French presidential election, 2022

[angus]

Interesting thread.  I haven't visited this forum for at least six years but I was searching for discussion of the French election and encountered this.  I see some familiar names.  Cheers.

I'll add my two cents.  Although I'm not an expert on French politics, I read French newspapers fairly regularly and I watch French television news probably three or four times per week, mostly on the elliptical.  The predictions from the talking heads are mostly that the second tour will be a rematch of 2017 but with a tighter results.  Predictions range from 51-49 to 55-45.  Remember that 2017 was 66-44 (not counting null ballots, which amounted to nearly 12% of the overall.)  

Even Valérie Pécresse says that she will not vote for Le Pen, and is urging her supporters not to do so.  Click here and scroll down to "20:23 L’essentiel" to read more (in French).  

It is worth noting, however, that things are different now than in 2017.  First, Le Pen has pivoted slightly, moderating some of her more radical ideas.  Also, Macron managed to alienate many people with his domestic agenda over the past five years (proposed fuel surcharges, social reforms, suggested changes to la retraite, perceived ineffectiveness during the coronavirus confinement, etc.)  Finally, Zemmour and other rightist candidates have pledged to support Le Pen, which gives many RN supporters hope.  

One interesting graphic from Le Monde shows how their support is at an all-time high:



I'd still guess that Macron gets reelected to a second five-year mandat.  Time will tell.

Bon courage.

[angus]

Jaichind.  Good eye!  

It seems to be an error.  I got it from a legit source that does not make them often, but according to Wikipedia it was in fact Jean-Marie Le Pen, and not Marine Le Pen, who ran in 2007.  I might just email Le Monde and ask them about that.

Edit:  Ah, ha!  Someone must have beat me to it.  It now appears like this:

[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.

[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.

[angus]

All arrondissemonts are in except for the 1st and the 20th.
The 20th should be pretty solidly pro-Melenchon.

Man, you guys are really into the fine-grained details.  Now I remember that about this place.  Real politics junkies.  Well, I've been to the first but not the 20th arrondissement.  But I do know that Jim Morrison of The Doors is buried there, so I guess that counts for something.

Cheers, Phil.  

[angus]

Same to you, Phil.  By the way, I have to ask a stupid question.  What is PR?  It usually means Puerto Rico, but I can tell it's not the puertorriqueño shape.  The shape looks vaguely like the eastern parts of the pre-1918 German Reich, and a bit of the Kalliningrad oblast tacked onto it.  Is it "Pomerania"?  

[angus]

Same to you, Phil.  By the way, I have to ask a stupid question.  What is PR?  It usually means Puerto Rico, but I can tell it's not the puertorriqueño shape.  The shape looks vaguely like the eastern parts of the pre-1918 German Reich, and a bit of the Kalliningrad oblast tacked onto it.  Is it "Pomerania"?  

It's Prussia

Aaaaah. I see. Yes, this man is right.

Ah, Prussia.  Of course.  Duh!  The question was answered in the time it took me to compose this response.  



Thank you New England Fire Squad.

[angus]

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.

I actually like listening to Macron's speeches.  Maybe I'm the only one.  He's very old-fashioned.  He even uses the simple past tense.  I remember at Samuel Paty's funeral he said "Pourquoi fut-il tué?" I guess that makes him easy to understand for non-native speakers.  Beyond that, though, he seems genuinely concerned about people.  I know that many leftist francophones will rant about his neoliberalism, and I know that those on the right call him a sell-out.  I guess that goes with the territory for a moderate hero.  I'm not sure who I'd vote for were I a citizen of France, but I think they could do worse than Macron.  

I don't know as much about Mélenchon, but every time I see him on the news it is about something offensive.  His demeanor is not unlike Donald Trump.  He insults people, made public mockery of a reporter whose Languedoc accent was too pronounced for his tastes, freely exaggerates by casting about terms like "fasciste" and "espion".  That's not the language of statecraft.  Regardless of his politics he seems dangerously unhinged at times.  I'd probably go with Hidalgo as well if my priorities were in the policies she emphasizes on her official website.  I'm not necessarily saying that they do, but if they did, I think she is a clearer thinker than Mélenchon, and easier to trust and to predict.  

[angus]

Oh no, please don't misunderstand. Macron is scum. I don't have much of anything positive to say about him, beyond the fact that at least he's not a Putin apologist. Personally, I don't see any sign that he's "genuinely concerned about people" - all I've seen from him is the contempt and arrogance of someone who grew up all his life thinking he was smarter than everyone else and was Destined for Greatness. Whenever he talks about the least fortunate, his instinct is always focused on the ways in which they're a drag on society, and that they're just too lazy to pull themselves together. You get the idea...

haha.  Indeed.  Thanks for the clarification.  As I said, I am not sure which candidate I'd vote for in this race, but I also have to admit to voting for Clinton in 1992 and again in 1996 so maybe I'm okay with the sort of person you describe.  

I knew I was wading in over my head mentioning Macron in a positive light.  We were in Guadeloupe a couple of years ago, just before the whole world closed down, and I was having a discussion with the guy in the condo below us who often stood out on the balcony smoking.  He was from Nantes and was asking me about where I learned French and that lead to me mentioning that I liked watching Macron's speeches.  Within a couple of minutes I regretted ever having said that.  He used much the same description you used, well en français.

