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French politics: houlala!


Rippounet

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There was this interesting answer to Nate Silver on twitter:

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No. It's typical in France. It's because samples aren't random and they weight based on past results. For samples they do it "by quotas". Not truly random. So that removes already one source of possible variation. I looked at it since 2002. In average they do better than our polls. But when they are wrong (like in 2002) then they are ALL wrong.

This guy's blog is quite interesting though I'm afraid the relevant articles are in French.
http://www.tooclosetocall.ca/2017/04/presidentielle-2017-les-sondages-sont.html
http://www.tooclosetocall.ca/2017/04/presidentielle-2017-presque-tout-peut.html

Something interesting Breguet says is that French pollsters tend to take into account previous elections (to correct some of their previous mistakes). So after Le Pen was underestimated in 2002, he ended up being overestimated in 2007. Which means his daughter may be slightly overestimated today because she was underestimated in 2012.
It also means that Mélenchon could be underestimated (Breguet does say that his "instinct" tells him so, if not his model). I would concur. Though my town and social networks heavily lean left (my mayor is communist :P), the enthusiasm for his campaign is no illusion here. Even if he fails to reach the second round, he will have shown that there is a progressive alternative to neo-liberalism as well (not just neo-fascism). And the idea that his economic program is sound is gaining ground as well: today, over a hundred economists signed a paper in support of it (http://www.liberation.fr/elections-presidentielle-legislatives-2017/2017/04/18/pour-une-politique-economique-serieuse-et-a-la-hauteur-des-enjeux-votons-melenchon_1563456). Worst case scenario, he will become the French Bernie Sanders, and if the expected scenario plays out, will become an opposition voice on the left of president Macron, with a solid chance of winning in five years.
Breguet also says according to him it's clear that Mélenchon is taking votes from Le Pen. This would explain the current numbers. And after all, many of Le Pen's electors used to be left-wing (it's a known fact that she captured the former communist vote) so it's quite possible that some would come back to the fold with a credible candidate as left-wing as Mélenchon (who has the support of the communists btw).

Not that all this tells us much. We still have one likely scenario (Macron-Le Pen) and a small chance of surprise.

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12 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

There was this interesting answer to Nate Silver on twitter:

This guy's blog is quite interesting though I'm afraid the relevant articles are in French.
http://www.tooclosetocall.ca/2017/04/presidentielle-2017-les-sondages-sont.html
http://www.tooclosetocall.ca/2017/04/presidentielle-2017-presque-tout-peut.html

Something interesting Breguet says is that French pollsters tend to take into account previous elections (to correct some of their previous mistakes). So after Le Pen was underestimated in 2002, he ended up being overestimated in 2007. Which means his daughter may be slightly overestimated today because she was underestimated in 2012.

You can use Google Translate to read the links in English (first one, second one). The drawback of the non-independent poll approach is that having multiple polls becomes less and less useful as their results become more and more correlated. As the link says, the uncertainty is then significantly higher than one would expect from the sample sizes. Worse, this is the purely statistical uncertainty and if one of the parameters used to fudge the results is badly off, there is no limit on how far off the results can be. It's one of those approaches that seems to work... right up until it doesn't. Of course, in this case it wouldn't even have to fail badly to get an interesting second round such as Le Pen vs. Mélenchon -- the four serious candidates are so close that even a small fluctuation would do the trick.

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That guy's math isn't very convincing. Looks like the past polls  were all correct within the margin of error resulting from the sample size. Of course, adjusting for sample errors based on past results can go wrong, but the alternative is systematic error from the non-randomness of the sample or people lying about their intent to vote for parties with a stigma, a like AfD in Germany. In Germany, both schools of polling exist, and their results don't differ much as far as the national elections are concerned.

I think the biggest source of uncertainty is mobilisation. That's what killed Hillary Clinton and the Remain campaign, not inaccurate polls.

Of course, most people don't know about the margin of error and the press usually doesn't mention it.

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There has been a shootout at or near the Champs-Elysées. The reports so far are that one police officer and the attacker are dead and there is at least one other person wounded so this is not a massive event, but it's at the heart of Paris (walking distance to the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe and various government buildings) and has forced the closure of arguably the most touristy street in France. I wonder if it will have any impact on the election.

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With apparently at least one more shooter on the loose and Paris in a state of emergency 72 hours before the election AND a record number of undecided voters, I don't see how this doesn't have an effect. Given how close the race already was, this could give Le Pen the push to first place.

