French presidential election, 2022

[parochial boy]

Specifically, the first round has to take place between the 8th and 23rd of April. Almost always that means the last available Sunday, so I expect the 17th April is the most probable date for the first roud

News this week is Yannick Jadot (EELV president) organised some big meeting between the left about tactics slash a non-aggresion pact slash a united candidate for 2022. Pretty much everyone took part, except Mélenchon who was out of the country (which Jadot already knew when he organised the meeting) and even while present, LFI were pretty clearly underrepresented in comparison to the PS and EELV.

Olivier Faure (PS leader) came out saying that he expected a joint candidate, only for EELV spokesman Julien Bayou to immediately talk down that possibility.

Realistically there won't be a join left candidate. Even if an EELV one supported by the PS is possible (depending what Anne Hidalgo does, probably) there is too much of an ego game, but also too much political disagreement to make it really possible to work.

Or to put it in other words, just as Méluche is completely unpalatable to large swathes of the potential left wing electorate; the centrist figures like Jadot and Hidalgo are as well. So any of the three are doomed to failure. I've mentioned before, that a progressive EELV candidate like Grenoble mayor Éric Piolle might be able to pull a bigger left-wing coalition together, but at the moment, I don't think there is going to be a world where Jadot and Mélenchon aren't both standing.

Or in other words, the left is already KO.

I can't find the results for the Europeans by constituency abroad; but all French abroad kept up good scores for LREM, also good for the Greens; average for LR; awful for Le Pen/Bardella. (Perhaps someone has these?) Amusingly, LREM won in Saint-Denis with only 15% of the vote, so many minor left wing parties were there.

Voilà. Brut numbers not percentages, but pretty much bang on 40% in the 3rd constituency. I couldn't find constituency results, but UK French voted 50,8% Hollande in 2012.

Generally the French abroad are like Macron perfect demographic - well educated, prosperous and liberal/internationalist in outlook. Especially the UK bunch who are overrepresented in things like the finance industry.

[parochial boy]

Ah, merci bien. I was looking at the Ministre de l'Intérieur site which goes down to commune in the hexagon, but not to constituency for French abroad.
We had pretty awful turnout in that election, didn't we?. The Swiss seemed rather keen on Fillon in 2017, to which you no doubt contributed 

I grew up less than 100m from the border, but thankfully I'm not a French citizen at all Just a concerned bystander from a part of the world that is very strongly influenced by France's culture.

French people in Switzerland are and have always been noticeably right-wing, in part thanks to the tax exile crowd. Old aged socially conservative tax exiles were like Fillon's dream demographic: I remember seeing some results by precinct in 2017 that had him on like 50% in the first round in the wealthy eastern suburbs of Geneva.

So given that Macron is guaranteed to beat Le Pen the only way he can lose is if Bertrand somehow makes the run-off and a lot of left wing voters stay home?

There has been a fair deal of "a Macron-Le Pen rematch is inevitable" coverage this week. But I wouldn't say it is at all. Remember how fast things changed last time round. Among other things there is still the potential of a Zemmour candidacy, or some anti-establishment outrider coming in and messing things up. Add to that the ever existing potential of scandals/covid disasters/protests or riots and so on. Although having said that, there does seem to be a core of 20-25% who will back Macron no matter what, so I'd still expect to see him in the second round

[parochial boy]

There has been a fair deal of "a Macron-Le Pen rematch is inevitable" coverage this week. But I wouldn't say it is at all. Remember how fast things changed last time round. Among other things there is still the potential of a Zemmour candidacy, or some anti-establishment outsider coming in and messing things up. Add to that the ever existing potential of scandals/covid disasters/protests or riots and so on. Although having said that, there does seem to be a core of 20-25% who will back Macron no matter what, so I'd still expect to see him in the second round

I assumed Zemmour was a no-hoper.

The point is more, if he's at close to 10%, then it's pretty obvious whose electorate most of that 10% is coming from.

[parochial boy]

IIRC Fillon's best results abroad were from Israel. May I ask who you supported in the last election? Mélenchon? Hamon? Macron, subsequently to be disappointed?

I supported Hamon, rather naïvely in retrospect. Were the situation of 2017 to repeat itself, I would pretty easily support Poutou as a firt option, on the basis he seems like the only figure on the left to have any integrity. Unfortunately, he's rules himself out of standing next year, so it's back to the drawing board - basically anyone on the left, but hopefully not Jadot in practice.

Did you vote last time round?

[parochial boy]

I guess you dislike Mélenchon then, because he seemed to have the best chance of doing well of the leftwing candidates. Did you support Macron in the second round (without the hindsight)?

