Bernard Deacon's Blog, page 63

A miner on the move

In 1862 a Parliamentary enquiry into the condition of metal miners interviewed several miners in Cornwall. Their life histories provide a fascinating insight into their moves from mine to mine. They indicate that miners moved frequently. One of the most extreme examples was an anonymous miner at St Cleer. Aged 36 in 1862, he had … Continue reading A miner on the move →

From Tripcony to Tripp

The other day a correspondent kindly supplied me with an intriguing hypothesis. The surname Tripp emerged in Cornwall very late, by my reckoning no earlier than the first half of the nineteenth century. Some, perhaps most, of those Tripps had changed their name from Tripcony. That name probably had its origin in the place now … Continue reading From Tripcony to Tripp →

Pondering on potatoes

There’s some potato harvesting going on nearby. A bit different from the 18th century however. Now heavily mechanised, then it would have been labour intensive, the fields full of people rather than a few lumbering tractors and their associated gizmos. Potato cultivation was widespread in Cornwall by the 1750s. An observer in the early 1800s … Continue reading Pondering on potatoes →

Addicoat, Angear and Beskeen

I had to make a hard decision when collating the entries for my The Surnames of Cornwall. Which names to include, which to leave out? Previous works on the subject had relied on the subjective choice of the author. Partly in order to justify my method to the disappointed, I decided to be more objective. … Continue reading Addicoat, Angear and Beskeen →

Proper Poldark

In the last few weeks over to Porthemmet they’ve been getting some excited by Poldark fever. Down the Cornish Arms, the only topic is how to say Poldark. Should the emphasis be placed on the first bit – ‘POLdark? Or … Continue reading

Regionalist parties and the Spanish election: short-term defeat or long-term victory?

How did ethnoregionalist parties in Spain get on in yesterday’s election? On the cup half-full or half-empty analogy, it entirely depends on how you look at it. Or more specifically, how you assess the better than expected showing of Podemos, the insurgent Spanish populist left party.

Despite Spain’s media and polls bigging up the centre-right and safer, anti-corruption insurgent party of the Ciudadanos (C’s) (now why ever would they do that?), the C’s came fourth across Spain and, with 14%, lagged 7% behind Podemos. The overall results in terms of seats in the 350-member Spanish Cortes looks like this:

Seats won in Spanish elections 2015 and 2011

2015
2011




Popular Party (PP)
123
186




Socialist Partyy (PSOE)
90
110




Podemos and allies
69
–




Cuidadanos
40
1




Regionalist/nationalist parties
26
38




Other left
2
10




Centrists
0
5

Look out for media reports of the Popular Party (PP) ‘winning’. But this was a strange ‘victory’ as their vote slumped from 45% in 2011 to just 29% now. The second party, the Socialists, also saw support fall from 29% to 22% and only narrowly edged out Podemos. The vote for the two main post-Franco Spanish parties fell to under 50%.

At first glance the loss of 12 regionalist/nationalist seats looks like a poor performance. The Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG) won no seats for the first time since 1986. The Canarian Coalition lost one of its two seats. In Navarra, the even split between the two Basque nationalist formations means they both lost their single seat.

But the key lies in the ‘and allies’ description of Podemos. For in Catalonia, Galicia and Valencia Podemos was part of lists including leftist pro-independence parties. In Galicia, the leftist Anova joined with Podemos and others in a list that came second, winning six seats. Similarly, a list bringing together Podemos and the regionalists of Compromis in Valencia also did very well, second with nine seats.

But the biggest success for Podemos came in Catalonia. Here it was part of a list including pro-independence parties, Greens and civic activists. Podemos’ leader Pablo Iglesias last night called for a special constitutional settlement for Catalonia and in the election campaign the party was supporting a referendum on independence. As a result, their list topped the poll, as in Galicia and Valencia winning 25%.

Meanwhile, the older leftist Catalan Republican Left (ERC) increased its representation from three to nine seats, with its second best performance ever. For the centre-right traditional Catalan ruling party Convergencia (CiU) the election was disastrous. Under the name of Democracy and Liberty, it saw its seats halve from 16 to eight. Nonetheless, anti-independence parties in Catalonia won just 18 of the region’s 47 seats.

In the Basque Country, Podemos also topped the poll with 26%, although the Basque Nationalist Party won one more seat, its six seats this time increasing its tally by one. Clearly, a large chunk of the radical Basque nationalist vote left EH Bildu for Podemos. EH Bildu’s vote fell from 24% to 15% and it saw its seats slip from six to two.

