French presidential election, 2022

[Zinneke]

Zemmour is tanking in the polls to the benefit of Le Pen it seems. Zemmour came out this morning maintaining his view that Putin was an ''authoritarian democrat'' he admires and said he would refuse to arm Ukraine and refuse to take in Ukrainian refugees. These are simply unpopular with even sections of the (white nationalist) far right and certainly some sections of the social conservative types he was attracting with his faux intellect act.

Le Pen is playing a better mediatic game. Talking about national unity, about why she refused to sign the document in Madrid with other far right parties condemning Putin (she claims she didn't want to undermine Macron while he was negotiating with Putin) and an overall better excuse for close Russian ties, but ultimately apologetic for her stance on Russia. Le Pen overall is actually running an excellent tactical campaign, talking about French people's buying power, expanding her reach, avoiding the landmines including this episode effectively.

She will still lose by default because of her family name and the Russo-Ukraine conflict, as well as Macron being the most credible President in what feels like ages, but she has much better political instinct than in 2017.

[Zinneke]

Zemmour is tanking in the polls to the benefit of Le Pen it seems. Zemmour came out this morning maintaining his view that Putin was an ''authoritarian democrat'' he admires and said he would refuse to arm Ukraine and refuse to take in Ukrainian refugees. These are simply unpopular with even sections of the (white nationalist) far right and certainly some sections of the social conservative types he was attracting with his faux intellect act.

Le Pen is playing a better mediatic game. Talking about national unity, about why she refused to sign the document in Madrid with other far right parties condemning Putin (she claims she didn't want to undermine Macron while he was negotiating with Putin) and an overall better excuse for close Russian ties, but ultimately apologetic for her stance on Russia. Le Pen overall is actually running an excellent tactical campaign, talking about French people's buying power, expanding her reach, avoiding the landmines including this episode effectively.

She will still lose by default because of her family name and the Russo-Ukraine conflict, as well as Macron being the most credible President in what feels like ages, but she has much better political instinct than in 2017.

Why is the Le-pen name toxic, even among portions of the far-right that would normally be supportive of her policies ?

Because branding is still a big part of politics, and Panzergirl will always be seen as her father's daughter to some. The whole idea of someone from Le Pen family as president is basically rejecting the more fundamental values of the 5th Republic because of the original creator.

 I think that she has done enough for historians in years to come to consider RN and herself to be different to their predecessors. She has fundamentally transformed them and for that she deserves a modicum of credit. I don't have anything against the woman for example, just her fascist goons she likely makes excuses for because she has grown up alongside them, as her clan, the same way the PS was Valls's clan.

[Zinneke]

Anybody who thinks putting Mélenchon up in the second round is in any way beneficial for the French Left is smoking something powerful. It'll be the final nail in the coffin. A personalist paternalist, hyperactive, hyperangry, more megalomaniac than not one but 2 fascist candidates standing kind of guy is going to be seen as the face of the Left for years to come.

[Zinneke]

https://twitter.com/idvck/status/1509445549484826629

[Zinneke]

You've got the red goggles on if you can't see all the hallmarks of a hyper-authoritarian regime in the making if ever Méluche is elected into office. He is not an ideological extremist - he has rarely ventured into a brand of Marxist-Leninist discourse that would have made him on par with Arthaud and Besancenot in terms of testimonial tankie type. Instead though he's shown all the hallmarks of someone who will use the French institutions to his own personal image:

• His idea of a 6th Republic and a Constitutive Assembly as a way of saying that he's a benevolent dictator when in reality any political scientist or Historian worth their salt can see how such an organ will be extremely easy to manipulate and turn France into an even more hyperpresidentialised regime. Very Soviet redux vibes from that idea.
• His engagement with the online conspiracy theorist French alt-left and right (the Thinkerview types), notably on vaccines, deep state, etc
• His admiration of countless authoritarians across the globe, and that doesn't even stop at some peverse solidarity with left-wing Internationale type, no. We all know how he feels about Russia and Putin
• The way he has run his "party" as a dictatorship where he alone controls the agenda. He also has basically been a career politician that cut his teeth abusing the PS machinery until he hit a ceiling because of how hated he was. (Reminder that he voted for the Maastricht Treaty but then suddenly turned into the big anti-Maastrichtian Left figure, which shows you how this man has no fixed values.
• The way he has maintained a xenophobic line against foreign enemies that just so happen to be France's most reliable allies...writing a book about the Hareng of Bismarck and calling Germany's armament in light of Ukraine's occupation a new sign that Germany could invade France...let's not even mention his stance on not speaking English because he openly states he hates Anglo-Saxon culture and thinks they are perfidious.
• The reaction to the 2017 election alone and the 200,000 votes that were stolen from him.

