French presidential election, 2022

[Lechasseur]

https://www.bfmtv.com/politique/elections/presidentielle/presidentielle-jamais-l-ecart-n-a-ete-aussi-faible-entre-macron-et-le-pen-au-second-tour_AN-202203300424.html

Does Marine Le Pen win this time?

[Coldstream]

https://www.bfmtv.com/politique/elections/presidentielle/presidentielle-jamais-l-ecart-n-a-ete-aussi-faible-entre-macron-et-le-pen-au-second-tour_AN-202203300424.html

Does Marine Le Pen win this time?

I feel like Macron is arrogant and off-putting enough that Le Pen has an outside chance, and I think if her name wasn’t Le Pen she’d be in with a much better chance, but as it stands I still think her chances are pretty minimal.

[RGM2609]

Interesting that even if Le Pen has a much greater chance of winning than in 2017, the world isn't freaking out as much.

[CumbrianLefty]

Interesting that even if Le Pen has a much greater chance of winning than in 2017, the world isn't freaking out as much.

Partly because Zemmour is even more repellent, I would have thought.

[Zinneke]

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

[mileslunn]

What is causing the tightening?  Is it Macron's promise to raise retirement age to 65 (most European countries are not 66 or 67 so seems hardly radical but can see how some in 50s might not like having to work an extra 3 years).  Other than that cannot see reason but that would seem most logical.

[parochial boy]

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

The Ipsos and Ifop polls I posted earlier had Mélenchon supporters going Macron 31-22 over Le Pen and 34-17 over Le Pen in the event of that as a run off.

The consistent picture is a massive abstention among Mélenchon voters in the event of such a second round - but to focus in on that one poll rather than the others isn't really honest. Or at least, serves to try a support a certain narrative about Méluche and his supporters that isn't really true.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Interesting that even if Le Pen has a much greater chance of winning than in 2017, the world isn't freaking out as much.

2017 was just a year after the Trump and Brexit victories. There was very much a feeling and a media narrative at the time that the conservative and nationalist (far-)right was an unstoppable force that would sweep every election the Western world.

Today that fear/belief has been discredited and while we still see strong performances from the Trumpist sorts of candidates/parties, it has been proven in elections not only that left-wing and centrist candidates or parties can still win elections, but also that the far-right can loose ground and loose support.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Interesting that even if Le Pen has a much greater chance of winning than in 2017, the world isn't freaking out as much.

2017 was just a year after the Trump and Brexit victories. There was very much a feeling and a media narrative at the time that the conservative and nationalist (far-)right was an unstoppable force that would sweep every election the Western world.

Today that fear/belief has been discredited and while we still see strong performances from the Trumpist sorts of candidates/parties, it has been proven in elections not only that left-wing and centrist candidates or parties can still win elections, but also that the far-right can loose ground and loose support.

These things tend to be heavily informed by the events of the past 24 to 48 months. Humans have never been able to escape being driven partially by short-term events.

[parochial boy]

What is causing the tightening?  Is it Macron's promise to raise retirement age to 65 (most European countries are not 66 or 67 so seems hardly radical but can see how some in 50s might not like having to work an extra 3 years).  Other than that cannot see reason but that would seem most logical.

Energy prices / Cost of living (which is something Le Pen was already campaigning on before the war in Ukraine, so it's a thematic win for her) plus the McKinsey scandal that Sir John Johns mentioned a couple of weeks ago and that seems to be developing into a much bigger scandal than I expected.

Essentially a story of big contracts being handed out to McKinsey to do work for the government which raises a whole bunch of questions relating to:
 - The democratic question when a private company is making decisions that are adopted by the government
 - the generally dubious quality of the actual work provided in relation to how much it cost
 - A big conflict of interest and McKinsey employees provided pro-bono support to Macron's 2017 campaign
 - the fact McKinsey have not paid any corporation tax in France in over a decade

As mentioned, it seemed like a scandal, but not one that would have much of a public hold. However, it has been building up more and more steam over the last couple of weeks to the point where it is attracting a lot of attention and has been developed into a campaign theme and does seem to be translating through to the voting intentions.

[Sir Mohamed]

What is causing the tightening?  Is it Macron's promise to raise retirement age to 65 (most European countries are not 66 or 67 so seems hardly radical but can see how some in 50s might not like having to work an extra 3 years).  Other than that cannot see reason but that would seem most logical.

Didn't Macron already promise a raise of the retirement age already in 2017? Seems like this is a holy cow for the French.

