French presidential election, 2022

[jaichind]

Is there going to be a debate?

[Zinneke]

Interesting psephological analysis I saw on reddit

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Interesting psephological analysis I saw on reddit

You mind giving us non-french speakers a brief translation ?

[Sir Mohamed]

Is there going to be a debate?

I'd be surprised if not.

Macron wouldn't do himself a favor skipping a debate, would just contribute to his image as out-of-touch elitist who feels entitled.

[Mike88]

Is there going to be a debate?

I'd be surprised if not.

Macron wouldn't do himself a favor skipping a debate, would just contribute to his image as out-of-touch elitist who feels entitled.

There will be a debate on 20 April at 9pm.

https://www.francetvinfo.fr/elections/presidentielle/le-debat-de-l-entre-deux-tours-entre-emmanuel-macron-et-marine-le-pen-aura-lieu-le-20-avril-a-21-heures-voici-comment-il-va-se-derouler_5080369.html

[Velasco]

You're once again reaching and strawmaning to justify your thesis of "liberal Zionists are the real traitors".

What?

Thank you for the insights on the demographics of French Israelis, but you are mistakenly assuming I was referring to sime sort of "liberal zionism". On the one hand, at this point it's impossible to me discussing seriously about absurd oxymorons. I don't know examples of liberal democracies with millions of disenfranchised subjects submitted to a regime of domination. On the other hand, my actual conclusion is that zionism is a form of exclusive ethnic nationalism, which is not very compatible with thenotion of liberalism. Another question is that many people claim to be "liberal", like that champion of liberal democracy in Russia called Zhirinovsky  I just said it doesn't surprise me the success of someone like Zemmour in an environment dominated by ethnic nationalism and islamophobia

No Israeli subjects are disenfranchised. The Palestinian Authority is an independent entity -- this was what was agreed to by the 1991 Oslo Accords and what the Arab World itself demanded. Saying that millions of Israelis are disenfranchised because foreign citizens cannot vote in Israeli elections is like saying that millions of Americans are disenfranchised because Canadians cannot vote in American elections.

There is a difference between "citizens" and "subjects" that you are unable to understand. Claiming the Palestinian Authority is an 'independent' entity and invoking the ghost of the Oslo Accords is disingeneous and insulting. The inhabitants nominally under the juridisction of the bantustan PA entity are under the control of the Israeli state, that is annexing formally or de facto a large portion of the Palestinian territories (especially East Jerusalem, the locations of settlements and Area C of the West Bank). There is no Palestinian state and the inhabitants live under the a military regime enforced by the Israeli occupants. For all intents and purposes, those Palestinians are disenfranchised subjects of the State of Israel that controls everything between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea

Anyway the relevant point to this thread is that Israelis love Zemmour.  Bravo

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Christ's sake take it outside the pair of you.

[America Needs R'hllor]

Marine Le Pen kindly shows us how horrible her foreign policy is going to be if she ever becomes President of France:

France's Le Pen outlines foreign policy vision, leaving Russia door ajar

This feels like an unforced mistake. Will definitely do her harm right now. Is she deliberately trying to lose?

[Middle-aged Europe]

France's two rivals for the presidency have traded accusations after a woman was manhandled for protesting against far-right candidate Marine Le Pen's ties to Russia's Vladimir Putin.

The protester was dragged along the floor after she held up a heart-shaped sign showing Ms Le Pen meeting the Russian leader in 2017.

Hitting back at critics, Ms Le Pen said people should be outraged that election press conferences could be disrupted.

...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61105322

[sting in the rafters]

Are Le Pen's isolationist stances on foreign policy an attempt to reach out to disaffected Melenchon voters? AIUI Macron's views on nuclear power are anathema to most of the leftist camp maybe he could make a lesser-of-two-evils case on renewables.

[Oryxslayer]

Wikipedia now has the vote by constituency.



Macron almost wins a majority, with 266 seats. Le Pen has 206, and Melenchon won 105.

[omar04]

Wikipedia now has the vote by constituency.



Macron almost wins a majority, with 266 seats. Le Pen has 206, and Melenchon won 105.

I wonder how many of those Le Pen seats FN could pick up if they had a better party infrastructure and candidate base.

[Oryxslayer]

Wikipedia now has the vote by constituency.

Macron almost wins a majority, with 266 seats. Le Pen has 206, and Melenchon won 105.

I wonder how many of those Le Pen seats FN could pick up if they had a better party infrastructure and candidate base.

I mean those aren't the only issues. The way how the legislatives are set up means that differential turnout, voter enthusiasm, the two-round runoff system, and pre-election alliances all work in favor of the presidential majority. For example, in 2017 first-round Macron voters turned out 15 and 20% more than first-round Melenchon and Le Pen voters respectively. The two-round nature means that not every seat had a candidate form one of those three in round 2.

However, what really has continuously stopped FN from gaining seats is the electorate's self-created 'republican' cordon around the party. FN had a decent number of candidates make it to round 2 in 2017, but then consistently saw the electorate consolidate around their opponent, no matter whom it was. For example, LREM won the majority of seats along the south coast of France in 2017 cause it ended up in beneficial LREM-FN runoffs.

This time of course LR is in shambles and could very well end up partially aligning with LREM in the legislatives. The shift of the periphery away from 'metropolitan' parties means that there are also larger pools of voters for FN to potentially tap. Finally, the cordon may not end up as strong simply because other party voters might not turn out, like we are partially seeing in the runoff  for the main contest. So the stage is certainly set for FN to make gains in the best of its best regions - the rural north and southern coast - but it requires them to act upon the opportunity and it still won't come close to 206 shown here. Similarly the left constellation (not just LFI who appear to have gotten 40% of their vote in the last 2 days before the first round) has opportunities - likely more than what Melenchon won - but they are conversely less likely to act upon them with appropriate conviction.