Furthermore, with neither left nor right in Spain able to cobble together a majority, the role of the Catalan and Basque parties has become critical for whoever forms the next Spanish Government. Interesting times.

Spain’s election: all you need to know

People in Spain have had something to take their minds off Christmas shopping recently. On Sunday they have the chance to vote in what is the most interesting parliamentary election in western Europe for some time. Not that you’ll have read too much about it in the mainstream media here. With no credible eurosceptic or far right party in sight, journalists have barely raised a flicker of interest.

They should. For, instead of just one insurgent party, Spain has two. In England/Wales/Cornwall and France right wing populist parties have hoovered up growing numbers of votes since the economic crisis of 2008; in Greece Syriza came from nowhere to become the governing party, while in Portugal the radical left has also increased its support. In Italy meanwhile, Beppe Grillo, a comedian, has led the Five Star Movement to become the second party of the land. This is less easily pigeonholed – environmentalist, anti-globalist and eurosceptic.

Pablo Iglesias – no David Cameron

These diverse cases all have one thing in common. They’re fiercely anti-establishment. In Spain Podemos was born in 2014 out of the indignados protest movement against austerity politics. Led by Pablo Iglesias, it’s close to Syriza, with more than a whiff to it of the Corbynista surge in and around the Labour Party.

In 2013-14 a series of corruption scandals hit the Spanish ruling class. Business leaders, bureaucrats and top members of both the ruling Popular Party (PP) and the opposition Socialist Party (PSOE) were charged with money-laundering, embezzling and misuse of credit cards. All this while, as in the UK, the poorest were paying the biggest price for heartless austerity politics.

Spain’s own version of the Italian Tangentopoli scandal of the 1990s, which ripped apart the Italian political system, has not been as far reaching. But it give a huge boost to a second insurgent party – the Cuidadanos (Citizens or C’s) – which shot up in the polls in late 2014. This is a centre-right party specifically opposing corruption.

The origin of the C’s lay in Catalonia, where the party describes itself as ‘postnationalist’, which means anti-Catalan nationalism. The wider corruption scandals, which swept up some leading members of Catalonia’s ruling regionalist party, Convergencia (CiU), allowed the C’s to become the biggest anti-Catalan nationalist formation in the Catalan parliamentary elections earlier this year.

Opinion polls indicate that the combined vote for the PP and PSOE may fall below 50%. The PSOE has been unable to benefit from ‘pendulum voting’ first because some of its leading members have also been implicated in the corruption scandals and secondly, because of its record when in government from 2008 to 2011. Then, like the British Labour Party, it offered little resistance to austerity politics and no alternative vision. Meanwhile, the PP has avoided complete meltdown. This is mainly due to the fact that, unlike Greece, the Spanish economy is currently growing by 3% a year after the severe recession of 2008-12. The PP can therefore claim its austerity politics work, at least for the moment.

When the media here do mention the Spanish election it’s in terms of this four-way battle between the two established and the two insurgent parties. But actually, in many regions it’s a five-way battle. At the last election in 2011, assorted regionalist parties won 38 of the 348 seats in the Spanish parliament, their best result for some time. Opinion polls are now suggesting this might fall to between 24 and 31 seats, but polls in 2011 underestimated the regionalist/nationalist vote and it may be similar this time.

The regions of Spain

Let’s look at the regions with regionalist/nationalist party representation. Catalonia is the key region. Here, pro-independence parties narrowly won the Catalan parliamentary elections earlier this year. However, they tend to do worse at the Spanish level. Moreover, the governing centre-right CiU, with 16 seats in the Spanish parliament, is tainted by corruption. This time, it’s fighting under the umbrella label Democracy and Liberty, together with a couple of smaller Catalan parties. The Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) is set to benefit and may see an improvement on its current three seats if CiU lose votes to the left. Meanwhile, the Democratic Union of Catalonia (UDC), a Christian Democratic and nationalist party, has broken away from Convergencia and is presenting its own list.

In the Basque Country, the nationalist vote seems to be holding up, with the C’s making little impact. In the 2011 election the centre-right Basque Nationalist Party (EAJ-PNV) found itself for the first time with fewer seats (5) than the nationalist and radical Basque left (6), which had gathered under the banner of Amaiur. Amaiur has now become EH Bildu and is again challenging the PNV to become the main Basque party. In Navarre, each party has a single seat, although here the PNV resides within the slightly broader coalition Geroa Bai.

