In September 2014 I had a post entitled “Can Marine Le Pen win in ’17?,” in which I answered my rhetorical question with a categorical no. Absolutely not. Don’t even think about it. And I have repeated this on numerous occasions since—on AWAV and in social media exchanges—and dismissing while I was at it the hand-wringers and nervous Nellies who fretted that yes, Henny Penny the sky is falling!, she can win—though without any of these Cassandras offering scenarios as to how this could happen. My confident assertions as to the impossibility of Marine Le Pen being elected president of the republic have been based on her disastrous poll numbers over the past seven years—her favorable/unfavorable rating consistently being one of the worst in the French political class (and far worse than Donald Trump’s at any point)—and the fact that in order for her to prevail in the 2nd round of a presidential election, large numbers of voters who otherwise despise and loathe her, and tell pollsters that they would never under any circumstances vote for her, would then go out and do just that: vote for her. Presidential 2nd rounds have the highest turnout of any election in the French system, averaging—minus one unique, very particular exception—83% since universal suffrage was instituted for the office in 1965. So if Marine were to win, some 20 million voters would likely have to vote for her. To date, the highest number of votes the Front National has ever received is 6.8 million in the 2nd round of the 2015 regional elections (with a 58.5% turnout). Somehow I can’t see this skyrocketing to 20M, particularly as MLP’s popularity ratings (deeply negative) have not moved even slightly in the course of the campaign.
But… circumstances do change. The situation evolves. And when circumstances change and situations evolve, I adjust my analyses accordingly. While I still consider a Marine LP victory to be highly unlikely, I no longer categorically rule it out. Anyone reading this is likely aware that Marine is at the top of the 1st round polls, at around 25%, and with three-fourths of those who say they will vote for her definitive in their choice. She is nigh certain to make it to the 2nd round on May 7th. Everyone takes this for granted at this point. The polls show her losing big in the 2nd, but polls change and her projected 2nd round score is creeping upwards. Whatever happens, she will most certainly break 40%.
So how could she win? Here are the scenarios:
- François Fillon, who, as one knows, is seriously damaged politically, nonetheless manages to rally the LR party base and squeak past Emmanuel Macron and into the 2nd round. Fillon will probably defeat Marine, as a sufficient number of left voters (myself included)—so terrified by the prospect of a Marine victory—will probably vote for him while holding their noses. But large numbers of left voters will not bring themselves to do this, and particularly if Fillon is mis en examen—and he now insists that he’s staying in the race regardless—and doubles down on his Sarkozy-like, hard right rhetoric on immigration and security. The revulsion against Fillon is massive on the left (in a way it was not for Chirac in 2002). If masses of left voters nullify their ballots or stay home, and with a certain number of working class ones who voted Mélenchon in the 1st actually voting for Marine in the 2nd—and one may be sure that she will appeal to this latter cohort in the final phase of the campaign—she could possibly win in a cliffhanger, and particularly if enough conservative LR voters disgusted by Fillon also decide to go for her.
- Benoît Hamon pulls off a shocker and makes it to the 2nd. In this scenario, Fillon’s support would plunge into the mid-teens, with LR voters defecting to Nicolas Dupont-Aignan or to Marine LP herself, who reaches 30% in the 1st. Likewise with Macron, whose serial flip-flopping, trying to be too many things to too many people, and finally revealed as a political Nowhere Man having benefited from a bulle médiatique would prompt his erstwhile center-left supporters to go with Hamon after all—or to François Bayrou if he enters the race. If Bayrou gets in—and he’ll be making an announcement on this tomorrow—he will most certainly peel off voters from Macron, possibly reaching 10% in the 1st round. In the 2nd round, the left would vote as a block for Hamon but LR voters, who so despise the left—and will simply not accept five more years of the PS in power—will go massively for Marine, particular as she will sweet-talk them to death entre les tours. If centrist voters vote blanc/nul or abstain, Marine may well gain enough votes to break 50%.
