Santonian News Central

by Charles-Thierry Ogé in Saintes
14 October 2020 - 1123h
SAINTES – Saintonge’s booming tech industry have adapted their platforms to the stricter General Data Protection Law (Loi générale sur la protection des données, LGPD) passed by the Santonian Parliament last November 2019 and taking effect on 01 January 2021.

The LGPD supersedes the 2010 Personal Data Privacy Law (Loi sur la protection des données personnelles, LPDP), adding stricter measures and stiffer enforcement options.

Strict Law
Saintonge’s LGPD is one of the strictest data protection laws in Eras, as it requires websites to comply with the most stringent data protection measures. Some of the components of the law included the stipulation that data of Santonians must be kept in Saintonge or Saintonge-based servers, implementation of high security standards to prevent data theft, a more encompassing definition on what constitutes protected data, and what was termed "continuing consent" for the use of data, wherein consumers have the right to withdraw their consent for websites to use their data.

The LGPD also has one of the stiffest enforcement measures: for instance, it empowers the Ministry of Communications to direct internet service providers to block websites that abuse personal and consumer data of Santonians. This is expected to cut off access to many foreign websites that refused to comply with the LGPD, including many popular ones originating from what activists call “data imperialist nations” – nations that use their tech companies to spy and harvest data on other nations.

Santonian companies comply
For Santonian tech companies, compliance with the LGPD is a given – there were no protests from Saintonge’s tech industry. “We already present ourselves as the secure, safe, simple e-mail provider,” said Marc-Gilbert de Saint-Martin, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Saintonge Mail, populary known as SMail. “We comply with Santonian data privacy laws and that applies for all SMail users all over the world. They can take comfort in the fact that we don’t abuse their data.”

“It’s good business sense,” said Luc-Jared Malveaux, vice president for external communications of the microblogging site Twitcher. “We present ourselves as the safer alternative to other foreign websites. It’s a good pitch. Users had been migrating to our platform because they feel that their data is safer with us.”

“Data privacy is extremely important to our clients, especially since we’re dealing with financial transactions,” said Adam-Isambard Brulatour de Géffosses, founder and chief operating officer of PaySafe, an online payments system. “I’m sure they’d be more confident in us, now that we had implemented the necessary measures and that there is robust regulatory oversight in Saintonge.”

In fact, some of the tech companies instigated the passage of the stricter LGPD. For instance, the social network website Facegram, with 99% penetration in Saintonge, initiated the 2017 letter to then-Communications Minister Giselle Pillet-Dumilâtre about the need for a more stringent law in Saintonge. “We cannot take for granted that tech companies, especially foreign companies, use data for pervasive means and for their nation’s interest. It is absolutely unacceptable,” said Matthias-Turstin Scheppers, one of the founders of Facegram.

“We heard our competitors abuse data. We don’t,” declared Geoffroy Bostaret, CEO of the e-commerce website Nile.com. “But we just don’t want our clients to take our word for it. Having a stronger data protection law, with proper enforcement, will make it absolutely clear to our consumers that we do and are obliged to protect their information.” Nile.com signed on to the 2017 Facegram letter.

Another signatory was the the video-sharing website Viedéo. Its vice-president, Marc-Corbin Jardillier, said in his parliamentary testimony that “we believe that while profit is nice, we should not do it at the expense of the people who use our platform. Other websites put profit before the people.”

Paul-Albéric Gantheret, CEO of the search engine giant chercher, added in 2018 that “We don’t even know whether these multinationals paid taxes on the profits they gained when misusing data of Santonians.”

Other big signatories to the 2017 letter included Minisoft (a software and operating system developer), Pagoda (a hotel reservation website), Nolf and Pêche (mobile phone and internet equipment manufacturers), Stopify (a music streaming website), Interflix (a movie streaming website), Nuage.com (a cloud storage system), Cric (a ride-sharing app), Beeper (cross-platform voice over IP (VoIP) and instant messaging (IM) software), ReCord (gaming VoIP platform), and even Embr (a dating app/website).

With regards to the cost, PaySafe’s Mr Brulatour de Géfosses said “Yes, it is costly. But you can’t put a price tag on when the data is misused.” “Foreigners balk at the cost of complying with the LGPD,” commented Facegram’s Mr Scheppers. “But we think of it as a good investment.”

Compliance welcome
Current Communications Minister Anne-Gertrude Tempier welcomed the Santonian companies’ embrace of the LGPD. “We would like to thank all the companies, local and foreign, who have chosen to comply with the LGPD. This would ensure a safer internet and data for Santonians and Santonian companies.”

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
14 October 2020 - 1620h

by Jules-Antoine Parinaud in Saintes
29 October 2020 - 0950h
SAINTES – the Fond national saintongeais (FNS, “Santonian National Fund”), Saintonge’s sovereign wealth fund, announced yesterday that it will search for and offer investments in the north Meterran nation of Yalkan. Formerly known as Société nationale d'investissement de Saintonge (SNIS, “National Investment Company of Saintonge”), the fund is one of the richest sovereign wealth funds in the world.

Funds
FNS General Manager Matthieu-Nicholas de Monnerville announced that the FNS could invest at least £1.5 billion (1 billion IBU) in the debt-stricken country. The Yalken national debt had ballooned due deficit spending to finance its increased defence costs, brought about by instability in neighbouring Oclusia. Yalkan’s national debt is currently about two-thirds of its gross national product (GDP).

Mr de Monnerville said that FNS investment would “help stimulate the Yalken economy, thereby reliably increasing tax incomes to pay off the debt.”

Relationship with the naval base controversy
Observers had noted that Saintonge’s offer comes at an opportune time when Yalkan is seeking financial assistance. The Imperium Epiphani (IE), an Aurorian nation responsible for some of the worst wartime atrocities in recent years, is looking to lease a naval base in Yalkan. Such an intrusion of a faraway country into northern Meterra raised concerns in many capitals from Gojannestad to Nuova Antofagosta. The IE is also currently at war with Yamantau, a nation in Meterra, and a naval base in Yalkan might be used to further their ambitions in the continent.

When asked whether the announcement was a Santonian counter-offer to Yalkan, Mr de Monnerville simply stated that “the FNS actively seeks out and routinely reviews investment opportunities and assistance in nations around the world, and Yalkan is a nation that FNS can offer investments to.”

In another press conference, Santonian Foreign Minister Marcelline Tréhet also did not link the FNS announcement to any diplomatic efforts with regards to the naval base controversy. “If Yalkan decides to allow foreign naval bases in, it is its sovereign decision,” Ms Tréhet said.

Ms Tréhet added that “I’m not surprised that FNS has taken this step. The FNS and its predecessor SNIS had a history of assisting other countries. The SNIS had helped in the economic recovery and rebuilding of Norsia, Korova, Predice, Prydania, Skanda, and Yamantau after their destructive civil wars or economic downturns. FNS going to help Yalkan is not unusual.”

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
29 October 2020 - 1442h

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OOC Note: Post approved by @Yalkan .

by Anne-Odette Lisfranc in Zeta

ZETA (Yalkan) – the governments of Goyanes, Predice, and Saintonge formally made a joint proposal to the government of Yalkan regarding assisting the country to manage its ballooning debt. A three-nation delegation led by Goyanean Minister of Foreign Affairs Ken Lorge, Predicean Deputy Prime Minister Alessandro Squarcialupi, and Santonian Ambassador to Yalkan Marie-Rochelle Haldimand met with Yalken Prime Minister Darren Neville and Minister of Foreign Development Julie Froseth yesterday at Zeta to propose a way out for the country.

Counter-offer to foreign base deal
Alarm bells rang in neighbouring capitals when it was announced that the Imperium Epiphani (IE), an Aurorian nation notorious for committing war crimes, offered to pay the Yalken government for the construction of a port and a naval base in Yalkan. Critics of the plan fear that such a naval base may serve as a forward presence for an imperialist intrusion of the country in Meterra, Gothis, and Craviter. The base may also facilitate the IE’s invasion of Yamantau, another nation in Meterra.

Goyanes, Yalkan’s former colonial overlord, was the first to respond to the news, stridently opposing the building of a foreign naval base in Yalkan. Response from Nuova Antofagosta was also intense, while that of Saintes was muted. Saintonge only announced that its sovereign wealth fund, the Fond national saintongeais (FNS, “Santonian National Fund”), would be willing to invest in Yalkan to help its economy recover.

Deal
The comprehensive joint offer from the three countries covers political, economic, and military aspects. On the economic front, Saintonge, though the FNS, will fund investments into Yalkan to keep its economy afloat and help it recover. Meanwhile, Goyanes will continue to support and prop up the usage of the Dram in Yalkan as part of the Dramzone agreement. Predice, a big supplier of military equipment and armaments to Yalkan, will extend the payment period of the equipment that the Yalken bought on credit. Private holders of Yalken government debt from all three countries will be asked to extend the debt repayment schedule, or sell the debt to the respective countries’ central banks or government investment funds. The three countries will also assist in the development of a port in Yalkan as a direct replacement to the IE offer.

On the military front, all three countries will step up joint coordinated patrols in the Ember Sea to eliminate the piracy threat. The threat of Oclusi pirates is one of the major reasons why Yalken defence spending reached unsustainable levels and pushed it further into debt. Other neighbouring countries would also be invited to join in this multinational operation to keep the sea lanes open.

Gojannesstad would reaffirm its watertight commitment to defend Yalkan against foreign aggression, while Nuova Antofagosta would issue a guarantee of Yalken independence. Saintes, for its part, clung to its neutrality and only committed to the anti-piracy campaign.

On the political front, all three states promised to secure support for Yalkan in both the North Gothis Economic Council (NGEC) and/or Meterra Economic Treaty Organisation (META), depending on which organisation it chooses to engage with. Yalken access to these large markets would also be beneficial for the small nation’s economy.

“An offer they can’t refuse”
“It’s an offer that’s difficult to refuse,” said Thorbjørn Brikmeier, an economic analyst at the University of Osanhalt. “The deal is very comprehensive in that it tackles many of Yalkan’s major problems all at once. The naval base deal can only cover part of the economic, maybe some of the military problems, that Yalkan faces.”

As to whether they Yalken government can take both the IE offer and the Goyanean-Santonian-Predicean offer, Brikmeier said that “it is not likely. While Saintonge publicly says that it is helping without any preconditions, privately the Santonians might be telling a different story. Even if Saintes does not have preconditions, Gojannesstad and Nuova Antofagosta had made clear their opposition to the IE naval base. Goyanes and Predice would make the deal contingent upon Yalken rejection of the IE naval base.”

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles

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OOC Note: Post made by @Kyle @Goyanes and @Predice; and approved by @Yalkan .

by Mélanie Bacrot in Saintes
4 November 2020 - 1326h
SAINTES – the House of Lords unanimously passed the Succession Act 2020 without debate, sending the royal bill to King Thibault II for royal assent.

Royal bill
Succession Act 2020 (Acte de succession 2020) was a royal bill proposed by King Thibault II to the National Assembly last June 2020. Royal bills are legislative proposals coming directly from the monarch himself. Because of the hands-off approach that the Santonian monarchy takes with political matters, such proposals are quite rare in Saintonge’s constitutional monarchy.

The last royal bill proposed was the so-called “Prydanian Pardon” in 1912, in which King Archambault X himself petitioned the National Assembly to commute the death sentence of Lars Kvist, the Prydanian anarchist who attempted to assassinate King Archambault X. The National Assembly defeated the royal bill after then-Justice Minister Théobald Triouleyre detailed to the lower house his reasons for rejecting the commutation of the sentence. Lars Kvist was the last person to be judicially executed in Saintonge.

Succession Act
This current royal bill proposes a modification for the succession of the Santonian throne for the next generation. King Thibault II proposed that his firstborn twin identical sons, Prince Thibault-Maximilian and Prince Timothée-Brice, be both declared Crown Princes of Saintonge. Both Prince Thibault and Prince Timothée would then ascend to the throne as Co-Kings of Saintonge, as King Thibault III and King Timothée III. Any of the co-Kings would be entitled to discharge the functions of the Crown.

As for the successor to King Thibault III and King Timothée III, it will be the firstborn male child of any of them: in short, the eldest son any of them would sire would be the Crown Prince and next king of Saintonge.

Such an arrangement is unprecedented in the history of Saintonge. But in his introductory speech in before the National Assembly, an emotional King Thibault II asked Saintonge to consider the proposal. “My sons came to me with this proposal as their plans for the future – their future. Thibault and Timothée had always been close to each other. They dreamed together, they worked together, they supported each other. Now, they want to dedicate both of their lives to Saintonge – their dream; they want to work for the betterment of this country – their work; they want to be able to formally help each other – their destiny. If this was their dream, I wholeheartedly support them as a parent: and so today I would like to ask Saintonge to do the same for its royal children.”

Debate
National Prime Minister Anne-Douceline Courseaux formally voiced her government’s sponsorship of the royal bill last July 2020, virtually guaranteeing its passage in the National Assembly. The National Party holds a supermajority of seats in the lower house of Parliament. Deputy Prime Minister Paul-Geoffroy Barèges (N, 3^rd Seudre) shepherded the bill through the National Assembly.

Some issues were raised regarding the proposal. Liberals raised the issue whether the Act would increase the expenditures for the monarchy; Mr Barèges assured that it would not, as the Santonian monarchy is self-funding and whatever expenditures the Santonian government allocates to the monarchy is allocated to the office, not to the person holding it.

Jean-Ragnebert Roch (R, 4^th Trieux) had the most interesting question: what if the twins had a falling out and disagree on something? Mr Barèges answered that the Santonian monarchy had only symbolic roles in the governance of the country and any disagreement would not endanger the country. This statement was backed up by Justice Minister Brice-Thibault Bardoux de Rosencoat (N, 2^nd Sée), in which he said that “if any one of them gets problematic, we can simply repeal the Succession Act.”

To this Mr Barèges commented that, “colleagues, you should just meet the twin princes in person to see that this would work.”

“It’s the ‘twin thing’,” commented deputy Justin-Thibault Beauvisage (N, 1^st Basses-Alpes), who also has an identical twin brother. “I fully understand where the princes are coming from.”

Passage
The National Assembly passed the royal bill last October 2020 in a unanimous 431-0 vote. Yesterday, the House of Lords passed the bill with a 195-0 vote. All of the departmental representatives, the Lords Spiritual, and Lords Temporal voted for, except Duke Timothée III of the Aunis, who abstained.

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
4 November 2020 - 1628h

by Marc-Junien Morinaud in Saintes
17 November 2020 - 1120h
SAINTES – with the release of the 2020 census data, the Royal Elections Institute (Institut royal des élections, IRE) has issued a decree detailing the future changes in the membership of the country’s Parliament.

Both the House of Lords and the National Assembly are expected to increase in size because of population growth. The House of Lords will increase from the current 196 to 209 with the addition of thirteen more departmental representatives. The National Assembly will increase from 431 to 444 in the next election.

House of Lords
Thirteen additional departmental representatives will be added to the House of Lords. Each of Saintonge's 89 departments and the City of Saintes are guaranteed one representative. A department is granted another representative for every million population. After the 2020 census, thirteen departments will have an additional representative: the City of Saintes and the departments of the Hautes-Alpes, the Bouche-du-Rhâne, the Bourbre, the Côle, the Dropt, the Haine, the Inde, the Saine-et-Loine, the Saulx, the Seudre, the Tamise, and the Tech. The city of Saintes (population 9,001,273) barely got an extra representative when its population breached nine million; the department of the Leir (population 998,661) narrowly lost out on an extra seat by less than fourteen hundred people.

The IRE has issued the certification to the House of Lords. Traditionally, the House of Lords will approve the expansion of its membership as a procedural vote, and then send notifications to the relevant departmental councils asking them to name their representatives who will be seated in the first session on January next year.

The expansion of the House of Lords is expected to benefit the National Party, as 9 out of the 13 departments are controlled by the National Party. The City of Saintes and the department of the Bouche-du-Rhâne is governed by a National-Green coalition, while the Haine and the Inde are controlled by the Coalition.

National Assembly
Thirteen departments also will get an additional deputy in the National Assembly, Saintonge’s lower house. Gaining one seat each would be the departments of the Besbre, the Bouche-du-Rhâne, the Cenise, the Côle, the Côtes-du-Nord, the Inde, the Lignon, the Lisle, the Monce-et-Briance, the Puy-d’Or, the Rance, the Saine-et-Loine, and the Semois.

Unlike in the House of Lords, the IRE is still in the process of redrawing borders for these electoral circumscriptions, which will take into effect in the next parliamentary election.

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
17 November 2020 - 1302h

Editor's Note: "Know a Deputy" is a special feature of L'Indépendant that aims to profile all 431 members of the Santonian National Assembly. We have sent invites to all deputies for an interview and will be featuring the deputies in order of their response to our invitation.


Name of Deputy: Joseph-Claude Cazaud
Also known as: Claudine
District: 7^th electoral circumscription of Saintes
Party: National Party

Born: 11 May 1973, Saint-Florent-sur-Coole (Lignon)
Residence: Saintes

SAINTES - At first glance, it might seem paradoxical that an outspoken gay activist like Joseph-Claude Cazaud is a deputy for the party widely viewed as close to the Santonian National Church. But to Cazaud, who also goes by the name “Claudine” in drag shows, it is not contradictory.

“Times have changed in Santonian society,” said Cazaud. “When I was growing up in a small farming town, some mothers forbade their children from playing with me, as I was flamboyantly gay since childhood.”

“But my mother loved me and told me every day that I’m the most beautiful boy she ever had. My father was okay with it: ‘Gay or no gay, as long as Joseph helps out in the farm work like his sisters, that’s good.’”

Discrimination forced his family to send him to a cousin in Saintes for education. “Saintes was more liberal in its attitude. I was raised by my mother’s cousin who was living openly as a gay man in Saintes.”

But nowadays, Cazaud says, Santonian society is more accepting. “There has been a slow generational change in how Santonian society views LGBT people. When I went back to my hometown, people who I grew up with hugged me and some apologized for their role in my bad experiences growing up.”

Cazaud credits part of the change in attitudes to the Santonian National Church. “Some foreign LGBT activists who come here and tell me, why are you an deputy for a party close to the Church? Because in their experience, the churches in their countries are hostile to the LGBT community. But the Santonian Church has been more accepting. In fact, I credit the papal encyclicals Caritas patiens est and Qui sine peccato as instrumental in driving the attitude change in Saintonge. When the church says that homosexuality per se is not sinful and that who you love is not a sin, that’s a strong message to send to the people.”

“Admittedly, we would like a stronger message, but the Church, like the society at large, will need their time. I’m confident that the Santonian National Church will move towards that.”

Cazaud admits that he regularly goes to Mass with his registered partner, whom he married after taking advantage of the Primeau Law in 2016. “Of course I co-sponsored it. Of course I voted for it. Nobody in the National Party batted an eyelid at a National deputy co-sponsoring such legislation. If anybody says that the National Party is opposed to the LGBT people, let me just say that the National Party made it a free vote, just like the Liberal Party. MPs voted with their conscience, and we saw that the majority of the representatives of the nation voted for change.”

Cazaud also has several proposals pending, such as allowing registered couples under the Primeau Law to adopt children. “But for some reason it is being opposed by – ironically – the Liberals and some of the Radicals. And then folks tell me that these are the parties more welcoming to LGBT people?”

But why the National Party? “Because the National Party stands for the workers, the poor, the downtrodden. As an LGBT person, I understand how that is and how the National Party can and will work for such people.” ●

Interview and Article by Marc-Tobias Guilbault
Translated by Jérôme-Caden Barceloux Colcolough

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Politics


by Mélanie Bacrot in Saintes
13 November 2020 - 0950h
CÔME (Simbruins) – terminally-ill Radical deputy Jean-Jacques Fargeau (R, 1^st Simbruins) resigned his seat yesterday, shortly before moving to hospice care for his incurable Stage IV prostate cancer. Mr Fargeau, who is 83 years old, served as the deputy for the first electoral circumscription of the Simbruins for forty-five years, from 1975 until 2020.

Tribute
After three minutes of silence for the longtime MP, the President of the National Assembly Sophie-Anne Laliberté (N, 1^st Basses-Brômes), Radical Party leader Georges Conté de Caunes (R, 4^th Capoterre), and fellow Simbruins deputy Jules-Antoine Beaumarchais (R, 2^nd Simbruins) offered speeches as a tribute to Mr Fargeau. Said Mr Conté de Caunes: “Jean-Jacques was not just a deputy, he is a good friend of mine, a pillar of the Radical Party, a mentor to our younger colleagues.”

Mr Fargeau’s key legacy was the so-called Loi Fargeau in 1977, which allowed the establishment of two independent private television channels in Saintonge, which is now Canal+ and M8 (Métropole Télévisions). Previously only Saintonge Télévisions and its channels held a monopoly in television broadcasting in Saintonge. The law liberalised broadcasting in Saintonge and gave viewers more choice and variety.

His interest in advertising was also instrumental in passing Loi Fargeau II in 1983, which allowed Saintonge Télévisions to take in limited amount of advertising to support itself in addition to the “screen licence fee” – a tax levied on all screens (television sets, monitors) in Saintonge.


Suppléant
Seat resignations in the National Assembly normally do not trigger by-elections in Saintonge as voters elect their member of Parliament with his/her a substitute (suppléant) during elections. Mr Fargeau’s suppléant, forty-two year old François-Louis Villault, comes from the right wing of the Radical Party. A few hours after his swearing-in yesterday at the National Assembly, Mr Villault’s controversial internet posts became viral in the Santonian internet. Some of the comments included criticism of immigrants, divisive rhetoric regarding immigrants, and support for convicted former Simbruins departmental vice-president Rodéric du Tertre.

When asked regarding those comments, Mr Villault stated that “It is what it is. I believe in what I believe in, and I stand by those comments. I speak freely in a free country – I am transparent and people know what’s in my head.”

translation by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
13 November 2020 - 1126h

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Politics


by Jérémie Fleuroy in Côme
24 November 2020 - 1053h
CÔME (Simbruins) – the Simbruins departmental council passed a resolution yesterday condemning François-Louis Villault, National Assembly deputy for the first electoral circumscription of the Simbruins.

The resolution, authored by Councillor Gilles-Tancrède Hardouin (N, Côme) condemned “Mr Villault’s xenophobic rhetoric that targets immigrants and especially Prydanians.” The resolution cited multiple statements by Mr Villault, both online and offline, as evidence. Mr Villault's most egregious statement was: "Saintonge got two million Prydanian immigrants because of that civil war. When Prydania sent their people, they did not send their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing poverty. They’re bringing their political divisions. They’re violent Vikings. And some, I assume, are good people. " The resolution ended with the departmental council calling for Mr Villault’s resignation.

The resolution was passed 74-20 with five abstentions. All 59 National and all six Green Councillors voted for. Joining the condemnation were nine Liberals. Nine other Liberals joined all of the eleven Radical councillors in voting against. The five councillors who abstained were also Liberals.

All three Simbruins departmental councillors of Prydanian descent, Élise-Steinunn Laslandes (N, Côme), Hólmkell Strömblad (N, Sainte-Avelline), and Öysteinn Tennöe (L, Côme), voted for the resolution.

