party system. Let me tell you the running coalition now. We've got the party socialists. We've got the radical party of the left. We've got the Greens and others who make up the presidential majority, who make up more than 57% of the seats in the parliament, 331 seats. The opposition is UMP, new center, radical party, centrist alliance, which enjoys more than 36%, 37% of the vote. So we see in the most recent elections, 2012, the seats in the parliament are divided as 331 under party socialists, the majority. And we have 229 seats or 230 seats representing the right-wing, center-right parties. But yes, there has been strengthening of the core two large parties. But we still have other parties playing a very important role. And many scholars argue that the smaller parties will play even a larger role in the 2017 elections. And another Americanization may be that there has been an elevation of personality or personalities as opposed to policy issues, as opposed to ideology. This was certainly the case when Mr. Le Pen came to the agenda, when Mr. Le Pen was there. We had then seen Mr. Sarkozy, Madame Segola Royal, who had been two entirely different personalities. You should have seen the debates, how personalities mattered much more so than ideologies, than policy stances, policy perceptions, solutions, problems that they were devising or they were conceiving. And Mr. Hollande, Mr. Sarkozy, personality differences, you could tell. We'll see what will happen in the 2017 elections. Whether personalities will take hold or will really dominate the scene. But as in the US elections, you've seen all personalities, which is, by the way, taking place as we speak now. So elevation of personality over ideologies, over policy stances, over issues, policy issues was another aspect of Americanization of French politics. And for many, the party system in France is seen under crisis, in the sense that, yes, there is a trend towards strengthening of the center right and center left parties. But at the same time, the votes of the French parties had been increasing. And they're much more vocal than 20 years ago. So that was also a shocker. I mean, 2002, Mr. Le Pen, coming a second, was traumatizing for many. And that we had fringe parties, ultra left, ultra right, coming to the scene, amassing votes, collecting a lot of votes, much more so than one could have even dreamed of 20 years ago is or has been presenting us with a major change and for the large parties a major challenge, not only a change. Yes, please? MHP, yes? Uh-huh. That's a good observation. Yes, we may see Americanization of the Turkish political system too as a trend, as part and parcel of a trend towards two political factions or those two on the right and those two on the left. And they may be coalescing that this is also possible. So Americanization of the system is quite obvious in the French case. And who knows what's going to happen in the Turkish case? Political culture, citizenship, and identity-wise, we've got in the post-World War II period two subcultures supporting two parties or two coalitions on the center right and center left. Both were at the center. So behind the Trans-Gloryeuse was the consensus that state intervention was important, that employment was important, that rising incomes was important, that the French miracle was important, that the French way of social model, the French social model was important, that the French would identify themselves with their model of society, that there was a solid consensus. But this has been changing. This has been unraveling since the 1980s. Late 1970s was a blow. But Monsieur Mitterrand, coming to power, was seen by many as a relance, like a relaunch of France. So but over time, we've seen that the ideological grip over their constituencies of these parties or by these parties had been loosening up. So that was one major element of political culture. Political culture has been changing. And the fact that there are French parties on the right, on the right as well as the left, had been contributing to the undermining of support for these center or centrist political parties. And there is a rapid decline in ideological or class identification by the French electorate. We've seen this also in Britain, with changing appeal of new labor, first 1990s, and then conservatives also changing their traditional stance towards a more open appeal to their electorate. So we've seen much changes since 1970s. Economic ideas, ideological changes, declining unionism, downsizing of industries, especially state economic enterprises, privatization, rolling back the state, changes in welfare state, changes in the French model of society, really upset the post-World War II consensus. And the institutionalized ways of voting, regime-like ways of voting have been changing since, I would say, 1970s and all throughout the 80s. Citizenship and national identity. We have the Republican model dating back to the late 18th century. Remember, the white and the red and the blue, liberté, égalité, fraternité, which really represents Republican ideals, inclusive French society. As long as you would be accepting French values, political values, social values, cultural values, as long as you would accept French culture as is, you'd be entitled to citizenship. Those who would be coming from abroad, especially the former colonies, as long as you would behave like a Frenchman or a French woman, then you'd be part and parcel of the Republican model. You'd be welcomed under the French Republican model. I had a colleague and a friend whose family was from Réunion. It's one of those small islands off the coast of Madagascar, off Africa, in the Indian Ocean. Her family was, they were colored. They were from, you know, they were native to Réunion. And she was saying, she was talking to her family and she was saying, hey, look, are we really French? And they were feeling so much French that in the 2000s they said to their daughter, look, the currency we have in our pockets, it's the euro. And before, it was the French franc. So we feel so French. So the Republican model, the Republican ideal was, in that respect, very inclusive or inclusionary. But as long as you would be substituting your identity under the French Republican model, if you wish to emphasize your hyphenated identity, then things would become a little bit more messy, especially in the last 30 years or so. After probably the world economic crisis that shook all these consensus ideals back in the late 1970s, or late 1970s, early 1980s. Of course, all of these have ramifications for race, religion, and ethnicity. Interestingly, well, strikingly, race, religion, and