- The nightmare scenario: Fillon’s and Macron’s numbers go south for the aforementioned reasons and with Hamon losing ground on the left to Jean-Luc Mélenchon. With the four candidates all bunched in the mid-teens—and Marine at 30%—Mélenchon ekes out a narrow second place finish and goes on to face MLP on May 7th. The right votes as one for Marine and with centrist and center-left voters emigrating en masse to Canada or maybe killing themselves. And Marine wins.
And there’s more. One thing I have insisted on over the years is that even if, in some outlandish scenario, Marine Le Pen were elected president of the republic, there is no way the FN could possibly win the legislative elections in June. Marine would almost immediately find herself in a cohabitation—and, as one knows, during cohabitations power constitutionally shifts to the prime minister and away from the president. This assertion of mine needs revision. If elected on May 7th, Marine’s first act will be to appoint a prime minister. I guarantee that the man or woman she names will not be from her party. She’ll ask a high-profile hard-right personality from LR, e.g. Laurent Wauquiez, who shares her views on just about everything save Europe (and even then). If she offers the post to Wauquiez, of course he’ll accept. To win over LR support, she’ll compromise on Europe, e.g. by postponing the promised referendum on the euro. Marine’s overtures, not to mention the mere fact of her being at the summit of the state, will blow LR apart, with the right-wingers—Sarkozyistes, Copéistes, most Fillonistes—endorsing an alliance with the FN, and the more moderate conservatives—Juppéistes, some Fillonistes—refusing collaboration, rendering inevitable a breakup of the party. The government constituted by a prime minister Wauquiez will include ministers from the FN, LR, DLF, and MPF, i.e. it will be a coalition of the hard and extreme-right, assembled into an enlarged Rassemblement Bleu Marine (RBM). Some hypothetical ministerial appointments: Florian Philippot (economy/finance), Steeve Briois (interior), Gilbert Collard (justice), Thierry Mariani (foreign affairs), Nicolas Dupont-Aignan (European affairs), Gérard Longuet (defense), Eric Ciotti (education), Philippe de Villiers (culture), Robert Ménard (communication), Valérie Boyer (social affairs), Geoffroy Didier (immigration and integration), Lydia Guirous (cities/youth and sports), David Rachline (government spokesman)…
With Marine’s election and such a government in place, the FN would go into the June legislative elections with a head of steam. Given the fragmentation of the political field—with candidates of LR-UDI, the PS, La France Insoumise/PCF, and whatever remains of En Marche!—the number of triangulaires would be exceptionally high, particularly if the turnout is likewise (reaching, say, 70%). Withdrawal accords between FN and pro-FN LR candidates would almost certainly guarantee an RBM majority in the National Assembly. And the rest would be history. Marine Le Pen and the FN would rule France for the next five years. And there’s not a thing the left or anyone else could do about it.
This would be a disaster, needless to say. Marine Le Pen is Donald Trump without the crazy, as James Traub pithily put it, and which thus makes her more dangerous. She knows exactly where she wants to take France and, as president of the republic and with a legislative majority, would have more instruments at her disposal than does Trump in the US, as there are fewer checks on executive power in France hors cohabitation. And her government, such as hypothesized above, would not be made up of kooks and whack jobs à la Trump but rather of seasoned political pros. I will speculate at a later date as to what Marine would do in her first few months in power but, trust me, it would be bad. Very very bad.
The one candidate who can most certainly beat Marine, and handily, is Emmanuel Macron. I’m a little unsettled about him at the moment—I think he’s making some mistakes—but have to hope that his campaign does not falter in the coming two months, that he finishes strongly, and moves into the 2nd round. The fate of the republic may depend on it.
Queen Marine ! This seems a good script for a new Netflix series. Your first government description was a fun part to read.
Polls are intoxicating. Polls and more polls. Polls are sick and shouldn’t be trusted.
I’m pretty sure Marine’s hard base is 25% period.
The rest of hypothetical votes would come from uneasy shaky voters. IF she makes it to the second round (I’m still not certain of that despite polls) it will become blinding to everyone that if she wins, France will enter chaos.
