French presidential election, 2022

[Biden 2024]

It's... extremely premature, to say the least, but are there any super-early legislative polls? Really curious to see how LFI fares this time.

[Velasco]

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.

Is he antisemitist?

As stated above he got a lot of support in israel so I'd *assume* not.

Yes he is a self hating antisémite. Holocaust Denier and uncle Tom (or I think the correct term is a Kapo). But obviously for strategic reasons public enemy number 1 must remain Muslims and Arabs.

Are you implying Zemmour's islamophobia is not genuine? Lol

Describing Zemmour as a "self hating Jew" is a bit dumb and simplistic, imo. As far as I know Eric Zemmour does not deny his Jewish identity. The point is that Zemmour is a (far-right,  racist, extreme) French nationalist who believes France is the supteme value. In other words, Zemmour puts his Frenchiness ahead of his Jewishness. The former belongs to the public sphere andcthe latter belongs to the private sphere. In Zemmour's mind, any kind of particularism (ethnic or regional identity) is enemy of the Nation, which is One and Indivisible. Regional separatism and interests separated from those of the French Nation are unacceptable in Zemmour's view. In that regard, I see him as a far-right Jacobin

It's not surprising at all the success of a far-right islamophobic nationalist of Jewish heritage in Israel

No, you are right, Zemmour's character was formed by his family's background and so his Islamophobia is genuine. He believes that because Algeria under the FLN expelled pieds noirs and Jews that all Arabs are like that. But what I meant was his ascendancy is convenient given French political discourse is veering towards that rhetoric. They mention how halal butchers are taking over but nothing against ultra-Orthodx Haredi who self-segregate.

But I do think there is a lot of inner self hatred there. Not only of himself, just look at what an absolute pipsqueak the guy was in certain debates stuttering and chundering like a total beta. But also of his community ; Zemmour would be the kind of Israeli "nationalist" that despises 60-70% of Israel's population. In the end he thought that Petain was justified in giving foreign Jews, and saving French ones. So he would have been a Kapo, 100% he would have betrayed fellow Jews to save his own personalist political ambitions in such a scenario. So this man is an anti-Semite.

I think a promient example of this was his attempt to both-sides the Dreyus Affair and claim there is serious doubt about his innocence.

Rather than 'self-hatred', I think the Dreyfuss affair creates a 'conflict of interest ' in Zemmour and his French reactionary nationalist self prevails

On the other hand, Zemmour got more than 40% of the vote in the most 'liberal' place of Israel. It's not surprising at all, given the prevalence of ethnic nationalism and islamophobia in that constituency. Either 'jacobin' or ethnically based, exclusive forms of nationalism are reactionary by definition.  

[President Johnson]

As an Muslim- American, I hope Macron wins.

As German and passionate supporter of the European Union, I certainly do as well. Le Pen would be catastrophe for the entire Western world.

I think he'll pull it off, but can't take it for granted. He has to adjust his strategy and crisscross France to campaign. I guess he thought just appearing statesman-like in Ukraine crisis and rely on incumbency is enough.

[Antonio the Sixth]

These "secret exit polls" are usually worthless and might actually be people just pulling numbers out of their ass. It's possible they get it right, of course, but if so it's probably just because they read the trend right.

Instead of speculating about fantasy numbers, here's a simple arithmetic mean of the final polls of all polling firms since Monday (counted Ipsos and Ipsos-Sopra-Steria separately, no idea if that makes sense but I guess it increases the sample size):

Macron 26.4%
Le Pen 23%
Mélenchon 17.1%
Zemmour 9.7%
Pécresse 7.9%
Jadot 4.8%
Roussel 2.6%
Lassalle 2.5%
Dupont-Aignan 2.2%
Hidalgo 2.1%
Poutou 1%
Arthaud 0.6%

These are the benchmarks I'll be having in mind when I look at the 20:00 results, although trends are also worth considering (+ for Le Pen and Mélenchon, - for Macron, Zemmour and Pécresse).

So, now that we have the final results (and muh Belgian "exit polls" got an egg on their face), we can finally compare these averages to the results.

Macron +1.4
Le Pen +0.2
Mélenchon +4.8
Zemmour -2.6
Pécresse -3.1
Jadot -0.1
Lassalle +0.6
Roussel  -0.4
Dupont-Aignan -0.2
Hidalgo -0.3
Poutou -0.2
Arthaud -0.1

Nothing we didn't already know, of course. Macron and Mélenchon overperformed, Pécresse and Zemmour underperformed, everyone else was basically where the polls expected. Another great night for French polling overall, even though no one will acknowledge it.

