French elections 2017: completing the hat-trick?

After Brexit and Trump, Marine?

The good news is that Sarkozy is out. The bad news is... everything else?

Juppé (more of a centrist) and Fillon (a right wing nut job) are debating right now for Les Républicain's primary.

bonne chance france

Before that, Wilders will prob be the biggest in March 2017. Good times...

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/2af7359a129b696fb680722b66cf4e83a648a26b/0_379_4228_2537/master/4228.jpg?w=620&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=ccd68748209f84d9ef5651d9b634703e

Juppé has an ominously Jeb!-esque exclamation point on his official logo, which doesn't seem to bode well for him

Before that, Wilders will prob be the biggest in March 2017. Good times...

... and before that

I realized that just after hitting submit

there's an italian referendum coming up too

Hollande has apparently now signalled that he will stand for re-election despite his appalling poll numbers, on the basis that he might just have a shot now that Fillon is unexpectedly looking likely to become the centre-right candidate? A Le Pen vs Fillion run-off and a Le Pen vs Hollande both seem like alarming prospects though.

what is macron up to, the wee fuck

has anyone ever successfully run for re-election shortly after a poll showing they have an approval rating of 4%?

http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21709508-fran-ois-hollandes-approval-falls-4-abyss

damn how did his numbers get so low

Xp, Yeltsin but he had a bit of help.

damn how did his numbers get so low

― Mordy, Thursday, November 24, 2016 4:10 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The whole way the El Khomri law has been implemented was seriously disgusting and won't be forgotten soon, I say this as someone who is generally favourable to the law itself. I think it will have a lasting impact on how people Hollande.

So, from what I've heard, what usually happens is that if a FN candidate wins in the first round of elections, the centre party candidate who's gotten less votes withdraws and asks their voters to go for the other centre candidate. So is the danger that Le Pen's votes will beat out the ones cast for Filon (or Juppe) and Hollande both, or has this been wrongly explained to me?

France has a two round voting system so if anyone doesn't get over 50%, the top two candidates go through to a run-off and everyone else is eliminated. Whether Le Pen came first or second, if she's in the second round the assumption is that the majority of other parties would throw their support behind her opponent, whoever it is. Socialists, Greens, etc, came out in force to vote for Chirac (who they hated) when Le Pen sr came second in 2002. They have nobody else to vote for (their own candidates having been eliminated) so the danger is always low turnout if they don't show up at all.

Yeah, that's what I understood. Le Pen beating out the supporters of all major parties banded together seems like a long shot, even compared to Trump and brexit. But who even knows anymore.

this comes down to islamophobia, right? france has copped much more terrorism than all the other western nations combined of late. it's easy to see how this might play

much more 'successful' terrorism, i add

I'm fairly sure the center-right candidate would beat Le Pen in the runoff, but would the socialist? If Le Pen splits the right wing vote in the first round, will the right then come out in force for the leftist?

I've seen concerns that if there's a Fillion/Le Pen run-off, Fillion's commitment to liberalising the labour market and cutting the welfare state will allow the FN to present themselves as defenders of ordinary workers' rights, and that Fillion's Thatcherism (coupled with his social conservatism) might make him too toxic for some leftist voters to turn out for, and that all this could give Le Pen a route to victory, I don't know how likely that is? Though I guess FF's social conservatism and positions re: Islam and protecting "French culture" might attract some voters who would have otherwise gone with the FN?

I suspect the latter but who tf knows anymore

That explanation would require for the economic explanation to actually be stronger than the racism one, and I don't think thats true. Which I guess is good in this case? The French system makes this whole thing full of dillemas.

this guy likely to be the *least* racist of the two candidates in the second round, remember

He told Europe 1 Radio: "We must fight that fundamentalism, in the same way that in the past... we fought some forms of Catholic fundamentalism and we fought the drive by Jews to live in a community that did not respect all the rules of the French Republic."

Fillon later said he had been misunderstood, and had not intended to question Jews’ commitment to the values of France.

http://europe.newsweek.com/francois-fillon-jewish-leaders-integration-muslims-jews-524849?rm=eu

though this article presents a more mixed view of his positions re: France's jewish population

http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/A-pleasant-surprise-for-many-of-Frances-Jews-473291

he seems pretty unambiguous on the subject of Islam, though

Fillon’s sudden rise in popularity is in large part due to a book he published this autumn called Conquering Islamic Totalitarianism, which won him support on the right.

In it, he lambasted the current French government for failing to deal with the Islamic terrorism that had seen more than 230 people killed in France in a period of 18 months. Leaning towards the “clash of civilisations” theory developed in the 1990s by Samuel Huntington, Fillon warned that “the bloody invasion of Islamism into our daily life could herald a third world war”.

In Lyon, he was loudly cheered when he said: “Radical Islam is corrupting some of our Muslim fellow citizens.” He promised administrative controls on Islam in France, including dissolving the Salafi movement and banning preaching in Arabic. This summer he supported a law to ban burkini full-body swimsuits from French beaches.

Le Pen is positioning herself to the left of Fillon on the welfare state. If there's little difference between them on immigration, then, I suppose Europe becomes the big question. Which is interesting bc in Brexit "Europe" seems to have stood for immigration among the general population though among Brexiteers Europe stood for other things.

Hollande announced he won't be running for a second term.

https://scontent-cdg2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/t31.0-8/15271805_1269135473109256_3125846403582730718_o.jpg

Manuel Valls to run for president

No idea who is going to oppose him in the primaries, Taubira would have been ideal but she doesn't seem excited by the idea? Valls has a representative of the socialistes is a very sobering thought.

well, there's Mélanchon

on like Nov 10th i talked to a French guy who assured me Le Pen wouldn't win because in the run-off against Sarkozy (this was before he lost primary) and Le Pen all the leftists would vote Sarkozy. having just been burned so hard by Trump, i told him I'd bet him 100$ he was wrong. he didn't take it

Mélenchon isn't going through the primaries, and neither is Macron.

Taubira is great. But this is not her time. Valls is...... pretty right-wing for a socialist :/

Didn't know where else to put this, but uh-oh...

Serbia wants to annex part of Kosovo using 'Crimea model': president

(Seeing this thread as the most prescient of nationalism/fascisms rise in Europe)

Of=on

AUBERVILLIERS, France — A man clutches a bag filled with cigarettes, hawking his illicit merchandise outside a kebab shop on a nondescript street in the center of Aubervilliers, a town on the outskirts of Paris — “Marlboro, Marlboro! Camel, Camel!”

http://www.politico.eu/article/marine-le-pen-surprise-muslim-islam-supporters-national-front-banlieues/

Change Aubervilliers to Paris (though only like 4km south of Aubervilliers) and you have my neighborhood right now. Descriptively at least. I don't know if people around here are FN supporters.

Is the "Marlboro" thing, a thing elsewhere, like in London or New York? They're trafficking cigarettes brought in from Algeria and Tunisia.

Yes, mostly trafficking from Belarus or the Balkans iirc.

Multiple Xps, Serbs argue Crimea was annexed under the Kosovo model!

Is the "Marlboro" thing, a thing elsewhere, like in London or New York? They're trafficking cigarettes brought in from Algeria and Tunisia.

This used to be a big thing on the Holloway Road, like, 10 years ago but the police cracked down on it hard and I've never seen it since... though I still see some of the guys who used to sell the cigarettes around the area and, yes, Algerians afaict.

Hamon has won the socialist candidacy comfortably over Valls. Another dinosaur bites the dust (after Hollande and Sarko). Hamon more in line w/ Sanders/Corbyn/Podemos than the more centred social democrats. Can't see him stand a chance tho.

the socialists won't have a chance in france for ten years after hollande's performance. it's gonna be le pen against macron, i guess. fillon seems to be finished. his trustworthiness is about as good as that of a second hand car dealer now.

If only Fillon had given his mistress a fake job, instead of to his wife amirite?

You are otm tho. Macron does have something going for him tbf, with a lot of other sides including the Green Party not immediately writing him off, showing some willingness to rally behind him to keep Le Pen at bay. It's... Something.

hope Valls gets a burkini now

i like hamon!! but yeah w macron in the race (and melenchon!) i guess he doesn't stand a chance. dunno tho, these are weird times. centrists aren't winning.

Fillon has said he will withdraw from the presidential race if judges decide to formally accuse him of wrongdoing. It is unclear where this leaves his party as the primaries runner-up Juppé has ruled out stepping in to replace Fillon.

“François Fillon is not in the position of pulling out. He has explained that he will do so if he is officially put under investigation, but he is not officially under investigation,” Juppé said.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/31/francois-fillon-faces-fresh-claims-over-paying-wife-and-children

does anyone have any idea what would happen if Fillon pulled out? what would be the latest point at which another candidate could take his place as the Les Republicans' candidate? it would be something if this led to an 11th hour Sarko comeback, I suppose that's unlikely though.

we live in unlikely times. the whole primary system is so new i wouldn't be surprised if the rules don't speak to this situation. Borgen eat your heart out!

god the stuff that's happening w Fillon is just too delicious.

I've been wondering whether the Socialist Party choosing a hard left candidate makes it more likely that Macron will get through to the second round (because he will be able to pick up a lion's share of centre-left votes in the first round in a way that he may not have done if the Socialists had picked another centrist) or less likely (e.g. if the Socialists had put up a candidate with similar views to Macron then left-wing voters may have rallied behind Macron as the person most likely to succeed - but now they have a genuine alternative in the form of Hamon they may be more tempted to vote for him the first round instead?). I guess the number of people who would have voted for Melenchon in the first round who will now vote for Hamon instead is another factor?

I do have an increasing fear that all this uncertainty an volatility is going to end with Le Pen being elected President, but I don't really know enough about French politics to assess how rational that is.

Le Pen will have to break out of her hard 25%, Whether that's a ceiling or not is unclear, but she's had years to grow beyond that and hasn't. Have things changed since 13/11? And all the candidates this time have such baggage, I can see that remaining the focus of coverage of the election and I don't see Le Pen benefiting from that over any of the others.

I've been wondering whether the Socialist Party choosing a hard left candidate makes it more likely that Macron will get through to the second round (because he will be able to pick up a lion's share of centre-left votes in the first round in a way that he may not have done if the Socialists had picked another centrist) or less likely (e.g. if the Socialists had put up a candidate with similar views to Macron then left-wing voters may have rallied behind Macron as the person most likely to succeed - but now they have a genuine alternative in the form of Hamon they may be more tempted to vote for him the first round instead?). I guess the number of people who would have voted for Melenchon in the first round who will now vote for Hamon instead is another factor?

I'd say it makes it more likely. The left-wingers' vote is going to be split between Hamon and Mélenchon. The Hamon/Mélenchon crowd wouldn't have voted for Macron anyway, IMO.

So is that a win-win? The hard left gets to show up left-centrists, and Macron, the candidate most likely to beat Le Pen, will get through to second round? I don't know, I'm just asking.

As someone who will vote for either Hamon or Mélenchon I don't find this scenario to be a win.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3lZ8B1WIAEpom7.jpg

so the 'trump builds momentum for le pen' narrative seems really counter-intuitive to me. is there any country in the world that's going to have a stronger negative reaction to a loudmouth asshole american presidency than france?

lotta people like him. he's "outside the system". he'll "shake things up". etc

also hey he hates minorities. always a plus with a lot of french voters.

Except this loudmouth asshole fucks with the mainstream media, the SJW-ish leftists, immigrants, and generally with the whole idea of being a decent human being. The FN base loves this. People who feel like mainstream politics are rigged and everyone is in cahoots love this. Trump winning means to them they can win too.

sure, assholes across the world love him, but that's not gonna get you a majority (it didn't even in america...)

Right but if you can make people who don't usually vote to go out and vote, things become less predictable. Especially if your opponent is hated enough (say, Mélenchon for the right, or Fillon for the left).

i would hope at least a few would care about her stealing £300m of the EU's money for her own party -

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/01/marine-le-pen-front-national-eu-funds?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/10/07/marine-le-pens-youth-brigade-national-front-young-voters-france/

Most of the conference attendees — waving tricolor flags and sporting “Proud to be French” baseball caps — were middle-aged, a reflection of the party’s core demographic. Yet party leader Marine Le Pen, flanked onstage by a chorus of young women as she sang the national anthem, has also been pitching the FN as the party of choice for alienated French 20-somethings — and the pitch appears to be working.

