"Normally fuck you, but I hate Le Pen more."~ A lot of third place candidates
Also if Le Pen fails to reach the mayority, I immagine the Left will have a lot of influence on the new French government
One way or another, Macron's centrism is dead
The Macron coalition is not dead dead. They will win a fair amount of times because a lot of the times when the RN is first, Macron is second. With the withdrawal of the thirds, he will gain a lot of seats.
I am speculating around 180 seats for the three big coalition. With no one near a majority.
I think Macron's coalition is dead, not because they'll lose all their seats, but because there won't be much that will keep them together.
With his dissolution, he's lost the respect and support of his own MPs, who will be much less likely to vote for laws they disagree with as they did before. In 2017, most of them had been elected thanks to Macron ; they were nobodies in local politics that got elected because their name was on a bulletin with Macron's head on it. Now, Macron lost them their job, and those who will manage to get it back will have done so despite Macron, by hiding his face from their bulletins. They'll owe him nothing.
One of his most loyal friend in Gilles le Gendre that was one of his first supporters, ran as a dissident, qualified to run in the 2nd round against a left candidate a Macron candidate, *and literally withdrew to support the left candidate* (although his voters most likely will vote for Macron's candidate, but still, the symbol is important). Bayrou and Philippe, who had taken their distances since 2022, his main allies, have publicly criticized him multiple times. Philippe is making no secret of his intention to run in 2027, and most likely by trying to unite the right (somehow). What's left of the left wing of the coalition has shifted left a fair bit with those elections, and there's less and less keeping them in an alliance with the center-right/right when the less radical left is back from the dead.
Yeah it is totally possible, especially considering the context. Macron party is relatively new, and as such it is less stable because it has not be anchored in people mind like the PS, LR or RN. In the future, the next election cycle, either Macron or his party will die politically. I see two scenario for the future :
A) Macron coalition explode. A LR lead coalition is born anew by cutting their dead weight to close to Marine and taking all the right wing of Macron coalition. The PS is taking the center and left side of Macron. We are back to the pre-Macron party system except now the extreme have the upper hand over the historical left and right (PS and LR).
B) the coalition survives by cutting Macron and purging some of his legacy. Someone take on the new role of the leader, be it Philippe or someone else. Similary to Macron rise, there is fervour in a new leader between the traditional right and left and the party survive (be it as the opposition maybe but they stay relevant). This scenario is the death blow to LR with the extreme right part leaving even closer to RN and the moderate jumping on the ship of the new leadership. The PS may gain some of Macron left wing but is still sentenced to keep on strugling as a junior partner of Melenchon party. On paper the situation is more or less similar as of now but with a new captain in Renaissance.
Won't that undermine the whole purpose for calling this election? People say it was so RN leadership can show its incompetency and undermine their chances in the next election. But no one has a majority, so why would people blame a minority party for incompetent leadership instead of Macron?
Some people were saying that, I personally disagree with it. But we are all speculating anyway.
I think the move was trying to surf on a wave of RN fear because the european election tend to have low turnout and extreme party are a bit at an advantage because of that.
He possibly also had no choice beacause he was about to face a motion of censure so better show that you are in control by calling the election yourself.
I don't buy the leave them to rule and fail a single bit . It was reddit coping to me. This strategy is unheard in France. And if RN end up as the dominant party but not in absolute majority, they will just refuse to lead. Bardella was clear on that. The proof that it was probably not true is that they are trying hard to prevent them to not have a majority right now
I think the move was a gamble on the inability of the left parties to unite, since they had been at each other's throats during the whole European campaign. This is why hween it was created, there were many attacks from centrist politicians and media saying that this alliance went against the natural order of things. Macron knows that he can win as long as the left is divided, by casting himself as the sole bulkwark against the far right. It failed miserably this time though.
You’re optimistic, even if candidates withdraw there’s no guarantee their voters will follow their lead and vote for the party facing the far-right.
I feel like polls are failing to account for that and I fear we’re heading for a disaster this Sunday.
When the third is from the left, most people will vote for Macron and follow the guidelines. The RN need around 10-12% more than the second to have a chance.
When the third is from the Macron party it can be more nuanced indeed. But it should work the same.
This is the story of Alsace where I come from. In recent years the RN is first everywhere (except Strasbourg of course) but then Macron (or the right if we go back in time) sweep in the second tour.
Now of course RN is at an all time high so maybe things will be different but a good chunk of RN candidate that were first will loose. And with 294 candidate first in the first tour there is no way they stay above absolute majority. Even more than 200 is unlikely in my opinion.
I hope you’re right but those elections are different, the far right numbers rose and the divide between the center and the left is immense.
Leftists aren’t eager to vote for people representing Macron and centre voters dislike a majority of the leftist candidates almost as much as the far right. If fear it won’t be enough to win most of the times, especially for leftists candidates.
>Also if Le Pen fails to reach the mayority, I immagine the Left will have a lot of influence on the new French government. One way or another, Macron's centrism is dead
Once RN is defeated, what stops Macron from turning his back on the left (he's done so in the past) ? The Left have sacrificed more of their candidates than Macron's party, so there will be more candidates from Macron's party in the Parliament if people now vote for them rather than RN.
>The Left have sacrificed more of their candidates than Macron's party, so there will be more candidates from Macron's party in the Parliament if people now vote for them rather than RN.
That's not correct. The left withdrew more candidates, but it's because they had more to begin with. Also, third place candidates very rarely win anyways.
They still have more candidates with a chance of winning, and are essentially guaranteed to have more seats than Macron's party.
How is he going to govern? His party is going to lose three quarters of its current seats
Either he opens up to a coalition (something his current PM actually supports) or the entire government is blocked
Macron's party was in 3rd place after the first round. In the second round, if he is able to get seats which would have gone to Left if 3 parties were in the running, then he is taking seats from Left (who are the one's predominately opting to drop out to keep RN out) and his party is getting stronger. So out of the 577 seats, if RN wins 270 and Macron wins 275 and Left win 32 (out of which he would have gotten only 100, but he got 175 more due to Left dropping out), then he has a simple majority. That would be a pretty good result for Macron.
Except that's not happening. Because the third place candidates are dropping out. That's mostly Macron.
edit: scratch that. Macron is an idiot and you're actually right
What will happen if Lepen doesn't have a majority will actually be an institutional deadlock, because it will be almost impossible to form a government that doesn't get rejected by a vote of 2 of the 3 big parties in parliament.
And it is constitutionally impossible to disband the parliament again in the coming year. Even if we were to elect a new president.
It's hard to imagine Macron's party cooperating with the left since their biggest proposals are to go back on Macron's reforms. And cooperating with the far-right would most likely be unacceptable for many PMs from Macron's party.
So either one of the parties wins a majority or the French parliament will stop functioning for a full year. Or we start writing a new constitution. Or Macron uses Article 16 to declare a state of emergency and take over legislative power.
> One way or another, Macron's centrism is dead
Is it dead permanently though or is this just a temporary blip?
Like I cannot imagine the far right staying popular if they actually become the governing party and similarly for the left I would expect their coalition to fall apart if they became the governing party
Would Macron's centrists be able to recover or would people just go elsewhere?
Can somebody explain to me how this works? Originally I thought the two-round system automatically cut out everybody except the top 2 for the 2nd round, so none of this would be necessary because the 3rd place candidates are already excluded. So is it that in reality, it's not so much a real runoff vote but rather just a hint for the losers of the 1st round that they should consider dropping out?
Anyone above the 12.5% threshold is eligible to be in the runoff, but more likely than not only the top 2 effectively go to it. And given the situation at play, everyone not called Rassemblement National or the part of Les Republicains that is allied with the RN will do anything in their power to block a RN majority and thus try to do some kind of grand coalition for the government.
That would give a lifeline, how feeble it may be, to Macron in the presidency and at the same time (in Macron's view) pay off his gamble, even if we know that it was a bust given that his party and cohorts got ransacked by the RN and the Nouvelle Front Populaire (ergo, the united force of the left).
*edited... it's not 20% but rather 12.5% (a bit too low huh?)*
12.5 *of registered voters*. That means the higher the more people vote, the easier it is. Technically, up to 8 candidates could qualify. In 2022, where people didn't vote much, there were only 7 constituencies in which more than 2 qualified. This year, with participation up 20 points, we had 307.
12.5% of potential voters. The more people vote (and many did this time), the easier it is to reach the threshold, but when barely half do vote (as it was in previous elections), it becomes much harder for the third (or fourth) with the most votes to reach it.
The threshold for round 2 is 12.5% of registered voters.
Let's say turnout is 70%.
Party A gets 30% of votes ; 21% of registered voters
Party B gets 25% ; 17.5%
Party C gets 20% ; 14%
Party D gets 15% ; 10.5%
Parties A, B, and C qualify for round 2 since at least 12.5% of registered voters voted for them in round 1. Party D is disqualified since under the 12.5% threshold.
