French politics: houlala!

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

How about this:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/04/10/marine-le-pen-doesnt-deny-that-french-jews-were-handed-over-to-nazis-but-she-claims-france-is-not-to-blame/?utm_term=.9cfd0dd62148

Will Le Pen denying French culpability for Jews who were deported from France during the Vichy Era hurt or help her?

[Rippounet]

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Will Le Pen denying French culpability for Jews who were deported from France during the Vichy Era hurt or help her?

Neither. It's just a publicity stunt.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

25 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Neither. It's just a publicity stunt.

It it neither harms nor helps how does "publicity" help her?

[Rippounet]

It wasn't necessarily her publicity stunt.
If you look at her statement it's hardly controversial. Claiming the leaders of the time should be blamed for the Vel d'Hiv instead of France itself? That's something most people would easily agree with. Many won't even see what the fuss is all about in the first place.
She's had far worse controversies. They generally have no impact on her poll ratings. I dunno why the Washington Post thought this one was worth reporting.

[mormont]

I can completely understand why that's a controversial thing to say and why the WaPo would report on it. It's a deflection of collective responsibility. When German or Japanese politicians blame 'individuals' as a way of saying their country isn't responsible for WWII atrocities, that's controversial. Same here. If 'most people would easily agree', that genuinely makes me uneasy.

We have to remember that wartime atrocities like this weren't the actions of a few people, with all that entails: the idea that these people were exceptional, flawed, not like us. That's the temptation, and it's dangerous. The 'darkest historical aspects' of a country's history are still part of their history, as much their responsibility as the brightest aspects are their glory. Le Pen's line is to try to deny that, to say to French people they can have the glory but not the responsibility.

This was done by a French government in the name of France, not by a few individuals acting alone. That should not be forgotten.

[Rippounet]

10 minutes ago, mormont said:

It's a deflection of collective responsibility. [...] The 'darkest historical aspects' of a country's history are still part of their history, as much their responsibility as the brightest aspects are their glory. Le Pen's line is to try to deny that, to say to French people they can have the glory but not the responsibility.

Yeah, which means that this type of controversy mainly matters to people who would have the glory in the first place, people who are generally already voting for Le Pen. Some others may be shocked (historians and intellectuals especially), but the vast majority of people, who don't exactly think about "La France" much, don't give a damn. Let's bear in mind most people don't believe in anything like a collective French destiny, glory or responsibility anymore (for various reasons). The irony of attacking Le Pen on this is that it actually gives credence to the idea that there is such a thing as a collective historical burden, i.e. that nationalism still has value.
So, in fact, what would make me genuinely uneasy, is if people started saying this or that position on such a vague concept as "France" throughout history actually matters.

[Rippounet]

The latest poll has the four major candidates all being around 20%. It's an incredible and unprecedented situation.

There's still a lot of uncertainty, especially on the left. The levels of abstention will prove decisive.
Macron and Le Pen are still very strong though so the likely scenario is still a Macron-Le Pen duel for the second round, but with Hamon now being under 10%, Mélenchon reaching the second round is no longer a fantasy. There's a real possibility of seeing the far-right facing the far-left now.

Whatever happens, this election will have changed everything. The Socialist Party is finished, and the left will now rally around alternative parties like Mélenchon's. The traditional conservative right embodied by Fillon isn't in great shape either (corruption has terribly weakened them). Macron's centrism has become a pretty strong political force and may still win the day, but it's unclear what it means.
Whoever wins in the end will take the presidency with a small electoral base, meaning the legislative elections will be a mess and France will be almost impossible to govern. I have to say, only Macron seems to be strong enough to win a parliamentary majority, but even if he does win, it's unclear what he'll be able to do exactly, except preserve the statu quo and pave the way for a Le Pen or Mélenchon victory in five years.

 

[Which Tyler]

Thanks for the updates and overviews Rip.

When's the date for the first round voting?

[Hereward]

23rd April.

[A True Kaniggit]

John Oliver did a piece about the French election yesterday. I'd like to pretend it was because he read this thread.  

Edit: Thank you Monsieur Triskan for the link. At the time I was too busy/lazy to do so myself. 

