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Looming Le Pen - French Election 2022

I heard the left will support Le Pen in the second round against Macron. He will raise retirement age, slash benefits etc. Whereas she has toned down the racism and spoken up a welfare state. Pretty dire. Up Melenchon gets in.

You mean some voters who will support Melenchon today will switch to FN for the second phase?

Many of the strongest areas of support for Le Pen are from areas that once consistently voted SP/CP and were long the backbone of the organised working class in France. However, the French left parties long ago decided that they wanted to pursue a strategy of socialism without the working class. These areas and the people in them were written off as ‘backward’, ‘stupid’ and ‘racist’. Sound familiar?

We can now see how all this is working out as even the most cloth eared can hear the chickens begin to come home to roost. It’s something that some of us have been trying to get the British left to focus on (without much success: the received wisdom seems to be it’s the voters that need to change and not those seeking the votes…)
 
I did pay attention in 2012 and 2017, but I've forgotten: do candidates defeated in the first round usually come out backing one or the other of the two in the run-off?
 
No surprises. Macron vs Le Pen it is according to exit polls.

Melenchon got a creditable 20%, but no cigar.

The old two parties polling under 10% between them. They've become an irrelevance.

How Melenchon supporters vote will to a great extent determine the second round result. He does best among the young, so I do expect the anti-Le Pen vote to hold out, but it could be close this time.
 
I did pay attention in 2012 and 2017, but I've forgotten: do candidates defeated in the first round usually come out backing one or the other of the two in the run-off?
Yes they do. Last time I remember Melenchon delaying somewhat and urging 'no votes for Le Pen' rather than outright endorsing Macron.
 
Is Pécresse likely to back one or the other? She's right wing, but she's not FN/NR.
Last time round, both the Gaullists and the Socialists endorsed Macron. I'd be surprised if they didn't do the same again. It's the 'save the Republic' line. But they only have 7% of the vote between them according to the exit polls.
 
Has a something of a feel of Britain 2017 about it. An older leader with genuinely l/w ideas, popular among the young, rallies late on and comes really close to an upset after looking down and out. But fails. :(
 
The old two parties polling under 10% between them. They've become an irrelevance.
In the presidential, and probably parliamental, the Socialists and LR are still hanging on somewhat in the regional and departmental elections.
But this result is only going to keep things heading one way for them. Dreadful result for LR after where they were at the beginning of the year. I expect plenty of infighting there.
 
Pecresse did the equivalent of losing her deposit, except in this case that involves probably millions of euros of lost funding. Hey ho.
 
I'm pleasantly surprised at how much press the French election is getting over here. We don't normally get much coverage of foreign elections, other than the US. I don't remember last year's German election getting anywhere near this coverage.
 
There's a fascist who might win this one. I suspect that's what makes the difference.
whose pitch includes some kind of new union between a frexited france and a brexit britain

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Two way debate tomorrow night. I understand Macron wiped the floor with her in 2017, so it'll be interesting to see how she changes things this time.
 
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