French presidential election, 2022

[Former President tack50]

Question for the French posters here:

1) Given how divisive both Macron and Le Pen are, as well as his good polling numbers, how likely is a Wauquiez surge?

2) Any chance of some sort of left wing alliance? Cause it seems the only way they could get to the runoff at all

[Former President tack50]

Question for the French posters here:

1) Given how divisive both Macron and Le Pen are, as well as his good polling numbers, how likely is a Wauquiez surge?

2) Any chance of some sort of left wing alliance? Cause it seems the only way they could get to the runoff at all

Wauquiez won’t be the nominee imo. It will probably be Bertrand. And unfortunately I don’t see a left wing alliance happening, but we’ll see.

Yeah whoops I meant Bertrand there (for some reason I thought it was Wauquiez the one that was polling much better than the other 2); which made me wonder if there was a chance of an LR upset

Also why does Bertrand poll so much better than the other 2?

[Former President tack50]

For some reason, European Reddit is much more conservative on social issues than not-explicitly-far-right Anglo Reddit. Of course, it's partly the fact that even Western Europe is more conservative than it seems (as in this case), but it seems to go further than that.

From my experience it is really more that Euro Reddit in general and /r/Europe in particular are actually quite progressive on most issues, but on the topic of immigration it is super conservative. I do not know exactly why but it is what it is. Kinda reminds me of the good old meme



Replace "Romani" with immigrants in general

[Former President tack50]

To illustrate a point (fwiw, BFM is the usually slightly more restrained of the 24 news hour channels - full tweet is here but the numbers are all pretty similar. Cnews is, unsuprisingly, significantly worse).

]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FBRoTcRWQAUzV8f?format=jpg&name=900x900

I mean, no wonder he's polling well

So polls are mostly name recognition at this point? Even so people like Macron (duh) or even Melenchon and Le Pen should be polling high given they have been running for a decade and a half by now?

[Former President tack50]

Well they *are* polling higher than others, aren't they?

Macron sure I guess, but Le Pen is polling badly and Melenchon's polling is atrocious, especially given his 2017 result

[Former President tack50]

Of the also rans, I hope Jacques Cheminade makes it, only because his views are too funny to not be included

I also have a soft spot for ruralist parties so hoping Jean Lasalle makes it.

[Former President tack50]

Dupont-Aignan desperately trying to relaunch his candidacy by renewing his asinine project (he previously described it, of course, as 'a common sense measure') worthy of the worst Latin American demagogues of building a bagne (penal colony like those in Guyana and New Caledonia until the 1930s) in the Kerguélen Islands to jail sentenced Islamist terrorists. This has apparently seriously discussed on CNEWS yesterday...

Dispersing members of terrorist organizations is nothing new; at least here in Spain we did it repeatedly against ETA members, so they could not organize in jail. (and indeed one of the demands of modern Basque nationalism is that because ETA is no longer a thing, they should be sent to the Basque Country).

Though creating a Guantanamo Bay style jail in the Kerguelen Islands of all places is beyond stupid.

I could easily buy dispersing terrorism members all throughout metropolitan France; hell possibly even sending them to places like Corsica, French Guyana or Guadaloupe/Martinique. But sending them to the frigging Kerguelen islands is nonsense, especially given they are uninhabited.

[Former President tack50]

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

Didn't that happen a while back?

Has Zemmour ever been on rails in the first place?

[Former President tack50]

He didn't have a favourable vote transfer environment. All 3 drop outs were closer to Pecresse.

But it's also Umengus being Umengus and spinning even the slightest thing in the right's favour. You have to understand him, he comes from a political environment where his cucked right-wing party celebrate coming 7th place in the entire country and their leader not even elected by preference votes.

I mean, the Belgian right might described in many ways, but "doing poorly" is not one of them. There is  still a firm right of centre majority in Belgium's national parliament. Of course there is a massive divide with the Walloon right doing miserable by right wing European standards while in Flanders it does absolutely amazing. (so if Umengus is Waloon I guess the point stands, but not for Belgium at-large)

[Former President tack50]

Since nobody has talked about him yet, why is Lasalle overperforming? I thought he would only get 1% and yet he is at 3%

[Former President tack50]

Unrelated, but the descriptions done of Seine et Marne by Zinneke and Parochial Boy remind me, almost word by word, of the infamous Vox Green Belt that developed around the Madrid metro area here

I wonder what attracts such exurban type places to far right policies, regardless of country and culture

[Former President tack50]

Unrelated, but the descriptions done of Seine et Marne by Zinneke and Parochial Boy remind me, almost word by word, of the infamous Vox Green Belt that developed around the Madrid metro area here

I wonder what attracts such exurban type places to far right policies, regardless of country and culture

It attracts people with money who are connected to the metropolis economical but dislike urban lifestyle/culture. So about as perfect a conservative demographic as you can get.

Thing is, like Parochial Boy said, these are peak "middle to lower middle income" areas. These aren't exactly uber wealthy areas with huge McMansions.