French presidential election, 2022

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Let's keep in mind that in still (IMHO) unlikely event that Lepen were to win the run-off, its very questionable whether she would get the usual win for her party in the legislative elections. In fact we could have a situation where she could be president and her party might still have very little representation in the assembly meaning there would have to be "co-habitation" with a PM and government entirely made up of people from other parties...

People mooted this possibility in 2017 too because LREM was made up of complete nobodies, and they ended up sweeping aside all comers without breaking a sweat. To restate the basics: if Le Pen wins the run-off, she will have won the support of 50%+ of French second round voters.

ftfy

Its still entirely possible people stay home for Le Pen vs Macron (because Meluche told them it was the same thing) but play an impact in the legislatives. Also, the legislatives have second rounds and the choices may not be as "toxic" to voters in the second round. We have seen than RN often get blocked in legislatives and regional elections because entire candidacies are pulled out. No such dynamics exist in Presidential election.

All of which matters less than ever if we really are past the point of no return and Le Pen has won an election. Anything can happen but we shouldn't assume that her not having at least a substantial minority in the Assembly is the most likely scenario.

[It's not just that you are a crook senator]

Would have endorsed Hidalgo but she, unfortunately, hasn't been performing well in the polls. Therefore, I am endorsing Macron.

[Red Velvet]

“France First” - Le Pen against sanctioning Russia because of the economic setbacks it brings to France. I think she really could pull this off if she focus on that message of internal economic well-being interest and purchasing power.

Le Pen against sanctions on Russia over French interests

French Presidential candidate Marine Le Pen stresses that she is against imposing sanctions on Russian raw materials, gas, and oil due to the ramifications it would have on the French economy.

[Continential]

I have a question, what will happen to the remnants of the UDI after the election?

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

We'll see if I am right about this soon enough: I suspect that polls will tend to mislead about the scale of vote transfers from Macron to Melenchon or other protest vote options while also underestimating the scale of vote transfers from Fillon to Macron. It has been 5 years since the last election and Macron is an extremely polarizing figure. Those who quite like him - and there are many on the right who now adore him - may very well have developed a false memory of voting for him in the 1st round. Those who despise him - and there are many who voted for him who despise him now - may very well have decided that they didn't vote for him in the 1st round.

The main reason to believe that this is the case: Macron is now "President of the rich", having a natural class base with natural class enemies, whereas, in 2017, he was an empty suit candidate appearing more similar in presentation and biography to a PS candidate than a LR/UMP candidate. This time, we should expect Macron to receive outlandish levels of support in, say, Boulogne-Billancourt. On the other hand, it's extremely hard for me to see Macron hitting his national average in working class suburbs of Paris, which he had basically done in 2017 (!!).

[parochial boy]

An important thing to understand about French politics these days is that the average Le Pen supporter is not an angry young man or an embittered pensioner, but an ordinary person in an ordinary job with children at school and with tricky household budgets to manage. They are sensitive to the cost of living and suspect (rightly) that they are getting badly served by public services, particularly when compared to other groups even if they generally misidentify who those other groups are.* They are, undeniably, quite racist by usual North Western European norms, but so are people who are far less likely to vote for Le Pen: that's just France. It is a sobering thought, but the sort of people who Le Pen centres her appeal around and wishes to drive to the polls in large numbers are the sort of people that Keir Starmer, Olaf Scholz and so on also spend most of their time trying to appeal to. But perhaps even worse is that no one else in French politics really tries seriously to appeal to this section of the electorate. So long as this remains true, it is very hard to find any hope in French politics.

_{*Which, by the way, is why left-wing appeals to preserve the social state and so on have fallen flat for years and continue to do so. Of course the French social state (I use this term rather than the more familiar welfare state for a reason) is rather unusually structured and funded: put bluntly, the principle beneficiaries are not those who one might expect of a more typical welfare state. That all of this is a major contribution to the structural factors underpinning far-right political support is rarely acknowledged but undeniably true.}

You're raising fair points. The question is just whether LePen is actually able or willing to do something serious about that. And I'm very skeptical she has practical solutions to these problems, especially with her anti-EU stances that would harm France's economy. Just to throw a tantrum at the "power elite" by electing a far right-winger doesn't solve a damn problem. You can doubt Macron is the right leader to tackle these problems, but there are other candidates available in the first round. Voters could send someone else to th runoff. And just because Zemmour appears more extreme doesn't mean LePen isn't. Her presidency would be a total s-show.

