French Presidential elections

[gentlegreen]

Personal announcement by Fillon at 10 am UK .
Presence of Alain Juppé deemed significant.

Regarder France 24 en direct

 

[belboid]

Follow it live (if your French is up to it)

BFMTV en Direct: regarder la chaine info en live - BFMTV

 

[hot air baboon]

Francois Fillon address on bogus Job scandal

Reports that the wife of embattled French presidential candidate Francois Fillon was held for questioning by police have been corrected after a judicial source denied the allegations.

In the report, Mediapart also claimed that Fillon had to cancel a high profile campaign visit because he himself will soon be summoned for questioning by judges. This, according to their report, is confirmed.

 

[agricola]

Summoned for questioning on the 15th of March - at least that judge has a sense of historical comedy.

 

[agricola]

"Its not just me that is being assassinated, its everyone"

 

[gentlegreen]

So he's put it on the line - he's the sole defence against the far right ...

 

[belboid]

Fucking deluded. I suppose they don't think there is any alternative

 

[redsquirrel]

Another sycophantic piece for the saviour in the Guardian.

Macron, who describes himself as coming from the left but open to rightwing policy, launched his manifesto in a delicate balancing act to hang on to supporters from both right and left. His pro-Europe platform offered a mix of traditionally rightwing pro-business measures – such as loosening France’s strict labour laws and cutting certain taxes – as well as measures to combat the country’s growing inequality in education and on housing estates.

Urgh

 

[ska invita]

looks like a big day of action on march 13th
France: March against police killings unites the left

 

[gentlegreen]

So the Fillons' Paris flat is being raided .. and his spokesman has thrown in the towel ..

Affaire Fillon : Thierry Solère démissionne de son poste de porte-parole

EDIT :-

Fillion’s Spokesman Thierry Solere Faces Tax Evasion Allegations | French Tribune

Edit 2 :-

over a dozen of them ...

Défections en chaîne dans l’équipe de campagne de Fillon

 

[ska invita]

So the Fillons' Paris flat is being raided .. and his spokesman has thrown in the towel ..

Affaire Fillon : Thierry Solère démissionne de son poste de porte-parole

Fillon was a dead duck...though if he is forced to stand down completely will someone else from his party stand in his place, or are the Republicans off the ticket completely? I guess we'll find out soon enough

 

[stavros]

Le Pen is still refusing to cooperate with investigations into her assistants until after the election.

 

[redsquirrel]

Smart move, not going to cost her any votes and allows her to play the 'establishment are out to get me' card (a damn site more effectively than Fillon).

 

[J Ed]

Macron really does seem to be the last hope for the 'left' side of neoliberalism, the candidate met with John Kerry in Paris yesterday. Interesting, though not surprising, that it was Maron rather than Hamon.

 

[stavros]

As some in LR push for Fillon to pull out, his spin doctor says that putting Juppé in instead would hand the presidency to Le Pen, because "right wing voters won't vote for Juppé". Is this true, or bollocks? Is he that unpopular with them?

 

[bluescreen]

As some in LR push for Fillon to pull out, his spin doctor says that putting Juppé in instead would hand the presidency to Le Pen, because "right wing voters won't vote for Juppé". Is this true, or bollocks? Is he that unpopular with them?

I don't know about that. But certainly the handful of left wing people I know in SW France were prepared to hold their nose for Juppé but blindsided by Fillon, finding it hard to put a cigarette paper between him and le Pen where it mattered.

 

[redsquirrel]

As some in LR push for Fillon to pull out, his spin doctor says that putting Juppé in instead would hand the presidency to Le Pen, because "right wing voters won't vote for Juppé". Is this true, or bollocks? Is he that unpopular with them?

Sounds like a desperate attempt to stop a push to replace Fillon.

 

[bluescreen]

Sounds like a desperate attempt to stop a push to replace Fillon.

Don't know. I get the impression the only one trying to stop such a push is Fillon himself.

 

[gentlegreen]

Wasn't Juppé banged up for having fictitious employees to illegally fund his political campaign ?

Edit :-

Criminal conviction (1999–2006)
In 2004, Alain Juppé was tried for the felony of abuse of public funds, when he was head of the RPR and the RPR illegally used personnel provided by the City of Paris for running its operations. He was convicted and sentenced to an 18-month suspended jail sentence, the deprivation of civic rights for five years, and the deprivation of the right to run for political office for 10 years. He appealed the decision, whereupon his disqualification from holding elected office was reduced to one year and the suspended sentence cut to 14 months. He announced he would not appeal the ruling before the Court of Cassation. (See Corruption scandals in the Paris region)

As a consequence, Alain Juppé resigned his mayoralty of Bordeaux and his position of head of the Bordeaux urban community

.

 

[Raheem]

As some in LR push for Fillon to pull out, his spin doctor says that putting Juppé in instead would hand the presidency to Le Pen, because "right wing voters won't vote for Juppé". Is this true, or bollocks? Is he that unpopular with them?

It's true in a sense but misleading. Juppé is several shades to the left of Fillon and he's a noted advocate for liberal positions on race and immigration. So there's a rw constituency that will never go for him.

However, a lot of them are already sold on Le Pen. And, on the other hand, there are undoubtedly a non-negligible number of natural LR voters who are going for Le Pen in polling mainly because of Fillon's dodgy image and a larger number who are going for Macron for the same reason, or because Fillon is too far to the right for their taste. IMO, Juppé would be all but unstoppable if he were back in the race.

 

[Raheem]

Wasn't Juppé banged up for having fictitious employees to illegally fund his political campaign ?


.

He wasn't banged up, but banned from politics for a year. This seems to be forgiven and forgotten, though. I think most French people think, probably naively, that he nobly took the bullet for something everyone around him was tied up in.

 

[J Ed]

The liberal imagination

 

[Casually Red]

Macron likes red,
Fillon likes blue,
Ou est le centre,
De George Pompidou ?

 

[Old Spark]

Fillon "forgets" to declare a 50000 euro loan from businessman.Time to withdraw I think.

 

[stavros]

I think the parties have until next week to officially declare their candidates, so it'll be interesting to see if the powers that be in LR conceive of a way to push Fillon, as he doesn't seem to be going anywhere voluntarily.

 

[Sue]

I think the parties have until next week to officially declare their candidates, so it'll be interesting to see if the powers that be in LR conceive of a way to push Fillon, as he doesn't seem to be going anywhere voluntarily.

Not sure who'd replace him if he did stand down. Juppe's already said he wouldn't stand. The rumour apparently is that Sarkozy told him he'd back him and that he'd work behind the scenes on Fillon's downfall but then changed his mind/stabbed Juppe in the back, prompting his not standing declaration. Who knows though.

 

[stavros]

Fillon's now being accused of taking suits as dodgy gifts.

Les Républicains must be thinking this is Tucker's Law made real.

 

[yield]

Francois Fillon is obviously a corrupt cunt but I suspect it's only coming out because he is pro Russian

France's Fillon tells Merkel Russia sanctions are pointless. Jan 23, 2017

 

[stavros]

It's the first five-way debate tonight; Fillon, Macron, Le Pen, Mélenchon and Hamon.

 

[agricola]

Did Macron really say "one euro paid into the pension system should be worth one euro at pension age" as the Guardian claims?