These are all strong indicators that this guy is no better than the other authoritarians high on ego and power who have merely instrumentalised left-wing causes since Marx to obtain status and control. I didn't even mention the antisemitism (his reaction to Corbyn's explusion is viler than anything Corbyn did throughout his entire tenure) because we all know why he engages in that but we don't want to say it out loud. Or his reaction to the bonnets rouge.

The guy is absolute stain on the Left. I used to like him in 2012 but then I grew up. The sad thing is though he is much more dangerous and extremist than you like to make out. And basic democratic rights are not worth giving up for some outdated 1981 programme commun that cannot be implemented at a national level and would simply cause capital flight. The only way to really lead a left-wing economic and social policy is via Europe and Mélenchon wants to take a massive dump on the European project and ally with Russia, Venezuela and Iran.

[Zinneke]

All your arguments rest on the idea that Macron is as much an authoritarian as JLM, or that I somehow favour Macron over JLM. I didn't mention Macron once in my entire post. I just said that JLM has all the indicators of someone who will readily implement a dictatorship that will make Macron's vague centrist authoritarian action man act look like a picnic.

I also know that the far right is a bigger threat in France. I can read the polls and I can see the number of incidents. But people on this forum are not entirely uninitiated with the French and European far right: they also are far the most part anti-Le Pen as she is a known force. What they may not understand, as non-French speakers, is just quite how the Mélenchon hype isn't some heroic left-wing pro-union Sanders style guy taking on the establishment, but an extremely dangerous political operator (and incidentally a racist, xenophobic cxnt) who poses as a left-wing fireband. Especially when there are people such as yourself who will excuse his behavior on the basis that he is less worse than Le Pen, Zemmour and all the other cranks on the opposite side of the political spectrum. 

Incidentally, Macron has not turned the judicial and police system in his favour the same way Sarkozy and Hollande both did. He is just a bland neo-liberal managerialist and his love affair with McKinsey is symptomatic of this. With the exception of the Benalla affair, which is serious resignation material but also plausibly deniable, we have not seen Macron repress the same manner Sarkozy did. Sarkozy was far closer to turning France into an amocracy than Macron has even been this 5 years, you had literally Sarkozy's cabinet calling up police chiefs to try and find dirt on his opponents or him settling 15 year old grudges by sacking an official that insulted him back then. Macron has not engaged in this behaviour for all his faults. Melenchon would do this but to an even higher degree.

Which is an absolutely terrific argument that plays directly into the hands of Le Pen and the far right: "We can't do anything because of Europe therefore we should burn it in a fire". Lo and behold, here we are and Le Pen's second round polling has progressed as much in the last 5 years as her and her father managed in the previous two decades. Macron's programme of hooking himself to the institutions of the EU as they currently exist, and to push through anti-social reforms in the name of needing to be competitive within its framework is a sure fire way of convincing people that the EU is harming them.

This argument in particular is a complete strawman. I said explicitly that Mélenchon is effectively advocating a program that can only be implemented if we have a common European fiscal and monetary vision, and that therefore his absurd (but entirely on brand given his links to Russia) anti-German, anti-EU rhetoric is counterproductive to his own economic policies. If Mélenchon were to implement his economic program in France it would just fall victim to the race to the bottom we currently are stuck in. That isn't me advocating Frexit, its me advocating a Europe wide left movement to implement social programs we desperately need!