Hundreds of young people have been elected to local office under her leadership since 2011, and some of the FN’s best-known faces have yet to turn 30. Le Pen’s 26-year-old niece, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, the blond bombshell of the far right, is France’s youngest MP. And then there is David Rachline, a senator and the mayor of Fréjus, who at 28 has just been named Le Pen’s presidential campaign chief.

http://g8fip1kplyr33r3krz5b97d1.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/h_51107257-714x476.jpg

Analysts stress the huge abstention rates among young voters unenthused by any of the political options on offer — 65 percent of young people did not vote in the last regional elections, according to Ipsos estimates. Yet of those aged 18 to 24 who do intend to vote, Le Pen ranks in surveys as the preferred president. In the first round of December’s regional polls, 35 percent of them backed the FN, according to the Ipsos study, when the national average was 28 percent. The ruling Socialists and main opposition Republicans, by comparison, garnered only 21 percent of the youth vote each.

maybe the good news is that the youth vote haven't gotten what they wanted in any of the other recent elections so maybe their hopes will be dashed here too

In the United States, Donald Trump’s nationalist presidential campaign has struggled with so-called millennials.

a lot of this is because whites makes up smaller percentage of millennials, right? 48% of 18-29 year old white voters backed Trump, 43% Clinton. (For whites overall it was 58% Trump, 37% Clinton).

(a up smaller percentage of US millennials, that is)

that's still a 10% shift for white millennials on top of making up a smaller percentage of age cohort

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/795333715186647040/gpl8ZdKA_400x400.jpg

Le Pen’s 26-year-old niece, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, the blond bombshell of the far right, is France’s youngest MP.

I was going to say I assume she's not related to Sylvain Maréchal, but her family background is fairly complicated:

In a book entitled The Conquerors (Les Conquérantes) launched on 18 November 2013, the French journalist Christine Clerc (fr) revealed that Samuel Maréchal is not her biological father.[9] On 7 November 2013, the French weekly news magazine L'Express disclosed the identity of her birth father, Roger Auque, a Mossad agent and investigative journalist who died in September 2014.[9] On 8 November, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen officially announced that she had asked her lawyer to sue L'Express for a "serious invasion of her privacy".[10][11]

(I was reading about Sylvain Maréchal earlier, y'see)

The media have made their choice

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3_4Z8CXAAA3qfU.jpg

(it's about the broadcast of the candidates' meeting, caption from left to right: full live broadcast, partial live, delayed, nothing)

does anyone have any idea what would happen if Fillon pulled out? what would be the latest point at which another candidate could take his place as the Les Republicans' candidate? it would be something if this led to an 11th hour Sarko comeback, I suppose that's unlikely though.

Presumably just got even more unlikely...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38890993

maybe i'm just shook by brexit and trump but the right-wing firewall against le pen appears to be dissolving into thin air :/

I think there's a fair degree of wishful thinking going on here, but it's possible:

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/08/opinions/trump-european-populism-andelman/index.html

I'd like to think so. This tho:

Closing all frontiers and barring the desperate and needy is anathema to broad swaths of the French electorate. Moreover, the French are hardly inclined to make their own vast domestic Muslim population feel even more disenfranchised

is like, not true at all. "Broad swathes of the French electorate" don't give a shit what happens to Muslims or immigrants, I'd say in roughly the same proportion as in America.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/world/europe/france-albi-french-towns-fading.html

The visible decline of so many historic city centers is intertwined with these anxieties. Losing the ancient French provincial capital is another blow to Frenchness — tangible evidence of a disappearing way of life that resonates in France in the same way that the hollowing out of main streets did in the United States decades ago. A survey of French towns found that commercial vacancies have almost doubled to 10.4 percent in the past 15 years. As these towns have declined, voters have often turned sharply rightward. Albi is traditionally centrist, but the same conditions of decline and political anxiety are present, too.

Turn a corner in Albi, and you’ll pass the last school inside the historic center, abandoned a few years ago. Down another street is the last toy store, now closed, and around a corner is the last independent grocery store, also shuttered. Walk down the empty, narrow streets on some nights and the silence is so complete that you can hear your footsteps on the stones.

“If nothing is done, a substantial part of the French soul will perish, taking with it more than half the French population,” the businessman Charles Beigbeder wrote in Le Figaro recently, calling for a “Marshall Plan” for “peripheral France.”

Exactly like the UK then.

Though the sharp turn rightwards is debatable. As it probably is in France.

Still, we'll be okay, we're Brexiting!

I haven't been to Albi, had the idea of going this last summer when I was in Toulouse for a week, but the weather was off. It sounds like the problem is familiar to Americans: they opened a mall outside the town center, and many people prefer going there, as it is in the States.

I stayed away from Fillon's rally today, for which it sounds like right-wing Catholics were bussed in to hear (unsurprisingly nothing about it at mass this morning, since my church, mostly African immigrants, aren't the Catholics that the LR want). The weather's awful today, but that seems appropriate.

‪Fillon's capacity for self-important melodrama is just limitless‬

Lavish ad for Le Pen headed up by BBC's Hugh Schofield who's squeaked right-wing opinion into his French political analysis in the past - reluctant to link to it but: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/marine_le_pen

Don't think they're doing this for other candidates but would love to be proven wrong.

stoked for le madness

live feed of the debate with inadvertently funny live English language dubbing.

http://www.france24.com/en/livefeed

(funny to me anyway, but I'm easily amused)

the guy doing Melenchon is my favourite

omg

was trying to work out who Melenchon's voiceover artist reminded me of and then I realised it's the guy from Office Space

http://image2.funscrape.com/images/o/office_space-25299.jpg

"bad guys? i don't like ´em! never have! zero tolerance for lawlessness!" - everybody

er did hamon just suggest le pen is on drugs?? maybe i missed something

so proud of hamon and melanchon for their answers on immigration.

"No no, no no, no no, no no no..."

English dubbers getting into their role enthusiastically! Lol.

macron looks like a little boy up there :/

Fillon looks like he'd rather just be at the beach with a drink.

The bunch looks quite doloreux tbh

le pen literally just said that unemployment is the fault of the unemployed, because they haven't been looking hard enough. wtf. even my le-pen-leaning father-in-law would disagree w that.

how much does he hate muslims tho

oh lots! lots and lots. well not individual ones. mysteriously, every person he actually knows or meets - gay or muslim or anything else he has an ostensible, widely-declared problem with - he thinks is fine. "one of the good ones" i guess. but in the abstract? grr snap bite

le pen literally just said that unemployment is the fault of the unemployed, because they haven't been looking hard enough. wtf. even my le-pen-leaning father-in-law would disagree w that.

IIRC she said that that's what the unemployed are told

Summing up Macron's whole debate for you: "I agree".

OK that makes more sense! (Presumably on her way to blaming immigrants...)

By that point I was zapping around the dial, everything was just so infuriating, so I think I missed the setup to that. Macron has totally bought into the anti-immigrant narrative, totally bought into the burkini ban. He's spineless. To be honest he looked like you could knock him over with a feather. I fear for him against Le Pen.

I was really impressed with Hamon apart from the bickering he seemed unable to stop himself from entering into. He was confident, succinct, memorable. But I can't imagine anything he can do now will be enough.

My kids thought Macron was the clear winner, the only one who looked "presidential" in their eyes. They'd never seen Le Pen before & thought she was awful. But the real laughs were for Fillon, who seemed happy to lay back and zing.

Macron certainly wins the "most likely to be in an underwear ad"

Woops hit send to quick

Le Pen really sounds like a crank half the time, no matter how much she's "modernized" her language. On the economy her very first issue was that trucks travel too far to deliver food. And that France needs "food security". I mean, yeah I guess so? But it's like she literally imagines that fences will go up along the borders and nothing can go in our out and we need to live like cave people. She wants to pretend globalized transport and finance don't exist, she wants to wish them away by statute.

Is she perhaps using coded language to ensure farmers that they will get their national subsidies? I don't know, it just sounds like something someone in Denmark could say, and mean something completely different :)

Maybe so. My tenuous grasp of the language and culture is putting me at a disadvantage here :/

Lol for instance I have now worked out that Hamon wasn't accusing Le Pen of being addicted to drugs - he said she was addicted to the imagery of violence, to "crime stories"

I'm confused as well because I really thought Hamon was punchy, smart, strong, persuasive, solid - but all the commentary basically ignores him. Everybody's saying the two big winners were Fillon, for not, I dunno, literally melting into a bubble onstage, and Melanchon because he was funny.

Mélenchon and Fillon were both funny, but I don't think any of this moves voters in any direction.

Fillon's scandals just keep on getting better: Billionaire Lebanese businessman paid Fillon $50,000 to set up meetings with Putin & Total CEO

(http://bfmbusiness.bfmtv.com/france/fillon-a-touche-50-000-dollars-pour-organiser-une-reunion-avec-poutine-1126712.html)

holy shit

Also, the investigation for the main case about his wife's work has been extended and now include "aggravated scam" and "forgery".

i can't believe that he gets away with all that. that does not forebode well for the state democracy is in france. fillon seems to have nothing to lose, otherwise he would have given up a long time ago. he seems to be the incarnation of a politician who has completely lost the inner compass of what decency and honesty are.

Is he really getting away with it though? I mean, yes in a way he absolutely is, he should have been replaced by his party or at least he should have had the decency of quitting, so the fact that he's still here is a disgrace, and I agree that the state of democracy here is terrible, but before these scandals were known no one expected him to lose this election, it was pretty much a given that whoever won the right-wing primary was gonna be our next president. But because of all this shady stuff he's now trailing in the polls and it's doubtbul he'll make it to round 2 (of course crazier things have happened these past few monthes so you can never know, but it looks very unlikely right now).

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C7hGcOYX0AA7hcW.jpg

Latest poll from after the debate. Fillon's 17% still quite baffling tbh. Macron picking up steam.

my colleagues still fear Fillon more than anyone else, including Le Pen. her ceiling is clear, the thought goes, but Fillon's isn't, despite everything.

70% of le pen's voters are "solid" - vs about half that for macron. i can't imagine fillon's peeps are very solid but maybe this rump 17% are the die-hards, dunno.

Yeah I'd say for the most part the 17% are the die-hards + some folks who want right-wing policies and for some reason think Macron is too soft/lefty.

Maybe I'm crazy but if it comes down to Fillon vs. Le Pen I wouldn't bet on Fillon. A lot of people on the left will sit this one out because they don't want to choose between a shit sandwich and a sandwich made of shit.

As an immigrant I hope you're wrong. I doubt it will come to that though.

her ceiling is clear

heh

"Twenty-nine percent of viewers thought Macron was the most convincing, ahead of firebrand leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon with 20 percent, while Le Pen and conservative Francois Fillon were tied in third place, a snap survey conducted online by Elabe pollsters towards the end of the debate showed. Socialist candidate Benoit Hamon came in last."

http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-france-election-idUKKBN16R1M5

Am I tripping out here or was there some other Elabe poll?

"near the end of the debate" - lol so it's skewed to politics junkies and insomniacs

i easily thought hâmon & melanchon the most convincing :/

"near the end of the debate" - lol so it's skewed to politics junkies and insomniacs

The main French subreddit had one of these drinking bingo games for the debate so I guess you have to account for the alcoholization of the polled too. I thought Macron was pretty poor overall but maybe people liked him nodding in approval to everything.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C8e0KIZXoAA_GxO.jpg

A nightmare scenario unfolding for centre/moderate France? Mélenchon hugely on the rise. Big if, but if he'd beat Macron and it'd be a Mélenchon-Le Pen showdown, that would be perfect for Le Pen, no?

isn't this alleged rise of Mélenchon just the consolidation of the left, who had moved toward Hamon but are now (re)turning to Mélenchon?

Wish I could say, I've no idea. Fillon still getting 15,5% equally baffles me.

