I… Honestly very much doubt that that would happen. The FN is still, in many ways, the “bête noire” of the French left. In my experience (100% anecdotal experience, but personal experience nonetheless) the French left-wingers I have had the opportunity to interact with would rather have a hole drilled in their temple with a dull spoon than vote for any FN candidate.
If the options are voting LePen, voting Macron or staying home, I would imagine that they would choose either staying home or voting Macron… But, given my personal experience, I really cannot see them voting for LePen.
I agree with JoseB: most Far-Left voters won’t swing to Le Pen, although some probably will in spite of the fact that the parties are supposed to be polar opposites. Actually, perhaps the political landscape should be described as a circle rather than a spectrum, with the anti-establishment parties lying side by side.
But the real danger comes from the Republicains voters. Will they be able to bring themselves to vote for Macron ? I’m not so sure. Most probably will, but I’m afraid that it may be much closer than it seems.
Still, it’s the first time in my lifetime (ever ?) that neither the PS nor the Gaullist Party has reached the second round. That’s astonishing, and it would have seemed impossible 6 months ago. There’s going to be a lot of soul-searching in both parties in the coming months.
As far as Hamon, the Socialist candidate, is concerned his poor performance isn’t a surprise. I had barely heard of him when he got the nomination… and I’ve barely heard of him since. Another transparent PS candidate, totally devoid of charisma. As a result, the party may lurch to the center, towards Valls who lost the party’s primary and subsequently endorsed Macron, causing much furor within the PS.
Yet, it’s not the first time that the Socialists fail to reach the second round. See 2002. For the Republicains, the shock must be way more traumatic. And Fillon is entirely to blame. Why he doubled down in the face of certain defeat, and convinced the party to support him, is beyond me. They had Juppé, the only adult in the room IMHO, waiting in the wings. I guess they favoured discipline over reality, while Fillon came across not only as a hypocritical twit, but increasingly as an arrogant, hypocritical twit. If the reasoning of what happened behind the scenes is ever made public, I’d love to hear it. It’s unclear who will take the lead now : the party is at a crossroads with the last remnants of both the Chiracand the Sarkozy eras being either too old (Juppé) or discredited (Sarkozy, Fillon).
Fillon is the French Romney, without the easy charm.
Yet, yet, a profounder shock may hit the French People if Madame le Pen becomes president, aside from her gentle sex and her resemblance to a tough but fair brothel-keeper ( none of the girls ever complain, not if they know what’s good for them ).
For the first time in centuries the official position of Maîtresse-en-Titre to the French President will be vacant. Can the glum traditionalists of La France Profonde, who read Mauriac for giggles, come to grips with this awful breach of protocol ?
Even M. Hollande, not a Lord Byron, kept a series, as is proper. The Prince-President kept at least a dozen.
I’m intrigued by the map in this CBC article (scroll to end of the article).
It shows the vote break-downs regionally (by département?). Le Pen gets her support from eastern France, while Macron gets his support from western France. Any speculation as to why?
ITR champion wrote: “Regardless of how anyone thinks about Marine Le Pen, this should be widely viewed as ridiculous. There is a law against posting violent images to promote terrorism. The case arose when a journalist accused Le Pen of being as bad as ISIS, to which she responded by tweeting pictures of bodies of those murdered by ISIS and saying “This is what ISIS does.” Obviously she was not promoting terrorism, so the charge is bogus.”
Perhaps she was promoting the terrorizing of innocent Muslims, whom she and her supporters conflate with ISIS.
Well, I dunno: removing a representative’s immunity — something created to assure representatives can speak on, or bring up, any matter — does seem to defeat that purpose.
And, of course, with precedence set, can be applied to any other matter that the Establishment wants: how would Americans react if, say, a vegetarian congressman discussing animal cruelty in the House was now liable to lawsuits from Big Meat ?
There’s a difference between far left activists and far left voters. A lot of the latter were presumably attracted towards Melanchon because of his social promises : retirement age and benefits, healthcare system, social safety net, etc…And despite being far right on issues like nationalism, immigration, etc… Le Pen had one of the most social discourse of all the candidates (and vastly moreso than Macron). Melanchon and herself were in fact pretty close regarding these matters.
Le Pen is a populist and certainly doesn’t forget the “little people” and the downtrodden in her speeches. So, I’m pretty convinced that some of Melanchon voters will switch to Le Pen for this reason. Her father himself captured a significant part of the formerly communist electors. And Macron with his “free work” (free employers from legal constraints) speech, his background in finances, and the economically liberal laws he fathered as a minister isn’t very reassuring for the working poors and such people.
