French presidential election, 2022

[windjammer]

f**king kill me now

I mean fortunately he doesn't seem at all to attract the masses.

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Speaking of which, feels like a good time to mention the two LR debates where they spent a grand total of 6 hours arguing about who could be the nastiest to immigrants and muslims, interspersed with short breaks to argue about who could be the nastiest to criminals and muslims (Éric Ciotti won).

Remember when they used to be a serious party?

I mean, Juppé, Fillon, Sarkozy, Chirac, all were corrupt,...

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* Believe it or not, but Montebourg’s dumb proposal on remittances has been blamed on two communication advisers of his campaign team who are describing themselves as ‘Sarkozyst’ and used to be close to the former right-wing president (as well as on a former pro-Chevènement énarque). Doesn’t stop Nono to come up with another idiotic proposal: instituting an offense of ‘economic treason’ to punish the selling of French businesses to foreign investors.

* It seems that Zemmour’s campaign is foundering before even having officially started. After comments on people owning a Parisian apartment worth €1.3 million not being ‘what we are calling wealthy people’ (totally in line with complaints of overpaid far-right TV pundits about how discussions on purchasing power are creating a diversion from the ‘real’ problems), revelations about Neo-Nazis having participated in the inauguration of his campaign office, the departure of his main founder (neoliberal millionaire Charles Gave who published a book with a preface by Milton Friedman) and a complaint against Closer (trash tabloid specialized in the invasion of privacy of real or alleged celebrities and assorted socialites) over allegation his main political adviser (and alleged mistress) is pregnant, the far-right candidate has been photographed responding to a bystander who has given him the finger by rising himself his middle finger.

He has still received some weeks ago the endorsement of a first legislator, even if we are speaking of Joachim Son-Forget, elected in 2017 as a LREM deputy for Switzerland and Liechtenstein expats (with an impressive 18.8% turnout) who turned out to clearly suffer from mental issues, to be totally unfit for the job and is more famous for his Twitter controversies than for his (non-existent) parliamentary work. Reports that LR deputy Guillaume Peltier and probably the current France's record holder of party-switching (ex-FN, ex-MNR, ex-MPF and he is only 45!) is tempted to endorse the polemicist but he probably would not did it if that means losing his parliamentary seat.

For the Bataclan terror attacks, maybe should we remember that Zemmour’s campaign has used photos of the victims in its propaganda without asking permission to the relatives. Or that Zemmour has been (unsuccessfully) sued in 2016 for terrorism apology by family victims after having declared ‘I respect people ready to die for what they are believing in – something we are no longer able to’ in the wake of the Nice attack.

* Hidalgo’s campaign is also having problems (again) as it has been reported that several banks have refused to lend money to the PS candidate. If her candidacy doesn’t take off, she could be pushed towards the exit by her fellow PS barons. But there is no replacement solution in the party so that means endorsing another left-wing candidate (presumably Jadot but some of them, like mayor of Dijon François Rebsamen, appear to be very impatient to join Macron).

* The LR debates have been (what a surprise) mostly centered around immigration, national identity and insecurity with Éric Ciotti proposing a ‘French style Guantanamo’ to fight terrorism, Xavier Bertrand supporting a halving of the ‘immigration of students who are going to France' and Michel Barnier advocating the return of military service (this one will surely resolve the problem of LR with young voters). Philippe Juvin talked also about believing 'our civilization model being superior to others'.

After Bertrand had refused his endorsement arguing of his pretty vitriolic attacks against his local arch-nemesis Ciotti, Renaud Muselier, the recently reelected president of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, has announced he is leaving LR (again, what a surprise).

* Le Pen is proposing to exempt from income tax every young under 30 and even explained on radio that, if elected, even Kylian Mbappé would be exempted from paying income tax until the age of 30.

Dear god if only this wasn't true that could be funny

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I wonder if the Russian invasion of Ukraine could be a factor in France. It could lead to more scrutiny of how LePen, Zemmour and Melenchon support Putin and presumably will cheer on the invasion. There will also be more stories about how Putin funds various far right and far left political parties in France

I mean, crisis like that usually benefit the president

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I'm going to vote for Pecresse.

[windjammer]

Blank ballot for me. Both of them can go to hell