French Election for Dummies

Me, I'm dummies

Photo by Dorian Hurst on Unsplash

I suppose, since tomorrow is a rather important day in recent French history, I should write a little something about the French election.

On Thursday the UK unravelled years of conservative governance and swept in a new era of the Labour Party in a landslide. That seems to be the opposite of what is happening in so many other countries around the world. It was reassuring. And, maybe naively, it gave me a sense of optimism about the upcoming - tomorrow - election in my recently adopted country.

First I have to admit to a large amount of ignorance about the goings on in the French political system. Just yesterday I was asked a question about the Prime Minister - who appoints the PM? - and I honestly didn’t know the answer. So I googled it.

The President appoints the PM.

So take whatever I am about to say with a large grain of salt.

In our first year of living in Paris I came to realize something about this country as a whole: the government seems to do a…