Just sayin' but on those numbers if Hamon pulled out and most of his support went to Melenchon, Le Pen wouldn't even make the run-off. Which is obviously far too beautiful an outcome to actually happen.

is there polling on what the result would be in the case of a Mélenchon/Le Pen run-off? (I know this unlikely and everything)

#Mélenchonwouldhavewon

is there polling on what the result would be in the case of a Mélenchon/Le Pen run-off? (I know this unlikely and everything)
― soref, Monday, April 3, 2017 9:29 AM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The result would be Franxit.

Not sure. The result would be a referendum which could lead to a frexit but does not have to.

i think there's a rule that forbids publishing 2nd round polls with candidates that don't have big enough chances of getting there. but considering mélenchon's rise it should happen soon i guess.
also fillon still getting 15-16% doesn't surprise me, i know far too many people who'll vote for him, including good friends and family. they've never strayed from voting for the right and they keep saying that fillon is the only one who has a real plan for the economy. they're the same people who think mélenchon is the far left and that he's as dangerous if not more than marine le pen (even had one tell me that mélenchon poses a graver threat to rich people than le pen to immigrants, to which seriously fu). some of them could vote for macron but they're worried he won't have the majority in the parliament to rule. not gonna lie all of the ones i know voting for fillon are rich, white and basically not the ones who'll be hurt if he comes to power. they're really annoying about all this.

it's incredible the way fillon's supporters minimize his scandals. "everybody does it" they say. which is just verifiably untrue.

frankly i think there's a danger if macron gets into the second round as well. centrist globalists haven't been doing too well at the polls lately. his support is very soft compared with le pen and it's hard to know what he stands for. i can see a lot of his so-called supporters not bothering to turn up.

yeah especially since the 2nd round falls during a long weekend so a lot of people just might not bother, whereas le pen voters are usually always there for elections.

as for fillon, the main excuses "everybody does it" (what a shit excuse and yeah, as you said untrue... also, with scandals like cahuzac or le roux, they quit the government) and "it's a media conspiracy against him because he's the best candidate" are really ridiculous. i keep hearing about how the media keeps piling on him and not other candidates. yet they can't believe it might be because there are no scandals with the other candidates, it has to be because the media hates fillon

Fillon's incredible capacity for dishonest, maudlin, self-regarding martyrdom here also a factor maybe. There's a hard seam of emotional messianism about French politics that I've never really understood TBH

Is a majority of Fillon's support likely to break for Le Pen in the runoff (assuming etc etc)?

iirc there was a poll stating it would break down to 1/3 le pen 1/3 macron 1/3 abstaining
fillon really is a complete piece of shit with an incredible capacity for all those things you mentioned tracer. also, he keeps sayng stupid shit, like yesterrday's "i barely earn enough to save money every month" while making 23k€/month. love le gorafi launching a kickstarter campaign to get him some money.

Loool

urgh Melenchon/MLP face-off is just too ugly to consider. Hate this election

so?

(not a reply to baaderonixx - a bid for thoughts on last night's debate.. that is, if anybody actually made it through..)

this was good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SJvA0fS8Yc

I didn't watch any of it. since I can't yet vote I don't need to spend 3 1/2 hrs listening to potshots against the cons/connes, j'ai la flemme. I gather "nothing changed"?

nothing changed

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/04/france-insoumise-melenchon-elections-sixth-republic-national-front/

A run off between two eurosceptic, anti-NATO, Putin-accommodating candidates would be a disaster for Eastern Europe in particular. But I doubt anyone cares aside from the principaux intéressés.

went to vote earlier today, there's been a line in front of the place all day long
really starting to worry about the results tonight

I've heard Le Pen voters, being highly motivated, always show up to the polls - does this mean the high turnout might be a good sign (i.e. people have been sufficiently scared by a Le Pen victory that they're hitting the polls to prevent it?)

yup, it is commonly accepted that higher turnout reduces the proportion of le pen votes. she's still more than likely to make it to the second round though, but whereas a few months ago it was a given she'd finish first with a comfortable margin, now she might come in second or first with a tiny margin. some exit polls are floating around giving macron ahead of le pen rn, we'll see

Is macron vs le pen much better than fillon vs le pen?

Y E S

Why? Bc he's more electable? But it's still a bad ideological mix and presumably the left would still be uninterested in coming out for the globalist?

Please school me if I'm confused but le pen seems more like what trumps supporters thought he was and macron seems more like what hillarys opponents thought she was

"Bad ideological mix'... No perfect candidates. I'm happy if Macron wins because he's young, had a grassroots campaign attracting a lot of youngsters, and is pro-EU.

Fillon supporters would vote for Macron for president, I reckon. Mélonchon prob not so much, but Fillon is so tainted, him up against Le Pen would be very dangerous imho.

Fillon wants to impose a (further) austerity program. This would be a disaster for the slow economic recovery that is in place. Macron does not want to impose such a program. Thus Macron would be much better than Fillon.

That too ^^

Think it's not as simple as Mordy states that "would left vote for a centrist". Because I think in continental Western Europe these two aren't as far removed - they will find common ground as "progressive".

My impression was that Macrons reforms was essentially neoliberal and austerity like cutting SS, labor reforms, etc

Your impression is wrong.

Macron def wants big cuts, but not nearly as big as Fillon (link)

Macron would be seen as a standard social-democrat in any western country outside of France.

Ugh, they're the worst.

EuropeElects projects:

Macron 26%
Le Pen 23%
Melenchon 21%
Fillon 17%

last time I was in france la loi macron was going down like a bag of day old sick. some turnaround for him

It's his daughter

Macron / Le Pen, as expected.

Emmanuel Macron : 23,7 %
Marine Le Pen : 21,7 %
François Fillon : 19,5 %
Jean-Luc Mélenchon : 19,5 %
Benoît Hamon : 6,2 %
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan : 5%
Jean Lassalle 1,5 %
Philippe Poutou 1,2 %
François Asselineau 0,8 %
Nathalie Arthaud 0,7%
Jacques Cheminade : 0,2 %

Closer than I would've liked

(though the exit poll is based mostly on rural France, the big cities (Macron) are still to be counted)

Ipsos: Macron 23.7% Le Pen 21.7%
Elabe: Macron 23.7% Le Pen 22%
Kantar: Macron 23% Le Pen 23%
Ifop: Macron 23,8% Le Pen 21,6%

Harris poll has:

Macron (EM-*): 24.5%
Melenchon (FI-LEFT): 20%
Le Pen (FN-ENF): 20%
Fillon (LR-EPP): 18%

just to keep it exciting :(

How many polls do they have?! :D

legally none

Took us 2 hours to vote yesterday.

Le Pen at 2% of #1. Jeez.

@NateSilver538 53s54 seconds ago
Clinton led Trump by 2-3 points
Remain led Leave by 1-2 points
Macron leads Le Pen by 26 points in runoff polls

How nice for her etc.

mordy: http://www.francetvinfo.fr/economie/entreprises/travail-le-dimanche/l-article-a-lire-pour-comprendre-la-loi-macron_770365.html

Still a big win for Le Pen, who no doubt will try and draw the Fillon-squad to her for the second round. At the same time I think EU breathes a bit more relaxed, as there is no "realistic" (I know, I know) scenario for Le Pen to win this in any way.

xxxp Fuck NateSilver53fucking8 for pretending to know what he's on about here

Hamon concedes and asks his (6,2%) followers to vote for Macron.

Happy that Macron has more votes than Le Pen, and that Mélenchon is tied with Fillon; the left having as good an outing as the mainstream right is a good sign.

I understand the less enthused reactions here but frankly I was expecting Le Pen to win the first round.

Dunno if you can talk about good outing when Le Pen beats Melenchon and Hamon.

Worth mentioning the pollsters have been pretty spot on here.

Van Horn Street, as stated, I expected her to beat everyone, so.

Didn't expect Le Pen to win, not for a second. A 22-23% slice of the cake is still really big. But otoh: for a country that has had so much trouble with terrorist attacks etc I am pleasantly surprised only a fifth chose for the neo-nazi? Mixed feelings.

Extreme right won but it's hardly a power grab. Same with Wilders two months earlier (getting 13% of the vote).

So this exit poll is not actually an exit poll, but a sampling of real votes in 7pm-closing areas, right? Run through some demographic adjustment to provide an estimate. And it's always been pretty accurate, within a point or so. Surprised they can broadcast it when some polls are still open. I'm hoping the margin of error is such that Le Pen actually gets squeezed out.

All polls closed at 8pm, when the exit poll was published, so there weren't any polls open anymore when they let this result out. The bigger cities will take way more time to call the vote. They prob adjust this for the published exit polls, but the cities are generally not in favor of Le Pen, more of the moderates.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C-HbDcCXYAAM7Oq.jpg

as soon as this pub^^^ closes/the revolution starts

where is the bar

I'm curious, how many pro-Mélenchon posters also complain about Brexit on a regular basis?

good question.

bar = Belushi's Gare Du Nord, 5 Rue de Dunkerque, 75010 Paris (Informal chain bar with TV sport and live entertainment, plus a burger menu and global comfort food)

^^^acc. getty images

http://images.sudouest.fr/2017/04/23/58fcd4e566a4bdf7281d1216/widescreen/1000x500/le-candidat-de-la-france-insoumise-a-privatise-un-bar-rock-et-sport-pres-de-la-gare-du-nord.jpg

un bar "rock et sport"

global comfort food seems like a good idea tbh, i wonder where you get it in hackney

Fillon endorses Macron!

Was there any question? They're v similar.

yes but fillon is one of the most colossally self-absorbed ppl in politics so

Le pen will presumably make appeals for Lexit Econ left voters from Melenchon like Trump tried to do with Bernie voters id think and try to frame macron as the neoliberal establishment candidate. Obv it won't be as easy to do as it was to Hill

Its not going to happen AT ALL - get the sense that Melanchon = anti-racist left.

She's going to downplay the racism and amp up the anti-globalisation.

Its not going to work - polls show any of Macron seeing off Le Pen in the 2nd round with ease

France can look forward to having an investment banker for President. Joy.

Mélenchon's protectionist discourse was a hit with certain far right voters. Everything will be framed in terms of nationalism vs. internationalism, just like everywhere else. Macron is bound to win, but I suspect Le Pen will garner more support than expected.

Was there any question? They're v similar.

― Mordy, Sunday, April 23, 2017 3:21 PM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No they aren't.

Fiscal Kombat, a video game where Mélenchon’s avatar beats up capitalists who have stolen public money

@Mordy, Macron and Fillon really not that similar. Otoh, expect supporters of Fillon and Melenchon to vote largely for Macron, because Le Pen is just a bridge too far. Rightfully so, she's a nazi in poor disguise.

I don't see this being a four headed race as a bad thing, at all. Used to it bcz of Dutch politics, but the palette of multiple viable candidates is, to me, infinetely more appealing than a black and white Clinton vs Trump vote. It's a system that weeds out extremism, too.

France can look forward to having an investment banker for President. Joy.

Yeah, good reminder, not very happy about this. But if the choice is between a banker or a neo-nazi, it's fairly simple tbh.

xp

No they aren't.

lol jacobin but at least some ppl think they are

Is Macron doing well in the polls because people are worried about the other two extremes?

First, he is a neoliberal candidate — he is not a Scandinavian-style social democrat, whatever the Financial Times might say. Fillon is the neoliberal candidate with a snarl, and Macron is the neoliberal candidate with a smile.

The cuts and reforms he is proposing are less severe, less radical than those proposed by Fillon, he claims that in return there will be some version of “flexisecurity” or this or that kind of compensation, but they are neoliberal reforms. Nobody doubts that at all.

Mordy, I love you and you are very knowledgeable in general, but in this case? You seem unable or simply unwilling to acknowledge the difference between Macron and Fillon. Have you even followed the campaign closely? Because it's gonna need more than this Jacobin link bth.

Mordy's just stirring the pot a little.

Of course this is the month I read around French politics and then forget it for a few years - which is why we are mapping things onto French politics from other countries. Here is one more - he comes across as v Trudeau-like.

Yeah, good reminder, not very happy about this. But if the choice is between a banker or a neo-nazi, it's fairly simple tbh.

