The Elections in France, 2017

[Stavros]

Two major elections take place this year in France. The Presidential election begins on the 23rd 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 7th of May. Elections to the National Assembly take place on the 11th and 18th 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/world/europe/marine-le-pen-front-national-speech-campaign-launch-islamic-fundamentalism-french-elections-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-marie-le-pen-charged-over-apparent-anti-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/2017/02/11/97001-20170211FILWWW00173-jean-marie-le-pen-mis-en-examen-apres-ses-propos-sur-la-fournee.php

http://www.timesofisrael.com/jean-marie-le-pen-charged-over-apparent-anti-semitic-pun/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/17/jean-marie-le-pen-must-remain-front-nationals-honorary-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/2017/mar/09/emmanuel-macron-leads-french-presidential-election-poll-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/what-do-we-know-about-marine-le-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?

[filghy2]

From what I've read there seems to be one important difference between Le Pen and Trump. Le Pen appears to be a genuine populist nationalist. She might be misguided in many respects, but she seems to be genuinely motivated to improve the position of the native-born working class. I haven't seen much evidence that she favours small government or pro-rich policies.

Trump, on the other hand, is clearly a phony populist. He has manipulated the white working class to support him by appealing to their prejudices, but it's clear from what we've seen so far that his primary agenda is to improve the position of people like himself (ie the conventional Republican small government, pro-rich agenda).

[holzz]

From 1945 to the 1990s, most countries had tariffs or quotas. It's only the WTO, NAFTA and EU that reversed the trend. True free trade is very recent, and we're going towards bilateral free trade, over multilateral. This is what Trump himself, and Mrs. May of the UK have both said they want with each other and other countries.

[Budweiser]

I am all for Le Pen too. I really hope she wins.

Was real disappointed Wilders did not win the Dutch election.

[filghy2]

From 1945 to the 1990s, most countries had tariffs or quotas. It's only the WTO, NAFTA and EU that reversed the trend. True free trade is very recent, and we're going towards bilateral free trade, over multilateral. This is what Trump himself, and Mrs. May of the UK have both said they want with each other and other countries.

So free trade between two countries is good, but free trade between more than two countries (NAFTA is only 3) is bad? What exactly is the logic of your position?

Fyi, the movement toward freer trade did not suddenly start in the 1990s. The General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (predecessor of the WTO) commenced in 1947 with the aim of "substantial reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers and the elimination of preferences, on a reciprocal and mutually advantageous basis." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Agreement_on_Tariffs_and_Trade As the chart in my previous post shows, the major advanced economies had fairly low tariffs from the 1950s onward.

How about doing at least some basic research to check whether things you say are correct? It's not hard these days. "It's not what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."

[holzz]

Well no, since even in the GATT days there were significant barriers to trade. It's also moot if free trade leads to better economies, and it's not really helping France now since their economy has been shit for years now. So yeah, you're right, it's good to "research", since i've "researched" that economics is not an exact science and that there is more to having a healthy economy than no barriers to trade.

[broncofan]

Well no, since even in the GATT days there were significant barriers to trade. It's also moot if free trade leads to better economies, and it's not really helping France now since their economy has been shit for years now. So yeah, you're right, it's good to "research", since i've "researched" that economics is not an exact science and that there is more to having a healthy economy than no barriers to trade.
What you're saying implies free trade might be a necessary but not sufficient condition for a healthy economy. A country can have economic problems even with fewer trade barriers, but why does that mean they should do something that can harm their economy more? Economics is not an exact science, but there are theoretical reasons free trade should be mutually beneficial to all countries involved in it. To have this discussion, you should discuss the empirical research that has been done to test Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage. There are critics of it but most of the criticisms apply to very specific economic situations.

One theoretical condition under which free trade may be harmful for a particular country is in the the case of a country that specializes in the export of raw goods rather than manufactured goods where opening up their domestic industry to worldwide competition causes a depletion of natural resources. For such goods, instead of specialization leading to economies of scale in production, it leads to the price falling in the marketplace from increased supply. But for a developed country like France, I don't think there is a reason to believe they would benefit from economic isolationism.