The resolution has no practical effect, as it will not remove Mr Villault from the National Assembly. It is merely an expression of the disagreement of the departmental council with their National Assembly deputy. It is a somewhat common occurrence in Saintonge; the last time a departmental council rebuked its National Assembly representative was then the departmental council of the Chalaronne lambasted then-opposition leader Marc Gaucelin for his absence in the Caruhel II vote in 2019.

translation by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
24 November 2020 - 1411h

by Mélanie Bacrot in Saintes
28 November 2020 - 1200h
SAINTES – the National Assembly Ethics Committee passed and forwarded a report to the plenary recommending the censure of Liberal Member of Parliament Justin-Pierre Brudeau (L, 6^th Haine) of Coire. Although Mr Brudeau is well-known for his insensitive, racist costumes, the committee’s recommendation was based on his multiple ethics violations.

Suppléant
Mr Brudeau made national headlines as the spotlight focused upon the little-known drama teacher from Coire, who unexpectedly became a member of parliament (MP) for the sixth electoral circumscription of the Haine. He became an MP after former Prime Minister Jean-Louis Hauteclocque de Champtoceaux (JLHC) vacated the seat. Mr Brudeau was JLHC’s suppléant.

Soon after, the compromising images of Mr Brudeau was publicised in the Santonian internet. Despite criticisms from many sides, Mr Brudeau did not resign the seat, which covers the southern part of Coire and some of its suburbs such as Argenteuil, Beauharnois, Brossard, Champ-des-Balises, Dorval, Longueuil, Mirabel, Papineau, Pierrefonds, Pointe-Claire, Rosemont, Senneville, Soulanges, and Vaudreuil. Many of the parish councils in the district also called for Mr Brudeau to resign after the publication of the pictures.

Ethics Violations
Calls for his resignation intensified when his ethics violations and conflicts of interest were revealed. Three subcommittees of the ethics committee were formed to investigate each one.

The First Subcommittee, headed by Marie-Frédérique Castonguay (N, 12^th Saine-et-Loine) examined the all-expense paid summer vacation in June 2020 in a Griffonian Riviera villa courtesy of the foreign company MegaKhan. During the time of Brudeau’s family vacation, MegaKhan was negotiating tax breaks with the parish council of Papineau, where Brudeau hails from. The Liberal-governed Papineau council eventually approved the MegaKhan project in October 2020.

The Second Subcommittee, headed by Charles-Hugbert Warhouver (N, 3^rd Argens) investigated Justin Brudeau’s involvement in the SNC-La Baleine scandal. SNC-La Baleine (Société nationale des costumes – La Baleine) is Saintonge’s largest costume construction firm, headquartered in Coire. SNC-La Baleine was found to have bribed foreign countries to manufacture their costumes cheaply and in almost slave-labour like conditions, in contravention of Saintonge’s 2009 Fair Trade Practices Law. The law imposes steep tariffs on such products with the view of criminal prosecution and even closure if the products were indeed made using slave labour. SNC-La Baleine was aiming to keep the case off the courts and instead be paid a fine.

In July 2020, Mr Brudeau, who is a known connoisseur of costumes and an avid collector of them, asked the City Council of Coire (held by the Coalition) to make an intervention stating that SNC-La Baleine is a big employer in Coire and its closure will lead to loss of jobs in the city. Mr Brudeau also pressured the King’s Counsel (prosecution attorney) of Coire to simply negotiate for a fine and not to bring the case to court, which could potentially result in closure of SNC-La Baleine. The Chief King’s Counsel for Coire, Julie Gilson-Raymond, testified before the subcommittee that Mr Brudeau told him that “if SNC-La Baleine is closed, where will I get my costumes?”

Gauthier Rigaudeau (N, 1^st Basses-Andes) led the Third Subcommittee, which investigated the OUI Charity scandal. OUI Charity described itself as a non-profit charitable organisation based in Coire “dedicated to saving the children”. Mr Brudeau and his wife, Sophie-Georgette, had a close relationship with the OUI Charity. Both had speaking engagements with the OUI Charity, took all-expense paid trips care of the charity, and were paid hefty speaking fees – even while Mr Brudeau was a sitting parliamentary deputy. Parliamentary rules put a cap on the gifts members may receive, and Mr Brudeau accepted well beyond the limit from the OUI Charity.

The scandal intensified when it was found out that in May 2020, the Liberal-controlled departmental council of the Haine contracted the OUI Charity to administer a work-study “volunteer” programme for indigent students. The students would work for well below the minimum hourly wage, which sparked outrage among labour unions and student unions. Mr Brudeau was reportedly instrumental in introducing OUI Charity to the departmental council and in persuading them to approve the programme proposed by the charity.

Subsequent investigations by the superintendent of the Haine Camille-Pierre Peyruchaud revealed that OUI Charity was financially insolvent and would be unable to fulfil the obligations of the programme. This led to accusations that Mr Brudeau was helping the OUI Charity to get funding in order to help its finances.

In Superintendent Peyruchaud’s damning report to the Santonian Interior Ministry, the department of the Haine “accepted a private-sector proposal without conducting a needs assessment, without vetting the contractor, without proper competitive evaluation of the alternatives, and without setting up an oversight structure for the programme implementation. The departmental council of the Haine also failed to see that the programme was illegal with regards to Santonian labour laws.”

Hearing and Vote
Mr Brudeau was formally cited by all three subcommittees and the entire Ethics committee en banc for being uncooperative. All of the presiders of the meetings decried the stalling tactics Mr Brudeau and his allies used to run out the time of the investigators. For instance, Ms Bardish Jagger, Councillor for Youth Affairs of the department of the Haine, always started her answers with “Madame Chair, I think it is important since I want to provide accurate information, that I provide adequate information, for the councillor for the youth of the department of the Haine…” in order to run out the MP’s question time. Ms Castonguay, Chair of the First Subcommittee, had enough and cut her off. “Please refrain from your word salads purposefully made to run out the time. The question posed to you is really simple: it was a yes-or-no question, so I would like to ask you to respect the member who is asking the question and answer accordingly.” When Ms Jagger continued with her word salad, Ms Castonguay declared Ms Jagger in contempt. The declaration was passed unanimously by the First Subcommittee.


Yesterday, the Ethics Committee en banc voted 20-0 to recommend the censure of Mr Brudeau on all three counts of ethics violations. All eighteen National Party members of the committee voted for. Also voting for the committee report were the lone Green Party member, Kimo-Philippe de Sabarthès (V, 16^th Saintes), and the lone Radical Party member Gilles-Rombaut de Bruyne (R, 4^th Argens). The two Liberal members Matthieu-Folcuin Troendle (L, 4^th Basses-Brômes) and Jean-Martin-Philippe Caire du Lhut (L, 3^rd Sarine) abstained.

Plenary Session
Ethics Committee chairman Paul-Eelco Palmaert (N, 2^nd Margerides) transmitted the report to National Assembly president Sophie-Anne Laliberté (N, 1^st Basses-Brômes) yesterday. The Ethics committee report is set to be tackled and voted on by the entire National Assembly next month. If the National Assembly votes in favour of the committee report, Mr Brudeau will be censured – the first MP to be censured in decades.

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
28 November 2020 - 1922h

by Mélanie Bacrot in Saintes
4 December 2020 - 1622h
COIRE (Haine) – the Santonian internet uncovered another embarrassing, and potentially compromising, photograph of National Assembly deputy Justin-Pierre Brudeau (L, 6^th Haine) of Coire.

Post
The initial post in Twitcher and Facegram by @ActualitésCoiriennes published a picture of Mr Brudeau wearing a brown tunic over a grey shirt and tie – with Prydanian Syndicalist insignia. “Coire MP Justin-Pierre Brudeau wore Syndicalist People’s Militia uniform to a costume party in 2015.”

The Santonian internet exploded in outrage, after having been stoked by Radical MP François-Louis Villault’s xenophobic comments in Twitcher during the past two weeks. The photograph was confirmed by a certain Jules-Faustin Fargot, who was one of the organisers of the party. Mr Fargot said that “This is a real photograph. This was taken in 2015, as part of a costume party and an ad campaign for SNC – La Baleine.” SNC – La Baleine is a costume manufacturer company based in Coire, which Mr Brudeau patronises.

Another partygoer also confirmed the photograph. Alphonsine Quinette posted, “I was at that party and I saw Justin Brudeau wearing that Syndicalist militia uniform happily.”

A quick search of the SNC – La Baleine website shows that the Syndicalist People’s Militia costume is still available for sale.

Outrage
Santonians, both of Prydanian and non-Prydanian descent, took to the internet to vent their outrage. Prydanian-born Santonian National Assembly deputy Thorbjörn Höjsleth wrote on Twitcher that “Granted that [Justin Brudeau] was not an MP when this picture was taken, this just shows that he is unfit to represent a city whose population is 7% Prydanian.”

Thibault-Sébastien Côrriveau noted that the release of the pictures came during “the run-up to commemoration of the 5^th anniversary of the Advent executions that the People’s Syndicalist Militia perpetrated in Býkonsviði.” The Advent executions were a massive horrific purge of religious practitioners in Býkonsviði in December 2015, where people were hung from lampposts for professing religious belief. Many other Prydanians shared their bad experiences with the militia, including Santonian Men's National Ice Hockey Team member Baldr Gudmundseth: “Only a few people know this about me but this is too important to let pass. Me and my sister were nearly murdered by militiamen who were WEARING THAT EXACT UNIFORM. To this day I still have nightmares about it. Shame on you [Justin Brudeau] and people who think that this is merely a costume.”

Six players of Prydanian descent who play in the local Première Ligue football team AJ Saint Tobie de Coire also reacted: Tjörvi Hagtvedt, Hugberg Steenstrup, Tobias Rönbeck, Thorbjörn Kjellander, Hjálmthór Björklund, and Snaebjörn Syrstad all commented on the post. Kjellander wrote: “Apologies are not enough. [Justin Brudeau] must show that he truly cares about the Prydanian community in Saintonge.”

Sara-Joséphine Malrieu had some advice for Mr Brudeau: “We understand that as a drama teacher, you love dressing up, you love to roleplay. But you must understand . [Justin Brudeau] that there are some topics (and costumes) that must be handled carefully and respectfully.”

Brudeau speaks
Mr Brudeau apologised – again – for his love of costumes. “I should have known better then, but I didn't and I did it and I'm deeply sorry,” Mr Brudeau said in an interview with the local affiliate of Saintonge Télévisions. "I'm pissed off at myself, I'm disappointed in myself," he added.

On Twitcher, Mr Brudeau wrote, “The fact of the matter is that I’ve always — and you’ll know this — been more enthusiastic about costumes than is sometimes appropriate.” Mr Brudeau apologised again, saying “To those who were upset by the photograph, I apologise. It was just a simple costume I wore to a party and it was a dumb thing to do.”

The most recent picture scandal is the latest to engulf the Coire MP. The Ethics Committee recommended at least a censure of Mr Brudeau over ethics violations, which will be tackled by the National Assembly next week.

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
4 December 2020 - 1822h

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OOC Notes: Special thanks to @Prydania for the photo edit!
"Actualités Coiriennes" = "Coire News"

Mme. Héloïse-Jardine Cointat (Chair): The Chair recognises the deputy for the Basse-Bléone. Mr. Grussenmeyer, the floor is yours for five minutes.

M. Gérald-Godéric Grussenmeyer (Deputy from the Basse-Bléone): Thank you for attending this oversight subcommittee meeting, Mr. Brotcorne. As the Vice-President for Foreign Investments of the Santonian National Fund, how did the FNS assist foreign countries this year?

M. Matthieu-Cédric Brotcorne (Resource Person, Santonian National Fund): Thank you for the question. It is my pleasure to inform this subcommittee that the FNS had assisted more than a dozen countries this fiscal year with strategic investments. Total outbound investments was fifty billion IBU, or 35% of the liquid funds available for investment. Since we are talking about a lot of money and many countries, is the Honourable Member interested in any specific country?

M. Grussenmeyer: Hmm, let’s start with the largest on your list. Prydania.

M. Brotcorne: In the Fiscal Year 2019, total inbound FNS investments into the Kingdom of Prydania totalled ten billion IBU, mostly to firms concerned with reconstruction and restarting the Prydanian economy.

M. Grussenmeyer: Do you have specific companies you can cite?

M. Brotcorne: Let me just open the presentation for Prydania… The Kingdom of Prydania gets the highest share of FNS outbound investments. Saintonge is also the largest provider of foreign investment and foreign aid to the Kingdom of Prydania – our ten billion IBU investment in 2019 is the equivalent to one-eighth of their gross domestic product.

One of the most important investments that the FNS funnelled into the Kingdom of Prydania is with góðajörð, which is terrebonne’s branch in Prydania. The Government of the Kingdom of Prydania credits the establishment of agricultural cooperatives for the speedy recovery of its agricultural sector. The establishment of the Landbúnaðarlán through seed capital from FNS gave Prydanian farmers low-cost loans to which to restart their farms. The Landbúnaðarlán is similar to the Crédit agricole here in Saintonge.

We had also invested in multiple companies that would be useful in the reconstruction in Prydania. First and foremost is Prydanskstál, or Prydanian Steel. With FNS funds, the Compagnie nationale du charbon et de l’acier (National Coal and Steel Company) bought Prydanskstál, and restarted its activities. Prydanskstál had a fresh injection of funds during Fiscal Year 2019. Prydanskstál now supplies a majority of steel used in Prydania and is looking for exportation abroad once local demand settles down. Another area in which Saintonge invested is in mining, where our very own Mines royales de Saintonge revived Prydanska Gullið, the Prydanian mining company. Saintonge's Compagnie saintongeaise des pétroles had invested, along with Norsian oil companies, in Prydania's pertroleum company, conducting oil exploration for untapped offshore deposits.

Note that the ten billion IBU does not include Santonian companies that asked for investment so they can build subsidiaries in Prydania. For instance, Montfaucon, a heavy equipment manufacturer, asked for FNS investment again this year; they had opened a manufacturing plant in Haland in 2018 so they can supply cranes, trucks, and similar equipment for reconstruction activities. These investments are counted towards domestic investment.

And lastly, the FNS had invested in utilities – electricity, water, gas, and telecommunications – in Prydania. Since 2017, FNS has made significant investments there, along with technical support through the national Santonian utility companies. FNS had made a big investment in Ríkiorkufyrirtæki, the Prydanian national electricity utility, for them to build four civil nuclear power plants with the help of Électricité de Saintonge. The FNS also made investments in HýdróPrydansk’s reservoirs, pipes, and sewerage systems, with assistance from Compagnie saintongeaise des eaux. Ríkibensínfyrirtæki, the Prydanian gas company, also got investment for improving their services. The Fund was also instrumental in expanding the reach of the Internet in Prydania, thanks to our investments in Prydanski Síma og Símskeyti or PS&S.

The continuing investments by FNS which helped connect Prydanians to essential utilities. The latest statistics show that 99% of Prydanians have home electricity, 81% have municipal running water, 69% have gas connections, and 63% are connected to the Internet. Such improvements in the standard of living are at the heart of FNS’ investments in Prydania; profit-making is not our main, sole objective.

Mme. Cointat: Thank you very much Monsieur Brotcorne for that very comprehensive answer about the FNS investments in Prydania… very comprehensive indeed that you ran out Monsieur Grussenmeyer’s time. I’d like to just give the member from the Basse-Bléone one last opportunity to ask a final question.

M. Grussenmeyer: Thank you Madame Chair. I would like to thank Monsieur Brotcorne for his extensive answer. I would’ve asked about other countries, but my last question would be: do you think the FNS investments would be good for the Fund and Saintonge, even if they don’t make a profit?

M. Brotcorne: I think that yes, they would be good for the Fund. One of the Fund’s roles is to utilise the money for Saintonge’s financial security – and these investments in Prydania are good investments. When Prydania becomes more successful economically – which our analysts think would be – the value of that investment increases. Outbound investment also contributes to the management of the Santonian livre because it takes the pressure off our currency. And let us not forget the human development that our investments create – it’s hard to put a number value on that.

M. Grussenmeyer: Thank you Monsieur Brotcorne.

Mme. Cointat: I now give the floor to Charles-Emmanuel Calafiore, deputy from Saintes.

M. Charles-Emmanuel Calafiore (Deputy from Saintes): On to the topic of investments in other nations, the Predicean government had signalled its intention to buy back some of the investments that the SNIS has in Predice. Can you give updates on this?

M. Brotcorne: Thank you for the question. It is well-known that the Fund is not in the habit of using its investments as leverage, that Saintonge will use against the countries it is investing in. The investments in the Most Serene State of Predice are covered by the 2003 Saintonge – Predice Mutual Investment Treaty, which is a bilateral treaty signed immediately after the fall of communism as a framework as to how Santonian investments are going to be welcomed and protected in our good neighbour.

We are proud to have assisted Predice in its postcommunist economic recovery, particularly in its automobile industry, infrastructure, and mining industries. It is indeed true that the Predicean government had issued a formal request to the Santonian government and the SNIS in 2018 for the divestment of the Fund from several of the sectors, particularly utilities.

We understand that from the Santonian point of view, many of these assets and investments are valuable, even into the future. But Saintonge is not in the habit of strangling foreign nations and treating them like its own property. Following the request of the Predicean government and the recommendation of the Santonian government, the Board of the Fund approved the divestiture, or selling back, the Fund’s assets and equity in some of the areas that the Most Serene State of Predice had identified. The divestiture shall be done in accordance to the 2003 Saintonge – Predice Mutual Investment Treaty, which states that the prospective buyer, in this case, the government of the Most Serene State of Predice, shall have the option to buy back such equity or asset at the current market value, plus the minimum conservative potential projected growth the equity or asset may have for the next five years.

The outbreak of unrest in Predice this year had stalled the process as the country refocused its resources on stabilising itself. We expect the process to restart next year.

M. Calafiore: Thank you, Monsieur Brotcorne. Speaking of divestiture, is the Fund going to withdraw its investments in Yamantau, which is being threatened with war with the Imperium?

M. Brotcorne: The short answer is – no. We are not going to pull out of Yamantau. The Fund originally invested in the country to help it recover from the dictatorship it was in. We invested in petroleum and mining, which would also be beneficial for our own importation policy; and for sectors involved in reconstruction and rebuilding, such as heavy equipment manufacturers and construction companies.

The Royal Santonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs had issued a communiqué to both the governments of Yamantau and the Imperium, urging for respect for Santonian investments and ensuring the safety of the Santonians in Yamantau.

M. Calafiore: Could the investments be construed as Saintonge assisting Yamantau in its war against the Imperium?

M. Brotcorne: I don’t think it is. Certainly neither the Yamanta government thinks of it that way nor the Imperial government has done steps about it. If by investing and doing business in Yamantau is tantamount to supporting Yamantau in the war; then we can also say that Prydania is supporting the Imperium in the war because Prydania is selling food and doing business with the Imperium. The argument is silly.

Saintonge had historically insisted on its right as a neutral to trade with any country, whether belligerent in any conflict or not.

M. Calafiore: Would the value of the investments depreciate or crater out because of the possible destruction and damage due to the war?

M. Brotcorne: Business is all about risk. At the Santonian National Fund, we hold many of our investments long-term. The value may decrease right now because of the war, but in the long run, we are confident that with a good Yamanta recovery, the value of the investment will increase and the returns will be good.

M. Calafiore: Thank you Monsieur Brotcorne. Madame Chair, I have no other questions.

Mme. Cointat: Thank you, Monsieur Calafiore. The Chair calls the member for the Bouche-du-Rhâne, Zoë Enlart.

Mme. Zoë Enlart (Deputy for the Bouche-du-Rhâne): Monsieur Brotcorne, are there any countries that the Fund is looking to invest in heavily this year and in the coming fiscal year?

M. Brotcorne: With regards to planned investments, here are the committed investments that we have. As you can see in the chart, there are still sums allocated to Prydania, of course, and then to Korova and Essalanea through YEET. There is also a big allocation to Yalkan, under the Saintonge-Goyanes-Predice proposal. Additional investment to Yamantau is deferred because of the war. Other countries still included in the proposed allocations are New Aleman, Demescia, Oclusia, Alliaronia, Naizerre, Cojedes, and Arrandal, should their countries complete a bilateral investment treaty and these countries ask for it.

Mme. Enlart: Saintonge and FNS had been very active in northern Craviter – in Prydania and Korova, and previously in Norsia. The latest news coming out of the Tusacaway points to the grim situation of agriculture and finances in that country. Does the Fund have an interest or intention to invest in the Tusacaway?

M. Brotcorne: The Tusacaway is a relatively closed, isolationist country. It is the principle of the Fund that we do not force our way in; but rather we forward a proposal or an offer to the country and they invite us in.

That said, the country seems fit to benefit from institutions like agricultural cooperatives like terrebonne and góðajörð, and agricultural credit providers like Crédit agricole and Landbúnaðarlán. We have been sending feelers through our own and other friendly diplomats regarding their receptiveness to investment. The Prydanians, who had experience with these, are the most helpful. As are our macaron exporters, as the confection seems to have been a hit in the country.

Mme. Enlart: Another relatively closed country is Osynstry. Recent news coming out of it seems that it is opening up and becoming more receptive to investment. The country is also large, with 165 million people, a market that is the second-largest in the world. Does the Fund intend to invest in Osynstry?

M. Brotcorne: Not at the moment.

Mme. Enlart: That’s unusual. So you are investing in Yamantau, a country that is being bombed right now, but not in Osynstry, a country that is at peace. Can you elaborate?

M. Brotcorne: The Fund’s analysts simply do not believe that the statistical and economic data out of Osynstry are reliable. The Fund cannot simply accept prima facie the data that other countries release. It is difficult to make investment decisions based on unreliable data. We make our own assessments of each country and their suitability for investments.

For Osynstry, our internal analysts deem the basic data to be suspicious. For example, population and population growth. Osynstry says it grew by ten million people in the five-year period between 2015 and 2020, with almost no immigration – that is a huge growth for a so-called developed country. In contrast, Saintonge grew by even less in the ten-year period between 2010 and 2020, and that’s with massive immigration from refugees and one of the highest total fertility rates among developed nations.

The 2.9% posted economic growth rate from a country with a huge nationalised sector with a highly-closed, highly-protected economy, is also highly unreliable. Even Saintonge’s Institut royal de la statistique et des études économiques puts “data deficient/unreliable” for Osynstry. Other statistical agencies, such as that from Predice and Midir, also deem the economic data coming out of Osynstry as unreliable.

The Osynstric GDP size and GDP per capita levels are also questionable. Our internal analysts believe they might be fudging their data. Our estimate is that their GDP per capita is actually one-thirds to two-thirds of the published size; and the country is less well-developed than it seems – otherwise they are a massive outlier in the dictum that highly-developed nations have slower population growth. So it’s either (1) they are poorer, less well-developed with massive population and population growth; or (2) they are wealthy and highly-developed with a smaller population and population growth. Our analysts are leaning towards the first scenario – which means that there is a lot of benefit that the Fund can bring to Osynstry.

That said, the Fund deems Osynstry as a higher risk than even Yamantau because of the unreliable data. You cannot rely on a trade and investment partner that is churning out inaccurate data. It’s like you have a friend who cannot even tell you how many children he has!

