#what a year...

[chlochette-sunde]

So, the French government just got revoked.

What happened in the previous episodes?

French presidential elections are held in two rounds. Any candidate supported by at least 500 mayors can participate in the first round. The two candidates with the most votes then face off in a second round.

Twice, President Macron has been elected thanks to votes cast against his opponent in the second round: far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. Both times, Macron promised centrist policies (neither left nor right) but ultimately implemented very liberal policies benefiting primarily the wealthiest in the country. He also used far-right tactics to “pacify” strikes and social movements, like the Yellow Vests protests and the controversial pension reform.

Last June, European elections were held to elect new Members of the European Parliament, using a single-round voting system. In France, over 70% of voters participated in the 2022 presidential elections, but only around 50% turned out for the 2024 European elections.

And the result? A political earthquake.

For the first time, the far-right party came in first, securing 30% of the votes.

Following this shocking result, President Macron decided to dissolve the National Assembly. This is within the French President's powers, but no one understood why he did it—it seemed like political suicide. With the far-right's surge in the European elections, it was reasonable to expect them to gain ground in the legislative elections as well.

Yet Macron went ahead, and legislative elections were scheduled with less than three weeks’ notice.

Surprisingly, the left-wing parties managed to unite under one banner: the New Popular Front (NFP). This was no small feat, as these parties often clash over priorities—ranging from left-wing liberals and ecologists to communists and the “insubordinates”.

Since October 2023, the latter group had been outspoken in their defense of Palestine, which led to accusations of antisemitism and then earned the NFP labels like “far-left extremists” from the far-right, the media, and even the government.

It seemed hopeless. Everything appeared stacked against the left, and many feared the country would fall into the far-right's hands.

The results

More than 70% of the eligible voters participated, a high turnout compared to the 2022 legislative elections (54%) and the 2024 European elections, especially considering the short notice and timing just before the summer holidays.

In the end, the far-right gained 142 seats (an increase of 53). However, the NFP surprised everyone by winning 193 seats (42 more than before) and emerging as the election's victors.

The new National Assembly looked like this:

193 seats for the left-wing (NFP)

166 seats for Macron's party

142 seats for the far-right

47 seats for the traditional right-wing party

This distribution left no single party with an absolute majority.

Under these circumstances, Macron was expected to appoint a Prime Minister capable of building a government that could pass laws in the National Assembly. Traditionally, the Prime Minister is aligned with the majority party in the Assembly.

Instead, Macron refused to name a left-wing Prime Minister, fearing such a government would be unstable due to the lack of an absolute majority. He delayed the decision until after the Olympic Games, and in early September, he appointed a Prime Minister from the traditional right-wing party—which holds a minority in the Assembly.

The first major test for this government was the 2025 budget. While the government initially proposed a strict austerity budget, the NFP successfully amended it to reflect their priorities. The government, having abstained from participating in the discussions, ultimately voted against the amended version, sending the budget back for further debate.

Then, rather than resubmitting a revised budget to the Assembly, the government decided to impose it unilaterally, as allowed by the Constitution. However, this move automatically led the government to engage its responsibility. Two days later (today), the opposition in the National Assembly responded by holding a “no confidence” vote, ultimately revoking the government and canceling the budget. (If no 2025 budget is passed, the 2024 budget will roll over by default.)

How is the far-right doing?

When the new government was formed in September, the far-right party chose not to immediately revoke it. Their strategy was to pressure the government into proposing laws aligned with far-right ideas. While initially successful, this approach backfired: the far-right quickly came to be seen as part of the establishment, losing their “outsider” status, which hurt their image.

Meanwhile, the far-right party is embroiled in a major legal scandal. They are accused of misusing public funds intended for hiring parliamentary assistants, instead diverting the money to party-related expenses (like bodyguards and so on). A verdict is expected in March 2025, and their leader, Marine Le Pen, faces the possibility of a 5-year ineligibility.

What happens next?

President Macron must now appoint a new Prime Minister to form a government. However, given his unpredictability, it’s possible he might try to keep the current government in place until he’s legally allowed to dissolve the Assembly again—one year after the last dissolution.

The left-wing is calling for Macron to resign, which would trigger new presidential elections. Due to their actual troubles with justice, anticipated presidential elections could also be an opportunity for the far-right party. While the National Assembly has the power to vote for the President’s resignation, the conditions to do so are difficult to meet.

And that’s the current state of French politics.

[loupy-mongoose]

Well.... I just learned that today is the anniversary of my first ever Tumblr post...

Tomorrow will be a year since I shared Randy, Akoya, and Lavender on Tumblr...

Wow...

