French presidential election, 2022

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

In case you thought Zemmour was a "friendlier" version of Le Pen, here are some quotes of his:

"No small town, no small village in France is safe from a savage squad of Chechen, Kosovar, Maghrebi or African gangs who steal, rape, pillage, torture and kill."

"When the young bus driver slips a concupiscent hand on a charming female backside, the young woman does not sue for sexual harassment...Trust reigns." (Apparently this indicates how good relations between the sexes used to be.)

"This quest for parity is like the quest for morality, it has no end. Don't give women the social or the family, they need finance or defence! It'll never be enough."

"To call your child Mohammed is to colonise France" (He wants to ban foreign names.)


The fact that this sort of person is on the evening news night after night and a serious contender for the presidential race who supposedly strikes a chord with popular sentiment is an indication of just how far France has gone in its collective hysteria.

The fact that people on /r/europe were acting like that's a reasonable and non-racist policy was deeply disturbing.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

In case you thought Zemmour was a "friendlier" version of Le Pen, here are some quotes of his:

"No small town, no small village in France is safe from a savage squad of Chechen, Kosovar, Maghrebi or African gangs who steal, rape, pillage, torture and kill."

"When the young bus driver slips a concupiscent hand on a charming female backside, the young woman does not sue for sexual harassment...Trust reigns." (Apparently this indicates how good relations between the sexes used to be.)

"This quest for parity is like the quest for morality, it has no end. Don't give women the social or the family, they need finance or defence! It'll never be enough."

"To call your child Mohammed is to colonise France" (He wants to ban foreign names.)


The fact that this sort of person is on the evening news night after night and a serious contender for the presidential race who supposedly strikes a chord with popular sentiment is an indication of just how far France has gone in its collective hysteria.

Maybe wait till the election before making such generalizations. There is a reason he's on roughly 13%. There's this generalized hype about France heading towards the fascist precipice from the Anglo-Saxon media, but then which were the two-three countries who did elect RWPPs or people to power? It wouldn't be the 3 that signed a certain defence deal recently, would it?

Add his vote and Le Penn and that's a disturbingly large number.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

The Dreyfus Affair being resurrected by a jew as a political issue strikes me as emblematic of the state than french politics has fallen to.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

There's a certain ghoulish phenomenon of a member of a minority group setting themselves against said minority group and telling bigots that everything they thought is true, and, well, here we are.

My uncle was one of them, token muslim BJP MLA.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Why are the proposed policies such clown shows ? "exempting everyone under 30 from income tax" so let's cut their effective income by 20% just when they probably need more money to deal with children and other expenses.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Watched his campaign video, just a montage of arabs and black people rioting followed by bunch of happy white families.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Zemmour also made several days ago comments on disabled children you can, at best, called clumsy, in which he denounced the 'obsession for inclusion' of disabled children and said they should attended specialized institutions, except the 'slightly disabled' ones. Such declarations have been heavily criticized by disabled rights organizations and the whole of the political class and forced Zemmour to partly backtrack.

De Gaulle would be proud. Not.

TBH that sounds a lot like a thing De Gaulle would support.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Can somoene give me an overview on the immigration issue in france at the moment ? Like how the current system works, what the various far-right parties want to do change the system and in particular what is the difference between the various far-right canidates with regards to migration policy ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

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 ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Loathsome pro-Putin shills throughout Europe tanking in popularity is one genuine silver lining of the recent awful events.

Also great at exposing the dividing line between those actually in putin's pockets, useful idiots and genuine leftists/peace activists.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Literally one poll is not DOOM

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I voted earlier today, after a very long line-up which took an hour and a half to get through. Cookies for anyone who can guess who I voted for.

I thought you were Canadian?

Anyway Predictions:

Macron: 24%
Le Penn: 23 %
Melenchon: 19%
Zemmour: 6%
Hidalgo: 5%

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I still think the gap between the top three candidates will be surprisingly narrow, and I wouldn't be surprised if Melanchon manages to leapfrog LePen for #2. Maybe something like Macron 24% Melanchon 22% LePen 21%.

A hypothetical Macron vs Melachon Run-off would make Atlas(and other political forums online) very interesting.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

When's the earliest we'll get reliable poll results?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

When's the earliest we'll get reliable poll results?

8pm CET - throw everything else in the trash. 5 years ago at this stage we had "exit polls" putting Mélenchon in the second round. The stuff coming out now isn't even worth the paper it's written on.

Ugh, have a test tommorow. Guess I'll have to miss this one out, kinda sad. Good luck to those staying up or(not) to watch the results.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Very american esque, educational polarization pattern.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Given that the difference between Melenchon & Le Pen is greater than Roussel’s total, Melenchon’s ostracising the Communist Party seems increasingly moronic. I do not understand why people think Melenchon is a good campaigner, had be been a bit less sectarian and aggressive he’d have beaten Le Pen.

Why did he push them away ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Is there anything about Le Penn or the FN that's explicitly anti-Paris ?, why were her results so poor in the city proper ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

In case your hard on from last night's video of Zemmour supporters has worn off, here is a video of Pécresse calling on the whole country for donations because she is personally indebted in up to 5 million euros and did not get the expected 7 million. Her party, the party of old French money, didn't even back her financially.

https://www.bfmtv.com/politique/valerie-pecresse-je-suis-endettee-personnellement-a-hauteur-de-5-millions-d-euros_VN-202204110240.html

Imagine spending 14 million to humiliate yourself publicly like this. Imagine putting 5 million of your own money into it. And then ask for donations. To run a campaign against the welfare state and putting 200,000 public servants on the bread line.