In addition, I'd like my European Left movement to do the following things

• not pander to insane megalomaniac dictators abroad because they think the US is the root of all evil
• not take massive dumps on national minority movements and regionalist movements
• not have personality cults around weird old men who pork women half their age and get angry every 20 seconds at their staffers (incidentally a trait Zemmour and Mélenchon share)
• not talk about strange "constitutive assemblies" that hark back to the USSR they would appoint to damage our basic constitutional democracy and electoral exercises

and the list goes on as to why having this guy as some sort of fer de lance of the anti-austerity movement is and was and would be one the principle reasons for the demise of a serious Left. None of these are hard things to fulfill.

[Zinneke]

All your arguments rest on the idea that Macron is as much an authoritarian as JLM, or that I somehow favour Macron over JLM. I didn't mention Macron once in my entire post. I just said that JLM has all the indicators of someone who will readily implement a dictatorship that will make Macron's vague centrist authoritarian action man act look like a picnic.

I also know that the far right is a bigger threat in France. I can read the polls and I can see the number of incidents. But people on this forum are not entirely uninitiated with the French and European far right: they also are far the most part anti-Le Pen as she is a known force. What they may not understand, as non-French speakers, is just quite how the Mélenchon hype isn't some heroic left-wing pro-union Sanders style guy taking on the establishment, but an extremely dangerous political operator (and incidentally a racist, xenophobic cxnt) who poses as a left-wing fireband. Especially when there are people such as yourself who will excuse his behavior on the basis that he is less worse than Le Pen, Zemmour and all the other cranks on the opposite side of the political spectrum. 

Incidentally, Macron has not turned the judicial and police system in his favour the same way Sarkozy and Hollande both did. He is just a bland neo-liberal managerialist and his love affair with McKinsey is symptomatic of this. With the exception of the Benalla affair, which is serious resignation material but also plausibly deniable, we have not seen Macron repress the same manner Sarkozy did. Sarkozy was far closer to turning France into an amocracy than Macron has even been this 5 years, you had literally Sarkozy's cabinet calling up police chiefs to try and find dirt on his opponents or him settling 15 year old grudges by sacking an official that insulted him back then. Macron has not engaged in this behaviour for all his faults. Melenchon would do this but to an even higher degree.

My response regarding Macron was with regards the logic that Mélenchon is a "dangerous extremist" and therefore what? We pretend that France hasn't seen a definite and significant democratic backslide under Marcon's presidency? That all those things I said aren't the case - that the man has fuelled both intentionally and unintentionally a racist, anti-democratic, fascisising political environment? And that regards the people he has put in his government, the types of rhetoric he has presided over and the way that he has responded to the varying social and protest movements that have arisen over his mandate.

Which will be minor compared to Mélenchon's actual, genuine attempts to Orbanise political spaces in France, only with a vague left-wing approach. Not only that, I genuinely think that after a 5 year term of Mélenchon the electoral exercise itself would be in question. Or do you forget his 200,000 missing votes rant?

The things, if you went with the logic the Mélenchon is nasty, authoritarian... that only works in the context of accepting that Macron is worse. Or at best, no better. The implicit argument when people attak Mélenchon as being an extremists always amounts to "vote for Macron because Méluche", when if the latter is a threat then the former is as well.

The problem with Macron is a structural problem with the Vth Republic. Every single President bar none has abused the Presidential powers because the Vth Republic allows that (Hollande perhaps being the least worst for all his faults).

Melenchon, who has a bust of Robespierre in his office, is an altogether different beast. He cannot be allowed to reform the entire French Consitution : it will be all in his image, satisfying his ego and I wouldn't be surprised if the first on the chopping block would be all his left-wing competitors.

it's frustrating that the guy is given a free pass on all of this when we go over Mélenchon with a fine comb because obviously a liberal could never be a threat right?

How is Macron given a free pass? If anything the francophones (you, Hashemite, Antonio) on this board are almost all bar a few exception the type of sociological Mélenchon voters who criticize Macron a lot - when I consider him to be a far more grey area than a wannabe dictator with devil horns. I don't consider Melenchon to be a grey area, I've cited why its blatantly obvious the man is a much more natural authoritarian than Macron.