No I couldn't vote (still can't). From the little I knew I was supporting Macron. I believe my father was quite enthusiastic for Juppé, admiring him as mayor of Bordeaux; he started supporting Macron early on though.

Yeah, there are a lot of things I don't like about him, even if there are quite a few people in LFI I have a more positive opinion of. I would be more prepared to support him this time round though, because the situation seems more desperate and he seems to compare (much) less badly relative to other figure than he did 5 years ago.

Is it a citizenship issue why you can't vote? I've no idea what the French rules wrt voting abroad are, but I don't think there is a time limit like other countries have

[parochial boy]

You seem quite anti-Macron; would you vote Bertrand over Macron? With the latter's shift to the right, I don't really know what the difference between them is. Generally I don't understand the non-Le Pen right who are still anti-Macron.

No, age 

Ah, eventually then

I woud vote blanc in a Macron v Bertrand second round - I'm a bit too lazy right now to explain fully why; but basically horror at his economic policies, attitude towards minorities, attemps to discredit and censor left wing thought combined with the pure arrogance of thinking that he is somehow entitled to left wing votes in a second round. I very much resent being blackmailed in that way.

Bertrand's electorate I think essentially consists of old people to be honest. Basically people who don't like the more progressive sides of Macron's outlook (the pro-europeanism, rhetoric about feminism etc...) but also don't like the perceived extremism of Le Pen (ie, they're old enough to remember the father). Bertrand has a much more classical conservative profile (ie themes like "the value of work" or "authority"), which seems like it still has an electorate willing to back it.

I don't think I'd be to excited about his prospects just yet though, even if he seems to have a certain electorate right now, there's a degree of "blank page" about him. Never underestimate the sheer degree to which French politics is motivated by complete disdain for everything and everyone. And as hinted above, he is also very weak outside of the certain demographic (older and wealthier) that seems to be behind him at the moment

[parochial boy]

Yeah, it's a bit off both I would say. On the one hand, maybe not necessarily that Mélenchon himself is any better, but he at least surrounds himself with people who are fairly palatable. There are now a cast of LFI figures beyond just the man himself and that some of them I personally do have a fair amount of time for.

Problem is that the size of the unambiguously left electorate is... rather small at the moment.

And, on the other hand, the rest of the French left has become increasingly contemptible over the the course of the quinquennat. On the one hand you have figures like Hamon or most of the PS who seem to serve no identifiable purpose; but even more disheartening is the likes of Jadot or Hidalgo playing to the islamophobic psuedo-républicain gallery.

[parochial boy]

Jérôme Fourquet, who is IFOP's head pollster has some pretty interesting analysis of the RN electorate on the Jean Jaurès foundation's website.

Broadly speaking it's what everyone already knew - but the interesting thing is that the bell shaped age profile, that is lower among the young and olds and higher among middle aged adults, is actually a remarkably persistant pattern. As in, cohorts become more likely to vote RN as they move into their 30s/40s, and then less likely as they reach retirement. Which somewhat undermines the traditional argument that "old people don't vote Le Pen because they remember the war".

He suggests that this happens in part because the 30-65 year olds are more likely to be in employment, and simultaneously less likely to be benefitting from the welfare state, and therefore more receptive to arguments about the "assistanat". Which combined with the sense of cultural and economic downgrading among people with low levels education, and the actual retreat of the welfare state for those people, is an interesting line of thought. Not sure iI completely buy it, but it might help explain why 2017's 25 year olds, who weren't particularly inclined to support Le Pen, have morphed into today's 30 years, who seem to be a bit more to.

[parochial boy]

Ah well, it's in the bag for Macron now he's won the youth vote by appearing in that video with Mcfly et Carlito...

Going on 15m views at the moment, which is... quite impressive in that it's more than one in every 5 people in the country. And not far of the 17m who watched the second round debate in 2017.

(and in other youtube news - we have a far right vlogger releasing a video calling for the "murder of leftists". France continues to be the worst timeline)

[parochial boy]

Ah well, it's in the bag for Macron now he's won the youth vote by appearing in that video with Mcfly et Carlito...

Going on 15m views at the moment, which is... quite impressive in that it's more than one in every 5 people in the country. And not far of the 17m who watched the second round debate in 2017.

(and in other youtube news - we have a far right vlogger releasing a video calling for the "murder of leftists". France continues to be the worst timeline)

I think The Spectator had a piece about this saying "Macron fiddles as France burns."
The right wing press' hatred of Macron in the UK is quite odd (though explainable). They think of him as an irritating sanctimonious liberal.

