French elections 2017: completing the hat-trick?

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.