French presidential election, 2022

[Sir John Johns]

Its actual number of watchers isn’t the most easy thing to assess as CNews, like the two other private-owned 24-hour news channels (BFM and LCI), is a frequent TV channel put ‘by default’ in public spaces like bars and a lot of snippets of its debates are shared on social networks, forums and video sites (Youtube algorithms are seemingly biased to systematically suggest you a video of Zemmour’s TV broadcast – but more his previous one on the public-owned France 2 – not matter the kind of stuff you have just watched even if unrelated to politics) hence amplifying its audience beyond its regular and occasional television viewers (I think there are more of the later category than the former one).

Additionally, CNews is the most advanced of the three private news channels to have morphed into a full opinion channel (theoretically prohibited by the legislation but the TV watchdog agency has been incredibly lenient with all sort of abuses on TV since more than three decades now) with the major part of its schedules being dedicated to ‘debates’ usually involving the same dozen of loudmouths all leaning on the right but one or two token center-left panelists and giving their uninformed and adamant opinions on absolutely every imaginable topic. Random but usually low-profile politicos are sometimes also participating. The rest is Morandini’s daily sensationalist trash show mixing discussions on TV shows, celebrity gossip, crimes and politics, the daily preaching of Zemmour (currently replaced by d’Ornellas, Quebecois pundit Mathieu Bock-Côté and philosopher/pundit Eugénie Bastié), a political interview conducted by the 84-year-old Jean-Pierre Elkabach (his former acolyte, Alain Duhamel, 81, is for his part working on BFM), a Catholic weekly show in line with CNews-owner Vincent Bolloré’s arch-reactionary social views and a weekly ‘history’ program hosted by Frank Ferrand (a proponent of pseudo-history and long-time discredited theories from Corneille having actually written Molière’s works to Alesia not being located in present-day Alise-Sainte-Reine to asinine WTF about Troy being actually located in England).

While its competitors have their own political biases (BFM is seen as pro-Macron while LCI has traditionally been pro-UMP/LR following the tradition of the parent company, TF1, which pretty much openly campaigned for Balladur back in 1995, but seems also moving toward pro-Macron positions), this remains not as much blatant than CNews and actual reporting/news broadcast still fill a sizable share of the schedules (less so on LCI, though) and its quality is at best okayish but still ahead of CNews.

CNews is part of the growing medias empire constituted by the aforementioned Bolloré, an economic pillar of the Françafrique that is accused of having used his communication companies (notably Havas) to support the election of African leaders in exchange of the awarding of lucrative public contracts his logistic firms (Bolloré has pleaded guilty in an investigation on his support for the reelection of Togolese autocrat Faure Gnassingbé in 2010 in exchange of the renewal of the concession contract of the port of Lomé to one of his companies; he pleaed guilty to avoid a public trial but this has been rejected by the judge and the suit is still ongoing, contributing to the deterioration of his relations with Macron). In France, Bolloré has took control of Vivendi (that includes what is now CNews, C8 and Canal+ TV channels) in 2014, of Prisma Medias (publishing mostly feminine and TV magazines) in 2021 and of medias belonging to the Lagardère (like the Europe 1 radio station, Paris Match and Le Journal du dimanche) in the recent months. He is now currently taking over Hachette, the main book publishing company in France.

Despite proclamations of the contrary (including recently before a parliamentary commission), Bolloré has political motives as he has directly intervened in his recently acquired medias to influence their editorial lines and appoint people close to his own personal views. Under his management, Canal+ water-downed the (by then) already tepid Guignols de l’Info before suppressing it altogether and terminated its (rather solid) investigation magazines and its news reports; CNews and C8 are very transparently campaigning for Zemmour (for example, on last January, Hanouna ‘trapped’ Mélenchon in his Face à Baba political broadcast: the LFI candidate was supposed to debate with Zemmour for only twenty minutes but this lasted for over an hour, giving wide exposition for the far-right candidate at the expense of other panelists and participants); in the wake of his takeover of Europe 1, most of the historical animators and humorists were fired to make room for a radio counterpart of CNews (so far, this isn’t working and Europe 1 is bleeding audience); recently, C8, alongside the usual rererereruns of Midsomer Murders and Hanouna trash shows in which animators occasionally show their butt and put noodles in their underwears, broadcasted the anti-abortion propaganda Unplanned movie (this was predictably a massive flop as France is a mainly pro-choice and non-religious country).