It is fascinating that most of Mélenchon's overperformance didn't actually come from other left-wing candidates (they collectively underperformed by just one point). Especially weird since the two candidates who underperformed most are the least likely to share any swing voters with Mélenchon, lol. So this does point to a slight sampling bias in the polling - probably underestimating turnout in the Paris region. Still, again, nothing worth fretting about.

And now, here are the 3 best pollsters of the 12 that released a poll in the final week, with their total deviation scores:
- Odoxa (5–6 Apr): 12.3
- Harris-Interactive (7–8 Apr): 12.4
(those are the only two that beat the polling average, which had a total deviation of 14 points)
- BVA (6–7 Apr): 14.7

And the worst 3:
- Kantar (4–5 Apr): 18.4
- YouGov (4–7 Apr): 17.4
- Cluster17 (6–8 Apr): 17.1

Unsurprisingly, two or those are among the "newcomers" with relatively less experience polling France. On the other hand, AtlasIntel actually did okay and was the 4th best pollster with a deviation of 14.8 points.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Zemmour is absolutely an antisemite, and clearly some people should revise their assumptions about many Israelis (or at least French Israelis, in this case) as well.

There are approximately 200,000 French Israelis and of these close to 100,000 (it may actually be over that now, given everything) were born in France. We don't seem to have full figures for this year yet, but five years ago the total number of votes cast in Israel in the first round was 8,280. If we include the votes cast in the occupied territories to this (presumably they are largely cast by people in the settlements) then we reach a figure of 11,398. The figure might well be higher this time, but it's still going to be comparatively low. The point being that while ex-pat electoral statistics can be interesting they tell us rather more about the minority of ex-pats motivated enough to go through the messy process of casting a vote in an election back 'home' than about the entire ex-pat community.

Which isn't to say that this isn't an instructive example of the things people can overlook when there are other motivating factors, although, on that front, it isn't even the only example from this election.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Anyway, on those demographic estimates, it is amusing to note a higher than average percentage amongst young voters for Roussel, which really does prove that he was a meme candidate. More seriously, Le Pen polling about the same with both of the firmly 'working class' occupational categories rather merely overperforming massively with the largely male one is the culmination of something that has been building for a while and is pretty gloomily significant.

[Antonio the Sixth]

It's... extremely premature, to say the least, but are there any super-early legislative polls? Really curious to see how LFI fares this time.

Probably not until after the runoff (and tbh even if there were, I wouldn't give them much credence).

[Хahar 🤔]

I don't know if this is actually relevant at all, but if we're going to bring up the politics of French Israelis then I have to mention the only French Israeli political party I know of, the pro-embezzlement Flatto-Sharon list.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

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.

You could see a lot of those machines become purely localist/parochialist, or throw their lot in with whatever Philippe will presumably turn LREM into on a transactional basis.

[Intell]

Can Someone explain to me, Zemmmour doing very strongly in Paris XVI, Nevily Sur Seine etc (upwards of 16%!!!!)? The closest resemblance to these electorates seems like Wentworth or North Sydney. These electorates, no matter how anti-labor they are, would never vote for a far-right candidate. Similarly Kensington and Chelsea had very low UKIP vote shares.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Can Someone explain to me, Zemmmour doing very strongly in Paris XVI, Nevily Sur Seine etc (upwards of 16%!!!!)? The closest resemblance to these electorates seems like Wentworth or North Sydney. These electorates, no matter how anti-labor they are, would never vote for a far-right candidate. Similarly Kensington and Chelsea had very low UKIP vote shares.

Many wealthy French people strongly agree with what he has to say.

[Pres Mike]

As an Muslim- American, I hope Macron wins.

As German and passionate supporter of the European Union, I certainly do as well. Le Pen would be catastrophe for the entire Western world.

I think he'll pull it off, but can't take it for granted. He has to adjust his strategy and crisscross France to campaign. I guess he thought just appearing statesman-like in Ukraine crisis and rely on incumbency is enough.

Macron needs to avoid the mistakes Hillary made in 2016. Macron needs to address table top issues and not just run on the danger of Le Pen

[Oryxslayer]

Can Someone explain to me, Zemmmour doing very strongly in Paris XVI, Nevily Sur Seine etc (upwards of 16%!!!!)? The closest resemblance to these electorates seems like Wentworth or North Sydney. These electorates, no matter how anti-labor they are, would never vote for a far-right candidate. Similarly Kensington and Chelsea had very low UKIP vote shares.