However, the issue might be more complicated than I understand. Perhaps you can do the research and tell us why the theoretical reasons free trade tends to be beneficial do not apply in France's case.

[broncofan]

it's not really helping France now since their economy has been shit for years now.... there is more to having a healthy economy than no barriers to trade.
This line of reasoning is like an alcoholic who says "my life is shit. Not drinking hasn't worked for me so I might as well drink. Obviously it takes more than not drinking excessively to be happy."

[holzz]

So free trade alone makes a healthy economy does it? or is it a mix of stuff, like infrastructure, labour relations, inflation, government policy, education, etc? Free trade is seen as best, but NO economist would say it's perfect, or that it alone means a healthy economy. What free trade does China have? Do you all Deng Xioaping did was just relax barriers and make it successful? lol.

[holzz]

What you're saying implies free trade might be a necessary but not sufficient condition for a healthy economy. A country can have economic problems even with fewer trade barriers, but why does that mean they should do something that can harm their economy more? Economics is not an exact science, but there are theoretical reasons free trade should be mutually beneficial to all countries involved in it. To have this discussion, you should discuss the empirical research that has been done to test Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage. There are critics of it but most of the criticisms apply to very specific economic situations.

One theoretical condition under which free trade may be harmful for a particular country is in the the case of a country that specializes in the export of raw goods rather than manufactured goods where opening up their domestic industry to worldwide competition causes a depletion of natural resources. For such goods, instead of specialization leading to economies of scale in production, it leads to the price falling in the marketplace from increased supply. But for a developed country like France, I don't think there is a reason to believe they would benefit from economic isolationism.

However, the issue might be more complicated than I understand. Perhaps you can do the research and tell us why the theoretical reasons free trade tends to be beneficial do not apply in France's case.

because it's already part of the EU, and has essential free trade within it (single market).

it's not arrogant, but merely fact. Free trade alone can never just make an economy strong, it's many other factors than that.

France has been shit due to bad labour policies and too much regulation. Free trade alone won't solve that. Any economic problem has to solved by the trigger/cause, like any issue in life.

[flabbybody]

France has not benefited from free trade because they don't make much of anything that people want. e.g. French wine. overpriced and overrated. It's been losing market share in the US for decades

[broncofan]

So free trade alone makes a healthy economy does it?
That whole part of my post about the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions? I take it you did not understand that. Who ever said that free trade alone is sufficient to make an economy strong? But the fact that it ALONE is not sufficient to make an economy strong is not an argument in favor of tariffs and other trade barriers.

Again an analogy. If eating healthy foods ALONE is not sufficient to prevent heart disease would that mean someone should not eat healthy foods?

[holzz]

well it's a fact France's economy is shit and has been for years. so i understand why Le Pen wants to sort it our and has proposed the measures she has. I'm just saying maybe some protectionism would help her and her country if she becomes President, that's all.

[filghy2]

GDP per person in France is actually pretty close to the UK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita

It is true that France has a much high unemployment rate, but that can hardly be due to free trade given EU members all have the same tariff rates (that's what a single market means).

It's fitting that you seem to be a Trump fan, given you have very similar personality traits - ie inability to let anything go or to concede any error, unwillingness or inability to learn anything, lack of any coherent logic.

[flabbybody]

doesn't sound like Tuesday's 4 hour debate changed too many minds. A Macron-Le Pen runoff in May seems likely.
The real question: Who cares ?

[filghy2]

The real question: Who cares ?

Why do you say that? Did you have the same view about the US election?

[holzz]

GDP per person in France is actually pretty close to the UK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita

It is true that France has a much high unemployment rate, but that can hardly be due to free trade given EU members all have the same tariff rates (that's what a single market means).

It's fitting that you seem to be a Trump fan, given you have very similar personality traits - ie inability to let anything go or to concede any error, unwillingness or inability to learn anything, lack of any coherent logic.

When people say they know, but in reality they don't, I don't usually "concede" any errors. Nor do I "learn" things from people who cite nonsense, and then pretend it's reality. Just as an overview of this conversation, you said that free trade is necessary for a healthy economy. It may be favoured per current economic thinking, but it's not necessary nor required. No economist says that free trade alone is the path to economic strength, and France's issues alone won't be solved by more of it.