It's really... one hell of a marketing coup that he still gives off that image abroad, given, you know, what his government has actually been, both in rhetoric and in policy. I dare say it is stems from him being reduced to  "pro-european" in anglosphere media talk, and the completely fantasised image of the the EU that exists among both pro and anti-Brexit circles in the UK.

[parochial boy]

Ah well, it's in the bag for Macron now he's won the youth vote by appearing in that video with Mcfly et Carlito...

Going on 15m views at the moment, which is... quite impressive in that it's more than one in every 5 people in the country. And not far of the 17m who watched the second round debate in 2017.

(and in other youtube news - we have a far right vlogger releasing a video calling for the "murder of leftists". France continues to be the worst timeline)

I think The Spectator had a piece about this saying "Macron fiddles as France burns."
The right wing press' hatred of Macron in the UK is quite odd (though explainable). They think of him as an irritating sanctimonious liberal.

It's really... one hell of a marketing coup that he still gives off that image abroad, given, you know, what his government has actually been, both in rhetoric and in policy. I dare say it is stems from him being reduced to  "pro-european" in anglosphere media talk, and the completely fantasised image of the the EU that exists among both pro and anti-Brexit circles in the UK.

Do you not find him sanctimonious and irritating...

Yes, but he's French, it's basically their defining national characteristic.

[parochial boy]

https://twitter.com/SamGontier/status/1403065926937948160

tonight we learn that a right wing extremist slapping Macron is... actually the left's fault

*thumbs up emoji*

I know I should pay less attention to what is going in France, but... it's like watching a car drive off a cliff, as horrifying as it is you just can't tear your eyes away

[parochial boy]

Éric Piolle is in, standing in the EELV primary - might actually present a challenge to Jadot. Hopefully.

But more importantly, so is this guy


Mes chers frouzes, you now know who to vote for.

[parochial boy]

Yeah, what Lechasseur says. The pundit class seems to be be suggesting the Right's candidate will be either Bertrand or Pécresse right now. And while I wouldn't rule it out, I don't necessarily some big LR surge round the corner - especially not under Wauquiez (who generally polls worse than the other two, and was an aboslutely meh LR president).

A left unity candidate has been much discussed, and much pushed but is very unlikely to happen.

Firstly because of the egos game. As in, both Mélenchon and Jadot support a left unity candidate... on the condition that it is them. And then you had this meeting a couple of months ago where the left parties all met to discuss the possibility of a union. Except they managed to choose a date where Méluche was out of the country, LFI were barely present, and they came out of it with deeply confused messaging - Faure (PS President) came out being all positive about the posibility only to be shot down by EELV's Julien Bayou.

Then there is also the fact that there can be some rather irreconciliable differences on the left. Put simply, on ecology, cultural issuse/racism/laïcité, the welfare state, redistribution... there are some pretty huge differences between the likes of Jadot (but also the likes of Hidalgo, some PS old guard) on one side, and the likes of Méluche on the other. Of course, it's a lot more complicated than that, because you have the likes of Hamon who is compatible with "both" sides. And EELV are already a pretty schizophrenic party in that they include social liberals like Jadot, or much stronger left wingers like Sandrine Rousseau. So unity might be possible, it's just that if there are two "poles" on the left, the two strongest profiles happen to both be on the opposite poles, and both be raging egomaniacs. So...

[parochial boy]

Little bumb because dates are now confirmed. 10th April for the first round and 24th April for the second

[parochial boy]

Hidalgo is in too.

There should be a seperate topic for these low energy media-obsessed losers that are throwing their candidacies forward in the hope to get 5-7% at best.

Montebourg too. Between these two, Roussel, Jadot (presumably), Méluche and the Trots it’s a bit of a roflmao style fail on the left unity front. Odds on not a single left candidate hitting double figures?

[parochial boy]

Hidalgo is in too.

There should be a seperate topic for these low energy media-obsessed losers that are throwing their candidacies forward in the hope to get 5-7% at best.

Montebourg too. Between these two, Roussel, Jadot (presumably), Méluche and the Trots it’s a bit of a roflmao style fail on the left unity front. Odds on not a single left candidate hitting double figures?

Jadot and Piolle are kickstarting the rentrée politique by clashing at the EELV summer university. After Piolle's declarations last week i think i prefer Jadot.

Also it will be interesting to see where JLM gets his signatures if Roussel runs. PCF still had the clout to get him over the line last time out.

I despise Jadot, for a number of reasons I think don’t need to be explained, but by which I mean - The CGT and mediapart lefts also hate him. Which is enough to mean he has no chance of emerging as the great left wing hope or of getting anything more than a mediocre single figure score.

