French presidential election, 2022

[Geoffrey Howe]

Hidalgo is in too.

There should be a seperate topic for these low energy media-obsessed losers that are throwing their candidacies forward in the hope to get 5-7% at best.

In all the polls I've seen, she loses to Le Pen in the second round. Though I find it highly unlikely she'll get that far.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Would it help or hurt the French far right if Eric Zemmour ran for president?

If Le Pen runs as well, how would it help?
Who did he support in 2017?

[Geoffrey Howe]

I don't think he needs to run to help them. Insofar as he has any influence, he can exert it through radio/television appearances (which seem constant to me). Besides, if he ran and he/Le Pen managed to get to the second round, that would take a lot of momentum out of the campaign as it would presumably be narrow.


I continue to wonder how LR will do. On the assumption, of course, that they run Bertrand/Pécresse; Wauquiez and Retailleau (hard right conservative Catholic from the Vendée, which basically describes the LR electorate nowadays) only appeal to a very small niche. I get the impression that Macron has shifted slightly left, so that may leave a small opening; though I remain very sceptical of anyone other than Macron and Le Pen getting to the second round.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Michel Barnier has announced he’ll be a candidate in the primary of the right, which might have surprised some. He’s now trotting out his new idea of controlling immigration - not sure how seriously people will take that. Also the usual about work, merit etc.

Eric Ciotti will also be a candidate. He’s going tough on the immigration/identity line (who isn’t?). His big thing is that “France needs to remain France.” He wants to replace jus soli entirely with jus sanguinis, and put France’s “Christian roots” in the Constitution. The usual about Islamic fundamentalism etc.

Laurent Wauquiez will not be a candidate.

Worth noting they all stress the importance of unity and that there needs to be only one candidate.

[Geoffrey Howe]

OK, I should sum up like Zinneke for the right.


DECLARED:

Xavier Bertrand (President of the Hauts-de-France region)
Valérie Pécresse (President of the Île-de-France region)
Michel Barnier (former head of EU UK Task Force)
Eric Ciotti (Deputy for Alpes-Maritimes 1)
Philippe Juvin (former MEP for Île-de-France)

DECLINED:

Laurent Wauquiez (former head of LR, President of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes)
Bruno Retailleau (President of the LR group in the Senate)

UNDECLARED:

Bruno Retailleau (President of the LR group in the Senate)
David Lisnard (deputy president of Alpes-Maritimes)


Bertrand does not want to participate in the primary and is hoping to emerge as the "natural" candidate without one; as far as I know, all the others support a primary and stress the importance of unity. On the Le Figaro website, the open poll has 58% support for a primary.

Anyway, it looked like Pécresse and Bertrand were the frontrunners, though who knows now. Bertand/Pécresse/Barnier seem to be going after the left-wing of the right, with Ciotti running hard on the right. They all stress the security theme (Pécresse was making something about the threat to pharmacists and carers), but it seems like Ciotti is really going after the FN line of identity and immigration, the need to "remain French" and so on. My guess is that Barnier would go down the competence, unity line and maybe stress economic issues more.

Retailleau is very popular with Fillon loyalists and devout Catholics, and I think is essentially the only one who is going after an electorate restricted and loyal to LR (right-wing Catholics who don't like Le Pen, traditionalists, Fillon obsessives), whereas the others seem to want to peel votes off Macron or Le Pen. FWIW my preferred candidate is probably Barnier, though I don't see the point of him and Macron both running.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Michel Barnier has announced he’ll be a candidate in the primary of the right, which might have surprised some. He’s now trotting out his new idea of controlling immigration - not sure how seriously people will take that. Also the usual about work, merit etc.

Eric Ciotti will also be a candidate. He’s going tough on the immigration/identity line (who isn’t?). His big thing is that “France needs to remain France.” He wants to replace jus soli entirely with jus sanguinis, and put France’s “Christian roots” in the Constitution. The usual about Islamic fundamentalism etc.

Laurent Wauquiez will not be a candidate.

Worth noting they all stress the importance of unity and that there needs to be only one candidate.

What's Barnier's exact proposal to "control immigration"?

I'd assume Ciotti is basically proposing whatever Le Pen proposes

Not sure. All I read in Le Monde is that "il veut maîtriser l'immigration."

[Geoffrey Howe]

Effortpost.

I was under the impression Pecresse was more on the right of the party than on the NKM, Bertrand side.