5 years of Macronism are going to have appalling social consequences and do actual real harm to people.

5 years of Mélenchon would also be this PLUS the end of electoral democracy in France PLUS the total destruction of anything resembling a coherent anti-Late Capitalism Left in France PLUS the end of the European Project.

That's not what I was accusing you of.  The point is, well, take the abolition of the ISF (wealth tax). It was explicitly presented as "we need to do this on order to be fiscally competitive within Europe". What that obviously means is that someone who actually does want to push an EU exit can turn around and say "look even Macron admits it, we don't live in a democracy because we have to do this, and we have to make you poorer in order to do that". The line that we have no choice put to engage in fiscal competition ultimately serves to credibilise the arguments that the far right make.

If someone thinks this they are a cretin who has never lived in a dictatorship, which incidentally 95% of the people who think they live in a dictatorship because Macron follows a Brussels directive are.

But it isn't, and the question is why is it that Mélenchon has suddenly become the only left candidate able to get anything beyond a marginal, niche level of support?

I recognize the validity of your arguments as to why he is the top Left candidate but you have to also recognise that a sizeable amount of his support are cultish about the persona himself and once he is gone they will go back to being abstaining whingers. What that could also mean though is a serious left-wing candidate takes his place and the even bigger amount of left-wing abstentionists coming back to vote. He is holding the left back because no abstentionist leftist is looking at a career politician who has lost 2 elections now and is a disgusting social fascist and thinks "yeah I really need to get off my ass to give him carte blanche in writing the 6th Republic". 

[Zinneke]

We should leave the discussion here because that last paragraph is particularly contemptible, approaching a point where you would question if a French voter would have to make a Faustian pact electing an anti-Semite in order save other minorities. That's not how it works. You really could have just stopped at

No, antisemitism is not acceptable

And yes, there are major candidates who condemn anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

No one I read here is downplaying the threat of the far right. Some on here would argue Macron is not the variable you believe him to be in creating those conditions. It already started in the 90s and 2002 was the first time a Le Pen made the second round. I'm not sure Macron is responsible for creating a more or less hostile climate when you consider the terrorist attacks were not that long ago either. But everyone here knows the far right and knows their methods. And knows that if Le Pen and Zemmour or even Pécresse are elected we will get a hyper authoritarian government. Given their incompetence it'll be more like Orban redux but still very dangerous.

On the other hand, some on Atlas have in the past supported Mélenchon out of some blind loyalty to any ancap anti-imp Left. But he really has the same objectives. You speak of wealth distribution in his programme making him different? How many autocrats have used wealth distribution is an escalator to power? It's beyond farcical we haven't learned our lesson on the Left yet when it comes to what seems to me at least blatantly authoritarian figures but who promise to rewrite the economic rules and then we get starry eyed about revolution and social progress again.

I am not talking about French political debate. France will have to one day come to terms with its normalization of the far right. But in the end Zemmour is a wolf and Mélenchon is a wolf in sheep's clothing. I'd like the latter to get out in the open so we can end this masquerade and form a genuine, pan-European Left.

[Zinneke]

https://twitter.com/FraserJMcQueen/status/1510691196259155977

[Zinneke]

A handy reminder Melenchon refused to call for a republican front in 2017 and will likely not do the same here (after all Le Pen and him have the same creditors/handlers). His minions, supporters and enablers also claiming that Macron and Le Pen are two cheeks of the same backside is hardly helping the republican front either. It just goes to show though that his core support have no conception of the stakes. I’d send them to a holiday camp in Hungary with anti-Orban activists then Belarus to get a taster.

[Zinneke]

I am shocked and appalled that CGT members who work for the railroad are refusing to vote for a candidate who has pledged to take income out of their pockets so corporations and elites can have more money! I do not understand this.

Here we go, the workerist dungarees-wearing act again...do economists have their own union too?

In the end independent trade unions won't exist in an authoritarian society, be it Le Pen or Mélenchon. That's the difference we're talking about here. And Hungary is demonstrating that authoritarian rule is incredibly hard to reverse.