I'm not suggesting that Le Pen is the answer to any of the problems that have led to her dominating (almost uncontested!) such a large and not obviously or naturally politically marginal section of the electorate, not at all. My post is simply an examination of the phenomenon and also an oblique demonstration of why other candidates and parties have been unable and/or unwilling to contest that electoral space, even though doing so seems natural and obvious to those of us from other countries in the North and West of Europe.

One thing that I have seen regularly highlighted is that this is quite intimately linked with the decline and dissapearance of the Communists as the principal mass party of the working class. Obviously that leads to a gap in the political landscape, not just in terms of voting choices but also in terms of partisan identities, and the PS always had an uphill battle with these people because they were always perceived as being a party of the intelligentsia. Likewise, in large swathes of the country, particularly ones that had been secular for centuries, the mid 20th century PCF was often a big source of socialisation and varying degrees of social support - for instance organising the old colonies de vacances and all that. So the dissapearance of that institution lead to a particularly acute sense of social atomisation and loss that the RN has filled in.

Obviously that doesn't explain everything, because there are lots of places and social groups that were never left wing that vote very strongly RN these days. But it is worth bearing in mind in the context that the PCF was a mass party, and was present in the lives of lots of regular people beyond the cliché of a coal miner in the Pas-de-Calais or factor worker in the red belt of Paris.

Also stuff like how France has - possibly - the worst urban sprawl of any country in Europe, as displayed by the hypermarché model of retail that developed in a more extreme way in France than in the rest of the continent, the car dependence and near total absence of viable public transport options on the periphery of most major cities. All of it stuff that was put very much into focus over the last few years and even if they are fairly ubiquitous phemonenons, in France they somehow seem to have been made worse.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

I might as well add that there are good reasons why the French retirement age differs by occupation in France and that this isn't only the work of rent-seeking trade unions. While the system is a bureaucratic maze riddled with inefficiencies, the overall thrust is that manual workers can retire early. I'm not sure if I'd describe this as being sensible but it is true that manual workers are often, quite literally, physically unable to work past age 50 and above. It's surprising how often even seemingly banal manual occupations destroy the bodies of workers - this holds without even considering the most damaging ones. This is to say that there is a logic behind its design, that an idealist could decide that pension systems should work like this (though the idealist thinking like this would have to be a bit of a dullard).

For this reason, I am inclined to sympathize with the "privileged" labor aristocracy in France, which still exists in pockets among manual workers. There's basically nothing that I admire about French social policy or labor/employment law but it makes sense that those who benefit from protections would fight to defend the scraps they have. It isn't as if Macron will replace this with anything better...

[Walmart_shopper]

“France First” - Le Pen against sanctioning Russia because of the economic setbacks it brings to France. I think she really could pull this off if she focus on that message of internal economic well-being interest and purchasing power.

Le Pen against sanctions on Russia over French interests

French Presidential candidate Marine Le Pen stresses that she is against imposing sanctions on Russian raw materials, gas, and oil due to the ramifications it would have on the French economy.

Its disgusting but the French love this kind of thing.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

How is recent unrest in Corsica affecting the race? Which way would soft Corsican nats (regionalists etc) vote?

[Alben Barkley]

How the French could see what is happening in Ukraine and go "Hey let's vote for the longtime Putin apologist!" is beyond me.

OK sure she's tried to walk it back a little lately (still not nearly enough) but she is still clearly not to be trusted. This isn't getting into any other political issues about the pension system or whatever (on which she is clearly not better than Macron anyway). This really should be a time for single issue voting if ever there was one and it's extremely disconcerting to see France flirt with fire like this. Not to mention bewildering cause Macron got such a massive lead and spike in popularity following the invasion of Ukraine. What the hell caused him to plummet so dramatically and rapidly in the polls???

[Sir Mohamed]

How the French could see what is happening in Ukraine and go "Hey let's vote for the longtime Putin apologist!" is beyond me.

