The two phase French election system dooms Marine Le Pen, just like it doomed her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2002.
Their are five main parties contending, the top four are getting roughly 19-23% each, and only the top two finishers will go to the second round runoff.
* Leading at 23.8% the so called “Centrist”, Macron, who was the protege of the current President, Hollande, who is a Socialist. For various reasons Macron is running as an independent, but in France “Centrist” means “Socialist”, and that’s not Obama style Socialism, that’s “let’s nationalize the 100 biggest companies in France” Socialism.
* At 22.1% LePen. She’s been ahead the whole race by a small amount until recently.
* At 19.1% the Republican candidate, Fillon, who is described as “center right” by the Euro press. He’s from the same party that Sarkozy was the head of when he won a few years ago.
* At 19.0% the far left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, whose coalition of leftists is running under the “Unsubmissive France” label. His positions have been compared to Pol Pot.
* At 8.5% is Hamon, the actual Socialist candidate, he’s down in the polls but his voters are still available for round two.
Assuming they finish in this order Le Pen will run off against the ‘centrist” Macron.
Macron will pick up all the other leftists: 19% of Melenchon’s Communists and another 8% from Hamon’s Socialists 24% + 19% + 8% = 51%. And of course many of the supposedly right-leaning Republicans supporting Fillon will also vote for Macron. Here’s the WIkipedia description of what happened when Le Pen’s father made it to the second round, with 16.8% of the vote, in 2002.
“There was a widespread stirring of national public opinion as virtually the entire French political spectrum from the centre-right to the left united in fierce opposition to Le Pen’s ideas. More than one million people in France took part in street rallies; slogans such as “vote for the crook, not the fascist” were heard in opposition to Le Pen. Le Pen was then defeated by a large margin in the second round, when incumbent president Jacques Chirac obtained 82% of the votes, thus securing the biggest majority in the history of the Fifth Republic.”
This will happen again. France hasn’t changed that much. Le Pen has only increased her share from 16.8% to 21%. That’s after a decade that included annual human sacrifices to the Gods of Diversity and Virtue Signaling.
Most French people are leftists – and many are very very far left. Le Pen is literally like Hitler to them. Or Satan. Or “just like her father”.
The best case scenario, maybe the only one she can win in, is if the far left candidate, Mélenchon surges to 2nd and LePen takes 1st. Then, just maybe, enough of the voters are scared of his rabidly crazy far-left ideas that they decide to give the relatively well known Le Pen a shot.
Wikipedia: “Mélenchon has also called for the mass redistribution of wealth to rectify existing socioeconomic inequalities. Domestic policies proposed by Mélenchon include a 100 per cent income tax on all French nationals earning over 360,000 Euros a year, full state reimbursement for healthcare costs, a reduction in presidential powers in favour of the legislature, and the easing of immigration laws. He also supports the legalisation of cannabis.” He is anti EU and anti NATO as well.
There is also a good chance Le Pen doesn’t even make the second round. Her polls have dipped right before the election, while Fillon, the Republican’s, have surged. Only two points separate her 2nd place from his 3rd, a small reversal and she finishes 3rd, and doesn’t make the runoff election.
Like everyone else I know with a heart I’m hoping for Le Pen to somehow win, but looking at the numbers it seems extremely unlikely she ends up at the end of Round 2 being the one taking the “investiture.” (French version of our swearing in.)
cascade free zone 