French politics: houlala!

[Arkash]

Well, nothing surprising...

Gutted, but not surprised... Fillon at 19,07% is the worst to swallow... as well as Mélenchon being only the fourth man.

And no mention at all of ecology or culture in any speech, they dont give a single fuck about it...

[Rippounet]

12 minutes ago, Arkash said:

Fillon at 19,07% is the worst to swallow... as well as Mélenchon being only fourth man.

I know, right? Given the amazing campaign that Mélenchon pulled off and the disastrous one that Fillon had, you'd think Mélenchon would have easily gotten third place at least.

[Fez]

Glad to see that the center apparently still holds in at least one country.

Though there's still a chance for things to go bad in the run-off.

[Bo Peep]

I hope Le Pen wins and I think she will. Leftists have been burying their heads in the sand for too long and under their governments horrible crimes such as rape or female genital mutilation or terrorism are all sky-rocketing, and the response from the left is things like Macron saying "terrorism will be a part of our daily lives for years to come" so basically deal with it.

I prefer globalism and absolute individual freedom, in the end. I think most conservative voters do, deep down. Yet until globalist governments evolve to discriminate against those who do not share these values and keep them out, the reaction at the voting booth will always be one of a basic self-defence and survival instinct - nationalist voting. People just want to feel safe, and what the Hell is wrong with that?

[Rippounet]

39 minutes ago, Triskan said:

If Macron were to actually win by a nice margin in the final election what kind of parlimentrary dynamic does that seem likely to create?  I understand that he's sort of an outsider in that he's started a new party but he's kind of an insider if one considers the rest of his background.

I'd be lying if I said I knew for certain.
The conservatives will likely do better in the legislatives (i.e. not be eliminated in the first round ), but historically the National Front tends to under-perform (they really shine in the presidential election). Mélenchon seems to have no plans. Meanwhile, most of the Socialist Party's senior members betrayed Hamon to rally behind Macron so he can likely count on most of the socialist representatives who will be reelected. And Macron will have his own candidates in the legislatives as well. Basically he's likely to have two candidates suporting him in every constituency. It's a very shrewd strategy, and I think he may be able to get a parliamentary majority that way. Of course, technically, it'll probably be a coalition government headed by a centrist prime minister, but that won't change much. And even if Macron doesn't get a majority, I'm confident he'll manage to govern with the moderate conservatives. One way or the other, I think Macron will be able to count on a rather centrist government.

39 minutes ago, Triskan said:

I sure hope the Melanchon folks come out to stick it to Le Pen even if they're not happy about Macron over Melanchon. 

Oh, sure. Left-wing voters have always mobilized to prevent the National Front from winning, far more than the right-wing folk. In 2002, about 100% of left-wing voters chose Chirac over Le Pen. I'm expecting the numbers to be lower this time around, but still be around 70-80%. And since Macron is popular with conservative voters as well (they like his economic approach), I really don't see a Le Pen victory.

Edit: I checked what the polls say... They say 50% of Mélenchon's voters will go to Macron, and only 12% to Le Pen. So I'm being a bit optimistic about Mélenchon voters going to Macron.

The main reason a Trump scenario is unlikely is because Le Pen is not running as the conservative candidate. She has her own neo-fascist party, which means she also has her own electoral base, which is separate from the conservative one. What I mean by that is that French conservative voters will not massively vote for her like Republican voters did for Trump in the US.

[Bo Peep]

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

She has her own neo-fascist party, 

Care to elaborate on how Le Pen is in any way "fascist"? As a supporter, I'd be keen to know if any of her policies were truly restrictive on business and media and free thought to an unreasonable degree.

[all swedes are racist]

2 hours ago, Bo Peep said:

I hope Le Pen wins and I think she will. Leftists have been burying their heads in the sand for too long and under their governments horrible crimes such as rape or female genital mutilation or terrorism are all sky-rocketing, and the response from the left is things like Macron saying "terrorism will be a part of our daily lives for years to come" so basically deal with it.

I prefer globalism and absolute individual freedom, in the end. I think most conservative voters do, deep down. Yet until globalist governments evolve to discriminate against those who do not share these values and keep them out, the reaction at the voting booth will always be one of a basic self-defence and survival instinct - nationalist voting. People just want to feel safe, and what the Hell is wrong with that?

the only thing that kept le pen from winning the majority was good old fashioned continental sexism

[Bo Peep]

Just now, r'hllor's reformed lobster said:

the only thing that kept le pen from winning the majority was good old fashioned continental sexism

Is this a joke? There's no sexism like that in the West

[all swedes are racist]

Just now, Bo Peep said:

Is this a joke? There's no sexism like that in the West

tell that to hillary 

[Bo Peep]

13 minutes ago, r'hllor's reformed lobster said:

tell that to hillary 

Well, there's the irony. Leftists claim sexism played a role in Clinton's defeat. However, the same group of people accused of that sexism will now be voting for Le Pen en masse to the last individual.

[Aemon Stark]

32 minutes ago, Bo Peep said:

Care to elaborate on how Le Pen is in any way "fascist"? As a supporter, I'd be keen to know if any of her policies were truly restrictive on business and media and free thought to an unreasonable degree.

Oh, you know, her father's and her confidantes admiration for the likes of Hitler and Vichy France? 

[all swedes are racist]

10 minutes ago, Bo Peep said:

Well, there's the irony. Leftists claim sexism played a role in Clinton's defeat. However, the same group of people accused of that sexism will now be voting for Le Pen en masse to the last individual.

 you mean the russians?

[The guy from the Vale]

25 minutes ago, Aemon Stark said:

Oh, you know, her father's and her confidantes admiration for the likes of Hitler and Vichy France? 