So per my original point, I see little "extreme" or "racist" with her policies. She wants to control immigration, make it harder to be a French citizen, and take measures to strengthen the economy.

[Stavros]

Marine Le Pen like most Presidential candidates in France for the last 200 years is 'dirigiste' and committed to maintaining the leading role of the State in France's economy and society. Taking France out of the European Union, if it came to that, would not alter the regulations the French state imposes on business to protect jobs, rights at work and pensions; it would not change the working week, it would not change the commitment to health or education, or the percentage the State owns in transport, arms manufacture, telecommunications and other leading industries. Ironically or not, Emmanuel Macron, more likely to win the Presidency than Le Pen, is committed to a degree of deregulation to 'free up' the French economy and make it more open and flexible to European and global markets but is thereby more likely to spend most of his Presidency in a war with Labour unions that he is destined to lose. The French never embraced the Conservative 'free market' illusions of Reagan, Thatcher and Kohl, and voters anyway will mostly vote Macron because they oppose Le Pen. But challenge their 'entitlements' and you need much more popular support to defeat the unions than exists in France, whereas Thatcher and Reagan both succeeded in smashing the unions in their countries.

Marine Le Pen is credited with transforming the Front National, but she could have left this divided union of ex-Poujadistes, crude nationalists, Jew-hating fascists, Catholic/pro-Catholic/anti-Islamic extremists, and formed her own party, as French politicians have been doing for over a century. In the end, her decrepit Jew-hating daddy is still Honorary President of the Front National, Le Pen has received funding from Russian banks close to Putin (as are all Russian banks!) and praised Putin as a 'Christian leader' in Europe even though most of her supporters in the North and the so-called 'working class' are not religious (as opposed to the FN voters in the South who are mostly Catholic). As she said in Lyon launching her campaign "The divide is no longer between the left and right but between patriots and globalists!" -and she sees Putin as a Russian patriot.

She shares the same Brexit fantasy we have seen in the UK -France outside the EU will be free to impose its own laws on immigration, free to trade with the rest of the world, free to control its own currency. One wonders if Marine Le Pen knows anything about the French economy given the chronic pattern of growth and stagnation (immobilisme as it is known in France) evident since industrialization began in the 1830s. Currently stagnant, France remains one of the most prosperous economies in the world, its productivity rates are higher than the UK, it has more savings per head than the UK, but at least once a decade turns in on itself to ask what it means to be French, as a result of which the conclusion is usually confusing.

Crucially, the reputation of France with a Le Pen victory would be damaged, confidence would be shaken, internally and only raised externally in those powers committed to getting rid of representative democracy. The economic consequences in the short-to-medium term of leaving the EU in general and the Euro in particular would be disruptive to a degree not seen since the French economy was all but destroyed in the First and Second World Wars. France has always found a way out of such crises, but does it need this horrible liar to lead it into an abyss of mass unemployment and stagnation before it can stand on its two feet again?

As usual the Financial Times has a fair set of stats on the French economy, though they should be read in the context of the period since 1830.
http://blogs.ft.com/ftdata/2016/04/28/frances-economic-woes-in-charts/

[Stavros]

Further to my post above, the weekend has seen 'a surge of support' in the polls for the left-wing candidate Jean-LucMélenchon now ranked third most popular candidate after Macron and Le Pen.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/10/jean-luc-melenchon-shakes-up-frances-presidential-race

It is still hard to call at the moment, because one assumes that Mélenchon will take votes from the Socialists who appear destined for their worst election year since the 1960s, but probably not eat into Le Pen's loyal base. All this could mean is that the margin of victory for Macron over Fillon and Mélenchon is a narrow one, but that he will still be the preferred candidate in the run off with Le Pen that he is expected to win.

