So here we are in an electoral dilemma

So the campaign for the European elections has finally kicked off with, as usual, no fuss, no debate and little information. It's not easy being a conscientious European citizen and not only for the above reasons. The real challenge is to understand what exactly one is voting for and, in parallel, how the vote is perceived.

On paper, there is little doubt: on June 7th, France will be voting for the parliamentarians who will have a seat at the European parliament and technically the lucky ones will represent the European people and elaborate and vote for laws that concern all 492 million of us Europeans, according to their political beliefs. Easy peasy, let's vote left wing and get it over with. Unfortunately the reality of politics means that nothing is so straightforward. In fact, most national politicians would say that the election of the MEPs is just a bit of a strange side-effect of this election, which they consider a barometer of their popularity.

In 1980, Reif & Schmitt, two political scientists, coined the term "second order national elections". With this they explained that since the European vote has little bearing on national policy making and none on the current leadership, the voters will tend to vote with their hearts (or with their boots), knowing that voting for the local communist geek won't mean having to suffer the risk of a communist government actually getting sworn in. Hence the relatively huge difference in the smaller parties' results in the EU elections compared to the presidential, national parliament, or local ones.

So on the one hand, politicians see the European election result as support or condemnation of the current leadership, while it should really be about who and what you want represented in front of the world's biggest supranational legislative institution. On the other, voters vote for improbable or unreputable candidates to show they are pissed off with the big parties usual faffing around. In my case, the guys I would vote for on a European level are idiots at a local level, and the guys I like on a national level I think would be crap at an EU level. An electoral dilemma.

In more detail: the European election 2009 candidates in my constituency (the region of Ile de France) are (so far) 10 different parties. Once we have eliminated the extremes and weirdos- the NPA (new anticapitalist party, run by charismatic trotskist hamster Olivier Besancenot who is one of France's most popular politicians), the FN (ultra nationalist anti European), MPF-CNPT (alliance of nationalists and hunt'em shoot'em fish'em) and Debout la République! ('Nuff said), we are left with:

UMP: right-wing, includes Sarkozy, his government and a lot of parliament. Main candidates are Michel Barnier (agriculture minister) and Rachida Dati (justice).
PS: currently ridiculous Socialist party. Main candidates, Harlem Désir (founder of uber-symbolic anti racism organisation who has long since entered politics), Pervenche Beres (respectable current MEP) and Benoit Hamon (current MEP, opportunistic little twat who probably isn't sure where Brussels is).
The Greens: good old Ecologists, led by charismatic Daniel Cohn Bendit, a huge symbol of '68 France and Eva Joly, who used to belong to the Modem.
The Modem: poor François Bayrou's party, somewhere between the left of right and the middle of nowhere, led by Marielle de Sarnez (FB's faithful companion and current MEP).
The Front de gauche : communists- never heard of them.
Lutte ouvrière: a party as old as the world, more communists.

I have de facto excluded the last two, because despite my minimum wage status and my current respect for all things equalitarian, I don't actually want them to represent me in the EU. Modem: like(d) Bayrou for a while and would like to support him at a national level but at a European level I'm not sure about Marielle de Sarnez
The Greens: love the DCB character, am OK with EJ, but am extremely wary of my local green municipal councillor, and refuse to validate him at a local level via the European vote.
The PS: Jesus, my obvious choice but they are so fucking pathetic at a national level and I loathe and detest Benoit Hamon. This last fact could be overlooked if they weren't so hopeless, but they are.
UMP: I like MB, who actually knows a bit about the EU, but hate the current government and despise Dati.

That leaves... nobody, or abstention. And abstention is the same as not giving a fuck, so... damn, it'll have to be the Greens. But, I don't like you Mr Guadi!