The Fund would be very much interested in investing in Osynstry under two main conditions: (1) that the country fix its basic data to become more reflective of the real situation in the country, and not simply be the wishes or targets that the country desires to reach; (2) that Saintonge and Osynstry sign a bilateral investment treaty, which would assure us that the Santonian investments in Osynstry would be respected and – this is important – and that the investments are protected from things such as nationalisations that Osynstry is historically wont to do and what the current Osynstric government plans on doing.

Mme. Cointat: Thank you, Monsieur Brotcorne, for the very detailed answer, but I think we have run out of Madame Enlart’s time. Before I go to another member, Mademoiselle Enlart, do you have a last question for Monsieur Brotcorne?

Mme. Enlart: Madame Chair, I don’t want to take too much time from others. That would be all, thank you.

Mme. Cointat: The Chair calls the member for the Vôges. Monsieur Taittinger, you may ask questions for five minutes.

M. Marc-Cuthbert Taittinger (Deputy from the Vôges): Thank you Madame Chair. Monsieur Brotcorne, can you tell me which of the world’s big countries has the Fund invested the least and why?

M. Brotcorne: The Fund’s investment strategy is not country-based, even though the previous discussions made it appear to be so. We evaluate each proposal on its own on its merits. The reason why country-based discussions are involved is because we have a mandate to do so. Country-specific criteria are included in evaluating each investment proposal, though they are only a part of the criteria.

M. Taittinger: Could you elaborate?

M. Brotcorne: The country-specific criteria are multiple, but generally they can be lumped into five main areas.

First, is the country hostile to Saintonge? Of course countries that are hostile or at war with Saintonge will not get investments. As of the moment, no countries fall under this category.

Second, potential benefit to Saintonge. Will Saintonge benefit from parking its money in the country? Will it be useful in assisting the Fund's growth?

Third, potential benefit to the country. How much will the recipient country benefit? This is why countries recovering from wars and dictatorships are at the receiving end of a lot of investments – because their peoples stand to benefit the most.

Fourth, the growth potential of the country. Of course a country with an underdeveloped economy like Prydania would have a larger growth potential and more growth opportunities than a highly-developed economy like, let’s say, Goyanes.

Fifth and lastly, is the presence of bilateral investment treaties and a strong rule of law. This is essential for the protection and continued growth of our investments.

That said, the big countries with the least amount of investments include Sasten, McMasterdonia, Ilia-Taveris, Syrixia, and Stan Yera.

M. Taittinger: Thank you, Mr Brotcorne. Madame Chair, I have no other questions.

by Marc-Junien Morinaud in Saintes
04 January 2021 - 1203h
SAINTES – the Santonian economy exceeded 10 trillion livres in size in 2020, according to the statistics released by the Institut royal de la statistique et des études économiques (IRSEE, Royal Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies).


Respectable economic growth
The Santonian economy had respectable growth in the 2010, according to IRSEE economist Aline-Laurence Joxe, with an average yearly growth of 2.14%. The Santonian nominal GDP rose from £8.12 trillion (5.41 trillion IBU) in 2010 to £10.02 trillion (6.68 trillion IBU) in 2020. This meant that the nominal GDP per capita rose from £65,640 (43,760 IBU) in 2010 to £75,027 (50,018 IBU) in 2020.

The remarkable growth masks the trajectory of Saintonge’s economic growth. The country exhibited strong economic growth in the early part of the decade, reaching 4.15% economic growth in 2011, the highest in the decade. Dr. Joxe attributed the strong economic growth to the large influx of immigrants, which increased consumer spending and brought in new skills and labour into the country. The Santonian agricultural, healthcare, banking, services, and technology sectors also had above-average performances during the first part of the decade.

The economy slowed down in the middle of the decade, with the country entering a technical recession in the first part of 2018. The economy contracted by a third of a percentage point in 2018. Nominal GDP per capita actually declined in 2017 and 2018, coinciding with declining consumer confidence and a tapering of immigration.

The economy rebounded in 2019 and 2020. Dr. Joxe credited the labour reforms passed by the Coalition government and the immigration reforms passed by the National government. The country’s accession to the Meterra Economic Treaty Association (Association du traité économique meterrien, ATEM) is expected to support increasing economic growth by opening more markets to Santonian products.

Uneven distribution
Despite the generally good news, the economic growth was unevenly distributed. Like the population growth, metropolitan Saintes and central Saintonge were the main beneficiaries of the economic growth. With Santonian agriculture rapidly expanding, central Saintonge had robust economic growth.

Meanwhile, eastern and southern Saintonge suffered from slow economic growth. GDP per capita in the east actually remained static. This was attributed to the downturn of the extractive industries that powered the east’s growth: the petroleum industry around Plaisance and Côme, the mining industry around Novale. The northeast had some economic growth, notably from tourism in the Griffonian Riviera.

In the south, the economy was affected by the increased prices and costs. The halting of the expansion of the Trans-Santonian Pipeline and scrapping of two railway projects serving southern Saintonge because of environmental opposition hobbled the south’s economy. The secondary (manufacturing) sector in the south, which is sensitive to cost inputs, shrank during the decade.

The IRSEE has a positive outlook for the east and south for the next decade: the completion of the Trans-Santonian pipeline expansion and the resurrection of the railway projects (which will connect the east and the south) will help reinvigorate their economies.

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
04 January 2021 - 1350h

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Top Stories


by Annette-Louise Laschet in Saintes
06 December 2020 - 2315h
SAINTES – Sigurbaldur 'Siggi' Thorkildsen had been declared the winner the Canal+ singing contest la Voix de Saintonge.

The 27-year old singer, originally from Skänninge, Prydania, was named as the winner during Saturday’s Grand Final. His coach was the singer-songwriter Justine Santagemma, herself a daughter of Predicean refugees in Saintonge.

Background
Thorkildsen arrived in Saintonge in 2003 as a ten year old. He used to sing in Courantist church choirs, until the Syndicalist coup in 2002 made life difficult for practitioners of religion. Thorkildsen’s family fled Prydania aboard a migrant ship, which was intercepted and rescued by the Royal Santonian Navy Ship Doire in Dcember 2002. They were the subject of a second rescue when Doire itself nearly sank in the icy international waters off Korova.

Thorkildsen arrived in Saintonge in January 2003 and was resettled in Plaisance (Corb). There he also sang in Santonian Church choirs. After finishing his National Service, he found a job in the Spilvel factory in town. He still sings in his local parish church of Saint-Hilaire.

Journey
Thorkildsen auditioned in la Voix de Saintonge with the song Enfant sans sa mère, the Santonian version of the classic Kristbjörn Eskfjörð song Móðurlaust barn. All four coaches - Justine Santagemma, Catherine Cazeneuve, Pika, and Gauthier Spiller – turned for the Prydanian-born singer.

“Your voice is so soulful, I could feel the emotion stab me right in the heart,” Santagemma told Thorkildsen during the audition. Thorkildsen went with his fellow refugee as his coach.

Cazeneuve’s epithet “Valentine Viking” stuck to the stereotypical Viking-looking Thorkildsen after singing Édith Margonne’s love song Partout où tu iras in the Battle Round. The crooner then crossed over into rock and metal with Frontières sacrées’ song Point de rupture in the Knockout Round.

In the first Live Show, Thorkildsen took on Emmène-moi à l'église ! by André-Jean Bonnetier. He advanced by winning the audience vote.

For the semi-final, Thorkildsen, singing Berceuse by Polly-Anna Gagnon, was nearly eliminated, only to be saved again by the televote. The telegenic Valentine Viking clearly became an audience favourite, as evidenced by the Twitcher and Facegram hashtag #LeVikingValentin trending multiple times during the shows.

In the Final Round, Thorkildsen and Santagemma sang the Santonian-Predicean song Avec toi je partirai (Con te partiró) by Andrea Rosselli and Sara Brillant for the Coach+Contestant duet portion. Santagemma sang the Predicean part of Rosselli, Thorkildsen translated and sang a stanza into Prydanian, and both sang the Santonian parts. For his winning solo performance, the Prydanian-Santonian sang his own version of Le son du silence by Simon Greysolon.


Win
Sigurbaldur Thorkildsen won the contest with 51.44% of the televote. After his win, Thorkildsen thanked Saintonge “for giving me, a poor refugee kid, a wondrous opportunity to succeed and flourish.”

His coach, Justine Santagemma, said that “Siggi is an example of what refugees to and the heights that they can reach in Saintonge. I hope that Siggi’s journey inspires millions of refugees that like him, like me and my parents, success is within reach.... they should continue to reach for their dreams.”

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
07 December 2020 - 1052h

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Song title translations:
Enfant sans sa mere = Motherless child
Point de rupture = Breaking Point
Partout où tu iras = Wherever you go
Emmène-moi à l'église ! = Take me to Church!
Berceuse = Lullaby
Avec toi je partirai = With you I will go
Con te partiró = I leave with you
Le son du silence = The Sound of Silence

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Culture > Entertainment


by Jules-Fernand de Maupeou in Saintes
05 January 2021 - 0220h
SAINTES – One of Santonian television’s most hated and most controversial television antagonists was killed off in the Canal+ serial Les toiles emmêlées. In last Friday’s episode of Les toiles emmêlées, Reinar Valstad was shot dead while trying to protect his friend Lotta from the Astragonese mafiamen who were after her.

Story
Despite his heroic end, viewers of Les toiles emmêlées loved to hate Reinar. Introduced in Season 2, Reinar was a young man who fled the Prydanian Civil War as a teenager. He had simply aged out of the refugee system as nobody wanted to adopt the troubled teenager. Initially a minor character, Reinar was a petty neighbourhood thief who made trouble by victimising fellow Prydanian immigrants and giving the Prydanian immigrant community a poor reputation. His sly and sleazy dealings put many of the reputably upstanding characters in Les toiles emmêlées in danger.

By the next season, Reinar became more daring in his machinations. It was revealed that the reason why he left Prydania was that he had Syndicalist sympathies; the FRE had occupied his hometown in Austurland. Reinar was a Syndicalist mainly because he was a homosexual and the previous Social Commonwealth regime had persecuted homosexuals. In Saintonge, Reinar passed on information about Prydanian immigrants to the Prydanian Syndicalist agents in Saintes. In gathering and passing on information, Reinar did egregious things in the process. One of the most shocking things Reinar did was outing the teenaged Hrafnbjörn Fjören to his unaccepting family; Hrafnbjörn committed suicide afterwards.

However, once the Syndicalists were defeated, he no longer had a source of income, leading him to hatch his boldest scheme yet.


In Season 4, Reinar seduced and then blackmailed Gilles-Luc d’Archambeau, a closeted aristocratic banker who had a young family. Reinar made increasing demands on Gilles, and after one demand too many, Gilles broke up with Reinar. To exact revenge, Reinar destroyed Gilles’ family and made them hate Gilles. This did not improve Reinar’s lot in life as Gilles shunned Reinar for what he did; Reinar drifted back to the underworld, becoming a pimp, treating his charges better than the mafia- and syndicate-associated prostitution outfits.

Reinar’s budding business collided with that of the Astragonese Black Tiger mafia. This was exacerbated when he started accepting and protecting the women fleeing the abusive Astragonese mafia, Lotta being one of them. It was in this hustle that Reinar met his end.

Reactions
In addition to being hated, Reinar’s character was also controversial. Accusations of xenophobia and homophobia were levelled at Les toiles emmêlées. Since the introduction of his character, various Prydanian immigrant organisations castigated the show for ‘putting immigrants in a bad light’.


Hreinn Falck, the Prydanian-Santonian actor who played Reinar, defended the show. “I know that people say that Les toiles emmêlées give Prydanians and immigrants a bad rep. That is if you believe that Reinar represents the entire Prydanian community. I’m sure the viewers are smarter than that.” Falck also added in another interview that “It’s not as if Reinar came here to Saintonge solely to foment trouble or that his intentions were all nefarious. He is a complex character, shaped by his past and his ambitions.”

Les toiles emmêlées’ portrayal of a homosexual Reinar was also panned by some critics as ‘feeding sterotypes associated with homosexuals’. “Well, what is the stereotype that the show is reinforcing?” quipped Les toiles emmêlées’ scriptwriter Adam-Noë Lavigne in an interview. “The show had multiple LGBT characters, and they’re focusing on just one? If we are going to be realistic in portraying real life, there will always be good apples and bad apples in every community. I know that because I’m a part of the LGBT community myself.”

Reinar’s character received a lot of hate, with some taking to social media to celebrate his demise. “I don’t care that Reinar died saving a life. He destroyed so many others before that this is not enough to expiate his sins,” wrote one very invested viewer.

As to why Reinar was so disliked, TV critic Germain Romand said that “I think it’s because Reinar was not a straight-up villainous antagonist… that’s what got people riled up. He died heroically, trying to save another human being. He was capable of doing good things, he was capable of doing bad things. He wasn’t a caricature – he had reasons why he did things, he had what in his mind were good intentions. Nobody wants to be able to relate to someone who did a lot of horrible things. That’s why they hated him.”

Falck confessed that he still sometimes gets accusatory stares and heckles from the public when he goes out. “Like two days ago, while I was walking my dog, somebody yelled ‘Hej Reinar, hvernig er helvíti?’ at me… he was like asking me ‘Hey Reinar, how is hell like?’.” The actor chuckled. “And even yesterday, the waitress at the Prydanian restaurant I was in… she was scathing. She was like, ‘oh, I know it’s just a character, but I really hated you… I mean, your character.’ Well, the restaurant service was great! I’d rather not take them personally and instead think that things like these… are compliments to my acting!”

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
05 January 2021 - 1030h

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OOC Note: Post approved by @Prydania .
Les toiles emmêlées = “Tangled Webs”

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Sports


by Gérard-Hugues Barbizet in Saintes
23 December 2020 - 1050h
SAINTES – Week 19 has finished and the Santonian Première Ligue football is now in its midseason, and it's now time for the traditional midseason statistics.

Most goals
The Santonian international Tristan-Lambert Saint-Huile of AS Beaucaire a.k.a. “Slick” led in the midseason, with 27 goals. Four more players from the Santonian National football team follow in the leaderboard: the rising star Druron Dangereaux of Stade de Saintes with 24 goals; Kévin-Ardouin Cremillieux of Saintes-Saints-Brice FC with 23 goals; Brice-Corentin Kermorgant of FC Vantes de Domnonée with 21 goals; and Matthieu-Donatien Kerbriant of Saintes-Saints-Brice FC with 20 goals. Also at 20 goals is the untapped Thorkell Langslet, shining through as the first striker of FC Plaisance after the departure of Cédric-Axel Leblond for the Ulstome team Haslantestone FC.


Most efficient scorers
The top players with the most goals are also the most efficient scorers, with Saint-Huile scoring 1.42 goals per game. AJ Saint-Tobie de Coire scored big with their acquisition of Prydanian international Tjörvi Hagtvedt. For someone who had just arrived in the league, Hagtvedt scored 13 goals in 14 games so far, for 0.93 goals per game. Hagtvedt might prove to be an able replacement for Matthias-Aymeric Bombardier, another efficient scorer at 1.0 goals per game, who would probably sit the rest of the season out because of an injury in Week 16.


Hat tricks
Hat tricks galore in the first half of the season, with the inaugural hat-trick coming from Druron Dangereaux, in Stade de Saintes’s 4-1 demolition of AS Aurigny at home in Week 1. The most hat-tricks came from Brice-Corentin Kermorgant of FC Vantes de Domnonée, who executed a three-peat on Week 6 against Bâle, Week 9 against USL Novale, and Week 14 against Artois SC.


Clean Sheets
Saintonge’s best goalkeeper, the “Mad Dog” Bruno-Patrice Cuisance maintained a clean sheet in almost two-thirds of the games, causing Côme FC’s opponents to remain goalless in 12 games. Thibault-Ragnar Guttormsen of AJ Saint-Tobie de Coire is a new revelation. Guttormsen denied his team’s opponents in 9 games, including Olympique Nyonnais in Week 2, AS Beaucaire in Week 3, Côme FC in Week 12, Stade de Saintes in Week 13, and FC Plaisance in Week 18. Another Santonian international, Folc Thauvin of Stade Beaunais, comes next, maintaining a clean sheet in 8 games.


translation by Hunter Kidlington de Collobrières
23 December 2020 - 1522h

Côme reached the headlines in Santonian social media again with another ruckus regarding immigrants, and it’s not François-Louis Villault.

Blurry and shaky cellphone videos making the rounds in the Santonian internet showed at least two shopkeepers mauling five teenagers in the street. Subsequent investigations showed that the event happened last Saturday at Rue de Fayet, in the central Côme borough of Charbonière.

Local police reports say that three Santonian shopkeepers, Charles-Rutger Callé, 42; Denis Reynaud, 42; and Renaud Henry, 41, chased down and assaulted five teenagers after one of them was suspected of stealing from Henry’s pub along Rue de Saint-Patrice.

The teenagers were all of immigrant backgrounds: Sigsteinn Alvestad, 14; Hrafnbjörn Rönneberg, 14; Brynthor Barland, 13; Markus-Horst Winkelspecht, 13; and Carlo Emmanuele Caravino, 13. Alvestad, Rönneberg, and Barland are of Prydanian descent; Winkelspecht is an ethnic Aleman with Oclusi citizenship; Caravino is of Predicean descent. All of the boys reside at the Fraterneville housing complex in Charbonière, where many refugees were resettled by the city of Côme.


In a television interview, Callé said that the boys were “well-known troublemakers in the neighbourhood, calling themselves ‘the Invaders’.” Callé added that “they are an immigrant youth gang who prey on Saintonge and Santonians.”

Police were called to Rue de Fayet at 10:30 am on Thursday by concerned citizens about three grown-up men mauling five teenaged boys.

“Three men were chasing after a teenaged boy down Rue de Fayet, calling him a ‘thief’ and a ‘Prydanian scum’,” said a local resident, who wished to remain anonymous. “The boy joined his friends who were hanging out at the dead end of the street and the three men just pounced on the teenagers.”

“They were big men… throwing kids up in the air, punching them in the face, kicking them while they’re down,” said an eyewitness, who declined to be named. “Poor kids. I saw one who was even bodyslammed against a car.”


“It was awful,” remarked another eyewitness. “They continued kicking one of the boys even though he’s lying down unconscious on the street.”

Police broke up the fight and arrested all three men; all five teenagers had to be brought to the hospital for injuries. As of writing, Hrafnbjörn Rönneberg is still in a critical condition at Hôpital Général de Côme; Brynthor Barland is stable and awaiting discharge. Alvestad, Winkelspecht, and Caravino were all discharged during the weekend. They and their families declined to be interviewed for this article.

According to the police investigation, Alvestad did indeed steal two bottles of beer from Henry’s pub, which was recovered at the scene. Alvestad, during the police interview, said that he “wanted to show off to his friends.” He reiterated that “none of my friends knew what I was doing and it was not planned… I feel bad that they got hurt trying to defend me because of my misdeed. They thought I was being shouted at because I am an immigrant.”

Callé, Reynaud, and Henry were charged by the prosecutor of Côme before the Criminal Court of the Simbruins with five counts of assault and child abuse; with view of upgrading of one of the counts to involuntary homicide if Rönneberg dies from his injuries. Alvestad is due to appear later this week at the Juvenile Court of Côme for the charge of theft. ●

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Opinion


by Markthór Öxndal

Some people may not be surprised to see that I am writing this. I remember my stint playing university ball, making the decision to wear that armband with that Prydanian flag in the midst of the Civil War. I did it for personal reasons though, despite what many may have thought at the time or still think.
Most people I encountered were supportive, but the loud, malicious ones couldn't be ignored entirely. It’s because of this that I almost decided not to write this when I was asked. Let someone else do it. I might have a reputation and maybe it would be better if I didn’t speak up?
If there is one thing to learn about the struggles my birth country has gone through, though, it’s that nothing good happens when good people stay silent.

So a group of kids in Côme were involved in a robbery. They were all immigrant kids. This should be so simple as to be a non-issue. One kid stole something to impress his peers. Ok. Call the police. Scare the kid straight, tell his parents. Let them put the fear of God into him. Lord knows my father was not afraid to chew me out in Prydanian when I did something that deserved a talking down when growing up.
So yeah, it’s simple. Let the authorities and parents handle it, scare the kids, hope they learn.

Instead the men who ran the shop beat the teenagers to the point of needing medical attention. Let me repeat that- grown men beat children to the point of needing medical attention. François-Louis Villault and his gang of hangers-on jumped on this to defend the child abusers and to once again paint Prydanian refugees and immigrants in this country as violent criminals, rapists, and general malcontents. “Scum” was used liberally.

Nevermind that crimes are committed every day by native Santonians that these people do not care to comment on.
Nevermind that a child caught shoplifting- regardless of where they come from- can be handled peacefully.
Nevermind that grown men assaulting children is heinous.
M. Villault wants to call me, and people like me, violent criminals, rapists, and scum. So I have some words for M. Villault. I doubt I will change his mind. I doubt I will change the minds of his most eager followers. This isn’t about converting them, it’s about speaking out and defending the dignity of my community. If I don’t, then perhaps the liars will win.

You weren't there in Prydania when the whole world seemed to be crumbling, M. Villault. I was. I was awakened out of my bed in the middle of the night, told to pack what I could, as I left the only home and family I had known. All at the age of twelve. My life was thrown into turmoil as my father arranged for us to seek asylum in Saintonge, to escape Syndicalist collectivization. Yes, I adjusted well upon arriving. Yes, I found a calling in this country. And yes, I consider myself a proud Santonian, but none of that erases what I went through and what I experienced. And I repeat, M. Villault. You were not there. There were millions who were though, because my story isn’t unique.

I emphasize that you were not there to point out that you are very privileged, M. Villault. You are from a country that has not known this sort of violence in your lifetime. I don’t mean this as a criticism. I pray from the bottom of my heart that Saintonge will never know what Prydania has known in recent history. I hope you never have to experience what I, and millions of others, lived through. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
Still, do not dare to lecture me, or anyone else of Prydanian origin, on how this cataclysm was our own fault. Yes, many of our leaders led us down that path, where so much polarization caused a violent rift. Yet this is hardly unique to Prydania or Prydanians. My lessons on the Santonian Revolution in history class growing up in Saintes come to mind.

And yet...despite suffering a cataclysm we didn’t let it consume us. We strived to pick ourselves up. I’m sure as a member of the National Assembly you have insights into the recovery back in Prydania, but I’ve seen it first hand. I’ve won a number of basketball championships in my career, but I do not work nearly as hard as my cousin back in Prydania, who works our family’s farm. He’s gone through more hardship then you will ever know, and yet every day he works from sunup to sundown, making a living for himself and his family. And he does it without dragging a single person’s name- much less ethnicity- through the mud.

And those of us who had to flee have worked hard to build new lives for ourselves in foreign lands. Saintonge, Prydania, it doesn't matter where a Prydanian lives- we’ve worked harder, and suffered greater, than you ever will, for a peaceful life you take for granted.
You're not a bad man for being born into a safe and prosperous nation, M. Villault. You're an amoral man for mistaking that divine providence for a licence to vilify and slander those less fortunate than yourself. We suffered, M. Villault, but we have emerged from it as a community who treasure what we’ve won, and know what freedom costs. We’re not criminals, we are survivors. We’re not leeches, we’re dreamers. And we’re not violent, we’re hard workers. I saw that first hand too. On the faces of both of my parents and they worked multiple jobs each in a foreign land to support their two children.
Your attacks on the Prydanian community in Saintonge, on these people, shows what little compassion for your fellow man that you have.

