Surprised not much talk on here about this. This has been an interesting year. With the collapse in support for the Socialists and big drop by the Republicans the election has been thrown into some disarray. While everyone is focusing on the threat of LePen or noting the rise of Emmanuel Marcon as the new establishment candidate, the far left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon has been showing some straight in the polls of late. The polls regarding Brexit and 2016 US election tended to underestimate the anti-establishment vote -- which leads to the question if it is underestimating the vote for Melenchon and LePen? And while the thought is extremely frightening (to me anyway), imagine a run off between those two?
At that point we've got four candidates -Le Pen, Fillon, Macron, Mélenchon- who can all potentially be in the secound round. Le Pen shows some signs of weaknesses -by his own fault, because she's making a poor, ugly campaign- and there's a possibility she doesn't reach the second round. Now, if she does, polls constantly show she' ll be confortably beaten by any candidate, including Mélenchon.
Macron makes the same mistake like Hollande. He doesnt tell the truth to the people. That there have to be and will be hardships. And once the French electorate has tried out a conservative, a socialist and an independent guess who they will turn to for solutions.
Yeah cause the alternative from the right would try to blow up his house of cards. Doesnt change Macron is the same candy shop owner that Hollande was. But France doesnt need yet another candy shop owner but a doctor
To be honest I dont care about any of them. If I had the power to decide and pick someone Id go for a Monti like technocrat solution. From outside the political class, from outside science po crowd. It's not like France had a bad experience with that in the person of de Gaulle.
For a moment there I thought you said he WAS a hologram. As for the election, I find it a possible realignment of the French polity that was discussed back during the Sarkozy - Royale race. At the time, the right was trying to figure out if it was going to stay in a classic Gaulist mode, move toward populism, or continue in a neo-liberal move. Sarkozy seemed to make noises on all three. Royale was more from the centrist part of the Socialists and there was talk that she would join up with the centrists on the right lead by Bayrou to form a new centrist political movement (sort of like a French "New Labour"). At the same time to left of the Socialists were making noises about joining with the parties to the left in a new left wing political movement. 10 years later, it seems to me (as an outsider) that may be what we have. The National Front bangs the populist drum but the mainstream right seems unsure where it is going. Macron is a former Socialist Party member who was a staffer for Hollande and a member of a Socialist lead cabinet who is trying hard to capture the middle ground of French politics. Melenchon is a former Socialist from their left wing who has been reaching out to the far left wing parties to form a new political alignment. The best case would be a run off between Filon and Marcon for a battle for the mainstream. But it looks like one or maybe two of the anti-establishment candidates could find themselves in the run off. A Melenchon v Le Pen run off would be a nightmare -- the cholera against the plague.
Monti-like technocratic solutions lack democratic legitimacy.That would be just another way to reinforce Marine Le Pen. What people want is more democracy, not less. Plus what such a government would do is what Macron or Fillon will do, assuming one of them is elected, which is not a certainty right now.
Latest poll : we have four candidates within a 3% margin. That makes the first round result completely unpredictable.
Im sure Le Pen will make it to the 2nd round though. In the last elections we have seen polls and results arent always end up the same cause some voters arent honest in what they tell pollers who they will vote for. I think she will overperform on the countryside while Macron will do better in the major cities
I wonder if some Fillon and Hamon voters might switch to Macron in order to get him into the second round (I would imagine Macron is the second choice for many if not most of their supporters).
If you look closely at the poll I posted above, you'll see that 80% of Fillon supporters are sure to vote for him, which is pretty high. I don't think he will do less than 18% - 20%, which is a very low figure for the conservative party btw. Now concerning Hamon, only 57% are sure to vote for him. Mélenchon -not Macron- has litterally pumped Hamon's voters in the last weeks and there's a good chance he continues to do so.
Only of the Macron front. I do wonder how many voters Melenchon may share with LaPen at least on the Anti-globalization POV.
We've got 4 candidates within a 3% margin and the margin of errors of such polls is 3%... I think Le Pen will most likely be in the second round, but no one can be 100% sure of it. Mélenchon pumped a small number of Le Pen potential voters but in fact, Le Pen voters and Mélenchon voters don't belong to the same category of people : Mélenchon voters are generally young, urban, graduated people, often working in the public sector, whereas Le Pen voters are non-graduated and older people, living in peri-urban or rural areas.
That is why I think his raise hurts Marcon more than LePen (I think we agree on that) the number of Anti-globalist in the Malenchon camp that would go LePenn in the second round (if he loses) are probably small (like BernieBros voting for Trump).
Btw. have there been any noticable attempts by Putin to influence the election? I mean apart from supporting Le Pen more or less openly?
If the choice is Macron or Le Pen, many leftist supporters would rather not vote at all https://t.co/X8fh7dXdrv pic.twitter.com/J82rvAkvqI— POLITICOEurope (@POLITICOEurope) April 14, 2017 853065191776550912 is not a valid tweet id