Sure, but ongoing cuts (even if not as extreme as Fillon) could create conditions for Le Pen (or her daughter) to triumph next time around - Macron is young and pretty. As is Le Pen's daughter.

xxp educate me please! i'm sincere - i understand that Macron is not as dramatically regressive or austere as Fillon but in terms of things like staying in the EU, presumably continuing free labor movement, economic reforms designed to attract capital (like cutting corporate taxes), etc, this makes a clear lacuna where le pen could theoretically (tho i think unsuccessfully) try to cleave lexit voters.

Sure, but ongoing cuts (even if not as extreme as Fillon) could create conditions for Le Pen (or her daughter) to triumph next time around - Macron is young and pretty. As is Le Pen's daughter.

Quite happy Marion Maréchal isn't FN's leader yet tbh. She will gather way more votes than Le Pen, I fear.

heres another similar take, lbi, from the Philippe Marlière:

On important issues such as the 35-hour working week, pensions, education or taxation, Macron suggests “deregulating” and proposes “à la carte systems” to voters. This is in line with some of the reforms that he implemented as minister of the economy, notably the 2015 law on economic growth and activity. The bill includes a patchwork of measures, such as permission for more stores to open on Sundays, and provisions to reduce workplace protection.

The left and trade unions consider that he is a “rightwinger”, and the right describe him as a “shallow” and “fake” politician. Martine Aubry, a former PS leader and architect of the 35-hour working week reform that Macron wants to dismantle, declared that she was “fed up with Macron”. Marine Le Pen also foresees danger. She has argued that Macron was “the bankers’ candidate”, and she may have a point: before entering the political arena, Macron was an investment banker with Rothschild. While working for the company, he was behind a high-profile deal between Nestlé and Pfizer that made him a millionaire. Yet Macron astonishingly portrays himself as an “anti-system” candidate in a struggle with all “types of corporatist and conservative powers”. This is an audacious claim from someone who is a media favourite and who has close connections with business circles.

the

fwiw i don't see any of this as a bad thing and i know french jewry was freaked out about the idea of melenchon vs. le pen (french jewry is where i get 99% of the information i have about france from) so they're probably relieved they can vote for macron.

I'm curious, how many pro-Mélenchon posters also complain about Brexit on a regular basis?

About equally pissed off with brexit and the behaviour of the European Union towards the PIGS; wouldn't want France to leave (more lost than won) but am 100% onboard with leftist pols pressuring Brussels as much as possible. Frankly that whole thing about having randomly selected citizens participate in the rewriting of the constitution (if I read that right?) makes me more wary of Mélenchon than any referendum.

Or, indeed, asking people to vote their conscience in his concession speech in order to avoid endorsing Macron, which is a dick move of epic proportions.

xxp

I'm not a Macron-stan, but don't know what to tell you. Your criticism of Macron goes for every single one of them. Macron, Le Pen, Fillon, Melenchon: all four of them are decidedly elite, part of the system they say they now want to fight. Only thing that's different is they say they want to fight the system (they belong to) in different ways. Just like Wilders (third-longest seated pm, mispresenting himself as against or outside the elite, but an inherent part of the elite.)

I know nothing about French-jewry, but I think them freaking out about a Melenchon-Le Pen face off was justified. Extreme left and extreme right both aren't good partners for jews iirc.

Quite happy Marion Maréchal isn't FN's leader yet tbh. She will gather way more votes than Le Pen, I fear.

She's definitely not going away.

I hope Melanchon can build on from this though. Anyone know what his plans will be?

for now it's a non-concession speech if i'm reading the french correctly (caveat: my french is a bit rubbish): melenchon's saying the results aren't in yet and he may still beat le pen when the city votes are counted

More holograms?

xp

I really dislike Melenchon and his people, I really do, don't get me wrong, but indeed if they can beat Le Pen tonight (he is just 2% behind) then I'll celebrate.

i know french jewry was freaked out about the idea of melenchon vs. le pen

Out of interest what was the perceived anti-semitism in Melanchon's campaign coming from? (In the UK its almost all nonsense used by the right to discredit Corbyn.)

More holograms = would vote!

we will likely not agree on this topic bc i don't think the attacks on corbyn are unfounded however you can read one article on the theme here:
http://www.jta.org/2017/04/20/news-opinion/world/french-jews-are-worried-about-le-pen-now-another-presidential-candidate-scares-them-too

Mélenchon is not anti-semite, I have a bunch of jewish friends who voted for him.

Not enough in that piece for me, I would need to look at a speech or two. It doesn't help that Henri-Levy is quoted in that piece supporting the void that is Macron.

A void winning in France = v French really.

That is a terribly inaccurate and hate-stirring article Mordy. As I said, the far left has never proven to be a true allie of Jews, but Melenchon is not an anti-semite. Would like to see real proof that I somehow might have missed tbh.

Quotes like:

"“They both traffic in hatred, and they are both a danger to democracy,”"

or

"“I don’t see any significant difference between Melenchon and the National Front on many issues,”"

Yeah, uh-huh, ok. No.

Pick your battles. Le Pen is the real, and explicit, jew hater here. Don't be fooled otherwise.

la loi macron (his signature business-friendly economic policy when he was the business/economy minister) was so politically unpopular with the french socialists they had to use a special procedure to push it through the french legislature

lbi the only person in that article who talks about "anti-semitism" is melenchon himself saying that criticisms of his behavior amount to calling him an anti-semite. i think it's a waste of time personally to prosecute anyone's heart. praising the dignity of protestors who attacked synagogues is enough for me to say that he is not very sympathetic to concerns of the french jewish community and that's sufficient imo.

everything is always unpopular with french socialists.

however, he is supported gay mariage, something Fillion would never ever do (and promised to cancel). Macron is a centrist, if for a bunch of extreme left wing nuts like Jacobin that means being on the right, then so be it.

Melenchon's problem is that he's not a Trotskyite imho. He would've gotten further if he was, instead of this "file under commie" image he loves to feed off of.

and afaict le pen is not an "explicit jew hater" either

Melenchon's stuff with Russia and his past links with Chavez are abhorhent.

Ok Mordy, not intending to change your mind on that. Just saying calling Melenchon an anti-semite, or anti-jew this loosely, is a real, dangerous stretch. But I know I can't compete with the "Jewish Telegraph Agency" with you. And that's ok.

and afaict le pen is not an "explicit jew hater" either

― Mordy, Sunday, April 23, 2017 4:26 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

did you hear what she said about the Vel d'Hiv?

As per Le Monde (http://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2017/04/23/ce-que-propose-emmanuel-macron-dans-son-programme_5115966_4355770.html), Macron promises—

On the economy:

- 60 billion in savings over 5 years
- 120 000 less civil servants
- 50 billion investment (notably 15 for the environment, 5 for healthcare, 5 for agriculture, 5 for public institutions)
- lower social security contributions for employees
- an extra 100 net euros for minimum wage earners who receive the prime d'activité
- 80% will be exempted from the taxe d'habitation (council tax in the UK?)
- you may apply for unemployment benefits even if you resign from your job, as long as you can prove you're actively seeking work

On the EU:

- EU democratic conventions
- a common budget for the EU
- an EU economy and finance minister
- in favour of CETA (free trade agreement with Canada)

On political institutions:

- a law against holding multiple offices
- no more special retirement plan for parliamentarians
- head of state presents his/her results once a year before Congress
- a law preventing elected officials from hiring family members (I wonder why?)
- 1/3 less MP's and senators
- stronger financial penalties against political parties whose candidacies don't respect parity
- use of an emergency procedure in Parliament to accelerate the review of certain bills
- limitation on time writing laws in Parliament, spent evaluating government measures instead

On the environment:

- against endocrine disrupters and pesticides
- renovate 1 million poorly isolated dwellings over 5 years
- turn France into world leader on environmental transition
- 50% organic and/or eco-friendly food in canteens
- further limit vehicle circulation during peak pollution events
- 1000 euro premium if you're buying a new car or a less harmful used car

There's more, of course, but it should give you a more technical idea of what he's aiming for.

yes we discussed it here upthread iirc? denying french culpability in the vichy regime is craven but not the same as hating jews xp

Ok Mordy, not intending to change your mind on that. Just saying calling Melenchon an anti-semite, or anti-jew this loosely, is a real, dangerous stretch. But I know I can't compete with the "Jewish Telegraph Agency" with you. And that's ok.

i think you're ignoring precisely what i wrote but whatever

Because its mostly nonsense.

and afaict le pen is not an "explicit jew hater" either

― Mordy, Sunday, April 23, 2017 8:26 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Are you serious?!

I do remember you somewhat downplaying her Velodrome d'Hive disaster. That's just one example. I'm not even going to google her hatred towards jews, you will do fine on your own. Damn.

if you can't see why french jews would be concerned about a guy who praised protests that involved attacks on synagogue then one of us is in denial here but it isn't me

In a climate where the far-right are getting votes and feeding off hatred forr immigrants and Muslims. They are the ones getting it in the neck. State of this.

xsp lbi she has real efforts to remove antisemitism from the party and has taken a different line from her father as an intentional move. i think plenty can be said to insinuate that she dislikes jews (including the kind of anti-banker language that melanchon has used) and the party has a history but you need to be rigorous about what she has actually said and done and apply the same standards of other candidates (even if you like their platforms more).

I never thought fuckin BHL would have a way to influence even the jews in Pennsylvania on how to see the french's left, and once again, I'm the first who to dislike Melenchon.

The Mélenchon groupies i know here are active in BDS & the like

i'm pretty sure the actual flesh and blood french jews i know and went to school with have made a bigger impact on my perceptions of melenchon than BHL

Also, some stuff that Le Monde doesn't mention in that article:

- more teachers in 'difficult' neighbourhoods
- opening libraries in the evenings and on Sunday
- more medical services reimbursed by social security (notably glasses and prostheses)
- respecting EU fiscal discipline
- no lifting of sanctions against Russia

if you can't see why french jews would be concerned about a guy who praised protests that involved attacks on synagogue then one of us is in denial here but it isn't me

― Mordy, Sunday, April 23, 2017 8:32 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I said I did. I said jews have no friends in extreme right, or left in most cases. You probably ignored that at your will. But calling Melenchon an anti-semite is really a bridge too far.

But whatever. You don't seem particularly knowledgeable about France and the elections, not in this thread anyway. Stick to defending Le Pen for her "real efforts to remove antisemitism from the party".. Sad (extremely sad!) lol... Not arguing with you anymore.

no one called him an antisemite! that was what my post above literally says - that i don't care about prosecuting what he feels in his heart!

why do u think marine expelled her dad from the party lbi? i mean read her actions as cynical and full of shit but you can't not acknowledge there's something there

“I want to congratulate the youth of my country who mobilized in defense of the miserable victims of war crimes in Gaza,” Melenchon said in the speech at a general assembly of his Left Party. “They did so with model discipline when they were pushed to extremes on all sides. They knew how to remain dignified and embodied better than anyone the founding values of the French republic.”

The problem is one quote off a website (and I don't know it *shakes fist at the internet*) that might read this quote in a particular way...do we have a French Jewish socialist association's take on this :-)

You, Mordy, trying to see who the real enemy is and coming to the conclusion it is Melenchon (who I don't even care for) instead of proven anti-semite Le Pen is just... I have no words.

oy dude, gafb

why do u think marine expelled her dad from the party lbi? i mean read her actions as cynical and full of shit but you can't not acknowledge there's something there

― Mordy, Sunday, April 23, 2017 8:39 PM (forty-six seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Why? Politics.

"gafb"?

"politics" - what politics? specifically the kind that tries to expel more radical elements to make their party more palatable to people? like minimizing explicit antisemitism to try and shed that baggage?

gafb gmafb*

Please stop at this point. Thanks:

i mean read her actions as cynical and full of shit but you can't not acknowledge there's something there

Le Pen is a proven anti-semite. Not just her dad, she herself, too. It's one of the things that vexes between Wilders and Le Pen, too. Wilders has the Israeli flag hanging in his parliamentary room (because anti-muslim), Le Pen is trying to shake her own past and that of her dad for electoral gain. It's not complicated.

gmafb*

Yeah still no idea what this means.