Oh, well.  We moderate heroes gotta stick together, so I'm not going to dump on Macron.  Or Clinton.  Funny thing is, when I took the "issues" quiz on a French website to see which candidate I most aligned with, my top three were Hidalgo, Jadot, and Mélenchon.  I think Macron was somewhere in the middle, and Le Pen and Zemmour were near the bottom.  So in France I'm on the Left, even though in the US I'm in the center, or maybe a bit right of center.  But that's an artifact of the fact that the test was written for a French audience.  Some of the problems asked about are similar to here (L'Ukraine, les impôts, légalisation de cannabis, les migrants, la sécurité des frontières, les dépenses sociales, l'IVG, le coronavirus, les écoles publiques, etc.)  But some were very specific.  One question was "Concernant la durée du mandat présidentiel, pensez-vous qu'il faut revenir au septennat ou conserver le quinquennat?"  I really don't know.  I mean, I might have some opinion if I had thought about it but I haven't really given any thought about the duration.  On those I always selected "passer cette question" which was generally the last option.  I guess that sort of thing confuses their algorithm.

[angus]

I'd argue there isn't anything "moderate" about ruthlessly gutting social programs and slashing taxes on the rich, but I know our politics have gotten crazy enough that trying to make that point is probably a lost cause...

Ah, this is why I first came to Dave Leip's forum 18 years ago.  But it's probably also why I stopped visiting.  It can be a headache.

I suspect that we disagree on some level, but you make a good point.  I had similar arguments all through the 90s with my roommate in Boston regarding Clinton.  "What is 'moderate' about dragging the party rightward, and the 'welfare to work' program which is denying social benefits to children?"  I do appreciate the question.  

I think the idea is to try to come to a compromise that avoids class conflict.  The obvious drawback is that some unfortunate individuals do fall through the cracks and are deprived of the government aid that they need.  The solution to that problem is better screening.  I cannot adequately describe the specifics in France, but in the US the problem was abuse of the welfare system set up in the late 1960s in Johnson's Great Society.  It was a brilliant idea and phenomenally popular on the left and in the center.  But it became overly top-heavy, like Rome circa AD400.  It was a house of twigs just waiting for a strong wind to blow and knock it down.  Clinton wanted to prune it back in order to achieve a balanced budget.  

I have the impression that it was similar in France in 2017.  Macron advocated in favor of the free market and reducing the public-finances deficit at a time when the French deficit was near the allowed EU maximum.  But I also know that there are details (the El Khomri law, rebalancing of the trade deficit with Germany, fuel surcharges, etc.) with which I am not so intimately associated so I generally tend not to argue in favor of or against his legislative agenda.  

I do appreciate your unfiltered comments, though.  It motivates me to try to learn more about the specifics of his economic agenda.

[angus]

I came across this today, from Le Monde:

"Selon des projections de l’IFOP pour Paris Match et Sud Radio publiées lundi 11 avril, 39 % des électeurs de Jean-Luc Mélenchon au premier tour seraient prêts à voter pour le président sortant au second, mais 41 % préféreraient voter blanc, ou s’abstenir. Ils seraient enfin 20 % à glisser un bulletin Le Pen dans l’urne. Les proportions sont similaires parmi les électeurs de l’écologiste Yannick Jadot..."

Basically it says that only about 4 of 10 Mélenchon voters will support Macron in the second tour, 4 in ten will tender null ballots, and 2 of 10 till vote for Le Pen.  Similar results are found with Jadot voters. 

I cannot vouch for the reliability of this polling organization.  Here is the article, if you are interested in reading further. 

[angus]

Did anyone catch the debate last night?  I watched the first two hours--apparently it went on for three hours--but I got hungry and had to bid adieu to the candidates.

It was interesting.  There were similarities and dissimilarities compared with the US presidential debates.  The candidates' interruptions were similar. The moderator's inability to prevent interruptions was similar. The subversions and topic changes were similar.

But the position of the desks, face to face, was more interesting. I like this arrangement. It encourages dialogue. A big difference was the age of the candidates. One seems to be my age, more or less. The other appears to be several years younger. Now it's hard to imagine such candidates in the United States. You would have to go back at least 20 years to find such young candidates.

There were small details that I didn't quite understand--fine points of policy that don't normally arise in the US, or that are different enough that I don't relate to them. But, generally, I understood the questions and the answers, and especially the difference between the philosophies between the two candidates.

Who won? I do not know. I feel like Macron is a better master of debating skills, but Le Pen managed her time well enough and rose to the general challenge of not confusing or contradicting herself beyond what is normal for a politician.  Macron definitely called her out a few times when she stated "alternative facts." We'll see.  The French analysts are generally calling it a win for Macron.  Here's an example.  Note that he says (at about 1:30) that about 36% of Mélenchon voters claim that Le Pen did better, which I find a bit surprising.  

[angus]

Can a French speaker help me with this?  I have a question regarding "période de cohabitation" in the following article, which appeared in Le Monde earlier today. 



We use the word "cohabitation" in English to mean "vivre ensemble" but that seems odd here.  The only thing I can think of is that it refers to a political party holding both the national legislature and the presidency simultaneously.  At the moment the REM has the biggest share of seats in the parliament, so this would make sense.  Is that correct?  Thank you.

[angus]

Ah, cohabitation, so in English it can refer to the government as well.  I had only seen the word on census forms referring to people living together.

I guess if I hadn't been so lazy it would have occurred to me to look it up.  LaRousse offers this as its second definition, and I guess it works the same way in English:



The more you know.  

Thanks Hash and Oryxslayer.