French presidential election, 2022

[Sub Jero]

I wish France was a socialist nation
https://mobile.twitter.com/laurenboebert/status/1513230987173548040

[Sub Jero]

https://mobile.twitter.com/dupontaignan/status/1513234028870184966
Dupont endorses Le Pen

[brucejoel99]

Is there anything about Le Penn or the FN that's explicitly anti-Paris ?, why were her results so poor in the city proper ?

Her poor results there were expected: she does better in rural areas & with the working-class, while Zemmour appeals to a "bourgeois bigot," if you will, that's more common in urban areas.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

The polling missing Mélenchon is a good sign that a lot of his voters absolutely hated that they felt they had to do that and were looking for reasons not to until the last minute. Same with the extra last minute trickles from Pécresse to Macron and Zemmour to Le Pen

[SPQR]

Is there anway LR and the Socialists survive as is after getting 6% of the voteshare combined?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Expat results:

Macron 45,09%
Mélenchon 21,92%
Zemmour 8,67%
Jadot 8,17%
Le Pen 5,29%
Pécresse 4,20%
Hidalgo 2,50%
Dupont-Aignan 1,42%
Lassalle 1,20%
Roussel 0,65%
Poutou 0,63%
Arthaud 0,26%

Turnout 35,12% (valid 34,75%)

As expected, Macron dominated and Le Pen bombed. As I very much did NOT expect, but perhaps I should have, Mélenchon did very well (basically on par with his France-wide results), and Zemmour did in fact overperform (thank you very much, Israel!). But perhaps most shocking of all, Pécresse did even worse among expats than among French residents. That's a shocking result when you consider that the expat vote was traditionally a stronghold of the traditional right (in 2017, Fillon came second at 26.3% there). I was actually worried the expat vote would bring her up to 5%, but it actually just dragged her down further. Hilarious.

Shame Jadot didn't come up ahead of Pécresse. He came amazingly close to her in the end, just 0.15 points.

[rc18]

Is there anything about Le Penn or the FN that's explicitly anti-Paris ?, why were her results so poor in the city proper ?

I'm not sure if this is a serious question but central Paris is demographically not a great place for RN-style policies, just like the centres of most big cities. As above, those few on the right in such places are more likely to be of the Zemmour persuasion.

Saying that, her 5.54 there is slightly better than 2017, and would likely have been even higher without Zemmour being to her right.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Is there anway LR and the Socialists survive as is after getting 6% of the voteshare combined?

They still have support at the regional, departmental and municipal level: this could either be a delayed reaction and local machines will gradually be eroded away or a decoupling of the national and local scenes.

[Alcibiades]

I know Mélenchon came tantalisingly close to making the second round, but honestly I reckon he did about as well as he possibly could have done — he’s a candidate with a high floor but equally a hard ceiling, and so I don’t see anything but an extremely narrow path through which he could possibly have finished in the top two.

For that and the other reasons that Antonio and Zinneke have spelt out, anger at the small number of voters for the other left candidates for not consolidating behind Mélenchon is very misplaced to say the least. Hopefully Mélenchon finally goes away now (certainly any serious party would not allow a candidate who has failed to advance beyond the first round three times to run again — but LFI is an entirely personalist outfit), and a left candidate combining some of his undoubted strengths without all the toxicity that goes with it can emerge next time. As long as he’s in the picture, I don’t think the left will be able to do any better than a strong third place finish as we saw this time, due to his divisiveness leading to the aforementioned ceiling and the fact that he really sucks all the oxygen out of the room.

[Oryxslayer]

Detailed support patterns for each candidate. Can someone explain Le Pen's strength in northern Gironde?
https://www.lefigaro.fr/elections/presidentielles/presidentielle-2022-decouvrez-la-physionomie-du-vote-par-commune-20220410

It doesn't look like anyone else has touched this yet, so I will. The Garonne river carves a diagonal through the hilly/mountainy southwest of France, creating a valley of agricultural settlements. There are some large river cities like Bordeaux and Toulouse that served as magnets for the rural population, both in the past and now. It is essentially a miniature version of the bigger 'empty diagonal' to it's east.