So, we have a media empire wholly dedicated to push far-right ideas and is subverting obligations of plurality with tricks like airing interventions of LREM and LFI politicians in the middle of the night, when other TV/radio channels are still following the rules (LCI was however caught two years ago broadcasting the same interview of Jadot eleven times during the same night) and are still dedicating time to actual reporting. It’s true however the political impact of such media empire has been mixed so far, it has been effective into mainstreaming extremist views but on the electoral plan the RN didn’t made the predicted massive gains in the 2021 regional elections and Bolloré’s candidate is now running out of steam and losing ground in the polls.

The growing influence of Bolloré in the medias is not discussed as it should in the public discourse but even less is the planned merging of TF1 and M6 (the first and second most watched private TV groups) which would have a quasi-monopoly – 70% - on TV advertising market. Such project is favored by ‘liberal’ Macron who obtained on last October the non-reappointment of the then-head of the Competition Authority, hostile to the merging.

[parochial boy]

On the one hand, there has been an absolute absurd level of polling this year. Like one or two new ones every day; which is all the more strange when you consider how little of an actual campaign there has been. Macron certainly appears to consider it as already in the bag and not be bothering.

On the other hand, Roussel went on CNews and had a lot of trouble deciding whether Joseph Stalin was a good guy or a bad guy (FF or HP, sorry).



Which should be something, something analysis or whatever. But in reality it's just hillarious and has predictably triggered a whole host of memes.

https://twitter.com/Ostpolitik/status/1506252872756961281

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Don't @ me but I've decided to stop paying attention to this campaign until April because the contours of the result seem depressingly obvious already. Just going to write this down now so I can see if I was right or not:

- Pécresse will end up in single digits or close to it because she's a terrible candidate and French right-wing/reactionary voters are obviously in much more of a Zemmour mood anyway.
- Le Pen will flop because none of the relevant candidates or the media seem at all interested in talking about anything that would get a working-class and/or under-50 voter to pay attention and that's who she needs to turn out for her. Also see Pécresse.
- The left, who care
- Therefore Macron/Zemmour run-off, Macron wins by a landslide but probably on a pathetic turnout.

Still some time to go, but  I see it's looking like I may end up being wrong about a lot of this.

[Sir John Johns]

On the one hand, there has been an absolute absurd level of polling this year. Like one or two new ones every day; which is all the more strange when you consider how little of an actual campaign there has been. Macron certainly appears to consider already in the bad and not be bothering.

On the other hand, Roussel went on CNews and had a lot of trouble deciding whether Joseph Stalin was a good guy or a bad guy (FF or HP, sorry).



Which should be something, something analysis or whatever. But in reality it's just hillarious and has predictably triggered a whole host of memes.

https://twitter.com/Ostpolitik/status/1506252872756961281

Maybe he overused alcohol during one of his ‘Apé’Roussel’?


https://twitter.com/Fabien_Roussel/status/1506000258400239621

I launch this evening the Apé’Roussel!

From now to the first round, let’s organize every evening aperitifs to present our platform in a convivial atmosphere.

And with moderation on the drinkings!

Meat+alcohol+nuclear energy, is this the Homer Simpson’s platform? Apé’Roussel is a particularly lame pun but this is not even as bad as his previous ‘rousselement’, his answer to Macron’s trickle-down (‘ruissellement’) economics.

Then terrible slogans and communication are basically a tradition in the PCF; I remember the name of Robert Hue's list in the 1999 Europeans: 'Bouge l'Europe' (lmao, even for a list for Euros this doesn't sound very serious) and his 2002 electoral spot with a kitsch rock 'n' roll tune.


Le Pen is currently widening the gap with her far-right rival, even polling at 20% in the latest Elabe poll (conducted in 20 and 21 March) while a poll conducted this time by Opinion Way (between 18 and 21 March) has shown, for the first time, Zemmour under the 10%.