[Zinneke]

An example of what Al is describing is the pension system, which incidentally favours the likes of CGT “blue collared” labour aristocracy (celebrated by the likes of DFB because what matters is wearing dungarees and virtue signalling you see) and their outdated privileges over e.g. tourism sector workers in the South who have to serve Dutch caravan dwellers for a living. Who is really worse off?

[Zinneke]

I am shocked and appalled that CGT members who work for the railroad are refusing to vote for a candidate who has pledged to take income out of their pockets so corporations and elites can have more money! I do not understand this.

Here we go, the workerist dungarees-wearing act again...do economists have their own union too?

In the end independent trade unions won't exist in an authoritarian society, be it Le Pen or Mélenchon. That's the difference we're talking about here. And Hungary is demonstrating that authoritarian rule is incredibly hard to reverse.

I am not arguing it is good that CGT members would refuse to vote for Macron over Le Pen. I am arguing that they will do so and that it should surprise no one that they would do this. Macron made the choice to make the election a referendum on his plan to increase the retirement age - he is responsible for this.

But that would make them Horrible People you see. The logic is literally "woah my Muslim Uber driving neighbor might get deported under Le Pen but there's no way I'm stopping that by voting Macron because he wants to put up my retirement age".

In an electoral system like the French one you vote for the least worst candidate. And if you don't vote at all when the fascist is in the second round, don't complain then when the consequences are what they are. But no we'll still have Philippe Martinez on the radio with his crocodile tears for the working class while most of us will never have the pension and privileges he has. That's if Le Pen doesn't dissolve Radio France and the CGT in her first week in office.

[Zinneke]

Anyway, Macron has not made raising the retirement age his number 1 campaign pledge, and it is not the reason he is failing. The reason he is failing is that he has forgotten how to campaign. He has no real campaigning structure behind him - LREM grandees are all terrible at actual bread and butter campaigning, there's no real local grassroots presence. And his speaking has become overtheatrical - even by French standards! - to a point where he is basically acting the same way he did in his high school theatre production. Personalities do matter in a hyper presidentialised system and he has always been, as a personality, extremely polarizing.

What"s the point of going on really, she'll get rid of me, deprive me of my country of birth and all i've ever known, everything i had to live for

I don't want Le Pen to win at all but realistically she would be constrained in how bad she could muck things up.

She's not going to be able to deport all the scary browns even if she wanted to.

RM will have at most 30 seats in the National Assembly and the courts probably wouldn't look favourably on her if she pulled anything crazy.

It would be a mess of a presidency but realistically not the end of the world.

A president can still dissolve civil society groups, exit international agreements, use police and military structures to their advantage and cause enough damage to maybe not cause the end of the world but certainly alter the European geopolitical map for the worse.

It doesn't matter if it's Le Pen or Mélenchon - both of them are not as idiotic as Trump and will wage a war against the legislative, the civil service, the electoral boards, their old enemies (shutting down CSOs on the basis of security). People who think France can just ride this out the same way the US did with Trump by basically managing the top job don't understand that these people are professional politicians.

[Zinneke]

https://twitter.com/PhilippePoutou/status/1511646315326881797

lmao

[Zinneke]

Within that analysis one could note that there are a sizeable amount of left-thinking abstentionists.

And lol at Marion Marechal uniting the Right. She is far more divisive than her aunt.

[Zinneke]

https://twitter.com/usulmuabddib/status/1511713972126429188

[Zinneke]

The citing of Chevènement is because the mythology of the man's anti-EU stance is important for some "left" types who are behind the Front Populaire magazine for example and might be tempted by Le Pen's "sovereignty above ideology". A visible example is Natachy Polony, but you also have Kuzmanovic, Onfray, a bunch of others who

But let's not call these people left-wing. They are, for all intents and purposes, Neo-Strasserites.

Let's keep in mind that in still (IMHO) unlikely event that Lepen were to win the run-off, its very questionable whether she would get the usual win for her party in the legislative elections. In fact we could have a situation where she could be president and her party might still have very little representation in the assembly meaning there would have to be "co-habitation" with a PM and government entirely made up of people from other parties...

