French presidential election, 2022

[Astatine]

You know it's an election year in France when the President promises the construction of new nuclear power plants: Macron announced the age of a "new nuclear renaissance" today, planning 6 new reactors with the option for another 8 by 2050. The new NPPs are likely to be improved versions of the EPR, a reactor model that has been under construction in Flamanville since 2007 and might finally get into operation by 2023. Voters might thank him, as the mostly state-owned energy company EDF which operates all of France's NPPs employs more than 150,000 people.

Macron had scored another win on nuclear power just recently, when the EU commission included it in their new green taxonomy.

EDF purchased some property next to the Cattenom NPP, which is close to Luxembourg and Germany, as recently as 2018 - Ironic if a new reactor would be built there just to piss off the Germans.

[Astatine]

French pollsters asking the crucial questions:

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1511098039972380675

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1511084542454603778

[Astatine]

Expat vote results are out by consular constituency and they're hilarious. Zemmour won in Israel, Russia (minus Yekaterinburg constituency) - no comment - Thailand and the Almaty constituency. He also won 31% in the Bahamas and 25.4% in Miami. I will just say one thing about this: LOL.



There's no embassy in North Korea, the embassy in Yemen is closed but the consular constituency still exists and reported 0 votes, the embassy in Syria is closed but 2 votes were cast (one each for Zemmour and Pécresse), 1 vote was cast in Afghanistan and it was for Macron and the election couldn't be held in Shanghai because ZeroCovid disenfranchises people.

Some constituencies are non-contiguous (Malawi is with RSA, Nunavut is with Montreal, Jamaica is with Panama, PR is with Miami etc.)

Full details here: https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/elections_pr_1er_tour_2022_-_pourcentages__cle0f9d7c.pdf

Beautiful that the Western French department of La Sarre has an own consular constituency.

In a very hypothetical scenario where we transfer the votes from the 27 March state election to the respective euro party's candidates (SPD->PS, CDU->LR, AfD->RN, Greens->EELV, FDP->LREM, Linke->LFI - ofc not happening, just playing with numbers), Hidalgo would've increased her absolute raw vote by 33% (from 604,000 to 801,000) and would've finished ahead of Dupont-Aignan and Roussel.

[Astatine]

Orban's coalition led in the polling against the United Opposition by about 7 points toward the end. It appears that coalition is going to win by about 18 points. Polls around the world are consistently underestimating the strength of right-wing, specifically right-wing nationalist candidates and parties. This is a trend, not an anomaly.

And predictably, the left is not taking it well. "Democratic backsliding" and all that gets invoked whenever a person they don't like wins. Many of the typical excuses - one-sided media coverage, changes to voting rules, etc. - can be seen to some extent in many "western liberal democracies" including the US. And if that doesn't sufficiently explain the result, just trash the character of the voters. Because after all, democracy is when the good guys win and the bad guys lose. Under this warped mindset, someone can "vote against democracy". Doesn't sound like a secure system that can preserve a free society if that's the case.

How are things going now after France and Slovenia sweetheart