But of greater interest is the prospect of the National Assembly elections in June producing an outcome that will give the Assembly a different complexion from the one elected in 2012, not least because of the emergence of new parties on the 'centre-right', the predicted melt-down of the Socialist Party seats (currently 22) and the unknown factors surrounding both Le Pen's Front National and Macron's party En Marche! Macron is in a weak position because while his Presidency can motor on as a media exercise, he has no national party organisation of any depth to transform those votes into the seats he needs in the Assembly if he is to become President and have a loyal base in Parliament. As for Le Pen, the Front National has just 2 seats in the Assembly, and while the party is expected to do better in the elections in June it could still fail to reach double figures. If the outcome of the elections is uncertain now, it may not be that much clearer in June.

[filghy2]

Welcome back Stavros. Those pointless 'debates' with holzz were getting tiresome.

A key question your last post raises is what capacity Le Pen would have to implement her agenda if she does not have a majority in the National Assembly. I don't know much about the French political system, but I assume that withdrawing from the EU and the euro can't be done by executive fiat and would require legislation.

[Stavros]

Welcome back Stavros. Those pointless 'debates' with holzz were getting tiresome.

A key question your last post raises is what capacity Le Pen would have to implement her agenda if she does not have a majority in the National Assembly. I don't know much about the French political system, but I assume that withdrawing from the EU and the euro can't be done by executive fiat and would require legislation.

Thanks, I have been taking time out following an operation, various outpatient clinics to follow. All very tedious but part of the process of growing old!

In answer to you query, the mechanism in France for invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, as the UK has done (last month), is different because membership of the EU is included in the Constitution, so leaving the EU would require a Constitutional amendment. In France, Article 89 of the Constitution gives the Parliament -the combined Senate and National Assembly- the power to approve the change. Depending on the clause, the President can then offer the Constitutional change to the general public in a referendum -Le Pen's favoured course- or convene a special 'National Congress' in which the Senate and the National Assembly meet in a joint session and vote on the change, but have to pass the measure with a three-fifths majority.

Le Pen's problem could be that even if she won the Presidency, her party may not have enough Assembly members, or supporters from other parties, to approve the change. It is however, possible that in a political earthquake Le Pen could win both the Presidency and the National Assembly, but could still lose the referendum, should it happen, as most French voters when asked support the EU, though polling may have changed since the onset of Brexit.

One other course would be to use Article 11 of the Constitution whereby the Prime Minister asks the President to submit a Referendum bill to the Assembly. Georges Pompidou did this on behalf of Charles de Gaulle in 1962 when de Gaulle wanted to change the way Presidents are elected. De Gaulle had been elected through an Electoral College in Parliament in 1958, but in 1962, with his party in majority in the Assembly, he submitted a referendum bill that was approved by the Assembly, held and supported by French voters, and led to Presidents being elected by direct suffrage in a two round process of voting.

Again, the change in 1962 was possible because de Gaulle's party was in majority, it is doubtful if Le Pen will have that. In earthquake terms, she needs to go from 2 seats to at least 22, and while this is not impossible, it doesn't seem likely.

The problem at the moment is that there are undecided voters, and voters who may abstain. It is not clear if the recent surge of support for Melenchon will take votes away from the National Front as well as the Socialists, though most agree the Socialists are doomed. If anything, this means the first round could produce the winning candidate by a margin of less than 5%. A further paradox is that if voters want change, the two candidates of change are Macron and Le Pen, and while Macron, stealing policies from Fillon is pledged to reform French labour, Le Pen is more interested in immigration reform and the EU, and one should not underestimate the prospect that if French workers think their jobs are more threatened by Macron then Le Pen, that would be a reason for voting FN. 'Marine' has invested in a make-over in the last two or three years which downplays the Front National (removing the name of the party from posters, for example) and its history, this is very much a personal campaign.

I don't know if it will hurt her campaign, but once again the ghost of Adolf Hitler rose up to say Hi to everyone. Not long after she appealed to French Jews for support, she made the stupid claim that French officials collaborating with the occupying Nazis had not been involved in one of the most notorious incidents of the occupation, the round-up of 13,000 Jews (most of them immigrants rather than French-born) who were taken to a cycling velodrome in the south-west of Paris (known as the 'Vel d'Hiv) from whence they were transported.
“I think France isn’t responsible for the Vel d’Hiv, Marine Le Pen said, adding, “I think that, in general, if there are people responsible, it is those who were in power at the time. It is not France". The evidence of French collusion, however, is so clear one wonders why she made the statement at all, other than to note her following remarks -“We have taught our children that they had every reason to criticise France, to see only the darkest historical episodes perhaps. I want them to be proud of being French once more.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/10/marine-le-pen-condemned-denying-french-role-wartime-round-up/

It might help people in public life to think twice before they invoke the ghost of Hitler and the Nazis, it never seems to work well for them, because they can't get simple verifiable facts straight, and appear to be deluded, or to have a dark agenda of their own.