Le Pen is a proven anti-semite.

please give me a link that makes this case please bc i've googled it and find a) the "she will strip jews of their israeli citizenship" (in the context of comments about how she wouldn't allow any dual-citizenship) the vichy stuff and lots of links about her father.

"give me a fucking break"

so, yeah wow what happened here

the vichy stuff isn't enough for you?

Mordy, you clearly know nothing about France, French history, French politics, etc.

distinguishing vichy from true "france" has a long tradition going back to de gaulle and while i don't love it i don't think it's the same as being an explicit anti-semite.

fred stfu

And are we seriously discussing Le Pen's anti-semitic credentials? Are we now denying that dog-whistle politics is a real thing and that it's been wreaking havoc all over the world? And that's not even counting the Vichy stuff.

yeah i mean Trump is not explicitly racist/an antisemite in that case.

Trump is much closer to an explicit bigot imo

'Im not an antisemite.' 'It's not a Muslim ban.' Oh, okay.

If you guys believe what youre saying it should be very easy to link me to some convincing remarks

No, you see, Mordy knows better than all the French why Marine Le Pen cleaned up the FN, and it's definitely not just going more into dog-whistling, because of course Mordy also knows best what types of dog-whistles works in France.

Fred otm. Mordy, you are way, way out of your depth here.

I just do not get you. Le Pen is a proven anti-semite. Am not googling for you, do it yourself. Yes, she kicked daddy out, but why oh why? To try and appeal to a broader audience. Mission succeeded, but this does not mean she is not an anti-semite. She is. It's recorded, it's all over. But bonne chance picking your allies!

Mordy, while I live in Canada and am Canadian, but I'm also French and I'm knowledgable of its politics in a way that you don't seem to be (which is fine, can't be an expert on everything etc). I can assure you that Le Pen is casting the same dark arts of non-explicit racism than Trump, you can trust us on that. You can also ask your friends.

If you guys believe what youre saying it should be very easy to link me to some convincing remarks

― Mordy, Sunday, 23 April 2017 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Like you did?

Love Mordy but he's embarrassingly off here. xyzzz otm

Forcing jews to surrender their Israeli citizenship, what do you call that?

I mentioned it above look at the context

do you know the CRIF?

afaik they're like a jewish federation i don't know anything more about them.

look guys you can keep repeating that it's a subject upon which i am ignorant however all i asserted is that it seems to me like le pen and melenchon have both said v questionable things and that neither rise to the level of out and out explicit antisemite. you have failed to give me evidence that le pen is more so than melenchon only assertions that you truly know and i don't know. fyi this is normally a giveaway that your interlocutor is substituting appeals to authority for actual arguments. lbi as i said i googled the topic and found nothing dispositive. i want to know more. if i'm talking to a french friend and he says "le pen and melenchon both hate jews" i don't think i can respond with "well actually i heard from some random guys on a message board that le pen is much more antisemitic"

it's nagl when someone says "show me how what you're saying is true bc i'm ignorant and don't know" and you think the answer is "no you're ignorant and don't know"

frankly that fred agrees with you all should send up some huge warning signs

She is probably a bigger islamophobe than she is an anti-semite. And that seems to be good enough for some, like this quote from jpost: "“I believe that since Marine Le Pen succeeded her father, it is wrong to consider the National Front as an anti-Semitic party. And it is even more wrong to single out FN as the main foe when real criminal anti-Semitism comes from the Islamists and the ultra-left who back them,”"

http://www.jpost.com/Jerusalem-Report/French-Jewish-dilemma-449489

... nullifying whatever "random guys on message boards" here say. find your own truths, trust your friend, and don't believe us. i don't care. but shame this election thread turned into this because of your twist. needn't be.

xxp

D-O-G-W-H-I-S-T-L-I-N-G

She surrounds herself with notorious antisemites and gestures towards antisemitism in both subtle and not-so-subtle ways, all the while presenting herself as utterly beyond reproach. The Vél d'Hiv statement is a perfectly calculated example of this, as it allows her to snatch some extra votes while claiming opposition to fascism (an utterly foreign, unassimilable phenomenon, obviously). It's alt-right cynicism at its 'best,' and it's working since she fucking made it to the run off. What more do you need?

honestly i'd like to know about some of these notorious antisemites she surrounds herself with. you think i have some kind of agenda but i really just want a fuller picture so i wouldn't mind some names.

OTM. Wish Mordy would get this...

xp Sigh..

lbi you have contributed nothing of substance. if you have nothing please simmer down and let ppl who apparently know something about this topic explain it.

You are plain trolling at his point Mordy. And I do not for the life of me understand why.

like you don't realize how bad it makes you look when you refuse to discuss something in good faith. it doesn't make you look like you know what you're talking about.

Frédéric Chatillon. And, um, her dad until it became politically expedient for her to cut ties.

Lol. I don't think anyone here thinks LBI is the one that looks bad.

Yeah ok, I'll "simmer down"... And leave this the FRENCH ELECTIONS to people who "know something about this topic"... lol.

Mordy is way out of his depth here. Heart the dude but he's just stretching it way, wayyyyy too much here. I recommend humble pie.

FB named Frédéric Chatillon. Add to that Axel Loustau and Philippe Péninque.

ty

however, he is supported gay mariage, something Fillion would never ever do (and promised to cancel). Macron is a centrist, if for a bunch of extreme left wing nuts like Jacobin that means being on the right, then so be it.

It's kind of wild that this is still a dividing issue in French mainstream politics - most western right wing governments I know of have accepted gay marriage and some introduced it (Cameron for one).

afaik they're like a jewish federation i don't know anything more about them.
― Mordy, Sunday, April 23, 2017 5:05 PM (twenty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they'll be better than us for explaining why Le Pen is an anti-semite. you should hear them out.

and not recognizing that France is responsible for their part in the Shoah is the condition sina que non for anti-semitism in France. I don't know how else to explain it. It seems very obvious to me.

Vichy was a very french thing, and denying it is one very step close to Holocaust denial.

fwiw most federations worldwide are very vigilant about antisemitism and CRIF appears to be no different - in fact i'm not sure who you want to make your point being as how they have criticized melenchon as being the same as le pen

http://www.rtl.fr/actu/societe-faits-divers/melenchon-et-le-pen-vehiculent-la-haine-estime-le-president-du-crif-7787361583

i think that denying a nation's culpability in the holocaust is antisemitic but also very very common and i think it should be distinguished from empathizing with the vichy gov itself, or the nazis. denying culpability sucks but isn't actively hostile.

i think that denying a nation's culpability in the holocaust is antisemitic

i should probably clarify that i have complications feelings about this actually - i think nations should endeavor to accept their culpability in the holocaust. i think that shame or guilt and denial to which i believe they are linked are not the same thing as hate though.

Well lots of french jews see it as hate and I don't blame them.

especially when culturally that's how the french jews made peace living in France after the events.

yeah but Mordy I can read that article and see that the CRIF guy is saying they disinvited Le Pen because the FN is the Hate Jews party (and always has been) and disinvited Melenchon because the PG and PCF really really don't like Israel. You are conflating (as you often do) two flavors of anti-semitism that I think are really very different, one of which is about being suspicious and hateful towards Jews in your neighborhood or your country as well as around the world, and another which is focused on the politics of Israel. One can flow into the other and vice versa but they aren't identical to most people.

The fact that Le Pen is leader of the FN pretty much does it for me, even cursory googling is enough to realize that even though she beat out the bigger antisemite (gollnisch) for the leadership, she's still FN, is a product of the FN, and while savvy enough to realize you shouldn't say things that got bruno & her dad in legal trouble, she has shown no interest in steering that ship in any actually more moderate directions, not in any meaningful way

thanks everybody for making me learn french acronyms on my Sunday afternoon
felt more productive than the british porn star I learned about this morning

You do not seem to even grasp the recent Vel d’Hiv's significance, like at all, Mordy. Good job hijacking the French election thread, but in fairness this is all bogus and you are our of your depth.

xp Tombot otm.

tombot although it has to do with israel don't u think that praising the conduct of protests that targeted local jews and local jewish institutions collapses those two flavors entirely? attacking a french synagogue because you're angry at israel surely crosses any lines that might disambiguate the two.

god lbi you are so fucking tedious. why don't you explain to me how i misunderstand the vichy remarks. am i wrong that distancing france from vichy is different from explicitly empathizing with vichy?

am i wrong that distancing france from vichy is different from explicitly empathizing with vichy?

― Mordy, Sunday, April 23, 2017 5:51 PM (four seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes. that's what we are all arguing.

an analogy could be made with slavery in the southern US.

To be fair, I've no doubt that islamophobia will be a far more glaring issue throughout the next two weeks. 'Subtle' antisemitic cues were just the appetizer.

Not that I'm defending Mordy here. VHS's analogy with slavery in the US is dead on.

xp

no it couldn't. it would be the difference between saying that the confederacy didn't represent the true south and that the confederacy really wasn't so bad. you want the south to take responsibility for the confederacy but you understand that trying to position yourself as distinct from some reprehensible thing is not about hate but denial. but it's even more complex in france's case since they actually were invaded by a hostile country and then a lot of ppl collaborated and some didn't. this was explicitly de gaulle's argument -that the "true" french government was out of power.

Mordy yes in that instance, in such an event, they are indistinguishable, but that convergence is not frequently duplicated and the history and origins are important. That's what everyone is so upset with you about!

Good fucking lord. I'm not tedious, Mordy. You are the one marching in here declaring Melenchon is an anti-semite because you read it at some stupid biased website (he's not), consequently half defending Le Pen saying you can't google her bloody anti-semitism and believing she really made an effort changing her ways and ditching poisonous parts of her party (as if...)... Who's tedious here? Merde.

that's the important bit tho. what motivates someone to say vichy didn't represent "true france"? it's a feeling that what they did didn't represent your true values. it would be like an american saying trump doesn't truly represent america -- they are talking about what they consider to be the "truth" of a country and in the case of vichy there's a much better argument that it didn't represent france than that trump doesn't represent america.

ok lbi thank you for your many contributions you have truly impressed me with your erudition and comprehension

Lordy, just stop yourself. You're telling the French whether or not Vichy really represents a 'true' part of their history...

I feel like I'm on reddit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

i agree that it's fallacious but i am parsing motivation. does someone say that vichy was a disgusting regime that doesn't represent true france because they hate jews??? why do they hate vichy so much why do they want to distance themselves from french collaboration??? it's ignorant and dumb but it's not hateful. imo.

Le Bateau Ivre, xyzzz__, & Van Horn Street OTMFM itt.

From Jacques Chirac's apology in 95:

"These black hours will stain our history for ever and are an injury to our past and our traditions. Yes, the criminal madness of the occupant was assisted ('secondée') by the French, by the French state. Fifty-three years ago, on 16 July 1942, 4500 policemen and gendarmes, French, under the authority of their leaders, obeyed the demands of the Nazis. That day, in the capital and the Paris region, nearly 10,000 Jewish men, women and children were arrested at home, in the early hours of the morning, and assembled at police stations... France, home of the Enlightenment and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, land of welcome and asylum, France committed that day the irreparable. Breaking its word, it delivered those it protected to their executioners."

i agree 100% with chirac

well if you consider that Vichy wasn't a true part of what France is today and was then, you are either wilfully blind or seeking some sort of absolution. In both cases, it's an act of anti-semitism imo. It's probably there that we don't agree: what constitutes anti-semitism. However, I would like you to entertain the idea that these definitions are not the same in France than in the US and the french jews might be qualified enough to decide what constitutes anti-semitism for them. In this case, they do.

i assume that extends to qualifying french jews to render judgement on politicians you may like as well

I dislike Mélenchon, like, really hard.

Speaking of which, he hasn't called on his voters to pick Macron over Le Pen. That's fucking irresponsible if you ask me.

Drinking the kool-aid till the very last minute that they might beat Le Pen is probably why. Irresponsible indeed.

Full disclosure Mordy: I wasn't aware of Melenchon's story with the Israel positions and the danger it constituted for the community. It might change my opinion stated upthread.

Is it not customary to save those types of speeches until tomorrow?