The third region with regionalist party representation is Galicia. The Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG) has had a couple of seats for some years. But in 2012, the BNG coalition suffered a split, accused by some of drifting too far towards the centre. It lost supporters and a third of its vote mainly to the anti-capitalist Anova. In this election Anova joins with Podemos and Spanish United Left (IU) in a left coalition.

The final regions where regionalist parties won seats in 2011 are the Canaries, Valencia and Aragon. The Canarian Coalition, a conservative regionalist party, has for long been represented in the Spanish parliament, although its support has steadily slipped since 2000. It’s standing again.

In Valencia, the regionalists of the Valencian Nationalist Bloc, now part of the Commitment Coalition, won their first seat for some time in 2011 as part of a wider coalition with Greens and the IU. This time, it’s joined an even wider coalition with Podemos. As well as joining with leftist nationalists in Valencia and Galicia, Podemos favours a referendum on Catalan independence and overlaps with the regionalist parties. However, competition from a separate Podemos list in Aragon means that the Aragonese Union (CHA), an eco-socialist and federalist party that won a seat in 2011 in an alliance with IU, may well lose that seat this time.

With a large proportion of the electorate in Spain and its regions declaring they are don’t knows, this election is difficult to predict. Will Spain’s relatively healthy economic growth prove more critical than its chronically high unemployment rate? Will Catalonia’s quest for independence reinvigorate nationalist/regionalist formations elsewhere or will it trigger an anti-regionalist backlash? Will those sickened by the endemic high-level corruption turn to the C’s or the more radical Podemos? Will Podemos’ surge in the polls during the campaign translate into votes?

Corsica today, Cornwall in 2017?

I’m very glad to have been proved wrong (yet again!) in predicting the left would win the regional elections in Corsica. In fact yesterday the combined regionalist/nationalist list of Femu a Corsica/Corsica Libera swept to a historic victory in the second round of regional elections. The regionalists scored 35.3% of the vote, up from 29.4% in 2010. This was almost enough to give them an overall majority. As it stands they have 24 seats in the Corsican Assembly, out of 51. This is an increase from 15 in 2010.

The result in Corsica

In the region of Languedoc-Roussillon/Midi-Pyrenees the joint list of Socialists, Greens, Front de Gauche and Partit Occitan (PO) won the election, but I haven’t yet been able to confirm the presence of PO representatives among the successful candidates.

The overall results in France/Brittany were as follows

Second round results

Brittany
France
(1st round)




centre-left
51.4%
31.7%
(37.5%)




centre-right
29.7%
40.6%
(31.7%)




FN
18.9%
27.4%
(27.7%)



Leading party by departement

Incidentally, how is it that almost all results in France down to commune level are known within two hours of the count whereas it can take up to 18 hours for counts to be completed in the UK?

The French regional elections 2: the performance of regionalist parties

How did regionalist parties in France fare in the first round of last Sunday’s elections? (If you haven’t already read it, you can find the context here). There were one or two positives and one major disappointment.

Overall, the French opinion polls turned out to be broadly accurate, correctly forecasting that the rise of the Front National (FN) would be at the expense of the traditional right Les Républicains and their centre-right allies. In Brittany, the polls were predicting 6-8% for the joint list of the Mouvement Bretagne et progrės (MBP) and Union dėmocratique bretonne (UDB), led by Christian Troadec. Unfortunately, they were right, with this list – Oui la Bretagne – ending up with 6.7% of the vote.

This was technically enough to fuse with a list winning over 10% and gain some representatives in the second round. But it was not to be. In Brittany, the Parti socialiste (PS) list, led by regional patron (also Minister of Defence and one time UDB member from 1970-74) Jean-Yves Le Drian, was well out in front last week, with over a third of the vote. This meant Le Drian had no need for fusion even with Les Verts (also on 6.7%), let alone the regionalists. Brittany is one of the few regions where no joint PS/Verts/ Front de Gauche list is on offer in tomorrow’s second round, Morever, both Les Verts and the UDB lose the regional councillors they won in 2010, while the combined regionalist/green vote slipped from 16.5% in 2010 to 14.6% last Sunday.

Christian Troadec after the vote

Troadec admitted to being disappointed at not getting past the 10% barrier and has refused to advise his supporters which way to vote in the second round. More surprisingly, for the first time in decades, the UDB has also refused to endorse the PS in the second round. Although it stops short of placing the Socialists, Sarkozyites and FN in the same bag, it’s blaming PS Government policies, at least partially, for the rise of the FN and the half of the electorate who couldn’t be bothered to vote.