I'd assume a ton of 1st round voters of other candidates won't show up in the runoff this time around. In 2017, in the aftermath of Brexit and Trump, I felt like there are pretty wide anti-LePen coalition from left-wing to center-right that won't be as strong in 2022. Additionally, Zemour perhaps makes LePen look moderate?

[Horus]

If Le Pen wins will France leave the EU and start helping Russia?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Although there has been a general tightening up of runoff polling, it's more of a shift from 'huge landslide' to 'substantial lead' - Macron is typically up by around 10pts or so. Last time around there was actually a major polling error, but it was to his advantage.

The thing is, Macron has been an exceptionally polarising President and ordinarily that is not a good thing for an incumbent seeking election in France. That he nevertheless seems set to win comfortably - that a poll showing a five point lead counts as a 'shock poll' - is quite the statement on the calibre of his opponents.

[Pericles]

Does Melenchon have a realistic chance of making the runoff? It looks like he is polling 6 points behind Le Pen, but a few points worse than 2017 when he fell 2 points short of making the runoff. Unfortunately, he also seems like a dangerous extremist.

[CumbrianLefty]

If Le Pen wins will France leave the EU and start helping Russia?

No, and no?

Zemmour would probably do both those things though. Just as well he is getting stomped.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

If Le Pen wins will France leave the EU and start helping Russia?

Le Pen wanted to leave the eurozone in 2017 which could have caused a serious rupture, but she has dropped that pledge. In general, the anti-EU and especially pro-Russia stuff is the millstone around the far right, compared to their popular planks against immigration and Islam, so  they have been pushed more into the background.

[Red Velvet]

Does Melenchon have a realistic chance of making the runoff? It looks like he is polling 6 points behind Le Pen, but a few points worse than 2017 when he fell 2 points short of making the runoff. Unfortunately, he also seems like a dangerous extremist.

Not impossible (like you could say for Pécresse and others) but I think that’s very unlikely. He needs to keep growing while hoping Le Pen doesn’t benefit from the Zemmour or Pecresse sinking ships.

But it’s evident that the Melenchon consistency in elections shows he’s the main and only chance of the French left being relevant and that the French political scenario is very divided between 3 camps. An ideological left (Melenchon supporters), an ideological right (Le Pen supporters) and a big-tent broad center (Macron supporters).

[parochial boy]

Does Melenchon have a realistic chance of making the runoff? It looks like he is polling 6 points behind Le Pen, but a few points worse than 2017 when he fell 2 points short of making the runoff. Unfortunately, he also seems like a dangerous extremist.

A couple of weeks ago it might have seemed possible, but barring a big polling error it's seems rather less likely now. Obviously there is a huge dispute going on about strategic voting right on the left at the moment. In particular directed at Jadot and Roussel voters (many of the former who would go for Macron over Méluche in any case) and not really helped by the fact that online LFI fans have a habit of being rather aggressive and very defensive when it comes to any criticism of their man.

In what way is Mélenchon a "dangerous extremist" though. His programme consists of pretty normal left-social-democratic points like raising the minimum wage; raising (in particular) taxes on wealth and inheritance; and big investments in public services.; and being the only major candidate willing to address the major urgency that is the institutions of French democracy.

For all people attack his EU and foreign politics. On the EU he is broadly right that the treaties need to be urgently, and is no longer proposing exiting it. As for NATO, well there is a long tradition of French opposition to it that stretches across the entire spectrum. So even here the position is hardly that extreme.

I mean, it is radical in comparison to the offers that have been made by most Euro Social-Democratic parties in recent decades; but that has in no small part been down to the enthusiasm those parties have had in abandoning genuinely redistributive policies and the bogus "there is no alternative" narrative imposed on us in the 90s.

His agenda really isn't any more "extreme" than Macron's agenda of radical wealth redistribution to the rich; attacks on young people and the working classes; gutting public services; targetting foreigners and muslims; and continuing attacks on democracy through violent crackdowns on protestors, banning "undesirable" groups, vicious attempts to delegitimise all forms of left wing or progressive political expression, the excessive and racistly applied Covid lockdowns and attacks on the very institutions of democracy themselves (banning journalists from taking photos of the police, attacks on equal access to the justice system, not addressing the issue of right wing extremism and racism within the ranks of the police).

I mean, like I have said a million times, I am no Mélenchon fan. But this idea that he is somehow an extremist or a dangerous threat or on the same pedestal as the far right candidates. Well, really, it just speaks to a certain conventionalism among this site's users, and a "respectable middle class" fear of the actually, genuinely needed sorts of economic and political reforms that would upset an inegalitarian economic system that is failing most people who aren't part of the privileged wealthiest fraction of the population.

