French presidential election, 1st round April 23 runoff May 7

Aesma · Sat Apr 15, 2017 10:03 pm

Hello, I'm opening a new thread as the other one is too focussed on Marine Le Pen, who according to polls is not the most likely winner.

There are 11 official candidates, 4 of them are polling around the 20% mark, the 7 others take the rest. 4 candidates so close together 1 week before the election, this has never happened since this system exists (1965). Charles de Gaulle who invented the system wasn't a visionary though, he thought he would be elected triumphally in the first round in 1965 and instead a young François Mitterrand happened and a runoff was necessary.

Official posters of the candidates :

They've been sorted from far left to far right :

Arthaud and Poutou are trotskyists, Cheminade is against finance and wants to colonize Mars, Mélenchon is old school socialist/communist/green, Hamon is the candidate of the Socialist Party and the Greens, Macron is a social-democrat without a party, calling himself both left-wing and right-wing, Lassalle is a centrist that must have drunk too much as you can't understand what he's saying, Fillon is the candidate of the right wing Les Republicains, Dupont-Aignan is a right-wing nationalist, Asselineau is a conspirationist who wants Frexit, and Le Pen is an anti-Islam nationalist.

The four who have a chance to make it to the runoff :

A few weeks ago Macron and Le Pen were at 25-26% each so they lost ground. Fillon was at 17% so he's coming back a bit, and Mélenchon has surged dramatically, helped by the inflight disintegration of Benoît Hamon.

A runoff between Le Pen and Mélenchon, thought unimaginable, is now a real possibility. Both are against the EU and want to control the French currency to devalue it, implement protectionist policies, both are closer to Putin than to the US, etc. Now that such a runoff is a real possibility polls have been conducted and Mélenchon is given as the winner.

Here are the various runoff scenarios :

Interesting times !

Channex757 · Sun Apr 16, 2017 12:42 am

Elections with such a wide field are normally hard to predict if the vote fragments between four or five candidates. It makes those second preference votes vital.

It could even throw up a runoff between Le Pen and Melenchon quite easily. The British press has been taking interest in those two as both are anti-EU for different reasons.

Aesma · Sun Apr 16, 2017 5:04 pm

François Fillon is suggesting that he could put people from "sens commun" in his government. Sens commun are Catholic fanatics that opposed the marriage for all law, are against abortion, etc. Very "far right" of him, his strategy is clearly to take votes from Marine Le Pen. Marine Le Pen who meanwhile was very quiet during the marriage for all debate and has removed her anti-abortion stance from her platform.

Aesma · Tue Apr 18, 2017 1:39 pm

Tightening tightening tightening !

Dutchy · Tue Apr 18, 2017 1:43 pm

Yes it is going to be excited whom will go to the second round.

https://pourquoivotezvous.fr

Olddog · Tue Apr 18, 2017 2:51 pm

I think theses polls underestimate Le pen and overestimate Melenchon. The worst that could happen is a second run with just Le pen and melenchon, meaning the french society is so polarized that the 2 extremists are the only choice allowed. I wonder how many people will just stay home in that case.

Francoflier · Tue Apr 18, 2017 2:57 pm

A Melenchon / Le Pen runoff could be quite disastrous.

Dutchy · Tue Apr 18, 2017 9:35 pm

Francoflier wrote:
A Melenchon / Le Pen runoff could be quite disastrous.

Yes, then it will be a Frexit, not good for Europe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkZir1L7fSY

Aesma · Tue Apr 18, 2017 9:42 pm

Terror police in France have arrested two men, aged 23 and 29, in Marseille.
Clement Baur and Mahiedine Merabet, who were known to police as extremists.
Officers seized guns and explosives, and found a video in which the two men pledge allegiance to ISIS, local media reports

They were threatening at least one candidate (François Fillon), maybe others.

Aesma · Wed Apr 19, 2017 9:16 pm

Here is a tool, in English, to figure out which candidate is the closest to your political views : https://votecompass.france24.com

Kiwirob · Thu Apr 20, 2017 5:30 am

Dutchy wrote:
Francoflier wrote:
A Melenchon / Le Pen runoff could be quite disastrous.

Yes, then it will be a Frexit, not good for Europe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkZir1L7fSY

But probably better for France. The EU should have remained small, they let in too many of the wrong countries.

Olddog · Thu Apr 20, 2017 7:09 am

Yes when we let UK in...