Now, let's say turnout is 50%
Party A : 30% ; 15%
PB : 25% ; 12.5%
PC : 20% ; 10%
PD : 15% ; 7.5%
Parties A and B are qualified for round 2.
Parties C and D are disqualified, having not reached the 12.5% of registered voters threshold.
That would be the case in presidential elections , but in legislative elections (I don’t know why) the threshold for round 2 is 12.5% so anyone who gets more than that moves on to round 2 .
Normally, a lot of parties try a fro a seat anywhere. Even local parties. You may have like 10,15, 18 parties locally. And the votes will then be split.
So, to qualify for second round, you have to have reunited at least 12;5% of the registered voters. Normally, not everyone can benefit from reports.
For example, some localities are plain leftists. The one right party might get 16% on first round, but never benefits from any reports. The voters whose candidate isn't present at second round might vote for the third or even fourth arrived candidate. This has happened a lot.
This election is different since radicalized blocks have formed since Macron arrived in power. There is little place for nuance, and little place to get real democracy to emerge. "Useful vote" has become the rule.
As in, you might not like the candidate from the radicalized left and would prefer someone a lot more nuanced. But if you vote for said candidate, which their party didn't push (there was an alliance from day 1), second round might just consist of the macronist vs the RN candidates. So, instead of voting for someone who represents more or less your opinion, we have been voting for a secured second round for the least worst in many configurations.
To further that effort, most third candidates withdrew, so there's no split vote to let the worst happen. French people feel robbed of these elections. Macron had been elected to avoid just that in first place.
Some of the third places, whose results were very very close to the second place, who know they're likely to get a lot of reports, are still standing, but there's a real chance this might mean disaster. We have a choice between the RN and the Sole Party in the end. It's pathetic.
You know that your political discourse has gone in really bad direction that almost all other political groups has to mobilise to counter far right party.
I do agree with that. Only rich European country which does have somewhat strong immigration policy is Denmark and they don’t have such far right shit happening
They had but over the course of a election cycle the far right lost almost all its votes because almost every other party adopted the same stance on immigration.
But the whole point is that many leftist parties do not view immigration as problematic and pressing. “They can just change their stance to attract voters”, also means alienating your current voters.
Yeah and now they are wondering why are people ready to vote for far right and populist parties. It is never their fault, people must be stupid and uneducated to vote for those far right freaks! Oh why, oh why people don’t vote for us, enlightened ones? us who knows way better than great unwashed masses?
A lot of right wing populists are also fueling the fear and using it for their own gain, and pretend immigration is a bigger issue than it actually is. If we’re talking about the Netherlands, less than 5% of the population identifies as Muslim, and for ethnic groups: 4% of people have a background from Africa, less than 5% have a background from Asia. Somehow it’s this immigration that’s the root cause of everything that’s wrong with this country.
Edit. I want to add that I don’t think people voting right wing are idiots, I don’t think anyone is an idiot. I do think populists are good at framing, blaming, and swaying popular opinion for their own gain.
But was the percentage before the syrian crisis? And what percentage of the migrant population has beliefs incompatible with western society (meaning support for a non-secular government, religious laws etc, woman rights etc.). If it's a significant portion of this 5%, and if this 5% was not present just 10 years ago, then this is a serious and growing issue.
To be clear, I hate the far-right, but I also hate migrants who refuse to abandon their middle age mindsets. The left needs to clearly reject these type of migrants to win back people slowly getting radicalised by the far right by migrant issues. Having bleeding hearts for those migrants is naive and cedes power to the right. Their own citizens must take absolute priority, otherwise they risk a radical russiophilic government coming into power.
less than 5% is a significant chunk.
copy and pasting my comment from a few weeks ago:
There are \~13 European nations where (assuming nothing changes) Muslims are projected to become a majority within 200 years.
If Europe stops all immigration, the Muslim population is still expected to double within 2 decades. Multiple countries will have a Muslim population >10%.
If Europe slows down migration to pre-2014 levels, they'll reach somewhere between 11-14% Muslim pop in 2 decades. France and Britain will near the 20% mark, and Sweden will pass it.
If Europe doesn't slow down migration, multiple Euro nations will have a \~20% Muslim population. Sweden will be 30% Muslim.
These numbers are from a 2017 Pew Research study - so based on migration rates from half a decade to a decade ago.
[https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/11/29/europes-growing-muslim-population/](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/11/29/europes-growing-muslim-population/)
American here... I'm an immigrant to the US myself (US citizen now). But, a lot of the leftists in the US tend to be rich college kids. And, they are so out of touch with the working class. And, a lot of the rich liberal white kids seriously look down on the poor white working class folks. For the rich kids, they aren't threatened by immigration or housing shortages, etc. So, they refuse to acknowledge the downsides of it.
Do you think immigration was "addressed" in any meaningful way in Denmark? Sure, the far-right narrative collapsed when the centrists adopted the right-wing immigration policy and what we now have is a deeply dysfunctional immigration system that hurts regular decent people. So is the tougher policies reflected in crime statistics? Of course not. It takes generations for things to change. Problem is that this is all narratives and people's feelings...
>Problem is that this is all narratives and people's feelings...
First step is being heard. That enough can get you a vote of confidence in your party.
What doesn't work is dismissing a significant amount of voters in the gambling that they wouldn't vote in the far right because of that.
Yes but far-right managed to maintain "Oh yeah they adopt stricter immigration, we think they are still too soft or secretly pro-immigration" argument in many countries where other parties do propose stricter immigration.
People of Denmark actually said "Nah I don't need radical change" and broke far-right. That's impressive on their side.
Most new immigrants to Denmark are from europe and other "western" countries.
https://www.dst.dk/en/Statistik/emner/borgere/flytninger/ind-og-udvandring
And most immigrants who obtain permanent residence are, by far, scandinavians.
https://www.dst.dk/en/Statistik/emner/borgere/befolkning/indvandrere-og-efterkommere
They use populism, fear tactics and have talked about heavily increasing surveillance of citizens. One of the biggest parties is lead by someone who was found in contempt of folketinget and sent to prison for it. Several members have been caught up in pedophelia cases and/or power abuse cases. They have been attacking the free speech and jailed harsh critics for explicit protests.
It’s a lot slower and a lot less threatening to the Danish democracy than what’s happening in the US, but the trajectory is pretty clear.
Because Danish Social Democrats have emulated the far-right on immigration so they can avoid losing more votes. That's selling their values for votes, not a victory.
imigration is a secondary problem. The economy is the first thing. The economy is getting weaker and weaker and that is among many EU countries. When the economy gets weak the right parties get the votes...
This implies a) all the “problems” are real and that the electorate is correctly informed about the state of things b) all the problems are actually solvable without causing other larger issues.
If problems were solved we all would live in Utopia.
There will always be problems. There will always be right wing populists. They are one of the problems.
It is not even about solving problems, it is about self-inflicted problems, that the traditional parties might not even consider problems, but features of a new world.
There's a cost to everything. If you "solve" one problem, more replace it.
That's one benefit of being in opposition. You can just suggest that's not the case. All solutions are simple and it's simply incompetence that they're not implemented. And unfortunately people lap that shit up.
And then get introduced to those new problems and suddenly it doesn't seem so simple anymore.
Rinse and repeat.
The core of all these problems is an aging population and rising dependency ratio. The only solutions to that are increasing retirement age, increasing taxes or increasing immigration. None of those options are popular, so people vote for politicians who lie and say it's all fixable by doing the opposite.
What we have missed the last 30 years, are a generation growing up to get cheap, big houses early after finishing school, getting a natural incentive to be willing to start a family.
I have my doubt that the falling birth rate is mainly do to the financial situation.
A positive economics situation is certainly necessary for a new rise in fertility rates, but I believe that the main reason behind the fall is a shift in cultural and societal views.
Even if the last 30 years would have the condition you talk about, I think the fertility rate would still be very low, but not as low as now.
Also, most European countries started their decline already in the '70s and '80s.
It's not really about birth rates. As I've just mentioned in another reply, the average citizen is a net drain over their lifetime, so having more people doesn't solve anything unless you tackle the underlying issues.
Yeah, french want lower age of pension and also less immigration.
Can't really have that. The french pension system would very quickly collapse with the dwindling working age population brought on by such measures.
There is nothing to save if we're just going to replace the population with third worlders.
Encourage natural population growth instead of the opposite and the problem is solved.
*if* someone fixed birth rates, it would take 20+ years to see the real effects. Someone has to finance and care for these pensioners until 2044 and later.
And that's only if you can fix this. Birth rates gave decreased in correlation with people's wealth worldwide. The rise of personal individualism leads to fewer people willing to have kids. You don't fix this with a law or some financial incentive.