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And ISIS has claimed responsibility. Which I imagine plays directly into Le Pen's hands.

A break up of the EU is more or less exactly what both ISIS and Russia would like to see I imagine. So it's probably not surprising that ISIS would do something like this in order to tilt the election in the nationalist, Frexit direction.

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What you need to know about polls and the big french medias that make them is that they all belong to 9 big rich groups which explain why France is only ranked at the 43th (45th ?) place in the international Freedom of the press ranking (Which is very side for the country of" the human rights and freedoms")

The second problem is that these big groups are completely tied to the elite class which most of the politics comes from. It's really crazy the number of politics which are married to big journalists for example. All the bigs know each others and it is in their best interest (for the power to remain in the hands of their class) to keep this system. So the press is going to push to vote for the candidate of this system : Fillon and Macron (as was the case for president Hollande and former president Sarkozy).

Macron has been pushed by the press (because clearly Fillion is not going to win), he was litterally everywhere, because the press wants the people to think that he is the favorite. The funny thing is I personnaly don't know anyone who intend to vote for Macron.

 

So basically this is how things went in the past election : pretending that they were only two sides, the right and the left which both provided candidate from the elite class with basically the same ideology. And rather you voted right or left, nothing changed but people still dit it. Because if not, absolute terror : the FN (nationalist party) will win ! So the elite class, helped actively by the press, used this fear of the FN to make people vote for either the candidate of the right or the left. As for the people voting for the FN: they are poor delusioned people who are tired of the system and buy the hateful propagandas from Le Pen, thinking that it would improve their life because it would at least change something. There were always different candidates but no one talked about them, the medias made just passing mention of them.

And they are still doing it, the medias are talking about the "useful vote" : which is to vote for the favorite (a.k.a Macron) so the FN will not win.

 

Except, I don't think it's going to work this time. People are completely fed up. They don't want Fillon or Macron. Sure, there will always be people voting for the FN (there is no hope for those ones) and there will be people voting for Macron because they are still going to buy the "useful vote" propaganda (or by convictions, there are  of course people who actually support him. Or Fillon.) but what I see around me is that people are looking elsewhere. I know a lot of people which intend to vote for smaller candidates and the one rising is definitely Melenchon, probably because he actually has a programm which make sense and propose an alternative to the classic neo-liberalism which is currently driving us straight to disaster.

The proof that Melenchon has a good chance is not only that he has the most active campaign, that his meeting attracted thousand of people but also the behavior of the press: he was so far just mentionned in the press, then reluctantly acknowledged as one of the big 5 candidates and in the last few days, we assisted to real anti-Melanchon campaign in the big journals. He has now become the n°1 ennemy of the press. No wonder when you know that his programm will tear down the actual elite system.

 

I am sorry if this post apear overly simplistic : evil system/ bad vilains, but it is difficult for me to write elaborate thoughts in english.

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2 hours ago, James Arryn said:

Why does 'people being fed up' seem to translate so naturally to a vote for right-wing bigotry? Why does 'change for changes sake' seem to become hard-line conservatism, the people most idealogicaly opposed to actual change?

In this case, it doesn't. As has been pointed out above, the race is a four-way split between the far-right (Le Pen), center-right (Fillon), center-left (Macron) and far-left (Mélenchon). Thus, there are alternatives to the establishment both on the right and on the left.

6 hours ago, Ellfoy said:

What you need to know about polls and the big french medias that make them is that they all belong to 9 big rich groups which explain why France is only ranked at the 43th (45th ?) place in the international Freedom of the press ranking (Which is very side for the country of" the human rights and freedoms")

The second problem is that these big groups are completely tied to the elite class which most of the politics comes from. It's really crazy the number of politics which are married to big journalists for example. All the bigs know each others and it is in their best interest (for the power to remain in the hands of their class) to keep this system. So the press is going to push to vote for the candidate of this system : Fillon and Macron (as was the case for president Hollande and former president Sarkozy).

Macron has been pushed by the press (because clearly Fillion is not going to win), he was litterally everywhere, because the press wants the people to think that he is the favorite. The funny thing is I personnaly don't know anyone who intend to vote for Macron.

This is an interesting idea. I know little about the French press, but the American variant is similarly controlled by a relatively small number of interests and they undoubtedly played this "You cannot win!" game with certain candidates in both the Democratic primary (where it helped bury the leftist candidate) and in the general election (where the people they were doing it to figured out a way to turn the tables).

