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.

There was nothing supposed about Hollande's softness. He kept trying to please the right, who would never like him no matter what because socialism is evil, while forgetting he's got elected on the basis of left-leaning promises. The ecotaxe was actually a good thing, for once, but he abandoned it as soon as the industry protested. On gay marriage, which is a fucking non-issue for everyone except a bunch of homophobic fucktards, he almost pussied out (as a side not it's interesting to note that Macron has shown much more empathy to the "humiliated" (his words) opponents to gay marriage than he has ever shown towards to any other kind of protesters). As one comedian said once of Hollande, "we expected absolutely nothing from him and he still managed to disappoint".

From a UK perspective all you ever hear about France is how it needs to reform itself, to be more in line with UK and US, that is something I've been hearing about from right wing and, yes, centrist, commentators in the UK for as long as I can remember - which is a long time. It comes in two forms - sniggering schadenfreude from the right and patronising mock concern from the centre, as always driven by British resentment of the French.

35 hr week is pretty theoretical for a lot of professions

"free" healthcare, well, apart from the deductibles and/or the mutuelle that you've bought to cover them

but in general i agree

well given that the deductibles are mostly reimbursed by CPAM even if you don't have a mutuelle, it's not as bad as that sounds.

the biggest healthcare gripe I hear is that eyeglasses are not really covered. as a former american I lol every time I hear someone go about vision coverage here.

Tom, he lengthened bereavement leaves and implemented a 'right to disconnection'. He is unlikely to get rid of the 35 hour work week and will extend health coverage to dental care, which is currently not free. He also plans on giving benefits to the self-employed as part of his labour reforms. Truly neoliberalism incarnate.

Oh and eyeglasses will also be covered by 2021 at the latest.

Dinsdale, everyone on the left conveniently leaves out the 75% wealth tax, which Hollande was subsequently forced to backpedal on because it turned out to be a complete and utter failure. So yes, he did aim for maximum 'leftism' given his wiggle room. A tragic cautionary tale if ever there was one.

That said, I don't think Macron's ISF reform is the way forward.

I agree with everything you're saying, pomenitul

I do think that the gilets jaunes are a good counterweight to French neoliberalism, in LREM and LR and whoever else. There was no such voice in the presidential election : instead it was fought about immigration because of the fascists. I'm heartened by the gilets jaunes' lack of interest in immigration. If racism becomes a prominent part of their surges then I'll be cheering the army on. As it is, this is a democratic counterweight of which we were robbed by Le Pen (and by Mélenchon's lack of interest in ordinary French life but rather in the mostly-irrelevant "international politics of the left")

This is mere anecdotal evidence, of course, but my (French) wife has been keeping me informed about the bits of far-right 'alternative facts' her supposedly left-leaning relatives – all gilets jaunes sympathizers or members – are spreading on Facebook and there are some significant racist elements among them.

Les Décodeurs do a great job of summing up this particular xenophobic conspiracy theory, which has gained a fair amount of traction worldwide these past few weeks:

https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2018/12/06/vendre-la-france-a-l-onu-de-donald-trump-aux-gilets-jaunes-l-itineraire-mondial-d-une-intox_5393268_4355770.html

Yes, I've seen articles about that in several European countries this week. No doubt the Russians are trying to seize upon the moment.

For those who haven't encountered it yet, it's about how Macron's decision to sign the UN Global Compact for Migration on Monday will accelerate the so-called 'grand remplacement' or 'great replacement', a now-mainstream racist theory developed by the loathsome writer and 'intellectual' Renaud Camus. In essence, it states that white Christian Europeans are being deliberately, systematically replaced by exogenous, coloured forces bent on the destruction of Western civilization.

There surely are lots of rotten apples within the Gilets Jaunes and especially with those are somehow appear as "leaders" (self-appointed or not). Which is part of why I can't fully support them.

Dinsdale, everyone on the left conveniently leaves out the 75% wealth tax, which Hollande was subsequently forced to backpedal on because it turned out to be a complete and utter failure. So yes, he did aim for maximum 'leftism' given his wiggle room. A tragic cautionary tale if ever there was one.

Like you said, he backpedaled. That's pretty much his M.O.

The lingering problem is unemployment. How would you solve it?

According to Macron finding a job is actually easy, you just have to cross the street. So I don't know what he's waiting for, build more streets Manu! And actually, at this very moment you have thousands of people walking in the streets of France, they haven't figured out the whole crossing thing but as soon as they do we can kiss unemployment goodbye.

You forgot the 'complete and utter failure' part.

Anyway, Macron's calculatedly off-the-cuff statements are often quite dumb and he definitely deserves to get flak for them.

He scolds like a French schoolteacher.

On a slightly different note, I do find it sad that Renaud Camus, an excellent prose stylist and disciple of Roland Barthes, now follows in Céline's footsteps.