The RN candidate is currently benefiting from economic issues becoming more prominent as she is focusing her campaign on her promise to reduce the VAT on energy (gas, fuel and electricity) from 20% to 5.5%. Her opposition to the recent proposal of Macron to force RSA recipients to work 15 to 20 hours of week is also enabling her to include in her platform a realist, concrete and doable promise that can appeal to popular classes and that left-wing voters can’t hardly disagree with.

Meanwhile, Zemmour has decided to double down on immigration, having just promised, if elected, to create a ministry for ‘remigration’. Such term is a euphemism for ethnic cleansing in the most radical far-right spheres that want the expulsion of a maximum of French residents (be they French citizen or not) with non-European ancestry. Zemmour’s plan is less ambitious as the ministry would ‘only’ organize the yearly expulsion of some 100,000 criminals with a foreign ancestry (well, including people registered on the ‘fichiers S’ files of offenses against state security which is an administrative and non-public database and not a criminal record, with all the usual arbitrariness and errors inherent to such files).


https://twitter.com/IsulaCorsica/status/1506288500920008712

Yvan Colonna died of his wounds on 21 March and the authorities of Corsica have ordered to fly the flag at half-staff for a man sentenced for the murder of a French prefect. Macron has denounced ‘a fault’ and said it is ‘inappropriate’ but he is surely praying this doesn’t turn into an unwelcomed burst of violence just before the first round.


Also the suspected murderer of the rugby player has been arrested in Hungary while trying going to Ukraine.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Are there Zemourist candidates running in the legislative election?

[MaxQue]

Are there Zemourist candidates running in the legislative election?

There will be, he created his own party (Reconquête).

[buritobr]

As we were discussing 2 months ago, now it's become clear that only 3 candidates will have a large number of votes: Macron, Le Pen and Mélenchon. The others will have single digit. In the final days, some candidates atract useful votes.

[Coldstream]

As we were discussing 2 months ago, now it's become clear that only 3 candidates will have a large number of votes: Macron, Le Pen and Mélenchon. The others will have single digit. In the final days, some candidates atract useful votes.

Melenchon is still in quite a distant third. And I don’t think you can rule out Pecresse getting ahead of him by the end if Zemmour continues to slide.

[Continential]

Are there Zemourist candidates running in the legislative election?

Also, what label will RNers who endorsed Zemmour like Panzermiss run under?

[RGM2609]

Probably a stupid question, but how does Le Pen manage to come closest to defeating Macron in the runoff polls out of the major candidates? Quite a turnaround from last time

[MaxQue]

As we were discussing 2 months ago, now it's become clear that only 3 candidates will have a large number of votes: Macron, Le Pen and Mélenchon. The others will have single digit. In the final days, some candidates atract useful votes.

Melenchon is still in quite a distant third. And I don’t think you can rule out Pecresse getting ahead of him by the end if Zemmour continues to slide.

Looking at Pécresse campaign, through, I think the question for her is below or above 10%. Same for Zemmour.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Probably a stupid question, but how does Le Pen manage to come closest to defeating Macron in the runoff polls out of the major candidates? Quite a turnaround from last time

Have you seen the other candidates?

[Coldstream]

As we were discussing 2 months ago, now it's become clear that only 3 candidates will have a large number of votes: Macron, Le Pen and Mélenchon. The others will have single digit. In the final days, some candidates atract useful votes.

Melenchon is still in quite a distant third. And I don’t think you can rule out Pecresse getting ahead of him by the end if Zemmour continues to slide.

Looking at Pécresse campaign, through, I think the question for her is below or above 10%. Same for Zemmour.

The votes Zemmour is losing have to go somewhere, and they are a lot more likely to go to Pecresse than Melenchon.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Electorates are flexible: they could just stay at home.

[Sir Mohamed]

Since Macron is likely to win reelection, what are the chances his party also wins a governing majority in the legislative elections a month later? As I know, the president's party controlling parliament is more of the rule than the exception, in contrast to America.

