# French Presidential Election, 2017 **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [March 3, 2017, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-presidential-election-2017/781294 "2017-03-03T14:29:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2017, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-presidential-election-2017/781294/221 "2017-05-08T10:30:01Z")
The map which shows [the results of the communes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_presidential_election,_2017#/media/File:EN_-_2017_French_presidential_election_-_Second_round_-_Majority_vote_(Metropolitan_France,_communes).svg)s is the better one to look at, not the départements. It is there the support for Le Pen is better seen. It is indeed in the North west, which is the ‘rust belt’ par excellence. ---
**Author:** ![JoseB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/joseb/32/1530_2.png) [@JoseB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoseB)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2017, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-presidential-election-2017/781294/222 "2017-05-08T11:37:45Z")
> [@Ramira](#): > > The map which shows [the results of the communes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_presidential_election,_2017#/media/File:EN_-_2017_French_presidential_election_-_Second_round_-_Majority_vote_(Metropolitan_France,_communes).svg)s is the better one to look at, not the départements. > > It is there the support for Le Pen is better seen. It is indeed in the North west, which is the ‘rust belt’ par excellence. Thanks for the link to the map! Incidentally, nitpick – you mean North _ **east** _, right? Northwest would be Bretagne and Finisterre… ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2017, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-presidential-election-2017/781294/223 "2017-05-08T12:39:39Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > [He’s](https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-congratulates-macron-big-win-french-election-202116128.html) already congratulated Macron on a “big win” and said he looks forward to working with him. My guess is he’s going to forget everything he ever said about Le Pen and get offended if anyone else brings it up. So did Hillary, in a tweet that says more about her than anything else: _Victory for Macron, for France, the EU, & the world. Defeat to those interfering w/democracy. (But the media says I can’t talk about that)_ So, how is Macron going to do in the legislative elections coming up? It’s my understanding that he has 0 members of his party in the legislature right now. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2017, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-presidential-election-2017/781294/224 "2017-05-08T13:02:01Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > So did Hillary, in a tweet that says more about her than anything else: > > _Victory for Macron, for France, the EU, & the world. > Defeat to those interfering w/democracy. (But the media says I can’t talk about that)_ > > So, how is Macron going to do in the legislative elections coming up? It’s my understanding that he has 0 members of his party in the legislature right now. Macron won’t have a party in his corner, but his background suggests he’s a pretty standard Euro moderate, which suggests he shouldn’t have an insurmountable problem in winning over a functioning majority of Socialists and Gaullists. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2017, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-presidential-election-2017/781294/225 "2017-05-08T13:40:37Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > It’s possible that some European societies might end up partitioning themselves into more ethnically homogeneous units, and it’s also possible we might see a sort of voluntary or semi-voluntary self-sorting going on with ethnic minorities and people who are comfortable with difference migrating to cosmopolitan cities and to the western European countries, and with people who are uncomfortable with diversity migrating to the less liberal eastern countries. The first has happened several times in the 20th century, after 1918, 1940-45 and again after Yalta. That went so well, didn’t it? Didn’t you know that was one of the many reasons for the development of the EU, and the creation of the Helsinki Agreements? The second, of course, is already entirely possible as a result of EU freedom of movement, and probably wouldn’t be, or not peaceably, if the likes of Le Pen were to get their way. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2017, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-presidential-election-2017/781294/226 "2017-05-08T13:49:21Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Macron won’t have a party in his corner, but his background suggests he’s a pretty standard Euro moderate, which suggests he shouldn’t have an insurmountable problem in winning over a functioning majority of Socialists and Gaullists. His movement claims there will be a full slate of candidates under their banner for the elections, but it remains to be seen what kind of people they will turn out to be, if elected: it’s not only a question of numbers, but he seems to have been organising his movement as something more of a new-style debating club than an old-style centralised party, so who knows what the balance will be of retreads from existing parties, wholly new people (and if the latter how they will relate to whatever government is actually formed)? Apparently the full list is likely to be named this week. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2017, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-presidential-election-2017/781294/227 "2017-05-08T14:40:13Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > … > It’s possible that some European societies might end up partitioning themselves into more ethnically homogeneous units, and it’s also possible we might see a sort of voluntary or semi-voluntary self-sorting going on with ethnic minorities and people who are comfortable with difference migrating to cosmopolitan cities and to the western European countries, \*\*and with people who are uncomfortable with diversity migrating to the less liberal eastern countries. \*\* > … Bolding mine. There seems to be a logical inconsistency in the center of the bolded part. If some Norwegian or Frenchman or whatever is uncomfortable with ethnic diversity where they live you suggest they should move to, e.g, Serbia, which is less liberal about ethnic diversity. The problem comes in that from the POV of those diversity-averse