Unsurprisingly, the diagonal shows up on political maps.





But why is Le Pen strongest there and weaker, but still strong, further down the valley? I can't give you a clear answer on that, but I will note that the reason for it is the lack of Melenchon. Unlike much of the SW, including the rest of the valley, this part of Gironde lacks the socialist political traditions that gave Melenchon decent results across the south.

[Person Man]

So what are the takeaways, if any from this round of the election? It does look like Macron improved over his 2017 first round performance but that he could still lose because of how not only are people being "red pilled" into Nationalism, but also being "black pilled" into not voting.

 However, there is a chance that Macron isn't in any real danger and people will "come home" now that it is established that there isn't a more progressive alternative to him any more. You would also think the war/genocide in Ukraine would show voters that fascism doesn't work.

Then again, high inflation and high unemployment for inexperienced/less skilled people is showing that liberal capitalism doesn't work and Le Pen has come out as pro-choice and backpedaled on breaking up the EU. So maybe people who want to send SOME sort of message, even if it is not the message they want, will now be more comfortable with sending it now instead of trying again 5 years later.

Is this anywhere near what's going on right now? If not, I circle back to my original question- what does the 40000 feet view look like at this point?

[Oryxslayer]

In case your hard on from last night's video of Zemmour supporters has worn off, here is a video of Pécresse calling on the whole country for donations because she is personally indebted in up to 5 million euros and did not get the expected 7 million. Her party, the party of old French money, didn't even back her financially.

https://www.bfmtv.com/politique/valerie-pecresse-je-suis-endettee-personnellement-a-hauteur-de-5-millions-d-euros_VN-202204110240.html

Imagine spending 14 million to humiliate yourself publicly like this. Imagine putting 5 million of your own money into it. And then ask for donations. To run a campaign against the welfare state and putting 200,000 public servants on the bread line.

LMAO

Is there anway LR and the Socialists survive as is after getting 6% of the voteshare combined?

This hilarity only furthers my expectation that LR/UDI are going to feel what PS felt in the 2017 legislative elections.

Is there anway LR and the Socialists survive as is after getting 6% of the voteshare combined?

They still have support at the regional, departmental and municipal level: this could either be a delayed reaction and local machines will gradually be eroded away or a decoupling of the national and local scenes.

I don't want to say this development was inevitable in the internet age, but fragmentation and 'caudillo' candidacies are nowadays common features of other two-round-runoff systems across the world. Obviously Latin American systems are the main example, but Zelensky is a more European example of this trend. The national 'movements' care less about the local scene - and lack the organization to  seriously contest them - so I wouldn't be surprised if a decoupled system becomes more normalized.

[Sir John Johns]

Yeah it’s certainly frustrating about Melenchon but as others have said the fact that the numbers for the ‘alternative’ left were so low shows that many of those who didn’t vote for Melenchon very much did so for a reason.

Of course an alternative candidate of the left would have struggled because they would have had Melenchon eating into their vote!

Hopefully it helps to set minds ahead of 2027….

The point about Melenchon is that even if he had made the second round he’d have lost, not because of his economic policies but because of how awful everything else about him is. Personally I think Le Pen would have beaten him, but that’s debatable.

However the spread shows that there is potential for a broad-left candidate to get through in 2027 without the baggage of Melenchon or the PS.

I don't support center left candidates, since center left doesn't support left candidates no matter what.

Exit polls are showing that about one half of Mélenchon votes are ‘useful’ votes (the candidate who, by far, benefited the much from strategic vote) and there is strong indication an appreciable share of the urban center-left vote that went to Macron in the 2017 first round go to Mélenchon this year (interestingly, it seems that it has been in rural areas that support for Mélenchon declined, at the benefit of Roussel but also, marginally, of Lassalle) but, muh, ‘center-left doesn’t support left candidates’. On the other side, in the early 2010s, when not the main left-wing candidate, Mélenchon had never wasted an occasion to lambast the ‘useful vote’ (a ‘deadly trap’, a ‘straitjacket’).