[Oryxslayer]

Since Macron is likely to win reelection, what are the chances his party also wins a governing majority in the legislative elections a month later? As I know, the president's party controlling parliament is more of the rule than the exception, in contrast to America.

Probably guaranteed, and if not just his party, then certainly the alliance overall. Real question is if/how many seats are lost , which may still be very few. The main legislative opposition in 2017 was the right, and now they are in just as much disarray as the left was back then. Plus LREM still will often benefit from from being the 'most acceptable' of the two runoff options: collecting the left votes when its LREM vs Right, right votes when its LREM vs Left, and a chunk of both when its LREM vs RN.

The real question I posited earlier will be whether the far right finally breaks through the cordon legislatively and gets a number of seats loosely equivalent to their first round votes. Their views have been somewhat more normalized, and the right as a whole has pivoted in their direction, potentially facilitating vote transfers. Previously all other parties voters would consolidate around the not RN option, whereas this time there are at least some groups who would go for the far right in a runoff. But this obviously requires a decent effort on the part of the Far Right to contest the legislative elections, which may not occur.

[RGM2609]

Probably a stupid question, but how does Le Pen manage to come closest to defeating Macron in the runoff polls out of the major candidates? Quite a turnaround from last time

Have you seen the other candidates?

I mean it is still quite surprising that she is managing to get into the mid-40s, polling similarly to Pecresse before her candidacy started flopping. 

[parochial boy]

Probably a stupid question, but how does Le Pen manage to come closest to defeating Macron in the runoff polls out of the major candidates? Quite a turnaround from last time

Have you seen the other candidates?

I mean it is still quite surprising that she is managing to get into the mid-40s, polling similarly to Pecresse before her candidacy started flopping. 

The polling has been suggesting about a 55-45 second round between her and Macron basically from quite early on during Macron's presidency. There are a few reasons you could cite for that; on the one hand, the overall political environment in France right now is quite... advantageous to her sort of politics; plus the radicalisation of LR, of the media discourse and all have made her look less completely unacceptable as opposed to 5 years ago.

In addition to that, there is a substantial chunk of people who won't vote for Macron in the second round despite having done so five years ago. For instance, a lot of Méluche-Macron 2017 voters are indicating they will abstain in the second round this time, out of the (not exactly unjustified) anger they have at the way he took advantage of their support to push through his right wing economic agenda post 2017 and generally has taken that left wing for granted in a frankly quite abusive way. But it's not just that left electorate who feel that way, plenty of people are dropping into abstention out of disillusionment with him post gilets jaunes, post covid, out of instinctive french spirit of "dégagisme" or whatever.

Pécresse has sunk meanwhile because she is a terrible candidate running an appalling campaign (and because it turns out that dogs don't have the right to vote in presidential elections).

Zemmour has always polled badly because even the French don't really appreciate unreconstructed fascism.

Mélenchon is polling badly because, well, there aren't that many left wing voters in France any more; and that non-left wing voters (and a lot of left wing voters too), also not exactly without reason, have some pretty major issues with him. With that in mind, his second round polling has improved quite a bit in recent weeks, from about 33-67 to more like 40-60, because he is (as was predicted) running an overall strong campaign because he is actually a pretty good campaigner.

[Sir John Johns]

Zemmour in the middle of, yet, another controversy as ‘Macron, murderer’ were chanted by his supporters in his latest meeting. The far-right candidate is pretending not having heard them, saying first he doesn’t approve them, then that this anecdotal and criticizing journalists for ‘having the gift to take an epiphenomenon and making it a national event’ (that’s rich from the guy whose whole career in punditry has been based on such principle).

So he is continuing pigeonholing himself as the candidate of the candidate of the extremists by downplaying heinous slogans while, just as the same time, when campaigning in Guadeloupe, Le Pen managed attracting support from other candidates after having been evacuated in the middle of an interview from a TV studio invaded by Guadeloupean independentist protesters.


Meanwhile, Macron showed once again his complete disdain for the poor:

https://twitter.com/le_Parisien/status/1507724312089964546

‘Clearly a fail’. In the platform of Macron, there isn’t a single measure for the banlieues.

