The Elections in France, 2017

[Stavros]

Two major elections take place this year in France. The Presidential election begins on the 23^rd April, and if the leading candidate fails to secure a majority, there will be a second ballot between the two highest polling candidates on the 7^th of May. Elections to the National Assembly take place on the 11^th and 18^th of June. The dominant theme of the election is the economy, with most candidates advocating reform to boost jobs and economic growth, but one candidate -Marine Le Pen of the Front National- argues that to grow and succeed France must withdraw its membership of the European Monetary System, and consider leaving the EU.

At the moment there are four main candidates:

François Fillon (age 62) Party: Les Republicains.
Fillon was, until early February, when he was accused of improperly using state funds to employ his wife, the favourite to become the successor to François Hollande. Although his poll ratings have declined as a result, he retains a great deal of support among conservative voters, and although appearing to be a new party, the Republicans have merely taken over most of the former Union Pour un Movement Populaire [UMP] that had been led by former President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Fillon is pro-European, conservative, and committed to a wide range of policies inherited from the past, but wants tax reform and a smaller state.

Emmanuel Macron (age 39, note his wife is 20 years older than him) Party -En marche!
Macron is a charismatic public speaker who was on the right of the Parti Socialiste, but has become a sort of French version of Tony Blair, believing in free markets, closer EU integration, tax reform and opposition to economic austerity; he was also a supporter of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement [CETA] between the EU and Canada. If Macron has become the candidate the others must now relate to, his weakness is that for all the publicity he has received, he lacks the well-organised, and national party machines of his three rivals, but in the internet age this might not matter.

Benoit Hamon, (age 49) Party: Parti Socialiste
Hamon is on the left of the PS, supports the legalization of marijuana, is in favour of euthanasia, has a strong commitment to the environment and renewable energy, and thinks France needs to re-think its social and economic policies and consider introducing a form of Universal Basic Income. The polls suggest the election will be a disaster for the PS, possibly its worst performance since the 1950s.

Marine Le Pen (age forty-eight) Party Front National
Le Pen has declared that France is no longer divided between left and right, but between Patriotes et Globalistes. She has a range of economic and social policies which maintain state intervention and which, because they can be found in the programme of the Republicains as well as En Marche! weakens her party's appeal to the general voter. For example the FN is in favour of state intervention in the economy, supports abortion, same-sex marriages and is opposed to the death penalty. What Le Pen does have is a distinctly different policy on the European Union, calling for France to leave the European monetary system, and if necessary call a referendum on EU membership, in which case the FN would campaign against it. She is thus diametrically opposed to En Marche! with regard to the EU and France's role in globalization. The FN also has a hostile policy on immigration and 'extreme Islam' which may reward her with votes due to the attacks in Paris and Nice and the potential for more attacks in the election period. There is no doubt that Le Pen with her inflammatory rhetoric would be a divisive President, and that France's position in the EU would at least be challenged, the assumption being that if France were to leave, the EU in its present form would not survive. However, even if Le Pen scores well in the first round, and that is not certain, she may not win in the run-off. Although in the first round voters may choose between either Fillon or Macron splitting the centre-right vote, if either Fillon or Macron is in the run-off with Le Pen, the smart money is not on her, but the unanswered questions is what happens to the PS vote if its traditional supporters defect to the FN? It is not inconceivable so the potential for an upset is there, or voters looking at the perils of Brexit and the protectionist madness of the USA and conclude they don't want to be part of that.

The potential for this election to be obsessed with Le Pen raises interesting questions with regard to what French voters consider to be both their priorities in policy terms, and the overall tone and vision of France that they wish to share, bearing in mind the French have been obsessed with their self-image for as long as anyone can remember.
In particular, the legacy of the past should weigh heavily against the FN and Le Pen, for however much she tries to claim she has 'cleaned up' the party to rid it of its anti-Jewish past, and finally expelled her father and the FN's former leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen in August 2015, she could have left the party to form a new one, which is common in France.

The FN was founded in 1972 and there is no secret about its political origins: as a law student in Paris in the late 1940s, Jean-Marie le Pen sold the newspaper of the anti-Jewish and nationalist party Action Française; he supported the Presidential campaign in 1965 of Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancours advocating the re-habilitation of Collaborators (with the Vichy government of Marechal Pétain), and formed the FN with Jacques Bompard, an 'officer' in the Organisation Armée Secrète which had attempted to assassinate General de Gaulle in 1962 following the peace treaty with Algeria, and at a time when it was murdering Algerians and French politicians across France; and an assortment of neo-Nazis, Jew-haters, royalists and extreme nationalists. The question thus is to what extent Marine Le Pen has changed the FN, and to what extent do its members retain a nostalgia for the original purpose of the FN and its current version of Jew-hatred, the hatred of Muslims?