Looking further ahead and trying to put a brave face on things, Troadec insisted the 6.7% was an encouraging base to begin to prepare for the Presidential and legislative elections due in 2017. The boy from Carhaix-Plouguer is planning on a Presidential run and seeking to build a regionalist force that can realistically aim at a majority. The key here will be whether the alliance with the UDB holds or whether the latter will be tempted to drift back to their former partners Les Verts.

So why did Troadec’s bid founder? As expected, Oui la Bretagne did well in the Troadecian heartland around Carhaix-Plouguer. In the town itself the list won 45% and came first as it did in a string of communes (parishes) in nearby central Brittany. But many of the 32 communes where it came top (19 in Finistere, nine in Cotes d’Armor and four in Morbihan) were small and rural.

Brittany: islands of regionalism and conservatism surrounded by a PS sea

Of the bigger towns, only Quimper gave Troadec’s list over 6.7%. In the biggest – Rennes – Oui la Bretagne only won 3.0%; in St Malo it scored 3.4% and in Vannes it was struggling at just 2.9%. Only in Finistere could the list win the 10% necessary to progress. In Cotes d’Armor (6.6%) and Morbihan (5.7%) it was well adrift, while in eastern Brittany, in Ille et Vilaine, it lagged badly at 3.7%. Like MK, Breton regionalism still depends heavily on a personal vote.

If the performance of Oui la Bretagne was disappointing, that of the two other nationalist/regionalist lists of the Parti Breton (PB) on the centre-right and Breizistance on the left was even more so. Both polled under 1% with Breizistance winning the battle of the minnows with 0.6% to the PB’s 0.5%. Both however were well behind even the Trotskyites of Lutte ouvrière, who managed 1.4%.

The joint regionalist list of UDB/MBP/PB and Breizistance in Loire Atlantique turned out also to be underwhelming. It won just 2.67% of the vote, a tiny increase on the 2.62% scored by a Parti Breton list in 2010. In only eight of the 221 communes could it better 5%, these all being in the north west and north of the department.

The results of regionalist parties elsewhere were somewhat more encouraging. The Partit Occitan‘s strategy of joining other party lists worked in Languedoc-Roussillon/Midi Pyrėnėes, where the list led by Les Verts (and including the Catalan ERC) won 10.3% in the first round. This has now fused with the Socialists and looks likely to win the region. In Provence Alpes/ Côte d’Azur, although an alliance with the PS won 16.6%, any chance of PO representation has been scuppered by the decision of the PS leadership to pull out and give a free run to the centre-right in a straight fight with the FN. In south west France, the PO’s presence in an independent list was more indicative of its true electoral strength. It trailed in with 1.9%.

The most encouraging regionalist performance was in Alsace. Riding the wave of dissatisfaction with the region’s abolition, the list led by leftist Unser Land scored a very creditable 4.7% across the mega-region. But in the two departments of Alsace itself it’s become the third force behind the Sarkozyites and the FN, winning 11.1%, the best ever result for a regionalist party in Alsace. Progressive regionalism had now ousted far right regionalism in Alsace, after years of poor results. This shows how events are liable to transform any party’s fortunes.

In Corsica, two regionalist lists won enough votes to proceed to the second round (the bar in Corsica being 7% not 10%). They’ve fused together for the second round. The moderate Femu a Corsica won 17.6%, just failing to become the leading list, while the radical Corsica Libera scored 7.7%. Neither of these lists did quite as well as the polls were suggesting. In fact, the third nationalist list- that of the radical Rinnovu – did better than predicted with 2.6%. Together, the three Coriscan regionalist lists won 27.9% this time compared with 27.8% in 2010, with a slight swing to the radicals. They now face a four-way contest in the second round, which the left will probably win. But the regionalists are in with a chance of second place.

Finally, there’s been a lot of panic, even hysteria, over the rise of the FN vote in France. On the one hand, the FN tripled their vote compared with the last regional elections, from 9% to 28%. Even in Brittany, they’ve managed to get back onto the regional council, although their vote at 18.2% was well below the norm.

On the other hand, the 13.3% of electors who voted for them this time is slightly less than the 14.0% who voted for Marine Le Pen in the 2012 Presidential elections. The French two round system makes it difficult for the far right to win a region. In the two regions where they did best, scoring 41% in the far north east and far south east, the Socialists, who came third, have retired, appealing to a ‘Republican Front’ against the far right. While this may work in the short term, it’s hardly a sustainable strategy in the long run. It’s likely to lead to a loss of votes in future elections to the left – why would socialists vote PS in the first round just to get the right in the second?