When I came to Saintonge I knew no one. And yes, I was bullied for a time, but you know what? Kids will sometimes do the wrong thing (that is why we’re here, remember?).
Imagine if I held onto those grudges though. If I wrote off this wonderful country and wonderful people because of some bullying? Imagine if I unfairly painted Saintonge as an ugly place because of those bad experiences?
I didn't though. I found friends who helped me with my Santonian. I met their parents who didn't look down on me as a refugee kid with nothing, but took me in. Both for my benefit and to help my overworked parents. I met friends who introduced me to basketball, which has allowed me to make my livelihood.

This country has offered me so much. So much that when I was told I would need to serve a year’s military service for citizenship I did it, happily. Of course I would serve Saintonge! It was here for me when I was in need, why wouldn't I be there for it? Why wouldn't I put my life on the line for the country that gave me friends (some of whom used to bully me!), kindness, and a new future after my old life was shattered? Why wouldn't I love the country that allowed me to meet my wife, the most wonderful woman in the world?

I love this country because it was more than a haven from a storm. I love this country because it was a home when I had none. And its people were why. Saintonge, you're a nation of wonderful people who welcomed a lanky kid from Prydania and his family when they had nowhere else to go. You gave us a country, and gave us a reason to want to be Santonian.

The Saintonge that François-Louis Villault and his ilk want isn't that country. The Saintonge that M. Villault wants is a country that turns away the less fortunate, victim blames those suffering from disaster, and vilifies society’s “other.”

You don't need to look to my birth country to see the path this leads to. Andrenne, Malor-Kanada, Cimmeria, Predice, and Oclusia are cautionary tales of what happens when a society turns on its vulnerable. That's not the Saintonge I love. It's not the country I remain willing to go to war for, should the need arise. It's not the country that welcomed me and let me know the world wasn't ending, even when it seemed like it was.

I don't just believe Saintonge can be better than M. Villault’s vision- I know it has been, and continues to be. I hope and pray that it will continue down that road, and reject the division that political predators like M. Villault present.

Returning to M. Villault...
The refugees and immigrants you degrade regularly are stronger than you ever will be. Keep that in mind the next time you go after them for cheap political points. They’ve overcome hardships you couldn’t imagine to become teachers, scientists, business owners, and yes, even pro athletes, in this country. They’ve worked two, three thankless jobs at once to make ends meet, and done it with families to feed, and managed to come out the other side hard working, dignified people. I would like to believe you are capable of similar improvement with far less struggle.

translation by Hunter Kidlington de Collobrières
22 February 2021- 1334h


OOC Note: article approved by, and posted with permission of, @Kyle

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Top Stories


by Mélanie Bacrot in Saintes
09 Feb 2021 -1020h
SAINTES – the third electoral circumscription of the Capoterre has a new deputy.

Vacancy
The seat was rendered vacant with the death of its longtime holder, Georges Conté de Caunes, popularly known as GCC. GCC held the seat for thirty years, since the 1990 parliamentary election, replacing his father, Héraclès Conté de Caunes. He became leader of the Radical Party in 2008 and led the party into the Coalition government of Prime Minister Jean-Louis Hauteclocque de Champtoceaux (JLHC) between 2015 and 2019. Under the JLHC government, GCC served as a deputy Prime Minister. GCC died of a stroke last weekend.


Replacement
The seat remains in the aristocratic Conté de Caunes family as GCC’s suppléant is his grandson, François-André Conté de Caunes. Going by his initials FACC, François-André is a telegenic, social-media savvy twenty-five-year-old who shares the same acerbic, adversarial attitude as his grandfather. The wheelchair-bound FACC had already caused ruckus in social media by posting videos critical of a fellow Capoterre deputy and Viedéo personality, the younger Kévin-Justin “K.J.” Montrésor (N, 1^st Capoterre). Some of FACC’s videos about K.J. Montrésor were taken down by Viedéo after it was flagged for cyberbullying.

FACC also was known to harbour controversial attitudes towards immigrants, particularly Prydanian immigrants, following in the footsteps of the other recently-sworn Radical deputy, François-Louis Villault.

National Assembly President Sophie-Anne Laliberté swore in FACC yesterday. This was the fifth replacement in the National Assembly after Thorbjörn Höjsleth (N, 12^th Saintes), Justin-Pierre Brudeau (L, 6^th Haine), Martin-Caïus Badalucco (N, 2^nd Saine-et-Loine), and François-Louis Villault (R, 1^st Simbruins).

Radical Party Leader
The Radical Party will be temporarily headed by Jean-Étienne Genêt (R, 23^rd Saintes), the Radicals’ floor leader in the National Assembly. The Radical Party convention to select a new leader will be organized for May.

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
09 February 2021 - 1520h

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Top Stories


by Mélanie Bacrot in Saintes
18 March 2021 -1658h
SAINTES – earlier today, the National Assembly, Saintonge’s lower house of parliament censured and expelled Liberal deputy Justin-Pierre Brudeau (L, 6^th Haine) for ethics violations.

Ethics Violations
The censure came after the National Assembly adopted the Parliamentary Ethics Committee’s scathing November 2020 report that found that Mr Brudeau inappropriately allowed himself to be influenced by a businessman, inappropriately attempted to influence the justice system to prevent the prosecution of a company he had ties with, and inappropriately pressured the departmental government of the Haine to give contracts to a ‘charity’ he was connected to. The adoption of the report and the recommendation to censure Mr Brudeau passed 398-33.

The adoption of the Ethics Committee report and a simple censure would not have removed Mr Brudeau from the National Assembly. However, during the past two month’s deliberations on whether to adopt the report, a resolution to expel Mr Brudeau was jointly circulated by National Party deputies Clément Bodart (N, 8^th Semois), Jason-Lothaire Denvers (N, 4^th Haine), Thorbjörn Höjsleth (N, 12^th Saintes), Marc-Thorgan Stirbois (N, 5^th Bouche-du-Rhâne), and Green deputy Kimo-Philippe de Sabarthès (V, 16^th Saintes). The resolution gained the signatures of the requisite one-third of the chamber to be considered in the plenary. Mr Bodart and Budoc-Aymeric Carréric (N, 1^st Boëme) attempted last February to attach the resolution as a rider to the Ethics Committee report adoption vote.

Ultimately, a separate vote was to be held regarding Mr Brudeau’s fate after his censure, after Liberal leader Michel-Fernand Roux de Bézieux (L, 8^th Sarine) negotiated with National Party floor leader Matthieu-Gauvain Lamblin (N, 1^st Haute-Loine), Ethics Committee chair Paul-Eelco Palmaert (N, 2^nd Margerides), and National Assembly President Sophie-Anne Laliberté (N, 1^st Basses-Brômes) to split the vote on the adoption and on the expulsion.

The Liberals campaigned on the premise that while Mr Brudeau did some have ethics lapses, it did not warrant an expulsion from the National Assembly – something that was rarely done and historically was reserved for serious offences.

Vote
However, the National Assembly ultimately did not accept the Liberals’ argument, mustering the four-fifths majority (345 votes) needed to expel a deputy. The vote to expel was almost a strictly party-line 388-33 vote. All 377 National Party deputies and all four Green Party deputies voting for the explusion. All 33 Liberal Party deputies opposed. Mr Brudeau, unsurprisingly, voted against his own expulsion. Seven Radical Party deputies voted for the explusion despite an assurance by interim Radical leader Jean-Étienne Genêt (R, 23^rd Saintes) that his party would abstain.

MP Damien-Michel de Lauriston (R, 7^th Haine), who represents the other half of the city of Coire, explained during his vote to expel that “what Mr Brudeau did was corrupt and unacceptable to the people of Coire.” The lone Radical member of the Ethics committee Gilles-Rombaut de Bruyne (R, 4^th Argens) announced that “I stand by my vote in the Ethics committee to censure Mr Brudeau and let him face the consequences of his actions.”

Côme deputy Jules-Antoine Beaumarchais (R, 2^nd Simbruins) said that “Corruption is absolutely unacceptable and intolerable. I don’t buy the argument that ‘Mr Brudeau's corruption is not that bad to merit expulsion’. Corruption is corruption, however big or small that is.” Fellow deputy from Côme Robert-Thomas Decobert (R, 3^rd Simbruins) twitched: “We have to make a stand. The National Assembly must cleanse its house of filth.” The three other Radical deputies who voted for Mr Brudeau’s expulsion were Édouard-Martin de Clorivière (R, 4^th Simbruins), Denis-Rémismond de Mendonce (R, 5^th Tage), and Radboud Vandemonde (R, 1^st Bouche-du-Rhâne).

Historical Precedent
The final vote goes to the House of Lords, which is set to vote by a simple majority whether to accept the expulsion of Mr Brudeau or not. Given that the National Party holds 146 of the upper chamber’s 209 seats, the expulsion is set to pass easily.

However, this double requirement – that the chamber (where the expellee is a member of) would vote with a four-fifths majority and that the other chamber of Parliament consents to the expulsion – meant that only a few members of Parliament had been expelled in its history. Mr Brudeau would be the thirteenth member of Parliament to be expelled in its 225 years of existence. The last time the National Assembly expelled a member was in 1974, when National Party deputy Jean-Paul Allut of the Saine-et-Loine was convicted of rape.

Votes Looming
The fallout from the Brudeau scandal is still present in Parliament. In January, Mr Denvers and three other deputies from the department of the Haine – Luc-Constantin Bonnemain (N, 1^st Haine), Éonnet Sarraut (N, 2^nd Haine), and Albéric Jeudon (N, 3^rd Haine) – introduced a bill that would dissolve the departmental council of the Haine because of its implication with the Brudeau scandals. If the departmental council of the Haine gets dissolved, new elections will be held, along with elections for Brudeau's now-vacant Haine-6 seat.

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
18 March 2021 - 1930h

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Top Stories


by Mélanie Bacrot in Saintes
24 March 2021 -1422h
SAINTES – the Coalition-led departmental council of the Haine was dissolved earlier today after royal assent was granted to the dissolution bill. This is the second departmental council dissolution in two years.

Bill
The dissolution bill was a private members’ bill proposed by four of the Haine’s seven deputies, all of whom are from the National Party: Jason-Lothaire Denvers (N, 4^th Haine), Luc-Constantin Bonnemain (N, 1^st Haine), Éonnet Sarraut (N, 2^nd Haine), and Albéric Jeudon (N, 3^rd Haine). The stated cause of the dissolution was the corruption in the departmental council of the Haine, after the OUI charity scandal that had engulfed Liberal MP Justin-Pierre Brudeau (L, 6^th Haine). Brudeau was censured and expelled from the National Assembly last week.

Last Monday, the procureur of Coire lodged indictments for a dozen councillors of the Haine departmental council. Indicted before the Assizes of the Haine include President of the Haine Christie Libreterre, Leader of the Departmental Council Dominique LeBlanc, Treasurer of the Department Jean-Yves Garneau, Councillor for Youth Affairs Bardish Jagger, and Councillor for Social Welfare Dianne-Marie Lebouthillier. All of the indicted councillors were from the Liberal Party. The events early this week were crucial in convincing the Green Party deputies to vote for the dissolution, after the party chapter in the Haine coaxed the national Green Party to vote for.

The proposal passed the National Assembly in a party-line 381-49 vote, with the National Party and the Green Party voting for, the coalition of the Liberal Party and the Radical Party (which governs the department of the Haine) voting against.

The House of Lords vote was a free vote, and so it was also a party-line 158-22 vote, with 29 Lords abstaining. The bill was granted Royal Assent early today.

Fallout
As a result of the dissolution, Superintendent of the Haine Camille-Pierre Peyruchaud takes over the departmental government while the departmental council is not legally existing. The Royal Elections Institute had set the elections for May, alongside the National Assembly by-election for the sixth electoral circumscription of the Haine, formerly held by expelled deputy Justin-Pierre Brudeau.

Reactions
Mr Denvers said that “it’s time for the department of the Haine to start with a clean slate of councillors untainted by corruption.”

Interior Minister Charles-Archambault Bathenay (N, 1^st Yerres) remarked that “Time and again, Saintonge proved itself to be intolerant of corruption. Corruption has no place in the Santonian government.”

The Coalition, however, was scathing, implying that this was a political ploy by the National Party to seize control of more of the country. Liberal leader Michel-Fernand Roux de Bézieux (L, 8^th Sarine) said that “First, they reduced the opposition number by expelling an opposition deputy. Now they wanted to seize more power by dissolving a departmental council controlled by the opposition. Are they not contented with the supermajority they have in the House of Lords?”

Interim Radical leader Jean-Étienne Genêt (R, 23^rd Saintes): “First they came for the Simbruins. Now they come for the Haine. They’ve already dissolved two Coalition-controlled departmental councils. How many will follow? They’ve probably dissolved more councils than any other government before them.”

Dissolution of departmental councils is rare. The Haine’s is the second departmental council dissolution passed by the 51^st Parliament and the government of Prime Minister Anne-Douceline Courseaux, after the departmental council of the Simbruins was also dissolved last year after the Du Tertre scandal. However, unlike the dissolution of the Simbruins departmental council, the Haine departmental council was not suspended by the interior ministry prior to dissolution.

However, this is not the record for the most departmental councils dissolved ever since parliamentary approval was required for such dissolutions. The government holding the record for the most councils dissolved is the Coalition government of Charles-Martin Perrier des Jarlais, with eight. With the Coalition-led 43^rd Parliament, Prime Minister Perrier des Jarlais dissolved the National-led departmental councils of the Margerides, the Dropt, the Côtes-du-Nord, the Besbre, the Vercors, the Haute-Coole, the Epte, and the Nébrodes between 1980 and 1984. Most of the dissolutions were deemed to be politically motivated, and in each case except the Margerides, the National Party was returned by the voters with an even larger margin to the departmental council. This was instrumental to the Coalition’s defeat in the 1985 parliamentary elections.

“Unlike the Coalition, we don’t dissolve departmental councils on the flimsiest of reasons,” said National MP Paul-Geoffroy Barèges (N, 3^rd Seudre). “In fact, in both cases, the legal processes tackling the corruption and the crimes were already in motion when we dissolved the councils.”

“This is solely a drive to help root out corruption in the local governments,” said Mr Sarraut. “We were vindicated in the Simbruins. If the opposition wants to paint this as politically motivated, the people will decide.”

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
24 March 2021 - 1820h

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Blogs


written by Lucille-Thorbjörg Serres
27 March 2021 - 1206h
SAINTES – For 14-year old Tobias “Toby” Bjerkehagen, ice hockey was more than a distraction – it was a possible ticket out of the place he was in. Just like his sport hero.

“Baldr Gudmundseth is my hero,” Tobias said. “He was a refugee like me, a Prydanian civil war orphan like me. He joined the big leagues and have lifted himself out of the refugee home.”

The teenager Tobias resided at the Saint-Calder Boys’ Home in Saintes, a home for Prydanian orphaned refugees in Saintes. It was an annex to the city’s Saint-Alban Refugee Centre, where during the past few years, almost two million Prydanian refugees were housed, processed, and integrated into Saintonge. But there were people who were left behind.


“Prydanian war orphans,” commented Saint-Calder’s director Timothée-Ketille Huseklepp, “are one of the most vulnerable groups we assist.” Mr Huseklepp related that children with accompanying responsible adults get resettled quickly. “If their responsible adults get a job or accept the offer of resettlement, they go with the adult. The orphans… they don’t have those adults. Their only hope is that someone adopts them through Saintonge’s adoption and foster care system.”

Saintonge’s adoption and foster care system (Aide sociale à l’enfance, ASE) is not as congested as in other countries, because of strong institutional support from the government, the church, and the civic society. Before the large influx of refugees from Prydania, only 2 out of every 1,000 Santonian children are in the ASE system. In 2001, Santonian children in foster care spent a median time of six months in ASE; only 0.9% graduate out of foster care without being adopted. As children get older within the system, the likelihood of them being adopted decreases; teenagers like Tobias are less likely to be adopted.

The statistics changed with the influx of a huge number of Prydanian war orphans. According to the Santonian Immigration and Integration Agency (Agence d’Immigration et d’Integation, AII), 354,753 unaccompanied Prydanian minors arrived in Saintonge between 2002 and 2017, out of the almost 3.5 million Prydanian refugees that passed by the country.

“The orphaned refugees were mostly left in Saintonge,” said Julienne-Anne Bissonnette, AII’s deputy director of the department for children’s welfare. According to Ms Bissonnette, because Saintonge’s diplomatic network and rescue activities were the main way to escape Prydania between 2002 and 2017, 90% of Prydania’s almost four million refugees went through the Santonian refugee processing system. “Forty percent of the refugees went on to third countries like Goyanes or Highton. About half were distributed throughout Saintonge for integration and resettlement. That’s because they have adults with them to decide and take care of them. The children without responsible adults… they got stuck here.”

According to the Ministry of Social Welfare, there are about 150,000 children currently in state care in Saintonge – half of them are Prydanian orphaned refugees. The government built special foster homes for them, such as Saint-Calder’s, to cater to their special needs and to integrate them into Saintonge. It was necessary, “because the takeup of refugee children in foster care is slower than that of Santonian children in foster care,” said Florence-Tanja Druillon, a case worker at Saint-Calder’s. The median time spent by Prydanian orphaned refugees in the ASE system was 31 months. One in ten Prydanian orphaned refugees never got adopted and simply aged out of the system.

“It’s easy to blame discrimination, but really, it isn’t that,” said Ms Druillon, who was also a Prydanian orphaned refugee, adopted by a Santonian family in 2004. “We Prydanian orphaned refugees do present unique challenges. For instance, there is this language and cultural barrier between the children and their prospective Santonian families. The psychological, emotional, and sometimes physical trauma that the children have… they need more resources and care. Prospective adoptive parents must be willing and able to put in more love and work in adopting a Prydanian orphaned refugee.”

“For many of these kids, surviving the Civil War was just the first part of their difficulties in their life,” observed Mr Huseklepp. “And getting stuck in the adoption and foster care system is just a continuation of it. The best thing for them is for them to be adopted by a loving family, but while they are in our care, we are constantly trying to improve their lot and make their childhood as normal as possible.”


One of the initiatives in Saint-Alban’s refugee centre focused on sports. Ice hockey is one of the most popular sports in Prydania. In 2005, refugees at Saint-Alban created the Vikings de Saint-Alban ice hockey team. They first got permission to use the ice skating rink at the sports complex at the Casernes de Saintes military camp. Eventually a skating rink in Saint-Alban was constructed for the refugees in 2008, after fundraising supported by the Royal Trust, celebrities, and sports personalities. The amateur Vikings went semi-professional in 2013, after entering the middle tiers of the Santonian ice hockey system. The Vikings, for all their success, lacked the resources to become a fully professional team in order to advance to the upper tiers. It was stuck at the fourth tier. The team was taken in by Association royale sportive de Saintes, a left-bank multi-sport club with a professional ice hockey team at the top of the Santonian league system. Vikings became a feeder club for ARS Saintes.

In 2009, the Vikings created junior hockey clubs for refugee children: Karldýr (Cerfs de Saint-Calder), Úlfar (Loups de Saint-Vertigier), and Mörgæsir (Pingouins de Saint-Tobie). Many of the players in ARS Saintes played for Vikings and its junior teams. Some even went to become players in the Santonian National Ice Hockey team.

Baldr Gudmundseth was one of them. “I arrived here in Saintonge in 2013 as a sixteen year old,” the 23-year old ARS Saintes and national team player said. “We were orphaned. We suffered under the Syndicalist People’s Militia. We… because I arrived with my younger sister.”


Baldr, an unaccompanied minor, still harboured dreams of playing professional ice hockey like his father, who was once a professional player in the Prydanian team Keris Íshokkífélag. He joined the Karldýr team, where his skills were quickly noted. After his National Service, he quickly got back with Vikings de Saint-Alban. Two years later, he was on ARS Saintes, leading the team to the 2020 championship and easily making him one of the most popular ice hockey players in Saintonge. With his stellar rise, it’s easy to see why Baldr Gudmundseth would be an inspiration and a hero for many Prydanian refugee children, Tobias Bjerkehagen included.

“There was hope for us orphans,” Tobias remarked. “Even if we don’t get adopted, we can still be successful.”

Tobias had long lost hope of being adopted. He arrived in 2016 as an orphaned nine-year old evacuated from the Santonian consulate at Leiruvagr. Arriving with his younger sister Arianna, they were housed at Saint-Alban Refugee centre. Initially they resisted being separated, but Tobias realised that many adoptive families were not prepared to take in two children. Arianna, being younger, had better chances of being adopted than Tobias.

It was the same for Baldr. “After what we’ve been through in Prydania, I promised my sister Kristin that I will always be with her.” Unlike Tobias and Arianna Bjerkehagen, Baldr and Kristin Gudmundseth stayed together, and being teenagers, did not find adoptive parents. Baldr simply aged out of the system, just like many of the Prydanian refugee orphans.

“After I returned from National Service, I got my sister to be with me,” Baldr said. He became the legal guardian for his sister in 2016. His sister, now nineteen, had also finished her National Service and is on her first year at university, taking a course in social work.

“I may sound like an old man, but I got some sort of empty nest when my sister moved out for National Service,” Baldr related.

Maybe he was looking for a girlfriend, someone to be with? A star athlete like him was probably getting a lot of propositions from adoring women.

“I tried that,” Baldr grinned. “But I wanted someone who would understand and support what I wanted to do.”

And what Baldr Gudmundseth wanted to do was to give Prydanian orphaned refugees a chance and help them. He continued to volunteer for the Vikings organisation, helping coach the Mörgæsir youth team. When he met Tobias Bjerkehagen from the Mörgæsir team in December 2019, Baldr quickly sympathised with the then-twelve year old.


“I saw myself in Toby,” Baldr admitted. “He lost his parents, he came to Saintonge with his younger sister… he was willing to do everything – including the prospect of being separated from her and not being adopted himself. I thought to myself... a kid like that deserves a second chance. Kids should not undergo what I have went through.”

“Baldr told me he wanted to become my foster parent last year,” Toby said, smiling as he recalled the moment one of Saintonge’s most popular ice hockey players told him that he wanted to become his parent. “Of course I said JÁ! He just went from being my hero to being my parent. He’s still my hero though!”

Being a foster parent was not easy. Though the language and cultural barriers were less between Baldr Gudmundseth and Tobias Bjerkehagen, Baldr Gudmundseth had to undergo assessment as to his suitability to become a foster parent – especially that he is young and single. Baldr responded with dogged persistence and characteristic perseverance.

“They made me take classes!” Baldr laughed. “Classes on how to take care of children. A seminar on the unique challenges Prydanian orphaned refugees face. Coaching about financial stability and preparing for the future. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it… to have Toby with me.”

Baldr became Toby’s foster parent in July 2020 and the teenager moved into Baldr’s big new house in the Saint-Canute district of Saintes. Two weeks ago, Baldr Gudmundseth formally adopted Tobias Bjerkehagen as his son. It was but a mere formality.