For all the LFI hate for minor left-wing candidates who supposedly prevented Jonluk to go to the runoff, especially Roussel (ironically, I totally agree his candidacy was useless, can’t stop laughing at all these Macronist Twitter accounts that presented him few weeks ago as the rising candidate on the left), I don’t know, maybe if Mélenchon hadn’t REFUSED an electoral alliance with the PCF (the party the closest to his political views) for the 2017 legislative elections (in spite of the party giving him the signatures and campaigning in his favor), hence dividing the left-wing vote in many constituencies, leading to the elimination of both PCF and LFI candidates in the first round, the loss of parliamentary seats that could have been won and weakening the left as a whole in the National Assembly, then maybe the LFI could legitimately criticize the selfishness of the PCF, the PS and EELV. But better insulting supporters of other left-wing candidates that questionning the attitude of your own candidate I guess.



Also, I have been a bit surprised with people being surprised about French left-wing voters not particularly enamored with the candidacy of Anne Hidalgo. Ignoring her qualities, her record as mayor of Paris or her platform, she is paying the price of the disastrous policies conducted by Hollande (first and foremost on economic matters, of course, but even on most other areas the record of Flamby has been an utter disaster) and hasn’t showed, like her party, any willingness to learn the lessons nor even less to repudiate the record of the Hollande presidency. Case in point, Hollande was publicly invited in a Hidalgo meeting to endorse the candidacy of the mayor of Paris. He is now staging since several weeks a coup against the PS national secretary, Olivier Faure, apparently to install Carole Delga as the new party leader and take back control of the party ruins.

[wbrocks67]

Seems to be basically the final results:

Macron 27.8%
Le Pen 23.2%
Melenchon 21.9%
Zemmour 7.1%
Pecresse 4.8%
Jadot 4.6%

Do we have another breakdown of the early estimates of the 2nd vote? I feel like I saw a tweet about an early exit poll that had Macron 54/Le Pen 46 estimated for the second round based on exit polls.

[Sir John Johns]

So, this is maybe a too-specific question, but what the hell happened in Paris's 1st arrondissement? The raw number of votes cast surged (from 9,026 in 2017 to 18,866 this time around), even as on paper turnout declined rather more than in most places, and the character of the constituency changed totally (in 2017 Macron outpaced Fillon 39-31, with Melenchon back at 13% and no one else in double-digits; this time it swung enormously left even by the standards of urban France, with Melenchon outpacing Macron 35-30. Also, LePen surged from 5% in 2017 to 14% this time around, making it her best arrondissement in Paris and by kind of a lot).

I don't think it's an error -- it's not that one candidate has an anomalously high number of votes, they all do -- but it seems like votes from somewhere else were probably added to it somehow?

The 1st arrondissement of Paris is where is located the seat of the ministry of justice and where is centralized part of the results coming from prison inmates all over France (the ones who haven't been deprived of their civic rights). Since 2019, jailed persons can vote in the prison itself instead of requiring a proxy vote form.

Strange patterns for this very bourgeois arrondissement was already noticed for the 2019 European elections when prison inmates constituted then roughly a third of registered voters in the 1st arrondissement: it was the RN’s best arrondissement (with 13.6% against 7.2% in the whole city) as well as LFI’s best arrondissement (with 9.6% above the popular XIX and XX arrondissements).

According to Le Parisien, results for inmates voters were then: RN 23.6%, LFI 19.7%, LREM 9.0% and EELV 8.9% while results for actual residents of the 1st arrondissement were LREM 40.6%, EELV 17.6, LR 10.2%, RN 7.3%, LFI 3.1% (note that the article isn’t giving the complete results for all lists).

There’s a certain irony to the fact criminals & police are most likely to vote for the far right.

Relatedly, I have saw a joke on Twitter about how the UMP/LR got their worst ever result when they decided to NOT run for candidate a blatant crook à la Chirac/Sarko/Fillon.

[Intell]

Is there anything about Le Penn or the FN that's explicitly anti-Paris ?, why were her results so poor in the city proper ?