In 2002, when JMLP got second place, I remember those types of speeches were given on the same night and by pretty much everyone excluded Le Front except that one person whose name I can't remember at the moment.

Is it not customary to save those types of speeches until tomorrow?

― El Tomboto

Hamon and Fillon already asked their voters to go with Macron.

anyone outside of France had to vote?

apparently it took 3 hours in Tokyo.

ok lbi thank you for your many contributions you have truly impressed me with your erudition and comprehension

― Mordy, Sunday, April 23, 2017 9:58 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lol yeah ok. You barged in and wanted to make this about anti-semitism, and in the act managed to DEFEND Le Pen. No small feat - she remains a rabid anti-semite - except you don't want to see it that way and prefer to see others more dangerous to jews, for some reason. You do not understand French politics, that much is clear. And you say you want to learn, but really you don't, you want your biases to be confirmed.

France definitely has an anti-semitism problem, like all of Western Europe, but not nearly as big, nor as pressing as you make it out to be. France has a problem with both jews and muslims, sadly, and that is what is in dire need of a solution. But saying Melenchon is an anti-semite, like you did (based on some dumbass internet shit link), does not exaxctly help the cause. Nor does it get you anywhere nearer to the truth of the matter of France and why the country voted the way it did.

Your view is just so one-sided and stupid. But by all means, be stubborn, be a know it all.

from what i read -- but possibly misread, my french is weak -- melenchon isn't conceding on the vote projection, he's waiting for the actual votes in the cities to come in

1.5 hours according to the French Embassy in London.

Mélenchon lost and he knows it: http://elections.interieur.gouv.fr/presidentielle-2017/FE.html

I'd love to point out that Macron (considered on the right by many people) is the only candidate to have expressed hostility towards the french colonial past, and that he has been bashed by both the left and the right on this subject. This is an example of how France's views of race relations is still very very unhealthy and is good snapshot of where France stands politically when it comes to general progressive views.

anyone outside of France had to vote?

apparently it took 3 hours in Tokyo.

― Van Horn Street, Monday, 24 April 2017 08:27 (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

3hrs in Melbourne according to a french mate

anyone outside of France had to vote?

apparently it took 3 hours in Tokyo.

Wait what? How does French absentee voting work?

took my family and I a good 2h 20 minutes, I really hope they will correct in two weeks.

Mélenchon has slipped to 4th with 91/107 departements in. 3.2% gap between Le Pen and Fillon, so the top two seems confirmed.

Wait what? How does French absentee voting work?

― El Tomboto, Monday, 24 April 2017 08:46 (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

have to vote in person, I think. On the plus side overseas citizens get their own members of parliament. The representative for Australia covers every french person from the pacific islands to the finnish border.

There is postal voting for the parliamentary elections but not for presidential for some reason

Global Comfort Foods: Another innocent smoothies twat-trick. amirite?

I was sceptical about the JTA article too but Mélenchon's actual speech is here (h/t Mordy): https://www.youtube.com/embed/GZYM5fpsNL4

Saying "Ils l'ont fait avec une discipline parfaite" a month after the riots does seem hard to defend.

Oh whoops, could a mod remove the automatic video please?

If anyone, like me. is just now reading up on this stuff, here's a recent NY Times piece on the checkered past of some of Le Pen's inner circle, in terms of Nazi sympathies:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/world/europe/marine-le-pen-national-front-party.html

If you're after explicit anti-semitism from Marine Le Pen what about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvL5QF-AnNg

She's asked why she gets a hard time from a certain journalist. She replies that it's because said journalist is married to the director of Publicis. Director is Jewish, Publicis was founded by a Jew who was stripped of his company during the occupation. In the clip Marine Le Pen says" "These people eat together, were brought up together, send their kids to the same school, and have monopolised power by taking it away from the French people". Interviewer starts to utter the work 'antisemitism' before stopping himself.

"denying a nation's culpability in the holocaust is antisemitic but also very very common"

Is it? common among whom?

common among whom?

"Common" is a very slippery standard to prove, but if I were looking for such deniers I'd look first among the citizens of the nation in question. Denying the (proved) culpability of a nation where one isn't a citizen seems like much more of a rarity.

Good to know

What I meant was, dismissing Le Pen's Vichy stance with "everyone does it" seems crazy, bcz i really don't think it is common among Western European politicians to deny their nations' roles in the holocaust

Guess Berlusconi did it, but he is also a massive racist

Did we get this sorted

The Vichy is a long standing French debate. Until 95, the official State line was indeed that Vichy was an illegal occupation body and therefore none of its actions would be recognised as part of French history. Thank God Chircas (one of his main accomplishments) finally dismissed this fallacy.

Sorry should have also specified that it's De Gaulle himself that started this - during and after the war he dismissed the notion that France would ever recognise or be held accountable of Vichy history.

Funny to see how all of a sudden the Le Pens, anti-Gaullist / French Algeria hardliners for most of their history, hide behind De Gaulle. Obviously, FN is filled with antisemites so Vel d'Hiv clearly meant to be a party base-pleaser (although I think MLP herself is fundamentally more of a Wilders type of islamophobe)

marine le pen stepping down as FN leader

in the US I think we call that "a pivot to the center"

playing her cards well

Yep. She'll be running as an independent candidate now.

is there really anyone in France who doesn't know she's the head of the FN

Wow. How is that playing?

Yeah my first thought was "are there that many people that find the name 'Front National' toxic and offputting, but not the name 'Le Pen'?" But I know nothing about French politics really. Also: is this like Trump, where the populist/xenophobe base is primed to read any signals of pivoting with a wink, as in "oh, she has to say that to win over the larger electorates, but we know where she really stands" etc.? Or will shedding her party actually lose some votes?

Just as an outsider this seems desperate, and something that could majorly backfire and end the competition right here and now. But I of course don't know if it makes sense in context. But wow.

This is astounding!

The message she hopes she is sending is probably: Marine Le Pen is something larger than the FN.

with the other parties all lined up behind Macron this makes it v much a "her against the establishment" thing, with her banking on a combination of cult-of-personality and reactionary anti-establishment sentiment to propel her to victory. Seems unlikely but idk.

Yep. From her pov it's a smart move, and nothing to sneeze at. People might have not wanted to vote for her because of FN. this is a desperate (because she's not the fave) but very clever move to unshackle herself from FN and all the bad connotations associated with the party. You'd think people would see through this move, but, it might win her votes.

i'm thinking she is thinking that she basically locked in/trapped the 21 percent that voted for her into voting for her again and now she's going for the undecided/right-leaning centrists that voted for macron

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C-MuMJsXgAE5ZSd.jpg

Whole Lotta Pen

xp to myself

~3% difference plus margin of error

she's got a chance

She has a 20%+ gap to cover. We'll see how much dumping the FN baggage gets her pretty shortly, I assume.

ya

between melenchon and hamon supporters, i feel like macron has this in the bag?

lotta melanchon supporters will sit this out

true

it'll be interesting to see how many melenchon supporters vote for macron

Wouldn't feel any candidate in any election anywhere in the world has an election "in the bag" nowadays, but yeah, this should be in the bag for Macron.

I'm more curious how many melanchon voters will vote for Le Pen

Fillon voters won't go for Le Pen and probably will go for Macron. Don't see Le Pen pulling in much of the other voters

Mélenchon has revealed his true colours by acting as if Macron and Le Pen are the same thing. And Macron wasn't even the most openly neoliberal candidate of the leading five. I'm oddly reminded of a Harry Partch title: Delusion of the Fury.

I really don't understand this MLP move - or why it isn't being reported as bizarre and nutty.

I mean I understand in theory that she wants to 'lose the baggage of the FN' ...
But if the FN is unhelpful 'baggage' maybe it was a bad move to be ... leader of it for the last ... several years?

And what voter is going to think: 'Oh, yes, that woman -- the Independent -- she always seems to speak her mind and doesn't have any truck with party politics'. I mean ... she has been leader of a party for years up until 5 minutes ago, and says she will go back to being leader of it !

It's one of the most bonkers things I have ever heard of in politics.

Uuh guys, Marine Le Pen didn't go independant, it's just that for the rest of campaign she won't oversee the inner workings of the party.

^^^been a lot of bonkers things in politics recently tbf :(

there was talk after the US election about guilty Trump voters, ppl who wanted to vote against Clinton and were looking for a way to justify a Trump vote to themselves, idk if there's an equivalent demographic in France, and if MLP not officially being the FN candidate would make them more likely to go with her?

I really don't see where she can gather the millions and millions of vote to gain on Macron, perhaps a little amount of Fillonistes will go Le Pen but that's about it? Maybe Sarkozy will have a darker role in all of this, which would be a classic dick Sarkozy move. But seriously, if 60% of the Melenchon voters and half of the Fillion voters go Macron, she's done.

And her move as a fictional non-FN candidate will be of very very marginal consequence, the FN political machine will continue to campaign for her.

that clears up why english-speaking media said it was temporary

it's a leave of absence and would be returning in a couple weeks

this is what i get for being too lazy to read french news

http://www.lemonde.fr/election-presidentielle-2017/article/2017/04/24/marine-le-pen-se-met-en-conge-de-la-presidence-du-front-national_5116791_4854003.html

Marine Le Pen tente de se forger une stature rassembleuse, hors du cadre du Front national. Dans cet objectif, la candidate, qualifiée pour le second tour de l’élection présidentielle, a annoncé, lundi 24 avril, qu’elle se mettait « en congé de la présidence du Front national ».

...

Selon les statuts du FN, « en cas d’absence ou de maladie » du président en exercice, c’est au premier vice-président d’assurer la présidence du parti. En l’occurrence, à Jean-François Jalkh, qui est aussi député européen. Un homme à la fidélité éprouvée, aussi bien par Jean-Marie Le Pen que par Marine Le Pen.

L’annonce de Mme Le Pen est avant tout de pure forme : les instances du parti - toutes dirigées par le président - ne devraient a priori pas se réunir pendant les deux semaines à venir. Mais, selon l’entourage de la candidate, cette mise en retrait doit lui permettre une plus grande liberté pour pouvoir amender certains aspects de son projet et rallier des soutiens.

L’eurodéputée, qui estime qu’il lui manque « dix petits points » pour l’emporter, a d’ailleurs fait lundi soir des appels du pied au candidat souverainiste Nicolas Dupont-Aignan (4,7 % des voix). « Il a un projet qui est extrêmement proche du nôtre », a argumenté Mme Le Pen, qui a aussi soutenu qu’il y avait « des contacts en cours » avec des membres du parti Les Républicains (LR).

also 10% away is kinda what my thinking was, which was already discussed upthread that might not work in her favour, since fillon supporters might sit this out. i'm guessing she/her party is tallying up le pen and fillon votters vs macron, melenchon, and hamon voters, which means she would be about 9ish points behind? or maybe she's referring to something else?

that's her own estimation. dunno the maths behind it and if it's accurate (it could be!).

absolutely, it's her own, and was the back of the napkin math i was going by upthread

i woke up super confident she was done and now i'm super worried thanks infinty

tbf french radio was referring to it as a resignation today as well

you guys don't have anything stupid like an electoral college, right

xxp

haha

dix petits points!

who knows, hoping macron

thought you were in canada tho

canadian with french origins! my whole family lives there.

Mélenchon has revealed his true colours by acting as if Macron and Le Pen are the same thing. And Macron wasn't even the most openly neoliberal candidate of the leading five. I'm oddly reminded of a Harry Partch title: Delusion of the Fury.

― pomenitul, Monday, 24 April 2017 20:49 (one hour ago) Permalink

Or he doesn't want to act like a servant of neo-lib interests. If he supports Macron the far-right can say he is an establishment guy in 2022.

Melenchon supporters can make their minds up.

xp

nice

might be in paris next year

Let me guess, because neoliberalism and neofascism are two sides of the same coin? Ite, missa est.

That would require a serious tectonic plate event non xp

Or he doesn't want to act like a servant of neo-lib interests. If he supports Macron the far-right can say he is an establishment guy in 2022.

Melenchon supporters can make their minds up.