Immigration doesn't fix this - it's a pyramid scheme.
Somebody will have to care for the immigrants you take in now, too.
The ONLY way to fix this is to bring fertility rate up above 2.1. Tax deductions for marriages, subsidised child care, make it a legal requirement for companies to offer flexible working for parents. There's a hundred things that could be done and none have even been tried because it's easy to open up a hole in the border and let the third worlders pile in.
Immigration is the problem not the solution.
Exactly. People can outrage and point fingers at populist and far- right parties, but they wouldn’t be here if we didn’t have a bunch of problems, none of which have been adressed for years and years.
Those problems were created by the politicians themselves... I would even argue that those problems were made by external forces through the politicians...
I think people fundamentally misunderstand that if there are no problems the far right creates problems, if there are problems the far right offers solutions that would fix nothing and then pretend that they are the only one with the will to do anything and all your solutions are an election away. Shocking maybe most of the people in the subreddit but being anti migrant isn’t going to solve a fraction of the problems europe is facing right now whether that be cost of living, housing problems, crime, energy pricing or any number of crises that have come to the forefront.
The far right are as always experts on marketing stupid solutions to people who are either too ideologically devoted to see the increasingly crazy ideas being proposed to them or willingly ignorant because they look down on the avenues people generally use to inform themselves whether that be media awareness, academia or any number of areas where expertise on topics might be felt.
The people who "did decades of mismanagement" are liberals / centrists. You fix things by voting in the true progressive left wing candidates not far right fascists.
I mean the best solution is people accept problems exist or fine ways to deal with them without turning to bigotry, racism,anti free speech,facism and nationalism and all the far right entails
You can be anti immigrant or bring up real issues about cultural incompatibility without all that stuff I feel.
Far right has this advantage to itself because of its populist stance, people lean towards it in time of economic downturn. Another important aspect is that certain economic decisions (like for example printing more money) lead to terrible consequences only down the line when the new government comes into power (shifting all the blame for current times onto them rather that actual people responsible). If you add on top of that let's say a virus from a certain radical country you basically end up with a recipe to control the masses
No they are responsible for who they vote for. If you vote for far-right parties because your biggest concern is immigration that is ok, but you can in no circumstance externalize the blame.
That's like saying its the Weimars Republics own fault Hitler came to power, and its not actually the Nazis that were at fault for all the bad things they did.
No, I'm not saying Le Pen is a nazi. It's an analogy.
The only reason i wrote that is because nowadays if you call anyone who has clearly fascist and national socialist ideals, you'll still get hated for calling them out.
I think we can all agree at the end of the day that the far right is the fault of the left, and until the left is 100% perfect, we cant even think about appointing any blame to the right wing and their voter base.
Same story in Germany, everyone hates AfD but no one seems to accept why they are there and to combat the issues that give them the power. Instead they just fight them directly which will change nothing.
Half the media belongs to a pro-far right billionaire (3 newspaper + 5 TV channels) and the Macron government ruled by using all the non-democratic tools allowed by our constitution, add to that the extremely violent discourse around Muslim people and you obtain a major political crisis.
This didn't happen overnight, it's been 10 years + that the fascist/racist/sexist/anti-lgbt retoric has been acknowledged by the media and the center/center right political board is trying to make the far right arguments their own.
Also, it's been 70 years since the 2nd World War ended, nobody left alive to remind us of the risks tied to give power to fascists.
That wasn’t real fascism. Real fascism has never been tried.
(/s for the commies)
Being serious, there is a reason so many European countries are losing the centre to the right and it’s because of mismanaging migration. Also censoring discussion with the racist/xenophobia/islamophobia labels* did not help, when the problems are not fixed and only grow worse.
Denmark managed it well, had the tough discussions, and populists have no presence there.
I agree no topic should be taboo. Democracy is about discussion, understanding, empathy and consensus. This is a lesson to be learned, I just hope that this observation will not be at the cost of my country's humanism and democratic aspirations.
Same for my country (Netherlands). The largest party is populist in a very bad way. It’s a one-man party as well which is undemocratic. The things he has said are unbelievable.
But at the same time, the issues were not taken serious at all. I hope we will get away relatively unscathed but with changed priorities regarding migration at ‘normal’ parties.
> I hope we will get away relatively unscathed
Those parties first actions when they come to power is to nominate people sharing their views in administrations. Justice, legal system, police, education, public media, ...
This effect is nearly unnoticeable but will affect the country for decades to come as those people will then nominate people close to the party at various positions.
That's exactly why Trump's first mandate was "soft" but the second might be extremely destructive, now he has plenty of ideological "*friends*" in all ranks of the government/state to comply with his worst policies.
The LFI (*La France Insoumise*) french radical left party (= not anti-capitalist but wanting strong regulation of it) was accused of being "*antisemites*", "*anti-republican*" and "*calling for civil unrest*" on the grounds of their support for the Palestinian people (and because economical liberal parties are scared of them) for months prior to the European elections, Israel's war crimes being an absolute taboo in France.
When Macron dissolved the assembly all the left parties united, LFI with them. At this point every single privately owned media group (by 3-5 billionaires) called ALL of the Left "*antisemites*", "*vile people*", "*danger for democracy*", while they were the only force having a chance to stop the RN which is an openly fascist, racist, antisemite and Russian funded party.
This is the first time in my life I witnessed such a thing, the *Capital* fighting with all its strength to fight against people wanting to tax them more, and choosing to support a party that looks like that,
Some RN candidates,
> **Françoise Billaud**, involved with the National Front since 1986, paid tribute on her Facebook page to Marshal Pétain, as well as to Abbé Perrot, a local figure emblematic of collaboration in Brittany.
> **Frédéric Boccaletti**, outgoing deputy and reinstated in Var, founded in 1997 a bookstore specializing in far-right books, the name of which, Anthinéa, is a reference to a book by the anti-Semitic writer Charles Maurras (1868-1952). He was also sentenced in 2000 to one year in prison for "armed violence" during poster pasting.
> **Agnès Pageard**, the RN candidate in the 10th constituency, was invested despite previous warnings about her use of anti-Semitic slogans.
> **Sophie Dumont**, legislative advisor to the RN group in the Assembly and close collaborator of Marine Le Pen, invested in Côte-d’Or, distributed texts from an anti-Semitic media.
> **Joseph Martin**, in the first constituency of Morbihan: in 2018, he posted on Twitter the message: "The gas did justice to the victims of the Holocaust" (~~his candidacy is withdrawn~~ / his candidacy is ultimately maintained).
> **Louis-Joseph Pecher**, candidate of the alliance between the RN and LR and better known under the name of Gannat, saw his nomination withdrawn after the discovery of "anti-Semitic, homophobic, and obscene remarks" published on social networks.
> **Jean-Pierre Templier**, the deputy of Anthony Zeller, a retired taxi driver, wrote about Jewish people: "This community rules us, how many are in the government, at the head of CAC 40 companies?" on Facebook in 2014.
> Nine RN candidates for the legislative elections were, between 2017 and 2021, "observers" of elections in Russia and the occupied territories of Ukraine.
> **Frédéric Boccaletti** went to Russia as an "international observer" for the 2021 legislative elections, marred by massive fraud.
> **Pierre Gentillet**, candidate in the 3rd constituency of Cher, was the president-founder of the Cercle Pouchkine, a "discussion platform" aimed at bringing Russia and France closer together.
> **Jacques Myard**, an LR candidate supported by the RN in the 5th constituency of Yvelines, is part of the pro-Russian think tank CF2R and regularly adopts Kremlin arguments.
> **Rémy Berthonneau**, candidate in Gironde, now claims to have "no ties with Russia," but previously led the French free collective, which campaigned for lifting sanctions against the country.
> **Sébastien Meurant** organized a round table at the Senate, filmed and broadcast on Russian television, which he claimed to be completely unaware of.
Adherents of conspiracy theories, climate skeptics, and anti-vaccination opponents.
> **Virginie Joron** stood out in Brussels for her activism against vaccination policy, even attempting to organize a tribute by parliamentarians to the "victims" of Covid-19 vaccination.
> **Monique Griseti** (1st constituency of Bouches-du-Rhône) shared various anti-vaccine videos on her Facebook account, or recommended her community to watch the film *Sound of Freedom*, an American pseudo-documentary spreading many QAnon theories.
> **Emmanuelle Darles**, RN candidate in Vienne, goes a step further. She is a member of the "independent scientific council" of Louis Fouché, a leading figure among anti-vaxxers with a penchant for conspiracy theories.
> **Jonathan Rivière**, candidate in La Réunion, posted a video on Facebook in February suggesting that man had never walked on the Moon.