[thebirdarts]

Then VS Now 🧡 Happy Birthday Muro/Celia! Its been a long year 🧡

Its wild to think that Celia has only been bouncing around my head for a year, but its been hell of a long one. A Town Called Malice currently sits at over 26k words, and I'm not even going to try and count how many times ive drawn Celia/Muro, let alone the ocs that appeared around him. Its hard to imagine my identity as an artist and writer without him, if i hadn't taken the leap and shared my jojos oc. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who has listened to me ramble about him, has liked my art and read my fic, it means the world to me all the love other people have show to this guy from my brain<3

[izzymoomoo]

💙

[kosenart]

Before the year ends, here are my top posts of the year!

1. 637 notes - Feb 18 2022

2. 366 notes - May 21 2022

3. 341 notes - Dec 9 2022

4. 110 notes - May 14 2022

5. 95 notes - Mar 25 2022

6. 82 notes - Mar 11 2022

7. 70 notes - Dec 3 2022

8. 65 notes - Jun 10 2022

9. 58 notes - Aug 22 2022

10. 55 notes - Jan 17 2022

Created by TumblrTop10

[chrismcshell]

northern hemisphere babes we made it to the longest night of the year. we made it. for the next 6 months, every day will give us a little more daylight than the last. let's go. take my hand. climb out of the darkness with me

[inbabylontheywept]

so once me and my wife were watching a documentary where a snake ate like a million eggs. that snake just went to fucking town on eggs. and the snake made the eggs look so good that i kept thinking about it, and thinking about it, and thinking about it, and eventually it was 11pm and i ran out of willpower and decided to eat one (1) singular raw egg just to prove to myself that the snake was surely a liar.

the snake was not a liar. texture is like, super important to me and raw eggs are very Texture so i had another one, and then another one, and then another one, and eventually i ran out of eggs.

i had like, fifteen raw eggs.

i didnt really know how to explain this momentary madness to my wife, so my Plan was to put all the eggshells into a grocey bag, and then throw that grocery bag in the dumpster, and if she never noticed that would be Excellent and if she noticed immediately i could lie and say that the eggs went bad.

except i cant lie very good, and of course with murphys law being such, i got salmonella.

so i threw up a lot and my wife asked me what poisoned me so and i tried very hard to dodge the question but i was oozing shame like oil from a room temperature cheese and eventaully i gave in and told her everything and to her enormous credit she was more flabbergasted than actually upset. she did make me promise to not eat any more raw eggs, which i have stuck to, and she gives me weird looks during nature documentaries now as if desire was the only thing keeping me from eating thousands of pounds of krill anyway i made a joke earlier about being able to eat my age in eggs and my sister in law in law made a drawing to comemorate the moment and also because it was my birthday. she's excellent. thank you 10000000% @cintailed. you should all visit her page and admire her work.

[pirateprincessjess]

When I was a kid my family pretended to get raptured so I would think I was left behind on earth while they all went to heaven.

I was like 8 years old and my sister and mom had gotten really into the Left Behind novels (bible fan fic about the rapture). In the books when the rapture happened the clothes that people were wearing when they got raptured were left behind in neatly folded piles.

One day when I was getting home from school my family decided that they would leave piles of neatly folded clothes around the house, and then hide in the basement.

The intended effect was that I would get home and see the clothes then, think that my family had been raptured and that I wasn’t good enough to get into heaven… or something?

The problem was that I had never read these books, and didn’t really think about the rapture very often. There was no reason that I would see some laundry on the floor and think “The rapture happened and I’ve been abandoned by God! I’ll never see my family again!! Oh nooo!!!!”

I just sat down and watched cartoons and eventually my family got bored and revealed that they were all hiding in the basement.

It’s a good thing I didn’t understand the joke, otherwise that shit would have been traumatic.

[psychicbluebirdmiracle]

Was curious how far Ithaca was from troy today while listening to epic the musical and rereading the illiad and I found this map

I think odysseus would have been better just to walk😭

[rabid-transcendentalist]

Long week for Cas and Dean

[chlochette-sunde]

Breaking news: France has a new future ex-PM.

[adulthoodisokay]

happy new year, y’all

[pangur-and-grim]

one thing that took me embarrassingly long to learn is "sometimes when people say things, they will not be true."

I used to tell people about this revelation and they'd be like yeah.....duh.....but like, why wouldn't my base assumption be that you're communicating to me in a straightforward manner. anyway, I get scammed a lot.

[eosofspades]

i didn't have "i'm broken" teenage asexual angst i had "i'm literally being the only reasonable one about this concept and the rest of you are behaving like fucking freaks" perception issues

[cassianandfenrysaremyboyos]

Goncharov coming third in tumblr's top 100 movies of 2023 is so damn funny. Imagine being a film studio exec who spent millions making some of the other 97 movies listed below it only to be beaten by a film that cost exactly zero dollars to make and doesn't exist

[brennan-lee-mother]

Diversity win! Ancestral curse recognises non-biological parenthood!