Over The Garden Wall (2014), Dir. Nate Cash — Chapter 1: The Old Grist Mill

My cartoon for the Guardian Books autumn reading special.

Lord Vetinari paused. He found it difficult to talk to Frederick Colon. He dealt on a daily basis with people who treated conversation as a complex game, and with Colon he had to keep on adjusting his mind in case he overshot.

Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant

Never kill yourself

“‘Ah, Vimes,’ said his lordship as Vimes entered. ‘So kind of you to come. Isn’t it a beautiful day?’ Up until now, Vimes thought, when he spotted the two other people in the room.”

— Terry Pratchett - Thud!

So while we wait to see how low we've slid on this slippery slope, I thought I'd give a primer on how legislative elections work in France.

The first thing to know is that it's more like 577 local elections. In order to be elected, a candidate has to win in the circonscription in which they were campaigning.

The second thing to know is that in order to win on the first round of the election, a candidate must have at least 50% of the votes AND 25% of those registered. This means that if, as has happened in La Martinique, a candidate has 63% of the votes but the turn-out was low (estimated around 25%, which is low but higher than it was in the last election), they still get a second round.

Now, for the second round. Are qualified 1. The candidate who had the most votes and 2. Any candidate that had 12,5% of those registered to vote. Once again, this means that the turn-out is a factor in who gets to participate in the second round. It also means that it is possible for a second round to have a "triangulaire", that is to say 3 candidates in the second round (technically, it means that it's possible to have four candidates).

At time of writing, it is estimated that between 65 and 85 representatives have been elected on the first round, and that there will be between 285 and 315 triangulaires (based on the data given by Le Monde, which is based on Ipsos data). Out of 577 seats. This means that in a lot of circonscriptions, there will most probably be one RN candidate, one NFP candidate and one candidate from the presidential party.

On the left, several political leaders have already announced that if their candidates arrived third and a RN candidate was qualified for the second round, they would give up the election and encourage people to vote for whoever else was qualified.

And now the big question: will the presidential party do the same? Gabriel Attal, the Prime Minister, is expected to talk to the press tonight. I, personally, will be drinking and obsessively refreshing the news page.

Granny Weatherwax

So did anyone else pay attention to the paper hob was grading at the new inn? Because by God, that student is so fucked.

Dude got EVERY question wrong