Emmanuel Macron has delivered the most effective, and stinging criticism of the FN:
“They don’t speak in the name of the people, they speak in the name of their bitterness, they speak for themselves, from father to daughter and daughter to niece. They betray liberty by shrinking our horizons, they betray equality by stating that some are more equal than others, they betray fraternity because they hate the faces that don’t look like theirs.”
Source of the quote and a report on the FN programme here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7564051.html
For a general guide, this link
http://about-france.com/presidential-election-2017.htm

[flabbybody]

We found out last year that "the smart money" is pretty dumb.
Thx for the concise summary. I'd appreciate updates as this will be my primary news source for the upcoming campaign.
Ditto on Netherlands thread.

[Stavros]

I have never bet on political campaigns, but I did win £10 on the horses last Saturday.

In the meantime I should apologise for not crossing an 'i' and dotting a 't' with regard to Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was expelled from the Front National in 2015 and then took the party to Court and won a case which determined that he must remain Honorary President of the Front National, giving him the right to attend their 'Politburo' meetings and pay him 16,000 Euros in damages.

If this continues to be a millstone around the neck of his daughter who wants to change the image of her party, this weekend her father's shadow passed over the party as Le Pen père was charged with hate crime following a comment he made in a video in 2014 when asked about negative comments made about him by the singers Madonna and Jacques Bruel -the key offending phrase being "Ecoutez, on fera une fournée la prochaine fois !"- Jacques Bruel is Jewish, and while a literal translation of the phrase in English according to Google translate offers 'Look, we'll make a batch next time' (the phrase relates to baking) the use of the word fournée was taken as a pun on the French word for Furnace, fourneau. Le Pen himself has responded “The word ‘fournee’ that I used has no anti-Semitic connotation, except for political enemies or imbeciles”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/jean-ma...i-semitic-pun/

Marine Le Pen has of course denounced the comments, but the fact that her father remains an official of the party, and his constant interventions could damage her vote, unless voters have dismissed his importance and anyway tend to vote FN for other reasons. Le Pen père believes the election of Trump vindicates his view that the FN did not need to change its language or its image, but at his age and given his lifelong commitments to a politics most French have rejected he is not going to change now.

You can see the video in the link to Le Figaro, plus other links on this story.
http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/20...la-fournee.php

http://www.timesofisrael.com/jean-ma...i-semitic-pun/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016...ary-president/

[nitron]

I heard she will loose on the second round.

[filghy2]

The latest poll shows Macron moving ahead of Le Pen in the first round vote for the first time. https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...for-first-time Although Le Pen had been leading on the first round for some time, the polls have been projecting that she would lose the second round (when all but the top two in the first round are eliminated) decisively. That said, pundits are reluctant to write her off in view of the Brexit and US results.

[holzz]

Le Pen. France needs her, and her policies aren't that extreme imho. Similar to Trump.

[filghy2]

How about some evidence to support your claims? Can you provide any examples of countries that have prospered as a result of adopting protectionist, anti-immigrant policies?

[holzz]

Like most Western countries post-WWII and before. China is hardly pro-immigrant. free trade is the modern norm, but it's not to say it is the only path to prosperity.

[holzz]

http://www.euronews.com/2017/02/09/w...pen-s-policies

most of her policies seem pretty reasonable to me.

[filghy2]

Like most Western countries post-WWII and before. China is hardly pro-immigrant. free trade is the modern norm, but it's not to say it is the only path to prosperity.

Er, no. Modern economic history since the industrial revolution has generally been associated with declining protection and increased globalisation (see charts). The principal exception was around the 1930s, which hardly supports your claim.

It is true that many countries had high tariffs at an early stage in their industrial development (eg USA in the 19th C), consistent with the infant industry argument, they were almost always reduced as the economy became more developed. It's worth noting that the USA also had very high immigration rates in the 19th C.

This is not to say there are no problems with globalisation - it may be contributing to increased inequality in advanced economies, although other factors like technology are probably more important. However, crude protectionism is unlikely to be the best solution. Certainly, Trump is unlikely to be the solution given most of his policies heavily favour the rich, or have you somehow failed to notice this?