“It feels awkward being called pabbi,” Baldr laughed. “I’m too young for that! We’re only nine years apart.”

“He didn’t want to be called pabbi, even though on paper he’s my adoptive father,” Toby added. “Baldr is like my older brother anyway. I call him by his name. He’s my mentor. And he will keep me and my sister together.”

Arianna Bjerkehagen was returned to the foster care system in February 2021 after her foster family ran into financial difficulties. When Baldr received a call from the Sainte-Alexandrie Girls’ Home where she was housed, there was no hesitation.

“Baldr told me: ‘Toby, get dressed, we’re picking up your sister tonight. She’ll be with us.’ I was so happy! Me and my sister… we will be together again!”

“I told Toby’s case worker that I would’ve wanted to adopt his sister too,” Baldr said. “Siblings… should not be separated.” Baldr Gudmundseth became the foster parent for Arianna Bjerkehagen last month and is in the process of adopting her as well.

Toby and Arianna now live with Baldr and his sister Kristin. “I’m the foster parent but the girls do their thing together!” Baldr chuckled. “It’s okay, me and Toby will bond over hockey.”

“I want to be as great as Baldr,” Toby said. “I want to pay his kindness forward by helping others too.”

translated by Jérôme-Caden Barceloux Colcolough
27 March 2021 - 1700h

---

OOC notes: For those wondering, Baldr Gudmundseth is the character from the FtKtV story arc "the Red House". Read it here.

Random translations:
Karldýr (Cerfs de Saint-Calder) = Saint Kaldor’s Stags
Úlfar (Loups de Saint-Vertigier) = Saint Vortgyn’s Wolves
Mörgæsir (Pingouins de Saint-Tobie) = Saint Tobias‘ Penguins
Keris Íshokkífélag = Keris Ice Hockey Team
JÁ! = YES!
Pabbi = “dad”/father

OOC: Approved by @Prydania .

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Blogs


written by Henrik-Paul Pothier
30 March 2021 - 1352h
SAINTES – in 2016, when the Royal Santonian Army (Armée royale saintongeaise de terre, ARST) announced its expansion and the creation of a new army division, recruits were not difficult to find. Proud patriotic Santonians had always been ready to take up the defence of the country. Places for the new 32^nd Mechanised Division were taken within three years.

“Spots were filled up quickly,” said Général de division Alexandre Darthout of the 32^nd Mechanised Division, based out of the I Corps in Saintes. “We had men transferring in from units all over Saintonge to form the backbone of the division. And increased enlistment, especially from new citizens.”

The ‘new citizens’ that Gen. Darthout was referring to are naturalised immigrants into Saintonge. According to Commandant Marc-Corbin Robin du Val of the 32^nd’s Civil Affairs Company, about two in five of the division’s soldiers are from immigrant backgrounds. Military insiders jokingly call it the “Santonian Foreign Legion”.

“We are a new division, that’s why we get a big chunk of the new enlistments,” said Cmd. Robin du Val. “The Royal Santonian Armed Forces had seen an increase in enlistments from Santonians of immigrant backgrounds.”

Saintonge does not have a policy of lumping soldiers of immigrant background into separate units, a testament to the country’s assimilative policies with regards to its immigrants. In the 32^nd Division, the units are also mostly mixed. But some ethnicities predominate in some units.

“At the 321^st Mechanised Brigade, they tout us as the ‘Prydanian Brigade’,” commented Général de brigade Brice-Isidore Clauzel. “I’ve seen many applications from newly-enlisted Santonians with Prydanian backgrounds, asking if they could join the 321^st.”

Cmd. Robin du Val said that the ARST does not officially monitor the ethnicities of soldiers within its units, as everyone is of Santonian citizenship. But he had some unofficial data. “The 32^nd does seem to have an increased proportion of soldiers with immigrant backgrounds.”


The unit with the highest percentage of soldiers with immigrant backgrounds is the 321^st Brigade’s 327^th Mechanised Battalion, with three-fourths of its soldiers being of immigrant backgrounds, almost all of them being of Prydanian descent. Even its commanding officer matches the background of the majority of the unit’s men.

“We’re Santonians, we are citizens of this country, and we will fight for it,” declared the battalion’s commander, Col. Gunnbjörn Bäckström, one of the highest-ranking ARST officers from an immigrant background. “But I think there’s a certain cultural background and shared experience among the men that fosters camaraderie and brotherhood.”

Some would be mystified that Prydanians who escaped the brutal dictatorships and the civil war would even think about joining the military. But many of the soldiers of the 327^th had their reasons.

“Saintonge had given me a lot. It gave me and my family a safe haven,” Cpl. Gauthildur Duesund said. “I want to keep it that way – a safe haven for people that need help.”

“I heard that Saintonge and the Royal Santonian Armed Forces is going to help my old country build up its military,” said Pvt. Hjalmthor Tynning. “And I want to help in that too, directly or indirectly.”

“I was a teenaged refugee orphan from Prydania. I stayed in the asylum orphanages and foster homes… I was never adopted. It was sad, having no family. But were it not for Saintonge, I wouldn’t be here today,” commented Pvt. Baldr Dyrgaard. “Here in the military, I found my family. It’s like a brotherhood. I have a new calling.”

“Joining the Royal Santonian Armed Forces made sense for me because I know that this country is a force for good, a force for peace,” said Pvt. Berghreinn Bisgaard. “It will help make the world a better place so that what happened to me will not happen again.”


Prydanians in the Santonian military are not new. The earliest record of Prydanians in Saintonge’s military dates back to the 12^th century Syrixian Crusades. After the successive deaths of both King Maximilian III of Saintonge and King Childéric II of Saintonge in the Crusades, the country was left with an infant king, Baldéric I le Posthume (“the Posthumous”, because he was born after King Childéric II of Saintonge died in the Crusades). King Rikard I of Prydania, in a letter to Regent-Queen Louise of Saintonge, offered assistance to the country in honour of the two heroic Santonian kings, who fought side-by-side with Prydanians in the Crusades. Afraid of the boy becoming a pawn of local court intrigues, Queen Louise of Saintonge asked for a loyal guard to safeguard the boy; she was afraid that Santonian nobles might manipulate or even kill her child, Saintonge’s future king. King Rikard I of Prydania sent veterans of the crusader Knights of the Storm as King Baldéric I’s royal bodyguard; this became the start of the Santonian Royal Guard (Garde royale saintongeaise). Prydanian mercenaries continued to staff the Santonian Royal Guard until Francis II l’Usurpateur (“the Usurper”) disbanded the guard in 1582. The Santonian Royal Guard remained loyal to King Archambault V le Désiré and fought with distinction against Francis II’s forces in the Battle of Trégomel, before being overwhelmed along with the rest of royal forces in the subsequent Battle of Scaër.

The Santonian Royal Guard was reformed in 1857 by King Brice I of Saintonge, taking on the traditions of King Baldéric I’s Royal Guard, not Francis II’s guards. Despite its roots, this reincarnation of the Santonian Royal Guard was staffed by Santonians. The Garde royale saintongeaise is a special elite unit within the Royal Santonian Armed Forces – composed of experienced, well-vetted soldiers from all branches, who had to apply to join the Guard. Its history is well-known within the Santonian military community.

“We’ve seen applications rise from soldiers who had Prydanian backgrounds,” commented Col. Paul-Thibault Montdargent ARST, commandant of the Garde royale saintongeaise.

“I wanted to continue the tradition that my people, my ancestors had,” said Major Styrmir Hammarberg, a ten-year veteran of the ARST who had just been admitted to the Garde royale saintongeaise.

Prydanians are not the only ones in the Santonian army. Back at the 32^nd Mechanised Division, if the 321^st Mechanised Brigade is known as the Prydanian one, the 323^rd Mechanised Brigade is touted as the “Predicean Brigade”. Even its commander, Général de brigade Mariano Casanova, is of Predicean background.

“The 323^rd Brigade is about one-third Predicean,” said Cmd. Robin du Val. “But unlike Prydanians, Prediceans are enlisting at a lesser rate nowadays.”

Cmd. Robin du Val would not delve as to why this was so, but some insiders say that it’s because of the ongoing war between Predice and New Aleman.

“We’ve seen more Santonians enter our unit than Prediceans,” said a soldier from the 323^rd, who declined to have his name published. “It was unlike the early days, when the guys were mostly Predicean.”

“I have comrades who wanted to go back to Predice and fight for their old country,” related another soldier of the 323^rd, who also wished to remain anonymous. “We had a few resignations… all of them went to Predice to fight.”

Consistent with the country’s policy of neutrality, Santonian citizens are not permitted to fight for foreign militaries or as mercenaries. Saintonge also will strip citizenship from someone who will fight for a foreign military or a mercenary group – whether they be of immigrant background or ethnic Santonians.

Cmd. Robin du Val declined to disclose whether any soldier from the 32^nd Mechanised Division had been stripped of citizenship for fighting for another country.

“Once they resign from the military and re-enter civilian life, they’re no longer bound by military justice,” Cmd. Robin du Val said. “It’s up to the civilian courts to decide on citizenship issues.”

“I can understand their sentiments,” commented another soldier from the 323^rd Brigade, who is of Asturican extraction. “We are Santonians, but our old countries still have this special place in our heart. We want fight for it in some way. Some would even risk everything to fight.”

translated by Jérôme-Caden Barceloux Colcolough
30 March 2021 - 1630h

OOC: Approved by @Prydania and @Predice . Thanks!

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Top Stories


by Georges-Victor Passarello in Plaisance
04 April 2021 - 0852h
PLAISANCE (Corb) – Vice-Admiral Sébastien de Brincat of the Pouilles Fleet reported that the Royal Santonian Navy yesterday sank an Aydini poaching ship caught whaling within Saintonge’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

In a press conference, Vice Adm. De Brincat said that the poachers were spotted by the offshore patrol vessel Sainte-Avelline (C603), yesterday at 0820h, 175 nautical miles east of Livourne, well within Saintonge’s 250-nautical mile EEZ. Sainte-Avelline warned the Aydini ship that they are fishing illegally within the Santonian EEZ. According to a report by Sainte-Avelline’s captain Ardouin-Horst Hassenjaeger, the Aydini ship was conducting illegal activities in Santonian waters: fishing in the Santonian EEZ (poaching), catching protected species (illegal whaling), and attacking other vessels (piracy).

Sainte-Avelline warned the Aydini ship to leave Santonian waters, but the Aydini did not make contact and proceeded to continue whaling, an activity documented and filmed by the crew of the Santonian ship. Sainte-Avelline then manoeuvred closer to the Aydini ship to communicate, which prompted the Aydini ship to fire on Sainte-Avelline. Sainte-Avelline temporarily retreated out of firing range from the Aydini vessel as the Santonians waited for orders and reinforcements.

“It was an act of aggression by an armed Aydini whaling ship against the Royal Santonian Navy, inside Santonian territorial waters,” emphasised Adm. De Brincat. “I ordered the fleet to sink them, since they refused to leave and subsequently fired on our ships.”

Three Royal Santonian Navy ships then arrived at the area to neutralise the threat. The frigates Corb (F601) and Breuse (F614), and the submarine Sagittaire (S407) reinforced Sainte-Avelline. A naval gunfight ensued; Sagittaire was given the greenlight to sink the whaling ship.

Sagittaire’s torpedoes sunk the Aydini whaling ship at 1315h. The Aydini crew were rescued from the sea. The crew admitted poaching whales within Santonian waters, and being members of the International Whaling Federation (IWF). The Aydinis were turned over to authorities on land and are currently being detained at l'Île du Diable prison in Plaisance.

Santonian Environment Minister Thierry-Diedéric Baesler lauded the actions of the Royal Santonian Navy. “We had not just defended our sovereignty, we had also protected endangered species.”

Santonian Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelline Tréhet noted that the IWF was originally formed after the son of its founder was caught poaching in Santonian waters. “The Kingdom of Saintonge would continue to cooperate and coordinate with its partners in the International Anti-Whaling Association in order to stamp out this menace ravaging our seas. We are glad that more and more nations are joining this international endeavour.”

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
04 April 2021 - 1123h

OOC Note: Post approved by @Greater Ale Permars .

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Top Stories


by Mélanie Bacrot in Saintes
13 April 2021 - 0802h
SAINTES – With 423 votes in favour and none against, the National Assembly, Saintonge’s lower house of Parliament, had yesterday ratified the Saintes Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.

Saintes Convention
The Saintes Convention was an effort by the governments of Saintonge and Xentherida to codify the minimum standards of treatment of civilians and soldiers during conflict, the so-called “laws of war”. Along with diplomats from other nations, the product of the collaboration were two documents: the Saintes Convention, which concerns treatment of civilians; and the Savattenstad Convention, which concerns treatment of soldiers.

The project was a long time in the making, being discussed by various nations for decades. However, the renewed conflict throughout the world spurred this new action by nations. The effort was made even more urgent with the international outrage at the Andrennian bombing of Kosada and the eruption of new conflicts in North Meterra.

Accession
At the start of the month, the Kingdom of Saintonge officially opened the Saintes Convention for signature, after circulating the document in foreign capitals. Seven countries signed as soon as the document was opened. King Tobias III of Prydania was even personally present in Saintes to sign the convention on behalf of his country.

As of this writing, fifteen countries had signed the Saintes Convention. As for the ratification, the Republic of Mondari deposited its instrument of ratification last week, one of the first countries to finish its ratification process. Santonian diplomats all over the world are informing their hosts governments of the Convention and encouraging them to sign on to the Convention.

Santonian Ratification
The ratification purposes, the Kingdom of Saintonge treats the Convention as a treaty. As such, it must pass the requisite two-thirds vote in both houses of Parliament. There was little opposition to the Saintes Conventions, with most deputies lauding it as a step forward.

Some even wanted to go further. Deputy Thorbjörn Höjsleth (N, 12^th Saintes) lamented that “the Saintes Convention lacks teeth to bring war criminals to justice.”

Foreign Minister Marcelline Tréhet (N, 2^nd Côtes-du-Nord) admitted that during the negotiations, Saintonge proposed a court with jurisdiction for war crimes, but there was much pushback against the idea that Saintonge had to abandon the idea. “We have to get as many countries as board as possible, without it losing its principles, sense, and use.”

From the other end, during the floor debate, several Radical deputies complained about the lack of a withdrawal clause to the convention that Saintonge itself drafted. Deputy François-Louis Villault (R, 1^st Simbruins) scored “the stupidity of the Foreign Ministry is endless: drafting a treaty in which there is no withdrawal clause! What if this turns out to be a bad thing, and Saintonge will be weighed down by it!”

Ms Tréhet’s answer was sharp: “Are you saying that Saintonge wants to violate human rights, that’s why we need a withdrawal clause?”

The testy exchange prompted deputy Charles-Ferdinand de Pontleroy (N, 27^th Saintes), also incidentally Ms Tréhet’s fiancé, to take to Twitcher: “When a country had made a commitment to respecting human rights, there's no turning back. A country cannot simply seek a way out to renege on its commitments to something as fundamental. When it comes to human rights, we can only make the protections better.”

In the end, interim Radical Party leader Jean-Étienne Genêt (N, 23^rd Saintes) instructed his seventeen deputies to abstain, although nine Radical deputies voted in favour of ratification: Jules-Antoine Beaumarchais (R, 2^nd Simbruins), Gilles-Rombaut de Bruyne (R, 4^th Argens), Jacques-Arthur Dacier de Cheverus (R, 7^th Sarine), Édouard-Martin de Clorivière (R, 4^th Simbruins), Robert-Thomas Decobert (R, 3^rd Simbruins), Damien-Michel de Lauriston (R, 7^th Haine), Denis-Rémismond de Mendonce (R, 5^th Tage), Radboud Vandemonde (R, 1^st Bouche-du-Rhâne) and Roméo de Villemessant (R, 8^th Sarine).

House of Lords
The Treaty now goes to the House of Lords, where the governing National Party also commands a majority more than the two-thirds needed to ratify.

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
13 April 2021 - 1123h

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Top Stories


by Mélanie Bacrot in Saintes
15 April 2021 - 0922h
SAINTES – In contrast to the fanfare in Saintonge with the Saintes convention, the country's response to the Savattenstad Convention was more muted, until this week, when Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelline Tréhet signed the Convention on behalf of the country. Saintonge only signed the Convention, but not the three optional Savattenstad Protocols, prompting much discussion in the National Assembly and the public.

Savattenstad Convention and Protocols
Along with the Saintes Convention, the Savattenstad Convention and Protocols were an effort by the governments of Saintonge and Xentherida to codify the minimum standards of treatment of civilians and soldiers during conflict, the so-called “laws of war”. The Savattenstad Convention and Protocols are concerned about the treatment of combatants during a conflict.

The base document, the Savattenstad Convention, is concerned about safeguarding the human rights of prisoners-of-war and medical personnel. This is the document that Ms Tréhet signed and is being discussed in Parliament for ratification.

The three additional protocols concern regulation and banning of certain weapons. Protocol I prohibits chemical, biological, and radiological weapons. Protocol II prohibits cluster munitions, non-detectable anti-personnel landmines, blinding lasers, and expanding bullets, plus the usage of certain incendiary weapons via certain means. Protocol III regulates mines and booby-traps. Saintonge did not sign all three.

According to a diplomat familiar with the negotiations, Saintonge persuaded Xentherida to remove these Protocols from the main Convention document, separating them and making them into Optional Protocols. “Saintonge thought that the document might become unpalatable to nations if it was an all-or-nothing scheme,” said the diplomat.

Non-signing of Protocols raises questions
Saintonge’s non-signing of the Protocols raised questions regarding the country’s intent in refusing to sign something that it had a hand in drafting. Green deputy Kimo-Philippe de Sabarthès (V, 16^th Saintes) twitched: “Is Saintonge refusing to sign the Savattenstad Protocols a tacit admission that it has biological, chemical, nuclear, radiological weapons of mass destruction, cluster munitions, and limb-losing and life-destroying mines? Things that so far it has refused to say whether it has or has not?”

Saintonge had long relied on “tactical ambiguity” on whether it owns and whether it can deploy weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Most military and intelligence analysts consider Saintonge as a WMD state, possessing capability for chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, but Saintonge had neither publicly confirmed nor denied possession any of these. Multiple analysts claim that the top-secret high-security sites at Val Perdu (Haute-Loine) and Montsecret (Breuse) are being used for chemical weapons; Île-des-Germands (Doire) and Grottes-des-Borns (Dronne) for biological weapons; and the Laboratoire nationale de Tronchiennes (LNT, Margerides), the Hauteval facility (Margerides), and the Casernes de Montsoreau (Durance) for nuclear weapons. All of the Royal Santonian Army’s 101 battle brigades also have an embedded NRBC (nuclear, radiological, biological, chemical weapons) company; all of the Royal Santonian Navy’s large ships have on board an NRBC officer of least at a capitaine rank. These NRBC officers may even outrank the captain of the ship they are on, particularly if the ship is an offshore patrol vessel.

“The scientific, technological, and military capabilities of Saintonge is more than enough for the country to have weapons of mass destruction,” said military analyst and Prof Gédéon-Joseph Goldnadel of the University of Saintes. “The Royal Santonian Armed Forces is organised around and acts as if it already has weapons of mass destruction. For most countries, they treat Saintonge as if it already has WMDs.” The same goes for Saintonge itself. In the most recent public opinion poll about WMDs published by Gallop in 2018, about half of the Santonian adults surveyed believe that Saintonge has WMDs.

But why does Saintonge need to be mum about having WMDs, when so many countries openly flaunt it? Is it because it might be harmful to its reputation, as Mr de Sabarthès implied in Parliament yesterday? Prof Goldnadel said that Santonian ‘tactical ambiguity’ with regards to WMDs may have a beneficial effect. “It could be cheaper yes, by making it appear that Saintonge has WMDs when it has not. Or even if Saintonge has those weapons, it might not be sufficient to take down another country, that’s why it wants to keep the number secret. Maybe it has zero nuclear warheads. Or just one. Or a thousand. Not knowing how many will make any potential enemy think twice before attacking Saintonge.”

Deputy Romaric Monsacré (N, 6^th Sambre) expressed the same sentiments defending Saintonge’s ‘tactical ambiguity’ yesterday at the National Assembly. “It is a crucial element in our defensive attitude,” Mr Monsacré said, “countries will hesitate to attack Saintonge when they don’t know how Saintonge can retaliate, and how bad it’s going to be. They won’t want to call Saintonge’s bluff.”

Signing the Savattenstad Protocols would remove that ‘tactical ambiguity’, opined deputy Joris-Charles Haesebroeck (N, 1^st Margerides), whose constituency incidentally covers both the LNT and the Hauteval facility. “If we don’t have WMDs, signing Protocol I would essentially make us defenceless against countries with WMDs because they now know that we don’t have it. If we have WMDs, we would then be forced to admit that we have them and destroy them.”

This was one of the rare instances when Mr Haesebroeck differed from his friend, Saintes MP Thorbjörn Höjsleth (N, 12^th Saintes), who spoke in reply: “I have repeated this so many times in this chamber. War is gruesome. Are we going to make it even more bloody?”

Deputy Joseph-Arnaut Tillinac (N, 1^st Dronne) replied that “it would be nice if Saintonge is clear about not having WMDs, but we cannot maintain our strong defensive position if we expose our vulnerability.”

Deputy Nicholas-Marie Delambre (N, 8^th Lisle) said that “Yes, out of principle, Saintonge should sign on. But out of practicality, should we? Assuming we have WMDs, are we going to face an enemy armed with a machine gun, and we only have a stick? There should be reciprocity. For disarmament to be effective, it must be global.”

Opposition to the Convention
Lack of reciprocity also fuels opposition to the Convention as well.

“Yes, Saintonge is famous for respecting human rights,” declared deputy Félix-Émile Écochard (N, 4^th Tessin), “and I would prefer if Saintonge would respect the rights of prisoners-of-war in a conflict. But if our enemy disrespects the human rights of our soldiers, I don’t think it’s defensible that we treat the enemy’s soldiers like kings while they treat our soldiers like slaves.”

Multiple MPs echoed the sentiment. “With the Saintes Convention, there is a mechanism in which if a country had not accepted it, their citizens will not enjoy its protections; on the flip side, if a country accepted Saintes, its citizens would enjoy its protection,” explained deputy Judicaël L’Helgouarc’h (N, 1^st Cenise), “so any country invading Saintonge and abuses our people would be in violation of the Saintes Convention regardless of whether they ratified it or not. For the Savattenstad Convention, there is no such thing.”

MP Charles-Ferdinand de Pontleroy (N, 27^th Saintes) implied that his colleagues might be misreading the document. Pointing to Article 2(3), Mr de Pontleroy said that “this essentially abolishes the si omnes clause – the idea that all of the parties to the conflict must be bound by the convention for it to be effective.”

Deputy Geneviève Masteau-Lacoste (N, 11^th Cenise), a lawyer, disputed Mr de Pontleroy’s reading of the article. “The de facto application of the Savattenstad Convention to a country not bound by the Convention will only happen if it ‘accepts and applies’ the convention.” Ms Masteau-Lacoste added though “that the definition of ‘accepts and applies’ is so broad. If a country does not want to be bound by it, it must obviously and openly declare that it refuses to be bound by the convention. In which case, the Savattenstad Convention cannot be applied to that conflict. So, there is a specific instance here where the si omnes clause applies – when one of the parties refuse to be bound by the conventions.”