[/rant]

[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.

[parochial boy]

Yes I know you don't like him, and that every time I suggest that he is actually the least bad of the 5 major candidates I get an enormous backflash from people who want to give Macron a pass just because he waves an EU flag and the anglophone media love him. I don't think Mélenchon is ever going to be the wonderful democratic reformer or whatever, but it's pretty untrue to make out that he is some major threat when the points of comparison are Macron, Pécresse or the extreme right.

• 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.

That may be your opinion, but how do you think the national assembly in its current format functions exactly? There is no single political leader of any democratic country with quite the level of uncontested power that a president has. So a project to introduce proportional representation and have the parliament nominate the president, for example, would weaker the role of the president even before what ever other institutional reforms get proposed. A lot of the threats I've seen announced about his 6th republic is that it would mean a return to the instability of the fourth, which is not ideal, but hardly an increasingly hyper-presidential result.

In any case, a pretty stark contrast here with him and anyone else is that at least a significant chunk of LFI's supporters have an ideological attachment to moving towards a more democratic regime.

• 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

While Macron sends his ministers to toady to the Bolloré line on "muslims" and "separatism". Fuels scare stories about "islamogauchisme", tries to censor academics and holds conspiracy theory repating seminars at the Sorbonne, sleeps on the increasing issue of right-wing extremism within the ranks of the police, tries to delegitimise all forms of left wing expression and closes his eyes to the right-wing violence that left wing activists are increasingly having to accept as a recurrent part of their lives. All the while selling arms to the Saudis to murder people in Yemen with.

Again, I'm not an idiot, I'm perfectly aware of the huge flaws Méluche has (I've pretty explicitely said - repeatedly - that I would not vote for him if I was in France). His foreign policy is appaling, even if pressures from his own side have forced him in a different direction in recent months. The antisemitism absolutely depresses and disgusts me, but Macron's policy agenda and his governments singling out of Muslims, to the point of consenting to police violence against them, is not more acceptable just because the scapegoats are Muslim this time.

The point is that to make out he is a dangerous extremist while simultaneously trying to make out that Macron is the delightful guarantor of democracy is dishonest, and mostly based out of fear of Méluche's scary opinions about the functioning of the modern economy. In particular, one big difference of a second round with Mélenchon in it is that we know a Macron - Le Pen run off means two weeks of being hammered about Muslims, immigration and security and how that will set the tone for the quinquennat. At least Mélenchon being there will mean one person making the case that multiculturalism is good actually, and more importantly, will force the media narrative to finally start paying attention to the sorts of issues that they should be talking about rather than just bashing brown people.

• 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.

Sounds a bit like Macron no? That's just a reflection of how hyper-personlised and personality cultish French politics is. By it's nature. Because of an electoral system that Macron has only sought to entrench.

Again, what would actually differentiate Mélenchon from, say, Macron is that a lot of Mélenchon's supporters will actually admit to this fact and admit that is a problem instead of coming out with the sort of starry eyed sycophancy you get from someone like Bayrou.

As for changing opinions, yes? I think someone else left the a PS government too? someone who is also bad at accepting criticism and with a tendency towards haughty and arrogant outburst towards his underlings?

Méluche would hardly be the only person to revise his opinion of the Maastricht institutions, lots of people have - in no small part through having seen the consequences of them over the last decade.

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.

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.

Like I said, the point is not the Mélenchon is a great guy who will reform France and reform the institutions of the EU to make them democratic and egalitarian and lovey dovey. The point is that to point the finger at him as if you couldn't make the same criticisms of the incumbent president, or the other major candidates. And that making out that he is a dangerous authoritarian is either conjecture, or based on things that you could apply to any other major candidate.

I very didn't like Mélenchon 5 years ago, I still don't like him and would have loved for someone else (including some of the actually admirable people in his own party) to have been able to take the mantle of leading the left. The fact no-one did is down to the fact that the PS and ÉELV still have not taken responsibility for, and not come to terms, with how quite how badly they did when they were in government. In other words, the reason I am more defensive of Mélenchon now compared to 5 years ago is because I have seen the route that France has taken in the meantime - and accusations that he somehow presents a unique menace no longer really land when the incumbent government is what it is.