[Commodore]

even if Le Pen wins the first vote, don't all the polls have her losing in a blowout in any potential head-to-head matchup?

she is a Nationalist Socialist in the true sense of the term (not a Nazi), she wants massive protectionism, a massive welfare state, and restrictive immigration

Nate Silver sees herding going on

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

7 minutes ago, Commodore said:

even if Le Pen wins the first vote, don't all the polls have her losing in a blowout in any potential head-to-head matchup?

she is a Nationalist Socialist in the true sense of the term (not a Nazi), she wants massive protectionism, a massive welfare state, and restrictive immigration

Nate Silver sees herding going on

 

What is "hearding" in this context?

[Maltaran]

Pollsters fiddling the numbers to match the results of other polls

[Commodore]

Just now, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

What is "hearding" in this context?

herding is where pollsters massage/weight their data so the outcome is close to the average of other polls

basically, pollsters don't trust their data if it varies from the average, so they all converge on a similar (but possibly inaccurate) result

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

So... the poll results are not trustworthy due to "over-massaging" of data?

[Commodore]

Just now, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

So... the poll results are not trustworthy due to "over-massaging" of data?

he's saying if you see a rash of polls with little/none of the variance that you would typically see from just noise, it's a sign of herding

[Rippounet]

This has to be the first time I agree with Commodore about anything.

4 hours ago, Commodore said:

Nate Silver sees herding going on

I've been thinking for a while that there's something fishy with the polls. Simply put, it's hard to understand how Macron could still be that popular less than a week from the election. His movement didn't exist a year ago, he has no electoral base, he was the economic advisor and finance minister for a very unpopular government, his program is rather unappealing, and his performances in the debates have been underwhelming (these are comments that have consistently appeared in the press, despite the media having been mild in its criticism).
His main advantage was that he could benefit from the division of the left (between Mélenchon and Hamon) and the discrediting of Fillon. But now that left-wing voters are rallying behind Mélenchon (Hamon is close to being irrelevant) and that Fillon seems to have recovered and kept his electoral base, it's difficult to understand where his popularity is coming from. He certainly can't be taking votes from Le Pen (they're polar opposites), so with Fillon and Mélenchon both being close to 20%, how can Macron's numbers not have sunk?
The only alternative explanation I can see would be that Mélenchon has been taking votes from Le Pen. It's possible, but that would be too good to be true. I dare not hope that Le Pen is actually the candidate who's weaker than they appear.
The fact that Macron happens to be the candidate of the establishment and the media is all the more troubling. I've been wondering for a while whether there wasn't some statistical factor hiding Macron's true weakness in the first round. There's too many influential people who want him to be president...
Imho, as a centrist, Macron is stuck between left-wing Mélenchon and right-wing Fillon. Centrists tend to struggle to reach the second round of the French presidential election. It was considered amazing that Bayrou got almost 19% in 2007, but Bayrou's personality and program were very popular at the time. Now that Mélenchon has rallied the left, I will be surprised if Macron ends up doing better than Bayrou.

4 hours ago, Commodore said:

even if Le Pen wins the first vote, don't all the polls have her losing in a blowout in any potential head-to-head matchup?

Yes, but I've been saying from the start that one should be careful about that prediction. While Macron can easily win against Le Pen because his centrism sits well with everyone, the same cannot be said of Mélenchon or Fillon. It's the great paradox of this electoral system: the best candidate for the second round is often not the best in the first round and vice-versa.

Bottom line is, with the polls being difficult to understand, we remain in the dark. We will only know for sure next sunday.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

I thought Fillon's campaign was/is pretty much dead in the water right now, with the conservatives moaning, that they don't have a proper candidate in this race.

[Altherion]

16 minutes ago, Notone said:

I thought Fillon's campaign was/is pretty much dead in the water right now, with the conservatives moaning, that they don't have a proper candidate in this race.

Not quite. Take a look at the recent polls. Obviously this varies from source to source, but Macron is somewhere in the neighborhood of 23%, Le Pen 22.5%, Fillon 19.5% and Mélenchon 19%. That is, the difference between 1st place and 4th place is around 4% which, given that nobody trusts these polls to that degree of precision, means that any 2 of these 4 can advance. Thus, surprisingly, Fillon is still in the race.

It appears scandal just doesn't have the impact that it used to. DSK is probably looking at this race and regretting that he didn't run.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

How on earth did he recover from that? I know, he is in that niche Republican candidate, nobody else is occupying. But still, he will go places. Either Ellyssee palaca, or court.