French presidential election, 2022

[Zinneke]

https://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/edouard-philippe-devoile-horizons-son-nouveau-parti-20211009

Edouard Philippe has launched his own party.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

[Statilius the Epicurean]

He reminds me of Baudet in another sense. An almost-elite populist for almost-elite people who turned into nihilist big brained intellectuals that resent the public sector and creative classes as a result of not being them.

This is very much a type - Arron Banks and Nigel Farage fit that description, as does Donald Trump (the Queens boy who was too gauche for the Manhattan set).

[Tintrlvr]

He reminds me of Baudet in another sense. An almost-elite populist for almost-elite people who turned into nihilist big brained intellectuals that resent the public sector and creative classes as a result of not being them.

This is very much a type - Arron Banks and Nigel Farage fit that description, as does Donald Trump (the Queens boy who was too gauche for the Manhattan set).

Trump was never a candidate for almost-elite people, though, and Farage similar. Zemmour and Baudet are a pretty distinct brand that way. Vox in Spain is not too dissimilar from Baudet and Zemmour, either, although with more of a religious bent.

It's interesting too that both Baudet and Zemmour emerged in political environments that already had a lower-class far-right populist presence from which they both have tried to draw a sharp distinction.

[rob in cal]

In the coming campaign those on the right will no doubt be attacking Macron's record on immigration (letting in too many, France's future as a majority ethnic French nation in jeopardy etc etc). So how does his record look? Has he tried to be restrictionist at all?

[Coldstream]

Zemmour is Algerian Jewish in origin, so it's a bit complicated (and Méluche is Moroccan born, there are loads about).

What's particularly, umm, weird is that Zemmour is also an ardent defender of Pétain and Maurice Papon and reckons they didn't merely do nothing wrong, but were actually in the right vis-à-vis how Jewish people were treated by the Vichy régime. Which would already be frightening enough in it's own right.

Zemmour peddles with the theory that Petain gave up foreign Jews to save French Jews and that was fulfilling his job description. I mean it's textbook political comm 101. Make a.controversial statement, make the media hype happen then seek to clarify, putting water into your wine. Vlaams Belang and Baudet do this.

Zemmour really is just overcompensating for a lot of things though. His height. His "tête de juif maghrébin". His foreign origins (I actually wouldn't call him pied noir) in general. The fact that had he not dropped out at one of those elite schools he'd probably be some LR politician's party trick to wheel out to say "hey look at my Supersmart assistant".

He reminds me of Baudet in another sense. An almost-elite populist for almost-elite people who turned into nihilist big brained intellectuals that resent the public sector and creative classes as a result of not being them. Very good communicators though.

Agreed, Zemmour/Baudet is a useful analogy to Le Pen/Wilders. Zemmour/Baudet are conservatives as much as they are far right, whilst Le Pen/Wilders are singly dedicated to anti-immigration/anti-Islam and fairly indifferent to most other things (even the EU to a certain extent). Personally I expect Zemmour to go the same way as Baudet, to rise and then drop off - whilst Le Pen’s support remains steady.

I’d add that Meloni/Salvini in Italy are also quite a similar dynamic to Baudet/Wilders & Zemmour/Le Pen.

[adma]

He reminds me of Baudet in another sense. An almost-elite populist for almost-elite people who turned into nihilist big brained intellectuals that resent the public sector and creative classes as a result of not being them.

This is very much a type - Arron Banks and Nigel Farage fit that description, as does Donald Trump (the Queens boy who was too gauche for the Manhattan set).

Trump was never a candidate for almost-elite people, though, and Farage similar. Zemmour and Baudet are a pretty distinct brand that way. Vox in Spain is not too dissimilar from Baudet and Zemmour, either, although with more of a religious bent.

It's interesting too that both Baudet and Zemmour emerged in political environments that already had a lower-class far-right populist presence from which they both have tried to draw a sharp distinction.

Yeah, "big brained" is scarcely a label that befits the Trump/Farage crowd.  The closest thing to an Anglosphere equivalent might be if Jordan Peterson ever decided to go into politics.  "Intellectual incels", sort of like...