[filghy2]

Thanks stavros. Whoever wins in the end, it seems likely that neither of the two long-established major parties will make it past the first round, so there will have been a complete rejection of the political establishment.

[bluesoul]

well, at least now we know who ISIS wants to win (https://twitter.com/AP/status/855176695627866113).

btw: anyone happen to know if marine's niece marion (https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/07/4e/39/074e391f66e5716b4d66c0cf3f41223d.jpg) is dating?

[flabbybody]

Exit polls show Macron and Le Pen winners in round 1.
No doubt Marcon will be significant favorite in one on one runoff. We're due for an election to turn out as predicted.

[Stavros]

Exit polls show Macron and Le Pen winners in round 1.
No doubt Marcon will be significant favorite in one on one runoff. We're due for an election to turn out as predicted.

Yes, so far, with just over 80% of the votes counted (on a turn-out of just over 69%) the votes have not produced a surprise although some did suggest Le Pen would top the poll. Macron is now expected to win more than 60% of the votes next week with Le Pen static on the 30% her party tends to poll at this level.

However, the key to France's future does not lie with the Presidency alone, and even if Macron is elected President, the question, who will dominate the National Assembly in June? has yet to be answered.

Given that Macron is a pro-EU candidate, the hostile, anti-EU trend that began in the UK has not so far produced aggressive new anti-EU leaders in either the Netherlands or, it appears, in France, and is not likely to do so in Germany this autumn. This is not good news for Theresa May, who would not have wanted Le Pen to win, but who now faces an EU which is not about to fall apart, and will hold all the high cards in the negotiations on Brexit, when they begin. And it is not a set-back for the unpopular President of the USA, who now appears to have decided -or rather, his 'advisers' have decided- that a deal with the EU is going to benefit the USA more than a deal with the UK. Obama was right. The UK is at the back of the queue.

And yet, without knowing what the National Assembly is going to look like we cannot know how France will move on from its apparent rejection of the two long-established conservative and socialist parties (allowing for name changes). The details -regional voting in particular- will be interesting to read when the data comes in and could be useful when assessing the outcome of the Parliamentary elections.

For now, we can congratulate France for choosing Hope against Hate; Macron's positive view of France, compared to the negative loathing of Le Pen. Adieu, Marine, et ne revien pas!

[Stavros]

Some basic stats based on most of the results so far:

Turn out in this election was 76.21% higher than average.

Macron has won 23.9%, Le Pen 21.43%, Fillon 19.9%, Melenchon 19.6% and Hamon 6.4%.

Geographically, Macron won across France and appears to have taken votes from both Conservatives and Socialists, but while Le Pen scored heavily in the south-east which has been a National Front base for many years, the FN also took votes from Socialist areas in the north and north-east, the areas that have suffered most from de-industrialization. What this means is that while the voters have turned away from the parties that have dominated the Fifth Republic since it was created in 1958 when De Gaulle became President, the divisions in France are stark in a way that has not been seen before, which gives the Parliamentary elections in June an even more important profile.

What remains to be seen is if voters endorse Macron by voting for his party, or maintain their support for the existing Deputies from the established parties, while for Le Pen, with two seats in the Assembly, there is an assumption that the party will increase its presence, but not enough to affect the relationship with the President, who may have to 'co-habit' with a party that is not his own.

If the Front National were to become the largest party, it could still be outvoted by the others, but at the moment the problem is nobody knows if this rebuke to the Conservative and Socialist parties will carry on into the June elections and what the final profile of French government will look like -and whether or not it will last. Was this a major change in French politics, or just a slap in the face for the establishment? If he succeeds, will Macron make a real difference to economy and society? Were she to win, would Le Pen be able to get a single policy through Parliament?

