European Parliament Election: May 23-26, 2019

[parochial boy]

I would really appreciate some comments from Polish and French posters on the state of the race in their countries.

In France, the media has framed it as a battle between the "Progressives" (Macron) and the "Sovereigntists" (Le Pen), which is really a case of bad media reporting because they'll get less than half the vote combined, but whatever.

Overall, virtually evreyone is losing of stagnant compared to the 2017 presidentials - which doesn't seem to make sense mathematically, but there you go.

RN seem to be on the way to being largest party, which will mean inevitable narratives about a "populist surge" even though they might actually drop a bit on 2014.

LREM, sorry "Renaissance" are led by Nathalie Loiseau, a former director of ENA - which basically says all you need to know. They were polling roughly equal with RN, but seem to have dropped behind in the last few days.

LR are polling in the low teens, basically because they haven't got anything relevant to say to anyone. Last I heard, they were having an internal bicker about the "Vincent Lambert" case - the story of whether or not to end life support for a guy who has been in a non-vegetative state for the last 10 years.

The left are split all over the place - Méluche has ruined a lot of his popularity with missing the boat on the gilets jaunes, various scandals, aggresive behaviour and, well being Jean-Luc Mélenchon. LFI seem to be on track for about 8%.

The Socialists list is being led by Raphael Glucksmann a public "intellectual" who isn't even actually a member of the party. This was basically a desperate dice roll by the PS to get a bit of attention/energy, that hasn't really worked as they're polling ~5% and around 50:50 to actually make the threshold. The logic was that their current president, Olivier Faure is basically an unknown, and very few PS bigwigs were willing to put themselves forward or lack public goodwill, so they went with Glucksmann (although they should have tried harder to convince Taubira to stand, she at least energises left wing voters).

Greens polling around 7-8%, which looks good; but less good when you compare it to 2009 or even 2014. Story of a missed opportunity given the existing debate around the climate and shambolic state of the rest of the left. But, well, Jadot is no Cohn-Bendit or Hulot so they don't have the big hitters they might once have had.

Among those who will almost certainly miss the threshold - Hamon has dissapeared without a trace; as have the Gilets Jaunes lists. Debout La France had a brief surge earlier in the year off the back of being one of the earliest figures to support the gilets jaunes, but has since dissapeared. Finally the PCF, led by Ian Brossat (a deputy mayor of Paris), have made their first actual attempt at a (non-Méluche based) national campaign in what feels like forever. They're currently around 3%, which gives you the feeling that this might be their last ever campaign too.

Overall conclusion - evreyone is unpopular, no-one is even taking advantage of that because well, all the people who might be able to are just as unpopular themselves

[parochial boy]

Just need to replicate that in another 27 countries then, hey?

[parochial boy]

I didn't realise this was a thread about the 2016 US presidential election?

[parochial boy]

I'm actually a little curious with Luxembourg as it's huge EU migrant population should have theoretically the right to vote. As they make up half the population they could really swing things around in theory. In practice I suspect most don't bother or vote at home. But still...

(On a side note, apparently over a quarter of the Swiss population had the right to vote, meaning more people can vote here than in several EU member states. I even got a leaflet through the door from the Socialists encouraging me to vote for fellow PES parties).

[parochial boy]

Dumb question: Did PILZ run with Greens ?

Mushrooms aren't green, no.

Thank you ladies and gentlemen I'm here all week

[parochial boy]

So are we talking about how awful this is for Les Républicains?

[parochial boy]

Is there anywhere you can see UK results by counting area?

[parochial boy]

My vague take so far is that the Labour vote is holding up best in areas with high ethnic minority populations

[parochial boy]

Also, hillariously there are still communes in the Landes, Ariège and Aude where the PS are winning

[parochial boy]

When are we going to get Scotland results?

Tomorrow, Catholics in the Hebrides refuse to count on Sundays...

[parochial boy]

In Malta, the Nationalist Party receives its worst result since 1951, after a failed attempt to spin the rumour that Labour were planning on legalising abortion (even as Malta has rapidly got more socially liberal in recent years, they have not touched that taboo) and pledging to constitutionally ban it. This probably means Labour scores the highest percentage in the EU? (have't checked yet) Another fresh mandate for Joseph Muscat and his insanely corrupt government.

