France 2017: Results Thread

[Mr. Smith]

What are the odds of Melenchon overtaking Fillon?

[Mr. Smith]

So what's the West Virginia/Alabama of France? And conversely the San Fran/Boston/NYC of France?

There aren't any of those. France is just one giant Midwest. Paris is Chicago.

+

I always thought the Southern coast was particularly right-wing (and I think also somewhere in Northeast France as well). I admit I haven't followed French politics in some time.

Is anyone here going to say without a doubt that Le Pen won't be the next President of France? Or are they like me now, someone who just won't feel comfortable until the results are final?

I'd go further and suggest that until the results are against her for sure, Macron is like Hillary and thus liable to lose if even one false move is made or even one scandal shows up.

[Mr. Smith]

100% counted:

24.01% Macron
21.30% Le Pen
20.01% Fillon
19.58% Mélenchon
  6.36% Hamon
  3.56% NDA
  1.21% Lassalle
  1.09% Poutou
  0.92% Asselineau
  0.64% Arthaud
  0.18% Cheminade

So basically, Le Pen was closer to Melenchon than to Macron, AND made the run-off only by 1.3 points.

[Mr. Smith]

Just announced:

Dupont-Aignan would become Le Pen's PM, if she *somehow* wins.

The political death of Nicolas Dupont-Aignan. RIP

He got 5% in the first round, his best result yet. What else should we expect from him ? Becoming PM under Le Pen would be his career highlight and his best bet.

Anyway, it would be great to see a new Elabe poll. They were the best in round 1.

Well, Le Pen isn't going to win so he won't become Prime Minister and now everyone will associate him with the woefully unpopular Le Pen.

Trump wasn't supposed to win either.

[Mr. Smith]

Just announced:

Dupont-Aignan would become Le Pen's PM, if she *somehow* wins.

The political death of Nicolas Dupont-Aignan. RIP

He got 5% in the first round, his best result yet. What else should we expect from him ? Becoming PM under Le Pen would be his career highlight and his best bet.

Anyway, it would be great to see a new Elabe poll. They were the best in round 1.

Well, Le Pen isn't going to win so he won't become Prime Minister and now everyone will associate him with the woefully unpopular Le Pen.

Trump wasn't supposed to win either.

Trump was not 20 points behind Clinton one week before the election. He was always within striking distance of her in a way that LePen has never been

True, but counterpoint: Clinton was careful not to do anything too stupid to blow it, to a fault maybe...but the scales were tipping back and forth until Comeyghazi flipped it.

Macron on the other hand has blown his lead a bit, making all sorts of rookie mistakes against someone more seasoned.

[Mr. Smith]

Just announced:

Dupont-Aignan would become Le Pen's PM, if she *somehow* wins.

The political death of Nicolas Dupont-Aignan. RIP

He got 5% in the first round, his best result yet. What else should we expect from him ? Becoming PM under Le Pen would be his career highlight and his best bet.

Anyway, it would be great to see a new Elabe poll. They were the best in round 1.

Well, Le Pen isn't going to win so he won't become Prime Minister and now everyone will associate him with the woefully unpopular Le Pen.

Trump wasn't supposed to win either.

Trump was not 20 points behind Clinton one week before the election. He was always within striking distance of her in a way that LePen has never been

True, but counterpoint: Clinton was careful not to do anything too stupid to blow it, to a fault maybe...but the scales were tipping back and forth until Comeyghazi flipped it.

Macron on the other hand has blown his lead a bit, making all sorts of rookie mistakes against someone more seasoned.

And he's still up by around 20 points.

It's a high ceiling for sure, but we haven't gotten to the debate and there's still plenty of time for Le Pen to clean house and/or Macron continuously blow it. On the other hand Le Pen could fail to clean house and Macron could grow into things.

Given how 60% of these  recent far-rights vs everyone else have gone (Brexit/U.S./Iceland vs Austria and Netherlands), the former seems likely to happen than the latter.

[Mr. Smith]

Just announced:

Dupont-Aignan would become Le Pen's PM, if she *somehow* wins.

The political death of Nicolas Dupont-Aignan. RIP

He got 5% in the first round, his best result yet. What else should we expect from him ? Becoming PM under Le Pen would be his career highlight and his best bet.

Anyway, it would be great to see a new Elabe poll. They were the best in round 1.

Well, Le Pen isn't going to win so he won't become Prime Minister and now everyone will associate him with the woefully unpopular Le Pen.

Trump wasn't supposed to win either.

Trump was not 20 points behind Clinton one week before the election. He was always within striking distance of her in a way that LePen has never been

True, but counterpoint: Clinton was careful not to do anything too stupid to blow it, to a fault maybe...but the scales were tipping back and forth until Comeyghazi flipped it.

