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French Presidential elections

I have been watching a few of Melenchon's speeches, he is a great public speaker. He mixes charisma, wit, humour and passion with ease.

Despite being an otherwise nice man I'd swap Corbyn for Melenchon in an instant.
 
France Rebels | Jacobin

In the campaign you have proposed a critical strategy towards the European Union — a Plan A to reform it from within but a Plan B to exit if this does not work.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon was the first to bring a real response to what happened to Tsipras in Greece. No one had really formalized the idea that in order for there to be negotiation you have to be psychologically prepared to break it off. Otherwise you are not really negotiating. This is the origin of Plan B.

It is a quite basic proposal. If you go looking for a job, or you demand a wage increase, and you say “I will not work unless you pay me five thousand dollars a month” but in truth are prepared to work for one thousand, that is not a negotiation. If, conversely, you tell yourself you really will not accept less than three thousand dollars, that you would go and look for another job, then you really are negotiating, because the guy facing you understands that he will lose you. That is conceivable at the level of everyday human relations, but no one on the European left had thought seriously about how to apply it at the level of European negotiations. All of the large forces thought, “We will negotiate but stay whatever happens.”

To run a campaign on the basis of having a Plan B is a departure and it is important. Plan A already speaks about fiscal and social harmonization, that means having a framework which is not setting workers into a generalized competition, but on the contrary allows a better quality of life for everyone. And if that is not possible, then we will do the same thing — a harmonized framework — with those who are willing. And that principally means targeting the countries of the European south. Putting monetary and economic policy, and public investment, back into open discussion. We face challenges, such as the ecological question, of planetary importance. So it we must have supranational action.

But the recent experience of the European Union is proof that first of all we have to resolve the problems with our own domestic oligarchy. Rather than divide political life between those who are for leaving the European Union and those who are for liberal Europe — and that is the dividing line the far right draws — we have drawn a dividing line between the French people and the oligarchy. The far right simply wants to destroy the European Union, we want to make people see what is wrong with it.
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Marine le Pen wants everyone to know that she definitely would cry at her mother's funeral. But not her father's.
 
In the latest polling via wiki, Mélenchon now polling neck and neck with Fillon around 19-20 %, Macron out front, Le Pen fading a little. Didn't seem likely a while ago that Melenchon could challenge, but with Hamon on the slide, who knows?

Still a fair level of uncertainty wrt spoiling/abstention. I suspect that might contain some shy FN voters, but who knows? It might contain a few who think that for once there's someone worth voting for who'll turn to Melenchon.
 
Academic on UKIP and 'left behind' voters Matthew Goodwin reckons that Mélenchon can make it to the second round.

The polling is definitely trending in that direction

 
J Ed said:
May be an outlier, but look...

Blog Scan Research / Le TerrainJL. Mélenchon devance de peu M. Le Pen.

Mélenchon on 22%, second only to neoliberal paper tiger Macron

En Marche more like in retreat!
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Not very clear what sort of reputation this firm has, but it's worth noting that this is the second poll they have done (ever, it looks like) and the first one had Mélenchon on 19.5% at a time when he was getting around 13% in polls generally.

That said, I do think JLM going through to the second round is completely realistic now.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
In the latest polling via wiki, Mélenchon now polling neck and neck with Fillon around 19-20 %, Macron out front, Le Pen fading a little. Didn't seem likely a while ago that Melenchon could challenge, but with Hamon on the slide, who knows?

Still a fair level of uncertainty wrt spoiling/abstention. I suspect that might contain some shy FN voters, but who knows? It might contain a few who think that for once there's someone worth voting for who'll turn to Melenchon.
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Isn't the margin of error in these polls generally +/-3%
 
ska invita said:
polls last month putting him on 10 and now on 20
??
3% margin or not thats lift off
The tv debate the point where he took off
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I was thinking of proof of the general concept. But I'd be interested in seeing more of your working that e.g
5% -> 10% means at some point candidate x will get 15%.
 
very interesting - melenchon has got momentum. And as a result is suddenly getting a lot of exposure just before the vote. He could well make the final vote ahead of le pen. I guess he'd lost to macron in the head to head as fillon's voters would go to macron. But who knows?
 
of course should jean-luc picard get there macrons support both on the ground and in office will immediately give way and recognise the validity of an anti-austerity candidate with a leftist program. Of course.
 
polls.png

ean-Luc Melenchon, whose polling has leapt from 10-11% to around 19% now. In so doing, the official Socialist party candidate, Benoit Hamon, has seen his vote slump to 6-7%
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bearing that in mind Hamon should really should stand down now....it does look like Melenchon has got his gain directly from Hamon

That said Ive read little about Melenchon or a good breakdown of his policies, just bits here and there.
Theres more bits here France: the choice
Melenchon would also renegotiate the EU treaties, ignore the EU fiscal austerity pact, call for a devaluation of the euro, take national control of the Banque de France from the ECB and leave NATO and the IMF. And following Le Pen, if these measures are blocked, he would have a referendum on EU membership.

Melenchon’s program is similar to that of socialist Francois Mitterand (although somewhat less radical than Mitterand’s) when the latter won the presidency in 1981. He too wanted to take France on an independent line from the rest of Europe in expanding the economy through public spending, nationalisation and more taxes on business and the rich. That program fell down in face of the deep global slump in 1980-2, when financial investors fled France and the franc. The choice then was for Mitterand to go the whole hog and take control from French capital or capitulate to neoliberal policies. He chose the latter with his so-called “tournant de la rigueur” (austerity turn) in 1983. That choice would soon face Melenchon, in the unlikely event that he won the presidency.

Apart from the economic utopianism of Le Pen and Melenchon under capitalism, they both face an immediate political problem. In June, the French vote for a new National Assembly, which, at least right now, would probably elect a majority of conservative pro-capital, pro-EU MPs who would be backed by a media campaign from big business, the EU Commission and other EU governments aiming to shackle the new president. The battle would be on from day one, while the euro and French financial assets reel from the shock.

But it probably won’t happen.
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That said Ive read little about Melenchon or a good breakdown of his policies, just bits here and there.
Click to expand...

Some of his policies (a fairly random list):

- new constitution and "people's assembly" with representatives appointed by lottery
- new controls on redundancy
- retirement set at 60
- support for workers' buyouts
- legalisation of cannabis
- universal free healthcare (partly insurance based in France at present)
- renegotiation of Lisbon Treaty and in-out referendum
- making it illegal make someone homeless by evicting them
- forcing pay-scales on all employers
- large stimulus (I forget the figure)
- special taxes on expensive houses and salaries over 400k
- compulsory education to 18
 
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