100% this too. Even if Macron wins in fact, LREM are such an incompentent force in terms of on the ground activism that his "guarenteed majority" is up for grabs afterwards. This why incidentally Jadot, Hidalgo, and Roussel are still running. They know they won't be President but they need the exposure for their parties to hold on and potentially even gain from the legislatives right after. That and their deposit.

[Zinneke]

Let's keep in mind that in still (IMHO) unlikely event that Lepen were to win the run-off, its very questionable whether she would get the usual win for her party in the legislative elections. In fact we could have a situation where she could be president and her party might still have very little representation in the assembly meaning there would have to be "co-habitation" with a PM and government entirely made up of people from other parties...

People mooted this possibility in 2017 too because LREM was made up of complete nobodies, and they ended up sweeping aside all comers without breaking a sweat. To restate the basics: if Le Pen wins the run-off, she will have won the support of 50%+ of French second round voters.

ftfy

Its still entirely possible people stay home for Le Pen vs Macron (because Meluche told them it was the same thing) but play an impact in the legislatives. Also, the legislatives have second rounds and the choices may not be as "toxic" to voters in the second round. We have seen than RN often get blocked in legislatives and regional elections because entire candidacies are pulled out. No such dynamics exist in Presidential election.

An example of what Al is describing is the pension system, which incidentally favours the likes of CGT “blue collared” labour aristocracy (celebrated by the likes of DFB because what matters is wearing dungarees and virtue signalling you see) and their outdated privileges over e.g. tourism sector workers in the South who have to serve Dutch caravan dwellers for a living. Who is really worse off?

Not being a resident of France nor a specialist on French politics, I've largely held my peace on my own opinions regarding the French Presidential election in this thread. But let me just say this, if you want me to have sympathy for Macron in the (still hypothetical) run-off against Le Pen, maybe don't push the "privileged unionized workers line" that state-level Republicans trot out every election season against teachers and other public employees. The real enemy-in both America and France-are not to be found in the factories nor the classrooms.

I never said factory workers are to be blamed. I'm saying that the Left in France, principally influenced by the CGT, has allowed itself to lose swathes of the neo-proleteriat in favour of privileges for what they associate with the entire working class (usually the loudest sectors, not necessarily the least well off). That is the reason why there are large swathes of the French working class who are going to vote Le Pen. Phillippe Martinez, the head of the CGT and classic labour aristocrat who probably earns more in a year than many working class people in a lifetime, only focuses on the cosmetic struggles of preserving the incredibly favourable pension system for cheminots and not the tourism sector workers in the South. France's social model is to be admired compared to most but as Al was saying elements of the bureaucracy favour certain sectors over others and there is your number 1 for Le Pen doing well in places like the South. This is because the kind of faux-left hobbyists sees "working class" as a value system, a trend, a set of clothes your wear or activities you do, rather than an economic reality. There are swathes of people who are solely reliant on labour income (my definition of working class incidentally, closer to the Marxist one) that struggle day to day but don't have a union that has a magnetophone and can hold the country to ransom by shutting down the train system. Those people like Phillippe Martinez are entitled bureaucrats who probably own a holiday home in the South when you look beyond their working class LARP act.

Macron's pension reforms were actually very egalitarian. Don't get me wrong, they treated everyone equally bad. But at least there was a logic to have a pension system that took objective realities into account rather than who had the loudest union (and incidentally the right-wing police union are the absolute worse at blackmailing government, not the train workers).

[Zinneke]

I might as well add that there are good reasons why the French retirement age differs by occupation in France and that this isn't only the work of rent-seeking trade unions. While the system is a bureaucratic maze riddled with inefficiencies, the overall thrust is that manual workers can retire early. I'm not sure if I'd describe this as being sensible but it is true that manual workers are often, quite literally, physically unable to work past age 50 and above. It's surprising how often even seemingly banal manual occupations destroy the bodies of workers - this holds without even considering the most damaging ones. This is to say that there is a logic behind its design, that an idealist could decide that pension systems should work like this (though the idealist thinking like this would have to be a bit of a dullard).