Macron on the other hand has blown his lead a bit, making all sorts of rookie mistakes against someone more seasoned.

And he's still up by around 20 points.

It's a high ceiling for sure, but we haven't gotten to the debate and there's still plenty of time for Le Pen to clean house and/or Macron continuously blow it. On the other hand Le Pen could fail to clean house and Macron could grow into things.

Given how 60% of these  recent far-rights vs everyone else have gone (Brexit/U.S./Iceland vs Austria and Netherlands), the former seems likely to happen than the latter.

The far-right didn't win the 2016 Icelandic parliamentary elections. Maybe you mean another country? Anyway, I still don't see how Le Pen wins this unless there is a major terror attack + a major Macron scandal/gaffe. Fillon was plagued by scandals, his program was rather unpopular but he never dropped below 53% against Le Pen.

Fair enough, Iceland was a weird situation, and I didn't follow that one too closely. But I do remember the Centrist party got dumped, the Left as a whole faltered despite leading for most of the way, and the Right pulled through thanks to a splinter party [mixed up the reason for the splinter party to exist though].

I don't think she'll win it as things are, but I don't think it's gonna be a curb-stomper either.

[Mr. Smith]

It is quite interesting, how much of a meltdown the left is having about macron. Whereas backing Chirac in 2002 was seen as obvious. Even for the PCF

From what I gather, Le Pen Sr was an unexpected shock, Le Pen Jr wasn't and stopping Le Pen would've been done if Hamon had just dropped out earlier, which would've put Melenchon over the line to compete with Macron.

Hard to fault the side that was less than 2 points away from having it all when that itself was not really expected.

[Mr. Smith]

What do you mean "two points from having it all"? Even I Melenchon had snuck ahead of LePen and made it into the runoff he would have been crushed by Macron by an even bigger margin than he will have against LePen'

Considering where things were, defeating Macron would've been quite the task, but I have no doubt the polls would be much much closer in his favor than they are for Le Pen. But just taking on Macron, forcing him to go further left, forcing him even harder to work for the working class (well beyond the optics he needed at that Whirlpool Factory against a faux-populist).

What do you mean "two points from having it all"? Even I Melenchon had snuck ahead of LePen and made it into the runoff he would have been crushed by Macron by an even bigger margin than he will have against LePen'

They wouldn't have had to compromise themselves by voting for a candidate they viewed as insufficiently radical though. Most leftists consider that a far bigger victory than actually winning an election.

Governing directly is difficult. Forcing another side in need of votes over towards your side and generally shifting the Overton Window the way you want it on the other hand...

.


The FN reaching second round was really unexpected. Also Jean-marie Le Pen made holocaust denial remarks that was widely condemned. Plus there was no Melenchon like figure on the left. And Marine le pen made a lot of steps to "normalize" the FN for the public by expelling openly racist FN figures even her father and enforced stronger party standards to prevent members from giving racist statements that characterized the FN during her father. As a result 41% of the french public in recent polls considered the FN a "normal regular party" and 43% consider it a threat to the republic in contrast to 2002.

Yes, but you don't exactly have to dig deep to find some prety unpleasant views. Panzerbabby, whose wing could well be in charge come the end of the year (and who would turn the party in an economically liberal direction) in particular doesn't seem particularly worried about outright fascists coming to her meetings.

From what I gather, Le Pen Sr was an unexpected shock, Le Pen Jr wasn't and stopping Le Pen would've been done if Hamon had just dropped out earlier, which would've put Melenchon over the line to compete with Macron.

Hard to fault the side that was less than 2 points away from having it all when that itself was not really expected.

I think it might be a bit optimistic to suggest Hamon dropping out would have put Mélenchon through, don't underestimate quite how many people on the left Mélenchon puts off; a lot of Hamon's support would have dribbled away to Macron or even Poutou.

In any case, Mélenchon supporters right now seem very much aware that Le Pen is worse than Macron; they just don't want to "legitimise" Macron's presidency, and seem to be hoping that the rest of the country does the dirty work of actually voting for Macron for them.

The last poll had Hamon's support going 50% to Melenchon, which would be enough to surpass Le Pen by a point.

[Mr. Smith]

The last poll had Hamon's support going 50% to Melenchon, which would be enough to surpass Le Pen by a point.

Pre-second round polls also had Mélenchon's supporters going 80-20 to Macron in the second round; hypothetical polls should be treated with a lot of caution. Who knows how Hamon dropping out would have affected right leaning Fillon or NDA voters?

True, and much of this did come from the surge which may well have not occurred if Hamon had dropped earlier