[Statilius the Epicurean]

He reminds me of Baudet in another sense. An almost-elite populist for almost-elite people who turned into nihilist big brained intellectuals that resent the public sector and creative classes as a result of not being them.

This is very much a type - Arron Banks and Nigel Farage fit that description, as does Donald Trump (the Queens boy who was too gauche for the Manhattan set).

Trump was never a candidate for almost-elite people, though, and Farage similar. Zemmour and Baudet are a pretty distinct brand that way. Vox in Spain is not too dissimilar from Baudet and Zemmour, either, although with more of a religious bent.

It's interesting too that both Baudet and Zemmour emerged in political environments that already had a lower-class far-right populist presence from which they both have tried to draw a sharp distinction.

Yeah, "big brained" is scarcely a label that befits the Trump/Farage crowd.  The closest thing to an Anglosphere equivalent might be if Jordan Peterson ever decided to go into politics.  "Intellectual incels", sort of like...

Whether they're intellectual or not is less relevant to me than the point about their class position. Wealthy almost-but-not-quite elites who feel resentment at the actual elite they failed to break into.

[adma]

He reminds me of Baudet in another sense. An almost-elite populist for almost-elite people who turned into nihilist big brained intellectuals that resent the public sector and creative classes as a result of not being them.

This is very much a type - Arron Banks and Nigel Farage fit that description, as does Donald Trump (the Queens boy who was too gauche for the Manhattan set).

Trump was never a candidate for almost-elite people, though, and Farage similar. Zemmour and Baudet are a pretty distinct brand that way. Vox in Spain is not too dissimilar from Baudet and Zemmour, either, although with more of a religious bent.

It's interesting too that both Baudet and Zemmour emerged in political environments that already had a lower-class far-right populist presence from which they both have tried to draw a sharp distinction.

Yeah, "big brained" is scarcely a label that befits the Trump/Farage crowd.  The closest thing to an Anglosphere equivalent might be if Jordan Peterson ever decided to go into politics.  "Intellectual incels", sort of like...

Whether they're intellectual or not is less relevant to me than the point about their class position. Wealthy almost-but-not-quite elites who feel resentment at the actual elite they failed to break into.

Still, I'm referring to the original "nihilist big-brained intellectuals" point.  Which isn't *quite* in the same coarse category as Trumpian parvenu-ism; more like those who really *did* invest in being "educated" rather than just "rich" and "prosperous", but found themselves shunned all the same.

More like kinfolk to this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_dark_web

[Tintrlvr]

He reminds me of Baudet in another sense. An almost-elite populist for almost-elite people who turned into nihilist big brained intellectuals that resent the public sector and creative classes as a result of not being them.

This is very much a type - Arron Banks and Nigel Farage fit that description, as does Donald Trump (the Queens boy who was too gauche for the Manhattan set).

Trump was never a candidate for almost-elite people, though, and Farage similar. Zemmour and Baudet are a pretty distinct brand that way. Vox in Spain is not too dissimilar from Baudet and Zemmour, either, although with more of a religious bent.

It's interesting too that both Baudet and Zemmour emerged in political environments that already had a lower-class far-right populist presence from which they both have tried to draw a sharp distinction.

Yeah, "big brained" is scarcely a label that befits the Trump/Farage crowd.  The closest thing to an Anglosphere equivalent might be if Jordan Peterson ever decided to go into politics.  "Intellectual incels", sort of like...

Whether they're intellectual or not is less relevant to me than the point about their class position. Wealthy almost-but-not-quite elites who feel resentment at the actual elite they failed to break into.

There's a degree to which maybe this is true in the US as well (can't speak to the UK as much); there have recently been some discussions about the "local elites", i.e., the rich landlords and business owners and so forth in secondary and tertiary cities as well as rural areas as being still the backbone of the Republican Party. (These are the "boaters for Trump".) But even if Trump did get much of his support from those people, he wasn't especially associated with them in public image or intentional appeal, and they were still less Republican in the Trump years than when, say, Romney or George W. Bush was the Republican nominee. They mostly voted for Ted Cruz in the 2016 primary; indeed, Ted Cruz is probably the Baudet/Zemmour/Abascal of the U.S. to Trump's Wilders/Le Pen.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

UKIPs vote in general was not as working class (however defined) as a lot of people were very insistent that it had to be. They certainly had working class voters, but an awful lot of comfortably off middle class people as well - there's a habit, at present, of conflating 'higher professionals' (a group that they certainly did bomb with) with 'middle class' and that's just silly and dishonest.