― xyzzzz__, Monday, April 24, 2017 6:06 PM (twenty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's a pretty selfish excuse, who cares about who calls what in 2022 if Le Pen is president until then.

Don't worry, dialectically speaking, Trump is just the necessary first step before the final American utopia. There's always an Antichrist before the Second Coming.

If anything, an explicit Mélenchon support would have proved Le Pen wrong when it comes to Macron being the establishment candidate.

It's true that the idea of one leader endorsing another seems overblown to me -- why should their voters necessarily vote for the person they recommend? There is something patronizing about it. As xyzz says, a large body of socialist voters might be trusted to make up their own minds about the FN, and an instruction from Mélenchon might only do harm overall.

But then maybe it's just that it's a model wholly absent from UK culture where literally no party leader in my lifetime has ever said 'vote for this other party', except possibly re Ireland where eg Labour might say vote SDLP, Con vote UUP, etc.

It's always been this way in France. In context, his decision is glaring, all the more so when you consider the sheer amount of Mélenchon voters who don't plan on voting for Macron.

marine le pen stepping down as FN leader

Who is going to fall for this horseshit? Are the French that stupid?

it's both a feature of the french election system, having two rounds, and of the particular results we got this year (4 candidates with 15% plus, one with 5% plus, another with 3% plus), basically Macron and Le Pen will fight for these 'other votes'. Plus the fact that while France is a deeply divided country, now it is having the one moment where all parties, all people can finally stand up together against the danger of the far right, when someone decides not be part of this, for reasons that can be only seen as selfish, it's not a good look. Christ, even Fillion had no qualms about calling out Le Pen and supporting Macron, and he courted the far right electorate for months and months now. Since, every vote counts (there is no electoral college Shakey), it's not just about beating Le Pen, it's about showing her that her ideals are not welcomed in France, the ideal situation would be that she does less than her father did in 2002 (20%) but she already did better in first round so it won't happen. In any case, the FN must understand than they haven't made progress in the last 15 years. Mélenchon threw a wrench in that, it's deplorable, really. If he were the candidate against Le Pen in the second round, I'd have absolutely no problem voting for him and yet I can't stand the dude and his Chavez-ist idiocy (dude also enjoys Putin somehow).

But her ideals are the second most popular ideals in France!

Why is anyone confident that Fillion votes are not Le Pen votes?

The people who would have defected from Fillon to Le Pen, they alreadh have, what with his unbelievale scandals. The figures of 19% are people who were on the right enough to note vote for a guy like Macron, but preferring a corrupted little shit to the far right.

That's a pretty selfish excuse, who cares about who calls what in 2022 if Le Pen is president until then.

― Van Horn Street, Monday, 24 April 2017 22:32 (yesterday) Permalink

Its a weird thing that just because I vote for candidate x that I'd follow his recommendation for the 2nd round.

Similarly you can vote for a candidate you agree with on most things, not on all things.

All that aside I have seen a similar trend re: Corbyn not standing alongside Cameron in the pro-EU campaign. Fuck being servile to these awful people. They may not discriminate against you based on the colour of your skin but they will make you homeless and cut your rights in other ways. Not interested.

I have seen people also say it should've been a v back-handed kind of endorsement and that's probably as far as I'd go but it doesn't seem that much of a distinction between that and non-endorsement.

It would've been weird to strike a tone of a radical new direction to then say vote for reformism that isn't going to work.

except.. in 2002 he told his supporters to vote for chirac - http://bit.ly/2q84E0e

Learning from past mistakes. Consulting with supporters is a good step.

Resistance 101: when you are fighting creeping dictatorship, you unite in resistance and look at the political colours of your comrades after the battle has been won

Might need to take more than the introductory class bro

That wouldn't change the basic idea, though. Not wanting to unite against Le Pen because Macron isn't pure enough is an embarrassment. Let him defeat her, then when his project fail, scoop in and pick up the disappointed voters.

I don't find Mélenchon's hesitancy over endorsing Macron particularly opaque. Presumably he has the 2002 runoff between Chirac and Le Pen (père) occupying his thoughts. None of the panic and urgency which attended that election really seems to be obvious here – not because Le Pen Jr is not a fascist, but because she looks very unlikely* to win. Obviously, in a choice between a crook and a fascist, you choose the crook. The question is what you do about the crook afterwards. The same goes for a vapid telegenic neoliberal.

There might be several components to this way of thinking: for instance that a negligible proportion of Mélenchon's first round voters will transfer to Le Pen in the second round (because the 'horseshoe theory' of ideology is largely nonsense), that most of his voters will move to Macron anyway, and that too rapid an endorsement risks making it difficult to credibly resist Macron's planned cuts, for instance of 120,000 civil service jobs. There may well also be a touch of irritation that liberals feel entitled to the votes of the left, but rarely brook the same argument with the terms reversed when a left insurgency is riding high in the polls. It isn't hard to understand the anxiety that the relief of an anti-fascist victory in this election might make it harder to press Macron on his economic plan; it's legitimate too to fear that if it's enacted, the FN may bounce back stronger still from this defeat. (In truth, I think this will depend more on how the PS is likely to respond to him after the forthcoming Assembly elections.)

The Sciences Po polling suggests that the biggest move from Mélenchon's supporters will be toward Macron, then perhaps to abstention (this diagram likely overstates the risk of abstention, as it transposes all 'no preference' respondents to abstention) – yet even then, Macron wins. Were I a French left-winger, I would be tempted by abstention – but being by nature pessimistic, especially these days, and respecting the usefulness of such exercises in at least restraining fascists from occupying high office, I would then probably go and add my vote to Macron's tally. And then I would wonder what to do about Macron, spasme du système, after he wins. (http://blog.mondediplo.net/2017-04-12-Macron-le-spasme-du-systeme -- warning, very French.)

(*Yes, yes, I know.)

^^^this, from james butler's facebook, puts the case most carefully from an experienced UK antifa activist (he's obviously also assuming that melenchon will in some way and at some point join the unity)

at issue is less "macron isn't PURE" as "neoliberal globalism and austerity are the PRIME CAUSE of the current fascist emergency", which as a position is obviously undermined by too speedy and kneejerk a turnabout endorsement -- and also that defeating the fascists isn't something that's going to happen purely or only electorally

this is the vote transfer diagram he's referring to:
https://scontent-ams3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/17992235_10102056654969119_2849265000929339157_n.jpg?oh=70f355edab29f099d972b33da58bab77&oe=5985F9CA

Is Macron calling for austerity?

(have to admit some of the reason i decided to post that was, like butler, my enjoyment -- from a english sub editor's perspective -- of the monde diplomatique headline "Macron, le spasme du système")

(also i haven't read any of the monde diplomatique piece -- as noted above, my french is weak)

xp

from reuters:

SAVINGS IN PUBLIC SPENDING

A target of 60 billion euros for savings on spending is so far more of a projection than a plan, premised on 10 billion euros of unemployment benefit savings generated by a drop in the jobless rate to 7 percent.

Macron also sees savings of 15 billion euros in public health spending due to greater efficiency.

Another 25 billion is predicted to come from public service modernization, of which a small part would come from payroll cost falls due to a 120,000 cut in headcount, of which 50,000 will be in the central civil service.

The remaining 10 billion would come from cuts in local authorities spending, including a 70,000 reduction in headcount.

three decades of cuts in local authority spending has been quietly catastrophic in the UK, in respect of the brexit-voting "left behind" communities (and the now almost grotesque centralisation of power) -- i'm not qualified to comment really on its equivalent in france, tho i find it hard to believe it makes things better*

*it all comes down to bins

That's not neccessarily what austerity is.

dude

Danesplanation to follow.

i am getting off the thread, partly bcz i'm very aware i'm NOT FRENCH so there may well be all kinds of stuff i'm missing, and partly bcz it is a lovely day here and i plan to go SWIMMING for the next coupla hours

Or he doesn't want to act like a servant of neo-lib interests. If he supports Macron the far-right can say he is an establishment guy in 2022.

Alternatively, not endorsing Macron provides fuel for the blando "economic leftism and far-right ideologies are just two sides of the same xenophobic unwoke coin" idiots and will further push younger voters away from leftist politics.

I go back and forth on the united front against Le Pen: part of me worries that it's feeding into the FN rhetoric of "they're all the same", but at the same time, imagine if the entire political establishment of the UK treated Farage with the same open and vocal disdain that the French treat Le Pen, as opposed to scheming how to be more like him.

No compromise/unity leftists seem to be taking their time to learn the lessons of recent elections nest past

imagine if the entire political establishment of the UK treated Farage with the same open and vocal disdain that the French treat Le Pen, as opposed to scheming how to be more like him.

As a Dane I really, really dream about this in Denmark :(

You don't see the raft of islamophobic French legislation at the national and local level as an attempt to steal the thunder of FN?

I see it as Islamophobia :) Not that I'm French, but if it's anything like Denmark, then that's what is happening.

Some disdain would still be nice.

No compromise/unity leftists seem to be taking their time to learn the lessons of recent elections nest past

― virginity simple (darraghmac), Tuesday, 25 April 2017 11:07 (thirty-two minutes ago) Permalink

tbf one lesson of the US election is even if their guy campaigns energetically for the centrist candidate, he'll still get blamed 4 defeat

That lesson applies to everyone involved whenever the Democrat loses - the fault finding on the US left is an endless exercise

Yes, so can we not do it here?

You don't see the raft of islamophobic French legislation at the national and local level as an attempt to steal the thunder of FN?

I think it's more complicated than that - islamophobia has extremley high currency in France rn it's true but I don't think it's as direct as French pols going "hmm, FN getting good results at the ballots, must get on that", which at the risk of oversimplifying seems like it's actually what's going on in the UK. Treading lightly here as an outsider, I think some of the more popular islamophobic positions in France are enthusiastically embraced by people who would never vote FN in their lives.

At any rate, a parallell universe where Cameron, Corbyn, the LibDems had all established "we don't agree with each other, but UKIP is just beyond the pale and has no place in the debate"...I dunno, it might play to their strenghts, but it could also make a lot of people go "oh wait, literally everyone thinks they're evil? maybe I should reconsider my support".

XP wow censorship on yet another country's political thread huh?

Ban all Irish, please

You guys should make out

Give ILE back to the Danish - don't make deems have to take it away!

Wasn't Britain better off under the King Canute anyway?

Score this skirmish to Fred tbf

Born in an Eastern European utopia under Russia's benevolent tutelage, I now live in a Western centrist neoliberal dystopia, so I completely understand why someone would want to pick the racist, authoritarian, pro-Putin candidate over the inclusive globalist with a realistic yet optimistic program in a country that already has an enviable social safety net.

Wasn't Britain better off under the King Canute anyway?

England, Fred, get it right.

at issue is less "macron isn't PURE" as "neoliberal globalism and austerity are the PRIME CAUSE of the current fascist emergency", which as a position is obviously undermined by too speedy and kneejerk a turnabout endorsement -- and also that defeating the fascists isn't something that's going to happen purely or only electorally

mark s, Tuesday, April 25, 2017 6:38 AM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Do you know how percentages work? Is the math that complicated? Do you not realise who is facing Macron?

The whole line of 'neoliberalism bred fascism' is just so so so so idiotic when the fascists are already there, knocking on the door.

If you don't understand that the best anti-fascist action you can take in the next two weeks is to campaign against and vote against Le Pen, regardless of where you stand then no, your are not a leftist, ' then you don't care about the fate of millions of immigrated citizens, then you don't care about the poor, the press and the intellectuals, and lgbt rights and about women's right. You are just a politics snob looking to be cool or whatever.

