French presidential election, 2022

[Sir John Johns]

* Montebourg's campaign is in self-destruction mode after the former minister for economic recovery has made yesterday in a TV interview the moronic proposal of blocking individual remittances to countries unwilling to cooperate with French authorities in the repatriation of illegal immigrants (that and goofy comments about Aznavour and Zidane having been great Frenchmen after having been immigrants when both were born in France). The proposal, previously made by Marine Le Pen, has been ironically welcomed by Zemmour while causing an outcry on the left (criticized by Mélenchon, Sandrine Rousseau and Olivier Faure among others). And now Montebourg is backtracking and saying he misspoke himself and that his measure is 'ineffective because misunderstood'.

* Yannick Jadot has promised on 29 October that, if elected, hunting will be prohibited during weekends and holidays to enable people to walk in nature without risking been struck by a stray bullet. Few hours later, a driver was seriously injured by a hunting bullet while driving on a four-lane highway in Ille-et-Vilaine; he died of his wounds few days thereafter. The head of the National Hunting Federation, Willy Schraen, publicly blamed the accident on 'bad luck' and explained that 'zero risk does not exist'. An IFOP poll published few days ago indicates that 69% of asked people are supporting the proposal of Jadot. I'm a bit skeptic over the measure (despite Schraen's best efforts to convince me otherwise) but I guess it's a nice change from circular 'debates' on immigration, insecurity and Islam which are dominating televised talk shows.

* The number of participants to the LR internal primaries has been reduced to five as Denis Payre, the self-described 'successful businessman since thirty years' but not as much successful leader of the now defunct 'We Citizens' useless and irrelevant political party (1.4% in 2014 European elections), has failed to gather the required number of parrainages from the party's elected officials to get on the ballot.

[Sir John Johns]

Les Jeunes avec Montebourg (Montebourg's campaign youth organization) is withdrawing its support to its champion and has reportedly deleted its Twitter account after having published a post highly critical of Montebourg's proposal on remittances. What a trainwreck...

[America Needs R'hllor]

Seems like while he doesn't have a chance yet, Jadot is on his way to be the leading center-left candidate.

[Geoffrey Howe]

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

[Umengus]

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

not completely off but he did some serious mistakes, concercing petain and dreyfus especially.

Polls begin to show zemmour declining, at least a little.

MLP continues her visits on the ground where she seems quite popular

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Montebourg should stick to the honey business. He's good at that, unlike politics.

[Blair]

Glass houses & all but from someone with a relative laymans understanding of French Politics & society it's interesting (in a bizarre way) how Petain & Dreyfus are still somehow seen as something worth arguing about.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

The Dreyfus Affair being resurrected by a jew as a political issue strikes me as emblematic of the state than french politics has fallen to.

[PSOL]

The LO and NPA candidates have gained like 1% in the polls, well within the margin of error, but possible for them to gain voters since Melenchon is going nowhere and there isn’t enough pressure for tactical voting. Overall there’s like three active campaigns by the lesser known Trotsky-influenced Left; those mentioned and Kassim Esab of the RCC.

[CumbrianLefty]

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

Didn't that happen a while back?

[Former President tack50]

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

Didn't that happen a while back?

Has Zemmour ever been on rails in the first place?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Oh my f**king God

what did Zemmour say about the Dreyfus affair? Do I even want to know? Probably not

[MaxQue]

Oh my f**king God

what did Zemmour say about the Dreyfus affair? Do I even want to know? Probably not

That, maybe, Dreyfus was really a German spy.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Oh my f**king God

what did Zemmour say about the Dreyfus affair? Do I even want to know? Probably not

That, maybe, Dreyfus was really a German spy.

Christ. Depressing if this turns out to be a “he says what we’re all thinking” episode, even if only for a small fraction of society.

[Antonio the Sixth]

f**king kill me now

[PSOL]

The next decade will be a very rough one for the Francophone world.

[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.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There's a certain ghoulish phenomenon of a member of a minority group setting themselves against said minority group and telling bigots that everything they thought is true, and, well, here we are.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

There's a certain ghoulish phenomenon of a member of a minority group setting themselves against said minority group and telling bigots that everything they thought is true, and, well, here we are.

My uncle was one of them, token muslim BJP MLA.

[Umengus]

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.

he's right on this. Hollande said one week ago  that he knew that there were terrorists amongst refugees but he did nothing. At this time, (fake news) medias say that it was not true. But it was.

[windjammer]

f**king kill me now

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

[parochial boy]

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?

[windjammer]

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,...

[Sir John Johns]

* 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.

[windjammer]

* 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