Nevertheless, Mr Écochard and fellow deputies Joseph-Léonard Pézières (N, 6^th Côle) and Gérard-Albert Gassiloud (N, 1^st Durance) introduced an amendment to the proposed ratification resolution. The rider states that “The Savattenstad Convention shall only apply to the Kingdom of Saintonge when all the other parties to the conflict are also bound by the same convention.”

National Assembly President Sophie-Anne Laliberté (N, 1^st Basses-Brômes) took note of the proposed amendment, but the Savattenstad Convention’s proponents in the National Assembly had already rejected the amendment. The National Assembly will continue the debate on the Convention later this week.

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
15 April 2021 - 1420h

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Saintonge


by Charles-Ivan Roux du Toit in Saintes
15 April 2021 - 0902h
SAINTES – the Royal Santonian Navy got a boost during the past two years with the delivery of 30 large ships from Saintonge’s five naval shipyards. The expansion comes at an opportune time for the country’s navy, which is being challenged by piracy based off Oclusia and by poachers and whalers. More threats would come in the form of wars in northern Meterra, underscoring the Navy’s escort roles for civilian ships.

“300-ship Navy”
The 2014 Ministry of Defence White Paper “300-Ship Navy”, commissioned by the National government of Prime Minister Philippe Colet, envisions a Royal Santonian Navy with 300 ships “enough to defend the country against a seaborne attack and invasion” and “enough to maintain peace in the high seas”. The succeeding Coalition government of Jean-Louis Hauteclocque de Champtoceaux scrapped the document in 2017, citing the high costs of such a navy, but had to claw back some of the cancellations and suspensions of shipbuilding because of popular uproar.

The Coalition government then counted the 99 swift boats in the Flexbourg-class towards the goal of a 300-ship navy, something that then retired Admiral (now Defence Minister) Marc-Maëlmon de Liescoët called “creative accounting”, seeing as the Flexbourg class are mostly used for coast guard operations.

Patrol Vessels
The Brandérion class of coastal patrol vessels were nearing the end of their lifespan. The Royal Santonian Navy had a Patrouilleur Outre-mer programme, but the Coalition government froze it. The new National government of Anne-Douceline Courseaux and Defence Minister de Liescoët reactivated the design in 2019. Like with Brandérion class of patrol vessels, multiple coastal towns approached the Navy to support the programme. The city of Drest, where the Chantiers de la Domnonée Shipyard is located, sponsored the first ship, which will be named after the city. Sixty patrol vessels are planned for the next decade.

Frigates
The Courseaux government resumed work on and completed eleven Corb-class frigates, which is of Santo-Predicean design. Rance (F611), Basses-Alpes (F612), Côtes-du-Nord (F613), Breuse (F614), Aulne (F615), Sarine (F616), Boëme (F617), Haine (F618), Lauter (F619), Basses-Brômes (F620), and Lys (F621) went into service during the past two years. Two Corb-class frigates nearing completion at the Chantier royal de Sancoins shipyard, originally to be called Bouche-du-Rhâne and Scyotte, are under negotiations with Predice for transfer and emergency acquisition.

The Corb-class proved to be more expensive for littoral and exclusive economic zone (EEZ) patrol. As compromise, Minister de Liescoët allocated the Corb-flass frigates to the high seas fleet and expeditionary fleets. The Royal Santonian Navy resurrected its intermediate-sized frigate project, which will replace the Capoterre-class and Trieux-class frigates for littoral and EEZ patrol. The proposed Thibault-class frigates, which will be named after Kings of Saintonge, are less expensive and would be limited to littoral and exclusive economic zone (EEZ) patrol. Twenty are planned, with the keels of Thibault I le Révolutionnaire (F101) and Timothée I le Fidèle (F102) laid down at the Drest shipyard last January.

New ships
The Courseaux government also unfroze many of the projects and ships that the Coalition government stopped and failed to find buyers for. Four Dauphin-class submarines entered into service during the past two years: Orque (S507), Morse (S508), Otaire (S509), and Hippocampe (S510). Two special ships also came into service, the icebreaker Ours Polaire (B101) and Saintonge’s fourth hospital ship Saint-Luc (H204). The fourth hospital ship was ordered in 2010, after the Santonian government made humanitarian missions one of the functions of the Royal Santonian Navy. Saintonge’s then-three hospital ships Saint-Damien (H201), Saint-Cosme (H202), and Saint-Raphaël (H203) were all stationed in Prydania as humanitarian aid during much of the Prydanian Civil War.

The current National government also completed all of the planned Saint-Brice class offshore patrol vessels, doubling their number to 31, with only Saint-Molf (C632) still uncompleted. The government is mulling ordering more to augment the country’s defenses.

Instead of one big aircraft carrier, the Courseaux government ordered two of the updated versions of the Saintonge-class amphibious assault ships, to be named Patrie (L204) and Justice (L205).

Even with all of the additions and planned ships, Saintonge might not reach its target of a 300-ship Navy even by 2030. But Defence Minister de Liescoët is satisfied: “Saintonge will get there; it will take time.”

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
15 April 2021 - 1627h

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Top Stories


by Héloïse-Anne Pinel in Saintes
17 April 2021 - 0856h
SAINTES – the Santonian, Predicean, and New Alemaner governments declared the Cottian Lake a neutral zone, where combat will be prohibited.

Effects of War
The explosion of the Predice – New Aleman War generated much concern in Saintonge. The deteriorating diplomatic position and escalating military conflict prompted the Santonian government to gather diplomats to work on mutually agreeable small solutions to issues involving the two countries that are now refusing to talk to each other and are openly at war.

There was concern raised by communities on the Santonian side of the Cottian Lake, a body of water shared by Saintonge, Predice, New Aleman, and Oclusia. Mayor Gauthier-Childéric Knockaert of Nyon (Bouche-du-Rhâne), Saintonge’s second-largest city and located on the Cottian Lake, asked the National government of Prime Minister Anne-Douceline Courseaux last January 2021 to prevent the lake from becoming a battlezone. Mayor Knockaert also said that a lot of civilians use the lake for transport and fishing, which will suffer if the lake becomes a battleground. Transportation links between Saintonge and the two countries will be severed.

The Green Party also publicly called for the Santonian government to do something last February 2021. The Green Party also said that ecologic problems may also occur if the lake becomes a battleground, from toxic materials used in ammunition to leaking oil from sunken ships. This may upset the lake’s delicate ecosystem and increase pollution in the lake.

One of the species that may be affected would be the Cottian sturgeon, endemic to the Cottian Lake and the source of the famed Santonian caviar. The Federation of Caviar Exporters of Saintonge (Fédération saintongeaise des producteurs de caviar) said that if the Cottian Lake becomes a battleground, fish health and stocks may be adversely affected, negatively impacting the industry. Multiple other organisations voiced their concern about the lake becoming a flash point between the two countries.

Collignon Agreement
Santonian Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelline Tréhet, Predicean Ambassador to Saintonge Gregario Santarossa, and New Alemaner Ambassador to Saintonge Henry Dalman signed an agreement at the Hôtel Collignon in Saintes yesterday. In the tripartite Collignon Agreement, Predice and New Aleman declared the lake a “Neutral Zone” with military activity forbidden in both the lake and the airspace above.

This no-combat zone would be enforced by Saintonge, whose Fifth (Lacustrine) Fleet of the Royal Santonian Navy is already on high alert to patrol the lake; they will be permitted on the lake waters of all three countries. An important function of the fleet would be escorting civilian ships. Meanwhile, the 5^th, 6^th, and 7^th Air Groups of the Royal Santonian Air Force will secure the airspace above the lake.

Saintonge-Predice Links
The lake and its airspace form part of a crucial link between Predice and Saintonge. Civilian ferries between Alessano and Nyon, Alessano and Brive (Basses-Brômes), and Augusta and Mirande (Tage) remain operational, although the civilian ferry between Vittoria and Nyon was suspended as Vittoria became a battleground. It was hinted that it might resume once this agreement would be in place.

The airspace above the lake is also a vital link between Predice and Saintonge. Flights are still continuing between Saintonge and Predice’s major cities, including Antofagosta, Colorino, and Alessano.

The neutrality of the lake ensures that the links between Saintonge and Predice remain safe and operational.

Saintonge-New Aleman Links
Also included in the agreement is a stipulation proposed by Saintonge. According to analysts, because the agreement will secure Predice’s links with Saintonge, New Aleman also wanted to secure its links with Saintonge. New Aleman is partially dependent on imports from Saintonge for several critical products, such as oil, petroleum products, and food.

Under the Collignon Agreement, the four transport links between New Aleman and Saintonge shall not be attacked militarily. The Juliers-Seehafen Railway, which runs from Juliers (Lac) on the Saintonge side, to Seehafen on the New Aleman side of the lake, is the only rail link between New Aleman and Saintonge and is protected from attacks under the agreement.

For road transport, Saintonge Autoroute 99, follows the coastline of the lake and connects to the New Aleman road network, will also be inviolable. The only other road connection into New Aleman, Saintonge Departmental Route 781, which runs from Juliers (Lac) and Brisach (Sâne) up the Sâne Valley to the Col du Faivre on the Saintonge – New Aleman border, and its extension into New Aleman, shall also be inviolable.

And lastly, of great environmental concern, the Spire-Seehafen Link, a pipeline where the bulk of New Aleman oil and petroleum imports course through, shall not be attacked. The Spire-Seehafen Link is an extension of a spur of the Trans-Santonian pipeline which branches off from Saint-Trond (Argens). Environmentalists fear that if the Spire-Seehafen Link is bombed, there might be risk of an oil spill into the lake, considering that the pipeline is less than a kilometre away from the lake in some parts, particularly near the border area.

“Defending neutral rights”
Ms Tréhet thanked the governments of Predice and New Aleman for their cooperation and agreement: “Saintonge, Predice, and New Aleman had come to a common-sense, common-ground solution for the management of a commonly shared lake. While Saintonge has no illusions that this will end the conflict, we have seen that governments at war can still work together on some issues.”

Santonian Deputy Prime Minister Paul-Geoffroy Barèges stated that the Collignon Agreement “upholds Saintonge’s right as a neutral country to trade. This is a right that Saintonge had historically insisted upon, and this government is satisfied that both countries promised to respect that.”

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
17 April 2021 - 1328h

OOC Note: Post approved by @Predice and @Zyvun .

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Top Stories


by Héloïse-Anne Pinel in Saintes
21 April 2021 - 01222h
SAINTES – the Santonian government had agreed to accept up to a million Predicean children aged 4 to 16, to shelter them from the increasingly brutal Predice-New Aleman War. This commitment is one of the largest that Saintonge had ever made in history.

The existence of the agreement was bared by Santonian Social Welfare Minister Charlotte-Marie Graftiaux in a press conference, in which she announced that the country would be hiring up to 20,000 social workers. Ms Graftiaux said that the Santonian and Predicean governments signed an agreement last 19 April 2021 at the Immeuble Rossignol, the Social Welfare Ministry, with Predicean Ambassador to Saintonge Gregario Santarossa and Santonian Foreign Minister Marcelline Tréhet signing the agreement.

According to insiders, in February 2021, the Predicean government approached the Santonian government to assist in sheltering children being displaced by the war, whose lives are interrupted by bombings, or left alone as their parents go to fight or work in the war economy. The Predicean government did not intend to settle the children in Saintonge permanently; the understanding was that they would be repatriated to Predice after the war. The Santonian government came up with the proposal last month.

Rossignol Agreement
Under the Rossignol Agreement, Predice will identify children to be sent to Saintonge according to their own criteria. The children will be accompanied by a “responsible adult” (RA): a Predicean who will be the child’s legal guardian throughout the child’s stay in Saintonge. The parents would have to sign an agreement with the legal guardian. The ratio will be ten to twelve children for every responsible adult. As much as possible, sibling groups are not to be separated. The responsible adult and the children in his/her care comprise a Youth Group.

The RAs will be vetted by the Santonian Social Welfare Ministry for their suitability and capability. These RAs may have other jobs aside from being responsible adults, including being teachers in the schools (see below.) One Santonian social worker will be assigned to up to five Youth Groups. The Santonian social worker will oversee the RAs.

The Prediceans will be housed in “Youth Communities” throughout Saintonge, which are areas where they will stay. The individual departments, aided by the Public Works Ministry, will be responsible for identifying suitable housing for the youth groups – ideally one home for a youth group. If not available, the Public Works Ministry will assist in building the housing.

The children will also be sent to a “Predicean School”, which is separate from the Santonian school system. The Predicean Schools will be staffed by Predicean teachers and will be using a modified non-ideological Predicean curriculum. These Predicean Schools will be overseen by the Santonian Ministry of Education.

Essentially, the scheme builds Predicean boarding schools in Saintonge where the children will stay for the duration of the war.

Refugee and Immigration Procedures
Unlike refugees, the children and the responsible adults will not enter Saintonge with a blue card, signifying their refugee status. They will enter Saintonge as temporary residents, with a stipulation under the Rossignol Agreement that they will be repatriated back to Predice when they reach legal age, unless there are special circumstances in which they may not go back (examples include siblings remaining in Saintonge, the newly-emancipated child applies to become a Responsible Adult, orphans).

The National Assembly of Saintonge is currently working to suspend the Loi Joyal, Saintonge’s immigration law, to exempt the incoming Predicean children and responsible adults from Saintonge’s immigration quota.

First refugees
The pioneering batch of Predicean children actually arrived last March. 1,220 children and 134 adults fled Vittoria and were admitted in Nyon through the last trips of the now-suspended Vittoria-Nyon ferry. The experience of these refugees shaped the Rossignol Agreement, which involved multiple Santonian ministries, from the Ministries of Agriculture and Food (food and supplies), Church Affairs (recruiting priests for the Prediceans), Finance (money issues), Social Welfare (social workers), Education (schools), Foreign Relations (consular issues), Health (access to healthcare), Interior (capacity-identification and distribution of children throughout all Santonian departments), Justice (immigration and visa procedures), and Public Works (housing).

This first batch of refugees formed the nucleus of the “Futura Vittoria” Predicean Boarding School in Nyon. Mayor Gauthier-Childéric Knockaert allotted a still-unallocated building at the newly-constructed Herbeumont housing complex in northern Nyon as the place for the children to stay and to have their classrooms.

Action compatible with neutrality
When asked whether Saintonge’s actions are compatible with its long-held neutrality, Ms Graftiaux answered, “since when is taking in vulnerable children an act of war?” Ms Graftiaux said that "Saintonge had long accepted refugees fleeing wars, including Shaddaists fleeing fascist regimes during the Fascist Wars, and it was never and should not be considered as a hostile act." She added that “New Aleman is free to approach Saintonge for a similar agreement for its youth.”

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
21 April 2021 - 1718h

OOC Note: Post approved by @Predice .

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Top Stories


by Mélanie Bacrot in Saintes
26 April 2021 - 1923h
SAINTES – the Santonian National Assembly earlier today approved the requisite measures for the establishment and functioning of the Predicean Youth Communities, as established by the Rossignol Agreement.

Rossignol Agreement
The Rossignol Agreement is an agreement between the governments of Saintonge and Predice in which Saintonge will take in up to a million Predicean children to shelter them from the war. The children will be housed in “Predicean Youth Communities” (Communautés des jeunes predicéens, CJP), which are essentially boarding schools for Predicean children in Saintonge.

Suspension of immigration law
The Rossignol Agreement entails partial suspension of Saintonge’s 1944 Foreigner Registration and Residency Law, popularly known as Loi Joyal. Loi Joyal sets a cap at immigration into Saintonge at 0.1% of the population. It meant that for the year 2021, Saintonge can only admit 133,505 immigrants for the entire year.

The Rossignol Agreement states that the children and their responsible adults will be considered temporary residents and not refugees, as the intention was to repatriate them to Predice after the war. This necessitates partially suspending Loi Joyal and making an exemption for the Predicean children and their accompanying adults. Such a measure is not uncommon; the last time Loi Joyal was suspended was in 2016 for Prydanian refugees.

Vote
The National Assembly voted 381-8 to exempt from the immigration quota the Prediceans covered under the Rossignol Agreement. The Nationals and the Green voted for. Only eight Radicals voted against, despite interim leader Jean-Étienne Genêt (R, 23^rd Saintes) instructing his deputies to vote against. The nine other Radicals joined the 32 Liberals in abstaining.

“Saintonge had showed once again that it sticks with its humanitarian ideals,” said Justice Minister Brice-Thibault Bardoux de Rosencoat (N, 2^nd Sée), whose ministry oversees the Santonian Immigration and Integration Agency (Agence d’immigration et d’intégration, AII), one of the implementing agencies for the CJP Programme.

The opposition, however, had reservations.

Liberal leader Paul-Lenthéric Baumann (L, 2^nd Lauter): “While the Liberal Party does not oppose this in principle, I think the number is too high to be sustainable for Saintonge. One million is a lot of children. Can Saintonge take care of all of them?”

In his right of reply, Christophe Arbeltier (N, 2^nd Basses-Brômes), the MP who introduced the bill to suspend Loi Joyal, replied: “One million is not enough.” Arbeltier contended that the one million figure covers just one in fifteen Predicean children and that the one million “was just a starting point.”

“We have managed so many things — we will also manage this situation,” was the in-person reply of Santonian Prime Minister Anne-Douceline Courseaux, who was personally there on the vote to emphasise its importance. Her statement (“Nous y arriverons!”) trended on Twitcher as the hashtag #NousYArriverons!

Radical interim leader Jean-Étienne Genêt scored what he deemed as the government’s ‘irreponsibility’. “The country is already overflowing with immigrants that it cannot integrate, and now it’s seeking more? We’re already being choked with immigrants! And this government wants to bite off more than it could chew!”

The other half of the Radical bloc distanced themselves from Mr Genêt’s rhetoric. Jules-Antoine Beaumarchais (R, 2^nd Simbruins) echoed Mr Baumann’s statement. “We agree that Saintonge should take in Predicean children who are fleeing the conflict. I would have wanted the number to be capacity based; based on the actual number that Saintonge could provide for. Otherwise we'd be doing a disservice to the children when they come here and we would not be able to provide fully for them.”

Mr Arbeltier stated that this was the reason why the second proposal, drafted by Marc-Kilian Wulfranc (N, 5^th Breuse) existed.

Budget Realignment
The accompanying proposal was an amendment to the 2021 Santonian government budget. The Finance Ministry led by Maximilian Leclère de Rochebloine (N, 2^nd Aubrac), identified allocations in the 2021 budget that would be realigned for the CJP programme. Most of the reallocations were still contained within their ministry’s budgets; for instance, the Social Welfare Ministry found funds in their 1.4 trillion livre budget to hire social workers for the CJP programme. The CJP programme do not have their own distinct allocation in the Santonian government budget; the allocations are spread throughout all ministries and all levels of government that perform the functions.

The amendment was necessary because some of the funds were to be transferred between ministries. The allocations for the Commerce, Communication, Defence, Industry, Science and Technology, and Transportation Ministries had sustained slight decreases, with the additional money transferred to the Education, Health, Interior, Justice, Public Works, and Social Welfare Ministries. The largest re-allocation was from the Foreign Ministry: the still-unused half of Saintonge’s foreign aid budget was funnelled to the CJP programme.

Vote
The budget realignment proposal was passed by a wider 422-8 vote, with the deputies that have abstained in the previous vote joining the government in funding the CJP programme.

The two proposals are expected to readily pass the House of Lords when it convenes tomorrow.

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
27 April 2021 - 0952h

by Marc-Junien Flahault in Coire
21 April 2021 - 1152h
COIRE (Haine) – the Radical Party is getting tangled over the nominee for the upcoming by-election in the Sixth electoral circumscription of the Haine, formerly held by the Liberals.

By-Election
The by-election was triggered by the censure and expulsion of Haine-6 Liberal MP Justin-Pierre Brudeau after his entanglement in various ethical scandals. Mr Brudeau is the suppléant for former Liberal Prime Minister Jean-Louis Hauteclocque de Champtoceaux, who resigned to become Vice-Chairman of the Institute for Global Affairs.

Convention
Last April 12, the nominating convention for the Radical Party selected Zeus-Joseph Gomaire, deputy mayor of Coire, as its nominee, with Haine departmental councillor Thomas-Paul du Quesnoy as the suppléant. Gomaire and Du Quesnoy were deemed close to the more moderate faction of the Radical Party, which is dominant in the department of the Haine. The most prominent member of this faction is National Assembly Deputy Damien-Michel de Lauriston (R, 7^th Haine), who had recently bucked the Radical leadership on votes from Brudeau’s expulsion, to ratification of the Saintes Convention, to the Rossignol agreement.

Veto
On April 14, Interim Radical leader Jean-Étienne Genêt (R, 23^rd Saintes) vetoed the selection of Gomaire and Du Quesnoy. Instead, he put forward his own candidates, Richard-André Lecesvé and Ferdinand-Georges Danton.

As opposed to other parties, the Radical Party leadership traditionally held a veto over selection of candidates to the National Assembly, but this is rare. In the 2019 parliamentary elections, then-leader of the Radical Party Georges Conté de Caunes vetoed four candidates, among them the Charles-Ferdinand de Pontleroy of Saintes. Mr de Pontleroy went on to retain his seat as the National candidate.

Hate in the Haine
Mr Genêt’s veto caused an uproar in the Haine, as it was seen as imposing his and his faction’s candidates on the seat. Mr Gomaire went on to call Mr Genêt’s preferred candidates as “carpetbaggers”, as both Lecesvé and Danton were soundly rejected and eliminated on the first ballot by the convention.

Mr Lecesvé is from Saintes, who ran in the 2019 National Assembly elections as the Radical candidate in the Lanthenay-based second electoral circumscription of the Saine-et-Loine. He lost decisively, coming in last. “Voters were repelled by Mr Lecesvé’s anti-immigrant, xenophobic rhetoric, in an immigrant-heavy city,” said Mayor Élise-Caroline Méaulle of Lanthenay. Mr Lecesvé is active in social media, criticising immigrants in multiple posts. Of the anti-immigration fringe groups online, Mr Lecesvé’s Front national saintongeais has one of the biggest following, with about 10,000 followers on Facegram.

Mr Lecesvé had transferred his residence and registration to Coire in order to run for the by-election. His suppléant, Mr Danton, is the president of the Front national’s departmental chapter.

No to xenophobia
Mr De Lauriston protested the imposition of Mr Lecesvé as the party’s candidate in Haine-6, saying that “Lecesvé does not represent the Radical Party of the Haine. The Radical Party I know is not xenophobic. If Mr Genêt wants to bungle this shot at our party gaining a seat, then it’s his responsibility.”

With the Liberals polling unfavourably in Haine-6 due to the Brudeau scandals, the Radicals could have emerged as the main opposition choice in the Coalition-voting district. However, the choice of Mr Lecesvé may hurt the party in this also immigrant-heavy district.

The Haine departmental chapter of the Radical Party refused to accept Mr Lecesvé’s nomination, with departmental leader Samuel-Georges de Niverville calling the veto “illegal”. Mr De Niverville said that “He vetoed our selections for what - so he can have his candidate who is not even from Coire? Interim leader Mr Genêt has no right to veto our candidate because he isn’t an elected leader of the Radical Party. He’s just an interim leader – he has no mandate.”