Serbs, those Frenchmen and Norwegians \*are \*ethnic minorities. Exactly the kind of people they don’t want in Serbia. Said another way, one damn sure can’t flee diversity in your own homeland by emigrating as an outsider to places that hate outsiders. Only immigrants can “go back where they came from” and be welcomed there. But even then there are caveats. They’ll be welcomed if and only if they’re: A) First generation AND B) Not married to a local of their adopted country and have no locally produced kids AND C) Are themselves the product of ethnically homogenous parents from there in the returning country. That is a very, very small slice of 21st Century Europe (eastern or western) or the other wealthy countries of the world. Said another way, substantially all of todays residents of, e.g., France are stuck there; they’re even less welcome in the land(s) of their ancestors than they are in France. And this is true of all the modern countries. Ethnic diversity will continue to expand everywhere until eventually every flavor is found everywhere. Which on present trends will take another hundred-plus years. The next phase is they all interbreed for another couple hundred years until we all look more or less the same. Then we can start hating each other on the basis of some more subtle attributes. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2017, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-presidential-election-2017/781294/228 "2017-05-08T15:19:22Z")
France dodged a bullet, for sure, but I think the road ahead is still pretty murky. Macron has never been in government before, and has a party with no one in the legislature yet. Maybe things are a lot more fluid in France than in the US, but that doesn’t usually work out so well for getting things done. If the “change” candidate can’t affect any change, then someone like Le Pen could do much better next time around. We shall see! ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2017, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-presidential-election-2017/781294/229 "2017-05-08T19:09:23Z")
> [@Great\_White\_Dope](#): > > From the rumblings I’m hearing, this is shaping up to be a Le Pen blow out victory. > > It’s safe to say the clock has struck 11:59 on the E.U. and the globalists’ dream of worldwide power and control. Just came in to point and laugh at this guy. Bonjour, mes amis. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2017, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-presidential-election-2017/781294/230 "2017-05-08T19:35:28Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Macron has never been in government before, He was Minister of the Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs for two years, from 2014 to 2016. Strikes me as a pretty thin résumé, but he has been in government. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2017, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-presidential-election-2017/781294/231 "2017-05-08T23:27:50Z")
My summary of the election: “The diacritical mark is mightier than the pen!” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-presidential-election-2017/781294/232 "2017-05-09T09:02:12Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > He was Minister of the Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs for two years, from 2014 to 2016. Strikes me as a pretty thin résumé, but he has been in government. He was also an Inspector of Finances for some years before going into investment banking - i.e., [working for the equivalent of our National Audit Office](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel_Macron#Carri%C3%A8re_professionnelle) (but it also sounds as though it has a more extensive remit, dealing also with questions of government efficiency and effectiveness and acting as an in-house management consultancy). During that time he was apparently offered and declined the directorship of the representative organisation of businesses (MEDEF). Not much in the way of a public political record, but as a high-flying civil servant he’d be in a position to know how to get things done. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-presidential-election-2017/781294/233 "2017-05-09T10:14:04Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > So, how is Macron going to do in the legislative elections coming up? It’s my understanding that he has 0 members of his party in the legislature right now. It’s going to be complicated and unpredictable. He will have candidates in all voting districts. Some of them will probably be politicians from the left or the right with local recognition rallying him, but (I assume) most will be “new people”. French representatives aren’t as unmovable as their american counterparts, and incumbents often lose their seat, however. So, winning districts isn’t impossible. Two elements will play in his favour : there’s a part of the electorate who actually supports him, and people who aren’t terribly enthousiast about him might nevertheless decide to give him a chance and vote for his candidates. Against him : many people voted for him by default, both on the right and the left, because they didn’t like their main candidate (both the Republican candidate and the socialist candidate had a number of things playing against them) or thought they had no chance to win (particularly true for the Socialist candidate) and decided to cast an “useful” vote instead for the an acceptable alternative (Macron) who actually had a chance at winning. What will complicate things a lot : in usual French legislative elections, there are two main parties, and the others are of few relevance unless they passed agreement giving them some seats in exchange for their support (for instance, the Green with the Socialists). But this time, with the big hit the two main parties took, we’ll have _5_ main players in the run : Le Pen National Front, boosted by her success, the traditional Republican party, Macron’s party, the Socialist party, and the far-left Melanchon party (Melanchon got a lot a votes in the first round of this election and his supporters are very enthusiastic and boosted. This is likely to result in very unpredictable results, with very dispersed votes, since this time many candidates in every district will have actual chances to win. It will make the issue of alliances very complicated too : will parties make alliances for the second round? Whom with whom? Will it be up to the local candidates? Will voters care anyway? We could have a lot of very unusual duels on the second round (far-left against far right here, Macron against socialists there, Republicans against far left elsewhere…). On top of