I wish it were based on levels of manual work rather than based on which sectors the CGT manage to have the most presence. The points based system that Macron was proposing was at the very least no longer talking about outdated conceptions of blue collar vs white collar or public sector vs private sector (many private sector workers in France feel like they are subsidizing special regimes). Just take a look at the list :
https://www.previssima.fr/question-pratique/quels-sont-les-regimes-speciaux-de-retraite.html

There's about a dozen special regimes here that don't correspond to your manual workers argument. But don't let that get in the way of the good old narrative.

Also, am I the only one who think raising the retirement age isn't necessarily a bad thing given how unsustainable the pension system is in general? I mean, as a young worker, I would honestly rather the government give me my pension tax than invest it in their insane Ponzi scheme : I don't expect to see a pension in my lifetime simply because the boomers have tied their pension funds to some serious asset bubbles and are paying themselves with more debt thanks to cheap credit. But oh yeah its a neo-liberal stance to think what the boomers have inflicted on our buying power by paying themselves inflated pensions will be felt for generations, particularly ours!

Let's just give up the pretence that we will see a pension in our lifetime.

For this reason, I am inclined to sympathize with the "privileged" labor aristocracy in France, which still exists in pockets among manual workers. There's basically nothing that I admire about French social policy or labor/employment law but it makes sense that those who benefit from protections would fight to defend the scraps they have. It isn't as if Macron will replace this with anything better...

You are inclined to support them because they are the most visual stereotype of left-wing opposition to capitalism that you can find in France that isn't insane reactionary hicks from the Gilet Jaunes camp. But in the end by supporting them you actually just contribute to dividing the working class and the RN narrative that left-wing intellectuals only care about image rather than outcomes when it comes to favouring working class outcomes.

Anyway here is an article in French that looks at the complexities of special pension regimes :

https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2019/12/03/le-vrai-du-faux-des-regimes-speciaux-de-retraite_6021530_4355770.html

How is recent unrest in Corsica affecting the race? Which way would soft Corsican nats (regionalists etc) vote?

Most on the Hexagone see Corsica in the same light as Guyane (except Nice and their derangement syndrome vis-a-vis Corsica). Zero affect outside of a couple of boomers wanted to restore order by getting the far right involved.

But I know that actual, ideological regionalists (as opposed to "regionalists" who have clientelistic links with major candidates and old parties) have no other choice than Jadot. He has a few campaign points that serve as bones to throw to them and other regionalists in France.

It's a shame that regionalism in general is so incompatible with this farce of an election and country. As parochial boy said, the urban sprawl and territorial division in France is one of the worst in Europe and regionalism would solve a part of that. All of the candidates are centralizers though.

[Zinneke]

My prediction is that the RTBF will announce the results at 19.59 just to get one over the French. At least some of my taxes go to good causes.

[Zinneke]

That won't stop us Belgians and Swiss from giving wild predictions based on circulating rumours, pissing off the know it alls.


But already amusing watching the Mélenchon fanboys cream themselves over good results in the islands. 51% in Guyana is impressive but turnout is shocking there. I still won't be surprised by a Mélenchon surge that falls just short but that we spinned by his minions as a stolen election and he is now the Real Opposition (TM)

[Zinneke]

Is the poll leaked to La Libre legitimate?

No, it's bunk, it's purely released to piss off Hashemite.

[Zinneke]

In a psephological sense it's a shame we won't get to see a Pécresse vs Macron map that would have exposed interesting cleavages. Instead it seems Macron is now firmly the centre-right of old.

[Zinneke]

Such a disappointing result for the Left. We could have done a 2002 to the far right, a taste of their own medecine. You even add Roussel to Mélenchon and it gets marginal. But one man and his oversized ego, his ability to alienate his own partners, come out first refusing a primary (effectively ending that idea, but there is also a partial blame to be left on the door of the likes of backstabber Valls for making primaries irrelevant) and his dodgy ties to Russia mean we have a 2017 replay. Massive opportunity missed. Thanks LFI.

Surprise of the round has to be Lassalle I imagine, he is polling extremely well around his region. he is getting twice as many votes as Hidalgo.