Protests
Multiple departmental chapters of the Radical Party protested the move, unprecedented for a party known for its top-down governance. A dozen Radical Party chapters, that of the Argens, the Basses-Alpes, the Bouche-du-Rhâne, the Corb, the Doire, the Margerides, the Lisle, the Ravennes, the Sarine, the Sebre, the Simbruins, and the Tage, sent letters of protests to the national Radical Party and letters in support of the departmental chapter of the Haine.

Prospect of a split
The prospect of two Radical candidates on a ballot is slim. For an individual to be an official candidate, s/he must be endorsed by an officially-recognised and -registered political party. For the Radical Party’s case, the national Radical Party organisation is responsible for that endorsement. If Mr Gomaire were to run as well, it would have to be as an independent. Independent candidates face high hurdles in Saintonge: a prospective independent candidate must garner the signatures of 10% of the electorate in order to appear at the ballot.

The departmental chapter of the Radical Party in the Haine officially contested the selection of Mr Lecesvé at the Royal Institute of Elections (IRE, Institut royal des elections). The IRE is set to release a decision this week.

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
21 April 2021 - 1911h

by Marc-Junien Flahault in Coire
21 April 2021 - 1748h
COIRE (Haine) – the Liberal Party is sticking with the Brudeaus for the Haine-6 by-election. Papineau mayor Sophie-Georgette Brudeau, the wife of disgraced MP Justin-Pierre Brudeau, was nominated earlier today in the Liberal Party district convention.

By-Election
Ms Brudeau’s husband Justin-Pierre was the suppléant to former Liberal Prime Minister Jean-Louis Hauteclocque de Champtoceaux, who resigned last April 2020 to become Vice-Chairman of the Institute for Global Affairs. Since then, Mr Brudeau had been entangled in numerous scandals involving costumes and ethics lapses. It was these ethics lapses that led to his censure and expulsion from the National Assembly, rendering the seat vacant. It also led to the dissolution of the departmental council of the Haine, which was implicated in the Brudeau scandals. Both the by-election and the special elections to the departmental council are set for 5 June.

Madame Brudeau as candidate
With the selection of Ms Brudeau as the candidate, the Liberals are clearly sticking to their local narrative that the Brudeaus did nothing illegal. Despite much of the rest of the country having an unfavourable view of Mr Brudeau, the couple are still locally popular – for now. The Brudeau’s base are in Coire’s middle-class to affluent suburbs like Papineau, Argenteuil, Mirabel, and Beauharnois. The suburbs comprise two-fifths of this mixed urban-suburban constituency that includes part of the city of Coire. Whether the suburbs will deliver again for the Brudeaus remains to be seen, given that a huge important event is coming that can potentially upset the Brudeaus’ prospects.

What may change in the electoral calculus is whether the procureur of Coire will issue an indictment next month for Justin-Pierre for his alleged corruption scandals. Said political analyst Brice-Gauthier Kermadec: “If the procureur issues in indictment, it will damage the Liberal narrative and will seriously hurt Ms Brudeau’s electoral chances.”

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
21 April 2021 - 2022h

by Marc-Junien Flahault in Coire
22 April 2021 - 1422h
COIRE (Haine) – during yesterday’s nominating convention for the by-election in the 6th electoral circumscription of the Haine, the National Party nominated Argenteuil vice-mayor Finnkarl Thorstvedt as its candidate for the seat, with Hallkatla Hillgaard-Mellinet as the suppléant (alternate).

By-Election
By-elections for the Santonian National Assembly are uncommon as deputies are elected along with a suppléant, or alternate, which takes over the seat in the event of the sitting deputy resigns, dies, or is otherwise unable to discharge his/her functions.

This by-election for Haine-6 is the first for the 51st Parliament that was constituted in 2019. The district’s original deputy was Liberal Prime Minister Jean-Louis Hauteclocque de Champtoceaux (JLHC), who won this seat handily in every election since 1990. Upon JLHC’s resignation to become Vice-Chairman of the Institute for Global Affairs, his suppléant Justin-Pierre Brudeau assumed the seat.

Brudeau proved to be controversial, with pictures of him in various offensive and compromising costumes circulating in the internet, including one in a Prydanian Syndicalist Militia uniform. Brudeau was also entangled in various ethical scandals and was subsequently censured and expelled from the National Assembly, rendering Haine-6 vacant.

Coire-based seat
The Sixth electoral circumscription of the Haine is a Coire-based seat, taking in the southern two-fifths of the city of Coire and its southern suburbs of Argenteuil, Beauharnois, Brossard, Champ-des-Balises, Le Dorval, Longueuil, Mirabel, Papineau, Pierrefonds, Pointe-Claire, Rosemont, Senneville, Soulanges, and Vaudreuil. Three-fifths of the voters live in the city of Coire and 8% of the district’s population is of Prydanian descent.

Candidate
Thorstvedt, 47, is a member of the Prydanian refugee community in Coire. Born in the western Prydanian town of Hoskuldsar, Thorstvedt was raised in Haland, where his father was a professor at the University of Haland. The Thorstvedts fled to Saintonge in 1988 after Stefan Toft’s Social Commonwealth government started cracking down on university professors who showed left-wing tendencies. They were settled in Coire, where the fourteen-year-old Finnkarl Thorstvedt continued his education.

Thorstvedt became a teacher at the collège in Argenteuil in 1993. When the Prydanian Syndicalist coup erupted in 2002, Saintonge received a flood of refugees from his old country. Thorstvedt initially volunteered to teach the Santonian language at the refugee and immigrant integration centre in Coire, a position that he took up full-time in 2005.

The Santonian language teacher started dabbling in politics in the 2009 elections, after the city council of his hometown of Argenteuil refused to resettle Prydanian refugees in the city. The department of the Haine’s Santonian Immigration and Integration Agency (Agence d’immigration et d’intégration, AII) was redistributing refugees throughout the department, and was requesting Argenteuil and three other wealthy Coire suburbs to take in and resettle refugees. The Coalition-controlled city councils of Argenteuil, Beauharnois, Mirabel, and Papineau fought the AII in court.

Angered by the ‘heartlessness’ of the city council, Thorstvedt ran and was elected as city councillor under the National Party banner. The Nationals did not win a majority in any of the four city councils, but the courts ruled against the four parishes in 2011.

When the National Party finally won a majority in the city council of Argenteuil in 2019, Thorstvedt was made deputy mayor of the city, which increased his prominence in the area.

A shift in Haine-6?
According to political analyst Brice-Gauthier Kermadec, by nominating Prydanian ex-refugees for Haine-6, the National Party may be courting this traditionally centre-right voting bloc in the traditionally Coalition city. Thorstvedt is also well-known in the area and well-connected to the Prydanian immigrant community (many of whom may had been his students). This area had never been represented by a National MP since 1920, but the changing demographics and general discontent against the Liberals and Brudeau, his costumes and scandals, may prove to be a boon for the Nationals.

If Thorstvedt manages to win Haine-6, he will be the second National Assembly deputy who is a Prydanian ex-refugee, after Saintes’ Thorbjörn Höjsleth.

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
22 April 2021 - 1952h

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Top Stories


by Héloïse-Anne Pinel in Saintes
29 April 2021 - 1525h
SAINTES – Saintonge had started accepting Predicean children under the Rossignol agreement. Twelve sites in eight departments have already opened its doors to Predicean children.

Rossignol Agreement
Under the Rossignol Agreement between Saintonge and Predice, Predicean children will be evacuated to Saintonge as temporary resident/student visas, where they will be housed in boarding schools that teach a modified Predicean curriculum. These communities and boarding schools are called “Predicean Youth Communities” (Communautés des jeunes predicéens, CJP). The chief of the inter-ministry and inter-agency CJP programme will be Paul-Brice Augello, a career civil servant and former deputy minister under the Ministry of Social Welfare. Mr Augello stated that while it is Saintonge that primarily bears the cost, it would be welcoming donations.

Accommodations
Eight departments have opened twelve sites for Predicean children. The southern department of the Bouche-du-Rhâne has four. Apart from the “Futura Vittoria” site in Herbeumont in Nyon, the city of Nyon also opened another site in the borough for of Biercée, for Predicean children from Alessano. Nyon is the longtime sister city of Alessano. The two other sites in the department are in Rancennes and Cuire.

The department of the Saine-et-Loine opened three sites as well: in Royan, in Surgères, and in Taillebourg. President of the Saine-et-Loine Justin Flandrin (National) said that the department is preparing four more sites: in Bicêtre, Lanthenay, Coulommiers, and Royan.

The president of the department of the Rance, Mechell Kermenguy (National) welcomed the refugees in the department’s newly opened site in the city of Lanester. The department is preparing another site at an almost-completed but still unoccupied housing estate in Béthanie.

The department of the Besbre also admitted Predicean children at the old lycée complex at Lancrans. The president of the Besbre, Pacôme-Antoine Masséglia, spoke to the children in their mother tongue. Mr Masséglia is the son of a Predicean immigrant to Saintonge.

The Cenise, the Authie, the Basses-Brômes, and the Tage also opened centres for refugees.

More to open
Mr Augello said that the Santonian government is expecting all Santonian departments to follow suit. The government is helping all of the Santonian departments to select, build, and equip centres for Predicean children.

The Mayor of Saintes Marie-Angélique Koenig-Thoumyre said that the city is preparing some sites, but there is difficulty due to the paucity of housing units in the city. Ms Koenig-Thoumyre has asked the city council to expand and approve the scheme for the city to rent out and acquire subsidised rented housing. Under the scheme, the city will either buy out or long-term lease old and dilapidated housing units, renovate them at the city’s expense, and then rent out these renovated units to eligible renters. Ms Koenig-Thoumyre asked the city council to expand the eligibility to the CJP programme.

The other option for Saintes is to coordinate with suburbs for housing. Ms Koenig-Thoumyre said that the city is already in negotiations with multiple suburbs in neighbouring departments to see whether they could accommodate refugee children destined for Saintes. Already the cities of Arpajon (Saine-et-Loine), Montrottier (Cenise), Lans-l’Hermitage (Lisle), and Aulnay-sous-Saintes (Cenise) signified interest in the Saintes programme.

Mr Augello said that Predice already has 114,000 children waiting to be admitted under the scheme.

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
29 April 2021 - 2155h

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Top Stories


by Mélanie Bacrot in Saintes
03 May 2021 - 1855h
SAINTES – the National Assembly, Saintonge’s lower house of Parliament, failed to ratify the Savattenstad Convention during yesterday’s vote. The vote tally of 225-205 is a majority in the National Assembly, but it failed to muster the 287 votes, or two-thirds of the National Assembly, needed to ratify a treaty.

Vote
All 49 Liberal and Radical MPs voted against. 156 National Party MPs voted against the Convention, enough to stop ratification. On the other side, 221 National Party MPs and four Green MPs voted for the ratification.

The rebellion mostly came from the moderate and agrarian wings of the party, which was surprising since Prime Minister Anne-Douceline Courseaux and Foreign Minister Marcelline Tréhet come from the moderate wing of the party.

The free vote saw several government ministers vote against ratification, including Health Minister Baudouin-Landon Colcombet (N, 1^st Hautes-Andes) and Agriculture and Food Minister Georges-Fulbert Meslot (N, 4^th Loing).

Amendment
The rider being circulated and promoted by Félix-Émile Écochard (N, 4^th Tessin), Joseph-Léonard Pézières (N, 6^th Côle), and Gérard-Albert Gassiloud (N, 1^st Durance) seems to be gaining traction. The amendment to the ratification law states that “The Savattenstad Convention shall only apply to the Kingdom of Saintonge when all the other parties to the conflict are also bound by the same convention.” Ninety National Party deputies had already signed on, and it got a boost when Liberal Party leader Paul-Lenthéric Baumann (L, 2^nd Lauter) announced that the Liberal Party will be supporting the Écochard amendment.

After yesterday’s vote, six National Party deputies who initially voted for ratification without the amendment subsequently expressed support for the Écochard amendment. Said deputy Serge-Henri Segheraert (N, 7^th Basses-Brômes), one of the six: “If this is the way that we are going to get this ratification moving forward, then I support it.”

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
04 May 2021 - 0901h

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Top Stories


by Émile-Jean Leclerc in Plaisance
05 May 2021 - 1205h
SAINT-CÉDRIC (Corb) – three new undersea cables linking Meterra and Craviter were officially opened today, part of the Saintonge-Essalanea Xchange Link (SEXchange Link) project. Santonian and Essalan officials were present at the ribbon-cutting ceremony officially opening the cable at one of its Santonian landing points at Saint-Cédric (Corb).

Part of Global Internet
Much of the world’s Internet services rely on undersea cables. With the rapid growth of the Internet and connectivity between nations, there was an increasing need for more connectivity. Much of the connectivity relies on undersea cables, which may be vulnerable to damage.

“There needs to be redundancy in the services,” said Santonian Communications Minister Anne-Gertrude Tempier. “If any cable goes down, traffic can be rerouted to other cables. There is already a lot of traffic between Meterra, Craviter, and Gothis, and we need to expand capacity and redundancy. With Saintonge uniquely positioned at the junction of the North Meterran Sea, Phoenix Sea, and Ember Sea, Saintonge can be of great help to the world in providing connectivity.”

The lack of redundancy was shown in 2014, when parts of the world were disconnected from the internet when an Aydini whaling ship accidentally severed one of the undersea cables linking the global internet. In Saintonge, Saintonge Télécom had to reroute data to the more expensive and low-capacity satellite system until the systems were patched. Traffic through Saintonge was pushed to the crowded Saintonge-Arcanstotska Craviter-Meterra Exchange (SACME), with the rest of the traffic rerouted through Gothis via the Goyanes-Allia-Yalkan-Saintonge Network (GAYS Network). In 2018, another event in which a shark bit and damaged another undersea cable slowed down the Internet in parts of the world.

There was also a security dimension to the issue. Lt. Gen. Daniel-Brice Dancausse of the Royal Santonian Cyber Army, a branch of the Royal Santonian Armed Forces, said that “some of Saintonge’s internet traffic go through networks in less trustworthy nations, nations that have an interest in control of information and in espionage and subterfuge for their own interests.” Gen. Dancausse declined to name any nation in particular, but added that “Saintonge should be taking control of its connections and networks by routing them through friendly and trustworthy countries.”

Saintonge-Essalanea Xchange
The Saintonge-Essalanea Xchange is composed of three cables crossing the North Meterran Sea, connecting Craviter and Meterra. From three sites in Essalanea, the three cables land separately in Saintonge at Sainte-Agathe (Haine), Saint-Cédric (Corb), and Rossignan-sur-Mer (Simbruins). This enables redundancy in case one gets damaged.

“The link enables most of the traffic between Saintonge and Craviter to pass by cables we own,” said Thibault-Antoine de Montagard, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Saintonge Télécom, the country’s state telecommunications provider. “Along with the Saintonge-Arcanstotska Craviter-Meterra Exchange (SACME) and the Saintonge-Maloria Connection (SMC), we can accommodate the traffic we have, with a lot more space to spare.”

The SEXchange Link was a project of Saintonge Télécom (ST), partially funded by the Santonian National Fund (Fond national saintongeais, FNS). When Essalanea opened up in the recent years, ST pitched the idea to the Essalans as part of a project to improve telecommunications and internet in the country. In exchange for allowing the Santonian cables to land in the country, ST and the FNS will invest in Essalan telecommunications to provide high-speed internet to most areas of the country.

Saintonge Télécom expects that that more Craviterian nations are going to approach Saintonge to route their Meterra-bound traffic through the cables.

“It is our goal to become a neutral hub of global traffic, able to provide the service efficiently, backed up by traditional Santonian neutrality ensuring a free and neutral Internet for the world,” declared Mr de Montagard.



Currently, Saintonge has connections to Gothis via the GAYS Connection and the Saintonge-Valland Exchange (SAVE). Towards Collandris, there is a link between Xentherida and Saintonge, surfacing at Pennarbed (Aulne). Towards Craviter, Saintonge has a direct cable only to Arcanstotska and Maloria, making the continent the most underserved of the nearby continents, as Saintonge has three connections to Iteria. The SEXchange aims to address this.

Towards Iteria, Saintonge has cables running from Ventimille (Simbruins) to Makopa; from Brenthonne (Basses-Alpes) to Ashkella in Iraelia; and from Cap-Éclatant (Basses-Alpes) to Sashōkō in Skanda. The Saintonge-Skanda line gives off a branch to Auroria and continues to Mondari. Saintonge also has a direct connection to Mondari via Clavenne (Basses-Alpes), and to Dhahara via Barie (Haine).

More connections between the two continents
With this in mind, ST is pursuing laying more undersea cables between Saintonge and Craviter. If the SEXchange Link proves to be popular, possible additional linkages through Essalanea, Arcanstotska, Maloria, or Callise are being explored.

Between Saintonge and Iteria, ST is completing the doubling of the Saintonge-Iraelia Link (SIL) with a new cable to complement the existing one. A direct Saintonge-Auroria or Saintonge-Icenia link seems implausible given the geography, but ST is negotiations with several strategically-located nations to allow undersea cables to surface temporarily en route to continents with no direct connections.

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
05 May 2021 - 1822h

OOC Notes: Post approved by @North Timistania (for Essalanea). Special thanks to the following people who approved of the cables: @Goyanes , @Illusia (for Allia), @Yalkan , @Xentherida , @Kanada (for Malor-Kanada), @Arc (for Arcanstotska), @Syrixia (for Valland), @Prydania (for Iraelia), @Pikabo (for Makopa), @Andrenne (for Skanda and Dhahara), @Midir [Mondari] , and @Predice . Special thanks to @Greater Ale Permars (Aydin) for special participation of his whalers. If you want your nation to have a connection to Saintonge, DM me on Discord and we'll try to do something for it!

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Eras


by Louisa Grundt in Haland
07 May 2021 - 1822h
HALAND – The Prydanian company Konunglegur Apótekari (KA), based in this eastern Prydanian city, is set to produce vaccines destined for Predicean refugee children in Saintonge.

Royal Apothecaries
Konunglegur Apótekari (KA) is a Prydanian subsidiary of Apothicaire royal, a Santonian pharmaceutical company. Both names mean “Royal Apothecary”.

The Apothicaire royal is a not-for-profit Santonian crown corporation dedicated to making affordable drugs, manufacturing orphan drugs, and making vaccines for Saintonge’s universal childhood vaccination programme. The Apothicaire royal is partially credited for the lower drug costs in Saintonge, the easier availability of rare medicines in Saintonge, and the success of Saintonge’s vaccination programme.

Apothicaire royal’s involvement in vaccines started in 1756, when Édouard Génier discovered a vaccine for smallpox. Apothicaire royal produces vaccines for Saintonge and its universal vaccination programme.

Prydanian Royal Apothecary
KA was started after the Prydanian Civil War, when the FRE government started de-nationalising the assets that the Syndicalists had seized. These small biotechnology assets were bought by Apothicaire royal, establishing a not-for-profit subsidiary in Prydania, initially intended for producing all essential drugs.

Santonian aid professionals working in Prydania convinced Apothicaire royal to focus on communicable diseases, as these were running rampant in postwar, devastated Prydania. Medications for diseases such as typhus and treatment for malnutrition could still be imported from Saintonge; but vaccines are sensitive to transport conditions, especially in a country where the infrastructure had been devastated by war. Santonian medical aid professionals such as Dr. Kinède de Kerjégu, chief of the Haland Red Heart Mission Hospital; paediatrician Dr. Finn Thor Skarstein, who was starting vaccination programmes in Austurland; and Capt. Marie-Philippine Saisseval of the hospital ship Saint-Cosme (H203), anchored in Haland, urged Apothicaire royal and its subsidiary to focus on manufacturing vaccines for Prydania.

The Apothicaire royal started a vaccine manufacturing facility at the old NyjaRannsó factory in Haland. When King Tobias III of Prydania learned about the Santonian effort in February 2018, the king of Prydania put forward money to help fund the enterprise. The subsidiary was then renamed Konunglegur Apótekari and organised along similar lines to its Santonian counterpart.

Prydanian Vaccination Programme
KA has been an integral component of the vaccination programme in the Kingdom of Prydania. Intensive royal-supported public health campaigns and trust in “Santonian” vaccines increased takeup. Historically, Saintonge had also been crucial in the eradication of smallpox in Prydania in the 19th century, after Pope-King Thibault I donated vaccines and formulae to Prydania in 1811. This meant that there was increased trust in “Santonian” vaccines.

By the end of 2020, vaccination coverage of Prydanian children was 97%, with that figure being 85% for Prydanian adults. With the tapering of the adult vaccination campaigns, demand has slowed down, and KA’s production is now more than enough for Prydania. (Previously, during the adult vaccination campaigns in 2018-2019, Prydania had to import vaccines from Saintonge.)

Donation of Vaccines
With the current slight excess capacity, KA announced that it will be dedicating its excess capacity to producing vaccines for Predicean children who had fled to Saintonge. KA will also be expanding its capacity to need increased future demand, given Prydania’s baby boom. Prydania is heeding Saintonge’s call for donations for the thousands of refugee children in Saintonge. Prydanian Health Minister Draupnir Miðvík said that “Prydania may be recovering from the civil war, but we are going to help in any way we can.” The first vaccine shipments are set to come from Prydania next month.

translated by Jérôme-Caden Barceloux Colcolough
07 May 2021 - 2322h

OOC Notes: Post approved by @Prydania.

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Top Stories


by Héloïse-Anne Pinel in Saintes
09 May 2021 - 0925h
SAINTES – the large Predicean diaspora in Saintonge had organised privately to send help to their old country and former compatriots in the Predicean – New Aleman War.

Predicean Fund for Victory
Last April, celebrity chef and restaurateur Gino d’Ocampo put forward one million livres of his own money to start up the Predicean Fund for Victory (Fondo prediceano per la vittoria/Fond predicéen pour la victoire, FPV). The aim is to raise cash and materiel for the Predicean government to prosecute the war. The fund raised twenty-three million livres in its first month, according to its website. The initial twenty million livres had already been sent to the Predicean government. This figure excludes donations-in-kind. Some of the in-kind donations sent were three planeloads of ready-to-eat meals (MREs) for the soldiers on the front line that was bought and donated by a group of Première Ligue footballers of Predicean descent, including Antoine-Octavien Dragonetti of Olympique Nyonnais, Michelangelo Serratello of USL Novale, Marco Aurelio Baldrighi of AJ St-Tobie de Coire, Marc-Colomban Scotellaro of Odinspylique de Ratisbonne, and Timothée Chiarisoli of Côme FC. Other donations-in-kind that is destined for Predice included ammunition compatible with the Predicean rifles, Predicean camouflage cloth for uniforms, gas masks, and other military gear. Many of these were bought by private citizens and organisations and sent over the Cottian Lake.

No export ban
Saintonge still had not imposed an export ban on military gear and equipment to both nations, and the country gave no indication that it will impose one soon. Analysts, such as former Santonian defence minister Ludovic Couvier, believe that this would favour Predice more than New Aleman.