I’m also completely mistified as to the purpose of Roussel’s candidacy. Or indeed, the purpose of the PCF beyond keeping a few pensioners busy.

[parochial boy]

Zemmour would have to give up his media slots if he runs. Thats in fact why he is probably hesitating.

Oh he'd be fine

[parochial boy]

Effortpost.

I was under the impression Pecresse was more on the right of the party than on the NKM, Bertrand side.

It will be interesting to see if Macron leans into the left again in his campaign this time round or whether he tries to point to his record in government in order to appeal to the right.  Both carry risks for the second round of course.

I'm not that familiar but I get the impression she's on the left of the party - she called for Fillon to step down in 2017 (though that's not strictly a left/right thing) and criticised Wauquiez for being too close to the far right. May be wrong though.

Pécresse is not in the party anymore, she left in 2019 to create her own party, Soyons Libres, because she thinks the party is too right-wing right now, refuses to consider green issues, has abandoned the values of the UMP and voted against some common sense reforms made by Macron (mainly on university and railroad reforms).

And yet she has a chance to be LR's candidate... 

The French party system is like fractal geometry or something. You know, the closer you look, the more ridiculous and complex and nonsensical it becomes.

[parochial boy]

I am really not looking forward to this election. It sure looks like we're headed for a ing FBM/Panzergirl rematch, even though most French people rightfully despise both of these clowns. The best hope might honestly be someone like Bertrand, although I fully expect him to default to the same toxic mix of outdated neoliberalism and cynical pandering to normalized islamophobia that's worked so well for FBM so far. But oh well. Of course I'll try to follow this closely.

I wouldn't be so pessimistic as you. It is almost impossible to undo left-wing policies and reduce the size of the State (particularly in France ). Even Mrs Thatcher barely managed to do so over eleven years. As for "normalised islamophobia" (which I too find unpleasant), this will continue so long as we believe in representative democracy and the French feel there is a problem with Islam in France. I do not know how to solve that - and I don't think this sort of thing helps - but I do think it reflects very real concerns. Is this not democracy at work? Plus, there'll be at least one left-wing candidate to your taste

Oh, I'll vote for Jadot or whomever else the best-positioned left-leaning candidate ends up being. It's not like I can be particularly demanding right now.

Really? I mean, Jadot is the worst sort of left - elitist, shallow and without a single social fibre in his body. Considering that the left seems to determined to go into this election more fractured than ever, and has essentially no chance of getting a candidate to the second round, I would imagine this would be the time to go with a values vote in the hopes of the better leftist factions getting an at least comparatively better score.

Although, in that respect, all the likely mainstream left candidates are dreadful. So ymmv in any case

[parochial boy]

Yeah but again this is what I mean when I say the Left has a losing mentality in France. Ruling out a candidate because he’s an NGO type (new to the European left?), because he attended a police demo and because he once said he thinks there’s a place for the market in modern economic policy. Like sure you can criticise him for this, but its just nitpicking when there’s an overall bigger struggle and the rule of the game. Jadot is actually the most logical, presentable candidate if you are just looking for a “vague Left”.


All that being said, I draw the line at the dictator-lover Mélenchon who said Russia and China hadn’t invaded a single country in the past 200 years (lmfao) and called the invasion of Tibet a liberation of Tibetans from a theocratic regime. THAT for me is a red line, because if I were French I wouldn’t want the guy with his finger on the nuclear button to first have to call his creditors in Russia and China.


But yeah Jadot "the worst sort of Left" because he attended a police demo once. I think there are far worse. And Mélenchon ranks among the lowest for his terrible record of sabotaging the Left so he can go on holiday in Venezuela and increasingly hysterical views and conspiracies.

Except you're misrepresenting where the critisicms of Jadot stem from. He has been deeply unpopular with about half of the left from long before that police demo, it was when  he started reproducing lines about republican values, being above the left-right divide, or writing woolly opinion pieces about "market oriented climate policy" or whatever in Le Figaro. One of the single most stinging criticisms I have heard of that wing of EÉLV came from a friend of a friend who used to work in the old Strasbourg PS administration, was the that the new ecologist one (yes, the turkish mega mosque one) was totally uninterested in concrete things like social exclusion, the state of the city's HLMs, housing provision generally, child care or social workers and protection; the sort of social policy that the left should have at its heart. And this was a PS guy being vividly critical, hardly Olivier Besancenot.