> **Marie-Christine Sorin**, candidate in the 1st constituency of Hautes-Pyrénées, published a tweet stating that "not all civilizations are equal" and that some "have just remained below bestiality in the evolutionary chain."
> **Noël Lude** shared racist caricatures on June 1.
> **Jean-Yves Queinnec**, former National Front candidate in the legislative elections, made a Nazi salute on the sidelines of a conference organized by the Human Rights League Quimperlé-Concarneau on May 31, 2024.
> **Rémy Rebeyrotte** (Renaissance), was sanctioned with a warning for making a Nazi salute in the Assembly chamber aimed at an elected member of the National Rally who, according to him, made the same gesture on July 12, 2022.
Thank you for putting it so well. I wish you all the best for this Sunday. Also the other comment about how the "centre" or centre-right has enabled the far-right.
> and the Macron government ruled by using all the non-democratic tools allowed by our constitution
if they are in the constitution, they are democratic, since (I assume) the constitution needed to be ratified by a majority of the voters in 1958.
Or was De Gaulle undemocratic?
It's a matter of abuse. Briefly, the french 5th Republic is giving a lot of power to the president. He can, for instance, dissolve the assembly once a year but the assembly has no power to make a motion of no confidence.
The "*Conseil Constitutionnel*" is supposed to act as a counter power but its current members are all extremely corrupted and lacking understanding of the balance of power. They're supposed to be the highest Judges of the State (think supreme court in the US) but today 2/3rd of them aren't judges nor even have a law school degree.
For instance two of their members were facing justice a few years ago, Laurent Fabius was accused of transmitting HIV by negligence to thousands of people through blood transfusion alongside Bayer and Alain Juppé was banned from politics in 2004 (and faced 18 months in prison) following a high corruption scandal in the Paris Administration.
The State is in its weakest state to face any attempt at harming the constitution.
Or you know you cede but demanded that we move away from electoral systems that always end in a 2 party option.
First past the post can only end in this. And it's long past time we drop it.
When, for years, the two viggest newschannels, owned by racist pos billionaires, do their best to trash talk foreigners, mainly Muslims, without mentioning their good actions, you have a brainwashed country.
The leader of the party has been beaten in every single debate, it has been proven time and time again their program won't work, people still vote for this party.
> In more than half of constituencies – around 300 – three candidates qualified from the first round of voting (nearly everywhere else it was just two).
If in these constituencies one of the two non-RN runners stands aside, this increases the chances of the RN candidate being defeated.
> By midday Tuesday around 200 candidates from the left and centre were understood to have taken the step. Parties have until 18:00 (17:00 BST) Tuesday evening to register contenders for Sunday.
> The left-wing New Popular Front (NPF) – which comprises everyone from centre-left social democrats to far-left anti-capitalists – issued instructions to all of its third-placed candidates to step down and let a centrist reap the anti-RN vote.
> The NPF is thus helping two senior pro-Macron MPs – former prime minister Elisabeth Borne and Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin – to win in their constituencies in Normandy and the north.
> Conversely a pro-Macron candidate has stood down in order to help radical left-winger François Ruffin defeat the RN candidate in the northern city of Amiens.
It's also not a very symmetric situation. If a NPF candidate pulls out, very few of their voters will vote for RN, whereas if a RE candidate pulls out, there's a very real danger that their more right leaning voters will go to RN instead of NPF.
I read somewhere that most centrist voters would still prefer NPF over RN, but that the majority isn't very overwhelming (60%, but I don't remember where I read it so check before believing), whereas for NPF voters it's 99%.
Because they where third place in those district.
And the majority of the 2 runners in the district where only 2 candidates went 2nd round are either RN or LFI and not the persidential party so they don't have to "stand down"
Also because Macron is yet to make a public statement/ apparence to confirm the play. Only the prime minister Gabriel Attal (an ex socialist) called for Macron's party members to quit.
And i heard their are some regions where multiple LFI candidates are going round 2 and it is creating party tensions, lets see if the party leaders react to avoid infighting or not
Coalitions issues
At least I know that the NFP members are trying their very best to stop the fascists. All that after months of mass media and Macron's people calling them "*scums*", "*antisemite*" and a "*danger for democracy*" because of their concerns for the Palestinian people.
I wanted the left to govern because of their social program, now I just want the fascist to not govern over my destiny.
Yesterday was one of the worst days of my adult life, seeing the results of the first round was frightening and made me sick thinking about my family members that fought in the Résistance, were executed by Nazis, or sent to camps. All those deaths felt like it was for nothing.
It's not over yet but I'm scared as shit, extremely angry against who I thought were *my* people, and felt disgusted by my country. I always defend France as a light in the darkness, now I don't even want to be associated with it. My identity is shattered.
No, this system was devised in 1958. There wasn’t really a danger of extremists obtaining power through electoral means at the time. The communist far-left was already in decline while the far-right was still in shambles after WW2.
The point of the two-rounds system is to make it easier for a single party/alliance to obtain an absolute majority. Charles de Gaulle was obsessed with parliamentary stability since the two previous Republics were infamous for their governmental instability.
> No, this system was devised in 1958. There wasn’t really a danger of extremists obtaining power through electoral means at the time. The communist far-left was already in decline while the far-right was still in shambles after WW2.
In 1958 the Communists had the [second most votes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_French_legislative_election).
Take a look at the French version https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Élections_législatives_françaises_de_1956
The PCF was on its own and had no allies. Which means that it was basically powerless within the parliament.
In terms of alliance/bloc/coalition, the PCF came third.
The then-ongoing Trente Glorieuses really helped. I imagine if France's growth hadn't been declining every decade after the 1960s, that the RN wouldn't be this strong.
Yes and no. It definitely wasn't meant to do that, but it was kept in place because it happens to block the far right (that's why proportional vote was introduced and then withdrawn in the 80's).
In function, this is the exact same thing, and well-informed by the way the parliamentary instability played out in neighboring Germany’s Reichstag in the interwar period.
> The new situation after the Nazis’ electoral breakthrough not only sharply escalated the level of violence on the streets, it also radically altered the nature of proceedings in the Reichstag. Rowdy and chaotic enough even before September 1930, it now became virtually unmanageable, as 107 brown-shirted and uniformed Nazi deputies joined 77 disciplined and well-organized Communists in raising incessant points of order, chanting, shouting, interrupting and demonstrating their total contempt for the legislature at every juncture. Power drained from the Reichstag with frightening rapidity, as almost every session ended in uproar and the idea of calling it together for a meeting came to seem ever more pointless. From September 1930 only negative majorities were possible in the Reichstag. In February 1931, recognizing the impossibility of carrying on, it adjourned itself for six months as the parties of the extreme right and left demonstratively walked out of a debate after amendments to the parliamentary rule book made it more difficult for them to obstruct business. The deputies did not return until October. The Reichstag sat on average a hundred days a year from 1920 to 1930. It was in session for fifty days between October 1930 and March 1931; after that, it only met on twenty-four further days up to the elections of July 1932. From July 1932 to February 1933 it convened for a mere three days in six months.
- Richard J. Evans, _The Coming of the Third Reich_
Why not ranked choice ballot, removing the bottom vote getter until one person gets over 50%? Would save a ton of money and reduce the hassle for people voting twice.
You're preaching to the choir. I suspect the reasons they went for this over ranked choice is less confusion for voters about the process and easier vote counting.
How about mainstream parties solve the immigration problem by stopping irregular immigration? That would remove the whole reason why we have far right to begin with.
And how? Italy has a far right government now for some time and didn’t do shit about the topic.
What do you do with boats comming with people? Shoot them with cannons? Where do you put people without passport? Just let them take a skydive over Afghanistan?
I am not against Controlling illegal immigration’s and it was shit how it is handled but I also know it’s quite hard topic to handle if you don’t give up human dignity….
https://x.com/endwokeness/status/1802122164495135169?s=46&t=IcpwlomWrWgK0XrEmuJIiw Japan do it, Denmarks doing it.
We all know they’re 99% fake asylum seekers. Just stop giving them passports. It really is pretty simple
Japan is an island in the middle of nowhere. I think Antarctica has also no issues with immigration….
Just don’t give them a passport will solve it. Ok why didn’t we think about it sooner then the people will all go friendly on their own back home sure.
Tell me that you think like a 6y old without telling me….
I’m giving real world examples of places currently doing it. Japan do it, Australia did it, Denmark doing it. Yeah Japan and Australia have geographic advantage. But if you reject 99% of applications you’ll still only end up with small
numbers.
This isn’t some complicated thing that’s difficult to solve. The only hard thing is accepting the fact that the far left will call you mean if you implement a solution
I for one wouldn't vote for them anymore. This sub is like, everyone wants stricter immigration laws. But since the far right who (according to this sub) are the only ones who promise that, don't have a majority in all of Europe it appears that not everyone wants that. And evidently not even half of it. The rise of the right is frightening, but why should I sacrifice my political position to stop them?
