(Riens; 05-03; p.2)

In accordance to a French film of the same title that came out in 1992 a new debate about the elderly Germans has been started. Furthermore, there were elections in the federal state of Bremen.

Continuity Bremen style

On 25 May, an election in the federal state of Bremen took place.
The state Bremen consists of the two towns Bremen and Bremerhaven with about 700000 inhabitants in total, i.e. it is smaller than some German metropolis - election results therefore can hardly be transferred to the republic's level.
Besides, Bremen meanwhile disposes of a diversified economical structure - a big harbour for container-goods as well as a car factory and some branches of an aeronautics and space company-, structures and their change are, if at all, of relevance for similar towns and regions and not for the republic.
All re-structuring, moreover, did not prevent Bremen being one of the worst performing West German states in respect to unemployment: the figure varies around 13 %.

Nevertheless, here is the preliminary official result of the election:

party	percentage of votes	=>	seats
SPD (Social-Democrats)	42,3 %		40
CDU (Conservatives)	29,9 %		29
Grüne (Greens)	12,8 %		12
FDP (Liberals)	4,2 %		1
DVU (Extreme Right)	2,3 %		1
sum	91,5 %		83
295603 individual votes were counted which is the equivalent of 61,4 % of all entitled voters. As the elections are independently in both parts of the state, a party gains a seat in parliament, if it gets more than five percent of the counted votes in one of the parts; thus, the results for the FDP and DVU are explained.

By calculation one could form a coalition of SPD and Greens like the one on the republic's level. The top candidate of the SPD by contrast has already in the election campaign announced that he will lead another "big coalition", i.e. of SPD and CDU as in the past.
(read on here)