LMAO

Is Zemmour, going to be reimbursed for his campaign?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

In case your hard on from last night's video of Zemmour supporters has worn off, here is a video of Pécresse calling on the whole country for donations because she is personally indebted in up to 5 million euros and did not get the expected 7 million. Her party, the party of old French money, didn't even back her financially.

https://www.bfmtv.com/politique/valerie-pecresse-je-suis-endettee-personnellement-a-hauteur-de-5-millions-d-euros_VN-202204110240.html

Imagine spending 14 million to humiliate yourself publicly like this. Imagine putting 5 million of your own money into it. And then ask for donations. To run a campaign against the welfare state and putting 200,000 public servants on the bread line.

LMAO

Is Zemmour, going to be reimbursed for his campaign?

Yes unfortunately. 5% gets you the 7 million euros.

Is it a flat payment or does it have to be a reimbursement of the expenses?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I'm not sure if this is a serious question but central Paris is demographically not a great place for RN-style policies, just like the centres of most big cities. As above, those few on the right in such places are more likely to be of the Zemmour persuasion.

Saying that, her 5.54 there is slightly better than 2017, and would likely have been even higher without Zemmour being to her right.

I just don't really understand the difference between Zemmour and Le Penn in terms of policies and voters they attract, What is the main difference between their voters ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I'm not sure if this is a serious question but central Paris is demographically not a great place for RN-style policies, just like the centres of most big cities. As above, those few on the right in such places are more likely to be of the Zemmour persuasion.

Saying that, her 5.54 there is slightly better than 2017, and would likely have been even higher without Zemmour being to her right.

I just don't really understand the difference between Zemmour and Le Penn in terms of policies and voters they attract, What is the main difference between their voters ?

Zemmour fundamentally appeals to voters who formed the core of the FN back in the 80s (and you could even go back all the way to Poujadism if you're so inclined). Basically small-business owner who are doing a decent living but hate having to pay taxes and hate immigrants, along with Pieds-noirs and people culturally affiliated with them, and a certain kind of hyper-reactionary high bourgeoisie. It is, in short, a deeply ideological far-right vote.

Le Pen's current voter base, by contrast, is much more #populist and concentrated in the lower-middle class and France's Average Jacques in mid-sized and small cities and exurbia. It's the quintessential vote of "peripheral France" which feels it's on the losing side of globalization.

Ok, so Zemmour is the more upper-crust kind of far-right while Le Penn is more a lower-middle down-trodden kind of far-right. How does this translate into policy differences? Is Zemmour's economic policy more focused on cutting taxes on the wealthy than Le Penn, are there any policy differecnes in terms of immigration or intergration of minorites ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

In the end he's disqualified and therefore he loses, but anyway Melenchon scored a string of 'moral victories'

https://twitter.com/Brevesdepresse/status/1513413043744559106?t=59WOej5gmhlKbS_6...

Same energy as Corbyn's "We won the argument" guardian hot-take op-ed following the 2019 election.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

What I'm really interested in are the parliamentary elections, since they will have a huge impact on what the eventual winner can accomplish. French prez has less executive powers than POTUS as far as I know, and a veto can be overridden with simple majority.

I find it interesting how turnout for parliamentary elections have fallen in France are, and how it's almost inevitable that the winning presidents get a majority simply due to how demoralized their opponents are.

Is there any reason to think this election will break either trend ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

lol Zemmour is being investigated because his campaign made a list of all French jews and he bought a list of their phone numbers to target them for his campaign.

Is he antisemitist?

As stated above he got a lot of support in israel so I'd *assume* not.

Yes he is a self hating antisémite. Holocaust Denier and uncle Tom (or I think the correct term is a Kapo). But obviously for strategic reasons public enemy number 1 must remain Muslims and Arabs.

Are you implying Zemmour's islamophobia is not genuine? Lol

Describing Zemmour as a "self hating Jew" is a bit dumb and simplistic, imo. As far as I know Eric Zemmour does not deny his Jewish identity. The point is that Zemmour is a (far-right,  racist, extreme) French nationalist who believes France is the supteme value. In other words, Zemmour puts his Frenchiness ahead of his Jewishness. The former belongs to the public sphere andcthe latter belongs to the private sphere. In Zemmour's mind, any kind of particularism (ethnic or regional identity) is enemy of the Nation, which is One and Indivisible. Regional separatism and interests separated from those of the French Nation are unacceptable in Zemmour's view. In that regard, I see him as a far-right Jacobin

It's not surprising at all the success of a far-right islamophobic nationalist of Jewish heritage in Israel

No, you are right, Zemmour's character was formed by his family's background and so his Islamophobia is genuine. He believes that because Algeria under the FLN expelled pieds noirs and Jews that all Arabs are like that. But what I meant was his ascendancy is convenient given French political discourse is veering towards that rhetoric. They mention how halal butchers are taking over but nothing against ultra-Orthodx Haredi who self-segregate.

But I do think there is a lot of inner self hatred there. Not only of himself, just look at what an absolute pipsqueak the guy was in certain debates stuttering and chundering like a total beta. But also of his community ; Zemmour would be the kind of Israeli "nationalist" that despises 60-70% of Israel's population. In the end he thought that Petain was justified in giving foreign Jews, and saving French ones. So he would have been a Kapo, 100% he would have betrayed fellow Jews to save his own personalist political ambitions in such a scenario. So this man is an anti-Semite.

I think a promient example of this was his attempt to both-sides the Dreyus Affair and claim there is serious doubt about his innocence.