The stock exchange won’t like it at all, neither the Medef, neither the unions… She’s bad news for business, she’s bad news for everything, economy, social security, education, security, diplomacy… you name it. Deep state too…
She’s fucking scary for most of her own voters. Yes indeed the LR would explode. The legislatives would be madness. It’ll be Mars Attacks ! Yak ! Yak ! Yak ! + War of the worlds + Invasion of the body snatchers, all wrapped in one. So it won’t happen. No way ! Much too scary for general audiences.
The only thing to do to stop her is to describe what will really happen if she is elected.
Massilian, Why is no one eager to go after MLP hard 25% base and call them the racists they are? All I hear are sob stories about how life is so hard for MLP’s 25% base.
I believe it is not productive to call Marine’s hard base voters, racists. They don’t care. That’s ok with them. They don’t mind. I never met any one who was called a “racist” or “fascist” retreat in awe, saying, “Oh my god no ! Please d on’t call me that ! I’m not a racist or a fascist ! How can you say such a dreadful thing !” This is a strange naïve leftist conviction that if you call someone a “racist” he’ll blush and retreat in shame.
If you call an FN voter a racist, he’ll say, ” Well, I wouldn’t call myself a racist, I would call myself a patriot, and I would call YOU an arab lover and a coward, someone who is ready to give up his own country and culture to the moslem invaders.”
Racism is not a key to change FN voters mind. The only way to change somebody’s “wrong” conviction is have them think about their problem and discover better solutions. No use telling them they suck, they are stupid, or they are fascists, just listen and show them how there might be better answers to their problems. It takes patience, not direct confrontation.
I don’t believe at all in stupid signs such as “Le fascisme ne passera pas !”.If that’s all all you have to oppose, you better go home an cry.
Here is something else I want to know. If MLP wins will the Louvre places paintings on display of prominent artists from Muslim majority nations in prominent locations such as the New York Museum of Modern Art did post Trump immigration ban? I think I know the answer and to me it shows the weakness of the European mainstream.
Arun, what do you think of this little potential demographic upset: women who’d normally have abstained going with Marine?
Nonna Mayer talked about this on ‘C dans l’air’ yesterday, of women now voting for the FN in the same proportion as men and thanks to the Marine effect – the new FN-voting women being lower level employees in the service sector (e.g. supermarket cashiers). The latest Elabe poll (here), however, shows men still supporting the FN is considerably greater numbers.
What does Bayrou stand to gain by running? Surely he has to remove himself from the contest if he’s to maintain his image as a decent man, above the normal squabbles? Macron might not be exactly his cup of tea but running against him would only play into the hands of extremists.
Well thank the good lord above, squiggle, that Bayrou has come to the same conclusion.
Guru Goldhammer got there before you. (As did at least one commenter, for what it’s worth.)
And of course this.
@all
ever since I was young enough and old enough, I have been certain of one thing: there is no need to talk with racists to convince them them to mend their ways, the only thing better than a racist is a beaten up racist. Which brings to mind that the generation before mine also found that out and did it to the national socialists, eventually.
Now we have the social nationalists: this is very exactly what MLP’s program stands for. There is no need to call them the far right or the alt-right or some other euphemism.
@Arun
You forgot Nadine Morano, how disappointing. Though her bloodline is not impeccably French, she’s another good blonde with impeccable ideas.
The only scenario with any kind of plausibility as you well know is the Fillon one. The paleo trotskyst is too busy insulting everyone else in good old OCI style (Jospin too was like that and thus lost an unloosable election) to make any headway and Hamon, for his part is doing good among the convinced and not much of anyone else. So your only viable scenario would be Fillon and Bayrou has just shut that door. Relax. Be happy. Won’t happen. I stand by my forecast.
If I had to make a guess, I’d have to say that 2017 was the one opportunity for the social nationalists, and it won’t come back. To see why, project yourself into 2022, after several years of Trump and several years past Brexit too. Now you see why.