[Stavros]

With less than a week to go before the Presidential run-off between Macron and Le Pen, the gap appears to be narrowing, with a small growth of support for the Front National among Millenials, a decline in support for Macron, and a worrying gap between the two made up of don't knows and don't cares. Two articles express these trends, one which argues Macron is not offering new policies as he claims, another which argues that as the gap between the two candidates is roughly a million votes, it is a gap Le Pen could breach and win the Presidency. These two articles are here:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/01/emmanuel-macron-french-voters-marine-le-pen

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/french-election-marine-le-pen-win-next-france-president-mathematical-analysis-physicist-serge-galam-a7707931.html

If Macron does have a credibility issue, the problem for Le Pen is the toxic history of the National Front and its inability to shake off precisely the party's connections to France's old anti-Semitic, collaborationist past which Le Pen has sought to do. She resigned as leader of the party to focus on the Presidency, but her nominated replacement, Jean-Francois Jalkh had to turn it down when it was revealed he had once queried the ability of Zyklon-B to kill as many Jews in the death camps as history records. If this resurrects all the problems associated with Marine's father, Jean-Marie Le Pen and the men who founded the National Front in 1972, it underlines her major weakness: there have been only two leaders of the National Front, and both have the name Le Pen, few people can name anyone else of importance in the party, and when a new leader was proposed, he turned out to be an embarrassing throw-back to a dark past -or simply the typical National Front activist in a party that expresses an extreme version of French nationalism as it always has. The news on Jalkh is here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/front-national-leader-jean-francois-jalkh-marine-le-pen-louis-aliot-quits-nazi-gas-chamber-deny-a7706971.html

My guess is that Macron will win the Presidency, but it will be closer than is comfortable. If there is some doubt about Le Pen, it is because the last time the country had an opportunity to vote, in the regional councils elections in 2015, the National Front share of the vote was 27.1% whereas in the first round of this year's Presidential election, Le Pen received 21.3% suggesting she is already having to make up on a decline in support. This makes the abstentions critical, and one wonders what would happen if Le Pen were to win, and how convincing it would be on a low turn-out.

[trish]

Thank you France. There may still be hope for this world.

[flabbybody]

My generation of Manhattan Republicans grew up mocking France and her 30 hour work week, anti-American socialism, and 6 week vacations.
So it's sorta ironic that this election outcome is the return of political reason...in a year following the US and Great Britain embarking on collective insanity.
Vive la France

[Stavros]

Preliminary results confirm that Emmanuel Macron is the new President of France. The National Front increased its share of the vote and broke through the 30% barrier, but it was insufficient, Le Pen having around 34% to Macron's 65-66%, more precise figures to follow in the next day or so. However, it appears that Le Pen scored heavily in the north and north-east and in the south, but not across France, which suggests that even with an increased vote this may not produce more than ten seats in the National Assembly elections next month, though Le Pen would consider this an advance. She will carry on through June, but it is not clear if she will seek to return as leader of the party and has said the Front National needs to 'renew itself' while her close ally Florian Philipott believes a new party is required.
It is not clear if the FN will win enough seats in the National Assembly to form the main opposition to whichever is the largest party. The claim that this election broke the mould of French politics may not be realised next month, which could see voters return the Republican Party as the largest in the Assembly unless Macron's vehicle, En Marche! can capitalize on his success. The abstentions in this round suggest voters are in fact wary of Macron. Macron's ability to be an effective President will now rest on the outcome of the National Assembly elections, and as stated before, this could be a period of uncertainty in France.