The problem is that Jadot is not electable; it's just that getting a decent score at the Europeans and municipals off the back of Greta Thunberg and being the default "not Macron and not the right" option in 2019 has convinced him that he was on to something that he wasn't. Being Macron-soft might play well among a certain well educated, ville-centre, bobo type crowd. But turning that into some logic that he can spread that appeal across society as a whole at the same time as dragging over the entirety of the 25% of the French population actually willing to vote for the left at the moment is magical thinking, pure and simple, and stems from the frankly false analysis that "globalism v nationalism" is the nouveau clivage and whatever. French society is actually much more complex and fractured than that analysis gives it credit for.

So yes, I am defeatist about this election. The left isn't going to win it, and that includes Mélenchon, who has spent the last few years repeatedly shooting himself in the foot enough to have killed all the goodwill that might have been there otherwise. There are simply not enough people ideologically attached to the left for that to happen and no-one on the left has managed to come up with a convincing message to move beyond that core, or has even looked close to doing that. What I can guarantee you though, is that more of the Flanby era liberalism-with-a-smiling-face is definitely not going to get anywhere beyond the happy France of the metropoles and university towns. Because, frankly, you aren't going to out-Macron Macron, and even he has read the writing on the walls and realised that the face isn't smiling any more.

[parochial boy]

She's quite popular with young left-activists - I think mostly down to the green stuff like the anti-car politics or banning wood fires. In which case, I wouldn't put it beyond her as being the candidate capable to bridging the irreconciliable gap between the two left-wing poles. Even if she has many of the flaws that Jadot does.

In that respect, I've seen it mooted, and it seems likely (possible) that we are heading to some sort of "tacit primary" or "primary by opinion poll" on the left. Meaning several out of her, the EELV candidate, Roussel, Montebourg dropping out over the winter if ones of the other candidates is polling better. Even if none will admit that at the moment (Montebourg in particular is expected to have trouble getting the 500 signatures from the outset). Problem is Mélenchon is probably not going to play the game, and is currently still polling the best, even if he has started to alienate some normally fairly reliable alies and supporters in recent weeks.

[parochial boy]

Zemmour was told that he couldn't appear on CNews any more, as it would break campaign laws given that he is holding back on announcing and all of the rest. So cue outrage about censorship because he has to follow the same rules that everyone else does.

Welp, considering my bf has a French citizenship I guess I should start following this. Could a Hidalgo-Jadot union take enough votes from Melenchon (if timed right) to get a respectable showing (which would be, I'd say, mid teens)?

Jadot and Hidalgo are polling roughly evenly at the moment, but I imagine it is entirely possible that at some point one or the other gets some inertia and pulls ahead and that creates a lot of pressure for the other to pull out.

As for the Mélenchon factor, I can't even begin to imagine - he's having a bit of a Corbyn moment wrt antisemitism accusations (a, being charitable, clumsy expression about "my enemy is the financier" complete with refusal to accept why that would be an issue, which has had his supporters digging down to support him. Familiar stuff).

In any case, is it's a bit of a truism with French presidential elections that they never end going the way they are supposed. Someone always surges or crashes in a totally unexpected way - but quite how that plays out, I wouldn't even want to try and predict at the moment.

[parochial boy]

Mélenchon though, is again proving he is a far better tactical campaigner than most on the Left- he is ac.

His main issue will be getting enough signatures without the support of Communist mayors. In the end if he reaches that I firmly expect him to be a thorn in any other left-wing candidate's side.

I had a quick look and was actually pretty surprised to discover that the PCF have 240 mayors of communes > 1000 people as of the 2020 municipals, and possibly that or even more among the smaller ones. Roussel's decision to play the anti-woke line hasn't exactly been uncontroversial in the party, but I suspect enough of them are either on board with it or just happy enough to be there for your point about mayors to be pretty accurate.

I doubt PS will endorse Jadot considering that it would be humiliating for them to not be on the ballot for the Presidency.

Faure has been more or less explicitely in favour of the possibility for a while now. A lot of the membership would find it humiliating, but Faure got re-elected as head of the party, so the opening seems there. Right now it seems to be going in the other way with Hidalgo, but we're in the phony primary phase, so it's up for grabs.

In particular putting their weight behing Jadot would open up the possibility of alliances at the legislatives (and others further down the line), with the goal of achieveing the most important thing - saving as much furniture as possible

[parochial boy]

Results from the first round of the ecologist primary:

Yannick Jadot - 27,70%
Sandrine Rousseau - 25,14%
Delphine Batho - 22,32%
Eric Piolle - 22,29%
Jean-Marc Governatori - 2,35%

Which means a Jadot v Rousseau second round over the 25th to 28th

Or in other words the centrist media darling v the queen of woke