[parochial boy]

To illustrate a point (fwiw, BFM is the usually slightly more restrained of the 24 news hour channels - full tweet is here but the numbers are all pretty similar. Cnews is, unsuprisingly, significantly worse).



I mean, no wonder he's polling well

[buritobr]

In a Anne Hidalgo vs Marine Le Pen runoff, how will the macronists and the gaullists vote?

[Estrella]

In a Anne Hidalgo vs Marine Le Pen runoff, how will the macronists and the gaullists vote?

The latter will find voting rather difficult, as France doesn't open polling stations in cemeteries. LR today aren't Gaullist in any meaningful sense and haven't been for a long time. You could power all of Colombey with the power De Gaulle generates by spinning in his grave since at least Sarkozy's election, probably earlier.

Any proper Gaullist would vote for the left over the daughter of Tixier's campaign manager, but I'm pretty sure that won't be the case with LR voters today.

[Former President tack50]

To illustrate a point (fwiw, BFM is the usually slightly more restrained of the 24 news hour channels - full tweet is here but the numbers are all pretty similar. Cnews is, unsuprisingly, significantly worse).

]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FBRoTcRWQAUzV8f?format=jpg&name=900x900

I mean, no wonder he's polling well

So polls are mostly name recognition at this point? Even so people like Macron (duh) or even Melenchon and Le Pen should be polling high given they have been running for a decade and a half by now?

[CumbrianLefty]

Well they *are* polling higher than others, aren't they?

[Former President tack50]

Well they *are* polling higher than others, aren't they?

Macron sure I guess, but Le Pen is polling badly and Melenchon's polling is atrocious, especially given his 2017 result

[parochial boy]

To illustrate a point (fwiw, BFM is the usually slightly more restrained of the 24 news hour channels - full tweet is here but the numbers are all pretty similar. Cnews is, unsuprisingly, significantly worse).

]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FBRoTcRWQAUzV8f?format=jpg&name=900x900

I mean, no wonder he's polling well

So polls are mostly name recognition at this point? Even so people like Macron (duh) or even Melenchon and Le Pen should be polling high given they have been running for a decade and a half by now?

I'm not sure it's name recognition so much as the guy who is getting mentioned six hundred times a day so when Ifop calls up then of course he is going to be one of the first names that people have in their heads; he is one of the few candidates who the average french person is even aware of as a potential candidate; and in so far as all publicity is good publicity then pretty much every single person who might be tempted by his rhetoric has been exposed to it enough to be on board.

Jonluk's bad numbers are to a very large degree his own doing. As has been mentioned, he is overall a pretty smart campaigner who generally is pretty good at putting his finger on the pulse - which is in party why he is the only left candidate who has managed two digit figures - but he has also seemed to have suffered from a nasty case of foot in mouth disease over the last couple of years which has meant a few pretty bad outings that have put people of (and lead to pretty imo legit accusations of antisemitism among other things).

Also bear in mind the the LFI brand outside of Méluche is basically nothing - the Europeans, municipals and departmental/regionals all demonstrated that well enough. That and that his 2017 success was at least in part down to the inertia where he emerged as the principle left candidate in the final weeks. In that respect, it is perfectly possible he surges under similar circumstances this time (although it could just as well be a Jadot or Hidalgo who does, just hopefully not Arnaud "well people who are worried about the great replacement have a point" Montebourg). Even in that eventuality, one left wing candidate emerging above all others still doesn't really resolve the problem of them only having a 25% share of the electorate - in which case it's perfectly possible that no one surges because no-one at any point manages to look like a viable candidate.

[Zinneke]

Worth noting that LR-Divers Droites figures have smelt the burning and seem to now want a single candidate for the whole campaign rather than their protracted Darwinist poll-off. They are going to organise an internal party congress to determine the candidate. Bertrand has also said he will re-join LR as a member too, but the fact that this is an internal primary and that he is seen as a traitor means his bid is all but over. Phillippe's announcement pushed them towards doing this.