In the third party stakes (not that anyone cares about third parties in Malta, given how rigidly partisan the electorate are) the far right got 3% and "third prize". These far rightists are called Imperium Europa, and want to create a united Europe or as they describe it in their platform: "a Europid bond forged through Spirituality closely followed by Race, nurtured through High culture, protected by High Politics, enforced by The Elite."  The Democratic Party, a split from Labour who ran with the Nats last time round, got 2%, although intriguingly their socon leader got less first preferences than his running mate, a Swedish social liberal and environmental activist who publicly criticized the party's support for a constitutional abortion ban (which is something for Malta, where the electorate don't tend to break the party's list orders). The traditional third party, the Greens, are nowhere: they had quite a tiff and split during the campaign because their candidate, a non-binary transgender person, broke the ultimate taboo and said they supported the right to an abortion.

Lol, so apparently Malta has far right borderline neonazi EU federalists

in all fairness, the plural "federalists" is stretching it. It's basically just one dude who has spent years developing his bizarre theories, which includes the importance of martial arts and the formation of his own artistic style "Dionysian Action Painting". He does have at least one famous fans though (Tender might be interested in this page):

http://imperium-europa.org/express/home.asp

Here's their manifesto:

http://imperium-europa.org/the_idea/home.asp

There has basically always been a vaguely European nationalist current of white-supremicism since the end of World War 2. IIRC guys like Jean Thiriart and Jeune Europe had this whole European as a nation meaning "White Europe" ideology that was quite widespread among outright neo-nazis.

[parochial boy]

The list I voted for (Hamon's Génération.s) won 3.3%. That's better than I expected honestly.

Tbh, the left as a whole did better than expected in France - obvious "Green Surge" and the PS list clung of for life slightly better than expected. If I've got my numbers right, the various left wing lists got about 36% of the vote in all - when the polls had them below 30%.

Also Renaud Camus' list got 0,01%. Hahahahaha!

[parochial boy]

Age breakdowns from France are kind of interesting, this is just one example but it does point to a certain... generational malaise for Les Républicains in particular



The polls were not great this time round in France. I mean, FN slightly underperformed polling, but within the margin of error so that's no great shock - but they got EELV and LR pretty badly off; which I guess is a factor of it being hard-ish to predict who was actually going to turnout in the end.

[parochial boy]

Age breakdowns from France are kind of interesting, this is just one example but it does point to a certain... generational malaise for Les Républicains in particular



The polls were not great this time round in France. I mean, FN slightly underperformed polling, but within the margin of error so that's no great shock - but they got EELV and LR pretty badly off; which I guess is a factor of it being hard-ish to predict who was actually going to turnout in the end.

Also very striking that MUH NEW WORLD!!!!!1!11!! polls best with older voters (especially given how much FBM's policies had supposedly pissed off retirees).

« C'est un parti de la jeunesse » Nathalie Loiseau

[parochial boy]

Age breakdowns from France are kind of interesting, this is just one example but it does point to a certain... generational malaise for Les Républicains in particular



The polls were not great this time round in France. I mean, FN slightly underperformed polling, but within the margin of error so that's no great shock - but they got EELV and LR pretty badly off; which I guess is a factor of it being hard-ish to predict who was actually going to turnout in the end.

Also very striking that MUH NEW WORLD!!!!!1!11!! polls best with older voters (especially given how much FBM's policies had supposedly pissed off retirees).

« C'est un parti de la jeunesse » Nathalie Loiseau

Part of this is surely because young Macron voters switched to EELV in a proportional vote but may switch back in France’s normal quasi-FPTP/runoff system.

I doubt it tbh. Macron was already mediocre with young people in 2017, it was Mélenchon and Hamon who overperformed most. Add in that ecology has become an almost era defining issue for young Europeans; and that Macron has actively alienated a lot of people that age with his reforms to, among other things, education (trying to introduce selection, the controversies around the launch of Parcoursup, even little things like making them pay more to get the Paris metro).

Don't forget that around this time last year we were seeing the huge protests of both cheminots and students.

[parochial boy]

Paris by polling station

Posting this here principally so I can go back and have a look when I'm not at work

[parochial boy]

Going back to the results, I was looking at some of the French departments where either RN or LREM were pushed out of the top two.

Just in  metropolitan France, RN were pushed into third by EELV in:

Paris
Hauts-de-Seine
Val-de-Marne
Yvelines
Ille-et-Vilaine
Rhône
Haute-Savoie

Which conforms to clichés a bit, but notable that the list excludes Seine-Saint-Denis; and includes Rhône and, especially, Haute-Savoie - which were among the FN's best back in the 80s/90s

LREM were beaten by LR in
Haute-Loire

And by EELV in
Haute-Corse
Corse-du-Sud

So basically a rural, catholic LR stronghold and... a somewhat unique island

[parochial boy]

This kind of sh!t almost makes me eurosceptic.

And it's not even about the spitzenkandidat thing. It's about the EPP and Germany and cloth eared out of touch elitists who lack even the slightest ability or willingness for critical reflection about what it is about the EU that people don't like