ethnicity. These are all issues that are intertwined with immigration, with the phenomenon of immigration. Because the majority of immigration coming to France, they're Muslim in faith, which led to anti-immigration, anti-Muslim discourses, and all kinds of political opposition, all kinds of movements and lobbies against all this phenomenon. Gender-wise, France has been the birthplace of feminism. Simone de Beauvoir, second sex, has been an important, has been a vital element of the feminist toolkit. But there is considerable gender inequality. And the women's movement had been weakening, or had remained rather poor, or rather weak in France. There has been some constitutional amendments that required gender parity. Interestingly, there was a law that was passed. The political parties had to nominate an equal number of candidates when entering elections. So in the party list, for example, you had one political party running in this district, let's say four candidates. For each political party, the four candidates had to be divided into two, two candidates, male, two candidates, female, two women, two men. But this is De Jura, de facto. The list goes by rank. How do you think the Frenchmen had ranked these candidates? Two women at the top, so two men at the top. So in general, of course, there were exceptions. But the introduction of even legislation or policy of gender parity, is that enough of, or for, changing regime-like patterns, institutionalized patterns, changing the rules of the game? They probably haven't been able to do so. A little bit more to go. Social movements. The French system of policymaking has been, yes, a centralized system, but also an insulated system. So unlike, Paris is never like, or has never been like, Brussels or Washington DC in terms of lobbying efforts and responses to lobbying. So social movements, yes, they've been vocal increasingly, especially the 1990s, since 1990s. But the system itself discourages autonomous citizen action. Yes, there has been a history, a tradition of direct protests since the revolution, the great French revolution. But the system, the French political system, had been quite insulated in terms of state-society relations. Had been insulated from all kinds of pressure groups and social movements. Recent upheavals in the banlieu over the past 10 years or so, November 2005, two Algerian-French young men were killed fleeing from the police. There were massive riots. And the government provided some help for low-income neighborhoods, the banlieu. November 2007, two Muslims were killed in a motorbike collision with police. There were youth riots just in about two years within the reach, within one another. The government planned to increase security assistance, security, and also assistance in neighborhoods in what were called, or what are still called, the cités. These are all condominium dwellings on the outskirts of Paris and other large cities. So we've seen over the 2000s, in addition to these recent upheavals, mass immobilization, anti-globalization movement over the erosion of the French social model, French model of society. So people took to the streets. And before then, we've seen, of course, streets of Paris taken up by masses, by thousands. In fact, hundreds of thousands against the Iraqi war back in the early 2000s. José Bourvé was an interesting figure in French politics who was opposing agribusiness corporations, who was against the GMOs, standardized methods of producing agricultural produce. And he was complaining that the French farmers, who've been so strong, especially under the Trente Glorieuse and immediately after, had been losing their powers worldwide, and that they were supported much less by these subsequent, I mean, consecutive governments coming to power in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. Finally, current challenges, many current challenges. The Front National, for many, is a huge current challenge. And I should have noted it down as Le Pen's. Jean-Marie Le Pen first, Marine Le Pen now. Mobileye had been very successful in mobilizing critics of the established system. They've been very, very strong, very powerful in riding the tide of anti-establishment, that they were saying, OK, the entire system is corrupt. The entire system is not working anymore. So we have to demolish the center, demolish mainstream, and then we have to build a new France. Terrorism, the Al Qaeda attacks, early 2000s, and then the most recent Paris attack, state of emergency, and the Nice attack have really traumatizing France. I mean, 90 people and hundreds of people injured. Over 90 people dead in Paris. I think 80-something, 90 people were almost dead with kids, being, you know, anyway, atrocities. All of that happening, all these terrorist activities under ISIS or IS, or Daesh or Daesh, whatever, have been capturing the political agenda over the past year or so. It's been a year, and my friends who live in Paris are still devastated, still traumatized by these attacks. Economic decline didn't help. The Great Recession didn't help. Unemployment increase, competitiveness of the French system or French economy had been decreasing. The welfare state had been rolling back, and there were reforms on restrictions to rights to strikes. There were tax reductions, longer working hours, which really squeezed the people, but also states' resources. So the French economy model of society is under humongous strains. There have been Muslim-Jewish tensions, anti-Semitic violence. 2000s saw all these happening. Neo-Nazis targeting Muslims. Skinheads targeting Jews. Those incidents have been sporadic, ad hoc, but still continuing, stabbing incidents, killing incidents, assassinations, and all that. And finally, political reform has been on the agenda since 1990s. Well, since the 80s, privatization, but also political reform, decentralization, term limits on the presidency. But leaders are not trusted. So that's one major problem here. And anti-government demonstrations, people are increasingly taking up to the streets. And reforms, yes, there has been some reforms, presence term limits, but also strengthening the parliament, strengthening the legislature, the power of the National Assembly, and the opposition parties. But these reforms do not seem to be suffice in keeping calm in the country. So there is some, I mean, like a low level, but steady level of protest. Everyone feels in the French capital, but also elsewhere in France. I think that concludes our work on France. And next class, as promised, will switch to the US case after having heard about the elections today. All right, I'll see you next class.