2017 French Presidential Election

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I think I was the OP from the other thread, but I don't know what happened.

https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20170108204647/https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?PHPSESSID=867b6895b62569a2c676d095a1d165cc&board=12.0

yes, you definitely were OP.

This is definitely a fault of the forum though - it's happened before where good discussion is permanently lost because of an accidental delete by mods or an OP.

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lol, Fillon's big education idea is school uniforms.

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I misread that as "arrange a marriage".

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Can his nickname be Francois Failin'?

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I won't say it's impossible for Le Pen to win, but it would require some dramatic change in circumstance: most likely a serious riot or terrorist attack that Macron fumbles his response to.(and even then, it could be a double handled sword: if Le Pen is perceived in her response to be overly political, triumphalist or divisive that could hurt her).

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Yeah, I remember back in the dying days of the UMP where Fillon was the moderate to Cope's rightist.

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Who is Lassalle? He was a member of MoDem, so I can assume he can be described as a centrist. Is it true? Does he fit any label at all? It also seems he uses elements of Occitan regionalism/nationalism.

To quote hash from aad:

He isn't quite a fruitcake like Cheminade or Asselineau, but he's a rather odd character. He is a shepherd from rural Béarn (Pyrénées), which is an unusual background for a French deputy these days, and he very much likes to be seen as an oddball. In 2003, he randomly stood up and sang the 'Occitan anthem' (in Béarnese) in the National Assembly while Sarkozy was speaking. In 2006, he went on a 39-day hunger strike over a factory closure in his constituency, and claims that the factory owners or something tried to killed him. For most of 2013, he went on a walking tour of France to 'meet citizens' and 'understand their grievances', which has seemingly convinced him that he is the only man in the country world who can save us all -- and apparently in his book, he claims that he was practically greeted by euphoric crowds during this 'tour of France'. Sometime recently, he explained during a parliamentary debate that people made him take several "psycho-technical tests" when he was young and that his IQ was measured as being 'barely above 0' when he was 8 years old. Less picturesquely, he twice met Bashar el-Assad in Syria (in 2015 and 2017), one of those times accompanied by hard-right LR Еди́ная Росси́я deputies Thierry Mariani and Nicolas Dhuicq, and is now saying that he can't say if Assad is good or bad or whether he massacred people. Shockingly, this has made him the new sweetheart of RT and Sputnik.

The above, save the Assad nonsense, doesn't qualify him as overly crazy, but on a recent talk show appearance, he (a) asked psychiatrists in the audience to share their opinions of his mental state and (b) is straight-up certain that he will be elected president, considering his 0% placement in the polls as trivial and justifying his certainty by claiming that he'll win because he's the opposite of Trump (one a millionnaire, the other 'a modest shepherd'). He seemingly lacks any actual ideas, besides "I like talking to people and I am a weird shepherd", suggesting that he would fix unemployment through dialogue and similar stuff. He voted against same-sex marriage in 2013, but said that he voted against because "it was polarizing" but that otherwise he's pretty down with gay marriage and married two women as mayor. He also called right-wing primary candidates a bunch of lowly 'trainees'.

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Hamon and Mélenchon stand for the same ideology, they agree on everything (except for the EU, basic income).

So Hamon supports basic income, while Mélenchon, who is to the left of Hamon, opposes it?

A lot of leftists view UBI as a sort of Trojan Horse policy that sells itself as an expanded welfare state but also comes from liberalised employment laws and an attack on unions. In Finland, for example the most oppposition has come from the major trade union and the social democrats.

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Serious question: does the average French person know a single individual that is part of En Marche aside from Macron? Because that's going to be the killer thing isn't it? As it is, it's basically becoming a front group for the right of the liberal parties and the right wing of PS.

I think PS have more strength than PvdA, given they still have some ability to get votes in strongholds, and powerful municipal figures (well, mainly Hidalgo but still).

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What about Royal? Was she a good candidate?

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Melenchon's best hope in that scenario would be to pivot hard to the whole "abolish the president" part of his platform.

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Would be an interesting twist on IRV, STV and run-off systems to have STV determine the top two, then have the top two from STV run in an ordinary run-off instead of going full IRV.

but why though

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SHOCK HORROR AS POLITICAL COMPASS DOESN'T PLACE EVERY CANDIDATE IN TOP RIGHT



still wrong obviously

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Who would be Melenchon's PM if he wins?

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Of course, Mitterrand once faked an assassination attempt on himself for publicity reasons before he became president.