Zemmour's support can probably be broken down into three groups: the "Le Pen isn't Fascist and racist enough" group, the "Le Pen is speaking the right stuff, but she is a candidate of the icky periphery" group, and the "This guy is rich and Conservative and speaking his mind, I'm rich and conservative" group. The later two are most important when it comes to Paris, especially when understanding Le Pen's lack of metropolitan appeal.  

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Can Someone explain to me, Zemmmour doing very strongly in Paris XVI, Nevily Sur Seine etc (upwards of 16%!!!!)? The closest resemblance to these electorates seems like Wentworth or North Sydney. These electorates, no matter how anti-labor they are, would never vote for a far-right candidate. Similarly Kensington and Chelsea had very low UKIP vote shares.

Well, you saw Brexit do a bit better in Knightsbridge and South Ken than...like...Highgate. Trump did mildly better in Midtown than the Upper West Side. Etc. It's definitely not uncommon for the far right to do mildly less poorly with the obscenely rich when contrasted with the bobo set. Age can also come into play here.

[rc18]

Can Someone explain to me, Zemmmour doing very strongly in Paris XVI, Nevily Sur Seine etc (upwards of 16%!!!!)? The closest resemblance to these electorates seems like Wentworth or North Sydney. These electorates, no matter how anti-labor they are, would never vote for a far-right candidate. Similarly Kensington and Chelsea had very low UKIP vote shares.

Demographically UKIP was closer to Le Pen's base than Zemmour's, being stronger in working class suburbs and rural areas, so no surprise they didn't get traction in somewhere like K&C.

The closest UK equivalent of Zemmour would be someone on the more socially conservative wing of the Tories. I.e. Zemmour seems to have largely pulled off voters from the right of the corpse of LR.

[Hash]

On the topic of the first arrondissement and prisoners' votes, BFM TV calculated them:

Mélenchon 45.78%
Le Pen 20.28%
Macron 18.63%
Zemmour 3.82%
Pécresse 2.61%
Lassalle 2.03%
Poutou 1.69%
Jadot 1.62%
Roussel 1.06%
Hidalgo 1.06%
Arthaud 0.87%
NDA 0.56%

Unsure about turnout or how many votes were cast, the article cites 13,672 detainees who chose to vote by mail before the election. You could calculate them by adding up the actual 1st arrdt. precincts and figuring the difference with the official results for the arrdt. reported by the Ministry.

https://www.bfmtv.com/politique/elections/presidentielle/resultats-presidentielle-pour-leur-1er-vote-par-correspondance-les-detenus-plebiscitent-melenchon_AN-202204110613.html

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

On the topic of the first arrondissement and prisoners' votes, BFM TV calculated them:

Mélenchon 45.78%
Le Pen 20.28%
Macron 18.63%
Zemmour 3.82%
Pécresse 2.61%
Lassalle 2.03%
Poutou 1.69%
Jadot 1.62%
Roussel 1.06%
Hidalgo 1.06%
Arthaud 0.87%
NDA 0.56%

Unsure about turnout or how many votes were cast, the article cites 13,672 detainees who chose to vote by mail before the election. You could calculate them by adding up the actual 1st arrdt. precincts and figuring the difference with the official results for the arrdt. reported by the Ministry.

https://www.bfmtv.com/politique/elections/presidentielle/resultats-presidentielle-pour-leur-1er-vote-par-correspondance-les-detenus-plebiscitent-melenchon_AN-202204110613.html

Nice of the Ministry to make it easy to work out the exact number of people currently in jail for tax evasion.

[MaxQue]

Can Someone explain to me, Zemmmour doing very strongly in Paris XVI, Nevily Sur Seine etc (upwards of 16%!!!!)? The closest resemblance to these electorates seems like Wentworth or North Sydney. These electorates, no matter how anti-labor they are, would never vote for a far-right candidate. Similarly Kensington and Chelsea had very low UKIP vote shares.

Kensington and Chelsea had among the 'best' results for Reclaim in the London mayoral election. The kind of far-right person who refused to vote for UKIP because it was full of icky poor people.

[buritobr]

Is it correct to say that Mélenchon 2017 was like Bernie Sanders 2016 and that Mélenchon 2022 was like Bernie Sanders 2020?

I proposed this parellel because Mélenchon 2017 and Sanders 2016 had an unusual base: non immigrant workers outside the big urban centers.
Sanders 2020 and Mélenchon 2022 had typical 21st century left base: immigrants, minorities, big cities, young people, educated people

[adma]

Data on the election broken down to lower level communes, arrondissements, and constituencies (someone wanted this) is now accessible on the govt data portal.