On top of that if you take your ideas from a person who praised the russian actions in Syria, loved Chavez dearly (do I need to remind what is happening to the working class in Venezuela ?) then that's between you and your conscience, but tell us about fighting fascism mark.

oh i'm a kick-the-can-more-down-the-road guy, i still hold out a slender reed of hope that the neolib massive can indeed hold some kind of line for long enough to defuse the immediate emergency, and adapt to better coax us all away from the various edges we teeeter on: so i'd have no problem at all voting macron -- at the very least it brings time and space to work something out, and besides by then other things will have shifted and etc

i quoted butler's facebook essay to try and colour in why someone a lot further left than me -- and a *lot* more invested in direct and constant antifa activity -- might be more conflicted (tho butler also in fact says "vote for the crook not the fascist", and that -- after pause for weary sigh -- he'd add his vote to the macron tally)

beating the fascists in this election is essential -- but defeating them long-term, plus facing up to a fvckton of other growing problems -- is something i don't really think the macronite approach is (currently) helping much with: if i had a strong clear idea of what i believed needed doing (which trust me i don't) and also believed that delaying a statement of support gave that idea better traction for the future, i'd probably also be tempted to dabble in a few dick moves, dick moves is kinda what politics consists of

(i heart butler bcz he's good at laying out dilemmas really clearly but "politics snob" is not an entirely unfair description of him)

There's a saying in French: 'Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien.'

in english too: the best is the enemy of the good

(apparently it's from an unknown italian original, popularised in france by voltaire)

but it cuts in all direction to be honest -- the best response from melenchon wd have been a swift endorsement of macron on sunday night, a merely ok one is where he takes a few days and hedges somewhat to keep his political show on the road long-term (all politics is mostly dick moves)

That would have made sense had the run off been between Macron and Fillon, but there's simply no room for ambiguity here, especially since Macron is a social liberal and not some grotesque Rich Uncle Pennybags. Regardless, the damage is already done.

Lol, that's some sophistic bullshit mark.

I mean, compare this to Christian Estrosi (Les Républicains, i.e. Fillon's Party), who advocates excluding party members who refuse to fight against Le Pen: http://www.lemonde.fr/election-presidentielle-2017/article/2017/04/25/estrosi-demande-l-exclusion-des-membres-de-lr-qui-refusent-d-appeler-a-voter-macron_5117379_4854003.html

like all liberals, i like to deploy that phrase (usually in english, i shd start using it italian) to chop others off at the knees when they pompously insist their position is the best -- while secretly regarding myself as actually and obviously "the best" (bcz i'm a liberal)

anyway, apologies for butting into someone's else politics -- i'm not a melenchon expert at all, and totally defer to frenchspeakers and french citizens on his good and bad qualities and positions: i'm (as is probably obvious) extremely interested in the longterm strategies and potential of the rather further left, not least bcz of the all-too-evident collapse across europe of the centre left (so very visibly playing out in the UK), but i entirely agree that now is not really the moment to be litigating them in any careful depth

xp

a lot of the twitter arguments and thinkpieces about this seem to blur the line between "a centrist liberal like Macron is the best we can realistically hope for in the specific context of this run-off", (which is obv literally true), and "a centrist liberal like Macron is the best we can realistically hope for ever/in the abstract" which seems a lot more debatable (possibly because the arguments + thinkpieces I'm reading are mainly from UK ppl and are using all this as a stalking horse for arguments for Corbyn)

If the shoe was on the other foot, and melenchon was the one facing down le pen, how enthusiastic would macron be to support him? What about fillon? In the American context, if Sanders was the one facing trump, would the democratic establishment have dropped their reservations about him in a grand gesture of unity? Or would they have offered qualified support, maybe even a few days later, and made sure to maintain a distinction between their vision and the left?

mark:

That implies that the good is surreptitiously better than the better itself, whereas what the adage actually argues is that we are to regard any and all such meliorative claims with suspicion including, perhaps, autoreflexively.

xp

soref otm

Isn't the normal translation 'the perfect is the enemy of the good'...

Anyways, I'm not French either, and I guess I would have voted for Melenchon in a heartbeat, had I had the chance. Perhaps not if I'd researched it further... But I'm a bit weary of hearing that the center-left is collapsing, when the most centrist left candidate ever is probably going to win in France, when the Danish center-left is enjoying it's best polls in many many years while the Greens have collapsed, ditto for the Norwegian center-left, etc. It's a bit more complex than that, and being weak - or 'strategic' - on right-wing populism won't help at all.

And could everyone please shut up about Corbyn and Sanders...

I too would have voted for Mélenchon based on his environmental platform, his emphasis on gender equality and social justice in general and even his economic aims (to a more limited extent), if it weren't for:

1) His desire to leave the EU
2) His pro-Putin and pro-Assad statements
3) His utter disregard for Eastern Europe, which he views as Russia's rightful fief
4) The personality cult that surrounds him
5) His facile worship of Chavez, Castro and their ilk

…to begin with.

melenchon feels like what would happen if corbyn went full corbyn

I don't know much about Corbyn, but Mélenchon is highly charismatic, articulate and an excellent debater. His mastery of rhetoric is possibly the main factor explaining his success. My understanding is that Corbyn possesses almost none of these qualities.

i meant politically.

I too would have voted for Mélenchon based on his environmental platform, his emphasis on gender equality and social justice in general and even his economic aims (to a more limited extent), if it weren't for:

1) His desire to leave the EU
2) His pro-Putin and pro-Assad statements
3) His utter disregard for Eastern Europe, which he views as Russia's rightful fief
4) The personality cult that surrounds him
5) His facile worship of Chavez, Castro and their ilk

…to begin with.

― pomenitul, 25. april 2017 19:12 (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://media.giphy.com/media/9RWcytIJi3uYo/giphy.gif

trots, former or current, are a menace tbh

tankies too obv

No compromise/unity leftists seem to be taking their time to learn the lessons of recent elections nest past

― virginity simple (darraghmac), Tuesday, 25 April 2017 11:07 (thirty-two minutes ago) Permalink

Here is your lesson darragh:

Results for the official centre-left in recent elections Iceland 29 Oct '16 — 5.74% Netherlands 15 Mar '17 — 5.70% France 23 Apr '17 — 6.35%

Study it carefully. Essay by 9am tomorrow.

My god at some fo the shit on this thread:

That's not neccessarily what austerity is.

― Frederik B, Tuesday, 25 April 2017 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I thought Mordy's Le Pen isn't an anti-semite thing wasn't going to be topped but this is a contender.

Fred you need I, Daniel Blake hooked into your veins you vile shit.

ftr i didn't say le pen isn't an anti-semite. i said that dogwhistling was coming le pen AND melenchon.

if it seemed like i was downplaying le pen's "antisemitism" it was bc i said that they both send dogwhistles (whereas lbi was trying to argue that le pen was somehow more explicitly antisemitic and i was contesting the 'explicitness'). please represent what i was arguing fairly.

No I won't take it back because its totally the way it came off.

LOL this is comedy:

1) His desire to leave the EU

This pro-migrant killing pro-austerity monster is a hell of a drug for some of you huh? Above a love of Castro, even.

"People google and prove me wrong that eating shit is good for you"

Hilarious how for the left, Macron is obviously a neoliberalist, about to wreck havoc on the poor and for the right (not the far right!) he is a goddamn socialist commie who will continue to give benefits blindly and oh god homo mariage! It is telling on how the clivage gauche-droite is absurd.

How is his programme not a continuation of things, kicking-down-the-can stuff that just leaks votes to the far-right. This is not a game. Endorsement stuff reeks of that.

Melenchon may have his problems but these starter-left platforms seem to be one of the few ways to genuinely counter the ongoing rise of the far-right. Just because he lost this time he has to look forward so there is no need to endorse immediately or certainly for his supporters to enthuse or fucking campaign for this void of a man. Vote quietly for Macron, don't boot-lick these technocrats anymore and organise for '22, because after nearly a decade of austerity its going to be needed.

Has French austerity been as ruthless and terrible for the disabled and working poor as it has in the UK? Stephan Brize has been my only research so far tbh.

Hilarious how for the left, Macron is obviously a neoliberalist, about to wreck havoc on the poor and for the right (not the far right!) he is a goddamn socialist commie who will continue to give benefits blindly and oh god homo mariage! It is telling on how the clivage gauche-droite is absurd.

― Van Horn Street, Tuesday, April 25, 2017 11:32 AM (twenty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

is it not correct that macron is a centrist, third way type? and en marche sort of comparable to ciudadanos in spain? a socially progressive party with centrist/centre-right economic ideas?

that posits itself as neither left nor right but merely "progressive" in a vague way?

please represent what i was arguing fairly.

in the hectic free-for-all that is ilx (and it's much worse elsewhere than here) missing the finer distinctions, qualifications and nuances of an argument is normal. consequently, fairly representing one's shallow or mistaken understanding of someone else's argument, always entails misrepresenting that argument.

deliberate and gross distortions are depressingly common on the web, too, but not so much on ilx. here such gross distortions are usually made in order to justify a lazy zing, rather than to vilify an opponent.

deliberate and gross distortions are depressingly common on the web, too, but not so much on ilx. here such gross distortions are usually made in order to justify a lazy zing, rather than to vilify an opponent.

― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Tuesday, April 25, 2017 3:05 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Fred you need I, Daniel Blake hooked into your veins you vile shit.

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, April 25, 2017 2:17 PM (fifty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Right.

wow! you found an instance of shit-talking on ilx! that totally negates my contention that such a thing has never happened on ilx in the history of the universe. (hangs head in shame)

I actually agree with you, it was just a rich thing to say given the 45 odd minutes separating your comment and his.

^ ladies and gentlemen, I give you the full playing out of my thesis in 4 posts.

Macron is a centrist, progressive on social issues / centre-right on the economy (flexicurity and all that). Painting him as a hardline neoliberal is dumb, misguided and missing the fact that 6 months ago, the idea of having a centrist with a shot of winning would have been crazy talk (at a time when a Fillon / Le Pen face off was a given)

“What we are really suffering from,” he says, “is a deregulated Europe that has let go of its primary vocation, which was to hold aloft our values of freedom and solidarity, a ­Europe that protects people, that has become ultra-liberal and uniquely primed towards the free market. This is what we must change.”

interesting that macron is likely the next prime minister of france, is centrist, yet can use the kind of rhetoric that would make you completely unelectable in the uk

i read an interview w/ Mélenchon's economic adviser who said that lowering the retirement age will open up jobs for the youth so the drop in unemployment insurance will pay for the increase in pension obligations, which struck me as wishful arithmetic and a bizarrely defeatist attitude to youth unemployment

i don't know much about france but it strikes me that Bernie/Melenchon comparisons are misguided, since France already has a strong welfare state, universal healthcare, and a much more regulated labor market. except for maybe the latter (although Macron's statements on labour market regulation are very muted) these are all things Macron proposes to uphold the status quo on, and Bernie is still running for

flopson otm

Which makes all this so-called radical talk that much more ridiculous. France is neither the US nor the UK nor even Canada for that matter.

Btw, the US sorely needs someone like Mélenchon asap.

Be happy for the crumbs you have France! Stop flirting with racists and don't demand too much.

But they aren't 'crumbs,' precisely. Get out of the West every once in a while. It helps put things into perspective.

LOL yes I will live in a slum in Mumbai! That will teach me

haven't read up on it in a while but if you were on the old monte cairo in france a few years back you got 4 times what you did in the uk

so their austerity would be beyond corbyn's dreams essentially

Take me to the nearest Social Security office in St Malo, driver!

Don't believe their lies, France is going up in flames and Le Pen is the only one who can save it. I read all about it on Russia Today.

Let's get back to our earlier discussion about Le Pen's antisemitism for a second. This is the man she named as interim chairman yesterday: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-François_Jalkh

Be happy for the crumbs you have France! Stop flirting with racists and don't demand too much.

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, April 25, 2017 5:04 PM (forty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

where are you from?

I'm asking because famous austéritaire président Hollande, in his last budget, ran 200 billions in deficit despite having a debt per gdp in the upper 90s. In no nation of the world this would be considered 'crumbs', in most nations it would be called playing with fire. Heck, I don't mind, Keynes for life imo. But a champion of austerity, France hasn't been and they won't be under Macron either. It just seems that all energy directed at hating for the centre left, or the centre could be aimed at the far right who is gaining on. But I suppose Blair, the Clintons, Obama, Trudeau, Hollande and Macron are the problem when the freaking wolf are at the door.

(Sorry for answering in your stead.) I think he's from the UK. At the very least he seemingly lives there.

He lives there. Did someone just mention Tony Blair?

he says he lives here, i think he flies in from russia for the ILB faps

He's flown in by MI5.