Mélenchon does indeed seem to be losing support on the left, for reasons more to do with his personality and dictatorial style than policy afaict.

That being said, it is pretty galling to hear so much about how the international left doesn't understand French politics when international liberalism still views Macron as a saviour because, uh, he's not Le Pen and he zinged the orange guy once.

A lot of French politics is right in the currents of stuff happening in world politics.

And Melenchon's loss of support has been reported on in the English press:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2018/11/22/samuel-earle/melenchons-decline/

xp strong handshake too

This is a detailed account of the yellow vests: https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/12/11/from-sans-culottes-to-gilets-jaunes-macrons-marie-antoinette-moment/

Goes contrary to the excuses ppl on the thread have been making for Macron.

Yeah, the part about how there are almost no far-right elements among the gilets jaunes is simply not true. Read up on their spokespeople and their obsession with the aforementioned migration compact. Check their Facebook accounts, which is where it all started.

Yes I did find it funny how on the one hand there was little non-white make-up and yet there was also no far-right elements/racist messaging - but it doesn't look like anyone has truly co-opted the movement.

For sure, it's still fairly heterogenous at this point. I do wonder whether backpedaling on wealth tax reform would get them to stop protesting completely (it's the Macron policy I disagree with the most).

The piece has an arc to it - sounds like when he was first deregulating/fighting unions people were giving him some leeway to see where it was all going, hence Macron's success in pushing that through.

With tax reforms, coupled with the abuses of power and the rhetoric since it looks likes its going in a direction that people are very angry with. And, as has been discussed, he won but he doesn't have a very strong mandate.

This may not be the ideal thread for it, but what the hell.

How to draw attention to yourself (as if it were still necessary) prior to the release of your latest novel:

https://harpers.org/archive/2019/01/donald-trump-is-a-good-president/

Isn't that exactly what you'd expect him to say though?

Indeed it is. His trolling used to be more subtle, however. It suited him and his writing better.

lol, he really puts the terrible into being an ageing enfant these days. He ought to be a bit disturbed that his Trump/Brexit controps just pretty much sound like what you'd currently read in the dying UK tabloid press, but not in a making u think way or the oh so hilarious provocateurish "own the libs" thing I think he might be trying to aim for.

The first American military interventions I can really remember are those of the two Bushes, especially the son’s. France refused to join him in his war against Iraq—a war that was in equal parts immoral and stupid;

I'm thirty years younger than him, and I can clearly remember that there was another guy in between the two Bushes who intervened a couple of times. Or is he saying that his memory is not what it used to be?

how is his position any different from yr standard counterpunch / greenwaldian pov?

He's a couple of years older and has an accent

ah yes the totally leftist and not at all reactionary movement that the cops are somehow drawn to. https://t.co/GkhUHQf16B

— Michael T Sweeney (@mtsw) December 19, 2018

Good piece by Mark Lilla on intellectual currents of the new French right:

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/12/20/two-roads-for-the-new-french-right/

That is a pretty good article, despite my usual skepticism of Lilla's understanding of Europe.

Once I naturalize here (hopefully this next calendar year) I may well vote right, whereas I would never do so in the usa. I wouldn't have voted for Fillon because he's just another corrupt rich scumbag, but an anti-global-capital right (albeit one who supports gay rights) could attract my vote.

Are you ok with it being rabidly anti-immigration? Because that and opposition to gay rights are pretty much the only things this right offers that the left doesn't.

Portrait of Marion in that piece uncomfortably fawning imo.

I favor quite limited immigration, yes. I am not anti-EU though.

A useful reminder:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/a-russian-bank-gave-marine-le-pens-party-a-loan-then-weird-things-began-happening/2018/12/27/960c7906-d320-11e8-a275-81c671a50422_story.html

And I hope you're not seriously thinking of voting for the RN or Philippot, Euler.

No, I wouldn't vote that far right, and probably wouldn't vote right in a national election, but the mess that the PS is making of my quartier gives me considerable doubt about immigration and thus about how "the left" can be trusted to manage integration.

Are you referring to the Goutte d’or?

basically, L@ Ch@pe11e more particularly, but the Goutte d'Or is a five minute at most walk. we've been sacrificed by the city and by the state to have minimal police presence / disruption so that the migrants come here and not to the fancier parts of the city. meanwhile, the resulting lawlessness leads to more and more stabbings, drugs, street harassment of women (of my twelve year old daughter every day, for instance), not to mention filthy sidewalks and streets.

all these things lead me toward the right (plus I'm a practicing Catholic, one who favors gay rights (since the Church is obviously gay) but who is otherwise "pro-family". fuck the rich now and forever though.

What’s Wauquiez stance on gay rights? Can’t remember now how vocal he was during the marche pour tous saga (although I can pretty much imagine). Not that Wauquiez has any real conviction of his own.