So either you admit that Macron is a frightening figure promoting an authoritarian, irresponsible and deeply radical agenda. Or you admit that Mélenchon isn't as frightening and "extremist" as you would love to make out. In no small part because France is still a democratic country with strong institutions and, despite the attempts of certain members of Macron's government, a functioning and independent justice system.

[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.

[parochial boy]

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.

That's what the accusation is, not that he has engaged in whatever degrees of corruption and nepotism (we have had meanwhile, some pretty bad stuff regarding Dupont Moretti but the bigger issue has been the attacks on legal aid ie the ability of vulnerable and low income people to even access an adequate level of legal representation. That's actually really important).

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. T

I mean this is the jist of it, Macron is - outside of the francophone world - often presented as some kind of great progressive, liberal hope. Which is a rhetoric that seeps into how he is discussed on here. And you know that isn't true, and I know that isn't true, and 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?

Which I mean yeah, by all means accept that the choice stinks. I mean I defend the guy on here and then have furious arguments elsewhere with people who suggest that anything other than a Mélenchon vote is a proxy vote for Macron, or that Venezuela doesn't matter because foreign policy is a middle class luxury or whatever. But I have still come to the conclusion that he is the least bad choice out of the major candidates. On the basis that another 5 years of Macronism are going to have appalling social consequences and do actual real harm to people. And I find it kind of galling to come across this implicit statement that the one is a dangerous extremist and the other isn't as if the rabid Thatcherism and all the rest aren't also damaging and dangerous.

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.

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.

And yes, I would like a European left movement to be that too (although Mélenchon has actually arguably been the least weird about the recent tensions in Guyane and Corsica). And to start to develop a real intellectual and emotional case about what a reformed, social and dare I say it federal Europe should be and do. And also a right that didn't indulge wannabe dictators like Viktor Orban and tax havens like Luxembourg and Ireland, but that's also too much to ask for apparently.

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 think you are looking at it the wrong way round, the reason he emerged as the top choice is precisely because of how intellectually bankrupt and ineffectual the rest of the left is. This goes back to the Hollande presidency, but even earlier than that, to the tournant de la rigueur, and then to when the PS gave their consent to the EU becoming an ideologically neoliberal and austerity mongering organisation at the institutional level. Because the likes of the PS still haven't developed any sort of credible outlook or messaging about what they think they are. I mean, Hamon's 2017 crash was partly his own doing, but a lot the way the PS treated him and his candidacy. And for all that EÉLV are better, they are still anathema to anyone living outside of a big city. And their messaging over the fuel prices has just reinforced this.

So in the end a lot of people reluctantly, and I mean reluctantly, moved over to support Mélenchon because what else is there? The pink joke, the green joke, Chevènement 2.0, the testimonial new left candidate, or the wacky cult. Mélenchon is the top figure in part because at least he can run a campaign and he has an actual programme that people can get attached to, but also a lot because of how much the governmental left parties damaged themselves all on their own.

[Alcibiades]

I can’t really comment in a particularly informed manner on the domestic policy aspects of this debate*, but what I will say is that it’s pretty obvious whom Putin would be pulling for in a Macron-Mélenchon runoff. This is about the worst possible time for a Mélenchon victory from a wider world perspective, and would put a terrible dent in the impressive pro-Ukrainian European solidarity so far.

_{*Apart from the fact that I’ve read what Méluche has had to say about Jews and it’s … really, really bad. Almost cartoonishly shocking levels of anti-Semitism. If I were a French Jew, I find it hard to imagine I’d feel safe under a Mélenchon presidency.}

Edit: And by the way, I really do understand where parochial is coming from here; I never liked Corbyn, but I defended him to a lot of people as the lesser evil in both 2017 and 2019. In hindsight, having seen his reaction to the anti-Semitism report and his participation in anti-NATO rallies in recent weeks, I’m ashamed that I ever stood up for him as much as I did (this is not to say that I now think May or Johnson were any better, but, completely ignoring the Tories, that Corbyn on his own merits was so bad that he didn’t deserve a defence). There are a lot of similarities between him and Méluche — the anti-Semitism, the terrible foreign policy, the ‘reactionary left’ streak, and the petty narcissism and factional vindictiveness — but the sense I get is that anything bad you can say about Corbyn you can say the same but ten times worse for Mélenchon. Corbyn is clearly a deeply principled man even if many of those principles are terrible, whereas Méluche seems like an utter slimeball through and through.

[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". 

[CumbrianLefty]

In their own ways, both Macron and Melenchon are pretty terrible. Which makes it all the more tragic that the organised centre-left in France has all but ceased to exist.