French presidential election, 2022

[Person Man]

French far-right leader Le Pen softens image for election
French nationalist Marine Le Pen has softened her rhetoric and her image as she tries to unseat centrist President Emmanuel Macron in the upcoming election, taking place in two rounds on April 10 and 24

Macron has moved so far to the right that he might be to Le Pen's right at this point.

Is this hyperbole or do we have concrete examples?

[Person Man]

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.

And to that I say, join the club.
As privilege is replaced by merit, some people will simultaneously start to struggle and identify with privilege.

[Person Man]

What happens if LePen loses? Who has the upper hand going into the final round?

[Person Man]

I always monitor the commune of Y (Somme) in these elections...

26 Le Pen, 12 Melenchon, 6 Zemmour, 4 Macron 4 Lassalle, 2 Pecresse, 1 Arthaud, 1 NDA

What sort of commune would vote for Le Pen?

A racist one?

[Person Man]

So what are the takeaways, if any from this round of the election? It does look like Macron improved over his 2017 first round performance but that he could still lose because of how not only are people being "red pilled" into Nationalism, but also being "black pilled" into not voting.

 However, there is a chance that Macron isn't in any real danger and people will "come home" now that it is established that there isn't a more progressive alternative to him any more. You would also think the war/genocide in Ukraine would show voters that fascism doesn't work.

Then again, high inflation and high unemployment for inexperienced/less skilled people is showing that liberal capitalism doesn't work and Le Pen has come out as pro-choice and backpedaled on breaking up the EU. So maybe people who want to send SOME sort of message, even if it is not the message they want, will now be more comfortable with sending it now instead of trying again 5 years later.

Is this anywhere near what's going on right now? If not, I circle back to my original question- what does the 40000 feet view look like at this point?

[Person Man]

https://mobile.twitter.com/adb0wen/status/1513607356306923537
wtf lmao

REINE 😭

Why do you think I have this outrageous accent you silly kid!?

[Person Man]

Macron seems to have the momentum for now. Just don't blow it by getting cocky or something. Let the media debate whether Le Pen would sell out the country to Putin (French interests my ass).

He basically needs to run down the clock for 9 days.

[Person Man]

^^Good to see Macron's new campaign strategy immediately paying dividends.

Makes sense. He is where Obama was 6 days out in 2008 and he launched an informercial and that was about it.

[Person Man]

Polling seems to be moving in Macrons direction of late. Nice, but I will not sleep easily until he's got it won.

The only way he loses now is massive fraud.

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1517467333454876674?s=20&t=XHaWp9qRB...


Also a 53/47 odaxa poll, which is no change from their last numbers, seven days ago. Their projected abstention is much lower than anyone else.

Final Yougov. No nice voter movement chart like last time, but the transfer percentages are similar:

https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1517458617095569408?s=20&t=rqO1oqGxIDE9Ikv...

Macron is basically two touchdowns ahead with a two minute warning. They just need to not fumble the ball twice over the course of 4 downs.

[Person Man]

A simple average of the final polls of 10 polling firms that conducted polls this final week has Macron at 55.3%. For whatever it's worth, it's a little lower (54.5%) among the 3 pollsters that were most accurate in the first round. The trendline on Wikipedia, meanwhile, points to something slightly above 56%.

Guess we'll find out tomorrow.

In your opinion, how much of a chance does LePen have?

[Person Man]

Macron most likely will win but his approval numbers are terrible when compared to his peers.

The only ones that seems charismatic at all of the bigger countries  is that Mexican commie and that guy who hates white people (and probably black people). The only popular-ish big country leader is Draghi, which is good but unexpected.

[Person Man]

A simple average of the final polls of 10 polling firms that conducted polls this final week has Macron at 55.3%. For whatever it's worth, it's a little lower (54.5%) among the 3 pollsters that were most accurate in the first round. The trendline on Wikipedia, meanwhile, points to something slightly above 56%.

Guess we'll find out tomorrow.

In your opinion, how much of a chance does LePen have?

I guess the 10% or so that models are converging on seems like a decent conservative estimate, if only because of the big unknown around abstention and blank votes. The former looks like it won't be too high, thankfully, so maybe the chances of a bad surprise are falling further down.

I mean, winning despite only one poll 3 weeks ago saying you will by 1% does raise suspicions.

[Person Man]

Out of curiosity do we even know if the overseas results are actually accurate? Isn’t kinda early to be getting results?

I assume it’s for reasons but it’s odd that people are already counting votes where it’s like 2 o’clock.