Pécresse and weirdly enough Barnier are now favorites.

[Zinneke]

To illustrate a point (fwiw, BFM is the usually slightly more restrained of the 24 news hour channels - full tweet is here but the numbers are all pretty similar. Cnews is, unsuprisingly, significantly worse).

]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FBRoTcRWQAUzV8f?format=jpg&name=900x900

I mean, no wonder he's polling well

So polls are mostly name recognition at this point? Even so people like Macron (duh) or even Melenchon and Le Pen should be polling high given they have been running for a decade and a half by now?

I'm not sure it's name recognition so much as the guy who is getting mentioned six hundred times a day so when Ifop calls up then of course he is going to be one of the first names that people have in their heads; he is one of the few candidates who the average french person is even aware of as a potential candidate; and in so far as all publicity is good publicity then pretty much every single person who might be tempted by his rhetoric has been exposed to it enough to be on board.

Jonluk's bad numbers are to a very large degree his own doing. As has been mentioned, he is overall a pretty smart campaigner who generally is pretty good at putting his finger on the pulse - which is in party why he is the only left candidate who has managed two digit figures - but he has also seemed to have suffered from a nasty case of foot in mouth disease over the last couple of years which has meant a few pretty bad outings that have put people of (and lead to pretty imo legit accusations of antisemitism among other things).

Also bear in mind the the LFI brand outside of Méluche is basically nothing - the Europeans, municipals and departmental/regionals all demonstrated that well enough. That and that his 2017 success was at least in part down to the inertia where he emerged as the principle left candidate in the final weeks. In that respect, it is perfectly possible he surges under similar circumstances this time (although it could just as well be a Jadot or Hidalgo who does, just hopefully not Arnaud "well people who are worried about the great replacement have a point" Montebourg). Even in that eventuality, one left wing candidate emerging above all others still doesn't really resolve the problem of them only having a 25% share of the electorate - in which case it's perfectly possible that no one surges because no-one at any point manages to look like a viable candidate.

I think its right that the LFI brand is essentially Mélenchon but that doesn't necessarily mean the anti-austerity Left project would die with Mélenchon/LFI. I think he is the single person holding them back from doing at the very least well in the legislatives, and a left-wing presence in the second round if Zemmour completely cuts the knees off the hard right. One because he is actually one of the few on the Left who still has a Robespierrist conception of the state, whereas increasingly the Left could actually get votes by focusing on the center-periphery relationship a bit more. And Two because he is washed out by now, completely paranoid and out of touch despite having natural political nous. Which come to think of it is also very Robespierrist. If he didn't cosplay as a mix between Robespierre and a latin american caudillo and was genuine about his "reprenez le pouvoir" slogans he'd be with in a shot at actually doing well especially in such an open field.

And that brings up another issue for the French Left, which is that at this point they are in survival mode and virtually all the parties - save for the massive egos running for President - care more about the legislatives than they do about the Presidency. But they also know that while they can't win the Presidency, if they want to have any kind of presence in the legislatives they have to run a candidate. Jadot was the only one who put ego aside and the EELV paid the price for being team players despite large swathes of the population maybe looking for a way to hamstring Macron.

[parochial boy]

I think its right that the LFI brand is essentially Mélenchon but that doesn't necessarily mean the anti-austerity Left project would die with Mélenchon/LFI. I think he is the single person holding them back from doing at the very least well in the legislatives, and a left-wing presence in the second round if Zemmour completely cuts the knees off the hard right. One because he is actually one of the few on the Left who still has a Robespierrist conception of the state, whereas increasingly the Left could actually get votes by focusing on the center-periphery relationship a bit more. And Two because he is washed out by now, completely paranoid and out of touch despite having natural political nous. Which come to think of it is also very Robespierrist. If he didn't cosplay as a mix between Robespierre and a latin american caudillo and was genuine about his "reprenez le pouvoir" slogans he'd be with in a shot at actually doing well especially in such an open field.