Dutchy · Thu Apr 20, 2017 7:34 am

Kiwirob wrote:
Dutchy wrote:
Francoflier wrote:
A Melenchon / Le Pen runoff could be quite disastrous.

Yes, then it will be a Frexit, not good for Europe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkZir1L7fSY

But probably better for France. The EU should have remained small, they let in too many of the wrong countries.

Yes, it went too fast, I agree. And I fail to see how it will be better for France.

Kiwirob · Thu Apr 20, 2017 4:17 pm

Olddog wrote:
Yes when we let UK in...

I actually believe the EU works for smaller countries, if Norway finally joined I'd be all for it, but the current situation where Norway is practically a member but without a seat at the table doesn't work for anyone. I don't think the EU works for France, especially now the UK left. France will be dominated by the Germans. With three large economies they balanced each other.

Aesma · Sun Apr 23, 2017 3:59 pm

The campaign stopped Friday evening by law, yesterday and today people could think, read the candidates' manifestos (sent by the state to all homes), decide, and today vote.

I cast my vote an hour ago, I've got the champagne bottle ready in the fridge, either to celebrate my candidate getting to the second round, or to drown my sorrows if he doesn't make it.

pylon101 · Sun Apr 23, 2017 4:33 pm

How can people vote for this Rothschild's nominee Macron?
Will anything, any little thing change in France with Macron?
No. Nothing will change. Or change for worse.
Le Pen! Le Pen! Le Pen!

Olddog · Sun Apr 23, 2017 4:40 pm

Thanks to Putin and Trump supporting Le Pen and effectively drowning her as always when a foreign leader support one of our candidates.

pvjin · Sun Apr 23, 2017 4:57 pm

Hopefully Macron won't make it to the second round, Europe doesn't need another gutless eurocrat loser as a president.

Aesma · Sun Apr 23, 2017 5:05 pm

pylon101 wrote:
How can people vote for this Rothschild's nominee Macron?
Will anything, any little thing change in France with Macron?
No. Nothing will change. Or change for worse.
Le Pen! Le Pen! Le Pen!

People promising big changes in France achieve very little. French people don't want big change, and they have the guts to show it in the streets.

Macron is his own man and promises significant changes, for example to streamline the public retirement system, and to change the unemployment insurance's nature. The first one especially, most politicians agree it's needed, and have promised it for decades, but only when in opposition. He has the courage to put it in his platform.

UltimoTiger777 · Sun Apr 23, 2017 5:10 pm

pylon101 wrote:
How can people vote for this Rothschild's nominee Macron?
Will anything, any little thing change in France with Macron?
No. Nothing will change. Or change for worse.
Le Pen! Le Pen! Le Pen!

Who would you trust more with your money, a big government socialist like Le Pen or one of the Rothschilds?

I'd take the Rothschilds again and again and again over Le Pen.

TheF15Ace · Sun Apr 23, 2017 5:54 pm

pylon101 wrote:
Le Pen! Le Pen! Le Pen!

pylon101 wrote:
That is why I support Trump.
All of my hopes are with Trump.
Go Donald Go!

Pylon101:
The U.S. must not act in North Korea on unilateral basis.

BobPatterson · Sun Apr 23, 2017 6:14 pm

TheF15Ace wrote:
pylon101 wrote:
Le Pen! Le Pen! Le Pen!

pylon101 wrote:
That is why I support Trump.
All of my hopes are with Trump.
Go Donald Go!

Pylon101:
The U.S. must not act in North Korea on unilateral basis.

I take it you're the special brand of stupid that doesn't learn from past mistakes.

LOL, revisionist historians are allowed to flip-flop, aren't they? Pylon101 was obviously well-trained by the USSR.

pvjin · Sun Apr 23, 2017 6:14 pm

Aesma wrote:
French people don't want big change, and they have the guts to show it in the streets.

I think French people are pretty dumb if they they are content with the status quo where terrorist attacks are becoming increasingly common and youth unemployment is through the roof.

But of course in democracy all people get the government they deserve. At least Macron will make sure European media will have plenty of selling headlines about terrorist attacks in France in the future too.

Olddog · Sun Apr 23, 2017 6:21 pm

So Emanuel Macron will be next French President. As we said here, all the main party already asked to vote against Marine Le Pen next turn

Aesma · Sun Apr 23, 2017 7:00 pm

Champagne drunk, I am glad. Very happy that Fillon the fraudster has been defeated. Next fraudster out in two weeks.

