French presidential election, 2022

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Welp, considering my bf has a French citizenship I guess I should start following this. Could a Hidalgo-Jadot union take enough votes from Melenchon (if timed right) to get a respectable showing (which would be, I'd say, mid teens)?

[America Needs R'hllor]

As for the Mélenchon factor, I can't even begin to imagine - he's having a bit of a Corbyn moment wrt antisemitism accusations (a, being charitable, clumsy expression about "my enemy is the financier" complete with refusal to accept why that would be an issue, which has had his supporters digging down to support him. Familiar stuff).

Not surprising considering he said that Corbyn lost because of a Mossad campaign

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For some reason, European Reddit is much more conservative on social issues than not-explicitly-far-right Anglo Reddit. Of course, it's partly the fact that even Western Europe is more conservative than it seems (as in this case), but it seems to go further than that.

From my experience it is really more that Euro Reddit in general and /r/Europe in particular are actually quite progressive on most issues, but on the topic of immigration it is super conservative. I do not know exactly why but it is what it is. Kinda reminds me of the good old meme



Replace "Romani" with immigrants in general

I agree with this, but I do think it's worth remembering that the US is, percentage-wise, receiving immigrants mostly from countries in South America and Asia that aren't really culturally similar but are much more similar, and much less religious-conservative, than the Middle Eastern countries Europe gets a lot of refugees from. It's uncomfortable for liberals to think about, but when you have whole communities which are extremely religious and extremely conservative, you have entire areas that become unsafe for Jews with a kippa, for "unmodest" women, for gay couples etc. It's not an argument against immigration, but it's something we have to remember when we accuse Europe of being bad at assimilation (which I do agree it's pretty bad at).

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So the general sentiment in France right now is... for an entire political spectrum of different types of racists as candidates? A hard-Right racist of one sort, a hard-Right racist of another kind, a Conservative racist, a liberal racist, a left-wing racist...'

The candidates are simply reflecting the current general sentiment in France in order to be electorally viable. The traditional Gaullist right and also the socialists are completely dead and don’t appeal to the French population like they did in the past.

French elections will be a sh**tshow not because of lack of options, but because France is one of the countries with strongest anti-immigration fervor right now. Even Macron (shockingly the least right-wing option in the top 4 according to the polls) has to adopt some of the racist subtext in order to not be rejected by French society.

Last IPSOS poll was:

Macron (“center”) - 24%
Le Pen (right) - 16%
Zemmour (far-right) - 15%
Bertrand (center-right) - 14%
Mélenchon (left) - 9%
Jadot (greens) - 9%
Hidalgo (center-left) - 5,5%
Others: don’t reach more than 2% each

Just to give an idea of how much right-wing France is right now. And the sentiment only grows. I think it’s for the better that someone like Le Pen gets elected so that the trend can reverse sooner.

I think it's more along the lines of:
Macron (“center”) - 24%
Le Pen (far-right) - 16%
Zemmour (far-right) - 15%
Bertrand (right) - 14%
Mélenchon (far-left) - 9%
Jadot (greens) - 9%
Hidalgo (center-left) - 5,5%

Which paints an image that is even more hysteric

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Mélenchon had his latest antisemitic outburst (posting it before a certain other one does because its his favorite pinyata).

Un procès que le leader de la France Insoumise a récusé, avec un argumentaire qui l'a exposé à de très vives critiques. «Il reproduit beaucoup de scénarios culturels (du judaïsme) : “on ne change rien à la tradition, on ne bouge pas, oh mon dieu la créolisation quelle horreur...” Et tout ça, ce sont des traditions qui sont beaucoup liées au judaïsme. Ça a ses mérites, ça lui a permis de survivre dans l'histoire...», a cru bon de plaider le député LFI du Sud-Est.

Really sad that this clown gets the most exposure out of the Left candidates because of his role as useful idiot for the Establishment and the far right.

What'd he say?

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Seems like while he doesn't have a chance yet, Jadot is on his way to be the leading center-left candidate.