which, the electoral system for these elections will make things even more complicated. Any candidate who received the votes of a certain percentage of the registered voters on the first round can participate in the run offs (instead of the two leading candidates for the presidential elections). Usually, that means for the run offs a lot of right/left duels, some three-way votes, and the extremely rare four-way vote. The two latter are already complicated in normal times with parties agonizing over alliances and withdrawals (for instance, a badly placed socialist candidate could decide to withdraw from a three way race so that the better placed Republican candidate will win against a National Front candidate). This time, with very dispersed votes, there might be tons of three way run-off, four-way run-off, or who knows, maybe the occasional five-way run-off (never happened until now). Which is going to be confusing for both parties and electors, and even the candidates themselves. On the overall, I assume that Macron will end up with a sizable representation in the parliament, but there’s no way he’s going to have a majority. Then he’ll have either to run a minority government, or to ally either with the right or the left (more probably the right, even though he originally was a Socialist). In any case, we’ll have a parliament with a composition very different from what we’re used to. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-presidential-election-2017/781294/234 "2017-05-09T11:17:54Z")
Very interesting. Do you see any parallels with the recent Prime Ministership of Matteo Renzi in Italy? He too was essentially a technocrat with no deep party backing. Whom the voters selected partly to “clean out the stables” and partly to spit on “business as usual”. Due to weak support in the legislature Renzi mostly failed at those tasks and lost what amounted to a vote of no confidence after not quite 3 years in office. Despite some successes which may or may not survive the current PM’s actions. And yes, the Italian stables remain mostly uncleaned. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-presidential-election-2017/781294/235 "2017-05-09T15:15:04Z")
There have been multiple instances of "cohabitation during the 5th Republic, but one party has always had a majority in the National Assembly. IIRC the last time that wasn’t the case was during the 4th Republic, when President and Parliament had a very different relationship. France could be heading into uncharted territory. Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-presidential-election-2017/781294/236 "2017-05-09T15:58:41Z")
> [@JoseB](#): > > I think this map makes it very clear that Macron had much more wide-ranging appeal than LePen across the whole country. Bear in mind Macron was scarcely ahead of three competitors in the first round. What this suggests is not that Macron had wide-ranging appeal, but that Le Pen had wide-ranging loathing. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-presidential-election-2017/781294/237 "2017-05-09T16:02:27Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > The rejoicing, however, must be tempered. With over 1/3 of the runoff vote for FN and neither of the traditional establishment parties having made it to the second round, does this mean from now on THEY will be the main contender, and elections will be about who can best stop FN? They need to revamp their voting system in general. I do think a runoff is better, for sure, than a simple plurality system (Le Pen was less than three points from outright victory under such a scheme, a frightening thought). But 55% of the voters in the first round said they didn’t want either Macron or Le Pen. If people keep creating new parties and the old ones become more fractured, that’s a potential recipe for a second round between two \*very \*unpalatable choices. I would say, if they want something close to what they have now (as opposed to going to something totally new like ranked choice), they should make the second round consist of the top X candidates whose vote totals add up to at least 60 percent of the total. If X is more than 2, you have a third round (at which point you almost certainly have only two left), and then it’s a simple majority, as it is in the second round now. > [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > I am certainly an apologist for the Soviet regime, but mostly for the second half of the Soviet regime (i.e. after Stalin’s death), which lacked the famines, mass deaths, and other ‘human and economic’ catastrophes for which you and others rightly criticize the first half. > > The late Soviet era certainly had its share of problems, but as I pointed out before, the CIA estimates of median income growth for the last decade before Gorbachev’s accession were low but positive, \>0.6%. That’s higher than median income growth in the US for the same period, and it’s also higher than median income growth in the United States for the entire period since then. The Soviets certainly experienced their share of economic stagnation, but we’ve experienced economic stagnation _for the median worker_ too. East German GDP growth compared to West German, as estimated by Gerhard Heske, is also very instructive here. I certainly think communism could have benefited from some very serious market reforms- not towards capitalism but towards something like the Hungarian or maybe even Yugoslav models. But yes in the last analogy I think they had a better basic model for society than we did. I generally agree with you on these points, having spent several weeks “on the ground” in Gorby’s USSR, and finding it far different from the caricature–and I’ve argued as much on the thread for the TV show _The Americans_. But I’m having a tough time comprehending why you’d support Le Pen, even “with reservations”. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-presidential-election-2017/781294/238 "2017-05-09T16:16:52Z")
Strictly speaking, there haven’t been that many single party majorities under the 5th Republic: periods of tension between conservative and liberal forces on the right in the Giscard years, on the left between socialists, communists and other left groups under Mitterand and now under Hollande. But in the past, centrist parties tended to be more fiscally and economically to the right than to the left, even if, as in Giscard’s time, they moved towards more social liberalism. And until Macron’s party announces its full list, and until the first round results, we just won’t know what direction he’ll be able to take. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/french-presidential-election-2017/781294.md?page=11)