I don't want to minimize your concerns, Euler, because I've witnessed them myself and, having grown up in Canada, I am consistently shocked by the street harassment my wife has had to endure over the years in France – it's frankly less of a safe country for women (and especially teenage girls) than Romania – but let's not forget that ex-ministre de l'Intérieur Nicolas Sarkozy aka Mr Kärcher abolished the police de proximité, among other things, which has only served to aggravate matters. The right has fuelled its (dog-whistling) obsession with security without ever doing anything about it. I daresay letting violence fester benefits them because they're perceived as the sole rational solution by default, just by virtue of their rhetoric.

That said, the PS and LRM haven't done shit about it either and I do agree with some on the right when they express disgust with the series of light sentences the perpetrator of the Strasbourg attacks received prior to his supposed 'pétage de plombs', for example – 'multirécidiviste' doesn't even begin to describe such a man. But what is to be done then? Increase the prison population, which is already bursting at the seams? Further empower the police, which is shameless in its racial profiling and a recruiting ground for the RN? Nobody has the balls to tackle the banlieues directly by openly discussing France's institutional racism – because the modèle républicain d'intégration is a fundamentally flawed system, to put it mildly – and so nothing changes. Despite the 'communautariste' boogeyman, there's no dialogue between communities, no willingness to improve anything, just the same finger-pointing over and over again. 'You need to allow yourself to be assimilated' is a mantra that can only end in violence, especially when it's aimed at the heirs of a colonized people, and doubly so when they're not even really allowed to assimilate in the first place. There are countless stories of 'good Arabs' and/or 'good Africans' who are still viewed as exogenous even though they're third generation French citizens and don't know the first thing about the so-called 'bled'. Ironically, that's the ideal, right? Saying farewell to your history forever and embracing the totally-neutral-and-totally-universal-French-family.

One last thing: I have been insulted by French people of Arab descent while in France simply because I'm white. 'Sale Français', they called me, which I found quite rich. My wife has been repeatedly called a 'sale pute française' by street harassers, so I'm very much aware that it goes both ways. But one way is considerably more violent than the other, because it has the option of opening up public discourse to a genuine confrontation with the nation's assimilationist model, and chooses not to for almost religious reasons, kind of like how so many Americans worship the US constitution. So as things currently stand, I'm going to continue pinning the blame on France's political caste: left, centre and right (and in that order). Sorry for the free-form rant, but it's something that drives me up the wall.

As for Wauquiez, I'm pretty sure he's a low-key homophobe. Like, he doesn't agree with the 'gay agenda', 'totally understands' where the Manif pour tous is coming from, and 'draws the line' at surrogacy or some such.

Hmm that’s another debate but does opposing surrogacy equal latent homophobia ?
Anyway, that’s a great take on the situation. I haven’t lived in France for the last 20 years (but I am French) but I never really hear local commentators try to untangle the clusterfuck of racial/community relations un France.
Re. Wauquiez - this guy will turn whichever way the wind blows. Because of Macron’s ascent, he’s now decided to go for the far-right demographic for whom RN is still too vulgar. A truly despicable scumbag

yeah I don’t know how to address race here. we’re immigrants who get assailed sometimes by français de souche for having American-accented French, and by arabes for being...non arabe. Here in my quartier one passes the buck : the mairies of the 18th and the 10th blame Hidalgo, who blames Macron, who says nothing. locals blame cops for being unwilling to bust heads, who blame judges for letting people off with light sentences. the prisons breed daech. Meanwhile it’s Obonoland and her left says we should welcome all the migrants here, who hustle contraband and fight in the streets. Meanwhile I work in the 5th and 6th and it’s gorgeous. And we live in the city, not the 93! rents are sky high here. I really don’t understand.

I'm a bit out of touch as I don't live in France anymore, but I did for many years and while I was there I was always struck by how incredibly corrosive the structurally high unemployment was and what a range of knock-on effects it has. Obviously it's toughest when you're trying to find work but also I knew so many people who were miserable in their public service jobs but who were too scared to try something different for fear of losing their job security. Apart from making everyone miserable that obviously also has the effect of making the whole system less flexible.

And of course there's the lethal combination of racism and unemployment which ironically makes integration even harder than it is in comparable countries despite France's ideological preference for integration over multiculturalism.

I have no idea what the solution is - the centre-right says there are too many financial and other burdens placed on employers wanting to employ people which may be right, but which doesn't necessarily mean you have to introduce more precarity into the system as in the US etc. - maybe there's something to be said for the Danish flexicurity model...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2021/06/08/ss-2021-6-8-14-5_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq0RglTN43wyGR-NQABDM7ErkcnEMN6jgniYeqwz6a86k.png?imwidth=480

u loves to see it!

Does anyone know how the 49.3 motion came to exist?

Awful stuff today. Sending my solidarity to french ilxors protesting.

The 18th Brumaire of Emmanuel Macron.