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A bit unrelated, but does anyone know what weapon Macron is holding here?

https://twitter.com/edwest/status/1497512730965721094

Not gonna lie, my first reaction to this was "why the hell is Spiderman talking about Macron"

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Zemmour doing well in Tel Aviv. Probably his best result anywhere in the world.
https://twitter.com/julienbahloul/status/1513246914912919556

Absolutely disheartening. Apparently antisemitism is a-okay now as long as you Own Teh Moslems

My boyfriend's family are French Jews, and I think from these results they represent the community surprisingly (depressingly) well. They think Le Pen is antisemitic because of her dad and won't vote for her (though we'll see what happens in the 2nd round). But Zemmour is a Jew that hates Muslims, Just Like Them, ans we're going to ignore that he's literally endorsed by Le Pen the father and said horribly antisemitic things (fake news media etc). So that's the gist of it.

I'm actually surprised Macron did so well- it's a very religious and conservative community, and it doesn't help that it's been struck by several high profile antisemitic Islamic terrorist attacks in France.

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It is patently clear from both his surge in the polls and the pattern of his support - quite different to last time in some seriously suggestive ways! - that Melenchon benefited from a huge wave of tactical voting and that the people who voted for other Left candidates were people who think the man is too much of an [expletive deleted] to cast their vote for. There is always a hard limit on tactical voting potential, and I tend to think that Melenchon hit his. In any case, he's a bad man and you shouldn't feel sorry for him, even if it would (obviously) be preferable if he had reached the second round instead of Le Pen.

Exactly.

Speaking for myself, and in response to some Professional Leftists on here who make it their duty to remonstrate to other people about their voting choices (hilariously, the very same people who whined about "voter shaming" in the 2020 US election), let me be very clear. I didn't vote for Mélenchon because I don't want him to win. I don't want him as my president. I'm sorry if that upsets your high-minded leftist sensibilities sitting from halfway across the world, but in my case there is nothing "tactical" about voting for Mélenchon. I've already made it clear that I'd vote for Macron in a Macron-Mélenchon runoff, and if you think that makes me a neolib, be my guest, but don't act like all of us Jadot/Hidalgo/Roussel voters are just lost sheep from the Mélenchon bandwagon. We never were part of this bandwagon and we never will be.

Hear, hear. The French left desperately needs him to go away- him and his personality cult that has a hard floor of voters sucks all the oxygen from the room and handicaps any good left wing candidate from rising.

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https://twitter.com/julienbahloul/status/1513426443283402754?t=mNklqfTHAAQOXPS3X...

https://twitter.com/julienbahloul/status/1513397665312256003?t=JqdlBbCBu4L4gtFdw...

Zemmour is a vile supporter of antisemitic ideas and these results are shameful, but many of these people escaped to Israel after several devastating attacks. It's an illustration of how the center and left need to find a way to address genuine concerns of the French Jewish community about the rise of antisemitic hate crimes, the most high profile of which had been by Muslim fundamentalists, without resorting to Islamophobic hatred like Macron and Pecresse often did.
That said, it's always been a conservative community:

https://twitter.com/julienbahloul/status/1513428563554410496?t=blWFxO8I49kspSEJ6...

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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.

Amazing. Got a source?

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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.  

You're once again reaching to justify your thesis of "liberal Zionists are the real traitors". French Jews are a conservative and religious community that always voted for the LR, and in no way represent how liberal or not liberal Tel Aviv is. It's also one of a handful of polling stations in Israel, and one of the most accessible via public transportation, so I'd assume people from all over the country voted there.

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Marine Le Pen kindly shows us how horrible her foreign policy is going to be if she ever becomes President of France:

France's Le Pen outlines foreign policy vision, leaving Russia door ajar

This feels like an unforced mistake. Will definitely do her harm right now. Is she deliberately trying to lose?

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Pretty fascinating to see this result among voters that gave Eric Zemmour a victory:

https://twitter.com/LahavHarkov/status/1518520832779296770?t=wzRvxrZnJsfzJqCMR7_...

https://twitter.com/julienbahloul/status/1518479856476078082?t=4C-X6yIo9T-tBa0tI...