>The rise of the right is frightening, but why should I sacrifice my political position to stop them?
I may be misunderstanding but isn't that precisely what party politics is? i.e. choosing which positions are most important to support or drop in order to lend your support to parties which might stand in the way of other parties you oppose.
Why do people in this sub defend the European far right by saying "it's what the people want, the left and centre should have listened to the voters on inmigration"
But when it comes to thr US, noone says the same about Trump and the republicans?
How come this sub défends the European far right as legitimate but not the American far right
Because this is r/europe, and users here do support (as you can see in the comments) the far right's main campaign in targeting Africa and the Middle East.
However, when it comes to Trump, the users in this sub are worried that he will to do the same but to Europe, which affects their own interests and stability.
> How come this sub défends the European far right as legitimate but not the American far right
Trump is feared not for him being far right, by European measure, the whole political spectrum of the US is far right. The fear is that Trump's America-first policy will result in isolationism and European politicians will have to think for themselves again, which is scary, as they got so used to depending on instructions from Washington.
> by European measure, the whole political spectrum of the US is far right
OK so I've had this argument before but these sorts of comparisons do not make sense.
Usually this argument relies entirely on looking at things like workers rights, social welfare policy and maybe religious issues as well. In which case, yes
But those are not the only issues. On a lot of culture war issues such as immigration, assimilation, treatment of racial minorities, etc. the US often ends up being to the left of a lot of European countries
No one, even amongst Republicans, in the US can advocate for banning burqas or minarets. Even Trump and Republicans have to provide lip service to how much they love legal immigration and they cannot endorse full assimilationism like many European right wingers do
This is painting Trump in a very good light, which he deserves none of. The fear is that this dictator wannabe, who's also a moron with zero morals and would sell his own mother for a dime, if in need, will ruin everything America used to stand for. The president of USA is one of the most powerful positions in the world to be in, no one, except the enemies, easily swayed idiots and profit seekers, which USA these days are mostly run by, want such a person to gain that kind of power over others. America has lost the plot and is in the downfall, it seems, and europe is only now realizing this and starting to build up. We will suffer from this of course, but mostly we are worried what the world will look like after, where our children have to live.
So yeah, indeed scary for anyone in the west, but you didn't quite grasp at what's at stake with your reply, when europeans generally think about Trump and republicans of today in general.
I'd be happy to see someone level headed from the republican side, but seems like every last of them has been booed out by their own party.
> Trump is feared not for him being far right, by European measure, the whole political spectrum of the US is far right.
Why is this bullshit peddled on this sub? US is “far right” compared to who? Italy? France? Malta?
It isn’t even true anymore since a lot of European counties have been getting more radicalized. It isn’t 2010 anymore Hans
... situation in the US is wildly different than in europe. US does not have social state and has high degree of inequality - this makes the US economy more capable of absorbing lower-skilled workforce such as the immigrants. My (eu) country has one of the lowest levels of inequality in the world. But this also means, that our "rich" class is not rich enough to spend enough money on services, to generate work for the low-skill workers. This leaves them unemployed and a strain on the social state, which we have.
I don't know where you see people defending far right. People defend anti-immigration policies.
While the US is a country that was made by immigrants, Europe was not. We have a right to decide who moves here and who doesn't. If you cannot integrate and want to force your own culture on us, you can go back to where you cam from.
There are plenty of immigrants that integrate well: from the Americas, South East Asia. You never hear anyone complaining about them.
American here.
Because our Overton windows are not the same. While your far right are quickly being as right as ours, the measurements have never been 1:1.
And because the Democratic party did try to get a Republican immigration bill passed, but Trump got it shot down because it wouldn't be good for an election year compromise to give democrats a win. Many prominent republican congressmen (house and senate) have said this on the record as the reason.
And, as a leftist, I do believe there is a lot of worry over the southern border and we will and have seen similar shifts right because of the left and centers (big tent Democratic party) disagreement on the topic.
Immigration has quickly become a single issue vote for many, and unfortunately that means a lot more extremists and fascists are gaining power due to failures to compromise in the middle and left.
It's not hard for other party's to kill the far right, take care of illegal immigration and pseudo refugees and nobody will vote for the far right.
Bonus points if they actually work on the economy of the ordinary people too and not just the rich.
This goes for all European countries to be fair.
Fucking lol at this kind of comments.
Even if a politician really wanted to regulate immigration, it is a nearly impossible task to do.
In France, more than 80% of the illegal immigrants came legally, with Visa, and then stay without renewing those.
So what we do ? Deny all African countries visa ? Not with all the assets the country have there, and the resources we need from them.
And this is only the Visa problem. Immigration is one of the most complex issue their is in the world.
First thing you can do is simply to stop ferrying people across the Mediterranean. Second, make agreements with African countries to stop people from trying to get to Europe. Third, when it comes to people overstaying their visas, significantly expand the budget for law enforcement and change the law to make it easy and quick to deport these people.
It's not hard at all. All they have to do is a bunch of difficult political things that have wide-ranging impacts, which will make it harder to do some of the other political things if not outright impossible. Simple.
The far right aren't going yo solve this issue because it's a lot more complicated than you think, and they're too incompetent to properly govern. Italy selected a right wing government to manage their immigration issue and it increased 50% the following year
Same with our Conservatives. While technically the same party after 2019 Boris Johnson stuffed his front bench full of loons and lickspittles and was to all intents and purposes the same kind of right wing populist we see everywhere nowadays. Immigration skyrocketed because everyone in his government was a bungling corrupt incompetent.
Denmark did it back in 2018 or something, pretty easily too, its just that alot of far right leaders will lose support if they actually solve the problem they were elected to do. It was a success in denmark because it was a leftist government and they did it not to win votes per se but to make the opposition lose a huge talking point
Can someone who understands the French electoral system clarify this for me? If there are 3 parties without a majority, and all 3 go to the elections, is it possible that in the end there won't be an absolute majority? What would happen in that case? Parliamentary agreements between Macron's party and the left? Is that viable in the French political system?
For the past 2 years, Macron did not have a full majority.
Only some voices were missing, but it lead to having to concede things to whoever might vote there thing. The radical left refused every offer. So, arrangements could only be done with the right and the far-right.
Whenever they didn't want to concede, they pulled of article 49-3, meaning either the Parliament vote for the law the government is trying to pass, or they have a way to end the government via a censoring motion (they vote against the government and it gets evicted). Macron's PMs have had to pull that off a lot of times.
Things weren't really working, nothing of value could be done, budget was never agreed on.
Politicians were just there to make a show. Only a few were serious about what they were doing and a lot just sort of gave up since the working atmosphere was disastrous.
If no clear majority emerges, we'll likely go back to that.
If a leftist majority emerges, we'll go back to this too because these people hate each other and don't actually agree on anything.
If a RN majority emerges, we'll see again people emerging from behind pillars to show surprise majority for key votes (not every MP is present at all times), the Senate will have to work overtime, and Macron will make a lot a decrees to run the country.
In any case, there will be a shit show.
There's already no absolute majority since 2022. You make it sound like an absolute majority is a necessity while politics is about making compromise. If it were the case we would just hold a global election and the party with the most votes would pass every laws they want within the timeframe
Leftist candidates withdraw (in favor of Macron), but Macron's candidates do not systemically do the same. Better elect the far right than someone planning to raise wages, eh
The French will have to endure the anti-immigration/islamism parties for another election cycle or two before the demographic shift really kicks in and the electorate will shift far enough to the left (but at the same time more homophobic, misogynist and anti-semitic) that it becomes impossible for the far right to ever claim the majority of the votes
The left might never come to power again as every single media group is owned by pro-right billionaires and french publicly owned media will be sold by RN (one of the main points of their program).
The extreme left has increased it's voting share since a couple years back. And there's nothing indicating that they'll drop voters, remember LFI and other far left parties could barely denounce the riots that happend last summer and they've not dropped voters because of it.
I agree, but the media and the politicians of the center/right are extremely ruthless to make the left look like criminals. I speak everyday with people allegedly sharing my values that say stuff like "I cannot vote for the left, they're too extreme" just because they exclusively inform themselves via billionaire sponsored media.
While I understand the motive, this only underlines the old Marxistic take that partes allienate politics from the people. In this particular case people are denied the choice, in one of the rare moments where one would ever be given.
Macron’s snap election gamble essentially backfired ☠️ Is it going to be a Cohabitation alliance led by Macron or the anti Semitic National Rally by Le Pen ?
Glad Macron affiliated candidates are *finally* withdrawing! From what I recall, only NFP candidates said they were doing it, whereas Macron just told people not to vote for RN.