I am not sure what you are referring to by “good blonde with impeccable ideas” but I personally find Marine Le Pen unattractive and quite frankly ugly as sin.
@tim
I didn’t say Nadine was an attractive blonde, I said she’s another good blonde with impeccable ideas (ie. has no patience for for “les jeunes des banlieues”). And I didn’t comment on MLP’s attractiveness. In fact, she’s repulsive in every way that you can think of. BTW what do people think about Nadine as Minister of culture? Or maybe the motodidacte?
Bernard: I share your view that there is no point in trying to dialogue with racists and other deplorables but don’t think that beating them up is the way to go. Better to just outvote them at the polls. I pretty much agree that if Macron doesn’t make it, a Fillon-Le Pen 2nd round is the only likely outcome — provided, of course, that he is not mis en examen. If that happens, he’s toast, i.e. Macron will be the prohibitive favorite to face off against Marine.
On projecting what’s going to happen in 2022, it’s a little early for that IMO.
No point in talking to racists (and there are graduations in racism…on a 1 to 10 sca) is a lazy Ponce Pilate choice. They won’t just disappear… One should at least work at making them ridicule.
If racists are to be somehow engaged, probably the only way to effectively do it would be to have them confront face-to-face upstanding persons of the group that is the object of their racism and be obliged to dialogue with them. But maybe I’m naïve on this, as it may not change a thing. If people want to believe something, then they will find any number of arguments and “facts” to support their attitude.
@Arun
when did you last convince a redneck?
Unfortunately, I have to agree that you are being naive in your comment below. All racists have their pet jew, doesn’t change their view one iota.
If by rednecks you mean lower class white Southerners, I rubbed elbows with them in my early teens – in high school on a US military installation – but haven’t had much face-to-face contact since then. And I certainly haven’t had occasion to dialogue with such persons on sensitive issues, let alone sought to.
Arun and all commentators,
I have been disturbed by the “Marine Le Pen can she win ?” post and comments.
Excuse me for my English and for being lengthy but I feel the urge to say more.
I am not much interested by the speculations titillated by the polls. What if Melenchon faces Le Pen, what if Hamon faces Fillon, what if Macron faces Melenchon and so on… It is just a game, it is much too soon and I am not much of a gamer with political issues.
I am not comfortable at all with the equation : someone who votes for Le Pen is a racist crypto-fascist, period. And neither with the conclusion : therefore, talking to this person is a total waste of time, they are irreducible assholes and the only good ones are the dead ones.
Let me develop the second point. I live in Marseille where it is estimated that 200 000 inhabitants out of 800 000 are of Muslim confession. Where the FN made close to 22% in the 2012 legislatives, 23% in the 2014 municipals (with the F.N. Ravier elected in the infamous “Quartiers Nord” partly with Muslim votes. For the 2015 regionals in the Bouches-du-Rhône the F.N. made 39,87% in the first round and lost the second round 46% to 54% for Renaud Muselier( L.R.). So I know people who voted F.N.. They are everywhere in my neighborhood, i.e. downtown Marseille. They live in my building, they work at the Carrefour City next block, at the hairdresser, at the post office, they sell organic veggies at the market, etc. I more or less know or guess how they feel, but we do not really discuss politics. I don’t consider them crypto-fascists, they don’t have a very high level of education, they are working, they don’t make much and they are pissed off people. Many reasons to that. They may sometime utter racists comments but this is seldom and the comments are not hard core racist, white supremacist type of comments, rather complaints about how “some” or “certain” people behave. By the way you don’t have to be an FN voter to make this type of comments more or less cautiously.
I know educated leftists who under favorable circumstances driving their car can suddenly release some steam and become outspoken offensive, pretending of course it is, you know “au second degré” since they can’t possibly be called racists.
I myself was once a radical, as much radical and left as one can be. And of course, I wasn’t a racist. Couldn’t be. I was a revolutionary, a Jew and I had read Fanon and Baldwin.