It will be interesting to see if Macron leans into the left again in his campaign this time round or whether he tries to point to his record in government in order to appeal to the right.  Both carry risks for the second round of course.

I'm not that familiar but I get the impression she's on the left of the party - she called for Fillon to step down in 2017 (though that's not strictly a left/right thing) and criticised Wauquiez for being too close to the far right. May be wrong though.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Any sane person on the right who is interested in governing has joined Macron, so competing in the LR primary you have to go a little crazy. It's a bit disappointing though. Mind you, I'd much rather have Barnier implementing that sort of thing than Le Pen.

[Geoffrey Howe]

I am really not looking forward to this election. It sure looks like we're headed for a ing FBM/Panzergirl rematch, even though most French people rightfully despise both of these clowns. The best hope might honestly be someone like Bertrand, although I fully expect him to default to the same toxic mix of outdated neoliberalism and cynical pandering to normalized islamophobia that's worked so well for FBM so far. But oh well. Of course I'll try to follow this closely.

I wouldn't be so pessimistic as you. It is almost impossible to undo left-wing policies and reduce the size of the State (particularly in France ). Even Mrs Thatcher barely managed to do so over eleven years. As for "normalised islamophobia" (which I too find unpleasant), this will continue so long as we believe in representative democracy and the French feel there is a problem with Islam in France. I do not know how to solve that - and I don't think this sort of thing helps - but I do think it reflects very real concerns. Is this not democracy at work? Plus, there'll be at least one left-wing candidate to your taste

[Geoffrey Howe]

The "it's democracy" retort is a vacuous platitude though. Of course I believe in democracy, and people have a right to vote for bad policies if they want to, but that doesn't make those policies any less contemptible.

It's not a defence of the policy or rhetoric on its merits, but surely politicians are to a certain extent bound by public opinion? If people cannot express their feelings through democratic channels, they will end up doing so through far worse forms. As it happens, I'm convinced that the cultural conservatism and French leftism are inextricably bound, and the solution is some good old Anglo-Saxon ultraliberalism

[Geoffrey Howe]

The "it's democracy" retort is a vacuous platitude though. Of course I believe in democracy, and people have a right to vote for bad policies if they want to, but that doesn't make those policies any less contemptible.

It's not a defence of the policy or rhetoric on its merits, but surely politicians are to a certain extent bound by public opinion? If people cannot express their feelings through democratic channels, they will end up doing so through far worse forms. As it happens, I'm convinced that the cultural conservatism and French leftism are inextricably bound, and the solution is some good old Anglo-Saxon ultraliberalism

Hahahahahahaha. Right, Because "Anglo-Saxon ultraliberalism" has worked so well at forestalling populist xenophobia. You certainly don't find any of that in the parties of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan!

And again, you're not saying anything meaningful here. Of course people can vote for xenophobic politicians if they want to. That doesn't make xenophobic politicians any less reprehensible.

In fact Britain and particularly America are much more culturally liberal than France. Britain is considerably less xenophobic and illiberal than France. You seem to forget that it was Mrs Thatcher who made the first steps to "globalisation" and Britain (particularly London) is a much more "worldly" place since Thatcher's premiership. I see France's cultural conservatism as part of the centralising current in France that demands conformity - it is not difficult to see how this translates into a taste for equality.

I think you are missing my point about xenophobia. You said you were pessimistic - to which I tried to put a positive spin: does this not highlight the health of French democracy that politicians reflect the views of the people? Of course, in a representative democracy, politicians should not always slavishly follow public opinion; but the general tendency should be in that direction.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Another great day for the French left!

[Geoffrey Howe]

Manuel Valls suggests "republicans" must come up with a "drastic change" to the immigration system, including suspension of family reunions if they want people to vote for them.

In other news, LR primary will be in December but Bertrand still doesn't want to participate. He has the highest poll numbers from that side.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Zemmour has apparently been moaning that the subjunctive is no longer taught in schools. TBH I don't really know how you can speak/write French without the subjunctive.

But it seems like he's going for more of a traditionalist hard-right line (including maybe some of Fillon's electorate?) than Marine Le Pen.

[Geoffrey Howe]

On that chart Zemmour gets the same number of votes from Fillon as from Le Pen. Pretty telling. Wonder where his strongest areas will be - my instinct for that sort of electorate is PACA (specifically the coast) and Alsace - very much a Le Pen Sr coalition. It'd be interesting to see how well he might do in wealthy parts of IdF.