I'm not naive, I don't expect Macron to be perfect or do everything right, nobody can, but he is by far the closest candidate to my ideas, and his election alone will cause the eviction of many old politicos we're tired of seeing, "draining the swamp" for real.

Jalap · Sun Apr 23, 2017 7:45 pm

Aesma wrote:
Champagne drunk, I am glad. Very happy that Fillon the fraudster has been defeated. Next fraudster out in two weeks.

I'm not naive, I don't expect Macron to be perfect or do everything right, nobody can, but he is by far the closest candidate to my ideas, and his election alone will cause the eviction of many old politicos we're tired of seeing, "draining the swamp" for real.

Congratulations! I'm quite sure Macron is the ideal one to be president of all the French people. I hope similar profiles will pop up in other nations too. Call it a clean-sheet design without political colour. It is quite unique.

Channex757 · Sun Apr 23, 2017 8:05 pm

What gets me though is that a large percentage of the French electorate voted for anti-EU candidates. This could easily translate into the beginning of a movement for a referendum.

L410Turbolet · Sun Apr 23, 2017 10:00 pm

pvjin wrote:
Hopefully Macron won't make it to the second round, Europe doesn't need another gutless eurocrat loser as a president.

It needs Putin's b*tch LePen even less.

VSMUT · Sun Apr 23, 2017 10:15 pm

Looks like the witch just lost the first round to Macron

pylon101 · Sun Apr 23, 2017 10:32 pm

I was flattered that someone took time to go through my irregular postings here and accused me of inconsistency.
Thank you.
However, many Trump's supporters can not understand his foreign policies.
Some explain this turn by Jewish circle of Trump. Probably.
Others believe that Trump should have prioritized domestic agenda over foreign policy. It is another possible explanation.
We should remember that the Trump's base either doesn't care of foreign policies or their vision is limited by spectacular "muscles flexing."

Our basic (friendly) confrontation here at A-net perfectly presents two main global developments: globalism and multiculturalism vs. healthy nationalism and die Realpolitik.
I heard Aesma and his interpretation of French domestic views and attitudes. Those are easy to understand because a basic pattern repeats over and over again in all countries.
But what I am sure: Macron's victory (a banker in the socialist France!) means losing five years. It's just waste of time.
Because Macron is not able to bring any fresh breath to French domestic or foreign policies. He is not supposed to.
If the nationalism/Realpolitik is the dominating trend, it just means that Le Pen will win in five years.
I simply hope that France - and Europe in general - has this time.

Dutchy · Sun Apr 23, 2017 10:43 pm

pylon101 wrote:
I was flattered that someone took time to go through my irregular postings here and accused me of inconsistency.
Thank you.
However, many Trump's supporters can not understand his foreign policies.
Some explain this turn by Jewish circle of Trump. Probably.
Others believe that Trump should have prioritized domestic agenda over foreign policy. It is another possible explanation.
We should remember that the Trump's base either doesn't care of foreign policies or their vision is limited by spectacular "muscles flexing."

Our basic (friendly) confrontation here at A-net perfectly presents two main global developments: globalism and multiculturalism vs. healthy nationalism and die Realpolitik.
I heard Aesma and his interpretation of French domestic views and attitudes. Those are easy to understand because a basic pattern repeats over and over again in all countries.
But what I am sure: Macron's victory (a banker in the socialist France!) means losing five years. It's just waste of time.
Because Macron is not able to bring any fresh breath to French domestic or foreign policies. He is not supposed to.
If the nationalism/Realpolitik is the dominating trend, it just means that Le Pen will win in five years.
I simply hope that France - and Europe in general - has this time.

Le Pen will be another Trump. People will be quite disappointed within days or weeks. Le Pens agenda will not work for what she promises and she has two seats in the French parliament. If Le Pen wins than five years will be wasted. Macron might be able to really change something for the better in France and perhaps in Europe.

Jalap · Sun Apr 23, 2017 11:12 pm

Dutchy wrote:
Le Pen will be another Trump. People will be quite disappointed within days or weeks. Le Pens agenda will not work for what she promises and she has two seats in the French parliament. If Le Pen wins than five years will be wasted. Macron might be able to really change something for the better in France and perhaps in Europe.