And if we consider comparisons with the UK, remember that in England earlier this year Ukip won the support of 9% of the electorate. That was only 4% or so less than the FN in France. And this was in the context of an electoral system less favourable to third parties. In fact, in our first past the post system, any party gaining 41% in an election would be well on course for an overall majority. As in the UK, the neoliberal, ‘technocratic’ parties of the centre-right need to examine their policies in order to confront the populist right, not rely on short-term electoral manoeuvring.

The French regional elections: the prospects for regionalist parties.

Today, French citizens vote in the first round of regional elections. Sparse media attention in the UK has as usual been dominated by English journalists’ fascination with the far right, predicting the Front national (FN) is poised to make big gains. Having been proved completely wrong about Oldham West we can only hope the pundits are equally useless when it comes to events across the Channel. Probably not though, after the Paris attacks of a few weeks ago. The FN, already polling strongly before that outrage, has since seen its support rise by around 6%, although most of this comes from the more moderate, traditional French right.

But first, how do the French regional elections work? To those used to our simpletons’ system, they can seem complex. Voters are presented with party lists, many of which involve alliances of parties. For example, in Brittany Les Republicains (think Sarkozy) have combined in a list with the more centrist L’union des dėmocrates et independants (UDI) and the Mouvement dėmocrate (Modem). Any list that gains 10% or more today goes forward to a second round next Sunday. However, lists that gain more than 5% can be re-combined between the two rounds. The incentive for doing this is that the leading list in the second round is given a bonus of a quarter of the seats, the rest being allocated proportionally.

So how are things looking for ethnoregionalist parties in the French hexagon?

Brittany

Let’s start with our cousins over the water. The Breton regionalist political scene has fragmented somewhat over the past few years. In this election, three of the eleven lists on offer are broadly regionalist/nationalist. The most promising is Oui la Bretagne. This is headed by Christian Troadec, Carhaix-Plouguer’s favourite son and leader of the Mouvement Bretagne et progrės (MBP), founded in 2010. Troadec was a key figure in the campaign of the Bonnets rouges in 2013 against the Socialist Government’s tax on road freight transport, viewed as disastrous for Breton farmers.

The governing Parti socialiste (PS) also lost the confidence of Breton autonomists by failing to take the opportunity of a major redrawing of regional boundaries to re-attach Loire Atlantique to the administrative Breton region. In response, the leftist Union dėmocratique bretonne (UDB) has joined with Troadec and a few dissident socialists. Their list has been scoring 6-9% in the opinion polls and has a good chance of a presence in the second round and seats on the regional council.

However, the UDB is not entirely united in these elections. In 2010 it gained regional councillors as part of a joint list with les Verts (Greens) and at first supported the PS regional administration. A few of its activists have stuck with the PS list, while the Greens have their own.

On the right of Oui la Bretagne is Notre Chance, L’Indėpendance. This is led by the Parti Breton (PB), with the support of a small green party, the Alliance ecologiste indėpendante (AEI). As its name implies, the list aims at an independent Brittany, while having a centre-right orientation. With around 1% in the polls it’s unlikely to survive today’s vote.

Also unlikely to enter the second round negotiations is the leftist list led by Breizhistance. This group (strapline ‘Independence and socialism’) was founded in 2009 by militants from Emgann. Since then, it’s put up candidates in local elections and the 2012 legislative elections (including one in Redon also backed by the UDB and les Verts).

The fifth historic Breton department – Loire Atlantique – remains stranded as part of Pays de la Loire. Here, the four Breton ethnoregionalist parties (UDB, MBP, PB and Breizhistance) have uniquely managed to combine in an independent list called Choisir nos rėgions et rėunifier la Bretagne. In October this recorded an encouragingly high 4% in a poll (surprising as Loire Atlantique is only one of five departments that make up the region). Since then its polling has declined to 1-2%. Nonetheless, its performance in Loire Atlantique is worth watching closely.

While Breton regionalist parties have castigated Hollande’s Socialists for not making Brittany bigger, the reduction in the number of regions in the French hexagon from 22 to 13 means that most French ethnoregionalist parties find themselves marooned in ever larger regional territories (a bit like MK and the old South West region in fact.)