Until I fell in love and lived for a few years at the apex of the BPP days, with a very radical Jamaican-American girlfriend and few of her African-American friends, in France and abroad. Well, I learned a lot in daily life about my dormant undiscovered racism. Nothing that I said of course was straightforward racist, it was much more subtle, it was attitudes, it was sometimes in between words, it was my difficulty to consider or understand a different pov on things. Consider her pov, put myself in her place, understand where my girlfriend was coming from, where she grew up, her education, her social history… It took me a while to realize that to different eyes I behaved as a white man and that I was convinced it was the only natural way to behave. If the others had a problem with me, it was not my fault, they had a problem, not me… And I was wrong. And I learned. I learned that everybody was racist, everybody was sexist and prejudiced but not always and not always at the same level. On a scale of 0 to 10, I would probably never reach 10 thanks to my education but I would often, more or less unconsciously, wander in the lower misty zone.
This was confirmed again later with Algerian friends. Intellectual adjustments had to be made. Some fine tuning was needed for mutual comfort.
Several times, later in my life, I experienced social dinners when suddenly a very good friend having drunk a little too much wine would make a stupid anti-Semitic joke, or an anti-Semitic observation or reasoning but without being conscious or embarrassed at all, “Le plus naturellement du monde”. And he or she would be very offended when I would underline the fact that this was anti-Semitic. And he or she would protest that of course he or she wasn’t the least anti-Semitic, “you know me” and if I resented that, it must be because of my typically Jewish exacerbated sensitivity… Yet I didn’t throw them out of my door, I took some time to highlight what they had said and why they said it and why they were wrong. This wasn’t that pleasant but this was my way to save a friendship, because these people were not bad, mean people, they just repeated harmful things by stupid prejudice.
That’s why I have nuances regarding the FN voters and how to confront them. Sideways and with a little humor is not that bad. Who said : “Never corner and humiliate your enemy” ? Facing unarmed racists I would take lessons from Mandela.
But I know of different experiences. I have a brother in law who is a 50 years old simple hard hat in a construction material plant in the Gard (near Lunel, famous for its number of French jihadist killed in Syria…Régionales 2015 : Louis Alliot > 45%). In this plant which works 24/24, 7/7, over half of the workers are with a temporary contract, they are legal migrants or of recent immigrant origin, mostly from Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco but also from Turkey, Romania, Albania. He tells me of frequent fights that started after the Charlie massacre, the Bataclan, because of arguments about terrorism, DAESH etc. From what he tells me I understand that it isn’t just one way islamophobia coming from racist white workers. It works both ways with verbal provocations coming from both sides.
I know he isn’t an F.N. voter but he could soon become one, because he feels he is not understood, not listened to and there is a lot of tension where he works and this fosters a lot of conscious or unconscious racism among all of the population, whatever they vote for. In his own words ” the communists are no better than the F.N.” The worst being the union guys..
Next point is the Marine program. Of course we don’t like it, but if you take the time to visit the F.N. website and read it, you may understand why it speaks to a lot of people. You may discover that it is not a cut and paste of “Mein Kampf” quotes, that would be much too easy. Marine’s program doesn’t appear so different from the production of Fillon, Macron, Hamon, Melenchon. It is all well presented as in the best of interest of most if not all of the people.
Most readers and voters cannot really seriously argue about the mid term effects of most of the measures of such or such program anyway. We mostly rely on a priori and old convictions.
I confess that I have not enough knowledge or serious experience to demonstrate why Hamon is wrong about this and Macron is right or vice versa. Bring me a few economists to confuse the issue a bit more.
So once again, I am not satisfied by comments which tend to disregard or exclude FN voters as stone racists and fascists. If you do that, if you consider them as irrecoverable or beyond redemption, then you must be in favor of sending them to Chinese type re-education camps. Once I believed it was a second chance given to ennemies of the revolution. I don’t anymore.
Allow me gently to disagree, Arun. If Melenchon ekes out a win and faces Marine in the 2nd round, I think he would win. It’s what we must hope. Think of it as the return of Blum and the Front Populaire as the rest of Europe was going for the fascists. And you shouldn’t even think of endorsing that Wall-Street stooge Macron.
