Update: Macron's center-right alliance ties with left-wing alliance in first round of French legislative elections

[Jason]

French Election Opens Up as Marine Le Pen Surges - The New York Times

WWW.NYTIMES.COM

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President Emmanuel Macron’s belated entry into the campaign and his focus on Ukraine have left him vulnerable to a strong challenge from the right.

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Macron has been governing as a "diet" right-wing politician for years, so the question again becomes why support the "diet" version when you can have the "real" thing instead?

[Ricofoley]

Apparently Macron has been calling for raising the retirement age, and candidates to both his left and right are calling for lowering the retirement age, so I really don't think there's much of a mystery as to why he's faltering.

[Massdriver]

Is it every western country’s future that we will all be living in an autocracy not because of China or Russia, but because we eventually elect them?

[Jason]

Just now, Massdriver said:

Is it every western country’s future that we will all be living in an autocracy not because of China or Russia, but because we eventually elect them?

 

I mean, Russia has a lot to do with the US trajectory on this. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

1 minute ago, Jason said:

 

I mean, Russia has a lot to do with the US trajectory on this. 

 

The foundation for that trajectory in the US was laid by the Nixon administration - let's not overstate the Russia angle.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

18 minutes ago, Massdriver said:

Is it every western country’s future that we will all be living in an autocracy not because of China or Russia, but because we eventually elect them?

 

Yes, because "neoliberal" policies  have failed large segments of the Western society which in turn made them susceptible to populist rhetoric.

 

As @Ricofoley stated, Macron has moved towards very unpopular "neoliberal" economic reforms which his left-wing/right-wing populist opponents jumped on.  It also doesn't help that Macron also co-opted much of the anti-immigrant rhetoric of the right, but no one on the right who supports that rhetoric thinks Macron believes in it anyway.

[Massdriver]

1 hour ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

Yes, because "neoliberal" policies  have failed large segments of the Western society which in turn made them susceptible to populist rhetoric.

 

As @Ricofoley stated, Macron has moved towards very unpopular "neoliberal" economic reforms which his left-wing/right-wing populist opponents jumped on.  It also doesn't help that Macron also co-opted much of the anti-immigrant rhetoric of the right, but no one on the right who supports that rhetoric thinks Macron believes in it anyway.

Whatever neoliberalism is, it generally isn’t associated with anti immigration rhetoric. That’s populism.

 

Granted that his economic reforms are probably neoliberal (haven’t read them, but sounds like it from the article), but it’s hardly clear that that would be the only or even primary cause of us going towards autocracies. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

How Marine Le Pen closed the gap on Emmanuel Macron – POLITICO

WWW.POLITICO.EU

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The far-right leader’s campaign strategy is finally paying off against the incumbent French president as the election approaches.

 

Quote

 

But there is something Macron hasn’t done enough: actual campaigning. The president has barely hit the campaign trail and has been accused of using the war in Ukraine to avoid going head-to-head with his rival candidates by refusing to partake in traditional televised debates.

 

While Macron was busy talking with Russian President Vladimir Putin and meeting world leaders, Le Pen continued her campaign in La France profonde (deep France) hammering on about everyday life problems such as the price of fuel and people’s purchasing power.

 

“Le Pen did a proximity campaign, visiting a lot of small towns and villages. Her trips were not very much covered by national press but had a big echo in local media,” said Mathieu Gallard, research director at polling firm Ipsos. “She gave an impression of proximity, which is very important for French voters.”

 

At the same time, unlike her far-right rival Eric Zemmour, she has avoided getting stuck in a debate on the Ukrainian war that may have put her on the back foot given her long-standing ties with Putin.

 

 

Quote

 

Le Pen’s comeback may also be attributable to her change in script from the 2017 campaign.

 

Instead of focusing on migration and security issues, Le Pen has fine-tuned her economic platform and campaigned on reducing the cost of living.

 

“She really broke with the style of her previous campaigns and her father’s campaigns. She did a campaign focused on purchasing power and not on migration and security,” said Gallard.

 

Economic problems are by far French voters’ main concern, far more important than the environment or migration, polls say. This week’s Harris Interactive poll shows that, according to French voters, Le Pen is more credible than Macron when it comes to guaranteeing their purchasing power. 