Said 24-page platform, that has been distributed across France (the first electoral propaganda I have so far received) is ironically named ‘Emmanuel Macron with you’. Even more ironic, the platform was announced in Aubervilliers, a low-income suburb of Paris with a large number of inhabitants with an immigrant origin. More generally, it is very hard to find anything thrilling for young adults as a whole as well as for left-wing voters in spite of declarations made this day by Macron on the necessity of having both measures ‘of right-wing color’ and measures ‘of left-wing color’. However, the only ‘left-wing’ measure he was been able to explain today is him being supported by the PS mayor of Dijon (not really a raging leftist)... Critics on the reliance of the government on onerous private consulting firms to elaborate its politics, a growing scandal, have also been dismissed as ‘conspiracy theory’ and Macron responed to his critics with a literal ‘let them go to court’ answer.



Unsurprisingly, the absence of debates (snubbed not only by Macron but also by Le Pen), the lack of strong proposals, the lack of serious of the candidates and their platforms and the hijack of the public discussion by the Ukraine War is a perfect recipe for a depressed turnout, predicted to reach historical lows, estimated between 63% and 71% by pollsters two weeks before the first round (down from 77.8% in 2017 and lower than the record of 2002, 71.6%).

And that’s for the first round, because I have hard time seeing the numbers of the 2017 runoff (abstention at 25.4% and combined blank and nulls votes at 11.5%) not being exceeded in case of another, very likely at this point, Macron/Le Pen.

Opening the way for a lot of fun in the legislative elections in case the turnout sank even lower than the 48.7% of 2017 with the promises of no triangulaires (three-way runoffs) due to low turnout and the elimination in the first round of the political tendencies divided into too much candidacies and a next National Assembly with a weak legitimacy.

[Lord Halifax]

Given that there doesn't seem to be any realistic alternative to Macron I wonder what would happen if he died before the election? Would LREM be allowed to nominate a replacement, and if not who do you think would win?

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1508928143029157891?s=20&t=HQ7APTrth...

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1508929037321879557?s=20&t=HQ7APTrth...

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1508930257159704590?s=20&t=HQ7APTrth...

I think these sort of vote transfer gauges are interesting. The things that stook out to me is what has hppened to the Hamon voters since Hildago has fallen far below even his low, and how this shows what we long knew about Zemmour: he pulls from both the traditional 'elite' right as well as the extreme right in equal amounts.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Mélenchon is polling badly because, well, there aren't that many left wing voters in France any more; and that non-left wing voters (and a lot of left wing voters too), also not exactly without reason, have some pretty major issues with him. With that in mind, his second round polling has improved quite a bit in recent weeks, from about 33-67 to more like 40-60, because he is (as was predicted) running an overall strong campaign because he is actually a pretty good campaigner.

Death, taxes, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon having a mid-campaign surge.

[Sir John Johns]

Given that there doesn't seem to be any realistic alternative to Macron I wonder what would happen if he died before the election? Would LREM be allowed to nominate a replacement, and if not who do you think would win?

According to the Constitution:

In the case of a vacancy, or where the incapacity of the President is declared to be permanent by the Constitutional Council, elections for the new President shall, except in the event of a finding by the Constitutional Council of force majeure, be held no fewer than twenty days and no more than thirty-five days after the beginning of the vacancy or the declaration of permanent incapacity.

In the event of the death or incapacitation in the seven days preceding the deadline for registering candidacies of any of the persons who, fewer than thirty days prior to such deadline, have publicly announced their decision to stand for election, the Constitutional Council may decide to postpone the election.

If, before the first round of voting, any of the candidates dies or becomes incapacitated, the Constitutional Council shall declare the election to be postponed.

In the event of the death or incapacitation of either of the two candidates in the lead after the first round of voting before any withdrawals, the Constitutional Council shall declare that the electoral process must be repeated in full; the same shall apply in the event of the death or incapacitation of either of the two candidates still standing on the second round of voting.

All cases shall be referred to the Constitutional Council in the manner laid down in the second paragraph of article 61 or in that laid down for the registration of candidates in the Institutional Act provided for in article 6.