OK sure she's tried to walk it back a little lately but she is still clearly not to be trusted. This isn't getting into any other political issues about the pension system or whatever (on which she is clearly not better than Macron anyway). This really should be a time for single issue voting if ever there was one and it's extremely disconcerting to see France flirt with fire like this. Not to mention bewildering cause Macron got such a massive lead and spike in popularity following the invasion of Ukraine. What the hell caused him to plummet so dramatically and rapidly in the polls???

French posters and some others for sure have more insights here than I have, though my assumption is that Ukraine is not on top of voters' minds in France. For sure it's less of an issue compared to Eastern Europe or even Germany. Macron wants to raise the retirement age from 62 and 65, which is extremely unpopular in France, and inflation is a huge issue. Seems like Macron hasn't exactly delivered on his promises on economic policy. And LePen, who now appears more moderate with this other weirdo running, successfully portrays him as out of touch elitist.

In addition, many left-wingers don't hold their nose anymore to vote for Macron in the 2nd round, but either stay home or vote LePen. Particularly supporters of Melenchon (supporters of Hidalgo will for sure vote for Macron, but she's polling at 2-3%).

[Zinneke]

I might as well add that there are good reasons why the French retirement age differs by occupation in France and that this isn't only the work of rent-seeking trade unions. While the system is a bureaucratic maze riddled with inefficiencies, the overall thrust is that manual workers can retire early. I'm not sure if I'd describe this as being sensible but it is true that manual workers are often, quite literally, physically unable to work past age 50 and above. It's surprising how often even seemingly banal manual occupations destroy the bodies of workers - this holds without even considering the most damaging ones. This is to say that there is a logic behind its design, that an idealist could decide that pension systems should work like this (though the idealist thinking like this would have to be a bit of a dullard).

I wish it were based on levels of manual work rather than based on which sectors the CGT manage to have the most presence. The points based system that Macron was proposing was at the very least no longer talking about outdated conceptions of blue collar vs white collar or public sector vs private sector (many private sector workers in France feel like they are subsidizing special regimes). Just take a look at the list :
https://www.previssima.fr/question-pratique/quels-sont-les-regimes-speciaux-de-retraite.html

There's about a dozen special regimes here that don't correspond to your manual workers argument. But don't let that get in the way of the good old narrative.

Also, am I the only one who think raising the retirement age isn't necessarily a bad thing given how unsustainable the pension system is in general? I mean, as a young worker, I would honestly rather the government give me my pension tax than invest it in their insane Ponzi scheme : I don't expect to see a pension in my lifetime simply because the boomers have tied their pension funds to some serious asset bubbles and are paying themselves with more debt thanks to cheap credit. But oh yeah its a neo-liberal stance to think what the boomers have inflicted on our buying power by paying themselves inflated pensions will be felt for generations, particularly ours!

Let's just give up the pretence that we will see a pension in our lifetime.

For this reason, I am inclined to sympathize with the "privileged" labor aristocracy in France, which still exists in pockets among manual workers. There's basically nothing that I admire about French social policy or labor/employment law but it makes sense that those who benefit from protections would fight to defend the scraps they have. It isn't as if Macron will replace this with anything better...

You are inclined to support them because they are the most visual stereotype of left-wing opposition to capitalism that you can find in France that isn't insane reactionary hicks from the Gilet Jaunes camp. But in the end by supporting them you actually just contribute to dividing the working class and the RN narrative that left-wing intellectuals only care about image rather than outcomes when it comes to favouring working class outcomes.

Anyway here is an article in French that looks at the complexities of special pension regimes :

https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2019/12/03/le-vrai-du-faux-des-regimes-speciaux-de-retraite_6021530_4355770.html

How is recent unrest in Corsica affecting the race? Which way would soft Corsican nats (regionalists etc) vote?

Most on the Hexagone see Corsica in the same light as Guyane (except Nice and their derangement syndrome vis-a-vis Corsica). Zero affect outside of a couple of boomers wanted to restore order by getting the far right involved.

But I know that actual, ideological regionalists (as opposed to "regionalists" who have clientelistic links with major candidates and old parties) have no other choice than Jadot. He has a few campaign points that serve as bones to throw to them and other regionalists in France.