I agree that Le Pen would be a disaster. People like her, Wilders, Trump, Putin, Erdogan, they thrive on conflict. And they'll make sure there is conflict, also after they get in charge. Plus they get cheered on for that conflict by a certain percentage of the population. Fortunately, in most nations the more moderate leaders win. But I fear the power of their hostile rhetorics. Looking at history, we know what this kind of leaders bring us. Yet it happened so often before and my biggest fear is that it'll have to happen again before tides will turn and people will realise that we're all on 1 planet and better learn to get along.

opethfan · Sun Apr 23, 2017 11:50 pm

Dutchy wrote:
Le Pen will be another Trump. People will be quite disappointed within days or weeks.

96% of Trump voters apparently would cast their ballot for him again: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/presiden ... d=46943338

ltbewr · Mon Apr 24, 2017 12:13 am

This is going to get very ugly in the next 2 weeks in France. I wonder if US President Trump has tweeted his congratulations to Ms. LePen.
The French Election and well as the Netherlands earlier this year, the US's last year and what may happen in Germany in a few months, as well as those recently held are showing a huge right wing trend against immigration and work migration, too high rates of unemployment of many industrial workers, many middle and upper class persons wanting much lower taxes by cutting benefits to the poor, as well as backlash to GLTBQ rights, 'Gay Marriage' and hatred of anything connected with Islam due to terrorists acts connected with too many of that faith. They also show that we don't have any real leaders anymore. We need more Churchills and Roosevelts, not corporate lackeys or radical right wingers.
Note that 48% of voters didn't chose either Macron or LePen. It is like what happened with the Republicans in the USA last year, they had so many looking for the nomination (17) each and all of them bad in their own way so ended up with the richest, biggest mouth and manipulator of people in Trump
Even if Macron wins he will be in a weak position as he has plenty of connections to the financial and banking interests that will likely support over the majority of people.

einsteinboricua · Mon Apr 24, 2017 1:03 am

Who here is willing to bet that Trump will come out and suggest that there's voter fraud and that's why Le Pen did not win this first round (or if she loses the 2nd round)?

pylon101 · Mon Apr 24, 2017 2:43 am

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A ... _DzTHZfzDw

Olddog · Mon Apr 24, 2017 5:41 am

Those who understand French politics like Belgian PM already congratulated Macron.

Dutchy · Mon Apr 24, 2017 6:44 am

opethfan wrote:
Dutchy wrote:
Le Pen will be another Trump. People will be quite disappointed within days or weeks.

96% of Trump voters apparently would cast their ballot for him again: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/presiden ... d=46943338

Interesting, thanks for that.

WIederling · Mon Apr 24, 2017 1:55 pm

pylon101 wrote:
However, many Trump's supporters can not understand his foreign policies.

IMU a bit of a double whammy.
The supporters lack capability, Trump lacks coherence.

_appearing_ incoherent can be leveraged as an advantage. But you need some real objective behind that.

Aesma · Mon Apr 24, 2017 3:30 pm

Voter turnout was 78%, better than anticipated and in line with previous presidential elections.

Despite great controversy for months, polls have proven very reliable. "Alternative polls" using social media trends have proven to be the garbage they are.

VSMUT · Mon Apr 24, 2017 5:27 pm

pylon101 wrote:
healthy nationalism

That is pretty priceless, coming from a Russian. I know of at least 2 other "healthy nationalist" leaders in European history, and they both attempted to invade Russia...

Kilopond · Mon Apr 24, 2017 8:11 pm

Dutchy wrote:
Le Pen will be another Trump. People will be quite disappointed within days or weeks.

They are both red herrings that work as overflow valves, actually strengthening the ruling system. Just like Eidelstein a.k.a. Zhininovsky.

opethfan wrote:
96% of Trump voters apparently would cast their ballot for him again: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/presiden ... d=46943338

Well, he actually did throw some sand into the gears of the global imperialism. But his capabilities are very limited.

Tugger · Tue Apr 25, 2017 12:07 am

opethfan wrote:
Dutchy wrote:
Le Pen will be another Trump. People will be quite disappointed within days or weeks.

96% of Trump voters apparently would cast their ballot for him again: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/presiden ... d=46943338

But that means that Trump would likely have lost the election. That's a pretty big swing.

