French presidential election, 2022

[Zinneke]

Speaking of Le Pen and moderating her discourse, she has been extremely effective at avoiding any question about EU membership altogether. I fear that Macron will focus on the Putinist aspect when swathes of the population, to put it bluntly, either don't care or care in only a distant way about the Ukrainian conflict due to the collective atharaxia Western Europe has drugged itself on the past 20 years. Instead, Macron might want to try to pin down Le Pen on the EU because it is her core vulnerability : she can't really commit to staying in the EU either due to the Zemmour challenge (although it seems all but over) and her overall feelings about the institution. And Macron needs to hammer home that an end to the Euro would harm French buying power more than the current Russia-EU sanctions regime in the long term.

[parochial boy]

Ipsos's pollster saying what we all know, but expect some big Mélenchon numbers once the cities do come in (and no more estimations until the final results)

https://twitter.com/mathieugallard/status/1513255906699620359

And being a bit parochial, the commune just 100m down the road from where I grew up, which usually has the distinction of the worst abstention in France - went 30% Macron, 29% Mélenchon, 16% Le Pen, 7% Zemmour.

Quite a big swing from 2017 when it was 25% Macron, 23% Fillon, 21% Mélenchon, 18% Le Pen - but Mélenchon is getting astonishing swings towards him across all of Geneva's French suburbs - probably indicative of what is coming in from a lot of metro areas.

No votes have come in yet from Paris.
Can we expect Melenchon to gain further ground from Le Pen when Paris' results come in?

Relative to Le Pen, yes - but Paris will probably actually be fairly mediocre for Mélenchon relative to other cities. It's Macron heartland par excellence.

[jaichind]

Le Pen has to campaign as the anti-system candidate and hope that a large bloc of Melenchon voters is not Left voters as such but anti-system voters.   She has to paint Macron as the candidate of the system and that she is the only hope for anyone that wants or desires change.

[Oryxslayer]

Macron unsurprisingly is going to go 5 for 5 on the mainland Fillon '17 departments. Macron's coalition has visibly gotten more metropolitan, and Melenchon isn't the only one losing rural support.

No votes have come in yet from Paris.
Can we expect Melenchon to gain further ground from Le Pen when Paris' results come in?

Of course. The current count has Melenchon 7% and around 1.8 million votes behind Le Pen, an Ipsos is estimating that will narrow probably to about 100K votes. Most of the places outstanding are the most populous communes, places that get the extra hour of voting time so are just going to take longer to count. In every city there are poor sections or suburbs that will given him large margins - Marseilles in relation to her suburbs for example. The big one of course is S-S-D outside of Paris and the adjacent arrondissements, where he is at least 20% - sometimes much - ahead of his rivals. In the end though, he has only his own supporters to blame for Le Pen coming in second: these Paris sections are going to vote overwhelmingly in his favor, but had some of the largest turnout drops on 2017. Melenchon left votes on the table, and you can blame everything from left-wing disunity to Melenchon's personal characteristics for why there were not enough votes.

[Zinneke]

https://twitter.com/brutofficiel/status/1513227298136375302

The reaction of the Zemmour supporters...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/brutofficiel/status/1513227298136375302

The reaction of the Zemmour supporters...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

You love to see it.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

How is Le Pen doing so well in Mayotte? Aren't most of the population black Muslims?

Old story of intense levels of illegal immigration from Comoros, which does put some genuine pressure on the local infrastructure, blamed on rising crime, and is a source of pretty major tension. This gets coupled with a sentiment of neglect from the mainland. For instance, the response so far has been basically to send in the riot police with no genuine attempt to relieve the pressure (ie invest in local resources or make it possible for the Comorian migrants to head to the mainland. There are deportations en masse, but the geographical nature of the whole thing makes it not a viable long term solution).

See this article from 2021:

The National Rally candidate for the 2022 presidential election spoke to about 400 Mahorais this Saturday, after a three-day trip to the island of Mayotte.

Marine Le Pen promised this Saturday to the Mahorais to bring back “hope” with his presidential project, after a three-day trip to the island of Mayotte, affected by insecurity and migratory pressure from neighboring Comoros .

“The reality is worse than the worst description and the situation is worsening at a terrifying speed. However, I want to send you today a message of hope”, launched the candidate of the National Rally, a necklace of flowers around the neck, to some 400 Mahorais gathered in the port of Mamoudzou.

She took the stage under the cries of “Allah Akbar” (God is great, in Arabic) launched by her followers, who sometimes sang and danced in her honor, to the sound of Muslim religious chants.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Basically the projections are implying massive Mélenchon scores in the Paris area, to the point that he should be ahead in a lot of it. We'll have to see if that actually pans out, but if true that seems like something that might have big implications for local politics. I'd be curious to see how the legislatives play out there.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Le Pen beating Melenchon by <1% would be more painful than the original projection really.

[PSOL]

Meluche won’t get in second place. Sadly the media attacks dampened things.

Tbh, I don’t even think even himself cares about the race anymore, I’m guessing he’s working on the parliamentary race now.

[Zinneke]

nice map

[Red Velvet]

Melenchon will finish so close to taking Le Pen out of the runoff but won’t do it.

If only some people didn’t waste their vote going for people with no chances like Hidalgo, Jadot or even the Communist Party candidate (who performed better than Hidalgo), Le Pen’s political career would’ve been done.

[jaichind]

Melenchon will finish so close to taking Le Pen out of the runoff but won’t do it.

If only some people didn’t waste their vote going for people with no chances like Hidalgo, Jadot or even the Communist Party candidate (who performed better than Hidalgo), Le Pen’s political career would’ve been done.