The Constitutional Council may extend the time limits set in paragraphs three and five above, provided that polling takes place no later than thirty-five days after the decision of the Constitutional Council. If the implementation of the provisions of this paragraph results in the postponement of the election beyond the expiry of the term of the President in office, the latter shall remain in office until his successor is proclaimed.

Basically, the election is postponed or repeated with the candidates not having much time to prepare the campaign and meet the 500 signatures requirement. But, that would be not a problem for LREM (unlike for far-right and minor candidates) and the obvious pick to replace Macron on the ballot would be former PM Édouard Philippe who is already planning his 2027 bid. Other realist potential candidates are either too old (Bayrou), too much low-key (Lemaire) or probably too much controversial (Darmanin) but you can exclude they still attempted to get nominated or supported a non-LREM candidate (similar to when Chirac ‘betrayed’ Chaban-Delmas to endorse Giscard in 1974). The rest of La Macronie bigwigs are either non-entities (Castex, Borne, Guerini the largely unknown head of LREM), old-timers (Le Drian) or seen as complete jokes (Castaner, Schiappa, Ferrand, Blanquer). Macron has reportedly said privately, few weeks ago, in case he would be reelected he would only kept ‘four of five’ of his sixteen current ministers, a good indication of the low caliber of the government members.

Wasn’t aware of the possibility for the two best-placed candidates to drop out before the runoff (a very unlikely scenario though) while the short delay to organize an early presidential election could cause problems one day. Just imagine if Maxime Brunerie had successfully killed Chirac on 14 July 2002: the election campaign would have taken place during summer holidays at a time when the ruling UMP, still in the building process, had no leader and the main opposition party, the PS, was in complete disarray after Jospin’s surprise defeat and abrupt retirement; also Panzerdaddy would have even more difficulties to collect the 500 nominations and could not make onto the ballot.

[Continential]

https://laboussolepresidentielle.fr/fr/
A french votecompass

I got:

[parochial boy]

I think these sort of vote transfer gauges are interesting. The things that stook out to me is what has hppened to the Hamon voters since Hildago has fallen far below even his low, and how this shows what we long knew about Zemmour: he pulls from both the traditional 'elite' right as well as the extreme right in equal amounts.

I was looking at something similar the other day. In so far as the Mélenchon-Macron second round hypothetical polling is pretty consistent in showing Le Pen voters breaking for Méluhe over Macron. See here or here. Often to a degree that is comparable to Jadot voters and in stark contrast to Zemmour ones (with the usual warning about subsamples - but this is a consistent pattern across all posters and all polls).

Before anyone cries out something about "Muh populism", this might have been arguable in 2017 where Mélenchon was a bit more quiet about issues relating to migration and culture wars and whatever - but very much less so in the 2022 campaign where he has been much more explicitely progressive on the questions of immigration and integration and the banlieues and all the rest. (eg, a bunch of the dodgy racist adjacent supporters that were hanging around in 2017 no longer support him, having deserted to Roussel or Montebourg or leaving to start their own faf party like Georges Kuzmanovic did).

It does however speak to certain sociological traits. In so far as Mélenchon is the only candidate of the left with a substantial level of support among lower income/working class voters. Generally he polls stronger the younger and lower income someone is. So certain detectable similarities to the Le Pen electorate, but rather less so to Zemmour or Jadot's.

On that note, Le Pen is rising a bit - in both first and second round intentions - as the campaign draws to a close. Some of this probably a swing back from the rally round the flag effect Macron got post invasion of Ukraine, with some unhappiness over quite how plutocratic his programme is, unhappiness over energy prices and so on*. But also, he is apparently quite worried about the second round on the basis that it falls at the end of the Easter holidays. Problem is, wealthier people are far more likely to go away on holiday, and as his electorate basically correlates perfectly to wealth and because France makes absentee voting pretty difficult, he's left with the unhappy scenario of a big chunk of his voter base not being around to vote on election day.

* The McKinsey stuff too, maybe, not sure how much that's really landing outside of left twitter though