French politics: houlala!

[Ser Reptitious]

29 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

65-35 in the end.

We'll be all right for another five years at least.

Macron has a big task ahead of himself, but his election is a huge sigh of relief for now!

[Which Tyler]

2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

65-35 in the end.

We'll be all right for another five years at least.

I thought it was 65 : 22 : 13 (spoiled ballots)

[Darryk]

Thankfully the French arent so easily duped by right-wing crazies and Russian shenanigans.

[Prince of the North]

Vive la France!

[maarsen]

And I just came to add a voice of derision for those that are still agog at inane comments.

[denstorebog]

24 minutes ago, Darryk said:

These right-wing crazies are good at whipping people up into an angry mob, getting them to blame all their problems on immigrants; but once they get into power and have to actually identify the REAL cause of those problems they blamed on immigrants, and solve those problems; they are gradually revealed to be completely and utterly incompetent.

That said, they're also good at evolving their blame game in the face of defeat. Meaning that any failure to solve problems won't necessarily expose them right away; they can intensify and shift their blame and keep whipping their supporters for far longer than should rationally be possible. Because those people really want to believe their problems are caused by someone else.

[all swedes are racist]

1 hour ago, Which Tyler said:

I thought it was 65 : 22 : 13 (spoiled ballots)

if you count the spoiled/blank ballots, i think it was something like 43% macron, 35% neither, 22% le pen. 

[denstorebog]

NYTimes' live map has them at exactly 65-35 now. For some reason, it would be aesthetically pleasing to me, and a slight boost to the victory, if Macron got > 65%.

[Paxter]

Le Pen managed to (nearly) double the vote count of her father back in '02, but in the end this was a decisive defeat for the far-right. Macron received the second-most votes of any Presidential candidate in the history of the Fifth Republic. Attempts to draw analogies between this election and last year's narrowly-won US election have fallen completely flat.  

[The Killer Snark]

There were massive irregularities in the voting. Double ballots were sent only to Macron supporters, and votes were cast by 'expatriates' who may well (nudge, nudge) not even have been born in France. Similar jiggery pokery as occurred during the US election, with the Soros voting machines, voting illegals, and dead Democrats on the voting registry. Macron would still have won, though, in spite of many in France detesting him. But it wouldn't have been by so big a margin. Illegals will doubtlessly have voted as well. But there's no getting away from it. France hung herself. Germany at its next election isn't going to free itself either. The entire thing will be an orchestrated fraud.

[Altherion]

26 minutes ago, The Killer Snark said:

There were massive irregularities in the voting. Double ballots were sent only to Macron supporters, and votes were cast by 'expatriates' who may well (nudge, nudge) not even have been born in France. Similar jiggery pokery as occurred during the US election, with the Soros voting machines, voting illegals, and dead Democrats on the voting registry. Macron would still have won, though, in spite of many in France detesting him. But it wouldn't have been by so big a margin. Illegals will doubtlessly have voted as well. But there's no getting away from it. France hung herself. Germany at its next election isn't going to free itself either. The entire thing will be an orchestrated fraud.

Why would a change in the margin matter enough for somebody to go through all this trouble? The margin is mainly useful for propaganda value and the current one is fine for FN (they doubled their vote share from the last time they tried this).

I think the neoliberals have to be given their due here: the system adapted and it adapted effectively. The most recent ruling parties were discarded with the current one garnering a laughable 5% of the vote and the traditional opposition coming in third.  Instead, they created a new centrist party with a really young candidate who had not been involved in this before. There is no need to cheat here.

That said, I think the impact of this election on populism (e.g. as in the Washington Post article) is overstated. This adaptation worked, but it does not resolve any of the underlying problems. The economy is still structured to benefit the elites rather than the masses, the terrorist attacks are not going to stop, the EU has the same drawbacks as before and I'm not sure what Macron would do about any of those. It is highly likely that the populists will be back -- especially if the left borrows a part of the adaptation and runs somebody under the age of 60 (or, even better, under 50).

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

Are we seeing first hand the results of an internet mis-information campaign?

 

https://medium.com/data-for-democracy/democracy-hacked-a46c04d9e6d1

[Loge]

10 hours ago, Which Tyler said:

I thought it was 65 : 22 : 13 (spoiled ballots)

Of the total electorate, it's 44% Macron, 25% abstentions, 22% Le Pen, 8% spoiled ballots.

Of the turnout, it's 58% Macron, 30% Le Pen, 11% invalid.

[Alarich II]

The margin was important because MLP did worse than the General public anticipated, and - even more important - worse than her own ambition. So yes, this is a defeat, not because she lost (that was the expected result), but because she could not rally as many voters as she thought or hoped. And the first statements out of FN mirror this: renaming the party, giving up the "Leave the EU/Euro" stance etc. Hopefully we'll see some more infighting, it would be a delight to see MMLP have a go against MLP take down their rotten party with them.