Externally, this is not a good result for Theresa May in the UK as it maintains the EU in its present form, giving no hope that the UK will get any concessions on access to the single market. It is a blow for Vladimir Putin and the US President who saw France as the weak link that could unravel the EU which they want to see dissolved, and undermines the nationalist trend proclaimed by the 'alt-right' after Brexit and the US elections in 2016. Or it could embolden them to put more pressure on the EU or find other ways of undermining liberal democracy. Intervention in the German elections later this year cannot be ruled out, not least because Germany is now the leader of the Free World, the USA having abandoned its previous commitment to Human Rights and individual liberty. For now the President hums with awe at the achievements of crooks and murderers in power in Cairo, Ankara, Moscow and Manila, while he ponders changes to the Constitutional right to free speech, and attempts to place Christianity at the intersection of every transaction of American life, and his family based in the White House offers the Chinese Green Cards for sale at a cost of $500,000, monetizing the Presidency being the Number 1 priority.

[Stavros]

Marine Le Pen has said that the election result has established the National Front as the main opposition party in France, and it is true that for now the party has consolidated a position in French politics that it did not have before, given that it has council seats and Mayors even if these tend to be either in the North or South and not much in between (and Macron swept the board in Brittany). The problem for Le Pen is that she must now prove her words by winning seats in the National Assembly, but at a deeper level it is not clear what the future of the National Front might be.

To begin with, the only leader it has had since its formation in 1972 has been a Le Pen, and just yesterday the honorary President of the party, Jean-Marie Le Pen, described Marine as 'unfit to govern' and that the party should have chosen her niece, Marion to lead the party. Setting aside Marion's youth and (alleged) appeal to younger voters, those same might wonder if there is nobody else to lead this party. The problem is that the higher profile candidates are precisely the kind of provocative politicians that tend to give the National Front the image of an extremist, rather than a responsible party. This simple fact was demonstrated just two weeks ago when Le Pen stood down from the leadership of the party and the nominated replacement, Jean-Francois Jalke had to give it up almost immediately because of his toxic remarks about the Holocaust. Elsewhere the NF has tended to be a pro-Roman Catholic party challenging the long-established anti-clerical nature of public office, and vocally anti-Muslim, a factor which links the party today with those NF founders from the Organisation armée secrète formed by dissident officers who fought the guerilla war in Algeria and tried to assassinate General de Gaulle in 1962, and which also murdered Muslims on the streets of France in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Attempts to distance the party from its past may require them to change their name and their leadership team, but it is not clear how long the anger of the 'forgotten ones' will last if the party presents itself as disunited and incoherent on a range of politics and, like UKIP descends into the 'France First' nationalism that inevitably links them to both Vichy and the anti-semitic campaign against Dreyfus that was the crucible of today's nationalist politics.
The cheek in all this is in the twitter account of the anti-EU body set up by Nigel Farage, Leave.EU which responded to Macron's victory with a tweet that declared
that the French people had once again “rolled over” just as they had done in 1940 – except this time they saved Germany “the bullets and the fuel”. The tweet also included a picture of a newspaper headline from 1940 reporting the surrender of France to the Nazis. Picking up on the same theme, Farage tweeted: “A giant deceit has been voted for today. Macron will be Juncker’s puppet.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/07/british-brexit-supporters-insult-emmanuel-macron-after-presidential-win

The National Front was created by a loose collection of anti-semites, extreme nationalists, and Vichy collaborators giving these responses the same air of political fantasy that attended the life and death of UKIP, the same reliance on aggressive dismissals of fact, attempts to re-write history and plant 'fake news' stories that may now be seen as ineffective, in Europe if not in the USA.

The problem is, can the National Front ever escape the facts of its own past and a legacy that has no achievements on which to lay claim to power?

[broncofan]

My generation of Manhattan Republicans grew up mocking France and her 30 hour work week, anti-American socialism, and 6 week vacations. .
Vive la France
See, I never got these reasons. To me the only reason to be upset at the French is for the unbelievable snottiness with which they treat tourists, especially Americans. Even being positively inclined towards them and their culture, it's tough to leave Paris without having a few dicey interactions.

Anyhow, I am extremely appreciative of the fact that they didn't elect the fascist. They also did a brilliant job of resisting the many hack attempts by the Russians. It means that the right wing populists don't hold sway everywhere and there will be at least some sane heads of state in Germany and France, to counter what we have elsewhere.