It's a shame that regionalism in general is so incompatible with this farce of an election and country. As parochial boy said, the urban sprawl and territorial division in France is one of the worst in Europe and regionalism would solve a part of that. All of the candidates are centralizers though.

[JimJamUK]

How is recent unrest in Corsica affecting the race? Which way would soft Corsican nats (regionalists etc) vote?

I can’t answer the question directly, but it’s worth noting that Corsica was Le Pen’s best region in 2017 with 49% of the vote, so it looks very likely to outright vote for her this time given she’s not going to be stuck on 34% of the nationwide vote.

[buritobr]

My forecast

Emmanuel Macron 27%
Marine Le Pen 26%
Jean-Luc Mélenchon 23%
Eric Zemmour 7%
Valérie Pécresse 7%
Jadot 4%
Roussel 1%
Hidalgo 1%
others 4%

[Poirot]

The French consulate in Montreal at noon  local time estimates the waiting time to vote at the local polling station is two and a half hours. They have had long lines in previous elections but they don't seem to solve the waiting problem.

[BigSerg]

I wonder how a Le Pen victory would influence the dynamics of alliances between right-wing populist governments within the European Union. On the one hand, the relationship between Orban and Poland is crumbling over the Russian issue, but if Le Pen wins, Orban could get rid of his uneasy ally and create a new, more pro-Russian bloc with France. This would isolate Poland and leave it vulnerable, so in my opinion, a Le Pen victory would be bad for Poland and for all anti-Russian right wing populist governments. UK is no longer in the EU and Germany is not a reliable ally, they would have no one to lean on.

[Edu]

Only when I arrived in Paris a week ago, I realised that I would be here during the first round. Sounds like fun...or not, considering the candidates.

[President Johnson]

My prediction:

Emmanuel Macron (inc.): 27.4%
Marine LePen: 23.5%
Jean-Luc Mélenchon: 18.4%
Eric Zemmour: 8.5%
Valérie Pécresse: 7.5%
.
.
Anne Hidalgo: 2.3%


As of now, I'd say Macron wins the runoff 54-46%.

[Oryxslayer]

I wouldn't be surprised if based on the polls tomorrow we see a triple-polarization between the big three, albeit probably with Melenchon a bit further back. Essentially, between Melenchon, Le Pen, and Macron, there are a lot of blowouts locally in favor of one or the other. Melenchon in urban places like S-S-D; Le Pen in some rurals, the North and South; Macron in some cities, suburbs, and the west.

[rob in cal]

Is it fair to say that Le Pen is trying to run to the left of Macron on economic issues, (and of course to the right of him on national/demographic issues)?

[Hash]

I voted earlier today, after a very long line-up which took an hour and a half to get through. Cookies for anyone who can guess who I voted for.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Polling summary time:

Macron - almost all firms have him on 26%, but a handful push a little higher. None below 26%, none above 28%.

Le Pen - more diversity here: a high of 25% and a low of 21% with most hovering in between the two, generally slightly tilting towards the lower end.

Melenchon - between 16% and 18% with most settling on 17%.

Zemmour - French firms pretty much all have him on a functional 9%, but foreign firms who have had a go show higher figures.

Pecresse - French firms have her on either 9% or 8%, but those foreign firms who have had a go show lower figures.

Jadot - between 4% and 5%.

Roussel - between 2% and 3% with the consensus being a functional 3%.

Lassalle - between 2% and 3%.

Hidalgo - 2%.

Dupont-Aignan - between a functional 2% and 3%.

Poutou - 1%.

Arthaud - microscopic.

What I'm mostly getting here is that there is a lot of herding going on and that even moderate polling errors could upset a lot of apple carts if they were to occur.

[KaiserDave]

What time EST tomorrow is the exit poll?

[Shilly]

What time EST tomorrow is the exit poll?

2 P.M.

[KaiserDave]

My prediction:
Emmanuel Macron (LREM): 26.5%
Marine Le Pen (RN): 24.7%
Jean-Luc Mélenchon (LFI): 20.1%
Eric Zemmour (R!): 8.3%
Valérie Pécresse (LR): 6.7%