 

 

Quote

Le Pen has also managed to soften her image, something she’s tried to do unsuccessfully for years. She was helped in this effort by standing in comparison to anti-immigration hard-liner Zemmour, who has been convicted three times for inciting hatred and whose past misogynistic comments have come back to haunt him during the campaign. While 65 percent of the French say they are “worried” about Zemmour, 51 percent say the same about Le Pen, an Ipsos survey shows.

 

 

Is Emmanuel Macron About to Blow It?

SLATE.COM

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With five days to go before a 12-way primary, the French strategize around the “useful vote.”

 

Quote

 

For a quarter-century, the French political establishment has considered the prospect of a President Le Pen unthinkable. Le Pen père was tainted by, among other things, his support for the Vichy regime and the record of the French military in its colonial wars. But his daughter Marine, now in her third presidential contest, has led a 20-year campaign to “de-demonize” the National Rally party her father founded in 1972, jettisoning some of its extreme positions (like exiting the European Union) and extreme members (like her dad). It’s working. She still wants to systematically expel France’s undocumented immigrants, end the right to birthright citizenship, and give French nationals priority in hiring, housing, and benefits, but she has run most of this campaign as an economic populist. Her party performs best in the de-industrialized regions of Northern France that were once left-wing strongholds.

 

She’s gotten help from the center, where Macron’s conservative cabinet members have parroted her voters’ anxiety about the influence of Islam, helping to legitimize her views, and from the right, where the ex-journalist Eric Zemmour’s extraordinarily nasty campaign—he’d like to require children born in France to have French names—has served to make her own look moderate.

 

On the left, meanwhile, the prospect of a second Macron–Le Pen runoff is filling voters with dread. The question of the vote utile is front of mind this week, because the left has four candidates dividing up the first-round vote, and only one of them—Jean-Luc Mélenchon—appears capable of making it to the runoff. And so progressive voters are trying to make up their minds: Is a vote for Mélenchon the only way to keep Le Pen from the runoff? “The vote utile on the left is for Mélenchon,” the former socialist candidate Ségolène Royal said in February.

 

 

Quote

Finally, there is Emmanuel Macron, who has chosen to participate in the campaign with the urgency and enthusiasm of a man doing his taxes. His official candidacy has been underway for less than a month. He has refused to debate the other candidates. He has held all of one rally, a polished, spectacular affair at which he (and he alone) spoke for more than two hours to a crowd of 25,000. His team seems to have calculated that his handling of the coronavirus crisis and his role as Europe’s chief wartime diplomat would serve as a campaign of its own. “When you’re up 6–1, 6–2 after the first two sets, you’re not going to risk a heart attack on the third,” one of his advisers told the Parisien newspaper recently.

 

In regard to the part that I highlighted:

- Macron's interior minister claimed that LePen is "softer than we could ever be" on issues related to Islamism

- Macron's Minister of National Education, Youth and Sport and his Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation claimed that schools and universities had been "infiltrated by Islamo-Leftism"

 

Like I said before, why would vote for the "diet" right-wing candidate (Macron) when you could have the real thing (LePen)?

[Chairslinger]

Putin should have just waited a couple years and all his little Mini mes in Europe and the U.S. would have gift wrapped Ukraine for him.

[Jason]

 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

If only France had universal healthcare then they wouldn’t have to worry about the rise of right wing politics

[Zaku3]

5 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

If only France had universal healthcare then they wouldn’t have to worry about the rise of right wing politics

 

Aside from good old fashioned racism I think their problem is their safety nets are getting chipped away at. 

 

While western leftists had to disavow the USSR. Having a communist military superpower was helpful to them. They got their stuff out of having a communist state next door (or around thr corner) With the USSR gone and the "end of history" there on the surface isn't a threat to capitalism so it's easier to chip away at European social programs. That plus the disruption caused by globalization is responsible for the rise of the far right in Europe. 

 

Also technically it never really went away.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

12 minutes ago, Zaku3 said:

 

Aside from good old fashioned racism I think their problem is their safety nets are getting chipped away at. 

 

While western leftists had to disavow the USSR. Having a communist military superpower was helpful to them. They got their stuff out of having a communist state next door (or around thr corner) With the USSR gone and the "end of history" there on the surface isn't a threat to capitalism so it's easier to chip away at European social programs. That plus the disruption caused by globalization is responsible for the rise of the far right in Europe. 

 

Also technically it never really went away.

