France was an absolute monarchy in 1302 when the aristocracy (including ecclesiastics) forced a semi-parliament, the Estates-General, on the crown in return for agreeing to pay taxes. With few exceptions, the body had little power and France remained an absolute monarchy. When Louis XVI summoned the Estates-General in 1789-- the first in 175 years!-- he wanted taxes but was surprised when the Third Estate (representatives of the common people) declared a National Assembly and started writing a constitution and eventually helped bring on the French Revolution, the First Republic, the Declaration of the Rights of Man, and the end of the monarchy.This weekend France voted for regional assemblies-- and Saudi Arabia, which is still an absolute monarchy where elected bodies have virtually no real powers, allowed women to vote in municipal elections for the first time. I think New Zealand was the first country to give women the right to vote (1893). The first European country to do so was Finland (1907), although it didn't matter much since Finland was a Grand Duchy ruled by the Tsar of Russia. Norway gave women the right to vote in 1913, as did France in 1944, not that long ago. The 19th Amendment to the U.S> Constitution was finally approved in 1920 giving all American women the right to vote. Switzerland didn't do it 'til 1971 and the ladies of Liechtenstein didn't get the vote until 1984. This weekend, Saudi women had their first chance to vote and to run for office. (They still can't drive though.) So far something like 17 women were elected to municipal councils. Only 1.32 million men and 130,000 women out of a population of 20 million bothered to vote. (There were no elections at all before 2005 and this was the country's third.)
No candidates addressed the broader issues of democracy, human rights or the role of sharia law and punishments, which attract so much attention abroad. Saudis who boycotted the poll dismissed it as window dressing, arguing that real the power rests firmly with the royal family, the religious establishment and male ministers....No candidates addressed the broader issues of democracy, human rights or the role of sharia law and punishments, which attract so much attention abroad. Saudis who boycotted the poll dismissed it as window dressing, arguing that real the power rests firmly with the royal family, the religious establishment and male ministers.
It was a very different story in France, where women have been voting for almost a hundred years and where one, a crackpot neo-fascist wants to run for president next time. Even though National Front leader Marine Le Pen sought to distance herself from Herr Trumpf before today's run-off regional elections, it was too little, too late. Increased voter turn-out in the face of fascist inroads in the first round, swamped her xenophobic party, which didn't win a single region and came in third nationally. She and her niece both lost their own elections as well-- Marine in the Nord-Pas de Calais region where she was beaten 57-42% and Marion Marechal-Le Pen in the southern Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur region where she lost 55-45%. All 13 regions went to the center right (led by Sarkozy) or the center-left (led by Hollande). Still, support for the fascists was the highest its ever been, with nearly 7 million voters casting their ballots for the National Front.Le Pen's campaign was largely based on anti-immigration hysteria and anti-EU fervor. In last weekend's first round, her National Front fascists were leading in 6 of the country's 13 regions and were drooling at the prospect of winning even one, since they have never managed to do so, But a 7% increase in voter turn-out dashed her hopes as region after region reported. In the first round the National Front took 30.6% of the vote and the center right (Les Républicains) took 27%, while the Socialist Party collapsed at 22.7%.Yesterday Les Républicains won Ile-de-France (the Paris region), Normandy, Pays de la Loire, PACA, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Alsace-Champagne-Ardenne-Lorraine, Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie and the Socialist Party won in Brittany, Centre-Val de Loire, Languedoc-Roussillon-Midi-Pyrénées, Aquitaine and Burgundy. (Corsica voted for an independent regional party.) The Socialists had pulled their candidates from the Provence Alpes Cote d’Azur and the Nord-Pas-de-Calais regions and the and told their supporters to back Les Républicains to keep the fascists out of power. Le Pen had a fit and accused Hollande of undemocratic moves.But, don't kid yourself, the National Front won almost 7 million votes, their most ever and France is a lot closer to having its first fascist government since Vichy's Philippe Pétain moved to Germany in 1944. (He was tried for treason in 1945 and sentenced to death, although DeGaulle commuted his sentence to life imprisonment and he lived on a tiny Atlantic island, the Île d'Yeu until he died there in 1951. He is also buried there but if the National Front ever comes to power, they will probably dig him up and re-bury him at Verdun, the scene of his greatest historic moment. Pétain's fellow fascist traitors, François Darlan and Pierre Laval, met the kind of ends that all fascists deserve, assassination for Darlan and a trial and firing squad for Laval.On this day in 1975, Patti Smith's debut album, Horses was released. Most politicians don't impact anyone's life in any real way, except for the bad. Patti, on the other hand... How many women and how many men had their lives changed because of Patti Smith? Just sayin'.