Tugg

af773atmsp · Tue Apr 25, 2017 2:03 am

Jalap wrote:
Dutchy wrote:
Le Pen will be another Trump. People will be quite disappointed within days or weeks. Le Pens agenda will not work for what she promises and she has two seats in the French parliament. If Le Pen wins than five years will be wasted. Macron might be able to really change something for the better in France and perhaps in Europe.

I agree that Le Pen would be a disaster. People like her, Wilders, Trump, Putin, Erdogan, they thrive on conflict. And they'll make sure there is conflict, also after they get in charge. Plus they get cheered on for that conflict by a certain percentage of the population. Fortunately, in most nations the more moderate leaders win. But I fear the power of their hostile rhetorics. Looking at history, we know what this kind of leaders bring us. Yet it happened so often before and my biggest fear is that it'll have to happen again before tides will turn and people will realise that we're all on 1 planet and better learn to get along.

Unfortunately people don't live long enough to see the pattern. Even if people look at history books they think this time it'll be done right and avoid making the same mistakes.

GDB · Tue Apr 25, 2017 9:46 am

Ironic really, long cast (by herself) as the 'insurgent' candidate, Vichy LePen (only this this for Putin not Germany), ends up facing someone who despite a short stint in government (bailing when he saw how useless Hollande was), can stake a greater claim to being the 'outsider'. He formed his party, LePen inherited it from her Holocaust denying, war criminal in Algeria father, giving it a spring clean to at least appear semi respectable.

Dutchy · Tue Apr 25, 2017 5:33 pm

af773atmsp wrote:
Jalap wrote:
Dutchy wrote:
Le Pen will be another Trump. People will be quite disappointed within days or weeks. Le Pens agenda will not work for what she promises and she has two seats in the French parliament. If Le Pen wins than five years will be wasted. Macron might be able to really change something for the better in France and perhaps in Europe.

I agree that Le Pen would be a disaster. People like her, Wilders, Trump, Putin, Erdogan, they thrive on conflict. And they'll make sure there is conflict, also after they get in charge. Plus they get cheered on for that conflict by a certain percentage of the population. Fortunately, in most nations the more moderate leaders win. But I fear the power of their hostile rhetorics. Looking at history, we know what this kind of leaders bring us. Yet it happened so often before and my biggest fear is that it'll have to happen again before tides will turn and people will realise that we're all on 1 planet and better learn to get along.

Unfortunately people don't live long enough to see the pattern. Even if people look at history books they think this time it'll be done right and avoid making the same mistakes.

Yes and the "elite" in society seems to follow the same pattern, over and over again. Taking to big a slice and thereby upsetting the balance and so the citizens' revolt. Nowadays we do it with elections in the west. So something needs to change in Europe at least.

Aesma · Wed Apr 26, 2017 12:52 am

Among the 11 candidates none proposed reasonable solutions to the revenues inequality problem. France is already one of the better countries on this so that didn't help. Candidates to the left of Macron proposed solutions that would crash the economy, so less revenue for everyone. Fillon didn't care. His electorate is disproportionately made up of retirees and he pandered shamelessly to them. The candidates to the right of him want to get out of the EU, so again a crash of the economy. A couple of very small candidates proposed to break up the banks and tame finance, along with nationalization of many companies (that are already partly public, in France), something that might work in the long run but would first create a big mess.

Macron being a social-democrat I think he's the best equipped to do this, even though it's not really something he talks about, at least it seems to me he's an humanist so that should help. And he's not obsessed with money or he would have stayed a banker (and better invested the millions he made).

Aesma · Thu Apr 27, 2017 1:37 am

New posters for the second round. Heavy use of photoshop for both :

sebolino · Tue May 02, 2017 3:09 pm

I'm so scared now.
People are becoming insane in several countries, and vote for clowns, idiots and dangerous extremists, and they also vote for division and isolationism (which they regret very soon after). Latest examples are US, UK, Turkey.

If the economical situation doesn't improve very soon, we'll end up with the same disaster in France.
If this stupid, racist, full of hatred, arrogant and aggressive "woman" is elected, I really don't know what I will do ... It will be a hell. :-(

BobPatterson · Tue May 02, 2017 11:56 pm

I see that Ladbrokes https://sports.ladbrokes.com/en-gb/betting/politics/ is offering odds on the French election:

Macron at 1/9, Le Pen at 11/2, and Macron vote share of 60-70% at Evens.

I suppose we would project this as a "landslide" in the USA?

Is this pretty much the thinking of Europeans?

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