But a lot will now depend on the parliamentary elections. I can see three outcomes there, that I believe are more likely than others:

1. FN and Mélenchon pick up enough seats to form an unholy national-socialist alliance to block every single piece of legislation, the goal being of course the next presidential elections. So in 5 years "En marche" is finished and we'll probably see a far-right vs. far-left second tour then with a very narrow outcome.

2. Macron somehow manages to pick up enough votes with his own movement. We'll probably see 5 years of painful reforms, everyone will protest and after 5 years, En marche is finished. However, the other parties will (hopefully) have had enough time to reform and restructure and can put up a fight against FN next time.

3. Macron somehow manages to assmenble a loose coalition, manages to get some little reforms through, but sees the rest of his ideas watered down. The coalition taints all participating parties, the result being the same as in 1.

[maarsen]

8 hours ago, The Killer Snark said:

There were massive irregularities in the voting. Double ballots were sent only to Macron supporters, and votes were cast by 'expatriates' who may well (nudge, nudge) not even have been born in France. Similar jiggery pokery as occurred during the US election, with the Soros voting machines, voting illegals, and dead Democrats on the voting registry. Macron would still have won, though, in spite of many in France detesting him. But it wouldn't have been by so big a margin. Illegals will doubtlessly have voted as well. But there's no getting away from it. France hung herself. Germany at its next election isn't going to free itself either. The entire thing will be an orchestrated fraud.

Wow! First time I came across a raving sock puppet conspiracy theorist with no pretense of having actual facts. Keep it up. I need a laugh on occasion. Your credibility for any argument on any other subject is now nonexistent.

[Filippa Eilhart]

9 hours ago, The Killer Snark said:

 and votes were cast by 'expatriates' who may well (nudge, nudge) not even have been born in France.

so? A lot of countries allow their citizens to vote regardless of their residence or place of birth

[Rippounet]

4 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Are we seeing first hand the results of an internet mis-information campaign?

Yes. Though by now we know that Russia is doing its best to interfere in all Western elections or votes.

4 hours ago, Alarich II said:

1. FN and Mélenchon pick up enough seats to form an unholy national-socialist alliance to block every single piece of legislation, the goal being of course the next presidential elections. So in 5 years "En marche" is finished and we'll probably see a far-right vs. far-left second tour then with a very narrow outcome.

2. Macron somehow manages to pick up enough votes with his own movement. We'll probably see 5 years of painful reforms, everyone will protest and after 5 years, En marche is finished. However, the other parties will (hopefully) have had enough time to reform and restructure and can put up a fight against FN next time.

3. Macron somehow manages to assmenble a loose coalition, manages to get some little reforms through, but sees the rest of his ideas watered down. The coalition taints all participating parties, the result being the same as in 1.

I don't see Mélenchon picking a lot of seats in the legislative elections. The FN should win some, but not too many. The Conservatives (Les Républicains) should make a decent come-back, and perhaps the Socialists as well. I find it hard to believe that Macron's movement can win a majority by themselves. I would expect the Parliament to be split between five major factions, but with several coalitions being possible. So 3 is likely, but where I disagree with you is that the final result will depend on i) the economic condition of the country in 5 years and ii) how the media will treat Macron in the coming years.

25 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Wow! First time I came across a raving sock puppet conspiracy theorist with no pretense of having actual facts. Keep it up. I need a laugh on occasion. Your credibility for any argument on any other subject is now nonexistent.

I have to say that there were irregularities, I read about a court of justice confirming them. They seem to have been minor however (a few thousand cases here or there), and I understand that it happens in every election.
What's new this time? Apparently some cities decided to prevent voter fraud by striking off anyone who had moved in recent years (this isn't done systematically), which meant that people who hadn't asked to vote in their new city couldn't vote at all. It's a recurrent problem in elections, I know a lot of people who never took the time to ask for a new elector's card after moving. I feel little pity though, it's up to each elector to keep their administrative info up to date.
Most importantly, there's absolutely no way to say such irregularities benefit one candidate more than another.
I think such accusations coming from the right or the far-right are preventive, in order to hide the fact that right-wing candidates often benefit from massive fraud... And obvious interference from a foreign power these days.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

I'm on other boards about different topics and all I will say is I have observed Russian 'disinformation trolls' first hand, or at the very least people who have bought into much of the stuff pushed out seemingly by Russia. The anti Macron stuff has come about quite recently as far as I can tell and has been rampant for the past week or so. 

You can basically figure out Russian foreign policy from the stuff they bang on about.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

10 hours ago, The Killer Snark said:

There were massive irregularities in the voting. Double ballots were sent only to Macron supporters, and votes were cast by 'expatriates' who may well (nudge, nudge) not even have been born in France. Similar jiggery pokery as occurred during the US election, with the Soros voting machines, voting illegals, and dead Democrats on the voting registry. Macron would still have won, though, in spite of many in France detesting him. But it wouldn't have been by so big a margin. Illegals will doubtlessly have voted as well. But there's no getting away from it. France hung herself. Germany at its next election isn't going to free itself either. The entire thing will be an orchestrated fraud.

Dude, you're a special kind of nutty. 

[Hello World]

Soros voting machines?