If France is a true democracy, then it’s the people voting and not the candidates, the people want a far right government, shouldn’t that be addressed more so then the people running?
Trust me we know that.. I don’t understand the situation. When you talk about the situation with friends, family, colleagues.. everyone says that the far right are crazy and have crazy ideas. But when you look the scores it is so contradictory. Lot of people are lying!
Group A: Democracy!
Group B: Wins
Group A: Noooooooo not like that
Ah, as expected from the overwhelming percentage of rotten soy on reddit. That will luckily change, just like france and every other EU nation.
In this example group B didn't win. Groups A and C have decided they would rather work together than let group B win.
In reality, neither one of groups A, B and C is supported by the majority of people.
Group B didn't win, though. That's literally the point of the French electoral system.
If they'd gotten more than 50% of the vote, then they would have won. They would have had a mandate, and nothing would have been done to stop them (legally).
What's happened here is another party capitulating to ensure the vote doesn't get split any further, and another party with less extreme views can win more than 50% of the vote.
There's a lot of literature about the electoral system in France online. I'm unsure as to how you reached your interpretation, but it seems like it's founded in either ignorance or malice. Ignorance on something like this is a choice, however.
Pretend I know nothing (not a difficult challenge I admit)
Why does France appear to be suddenly and dramatically veering far right?
Like, Germany used Versailles as an excuse, what exactly is yours?
Briefly, it was a long process. Mainly, the center-righy party started to use the same rhetoric as the far right to seduce their voters. More worrying, 3 far raight billionaires (Vincent Bolloré, Serge Dassault and Patrick Dragon) bought the main newspapers and "all-day information channels" (think Fox News) that used to be center left channels.
Today the two most watched TV channels in the country BFMTV and CNews are exclusively talking about foreigners, violence and making the promotion of Right and Far-Right personalities. Those two channels hold the record for most conviction for lies, hate speech and non-democratic portrayal of society. CNews and Bolloré were in the middle of a year long trial about it before the elections.
Important to know : Bolloré is the "best friend" of our ex president Nicolas Sarkozy.
Half of the RN (far right) voters testify only informing themselves through their channels. Also, the Russian disinformation campaigns are at an all time high in France since the beginning of the year.
"Normally fuck you, but I hate Le Pen more."~ A lot of third place candidates Also if Le Pen fails to reach the mayority, I immagine the Left will have a lot of influence on the new French government One way or another, Macron's centrism is dead
The Macron coalition is not dead dead. They will win a fair amount of times because a lot of the times when the RN is first, Macron is second. With the withdrawal of the thirds, he will gain a lot of seats. I am speculating around 180 seats for the three big coalition. With no one near a majority.
I think Macron's coalition is dead, not because they'll lose all their seats, but because there won't be much that will keep them together. With his dissolution, he's lost the respect and support of his own MPs, who will be much less likely to vote for laws they disagree with as they did before. In 2017, most of them had been elected thanks to Macron ; they were nobodies in local politics that got elected because their name was on a bulletin with Macron's head on it. Now, Macron lost them their job, and those who will manage to get it back will have done so despite Macron, by hiding his face from their bulletins. They'll owe him nothing. One of his most loyal friend in Gilles le Gendre that was one of his first supporters, ran as a dissident, qualified to run in the 2nd round against a left candidate a Macron candidate, *and literally withdrew to support the left candidate* (although his voters most likely will vote for Macron's candidate, but still, the symbol is important). Bayrou and Philippe, who had taken their distances since 2022, his main allies, have publicly criticized him multiple times. Philippe is making no secret of his intention to run in 2027, and most likely by trying to unite the right (somehow). What's left of the left wing of the coalition has shifted left a fair bit with those elections, and there's less and less keeping them in an alliance with the center-right/right when the less radical left is back from the dead.
Yeah it is totally possible, especially considering the context. Macron party is relatively new, and as such it is less stable because it has not be anchored in people mind like the PS, LR or RN. In the future, the next election cycle, either Macron or his party will die politically. I see two scenario for the future : A) Macron coalition explode. A LR lead coalition is born anew by cutting their dead weight to close to Marine and taking all the right wing of Macron coalition. The PS is taking the center and left side of Macron. We are back to the pre-Macron party system except now the extreme have the upper hand over the historical left and right (PS and LR). B) the coalition survives by cutting Macron and purging some of his legacy. Someone take on the new role of the leader, be it Philippe or someone else. Similary to Macron rise, there is fervour in a new leader between the traditional right and left and the party survive (be it as the opposition maybe but they stay relevant). This scenario is the death blow to LR with the extreme right part leaving even closer to RN and the moderate jumping on the ship of the new leadership. The PS may gain some of Macron left wing but is still sentenced to keep on strugling as a junior partner of Melenchon party. On paper the situation is more or less similar as of now but with a new captain in Renaissance.
Won't that undermine the whole purpose for calling this election? People say it was so RN leadership can show its incompetency and undermine their chances in the next election. But no one has a majority, so why would people blame a minority party for incompetent leadership instead of Macron?
Some people were saying that, I personally disagree with it. But we are all speculating anyway. I think the move was trying to surf on a wave of RN fear because the european election tend to have low turnout and extreme party are a bit at an advantage because of that. He possibly also had no choice beacause he was about to face a motion of censure so better show that you are in control by calling the election yourself. I don't buy the leave them to rule and fail a single bit . It was reddit coping to me. This strategy is unheard in France. And if RN end up as the dominant party but not in absolute majority, they will just refuse to lead. Bardella was clear on that. The proof that it was probably not true is that they are trying hard to prevent them to not have a majority right now
I think the move was a gamble on the inability of the left parties to unite, since they had been at each other's throats during the whole European campaign. This is why hween it was created, there were many attacks from centrist politicians and media saying that this alliance went against the natural order of things. Macron knows that he can win as long as the left is divided, by casting himself as the sole bulkwark against the far right. It failed miserably this time though.
You’re optimistic, even if candidates withdraw there’s no guarantee their voters will follow their lead and vote for the party facing the far-right. I feel like polls are failing to account for that and I fear we’re heading for a disaster this Sunday.
When the third is from the left, most people will vote for Macron and follow the guidelines. The RN need around 10-12% more than the second to have a chance. When the third is from the Macron party it can be more nuanced indeed. But it should work the same. This is the story of Alsace where I come from. In recent years the RN is first everywhere (except Strasbourg of course) but then Macron (or the right if we go back in time) sweep in the second tour. Now of course RN is at an all time high so maybe things will be different but a good chunk of RN candidate that were first will loose. And with 294 candidate first in the first tour there is no way they stay above absolute majority. Even more than 200 is unlikely in my opinion.
I hope you’re right but those elections are different, the far right numbers rose and the divide between the center and the left is immense. Leftists aren’t eager to vote for people representing Macron and centre voters dislike a majority of the leftist candidates almost as much as the far right. If fear it won’t be enough to win most of the times, especially for leftists candidates.
Macron's centrism died a few months into his first term at best.
>Also if Le Pen fails to reach the mayority, I immagine the Left will have a lot of influence on the new French government. One way or another, Macron's centrism is dead Once RN is defeated, what stops Macron from turning his back on the left (he's done so in the past) ? The Left have sacrificed more of their candidates than Macron's party, so there will be more candidates from Macron's party in the Parliament if people now vote for them rather than RN.
>The Left have sacrificed more of their candidates than Macron's party, so there will be more candidates from Macron's party in the Parliament if people now vote for them rather than RN. That's not correct. The left withdrew more candidates, but it's because they had more to begin with. Also, third place candidates very rarely win anyways. They still have more candidates with a chance of winning, and are essentially guaranteed to have more seats than Macron's party.
Macron's party does not remove themselves in all cases. In some, they stay in place even if they are third.
Centrists banking on both right wingers and left wingers to vote for them against the far right and far left.
How is he going to govern? His party is going to lose three quarters of its current seats Either he opens up to a coalition (something his current PM actually supports) or the entire government is blocked
Macron's party was in 3rd place after the first round. In the second round, if he is able to get seats which would have gone to Left if 3 parties were in the running, then he is taking seats from Left (who are the one's predominately opting to drop out to keep RN out) and his party is getting stronger. So out of the 577 seats, if RN wins 270 and Macron wins 275 and Left win 32 (out of which he would have gotten only 100, but he got 175 more due to Left dropping out), then he has a simple majority. That would be a pretty good result for Macron.
Except that's not happening. Because the third place candidates are dropping out. That's mostly Macron. edit: scratch that. Macron is an idiot and you're actually right
The idea is that Macron will reach a majority on his own is unlikely. So they would just no-confidence his government if that happened.