“And you shouldn’t even think of endorsing that Wall-Street stooge Macron.” Why Not?
BTW, I’ll take Wall Street Banksters over Nazi’s any day and twice on Sundays.
Stephen: I included a scenario for Mélenchon making it to the 2nd just to have it, as, realistically-speaking, the probability of this is infinitesimal. As I have reminded people on numerous occasions, there is a 14% ceiling to the gauche de la gauche vote in a high turnout election. It has not surpassed this since 1981, when the PCF started its decline into near irrelevance, and there is no reason to think – or polling data to suggest – that it will this year, and particularly with the frondeur Hamon as the PS candidate and who is now supported by Les Verts.
But if JLM were to, by some totally improbable circumstance, make it to the 2nd, I don’t see where his winning votes would come from. In France there are more voters on the right than the left – this is a fact – and more of those right voters would vote for MLP than left ones would for JLM, and this despite the fact that JLM’s favorable/unfavorable poll numbers are considerably better than MLP’s.
One reason I think MLP would defeat JLM is that she would make overtures to the LR party and its voters in a way that JLM would not to the PS – a party he hates and wants to destroy – let alone to Macron and Bayrou.
Macron and Wall Street? I have never seen his name and that street mentioned in the same sentence. I don’t see what Wall St has to do with him (and even if there were some kind of link, what it would signify).
In any case, I’m voting for Macron in the 1st round. The choice is strategic, as he is, realistically, the only candidate who can save us from a Fillon-Le Pen face-off. And I think he would shake up the system, notably by introducing a dose of proportional representation in legislative elections. I have nothing in particular against Hamon – whom I voted for in both rounds of the PS primary – but don’t see him making it to the 2nd, let alone winning it.
Well, if it’s Macron vs Le Pen in the 2nd round, there’s a technical term for that situation: we’re f**ked.
Still, that face-off would, to my mind, crystallize the political desert of the present moment. That is, with the traditional left utterly gutted of ideological content, the only choice is between la droite financiere and la droite nationaliste. A kind of pick your poison situation.
I call Macron the Wall St. candidate because he’s the most neoliberal in the field. You can call him the CAC 40 candidate if you prefer.
Macron is more accurately labeled a social-libéral. He is Delorist/Rocardian in sensibility – though voted for Chevènement in 2002 – and was a member of the PS in the last decade. Speaking for myself, I am perhaps somewhat to his left on the economy but think he has the right instincts on other issues. I will be happy if he is elected and then obtains a working legislative majority. And if Martin Schulz wins in Germany in September – and rids us of Wolfgang Shäuble – I will be that much happier.
I’d still pick the poison that doesn’t discriminate on the basis of race or sexuality.
@sartarelli
It appears to me that your worldview is very typically catholic with the original sin concept central to it. Macron worked in banking for, like, two years, in Paris. He is therefore condemned to eternal damnation. I suppose if he bowed out in favor of Melenchon – who, BTW, is so good and talented that he managed to loose against MLP in the legislatives 5 years ago – there would be a long period of purgatory followed, perhaps, eventually, if he repented enough, by redemption? Me, sorry, catholic values don’t do it for me.
Well, aren’t you just the progressive cat’s meow, with your moronic Catholic-bashing, which seems prompted merely by my Italian surname! It’s no doubt you, rather, who are the crypto-catholic, as most anti-catholics are (especially French ones). I for my part am an anarchist, and have been since about age 12.
Macron is the bankers’ friend because of the policies he embraced and promoted when he was a pseudo-socialist, but I guess you’re too busy launching ad hominem attacks on people honestly expressing their opinions to know that.
But keep up your trolling for catholics. Maybe you’ll find a real one someday.
Can Melenchon reach the second round without an unprecedentedly brilliant run in combined with a terrible run in for three of his four rivals? And even if he does isn’t it tremendously unlikely that he’d become President?
