2017 French Presidential Election

[mvd10]

Lol Fillon. What's next?

[mvd10]

I wonder what's still out there about Fillon. Nobody could have imagined just how corrupt that dude is. Will the election be postponed if he drops out now? Or is that only the case under special circumstances (death, incarceration, stuff like that)? Not that he is going to drop out, he seems to believe he is entitled to the presidency.

[mvd10]

At this rate Fillon will soon be ranting about how Rockefeller (he isn't dead! Lizardmen!), Soros and the Jews are conspiring against him because they want PC Macron as president.

Anyway, if Fillon really had contact with his communications director during the debate I wonder if he also did have contact with him during the primary debates. It would explain his strong performances there.

[mvd10]

Trump was never trailing Clinton by much more than 8% (except maybe in early 2015 when everyone saw him as a joke candidate). In the last couple of days Trump didn't trail by that much, and he still lost the popular vote. Le Pen trails Macron by more than 25%. Against Fillon she might surprise us if even more comes out about Fillon but against Macron she is toast. Trump hijacked the Republican party, a (American context) respected centre-right party. Le Pen is the leader of the FN and is despised by a majority of both the centre-left and the centre-right.

[mvd10]

Hollande "condemns with the utmost firmness the false allegations of Fillon"

Fillon made also a disgusting comparison by saying that his situation made him think of Bérégovoy (French PM who committed suicide after an electoral defeat and some scandal)

Wow. This guy is like if you take Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, mash them together and make it even worse.

And a slight touch of Erdogan. Didn't someone on this forum have a theory about Erdogan having a brain tumor? I think that theory might also apply to Fillon.

I wouldn't count out Fillon yet btw. If Fillon has two strong debates and Macron has a scandal (legal trouble or something about his past as a Rotschild banker) Fillon might squeak it to a second place. Fillon's base of old Catholic rural conservatives will turn out for him anyway. But if Fillon still makes it, it will be because Macron completely flopped.

[mvd10]

By the way, will PS just stay aside and endorse Macron in 2022 if he seeks re-election by that moment?

If Macron is elected I don't think that PS will still be a thing by 2022.

This. There will be some recomposition between 3 poles: the left (Mélenchon/Hamon electorate) , the center (around Macron) and the far right (Fillon/Le Pen)

Is Fillon really in the same category as Le Pen? By now he has become a complete joke but ideologically I wouldn't put him in the same category as Le Pen. He is very right-wing on immigration and social issues but I'm not sure whether that really makes him far-right. I'd only use that term for people like Trump, Wilders and Le Pen.

[mvd10]

So is there any chance that Macron wins the presidency but the right somehow manages to win a majority in parliament? Would it lead to a new cohabitation? It's probably not going to happen, the legislative elections are going to be in Macron's honeymoon and people probably will rally behind him, but on the other hand his party doesn't have the same party machine as LR or PS.

[mvd10]

Any signs/chances that Fillon bounces back or is he toast?!

There's still three weeks left, but it doesn't look like he's bouncing back. He's toast unless Macron seriously screws up (and even then Fillon probably still is toast).

[mvd10]

I wonder if there will be a "Shy LePen" effect here?  The good news for her opponents is that there are 2 rounds in France, so she would lose the element of surprise and Macron or Fillon could adjust their runoff strategies accordingly.

Macron just radiates Hillary Clinton vibes to me.  I wouldn't be surprised if he blows it and gets 3rd in the first round to be honest.  If French voters can swallow Fillon's scandal enough to put him into the runoff, I think he will win.

I agree that Fillon probably would beat Le Pen, but don't forget that he is at 18% in the polls while Macron and Le Pen are at 25%. It would take a large polling error or a Macron scandal to close that gap. Fillon's voters probably are the most likely to turn out and actually vote but I don't think turnout is going to be enough for Fillon. And apparently Macron is ahead of Le Pen in the polls, and Fillon doesn't stand a chance against Macron in a run-off. Last poll I saw was 66-34 for Macron.

[mvd10]

So Marine's niece is a combination of Fillon's Thatcherism and social conservatism and FN's Euroscepticism? Basically what the FN used to be in the late 70s?

[mvd10]

Fillon 69%
Macron 53%
Dupont-Aignan 51%
Cheminade 42%
Hamon 38%
Le Pen 37%
Arthaud 34%
Poutou 33%
Mélenchon 28%

[mvd10]

Mélenchon is the one candidate that would make me support Le Pen. I'd take Hamon over Le Pen though. Fillon also seems to have a slight bump in the last couple of polls btw.