Yep. Note Rippounet said MLP's party is fascist. He made no statement on Le Pen herself. And given the history of the FN's founding members in terms of participation in the Franco-sponsored terrorist OAS or the Vichy regime and the rampant Holocaust denial of Le Pen père, it's hard to argue against the idea that the FN, from its inception, was a fascist party. That might have changed, but knowing the party's history should, at the very least, make one wary of the possibility.

I'd also argue that fascism is not, usually, opposed to (big) business per se. It's not even bad for the economy, at least in the short term. In many ways' fascism is the corporate-friendly populism that drives righteous anger at the economic circumstances away from those in power towards those who wield even less power than the masses in the first place. It's the lightning rod corporations put up to continue business as usual. 

As for opposition to free thought, Le Pen's idea to strip people of their citizenship based on their ideology seems to me to be exactly that.

 

[Bo Peep]

25 minutes ago, Aemon Stark said:

Oh, you know, her father's and her confidantes admiration for the likes of Hitler and Vichy France? 

We're talking about Le Pen. If you want to pick on people because of their parents then you'll be taking on half of Germany and Italy or more

[The guy from the Vale]

2 minutes ago, Bo Peep said:

We're talking about Le Pen. If you want to pick on people because of their parents then you'll be taking on half of Germany and Italy or more

With the difference that people like me who are descendants of card-carrying Nazis don't continue carrying their political heritage onwards. Marine Le Pen had lots of opportunities to break ties with her father before becoming the leader of his party. She didn't, until his detestable positions that were fundamental to the party she inherited became political baggage to her ambitions.

[Bo Peep]

4 minutes ago, theguyfromtheVale said:

Yep. Note Rippounet said MLP's party is fascist. He made no statement on Le Pen herself. And given the history of the FN's founding members in terms of participation in the Franco-sponsored terrorist OAS or the Vichy regime and the rampant Holocaust denial of Le Pen père, it's hard to argue against the idea that the FN, from its inception, was a fascist party. That may have hanged, but knowing the party's history should, at the very least, make one wary of the possibility.

I'd also argue that fascism is not, usually, opposed to (big) business per se. It's not even bad for the economy, at least in the short term. In many ways' fascism is the corporate-friendly populism that drives righteous anger at the economic circumstances away from those in power towards those who wield even less power than the masses in the first place. It's the lightning rod corporations put up to continue business as usual. 

As for opposition to free thought, Le Pen's idea to strip people of their citizenship based on their ideology seems to me to be exactly that.

 

Fascism is extreme control by the government/elite of basically all aspects of society. It's nothing of what you describe. If you want to see modern fascism then look at Thailand with its current dictatorship. Where did you even get "corporate-friendly populism" from? It sounds more like you're just taking modern conservative parties and labelling them "fascist" for giggles, which is why I'm challenging people to explain how Le Pen's policies are actually fascist, as in the real meaning of the word.

Party history is also nonsense. In America, it was the Republicans who fought against the Democrats to end slavery. Obviously, you'd have to be pretty stupid to try claim this is somehow relevant to modern politics. We're talking about Le Pen. Today.

As far as I'm aware, your reference to stripping people of citizenship based on "ideology" appears to refer to convicted terrorists holding dual-nationality. I'm not sure how that's a bad thing. If you can dump a mass-murderer on the doorstep he was born on and rid yourself of having to deal with the problem then why not? Terrorists do not deserve sympathy, nor do they deserve to participate in the Western world they want to destroy.

[Bo Peep]

11 minutes ago, theguyfromtheVale said:

With the difference that people like me who are descendants of card-carrying Nazis don't continue carrying their political heritage onwards. Marine Le Pen had lots of opportunities to break ties with her father before becoming the leader of his party. She didn't, until his detestable positions that were fundamental to the party she inherited became political baggage to her ambitions.

Yes, she broke ties with him when it became important, and none of her current policies appear to be fascist so far as I've seen. I don't have a problem with any of this, nor do I see any sensible reason why she should've done things differently. As far as I've seen, she's not "carrying their political heritage" onwards - I assume you're only claiming that because they're both right-wing and that's about where the similarity ends. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a flight to Manila to catch. Bye now

[all swedes are racist]

7 minutes ago, Bo Peep said:

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a flight to Manila to catch. Bye now

LOL!!!

[Altherion]

So here are the numbers from what I think is the official site (somebody please correct me if I'm wrong) with 97% of the votes counted:

• Macron: 23.86%
• Le Pen: 21.43%
• Fillon: 19.94%
• Mélenchon: 19.62%
• Hamon: 6.35%

Plus a bunch of others below 5%. If you compare this to the latest polls (Wiki summary), it is basically dead-on for all of them: not only is the order right, but the polls are within 1% of the result for each of the 4 leading candidates. This is actually a pretty unlikely outcome and if this election was in a less democratic country, it would be fairly significant evidence of manipulation, but here I think the pollsters just got lucky.

Interestingly enough Le Pen will be the second person with that name in the last 15 years to compete in the second round. Her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was absolutely crushed by Chirac (losing 82.2% to 17.8% or by a margin of nearly 65%). There is little doubt that Marine Le Pen will do much better than that, but there is also little doubt that she will lose. Practically every poll has Macron winning with around 60% of the vote and that's a large hill to climb. Of course, given the surprisingly perfect performance of the polls so far, it could be that the universe is setting up the pollsters for a pride-before-the-fall scenario...

[Aemon Stark]

55 minutes ago, Bo Peep said:

We're talking about Le Pen. If you want to pick on people because of their parents then you'll be taking on half of Germany and Italy or more

You obviously don't know much of anything about Le Pen (Marine or père) or the Front National. So why are you even bothering?