So vive la France

[Stavros]

Figures from Wikipedia, which I assume to be reasonably accurate

Second Round
Voter Turnout 74.56% (2012 -80.35%)
Emmanuel Macron 66.10%
Marine Le Pen 33.90%
Spoiled/Void ballots 11.47% (2012 -5.82%)
Abstentions 25.44% (2012 -19.65%)

[filghy2]

The role of the media seems to have been important in France. There is no French equivalent of Fox News, or of the tabloid press in the UK, essentially publishing one-sided propaganda. The French media seem to have been pretty responsible about not playing into the hackers' hands.

[trish]

I like how in France it's the candidate with the most votes who wins.

[Stavros]

The first round of elections for the National Assembly was held yesterday, Sunday 11th June, and so far it looks like the new party headed by President Macron has won the majority of seats, and if repeated in the second round next Sunday will give him the power base to rule whereas I suggested before that it was not known if he had the organization to mount a national campaign. Clearly Macron has the momentum, but what it just as important is that the National Front has made no advance so far.

Voting shows a 31.9% support for Macron's party, En Marche! With the second placed Republicains and allies on 18.9% (in the first round in 2012 the party of former President Sarkozy and allies received 27.12%), while the National Front received around 13.8% compared to 13.6% in the first round in 2012. Votes for the Socialist Party have collapsed: the first round for Francois Hollande's party is around 7.45% compared to 29.35% in the first round in 2012, in all cases these results are based on 90% of votes cast.
However, voter turnout was low, at 48.6% compared to 57.23% in the first round in 2012.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-election-idUSKBN19200Y

2012 results here-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Assembly_(France)

[Stavros]

The second round of elections in France has consolidated Emmanuel Macron's popularity.
His party -En Marche!- now has 308 seats in the National Assembly, and ruling with the Democratic Movement this gives the two parties combined a comfortable majority of 350. The conservative Republicans won 113 seats (in 2012 the party of Sarkozy won 194). The National Front have improved on their position in 2012 when they had two seats, but the increase to 8 will be a bitter disappointment even though its leader, Marine Le Pen has now been elected to the Assembly. The National Front did worse than small parties of the left, the Communist Party taking 10 seats, and La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) the party of Jean-Luc Melenchon won 17 seats. Nevertheless, the geography of this election retains the popularity of the National Front in the south-east and parts of the industrial north, but nothing on a scale that suggests they are on a roll.
The vote for the Socialist Party has collapsed -in 2012 the party of President Hollande secured 280 seats, in this election they have been reduced to 29.
Voter turnout in the election was 42.64%, the lowest in the history of the Fifth Republic (began in 1958); abstentions are another record, a high at 57.36% of the electorate.

The election cements Macron for the time being, but the apparent disdain for the election should worry him and his team, given the high rate of abstentions. But this is also a worry for Le Pen and the National Front which increased its seats in the Assembly and increased its share of the vote in the second round from 3.66% in 2012 to 8.75% in 2017, but falls short of the 15 seats enabling it to form a parliamentary group, and does not indicate that their party has wide appeal.

The election further confirms that the 'earthquake' in politics supposedly started by Brexit and the US Presidential election has not rippled through European politics (one also should note the prior success of Pierre Trudeau in Canada in seeing off the Conservatives there). Moreover, Macron is in favour of more EU integration and as I think I have suggested before, this could be a problem for the UK in the negotiations which began this morning (Monday 19th June).

Macron's team of 18 Ministers is modern, a mix of left and right, and is 50% female with the Defence portfolio taken by a woman, Sylvie Goulard, and the Environment portfolio taken by France's equivalent of David Attenborough, Nicolas Hulot.

The UK and the USA look isolated in a world in which the values of 'old Europe' appear to be enduring where they matter most. But to make these values grow, Macron and Merkel may need to focus more attention on Eastern and Southern Europe, as these are the weak areas of the Union.

Links:
Election results
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_legislative_election,_2017

Analysis
http://www.politico.eu/article/4-takeaways-from-the-french-parliamentary-election/
https://www.thelocal.fr/20170618/voter-turnout-set-for-record-low-in-french-parliamentary-elections
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/18/emmanuel-macron-marches-on-majority-french-parliament
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/emmanuel-macron-cabinet-government-france-election-ministers-named-2017-local-vote-a7741151.html