[lfromnj]

https://www.france24.com/en/france/20220414-french-students-block-schools-to-protest-choice-between-macron-and-le-pen

 I love this election

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Thanks for the good summery. I have already noted in this thread, but it bears repeating I feel that a national top-two runoff system in the modern age - when the executive has any power rather than simply being a figurehead for the legislature of course - increasingly favors the personalization or "caudillo-ization" of politics. The first round vote becomes increasingly fragmented because there is no thresholds, limited barriers to running, and one can easily inform voters across the internet. Essentially duverger's in action. The fragmentation is however different from say the Dutch fragmentation that is resulting in multitudes of minor parties with pet issues. A single powerful seat for a single individual means that fragmentation multiplies the personalities, backgrounds, identities, who run - the things that can be represented by a person and not an ideological parliamentary party. We see this increasingly in countries across the world.

I mean look at the result. Both in 2017 and now we have most/all the major candidates effectively running with limited or irrelevant party apparatus. Now it is just more apparent since the parties that could once command almost every voter in France got a combined result under 10%. The setup for how legislative elections are contested simply means that the legislature becomes just as personalized and aligned with the executive's identity. This also is not unique to France. If Melenchon or Le Pen won last time or (could) win this time, the legislative results would no doubt be just as similar, just with a different cast of former nobodies. In my eyes, the only thing preventing France politics from fully personalizing is France's rich tradition of Ideological politics.

To the extent that a political system with a powerful president elected in two rounds would produce any particular partisan configuration, I would expect it to look a lot like Chile: a variety of parties and candidates, nearly all of whom are clearly identified either with the Left or with the Right. For a while this was the situation that prevailed in France, with the PCF and PS on one side and the UDF and RPR on the other.

That this is not the case in France now has a lot to do with France not having a "rich tradition of ideological politics" but in fact the exact opposite. In the late Third Republic, when every other rich Western democracy had a strong (perhaps too strong) culture of partisan politics, there were no real political parties to the right of the Marxist parties, only loosely defined groups of parliamentarians. Mass electoral politics in France has always been based basically around individuals. Under the present system, the PS was by, of, and for Mitterrand, the UDF was created by Giscard as an organization of his followers, and every successful Gaullist leader has created his own new political party. La République Emmanuel Macron is exactly the same. It's hard to think of anything more classically French.

This is actually the default way most countries work honestly, (like see anywhere in South America), France is just a bit of an exception due to being a very established democracy and strongly developed first world country. Even countries that initially had strong parties often end up going this route in the end (Mexico for a relatively recent example.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Wikipedia now has the vote by constituency.



Macron almost wins a majority, with 266 seats. Le Pen has 206, and Melenchon won 105.

Why did Le Pen do so well in Lille?

[Sub Jero]

https://mobile.twitter.com/SteveKingIA/status/1513887836252028929I wonder what “shared civilization” he thinks she will restore?

[adma]

Why did Le Pen do so well in Lille?

She didn't.  That yellow wart near the top with the tiny red dot in the middle is Lille.

[Oryxslayer]

Why did Le Pen do so well in Lille?

She didn't.  That yellow wart near the top with the tiny red dot in the middle is Lille.

Yes, Lille is just outvoted by the other areas. There's Dunkirk and other areas close to and influenced by the anti-migrant Calais in the Northwest, and there's the rural-ish areas to it's southeast that somewhat resemble adjacent Aisne and Ardennes - some of Le Pen's best departments.

Lille actually imposes an electoral ceiling on Le Pen in Nord, similar to Amiens, Nancy, and Metz. These cities are the difference between tight Le Pen department wins and blowouts like in the already stated Aisne and Ardennes, as well as PACA, and Meuse.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1514924496960040970?s=20&t=wT2ABQ0jAC7Dh-E...

YouGov poll. If I didn't know better, I would saw there might be overall herding towards a 54-46 going on right now. Odaxa has 53-47, OpinionWay-Kéa 54-46, and Ifop-Fiducial 53.5/46.5. Anyway, they have a nice voter intention chart:



Macron receives slightly more Melenchon voters than Le Pen, who receives slightly more than abstention. Macron gets 53% of Pécresse voters to Le Pen's 14%, 66% of Jadot's voters to 3% for Le Pen, as well as further gains from the minor candidates. The one group which is not considering abstaining though is Zemmour voters, going 81/11 for Le Pen.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Macron seems to have the momentum for now. Just don't blow it by getting cocky or something. Let the media debate whether Le Pen would sell out the country to Putin (French interests my ass).

[Antonio the Sixth]

Why did Le Pen do so well in Lille?

She didn't.  That yellow wart near the top with the tiny red dot in the middle is Lille.

Yeah, this would be the equivalent of asking "Why did Bush do so well in Austin?" lmao.

[Person Man]

Macron seems to have the momentum for now. Just don't blow it by getting cocky or something. Let the media debate whether Le Pen would sell out the country to Putin (French interests my ass).

He basically needs to run down the clock for 9 days.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Why did Le Pen do so well in Lille?

She didn't.  That yellow wart near the top with the tiny red dot in the middle is Lille.

Alright but there seems to be an urban area southwest of it she did well in.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1514985657126510594?s=20&t=wT2ABQ0jA...

Their last poll (pre-election) was an outlier, in that it had Le Pen winning by 50.5%/49.5%, the only poll in the past three years to not have Macron ahead.