Really? I’d say that with Le Pen as a candidate, the whole of Europe - left, right, and centre, regardless of language - is interested.
I have zero use for Marine LePen, and don’t blame Obama for endorsing Macron.
But… just whom does Obama imagine he’s going to sway?
ANYONE who’s considering voting for LePen is, by definition, uneasy about globalism, concerned that international elitists are trying to deprive them of their culture, that their leaders are more concerned about foreign opinion than THEIR opinions. In short, people fearful that the France they know and love is disappearing.
How would the endorsement of ONE of those foreign elites win over such a person?
I asked a similar question back in 2004 when Richard Dawkins tried to appeal to “undecided” Americans to vote for Kerry. What the Hell made Dawkins think HIS opinion would matter to any undecided American? A typical undecided American was someone who was either…
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Conservative on religious/social issues but fearful about what Bush was doing to the economy, or
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A businessperson who liked low taxes and lax regulation, but was uncomfortable with the Religious Right.
Either way, what could Dawkins have to say that would win over either type of undecided voter?
Dude, have you still learned nothing from Climategate?
He may be merely trying to drum up participaton, and not necessarily sway LePen supporters. He’s well aware that a little more participation in the U.S.'s last election might have made a difference.
A certain segment of the French centrist tendency.
And he is well known.
Do americans outside of this message board have any idea who this person is?
I can assure you, all French people know who Mr Obama is, and he is widely well liked
The Frontists, they are not the audience.
The American far right is not well known for having any great interest in the European elections or anything but Rah Rah Americna Number 1… Nor is your British far right known for its great attention to these things.
To have the right wing anglophone trolls actively engaging, it smells.
I was hoping for Swahili or Urdu, myself.
Sorry, not buying it. There have long been associations between the various European ultra-right, so ‘stuff’ is entirely normal.
Also, how hard can it be to translate into English?
Here in the UK the far right are interested in the French vote because they hope it will cause the EU to collapse.
My French nationalist/national Right acquaintance on FB would have absolutely destroyed you on this point.
Agree with the pile-on.
Yes, mainstream US Republicans ignore France or make jokes (e.g. “freedom fries”) at its expense. Hardcore authoritarian or racial purity rightists are much more international in their interests. Any country going their way is good news. Although they’d sure prefer that their own country lead the way.
The good news in all this is it implies our poster isn’t one of those dangerous anti-civilization guys.
De Gaulle as President withdrew from the unified military command, not from NATO.
Partly a matter of sovereignty (you know, what le Pen’s supporters are so keen on, and one of the themes that Putin is trying to encourage in order to break up Western cohesion), but also both de Gaulle personally (because of Roosevelt’s suspicion of him in WW2) and the French political establishment (above all the nationalist right - the kind of historical political strand Le Pen and her father come from) remembered what happened in the US Congress to the tripartite defence agreement of 1919, alongside the Versailles Treaty. They drew the lesson that the US interpretation of its national interests couldn’t necessarily be relied upon as a consistent basis of French defence.
And they are going global, how ironic when they are using the fear of globalism as a reason to undermine democratic nations.
And even more so when you consider whom they might, just possibly, be fellow-travelling with (if only on the cui bono? principle)
French election results: Emmanuel Macron ‘wins 60 per cent of vote,’ exit polls suggest
Live coverage @The Telegraph
Agreed: I was more enthusiastic about Kerry than any Democratic presidential candidate before or since, but I was distinctly irritated by the Dawkins endorsement.
France 24 says Macron has won with 65% of the vote.
The article now says that Macron won “65 per cent of the vote” and the text says that it was more than that. 