And that brings up another issue for the French Left, which is that at this point they are in survival mode and virtually all the parties - save for the massive egos running for President - care more about the legislatives than they do about the Presidency. But they also know that while they can't win the Presidency, if they want to have any kind of presence in the legislatives they have to run a candidate. Jadot was the only one who put ego aside and the EELV paid the price for being team players despite large swathes of the population maybe looking for a way to hamstring Macron.

Probably, probably in most respects - and one of the problem's with LFI and that wing of the left more widely has been it's inability to develop any sort of personalities outside of Méluche. For all that there are a bunch of figures who a popular with activists, they are precisely that, popular with activists and without really any hold beyond that. Then the other wider problem that the left has is that most of them seem to have no tactical nous whatsoever. As you say, there are themes around that they could work on - but seem to get held up on reproducing ones that are natural vote losers for them. There is of course a degree to which you can't really control which way the agenda goes, but at least on part of being a canny political operator has got to be being able to get attention to the themes that people trust you on. Jonluk has, or at least had, the ability to do that in the way none of the others seem to.

As much as any thing else right now, a lot of the fights seem to be about jostling for position within the left with an eye to the post-22 world. As in, it is hardly a secret that for both Hidalgo and Jadot the actual principle ambition is not a second round, but to finish in front of each other in order to position themselves/their parties as the main left wing force for the legislatives and the run up to 2027. Especially on the assumption that the harder left will crash after Méluche (as you say, not a guarantee - but Jonluk's current and 2017 electorates differ from the PS/EELV one in that it is a much more socially disparate and diverse coalition - with the seemingly inherent risk of being more prone to disintegrating, but the seeming advantage that his line seems to be the only one able to win people who aren't CSP+* living in regional capitals).

That as much as anything is why I still feel pretty hopeless about this one. The self-perceived incentive to collaborate seems to be absent; because the intra-left fights are taking priority because they all seem to be operating under the assumption that getting an extra one or two percent over each other will set them on the road to being the natural leadership in the medium term.

* CAP, BEP, SMIC, TGV. Gotta love the French obsession with finding an acronym where everyone else just makes do with a word

[Sir John Johns]

A good example of the abysmal level of the current French political discourse: today, the LREM transportation minister described during a TV-interview Zemmour’s policies as ‘rather woke’ but acknowledged the Petainist candidate is generating ‘intellectual debates which are quite interesting’ (yes, apparently questioning the role of Vichy regime in the deportation of Jewish people, be they French citizens or foreigners or hinting that the victims of Islamist terrorist Mohammed Merah weren’t really French because they have been buried in Israel is ‘quite interesting’). This is the latest iteration of the Macronist campaign to equate the most extremist far-right with ill-defined and largely non-existent  ‘wokists’ who have replaced ‘Islamo-leftists’ as the main threat on the Republic and ‘laïcité’, few months after said ‘Islamo-leftists’ have displaced ‘separatists’ as the government’s favorite boogeyman. Meanwhile a series of attacks by far-right extremists have been foiled (interestingly, one involved a neo-nazi incel who discussed bomb-making on the Internet with a girl since arrested for the planning of an Islamist attack against a church) and anti-vax nutcases are assaulting or threatening physicians or politicians supportive of the vaccine pass. Also, an old woman has been beheaded in Hérault, a crime immediately blamed by a former PS elected official currently spending her time in TV studios on practices imported by migrants; too bad, the murderer turns out to be a former FN candidate in local elections.

On a side note about Zemmour, it make actually some sense to see him advocating antisemitism when you remember (but a lot of people has forgot) the central role played by antisemitism in French Algeria politics (built around the demand of the abolition of Cremieux decree giving Algerian Jews the French citizenship, a demand pushed by settlers up until the 1930s and realized by the Vichy regime) with recurring anti-Jewish (and sometimes deadly) riots and the election in the late 1890s as deputy for Algeria of Édouard Drumont (to which Zemmour has been compared), the godfather of modern antisemitism, or as mayor of Algiers of the candidate of a self-explanatory ‘Anti-Jewish List’.