If the majority of Fillon voters went to Le Pen to fight off the red hordes, they’d already have almost enough, even without abstentions, to win. For better or worse I think Macron stands between France and either disaster (Fillon) or catastrophe (Le Pen).
Here are the favorable/unfavorable numbers in the latest IPSOS baromètre politique, with January’s numbers in parentheses:
Le Pen: +26/-69 (+23/-71)
Macron: +39/-49 (+45/-39)
Fillon: +25/-69 (+43/-48)
Hamon: +38/-48 (+32/-38)
Mélenchon: +38/-51 (+38/-50)
Take away:
Le Pen: a slight uptick but stability overall; opinion of her is baked in.
Macron: a notable drop, certainly linked to his recent missteps.
Fillon: stunning collapse; just wow!
Hamon: more people have an opinion about him since his primary victory.
Mélenchon: stability.
Checking the news, I think the “leftists”(?) who demonstrated vigorously in Nantes against MLP’s meeting and wounded 11 cops and the next day threw stones at the buses coming to the meeting, did a great, great job. That surely taught a lesson to the F.N. voters. They’ll sure think twice before daring to vote for MLP. Scare the shit out of them, that’s the righteous tactic. No doubt it will work and help Melenchon or Phlippe Poutou. More clubbing and more stones will get us rid of the F.N.for good and for sure. This has proven successful before. didn’it ?
I see the latest Oxada poll puts Alain Juppé in first place for the first round if he replaces Fillon, ahead of Macron and so knocking Le Pen out of the race at the first hurdle. Which would be pretty satisfying.
I’d still rather a Macron presidency than a Juppé one but Juppé doesn’t fill me with dismay the way Fillon does.
What is the value of these dumb polls when 1) Juppé is not even candidate yet. 2) He hasn’t started his campaign… What would the polls say if:
A) Christine Lagarde decided to run , B) Dany Boon was a candidate, C) Michel Cymes was a candidate ? D) J.P. Raffarin was a candidate
Which one of them would beat M.L.P. to the second round ?
And, what if Jean Jacques Goldman decided to support Benoît Hamon and Omar Sy supported Michèle Alliot-Marie ?
These polls are the demonstration that the “société du spectacle” is still alive and kickin’.
If there were chances of Lagarde, Boon etc running then they’d mean quite a bit, I think.
I’m sure parts of the LR are looking to see what suggests the best way out of their current predicament. If AJ were to run and be placed under the irritable scrutiny of a candidate his numbers might well drop, but at the moment they’re at least looking more hopeful than Fillon’s.
Of course, maybe there is really no chance of him running but given that there is a widespread feeling that he might, it’s interesting to see people’s responses (without thinking that they mean more for the end result than campaign promises do for a presidency.)
Might be fun to have Dany Boon running! I don’t think you need to take all this seriously. I mean, there are even those who appear to believe the paleo-trotskyst could make it to the second round. The guy is polling the usual extreme left 10% (that has hardly changed since 1968, though in the good old days, the vote used to be split between Arlette and Krivine), and by some miracle no one has foreseen, he’s going to climb above 20% on election day. And then go on to beat MLP – I can picture Juppé pinching his nose and voting for him – even though every poll suggests that 50% of his 10% electors will go to MLP in the second round, which the paleo trotskyst somehow has yet to acknowledge (that tends to make me support the old stalinist line on trotskysts). Don’t take it seriously, lots of nonsense going around on the internet.
To repeat the serious line. The guy best positioned to beat MLP in the second round is Macron, further he is now polling about equal with her and a movement has started, identifiable in polling along last week, whereby a number of socialist electors who were supporting Hamon out of party loyalty, have realised that MLP coming in ahead in the first round is not a certainty and they are starting to act to make sure she does not come ahead in the first round and they are switching to Macron out of Hamon as they realize that Hamon has strictly zero chance of making it to the second round, for good or bad. It is this movement from Hamon to Macron – on the order of 2-3% for now – that polls illustrated last week. There are many people out there who care about France and believe that France should in no way becoe the shame of Europe.
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