Basque Country

Take the Ipparalde (northern Basque Country) for example. This only comprises the western half of the department of Pyrėnėes Atlantiques in any case. The region of Aquitaine, in which Pyrėnėes-Atlantiques was a part, has now been joined with Limousin and Poitou-Charentes to form a mega-region of which the Basque Country is a very small part.

In consequence, the main Basque party, Euskal Herria Bai (EH Bai), is calling on its supporters to ‘voter blanc‘ in today’s elections. EH Bai is currently one of the more successful regionalist parties in the hexagon. Since its foundation in 2007 as an electoral coalition of Abertzaleen Batasuna, Eusko Alkartasuna and Batasuna. EH Bai has steadily increased its support. It won an average 7.3% in the three Basque constituencies in the legislative elections of 2012 and 15.3% in departmental elections earlier this year.

Northern Catalonia

In contrast, at the other end of the Pyrenees the Catalan parties, the Unitat Catalana, Convergence dėmocratique Catalogne and the Gauche de Catalogne du Nord (the northern branch of the Catalan Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC)) struggle to make much electoral impact. They didn’t even stand in the most recent elections in Pyrėnėes-Orientales and won less than 2% in previous elections, even at local level. But in today’s elections, the ERC is present in a list led by les Verts and including the Front de Gauche. This is predicted to get more than 10% in the combined region of Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrėnėes.

Occitania

The Partit Occitan (PO) is also present in the same list. Indeed, the PO, which describes itself as the ‘Occitan Ecologist Left’, is actively involved in three mega-regions. As well as Languedoc etc. it’s part of la Vague Citoyenne (Citizens’ Wave) list in Aquitaine etc.. This stands under the strapline ‘socialism, democracy, ecology’ but is polling at an insignificant level. However, in Provence-Alpes/Côte d’Azur the PO is part of a centre-left coalition led by the PS.

For a small party that has struggled to gain over 1% when standing independently, the PO has succeeded in making the most of the French electoral system, which encourages cross-party collaboration and tactical alliances. Allying itself sometimes with the Greens and sometimes with the PS, the PO has managed to obtain representation at local and regional level on the coattails of broader leftist coalitions.

Alsace

Continuing our journey around the hexagon in an anti-clockwise direction, the autonomists of Savoy failed to get their nominations sorted in time. While centre-right Savoyard nationalism seems to have wilted, the same has happened in Alsace, where regionalism has long been associated with the right, not the left. Here, the far right Alsace d’Abord came close to 5% in the regional elections of 2010 and had three seats on the regional council back in 1998. Yet it’s now relatively inactive, concentrating on anti-mosque campaigns but swamped on that ground by the FN.

In contrast the centre-left Unser Land (UL) – ‘our land’ in English – did very well in the departmental elections earlier this year. The 22 candidates (technically binomes) of Unser Land (a merger of the Union du peuple alsacien and Fer’s Elsass in 2009) scored an average 13.8% of the vote compared with just 5.5% for Alsace d’Abord‘s single effort. UL’s support was buoyed up by a wave of anger at the Government’s decision to abolish the Alsace region and incorporate it with Champagne-Ardennes and Lorraine.

The UL has now joined with the AEI and smaller regionalist parties in Lorraine and Moselle to lead an independent regionalist list in these elections. It’s polling around 3-5% in the new ‘region’ but a lot more in Alsace itself.

Corsica

Finally, heading back south, we arrive at Corsica, which has an assembly with greater powers than the French regional councils. Unaffected by boundary changes and smaller than Cornwall, Corsica provides a psephological first for France. In Corsica an independent autonomist list is actually leading recent polls, courtesy of a split in the moderate right wing camp. The list is that of Femu a Corsica (Faisons la Corse) led by Gilles Simeoni. This regrouped the moderate autonomists of the Parti de la nation Corse and Chjama Naziunale, along with some Corsican Greens, in 2010. In the French legislative elections of 2012 it scored an impressive 16.4% of the vote and is now polling nearer 20%.

The more radical nationalist Corsica Libera (CL), which in 2009 grouped the parties that are heirs to the militant direct action FLNC (Front de libėration nationale corse), is also polling quite strongly at 8%. Meanwhile, there’s a third nationalist list put together by U Rinnovu, which broke away from CL in 2012. It’s relatively insignificant however and is unlikely to be joining a possible combined regionalist/nationalist list for the second round, when that list has a real chance of being the leading list.



If you’ve made it all the way to the end of this lengthy blog then you’re just the person who’ll be keen to read an analysis of the first round results from a regionalist perspective. This will appear here sometime later next week.