Also, his defense of sexual assault (as long as it doesn’t come from the dirty poor in the banlieues) going as far as suggesting that Tariq Ramadan, of all people, is the victim of a women conspiracy, is totally in line with all these ‘intellectuals’ defending other ‘intellectuals’ or politicians convinced of sexual assault against minors (Polanski or Strauss-Kahn’s ‘trussing of a domestic’) or minor relatives (Olivier Duhamel) or even celebrating their pedophile feats in books which had been promoted in TV broadcasts not that long ago (Gabriel Matzneff). Contrary to the cliché, these intellectuals aren’t (or are no longer) leftist soixante-huitards: Finkielkraut has always defended Renaud Camus (the father of the great replacement theory) against accusation of antisemitism and Matzneff has received a ‘politically incorrect book’ award and is a friend with Panzerdaddy.

Otherwise, after having throwing away the first party he had founded (the Left Party, remember it?), Mélenchon is now getting rid of his second disposable party (La France Insoumise) to start yet another party, the Popular Union. But IMO the problem isn’t the party.

Hidalgo’s candidacy isn’t taking off and she made herself no favor with promises like doubling teachers’ salary in five years, limiting speed limits on motorway to 110 kilometers per hour or lowering fuel taxes which sounds improvised and incoherent and would probably seduce neither ecologists skeptical of Jadot, left-wing voters disillusioned with the policies of the Hollande government nor rural/suburban car-users. She is also too much associated with her mixed record at the head of Paris and appears unable to connect with provincial and lower-class voters. She has the same problems than Jadot in that regard, but with a mixed record as mayor of Paris to defend and a municipality to continue to manage. She has just suffered a first defection with relatively influential Socialist bigwig François Lamy (once close to Martine Aubry) having left the the PS to join Jadot’s campaign team; others could follow. And his opponent in the PS membership vote to nominate the presidential candidate, Stéphane Le Foll (very close to Hollande and who has spent the last years undermining Olivier Faure), has announced he will not campaigned for her.

It is also fascinating to see that the only people the candidacy of Communist Fabien Roussel seems to seduce are right-wingers (who would of course never vote for him) with pro-police, pro-‘laïcité’, pro-nuclear (‘most profitable energy’ ignoring the still unfinished Flamanville EPR with its so far twelve-year delay and its €19.1 billion overcost) and now pro-cruel hunting practices stances.

On the also-run not certain to have the signatures (clearly some are just pretending running to appear as still not totally irrelevant), there are Montebourg and his ‘remontada’ which is going nowhere, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan (with a good share of his party leadership having decamped to join the RN in last December), François ‘I will explain in my three-hour-long video how the EU has been created by the CIA Nazis’ Asselineau who is currently indicted for sexual assault (if I remember correctly, the assault happened during that already creepy as hell Brexit celebration night), the deranged shepherd Jean Lassalle, ecologist has-been Antoine Waechter, ‘patriot’ and deranged anti-vax Florian Philippot, the Yellow Jacket necromancer lady and even more deranged people like Ségolène Royal who ‘doesn’t exclude’ to run for president.

Really, I’m done with my country’s politics.

[Former President tack50]

Of the also rans, I hope Jacques Cheminade makes it, only because his views are too funny to not be included

I also have a soft spot for ruralist parties so hoping Jean Lasalle makes it.

[Sir John Johns]

https://twitter.com/dupontaignan/status/1450140869722456074

Dupont-Aignan desperately trying to relaunch his candidacy by renewing his asinine project (he previously described it, of course, as 'a common sense measure') worthy of the worst Latin American demagogues of building a bagne (penal colony like those in Guyana and New Caledonia until the 1930s) in the Kerguélen Islands to jail sentenced Islamist terrorists. This has apparently seriously discussed on CNEWS yesterday...

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

https://twitter.com/dupontaignan/status/1450140869722456074

Dupont-Aignan desperately trying to relaunch his candidacy by renewing his asinine project (he previously described it, of course, as 'a common sense measure') worthy of the worst Latin American demagogues of building a bagne (penal colony like those in Guyana and New Caledonia until the 1930s) in the Kerguélen Islands to jail sentenced Islamist terrorists. This has apparently seriously discussed on CNEWS yesterday...

When your only issue with Guantanamo is that the weather there is way too nice