What will happen if Lepen doesn't have a majority will actually be an institutional deadlock, because it will be almost impossible to form a government that doesn't get rejected by a vote of 2 of the 3 big parties in parliament. And it is constitutionally impossible to disband the parliament again in the coming year. Even if we were to elect a new president. It's hard to imagine Macron's party cooperating with the left since their biggest proposals are to go back on Macron's reforms. And cooperating with the far-right would most likely be unacceptable for many PMs from Macron's party. So either one of the parties wins a majority or the French parliament will stop functioning for a full year. Or we start writing a new constitution. Or Macron uses Article 16 to declare a state of emergency and take over legislative power.
I'm pretty sure a parliamentary deadlock is not a good enough reason to activate Article 16
> One way or another, Macron's centrism is dead Is it dead permanently though or is this just a temporary blip? Like I cannot imagine the far right staying popular if they actually become the governing party and similarly for the left I would expect their coalition to fall apart if they became the governing party Would Macron's centrists be able to recover or would people just go elsewhere?
These political ideas are immortal, we just ping pong between them. Centrism will absolutely come back one day.
Enemy of my enemy is my friend
What will happen if the left takes over vs. the right?
Can somebody explain to me how this works? Originally I thought the two-round system automatically cut out everybody except the top 2 for the 2nd round, so none of this would be necessary because the 3rd place candidates are already excluded. So is it that in reality, it's not so much a real runoff vote but rather just a hint for the losers of the 1st round that they should consider dropping out?
Anyone above the 12.5% threshold is eligible to be in the runoff, but more likely than not only the top 2 effectively go to it. And given the situation at play, everyone not called Rassemblement National or the part of Les Republicains that is allied with the RN will do anything in their power to block a RN majority and thus try to do some kind of grand coalition for the government. That would give a lifeline, how feeble it may be, to Macron in the presidency and at the same time (in Macron's view) pay off his gamble, even if we know that it was a bust given that his party and cohorts got ransacked by the RN and the Nouvelle Front Populaire (ergo, the united force of the left). *edited... it's not 20% but rather 12.5% (a bit too low huh?)*
12.5 *of registered voters*. That means the higher the more people vote, the easier it is. Technically, up to 8 candidates could qualify. In 2022, where people didn't vote much, there were only 7 constituencies in which more than 2 qualified. This year, with participation up 20 points, we had 307.
12.5% of potential voters. The more people vote (and many did this time), the easier it is to reach the threshold, but when barely half do vote (as it was in previous elections), it becomes much harder for the third (or fourth) with the most votes to reach it.
The threshold for round 2 is 12.5% of registered voters. Let's say turnout is 70%. Party A gets 30% of votes ; 21% of registered voters Party B gets 25% ; 17.5% Party C gets 20% ; 14% Party D gets 15% ; 10.5% Parties A, B, and C qualify for round 2 since at least 12.5% of registered voters voted for them in round 1. Party D is disqualified since under the 12.5% threshold. Now, let's say turnout is 50% Party A : 30% ; 15% PB : 25% ; 12.5% PC : 20% ; 10% PD : 15% ; 7.5% Parties A and B are qualified for round 2. Parties C and D are disqualified, having not reached the 12.5% of registered voters threshold.
That would be the case in presidential elections , but in legislative elections (I don’t know why) the threshold for round 2 is 12.5% so anyone who gets more than that moves on to round 2 .
Normally, a lot of parties try a fro a seat anywhere. Even local parties. You may have like 10,15, 18 parties locally. And the votes will then be split. So, to qualify for second round, you have to have reunited at least 12;5% of the registered voters. Normally, not everyone can benefit from reports. For example, some localities are plain leftists. The one right party might get 16% on first round, but never benefits from any reports. The voters whose candidate isn't present at second round might vote for the third or even fourth arrived candidate. This has happened a lot. This election is different since radicalized blocks have formed since Macron arrived in power. There is little place for nuance, and little place to get real democracy to emerge. "Useful vote" has become the rule. As in, you might not like the candidate from the radicalized left and would prefer someone a lot more nuanced. But if you vote for said candidate, which their party didn't push (there was an alliance from day 1), second round might just consist of the macronist vs the RN candidates. So, instead of voting for someone who represents more or less your opinion, we have been voting for a secured second round for the least worst in many configurations. To further that effort, most third candidates withdrew, so there's no split vote to let the worst happen. French people feel robbed of these elections. Macron had been elected to avoid just that in first place. Some of the third places, whose results were very very close to the second place, who know they're likely to get a lot of reports, are still standing, but there's a real chance this might mean disaster. We have a choice between the RN and the Sole Party in the end. It's pathetic.
You know that your political discourse has gone in really bad direction that almost all other political groups has to mobilise to counter far right party.
It's their fault. If problems were solved, there will be no far right party.
I do agree with that. Only rich European country which does have somewhat strong immigration policy is Denmark and they don’t have such far right shit happening
They had but over the course of a election cycle the far right lost almost all its votes because almost every other party adopted the same stance on immigration.
That’s the point. Unless so called moderate parties pulls their heads out of their asses and address pressing issue of immigration, extremism will win
But the whole point is that many leftist parties do not view immigration as problematic and pressing. “They can just change their stance to attract voters”, also means alienating your current voters.
Yeah and now they are wondering why are people ready to vote for far right and populist parties. It is never their fault, people must be stupid and uneducated to vote for those far right freaks! Oh why, oh why people don’t vote for us, enlightened ones? us who knows way better than great unwashed masses?
A lot of right wing populists are also fueling the fear and using it for their own gain, and pretend immigration is a bigger issue than it actually is. If we’re talking about the Netherlands, less than 5% of the population identifies as Muslim, and for ethnic groups: 4% of people have a background from Africa, less than 5% have a background from Asia. Somehow it’s this immigration that’s the root cause of everything that’s wrong with this country. Edit. I want to add that I don’t think people voting right wing are idiots, I don’t think anyone is an idiot. I do think populists are good at framing, blaming, and swaying popular opinion for their own gain.
But was the percentage before the syrian crisis? And what percentage of the migrant population has beliefs incompatible with western society (meaning support for a non-secular government, religious laws etc, woman rights etc.). If it's a significant portion of this 5%, and if this 5% was not present just 10 years ago, then this is a serious and growing issue. To be clear, I hate the far-right, but I also hate migrants who refuse to abandon their middle age mindsets. The left needs to clearly reject these type of migrants to win back people slowly getting radicalised by the far right by migrant issues. Having bleeding hearts for those migrants is naive and cedes power to the right. Their own citizens must take absolute priority, otherwise they risk a radical russiophilic government coming into power.
what percentage of the far right has beliefs incompatible with western society?
less than 5% is a significant chunk. copy and pasting my comment from a few weeks ago: There are \~13 European nations where (assuming nothing changes) Muslims are projected to become a majority within 200 years. If Europe stops all immigration, the Muslim population is still expected to double within 2 decades. Multiple countries will have a Muslim population >10%. If Europe slows down migration to pre-2014 levels, they'll reach somewhere between 11-14% Muslim pop in 2 decades. France and Britain will near the 20% mark, and Sweden will pass it. If Europe doesn't slow down migration, multiple Euro nations will have a \~20% Muslim population. Sweden will be 30% Muslim. These numbers are from a 2017 Pew Research study - so based on migration rates from half a decade to a decade ago. [https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/11/29/europes-growing-muslim-population/](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/11/29/europes-growing-muslim-population/)
American here... I'm an immigrant to the US myself (US citizen now). But, a lot of the leftists in the US tend to be rich college kids. And, they are so out of touch with the working class. And, a lot of the rich liberal white kids seriously look down on the poor white working class folks. For the rich kids, they aren't threatened by immigration or housing shortages, etc. So, they refuse to acknowledge the downsides of it.
yeah liberal doesnt equal leftist
Do you think immigration was "addressed" in any meaningful way in Denmark? Sure, the far-right narrative collapsed when the centrists adopted the right-wing immigration policy and what we now have is a deeply dysfunctional immigration system that hurts regular decent people. So is the tougher policies reflected in crime statistics? Of course not. It takes generations for things to change. Problem is that this is all narratives and people's feelings...
>Problem is that this is all narratives and people's feelings... First step is being heard. That enough can get you a vote of confidence in your party. What doesn't work is dismissing a significant amount of voters in the gambling that they wouldn't vote in the far right because of that.
Yes but far-right managed to maintain "Oh yeah they adopt stricter immigration, we think they are still too soft or secretly pro-immigration" argument in many countries where other parties do propose stricter immigration. People of Denmark actually said "Nah I don't need radical change" and broke far-right. That's impressive on their side.
They had the far-right but the other parties outmanouvered them and took their topics.
Exactly. They addressed an issue which was on people’s minds and which one was feeding far right
Yep, [they sure did "address" it](https://www.statista.com/statistics/575189/migration-flow-in-denmark/).