”On the surface, it might seem that Saintonge is profiting off the war, but this policy is consistent with Santonian popular opinion,” said Mr Couvier in an interview with l’Indépendant. ”Saintonge is not motivated by money. Santonians feel a kinship with Prediceans and with the cultural exchange between the two countries for centuries, it is not surprising that any Santonian government will render all aid to Predice, short of breaking Saintonge’s neutrality. Allowing Predice to buy from Saintonge, even on credit, will help Predice a lot to augment its fighting capabilities.”

”Saintonge is also cognisant of the fact that Predice and its huge diaspora have a larger purchasing power than New Aleman, which is dependent on its autarkic policies to produce everything it needs for the war... And besides, Saintonge is on the verge of selling two modern frigates to Predice anyway. So the net effect of Saintonge’s lack of export ban is that Predice can buy the stuff it needs while New Aleman cannot buy much.”


Children’s Aid
Closer to home, Saintonge had already admitted 48,392 Predicean children under the Rossignol Agreement, according to latest figures. The Agreement stated that Saintonge will shelter up to a million Predicean children, providing for them in Predicean Youth Communities (Communauté/s des jeunes predicéens, CJP), which are boarding schools and communities for the children fleeing the war.

The CJP Programme is a massive financial and logistical undertaking for Saintonge, involving all ministries and all levels of the Santonian government. There were also signs that there are still unmet needs of the Predicean children that Saintonge is sheltering, as Saintonge is under pressure to admit as many children as possible in order to keep them away from the war and bombings.

Justine Santagemma, singer of Predicean descent and a coach in the singing contest La Voix de Saintonge, visited and volunteered at the Sainte-Praxède Predicean Youth Community in Saintes last month. She saw the children’s need for books, toys, and clothes.

Ms Santagemma said that “The social workers were doing all they can; they asked for assistance on the needs of the children. I’m glad that Saintonge was able to meet the children’s basic needs. We are feeding the children well; they don’t have to suffer food rationing like back in Predice. They are happy to be here, safe in Saintonge, but I think we can do more for them.”

The Children’s Aid (Aide aux enfants/Aiutare i bambini) organisation was created to organise donations, cash and in-kind, for the Predicean children in Saintonge. Its eight convenors came from civil society: Ms Santagemma, actress Madeleine Fiambretti, Santonian National Assembly deputy Charles-Emmanuel Calafiore, Stade de Saintes footballer Justin Cantalamessa, novelist Jules-Martin Bartolone, businessman Patrick Micucci, Royal Santonian Academy of Sciences member Hugo-Guillaume Bianconi, and Bishop Paul-Laurent Sanvezzo of Modane. According to the Children’s Aid organisation, they have already gathered forty million livres in cash for the CJP programme and an estimated sixty million livres on in-kind donations.

The in-kind donations included toys, such as when Spilvel heir Thibault-Carsten Lavicomterie de Rochedragon donated Spilvel sets to CJP; or when the entire collège de Charbonière, a high school in central Côme, bought stuffed toys for the children of the CJP that was being established in the city.

Donations for Children
Aside from Childrens’ Aid, donation drives for cast-off children’s clothes and toys were were being organised by the Santonian National Church. Even other diaspora organisations went to act. Throughout the summer, three fraternal orders of immigrants to Saintonge – the Fraternité des Hessunlandaises en Saintonge (Hessunlanders), Fraternité des Prydaniens en Saintonge (Prydanians), and Fraternité des Norsiens en Saintonge (Norsians) – would be holding joint fundraisers for the CJP.

One area in which there was difficulty sourcing donations for were Predicean-language books and learning materials. Children’s Aid had already secured an agreement with the Santonian Publishers’ Association to print books for the CJP children; Children’s Aid is just waiting for waivers or licenses from the Predicean copyright holders to allow Predicean-language textbooks and learning materials to be printed by Santonian publishers.

In the meantime, the large public libraries with Predicean-language holdings, such as that of Saintes, Côme, Plaisance, Nyon, Malines, Coire, Bâle, Novale, Ratisbonne, Brive, and Mirande, had announced that they would be allowing the CJP children and staff to access their books.

Some return to fight
Some in the Predicean diaspora did not stop at donating. Some Predicean immigrants went back to fight for their country. The most prominent Predicean immigrant to return to take up arms was Olympique Nyonnais midfielder Arduino Biagioni, who is a Predicean citizen. The Santonian Bureau of Immigration and Integration (Agence d’immigration et d’intégration, AII) states that 3,216 temporary and permanent residents holding Predicean citizenship had returned to Predice, presumably to fight.

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
09 May 2021 - 1218h

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Top Stories


by Héloïse-Anne Pinel in Saintes
30 May 2021 - 1013h
SAINTES – Santonians have been donating blood for Prediceans stuck in and involved in the escalating Predice – New Aleman War.

Blood Brothers
The blood donation effort was organised by a new civic organisation called Blood Brothers (Frères de sang/ Fratelli di sangue), founded by Dr. Sebastiano Giambastiani, a haematologist at the Hôpital Universitaire de Saintes; Bishop Paul-Laurent Sanvezzo of Modane; and businessman Patrick Micucci. It aims to supply Predice with blood for its wounded and injured civilians and soldiers.

The name harks back to the founding legend of both Saintonge and Predice. According to legend, in the 4^th century CE, Umbrial brothers Maximilian and Maximin fled with their peoples from what is now Gwladcan to Meterra. The older brother, Maximilian, went on to found Saintonge; the younger brother, Maximin, established Predice.

Blood Donations
Blood Brothers quickly established multiple blood donation sites during weekends and publicised them, such as through social media. The group initially had difficulty. The largest bloodletting organisation in the country with the most capacity, the Royal Santonian Red Heart Society (Société royale saintongeaise de la Coeur-Rouge, SRSCR), did not want to be associated with the effort. The SRSCR maintained a strictly neutral stance and was afraid of its impartiality being questioned by assisting a pro-Predice effort. Still, the SRSCR, which monitors blood supply in Saintonge, did advise the Ministry of Health, which regulates blood donations in Saintonge, about the status of the local blood supply. Saintonge, via the SRSCR and the Ministry of Health, had historically exported blood to countries experiencing shortfall in their blood supply.

The Santonians’ sense of civic duty meant that Saintonge’s local blood supply remained in the green zone (Adequate) throughout the spring and summer. This was why the Ministry of Health allowed the Blood Brothers’ independent blood drive activities to happen.

Because the SRSCR was not available, Blood Brothers partnered with local hospitals and blood banks who were willing to donate or rent out their facilities, staff time, and equipment for the blood donation effort. The Blood Brothers set up their mobile blood drives in public places such as city squares, train stations, and shopping malls. Blood Brothers also partnered with other civic organisations, such as the Brotherhood of Prydanians in Saintonge and the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. The famous Santonian volunteerism extended even to these independent blood drive activities, which has experienced high turnout.

“We were floored,” said Dr. Giambastiani, “at how the Santonians responded to our call.”


People donate
At the Blood Brothers donation centres, while donors have different reasons for donating, many of them have expressed sympathy for Predice - a common public sentiment in Saintonge.

First-time blood donor Ardouin, 20, in Côme: “I cannot do anything for Predice except this.” Ardouin is a student at a technical college, a Santonian citizen born to a Santonian father and a Predicean mother. “It’s a way of honouring my mum and her country. She’s proud of me.”

Ethan, 25, a naturalised Santonian citizen who originally came from Colorino, was present at the Blood Brothers booth at the Ducal Palace in Aix-en-Aunis. “I am not able spill my blood on the battlefield for my old country. But I hope this one would suffice.” Ethan is also a nurse, and had volunteered at the Blood Brothers activity in Aix-en-Aunis for that weekend.

Over in Thérouanne (Hautes-Brômes), Arnault, 40, donated at the Blood Brothers station at the Place des Évêques. “I am a regular blood donor to the SRSCR. Since they said that we have enough supply for ourselves, I figured I could donate to a country in need.”

High school student Thibault, 17, queued with his parents at the Crystal Palace in Provins (Puy-d’Or). “I cannot vote,” he said, “But this I can do.” Thibault, being underage, had to get his parents’ consent for a blood donation. His parents, both ethnic Santonians, were donating too. “We’re voting with our blood.”

In left-bank Saintes, the Blood Brothers station was set up at the old town hall of Larajasse in the 14^th arrondissement. For this station, Blood Brothers partnered with the Brotherhood of Prydanians in Saintonge, a fraternal order of Prydanian immigrants to the country. The queue was long in Larajasse; many of the donors of Prydanian descent were first-time donors.

Like many, it was the first time for Karlbjörn Strömsnes, 24. ”I am donating because the actions and attitude of the New Alemaner regime remind me of the Syndicalists... they are the cause of hardship for many people. In a way, me donating blood here will help Predice defeat them.” Many of the Prydanians on the queue expressed similar sentiments. ”The sooner the New Alemaner communists are gone, the better,” said Snorri, 44.

Collection
Dr. Giambastiani stated that the Blood Brothers have already collected 17,226 blood units since the drive started last April. What is significant is that because of the country’s genetics “11% of the Santonian population has a Type O Rh-negative blood type. This is the universal red cell donor, and this is useful in emergency situations, trauma, and yes, on the battlefield,” added Dr. Giambastiani.

The Blood Brothers organisation refused to say how much of it had been sent to Predice, citing security concerns. But he assured people that “their blood is one its way to our brotherly people who need it.”

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
30 May 2021 - 1518h

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Top Stories

Nationals make surprising gains in Coire​

by Marc-Junien Flahault in Coire
07 June 2021 - 0853h
COIRE (Haine) – the National Party had won massively in the special elections in the city of Coire and the department of the Haine that were held last 5 June. The Party won both the departmental council and the National Assembly seat of Haine-6, which polls predicted would lead to a hung council and a runoff election, respectively.

Departmental Council Dissolution
Both of the special elections were triggered by the fallout of the Brudeau scandals.

The special elections to the Departmental Council of the Haine was held when, last March, the Santonian Parliament passed Act 50-1889, which dissolved the Departmental Council of the Haine because of the involvement of numerous members in the Brudeau scandal and ethics probe.

Departmental Council Results
Polls showed that the hithherto governing Coalition of the Liberal and Radical Party would retain their majority in the council, until the Assizes of the Haine widened the indictments to include both the Liberal and Radical standard-bearers in the departmental council.

Support for the Coalition plummeted, and the National Party won a majority in the Departmental Council of the Haine – a stunning feat that broke the right’s 112-year hold in this department. The department of the Haine last elected a National Party departmental council in 1904. With the Haine now governed by the Nationals, the department that now holds the longest record of shutting out the Nationals is the Sebre, governed by the Liberals or the Coalition since 1914.


The National Party won 57 seats – a gain of 24 seats in the council. The Coalition bled seats, the Liberals more than the Radicals. The Liberals lost more than half their seats, reduced from 37 to 15; while the Radicals lost four. The Greens did not make much headway and gained only one, in the intendancy of Saint-Gingolph.

The Nationals also won the majority of the votes, with 55%, becoming the first party in all districts. It won a majority in all the districts-intendancies of the department, winning as much as 64% in Saint-Julien-en-Pouilles. In the three subintendancies of Coire – Coire-Ville (city of Coire), Coire-Métropole (suburbs of Coire), and Coire-Campagne (the rest of the intendancy of Coire) – the Nationals won a majority in Coire-Campagne, came within a hairline of a majority for Coire-Métropole, and two-and-a-half percentage points short of a majority in the city of Coire itself.


The leader of the National Party in the department, Tobias Beaucheveaux XXX, is set to become the new President of the Department of the Haine.

Haine-6 By-election
A by-election was also held for the National Assembly seat for the Sixth electoral circumscription of the Haine on the same day. The by-election was triggered by the expulsion of its Liberal deputy Justin-Pierre Brudeau, known for the scandals and his outrageous costumes. Mr Brudeau was the suppléant to the former deputy to the department, former Santonian Prime Minister Jean-Louis Hauteclocque de Champtoceaux.

The Liberals ran with Brudeau’s wife Sophie-Georgette, who, because of her personal popularity had polled well until she was also included in the investigations of the procureur (prosecutor) of Coire when her husband was indicted before the Assizes of the Haine last May.

The other half of the Coalition, the Radicals, were initially the favourite to win the seat until the two main factions of the Radicals squabbled over the nominees. The more moderate local Radical Party branch nominated Coire deputy mayor Zeus-Joseph Gomaire; while the interim national Radical Party leader Jean-Étienne Genêt vetoed the selection and instead imposed the anti-immigrant, far-right candidate Richard-André Lecesvé. The Gomaire camp complained to the Royal Institute of Elections (IRE, Institut royal des elections). However, as it is the national Radical party organisation that certifies a party’s candidates for National Assembly seats, Mr Genêt certified Mr Lecesvé as the Radical Party’s official candidate. This was not an issue with the departmental council elections as the local party branches are responsible for certifying a party’s candidates for local positions – hence the more moderate local Radical Party branch in the Haine ran their departmental council candidates under the Radical Party banner.

Deprived of ballot access, Mr Gomaire mobilised to gather the requisite 22,988 signatures – 10% of the electorate – to mount an independent campaign. Because of this high hurdle, independent candidates to the National Assembly are rare. Even former Prime Minister Marc Gaucelin failed to do so in Chalaronne-2 in 2019. Mr Gomaire managed to gain ballot access.

The Nationals then became a contender in the seat, nominating two former refugees of Prydanian descent in a seat where 8% of the population is of Prydanian descent, anchored in a city with historic connections to the Craviterian country. It was still a long shot, as the Nationals have never won the seats covering the area since 1920.


Haine-6 Results
National candidate Finnkarl Thorstvedt, deputy mayor of the Coire suburb of Argenteuil, swept to victory in the first round with a majority of the vote, precluding the need for a second round. Mr Thorstvedt would become the second National Assembly deputy of Prydanian refugee descent after Saintes’ Thorbjörn Höjsleth.

The Hainois’ distaste for the extreme candidate showed through – Mr Lecesvé sank in the balloting and finished dead last. The official Radical Party candidate garnered even less than half of the votes won by the Green Party candidate.

Mrs Brudeau was pushed to third place, while Mr Gomaire finished second with one-fifth of the vote, despite his independent candidacy. “It was a vindication,” Mr Gomaire said after the results were released, “of the direction of the Radical Party of the Haine and the need for an alternative for the country.” Mr Gomaire polled more than twice the vote gotten by the Radical Party candidate in the 2019 elections, Valérie Briois.


Mr Thorstvedt won 13 out of the 15 parishes in the Sixth electoral circumscription of the Haine, including the part of the city of Coire that lies within the district. This part of Coire, where three-fifths of the vote were cast, gave 48% of its votes for the National candidate. The district's next-largest parish, Argenteuil, voted for its favourite son with a massive 59%. The district’s third-largest parish, Longueuil – stuffed with Prydanian immigrants – voted 60% for Mr Thorstvedt.

The Nationals even came first in some genteel right-leaning suburbs such as Beauharnois, Pierrefonds, and Mirabel. Mrs Brudeau only came first in her hometown of Papineau and in the exclusive planned garden suburb of Rosemont.

Prydanian effect
The Liberals scandalised again in Coire when Liberal Coire Mayor Jacques Palaiseau blamed “money and the ethnic vote” (“l’argent et le vote ethnique”) for the party’s massive losses in the Haine. Most took “le vote ethnique” as referring to the sizable number of Santonians of Prydanian descent in the city of Coire and the department of the Haine. Mr Thorstvedt himself was the first to flinch: “Mr Palaiseau thinks we Prydanians are to blame? Why not he blame the scandals and the corruption in his party instead?”

Mr Palaiseau’s deputy mayor also reacted. “That sounds something like what Mr Lecesvé would say,” Mr Gomaire said cheekily. “Maybe he is in the wrong party? Needless to say, we will be having conversations and re-evaluating our partnership with the Liberals of Coire until that statement is clarified and rectified.”

According to psephologist Brice-Gauthier Kermadec, “pinning this on people of Prydanian descent is easy, but incorrect.” Mr Thorstvedt and his suppléant may be former Prydanian refugees. Even the National Party’s candidate for President of the Departmental Council, Mr Beaucheveaux, commented on his family’s oral history of being descended from a Prydanian viking who settled in Coire in the 12^th century. His family name, Beaucheveaux, is a Santonian calque of the Prydanian surname Hárfagri (“Fairhair”) – and bearers of the Hárfagri surname are said to be related to the royal Scylfing family of Prydania. Mr Beaucheveaux was named after the Prydanian Saint-King Tobias I, the patron saint of the Coire Cathedral. “Tobias is a common name in the family,” Mr Beaucheveaux remarked on the campaign trail. “They liked it so much that over the years there were thirty of us. Hence, I am Tobias Beaucheveaux XXX. That means ‘the Thirtieth’, and not because I am an adult entertainment performer.”

Mr Kermadec said that targeting the Prydanian-Santonians – an emerging centre-right voting bloc in a historically centre-right department – was “logical” for the Nationals in the light of Brudeau’s costume scandal. “But to say that the Nationals won because of them is not correct. Prydanians only compose 6%-8% of the population in the areas that voted last weekend. The swing was more than that – it was 20% on average. So not only Prydanians, but also Santonians, in the Haine switched to the National Party. Whether that’s just a fluke or here to stay, we’ll have to see in the subsequent elections.”

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
07 June 2021 - 1120h

L'Indépendant > Mercanti > Top Stories


by Mélanie Bacrot in Saintes
11 June 2021 - 1803h
SAINTES – earlier today, the Santonian National Assembly Permanent Committee on Intelligence, in a 13-7 vote, to terminate a hearing on alleged Prydanian spying in Saintonge. For the past week, the Committee had heard several resource persons in executive, closed-door sessions. Earlier today it voted on a motion by Huldéric Brosterhous (N, 1^st Inde) to terminate the hearing and transmit a report to the National Assembly plenary.

“HveitiLeaks”
The investigation was spurred when a confidential leak from the Prydanian Öryggi og Sérstakur Upplýsingaöflun (ÖSU, Security and Special Intelligence), the Kingdom of Prydania’s intelligence service, suggested that the intelligence agencies of the Kingdom of Prydania and its predecessor, the Framan Ríki Eining (FRE, Front of National Unity) had been spying in Saintonge as early as 2005. The FRE led the democratic resistance against the Syndicalist dictatorship in Prydania from 2002-2017.

The ‘leaks’ were confirmed when ÖSU Chief Max Hveiti casually admitted last week to Prydanian-Santonian journalist Louisa Grundt of l’Indépendant that the ÖSU had been spying in Saintonge. Mr Hveiti said that “the ÖSU did what it had to do to save the country. If that meant spying on the Syndicalist government within Saintonge’s borders, the ÖSU did it. If that meant protecting Prydanian refugees within Saintonge from the people they fled away from, the ÖSU did it.”

Mr Hveiti also told Ms Grundt that the ÖSU was willing to open its archives to the Santonians, to prove that the ÖSU “never ran operations against the Santonian government”. He said that he hoped that leaders and ordinary people would see the Prydanian spying in Saintonge as a “necessary evil” and that ÖSU’s operations in Saintonge had ‘largely ceased’.

Diplomatic Incident
Mr Hveiti’s revelations were apparently unbeknownst to the Prydanian government, which was caught off-guard by Mr Hveiti’s admission. The Prydanian government tried to placate Saintonge as various sections of the Santonian government and public demanded action and reaction on the issue.

Some members of the Santonian government also reacted adversely to the revelations. “After all we did for Prydania, this is what we get in exchange?” said an angry Labour Minister Jeanne-Élisabeth Vertières-Clérembault.

“Prydania is as close to an ally as it will get to Saintonge. Spying on a friendly, allied country is unacceptable,” remarked Social Welfare Minister Charlotte-Marie Graftiaux.

It also led to a resolution introduced in the National Assembly, signed by 43 members, urging the chamber and the relevant committee to hold hearings on the issue, which was why the Santonian National Assembly Permanent Committee on Intelligence were holding meetings.

Saintonge is traditionally neutral and is acutely sensitive to foreign meddling in its internal affairs, which was why segments of the Santonian government and public reacted adversely to the leaks.

Muted Reactions
Despite some of the vociferous reactions from the Santonian government and public, commentators noted that the agencies and people in charge of the relevant agencies had largely muted reactions.

Santonian Foreign Minister Marcelline Tréhet issued a bland statement last week that Santonian Ambassador to Prydania Gunthiern de Pennendreff had met with the Prydanian Minister of Foreign Affairs several times on the issue, and that the Prydanian government had “satisfactorily answered Saintonge’s queries.”

Santonian Deputy Foreign Minister for External Intelligence Gwenegan de Keranflech said that Prydania spying on Saintonge should not be surprising because “countries do that all the time, even with ostensibly friendly countries.”

Last Monday, Santonian Defence Minister Marc-Maëlmon de Liescoët commented that “the word ‘spying’ carries so much negative connotations that it should only be applied to a certain type of intelligence-gathering activity, that is, activity that is prejudicial to the target. There are a lot of intelligence-gathering activities that you can do.”

Ms Tréhet, Mr de Keranflech, Mr de Pennendreff, and Mr de Liescoët all appeared before the committee last week. Also appearing were Lt. Gen. Charles-Clarent Cluseret, head of the Santonian Service du renseignement de sécurité (SRS, Security Intelligence Service), the military intelligence service of the Kingdom of Saintonge; Gen. Thibault Poncet de Martimprey, head of the Royal Santonian Cyber Force, the country’s cyberwarfare military branch; and Brice-Charles Bréchignac, head of the Santonian Bureau of Immigration and Integration (Agence d’immigration et d’intégration, AII), which handled the Prydanian refugees in Saintonge.

Report
Committee member Germain-Luc Corolleur (N, 1^st Besbre) explained after the vote that “I think much of the reactions come from the fear that Prydania may have had infiltrated our institutions… if that’s the case, if Prydania did it, could other countries have done it too?” Mr Corolleur continued: “I think the committee members, after listening to the testimonies of numerous witnesses, are satisfied that no significant breach or infiltration of Saintonge was made.

“Our defences are still intact,” added Mr Brosterhous. “Prydania was not infiltrating the sensitive aspects of Saintonge.”

The disagreement in the vote, said deputy Geneviève Masteau-Lacoste (N, 11^th Cenise), was that that the committee members who voted not to terminate the proceedings were interested “in additional measures relating to the Kingdom of Prydania, such as officially opening the dossiers on Saintonge, sharing any intelligence the ÖSU had gathered, and dismantling of its network.” Ms Masteau-Lacoste added that if Prydania would not want to comply, “the committee would’ve recommended actions against the Kingdom of Prydania.” Ms Masteau-Lacoste voted not to terminate the proceedings.

Baudry-Pierre Baucheton (N, 8^th Scyotte), chair of the Santonian National Assembly Permanent Committee on Intelligence, voted to terminate the proceedings and instead draft a committee report. In an interview after the vote, Mr Baucheton essentially echoed Mr de Keranflech’s statement. “Countries gather intelligence on other countries all the time, there’s nothing new in that.”

Does it mean that Saintonge also does it to other countries?

“Milk my statement for all it’s worth,” replied Mr Baucheton. “But I think what’s important is that nothing that is sensitive or crucial for Saintonge had been compromised.”

translated by Kyle MacTaggart-de Flesselles
11 June 2021- 2022h