That said, if the French press is playing this game, they're not doing a great job of it: from the latest standings, it seems that every pair chosen from the four major candidates is plausible. I guess the place where they favor Macron is the second round as he seems to be favored there by double digits against just about anyone (assuming that he reaches it, of course).

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6 hours ago, Altherion said:

This is an interesting idea. I know little about the French press, but the American variant is similarly controlled by a relatively small number of interests and they undoubtedly played this "You cannot win!" game with certain candidates in both the Democratic primary (where it helped bury the leftist candidate) and in the general election (where the people they were doing it to figured out a way to turn the tables).

Le Monde Diplomatique recently published this mind map of the French media: medias10.jpg

So this week:
- Le Pen received support from Trump (implicitly, after the latest terrorist attack).
- Macron received support from De Villepin (the French minister of foreign affairs who opposed W.Bush on Iraq).
- Mélenchon received support from many NGOs (Greenpeace, Amnesty International, Oxfam... etc), some American actors (Danny Glover, Pamela Anderson & Mark Ruffalo) and from Bernie Sanders's campaign team.

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46 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Le Monde Diplomatique recently published this mind map of the French media: medias10.jpg

Now that sure is interesting. I was especially curious at arte and TV5Monde, since those are the main french channels you can watch in Germany. Kinda funny to see that it literally says that those belong to the German and French governments. Somehow expected something more sinister. :P

On a more serious note: Still crossing my fingers for the election. Please, France, don't fuck this up!

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11 hours ago, James Arryn said:

Why does 'people being fed up' seem to translate so naturally to a vote for right-wing bigotry? Why does 'change for changes sake' seem to become hard-line conservatism, the people most idealogicaly opposed to actual change?

Probably because people are irrational and hate is louder ? It is easier to blame everything on a minority than trying to think of a way to change things and society. Also because because the FN gets more coverage from the medias and lot of people sit lazily in front of their TV and don't take the time to search for information on their own ? But I guess it was a rhetorical question.

 

9 hours ago, Altherion said:

In this case, it doesn't. As has been pointed out above, the race is a four-way split between the far-right (Le Pen), center-right (Fillon), center-left (Macron) and far-left (Mélenchon). Thus, there are alternatives to the establishment both on the right and on the left.

Actually, Fillon is definitely not from the center-right, he is from the most conservative part of the right. So Fillon is from the real right. As for Macron, he declares not being from either the right or the left, and if he was a minister for the left, his programm was certainly not a left programm. The best way to describe him would be center I guess. As for Mélenchon, he is tagged from being far-left when actually, he just has a real leftist programm. He himself declares that he is not from the far-left. It is just that in the last few years, the "left" hasn't really presented a real left programm and has become more centerist.

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2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Just voted. It's a beautiful day here in Paris with a clear blue sky and a mild spring temperature. Kids are playing football near the polling station, where everyone is polite and smiling.

Do you know when the result is likely to be announced?

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1 hour ago, Which Tyler said:

You don't live in Paris then - that or your polling card was laced with LSD

A bit of both. I actually live just outside Paris, in the first outer ring.

1 minute ago, williamjm said:

Do you know when the result is likely to be announced?

8PM local time is standard (in a bit over 4 hours) though the media has warned us that there could be an extra delay this year due to how tight the race is. Some foreign media (Swiss or Belgian) often publish their own estimates before the official results of course, but they should be taken with a bit of salt.

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Shit, no confirmation, it's not clear yet who's in first place. Most websites put Macron ahead, but Bloomberg at least puts Le Pen instead.

Edit: well, Bloomberg seems to be alone on this one...

On the plus side, Fillon has conceded already and said he will vote for Macron.

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48 minutes ago, Triskan said:

Now that this is the contest is there any chance that Macron wins by a large margin? 

Polls have consistently predicted a 60-40 win for Macron (at least). And the polls have turned out to be surprisingly reliable.

Basically, Macron was always the best candidate to face Le Pen in the second round. I reckon Fillon would have been the worst.
I'm surprised he won the first round as well though, as it means my country is less politically polarized than I thought.

48 minutes ago, Triskan said:

Or is there a real threat that too many Melanchon and Fillon type voters stay home while Le Pen's people are super-motivated?

Many will but that's not the real threat. The real threat are those who will be tempted to actually vote for her. They should represent a very small proportion, but they still exist.

Also, there's always the possibility that Macron badly screws up in the coming debate with Le Pen... Or worse... That there is a major terrorist attack in the next two weeks. Fingers crossed! It should be ok, but Trump did get elected after all...

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