But had there been signs of Leftist consolidation around Melenchon on the ground would not that have provoked a Zemmour -> Le Pen tactical voting on response?

[parochial boy]

Nantes is (I think), first big city in - Mélenchon wins of 33% to Macron's 29,6%, Jadot on 10% and Le Pen on 8,3%

That's nearly an 8% gain for Mélenchon on 2017 - and despite Nantes having a reputation as a left wing stronghold, it's not a city I would have expected him to win earlier this evening.

[Vosem]

Funny that Melenchon is on track to do quite a bit better than 2017, but he still lost one of his two departments (Dordogne) from last time around to Le Pen.

[Oryxslayer]

Relative to Le Pen, yes - but Paris will probably actually be fairly mediocre for Mélenchon relative to other cities. It's Macron heartland par excellence.

Nantes is (I think), first big city in - Mélenchon wins of 33% to Macron's 29,6%, Jadot on 10% and Le Pen on 8,3%

That's nearly an 8% gain for Mélenchon on 2017 - and despite Nantes having a reputation as a left wing stronghold, it's not a city I would have expected him to win earlier this evening.

If you want to see something weird, look at Seine-et-Marne right now. The communes adjacent to S-S-D are going just that good for him that something odd might happen in the most conservative of the suburban departments.

[Zinneke]

Melenchon will finish so close to taking Le Pen out of the runoff but won’t do it.

If only some people didn’t waste their vote going for people with no chances like Hidalgo, Jadot or even the Communist Party candidate (who performed better than Hidalgo), Le Pen’s political career would’ve been done.

Mélenchon is solely to blame. He is the one that ruled out a primary because, in his own words, the first round is the primary.

[Mike88]

Relative to Le Pen, yes - but Paris will probably actually be fairly mediocre for Mélenchon relative to other cities. It's Macron heartland par excellence.

So far, he doing very well in Paris. He's leading Seine-Saint-Denis by a 49-20% margin over Macron, is at 26% in Val-de-Marne and 27% in Hauts-de-Seine. Nothing yet from the center of Paris city, however.

[angus]

Speaking of Le Pen and moderating her discourse, she has been extremely effective at avoiding any question about EU membership altogether. I fear that Macron will focus on the Putinist aspect when swathes of the population, to put it bluntly, either don't care or care in only a distant way about the Ukrainian conflict due to the collective atharaxia Western Europe has drugged itself on the past 20 years. Instead, Macron might want to try to pin down Le Pen on the EU because it is her core vulnerability : she can't really commit to staying in the EU either due to the Zemmour challenge (although it seems all but over) and her overall feelings about the institution. And Macron needs to hammer home that an end to the Euro would harm French buying power more than the current Russia-EU sanctions regime in the long term.

That, or hope for higher turnout.  The consensus is that lower turnout in the large cities favors the right.  This year the rate of abstention was the highest since 2002:



It's funny.  If we had a 74% turnout in the US I think that might be a record high.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Relative to Le Pen, yes - but Paris will probably actually be fairly mediocre for Mélenchon relative to other cities. It's Macron heartland par excellence.

So far, he doing very well in Paris. He's leading Seine-Saint-Denis by a 49-20% margin over Macron, is at 26% in Val-de-Marne and 27% in Hauts-de-Seine. Nothing yet from the center of Paris city, however.

I would imagine Paris would most closely match Hauts-de-Seine with a somewhat higher Jadot baseline, excepting the 19th and 20th arrondissements. Melenchon could certainly get S-S-D numbers out of the northern and eastern fringe of the city, but that's not a very big share of the electorate.

Edit: oops. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

[angus]

Funny that Melenchon is on track to do quite a bit better than 2017, but he still lost one of his two departments (Dordogne) from last time around to Le Pen.

Well enough that Macron might hire him in the next couple of weeks.  He did mention that he wanted to make a few changes during his speech earlier.  Here's a cartoon I noticed today:



I believe that might be Jean Castex, French PM.  At least it looks like him.  For those who may not read French, it says "You're going to offer my job to Mélenchon!?"  

Of course it's just a cartoon, but you never know.

I imagine that people on the Left must be having mixed feelings.  On the one hand they know that in the second round they will have to choose between Macron and Le Pen, neither of which will have much appeal.  On the other hand, Mélenchon has outperformed expectations.  Now, here's where I will have to show my ignorance.  In the US, in that situation a candidate pivots (left or right after a bruising primary typically) to gain support.  (Usually a Republican has to try to appear more progressive and a Democrat more conservative, after the primary season.)  But we don't have this intermediate contest, something between a primary and a general election.  I wonder if it sort of works that way in France between first and second round voting.  Would a centrist like Macron try to make overtures to the left in order to gain their confidence?  Even to the point of finding a post for someone like Mélenchon or even someone like Jadot?  I suppose it would not be out of the realm of possibility.

[Continential]

If Melenchon was appointed Prime Minister, seeing the reactions of everyone will be funny.

[kaoras]

First results from Paris:

[Oryxslayer]

Nantes is (I think), first big city in - Mélenchon wins of 33% to Macron's 29,6%, Jadot on 10% and Le Pen on 8,3%

That's nearly an 8% gain for Mélenchon on 2017 - and despite Nantes having a reputation as a left wing stronghold, it's not a city I would have expected him to win earlier this evening.

Also wins Clermont-Ferrand, La Havre. Almost wins Brest, Caen, Orleans, Metz, Dijon, and other cities when compared to Macron. Any discussion of polarization has to note that Melenchon was clearly the urban poor candidate, when compared to Macron's financially-stable urban/suburban coalition.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Aisne has the best performance for Le Pen, among all French departments. Here she takes 39% of the vote.
This seems to be the second election in a row Aisne gives her the best first-round finish.