Is there something that involves links, rather than downloadable files?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

An interesting observation someone made elsewhere yesterday was that there's something of Mitterrand to Melenchon and it works very well, doesn't it? A charismatic figure thriving as the old parties of the Left flail about and collapse; an ego the size of Saturn and a cultish fanbase to match; a clear ability to know which buttons work to consolidate Left voters who don't even like them much... and a definite sense that amidst all that red there's a whiff, a distinct whiff, of something brown as well. It is particularly apt because, as a young man, Melenchon was quite the Mitterrand fanboy.

[All Along The Watchtower]

The only good thing about this election is Jadot & Pecresse failing to get 5%. Now they have to ask people to donate to finance their campaigns. Unfortunately, lots of people will be stupid enough to actually do that.

Pretty impressive hate for a candidate you probably agree with on 90% of the issues. Infighting on the French left has truly reached a level I thought only the Dutch right wing was capable of (sorry for Tenderposting).

Never underestimate the level of infighting the Left - anywhere - is capable of.

[Mr. Smith]

Is it correct to say that Mélenchon 2017 was like Bernie Sanders 2016 and that Mélenchon 2022 was like Bernie Sanders 2020?

I proposed this parellel because Mélenchon 2017 and Sanders 2016 had an unusual base: non immigrant workers outside the big urban centers.
Sanders 2020 and Mélenchon 2022 had typical 21st century left base: immigrants, minorities, big cities, young people, educated people

No.

Melenchon increased his share of the vote and almost hit the run-off, Sanders got punted badly the second time.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

An interesting observation someone made elsewhere yesterday was that there's something of Mitterrand to Melenchon and it works very well, doesn't it? A charismatic figure thriving as the old parties of the Left flail about and collapse; an ego the size of Saturn and a cultish fanbase to match; a clear ability to know which buttons work to consolidate Left voters who don't even like them much... and a definite sense that amidst all that red there's a whiff, a distinct whiff, of something brown as well. It is particularly apt because, as a young man, Melenchon was quite the Mitterrand fanboy.

A likely fraudulent manifesto...

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

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.

Is he antisemitist?

As stated above he got a lot of support in israel so I'd *assume* not.

Yes he is a self hating antisémite. Holocaust Denier and uncle Tom (or I think the correct term is a Kapo). But obviously for strategic reasons public enemy number 1 must remain Muslims and Arabs.

Are you implying Zemmour's islamophobia is not genuine? Lol

Describing Zemmour as a "self hating Jew" is a bit dumb and simplistic, imo. As far as I know Eric Zemmour does not deny his Jewish identity. The point is that Zemmour is a (far-right,  racist, extreme) French nationalist who believes France is the supteme value. In other words, Zemmour puts his Frenchiness ahead of his Jewishness. The former belongs to the public sphere andcthe latter belongs to the private sphere. In Zemmour's mind, any kind of particularism (ethnic or regional identity) is enemy of the Nation, which is One and Indivisible. Regional separatism and interests separated from those of the French Nation are unacceptable in Zemmour's view. In that regard, I see him as a far-right Jacobin

It's not surprising at all the success of a far-right islamophobic nationalist of Jewish heritage in Israel

No, you are right, Zemmour's character was formed by his family's background and so his Islamophobia is genuine. He believes that because Algeria under the FLN expelled pieds noirs and Jews that all Arabs are like that. But what I meant was his ascendancy is convenient given French political discourse is veering towards that rhetoric. They mention how halal butchers are taking over but nothing against ultra-Orthodx Haredi who self-segregate.

But I do think there is a lot of inner self hatred there. Not only of himself, just look at what an absolute pipsqueak the guy was in certain debates stuttering and chundering like a total beta. But also of his community ; Zemmour would be the kind of Israeli "nationalist" that despises 60-70% of Israel's population. In the end he thought that Petain was justified in giving foreign Jews, and saving French ones. So he would have been a Kapo, 100% he would have betrayed fellow Jews to save his own personalist political ambitions in such a scenario. So this man is an anti-Semite.

I think a promient example of this was his attempt to both-sides the Dreyus Affair and claim there is serious doubt about his innocence.

Rather than 'self-hatred', I think the Dreyfuss affair creates a 'conflict of interest ' in Zemmour and his French reactionary nationalist self prevails

On the other hand, Zemmour got more than 40% of the vote in the most 'liberal' place of Israel. It's not surprising at all, given the prevalence of ethnic nationalism and islamophobia in that constituency. Either 'jacobin' or ethnically based, exclusive forms of nationalism are reactionary by definition.  

That's misleading all the vote is counted as if it's from Tel Avi but that's only because the French Embassy is located there. The actual voters are scattered around Israel.