In fact, Le Pen (and the Front National in general for a while) got a lot of votes in two different areas corresponding to two very different segments of her electorate, and that just so happen to be both situated in Eastern France.
-In south eastern France, to caricature, she got the votes of elderly conservatives (think Florida for an US equivalent).
-In North-Eeastern France, she got the votes of the poors in an economically devastated area (formely home to coal mines, steel industry, etc…). Think Detroit for an US equivalent.
In any case, despite these regional variations, the most obvious divide between the electorate of Macron and Le Pen is rather between cities and urban areas (for Macron) and small towns and rural areas (for Le Pen). The most blatant example would be Paris, were Macron got about 35% of the votes, and Le Pen less than 5%, but the same phenomenon appears everywhere, in every region, with the urban vote strongly at odds with the rural vote.
I’m no expert on France, so take my opinion for what it is : an opinion.
North-Eastern France conjures up an image of impoverished, old mining towns with most industries declining, or gone. An analogy would perhaps be the “Rust Belt” in the US. So, let’s say that it’s a protest vote from people who have felt left behind for decades.
You will notice that Southern France also voted for Le Pen but there, I reckon that the reasons are different. To put it bluntly, it comes off as a region where racism is particularly… pronounced. IIRC, the first towns that elected FN Mayors in the mid-90s are all on or near the Mediterranean coast. So, the anti-migrant, anti-Islam rethoric is pretty well established there.
As to why Macron won in Western France, I have no idea.
Maybe France is different, but in the US I can’t imagine someone winning the presidency when he belongs to party that has never elected anyone yet. That is basically a “virtual party”. Do I understand that right (having hear that on NPR a few days ago)?
Yes, Macron put together “En Marche” just a year ago as a vehicle for his presidential run.
Party structure is much more fluid in France than it is in the US.
The Republican Party for example, is also relatively new under that name, but is the inheritor of the general right of centre and Gaullist parties, such as the “Rally for the Republic” which was Chirac’s party, put together to further his presidential ambitions.
The Rally in turn merged with the Union for the Presidential Majority, which in turn became the Union for a Popular Movement, the party name when Sarkozy was president.
Later, it became part of the new Republican Party.
I’m rooting for Macron just because he’d be the hero of wanking high school boys everywhere. He started dating his wife, Brigitte Trogneux, in high school - when he was 15 and she was his 40-year-old married teacher. Her daughter was the same age as him and in the same class.
Frankly, Macron was absurdly lucky. I assume (I can’t know, obviously) that he ran in order to acquire recognition for future elections. One year ago, it was taken as granted that the main right-wing party would win the election, and even assumed that the candidate would be the well-known and quite consensual Juppé. Nobody would have thought that Macron could have the slightest chance (probably not even himself).
Then Fillon surprised everybody by winning in a landslide the primaries of this party (note that in France, the concept of primary is quite new and only a limited fraction of people participate in them). First problem is that he was way less consensual (and well known). The policies he wanted to implement were Thatcher-like, and it frightened a lot of electors (including center-right electors). Then, while he had an image of absolute integrity, he got involved in scandal after scandal, was eventually prosecuted, and defended himself in a particularly awkward way. Losing again large part of his potential electors. Who else could they vote for : mostly the centrist Macron.
Same scenario on the left. The big names lost the primaries to the relatively unknown Hamon. Who intended to implement very leftist policies, considered by many as impossible to implement . Large part of the party, and especially of its leaders just refused to support him and turned towards the only palatable alternative : the centrist Macron. It became quickly very clear that Hamon would have extremely few support, and had no chance to win, so moderate left electors followed suit, intending to vote for the candidate who had a chance to win and wasn’t Fillon.
I myself voted for Macron, that I seriously dislike, only as a result of a lack of acceptable options (although I was tempted until the last minute to cast a protest vote in favor of an extremely minor candidate).
Thanks, clairobscur; I appreciate your perspective on the subject. Can you clarify what you mean by “consensual”? Maybe the word means something different in French, but in English it means “agreed to by both [or all] entities involved”. You wouldn’t describe an individual as being consensual; only a group of two or more, but really it would be used to describe the action of that group. The sex was consensual. I can’t figure out from the context what it’s suppose to mean… maybe “agreeable”, as in “likable”?
It means “one who seeks consensus” - someone who aims to secure a political/electoral mandate by by finding common ground with other figures/parties/movements and building on that, as opposed to the more adversarial style of politics in which someone seeks to build an identity by distancing himself from others, by confronting them, by opposing them.
See the wiki article on parliamentary systems, distinguishing between the parliaments which use the Westminster system and tend to be more adversarial, compared to Western European Parliaments, which tend to govern more by consensus.