[mvd10]

Poll Kantar-Sofres for Le Figaro / LCI
First poll to show Mélenchon ahead of Fillon

Macron: 24% (-2 since March, 17)
Le Pen: 24% (-2)
Mélenchon: 18% (+6)
Fillon: 17% (=)
Hamon: 9% (-3)

Second round

Macron 61% - Le Pen 39%
Macron 66% - Fillon 34%
Macron 53% - Mélenchon 47%
Fillon 55% - Le Pen 45%
Mélenchon 57% - Le Pen 43%

I believe there was a poll that had Fillon at 15.5% and Mélenchon at 19% so it's not the first. But it's probably the first serious poll that has Mélenchon ahead because the other one probably was a junk poll.

Anyway, I just read that Sarkozy thinks he could be Macron's PM in a cohabitation government if the right wins a majority. He is even more delusional than Fillon lol.

http://www.rtl.fr/actu/politique/presidentielle-2017-second-tour-resultat-macron-le-pen-sarkozy-7787966549

[mvd10]

Sarkozy really is delusional. I don't think he would have been doing any better than Fillon if he were the nominee. No way he is going to defeat Macron in his honeymoon.

[mvd10]

New Opinionway tracking poll has Le Pen at 23% (-1%), Macron at 22% (-1%), Fillon at 20% (no change) and Mélenchon at 17% (no change). Too lazy to type the rest. But I'm going to lol so hard if Fillon somehow manages to win the presidency. Macron would become an even bigger laughing stock than the original Flawless Beautiful Politician if he doesn't make the second round.

[mvd10]

The lifelong RPR/UMP/LR voters will decide they don't care about corruption after all and come home just in time for Fillon to get to the second round with 22-23% of the vote. I'm calling it now.

[mvd10]

The fact that Macron is hanging on to a runoff by his fingernail tips just shows how weak the pro EU center-to-center-left is right now.  Considering he has practically no competition for his niche, he should probably be in the thirties, at least.

Macron is running as a complete upstart with no party organization and an overwhelming majority of voters having never heard of him before a couple of months ago. To be honest, in my opinion, there's no reason why he should be doing as well as he is.

Also, the last time a "Centrist pro-EU" candidate made it to the second round (not runoff) was 1981 with Giscard, although the comparison of their economic liberalism are somewhat different.

Considering he has practically no competition for his niche,

i am not sure if the EU topic is the most important point of this election inside of france.

Also, this is correct. The French are much more concerned with sclerotic growth and an "erosion of values," whatever that means.

True, none of the people I know are convinced of him - No1 knows what his policies are, very vague n stuff n he could totally govern differently, he has no party organization.

Fillon is worrying with his rise now, he is such a bad candidate he may actually lose to Le Pen with record low turnout with Le Pen's base motivated. Who wants to vote for people like Fillon anyways?

So far Fillon leads Le Pen in all polls (he scores 54-58% against Le Pen) so I'm not extremely worried about Fillon losing to Le Pen. But a run-off against Fillon probably is the best chance Le Pen will ever get to become president.

[mvd10]

Lol political compass. Why do they put Macron to the right of Fillon on economics? Does anyone know where Macron and Fillon stand on free trade btw? That's the only area where Macron might be more right-wing than Fillon.

[mvd10]

So, to me the question is if France's voting pattern will mirror the more moderate Dutch parliamentary one or the more extremist Austrian one from the 1st round of the Presidential election ...

Austria's 1st round was held at the height of the migrant inflow and the ongoing security debate after the Cologne rapes. The far-right candidate polled 22-24% and got 35% in the end.

On the other hand, you have the Dutch vote in which voters opted for the centrist parties rather than the far-right, despite Turkish agitation and violence on the street a couple days before. The far-right gained a bit, but was mostly sidelined.

I think France will be somewhere in the middle tomorrow, Le Pen outperforming her polls by 5% at the most. She also has some far-left competition with Melenchon when it comes to workers votes and Fillon is much stronger than Khol (ÖVP) ever was, despite all his scandals. So she'll never hit 30% or the 35% of Hofer.

France doesn't have the migration flood and immigrant rapes etc. that Austria experienced, but has to deal with constant terror threats and still high unemployment and suffers from the same rural disintegration in many parts like Austrian small towns do, which could boost Le Pen. I'm just not sure though if Melenchon's support is real this time or overblown just like in 2012, giving the additional points to Le Pen instead.

The PVV didn't really underperform the polls in the Dutch election though. They were polling at something like 22 seats and they got 20 seats. The main surprise was the VVD (centre-right party) massively overperforming the polls, but the reason for that was the row with Turkey. I'm not sure whether the terror attack in France can be a game changer like the row with Turkey was in the Netherlands.