[Geoffrey Howe]

In case you thought Zemmour was a "friendlier" version of Le Pen, here are some quotes of his:

"No small town, no small village in France is safe from a savage squad of Chechen, Kosovar, Maghrebi or African gangs who steal, rape, pillage, torture and kill."

"When the young bus driver slips a concupiscent hand on a charming female backside, the young woman does not sue for sexual harassment...Trust reigns." (Apparently this indicates how good relations between the sexes used to be.)

"This quest for parity is like the quest for morality, it has no end. Don't give women the social or the family, they need finance or defence! It'll never be enough."

"To call your child Mohammed is to colonise France" (He wants to ban foreign names.)


The fact that this sort of person is on the evening news night after night and a serious contender for the presidential race who supposedly strikes a chord with popular sentiment is an indication of just how far France has gone in its collective hysteria.

[Geoffrey Howe]

In case you thought Zemmour was a "friendlier" version of Le Pen, here are some quotes of his:

"No small town, no small village in France is safe from a savage squad of Chechen, Kosovar, Maghrebi or African gangs who steal, rape, pillage, torture and kill."

"When the young bus driver slips a concupiscent hand on a charming female backside, the young woman does not sue for sexual harassment...Trust reigns." (Apparently this indicates how good relations between the sexes used to be.)

"This quest for parity is like the quest for morality, it has no end. Don't give women the social or the family, they need finance or defence! It'll never be enough."

"To call your child Mohammed is to colonise France" (He wants to ban foreign names.)


The fact that this sort of person is on the evening news night after night and a serious contender for the presidential race who supposedly strikes a chord with popular sentiment is an indication of just how far France has gone in its collective hysteria.

Maybe wait till the election before making such generalizations. There is a reason he's on roughly 13%. There's this generalized hype about France heading towards the fascist precipice from the Anglo-Saxon media, but then which were the two-three countries who did elect RWPPs or people to power? It wouldn't be the 3 that signed a certain defence deal recently, would it?

Anyway, France's decline is steady. I actually think someone like Onfray (before he became a caricature of himself, which is what TV exposure does to you) holds views that are more in line with the general population's views than Zemmour. Increasing disassociation from the democratic exercise in France, belief that France is at the center of a vortex of Western civilizational decay that is irreversible, belief that the only way to go through it is to stay dignified in light of what Americans jere would call the "clown world". Still left-wing on a lot of the bread and butter issues, but resolutely anti-woke and wanting only controlled immigration. Of the two intellectuals Onfray was the one regularly touted to try to get into politics but he refuses and basically is a leading light in the people who just vote white, the abstentionnistes convaincus that Coluche joked about. They are probably far more representative of median France than Zemmour.

I'm not saying everyone agrees with him but that what he says strikes a chord with a disturbingly large number; even those who might not agree with everything he says. 13% in what is already a massive field is pretty impressive.
 

[Geoffrey Howe]

Seems to have gone under the radar: Le Pen Senior is pretty openly supporting Zemmour. He has been comparing him to himself and says that he will support Zemmour if he is "best-placed." Add to that his recent grumbling that the RN has lost its "virility" (a word Zemmour is very fond of) and it seems fairly clear what he thinks.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Indeed, Zemmour himself is the son of pieds-noirs.

[Geoffrey Howe]

The Mayor of Béziers is pledged to Marine Le Pen but is calling for whichever is in front by a certain point to stand down in favour of the other, and will support Zemmour if he is that one.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Fillon wanted to get rid of 500,000 IIRC, so that's at least one area in which they're moving to the left.

[Geoffrey Howe]

In other news, Zemmour (...) has gone completely off the rails and Le Pen/RN is essentially accusing him of being too extreme.

[Geoffrey Howe]

He's also been doing the thing about Vichy protecting Jews, but that's not new.

What caught a lot of people's attention was his tirade about 'criminal' François Hollande letting in immigrants causing the Bataclan terror attacks, at the memorial no less. For this he was rebuked by Jordan Bardella and Marion-Maréchal Le Pen.

So, all in all, not a propitious few weeks in French politics.

[Geoffrey Howe]

With his economic reforms falling by the wayside Macron seems to have tacked Left (in that respect, at least) since a few years ago. This also puts some distance between him and Pécresse, upon whom it now falls to carry the flame of economic liberalism.