There are basically no white people of low socioeconomic and educational background in Paris would be my guess.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I'm not sure if this is a serious question but central Paris is demographically not a great place for RN-style policies, just like the centres of most big cities. As above, those few on the right in such places are more likely to be of the Zemmour persuasion.

Saying that, her 5.54 there is slightly better than 2017, and would likely have been even higher without Zemmour being to her right.

I just don't really understand the difference between Zemmour and Le Penn in terms of policies and voters they attract, What is the main difference between their voters ?

[warandwar]

So the PCF finally avenges getting f’d over by Mitterrand.

In 1981 and 2022, their actions result in a Vichy sympathizer going into the second round, plus ca change...

[Continential]

lol Zemmour is being investigated because his campaign made a list of all French jews and he bought a list of their phone numbers to target them for his campaign.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I'm not sure if this is a serious question but central Paris is demographically not a great place for RN-style policies, just like the centres of most big cities. As above, those few on the right in such places are more likely to be of the Zemmour persuasion.

Saying that, her 5.54 there is slightly better than 2017, and would likely have been even higher without Zemmour being to her right.

I just don't really understand the difference between Zemmour and Le Penn in terms of policies and voters they attract, What is the main difference between their voters ?

Zemmour fundamentally appeals to voters who formed the core of the FN back in the 80s (and you could even go back all the way to Poujadism if you're so inclined). Basically small-business owner who are doing a decent living but hate having to pay taxes and hate immigrants, along with Pieds-noirs and people culturally affiliated with them, and a certain kind of hyper-reactionary high bourgeoisie. It is, in short, a deeply ideological far-right vote.

Le Pen's current voter base, by contrast, is much more #populist and concentrated in the lower-middle class and France's Average Jacques in mid-sized and small cities and exurbia. It's the quintessential vote of "peripheral France" which feels it's on the losing side of globalization.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I'm not sure if this is a serious question but central Paris is demographically not a great place for RN-style policies, just like the centres of most big cities. As above, those few on the right in such places are more likely to be of the Zemmour persuasion.

Saying that, her 5.54 there is slightly better than 2017, and would likely have been even higher without Zemmour being to her right.

I just don't really understand the difference between Zemmour and Le Penn in terms of policies and voters they attract, What is the main difference between their voters ?

Zemmour fundamentally appeals to voters who formed the core of the FN back in the 80s (and you could even go back all the way to Poujadism if you're so inclined). Basically small-business owner who are doing a decent living but hate having to pay taxes and hate immigrants, along with Pieds-noirs and people culturally affiliated with them, and a certain kind of hyper-reactionary high bourgeoisie. It is, in short, a deeply ideological far-right vote.

Le Pen's current voter base, by contrast, is much more #populist and concentrated in the lower-middle class and France's Average Jacques in mid-sized and small cities and exurbia. It's the quintessential vote of "peripheral France" which feels it's on the losing side of globalization.

Ok, so Zemmour is the more upper-crust kind of far-right while Le Penn is more a lower-middle down-trodden kind of far-right. How does this translate into policy differences? Is Zemmour's economic policy more focused on cutting taxes on the wealthy than Le Penn, are there any policy differecnes in terms of immigration or intergration of minorites ?

[afleitch]

lol Zemmour is being investigated because his campaign made a list of all French jews and he bought a list of their phone numbers to target them for his campaign.

Been a while.

[Velasco]

In the end he's disqualified and therefore he loses, but anyway Melenchon scored a string of 'moral victories'

https://twitter.com/Brevesdepresse/status/1513413043744559106?t=59WOej5gmhlKbS_6...

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

In the end he's disqualified and therefore he loses, but anyway Melenchon scored a string of 'moral victories'

https://twitter.com/Brevesdepresse/status/1513413043744559106?t=59WOej5gmhlKbS_6...

Same energy as Corbyn's "We won the argument" guardian hot-take op-ed following the 2019 election.

[Sir Mohamed]

Will Melenchon make an endorsement?

What I'm really interested in are the parliamentary elections, since they will have a huge impact on what the eventual winner can accomplish. French prez has less executive powers than POTUS as far as I know, and a veto can be overridden with simple majority.