I do agree with this but I was being glib at the idea that were just “one weird trick” away from a future without reactionary conservatism 

[Zaku3]

4 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

I do agree with this but I was being glib at the idea that were just “one weird trick” away from a future without reactionary conservatism 

 

There is only one weird trick

 

[Massdriver]

Emmanuel Macron has topped voting in this first round with 28.1 percent of the vote. Marine Le Pen is second with 23.3 percent. They are France's two finalists for the April 24 run-off.

Live: Macron leads first round of French election, to face Le Pen in run-off (exit poll)

WWW.FRANCE24.COM

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President Emmanuel Macron will face the far right’s Marine Le Pen in France’s presidential run-off after topping the first round on Sunday with 28.1% of the vote, according...

 

[Massdriver]

MACRON, LE PEN HEAD TO SECOND ROUND

 

French President Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen gathered respectively 28.1 percent and 23.3 percent of the vote in the first round, according to projections by polling institute Ipsos. 
 

Left-wing firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon comes in third, with 20.1 percent of the vote. Other candidates failed to reach 10 percent — with far-right TV-pundit-turned-politician Eric Zemmour gathering 7.2 percent and Valérie Pécresse from conservative party Les Républicains 5 percent, the projections also show. Greens MEP Yannick Jadot got 4.4 percent and Paris Socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo 2.1 percent. Official results are expected later this evening.

[CitizenVectron]

For comparison, first round (2017 / 2022):

 

Macron: 24.0% / 28.1%

 

Le Pen: 21.3% / 23.3%

 

 

[Chairslinger]

11 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

For comparison, first round (2017 / 2022):

 

Macron: 24.0% / 28.1%

 

Le Pen: 21.3% / 23.3%

 

 

 

 

[CitizenVectron]

41 minutes ago, Chairslinger said:

 

 

 

Well, Macron over-performed the polls from this week, and Le Pen underperformed. So probably a good thing.

[PaladinSolo]

If the left didn't have 6 candidates Le Pen could have not made the runoff, now all of them are predictably endorsing Macron, lol.

[CitizenVectron]

 

As more votes from the cities come in, Melenchon is closing on Le Pen for second (which would eliminate Le Pen from the runoff). Most pollsters are still projecting Le Pen edges it out.

[LazyPiranha]

 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

Spoiler

 

 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

Reactionaries? In my Florida!?

[Fizzzzle]

My problem with neoliberalism, amongst many other problems I have with neoliberalism, is that by trying to be as centrist as possible, the only thing you achieve is pissing off everyone, which makes everyone more polarized. Not that neoliberalism necessarily has anything to do with centrism, but it does just kind of naturally attract those kinds of people

[Jason]

 

[Signifyin(g)Monkey]

7 hours ago, Jason said:

 

Similar story, I think.

 

Centrist complacency coming home to roost.

 

Also, I think the dynamics of social media are again a huge, unstated factor.

 

The big social media platform’s algorithms are literally designed to make people more pissed off and to amplify extreme voices, and their business model is designed to undermine the economic security of the vast majority of people, by not paying them for all the personal data the companies take from them to monetize.  It’s centralizing wealth in the hands of whoever owns the biggest store of personal data, and undermining the prospects of everyone else.

 

Applied to one person, the effects are ‘meh’, but the effect is compounding.  Applied to an entire society, you get the normalization of right-wing nutjobs like Le Pen.

[CitizenVectron]

Hopefully this continues. Macron is firmly part of the neoliberal order that, through its inaction on key issues like housing and environment, has caused the rise of the far-right...but he's better than the far-right by quite a bit.

 

 

[outsida]

On 4/4/2022 at 2:41 PM, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

Macron has been governing as a "diet" right-wing politician for years, so the question again becomes why support the "diet" version when you can have the "real" thing instead?

Hey I like the diet stuff better than the ‘real’ thing!!!

[Zaku3]

29 minutes ago, outsida said:

Hey I like the diet stuff better than the ‘real’ thing!!!

 

Gotta go hard kid. Skip coke go straight to crack.

[CitizenVectron]

 

🤞

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

The outcome I'm hoping for is a Macron win coupled with a left-wing dominated National Assembly.

[Chairslinger]

3 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

 

🤞

 

 

I only have a vague recollection of how it feels to live in a country where having 44% support means "you're done".

[PaladinSolo]

The lefty that almost beat her to make the runoff was considered the not Macron vote, and absolutely fuckinglutely not Le Pen vote, so this seems to back that up.