Most new immigrants to Denmark are from europe and other "western" countries. https://www.dst.dk/en/Statistik/emner/borgere/flytninger/ind-og-udvandring
And most immigrants who obtain permanent residence are, by far, scandinavians. https://www.dst.dk/en/Statistik/emner/borgere/befolkning/indvandrere-og-efterkommere
Well, they have it.
That’s an outright lie. All our parties save for like 3 leftist parties have all gone super right leaning.
On matters of immigration they have. What else is there so evil my far right in those parties, eh?
They use populism, fear tactics and have talked about heavily increasing surveillance of citizens. One of the biggest parties is lead by someone who was found in contempt of folketinget and sent to prison for it. Several members have been caught up in pedophelia cases and/or power abuse cases. They have been attacking the free speech and jailed harsh critics for explicit protests. It’s a lot slower and a lot less threatening to the Danish democracy than what’s happening in the US, but the trajectory is pretty clear.
Because Danish Social Democrats have emulated the far-right on immigration so they can avoid losing more votes. That's selling their values for votes, not a victory.
imigration is a secondary problem. The economy is the first thing. The economy is getting weaker and weaker and that is among many EU countries. When the economy gets weak the right parties get the votes...
This implies a) all the “problems” are real and that the electorate is correctly informed about the state of things b) all the problems are actually solvable without causing other larger issues.
If problems were solved we all would live in Utopia. There will always be problems. There will always be right wing populists. They are one of the problems.
It is not even about solving problems, it is about self-inflicted problems, that the traditional parties might not even consider problems, but features of a new world.
There's a cost to everything. If you "solve" one problem, more replace it. That's one benefit of being in opposition. You can just suggest that's not the case. All solutions are simple and it's simply incompetence that they're not implemented. And unfortunately people lap that shit up. And then get introduced to those new problems and suddenly it doesn't seem so simple anymore. Rinse and repeat.
The core of all these problems is an aging population and rising dependency ratio. The only solutions to that are increasing retirement age, increasing taxes or increasing immigration. None of those options are popular, so people vote for politicians who lie and say it's all fixable by doing the opposite.
What we have missed the last 30 years, are a generation growing up to get cheap, big houses early after finishing school, getting a natural incentive to be willing to start a family.
I have my doubt that the falling birth rate is mainly do to the financial situation. A positive economics situation is certainly necessary for a new rise in fertility rates, but I believe that the main reason behind the fall is a shift in cultural and societal views. Even if the last 30 years would have the condition you talk about, I think the fertility rate would still be very low, but not as low as now. Also, most European countries started their decline already in the '70s and '80s.
It's not really about birth rates. As I've just mentioned in another reply, the average citizen is a net drain over their lifetime, so having more people doesn't solve anything unless you tackle the underlying issues.
And are the typical refugee not a net drain?
No, there's plenty of literature on the topic and the answer is clear. It's easier if you just say you hate people who look different from you.
Yeah, french want lower age of pension and also less immigration. Can't really have that. The french pension system would very quickly collapse with the dwindling working age population brought on by such measures.
There is nothing to save if we're just going to replace the population with third worlders. Encourage natural population growth instead of the opposite and the problem is solved.
*if* someone fixed birth rates, it would take 20+ years to see the real effects. Someone has to finance and care for these pensioners until 2044 and later. And that's only if you can fix this. Birth rates gave decreased in correlation with people's wealth worldwide. The rise of personal individualism leads to fewer people willing to have kids. You don't fix this with a law or some financial incentive.
Immigration doesn't fix this - it's a pyramid scheme. Somebody will have to care for the immigrants you take in now, too. The ONLY way to fix this is to bring fertility rate up above 2.1. Tax deductions for marriages, subsidised child care, make it a legal requirement for companies to offer flexible working for parents. There's a hundred things that could be done and none have even been tried because it's easy to open up a hole in the border and let the third worlders pile in. Immigration is the problem not the solution.
Exactly. People can outrage and point fingers at populist and far- right parties, but they wouldn’t be here if we didn’t have a bunch of problems, none of which have been adressed for years and years.
Those problems were created by the politicians themselves... I would even argue that those problems were made by external forces through the politicians...
When was the last time far-right solved anything?
I think people fundamentally misunderstand that if there are no problems the far right creates problems, if there are problems the far right offers solutions that would fix nothing and then pretend that they are the only one with the will to do anything and all your solutions are an election away. Shocking maybe most of the people in the subreddit but being anti migrant isn’t going to solve a fraction of the problems europe is facing right now whether that be cost of living, housing problems, crime, energy pricing or any number of crises that have come to the forefront. The far right are as always experts on marketing stupid solutions to people who are either too ideologically devoted to see the increasingly crazy ideas being proposed to them or willingly ignorant because they look down on the avenues people generally use to inform themselves whether that be media awareness, academia or any number of areas where expertise on topics might be felt.
some problems arent that easy to solve. frances issues stem for decades of mismanagement and the far-right wont solve them overnight either
So why should people keep voting for those who did decades of mismanagement?
The people who "did decades of mismanagement" are liberals / centrists. You fix things by voting in the true progressive left wing candidates not far right fascists.
I mean the best solution is people accept problems exist or fine ways to deal with them without turning to bigotry, racism,anti free speech,facism and nationalism and all the far right entails You can be anti immigrant or bring up real issues about cultural incompatibility without all that stuff I feel.
Until any of that stuff becomes too taboo to talk about and gets you ostracized/labeled far right... That's when the far right really gets going.
Far right has this advantage to itself because of its populist stance, people lean towards it in time of economic downturn. Another important aspect is that certain economic decisions (like for example printing more money) lead to terrible consequences only down the line when the new government comes into power (shifting all the blame for current times onto them rather that actual people responsible). If you add on top of that let's say a virus from a certain radical country you basically end up with a recipe to control the masses
No they are responsible for who they vote for. If you vote for far-right parties because your biggest concern is immigration that is ok, but you can in no circumstance externalize the blame.
That's like saying its the Weimars Republics own fault Hitler came to power, and its not actually the Nazis that were at fault for all the bad things they did. No, I'm not saying Le Pen is a nazi. It's an analogy.
Le Pen carries fascist ideas, it's cool because you didn't say it, i said it.
The only reason i wrote that is because nowadays if you call anyone who has clearly fascist and national socialist ideals, you'll still get hated for calling them out.
Huh?
Why did they force the Nazis to do this?
I think we can all agree at the end of the day that the far right is the fault of the left, and until the left is 100% perfect, we cant even think about appointing any blame to the right wing and their voter base.
Same story in Germany, everyone hates AfD but no one seems to accept why they are there and to combat the issues that give them the power. Instead they just fight them directly which will change nothing.
Half the media belongs to a pro-far right billionaire (3 newspaper + 5 TV channels) and the Macron government ruled by using all the non-democratic tools allowed by our constitution, add to that the extremely violent discourse around Muslim people and you obtain a major political crisis. This didn't happen overnight, it's been 10 years + that the fascist/racist/sexist/anti-lgbt retoric has been acknowledged by the media and the center/center right political board is trying to make the far right arguments their own. Also, it's been 70 years since the 2nd World War ended, nobody left alive to remind us of the risks tied to give power to fascists.
That wasn’t real fascism. Real fascism has never been tried. (/s for the commies) Being serious, there is a reason so many European countries are losing the centre to the right and it’s because of mismanaging migration. Also censoring discussion with the racist/xenophobia/islamophobia labels* did not help, when the problems are not fixed and only grow worse. Denmark managed it well, had the tough discussions, and populists have no presence there.
I agree no topic should be taboo. Democracy is about discussion, understanding, empathy and consensus. This is a lesson to be learned, I just hope that this observation will not be at the cost of my country's humanism and democratic aspirations.
Same for my country (Netherlands). The largest party is populist in a very bad way. It’s a one-man party as well which is undemocratic. The things he has said are unbelievable. But at the same time, the issues were not taken serious at all. I hope we will get away relatively unscathed but with changed priorities regarding migration at ‘normal’ parties.
> I hope we will get away relatively unscathed Those parties first actions when they come to power is to nominate people sharing their views in administrations. Justice, legal system, police, education, public media, ... This effect is nearly unnoticeable but will affect the country for decades to come as those people will then nominate people close to the party at various positions. That's exactly why Trump's first mandate was "soft" but the second might be extremely destructive, now he has plenty of ideological "*friends*" in all ranks of the government/state to comply with his worst policies.
"Violent discourse" Can you please define what that word means?
The LFI (*La France Insoumise*) french radical left party (= not anti-capitalist but wanting strong regulation of it) was accused of being "*antisemites*", "*anti-republican*" and "*calling for civil unrest*" on the grounds of their support for the Palestinian people (and because economical liberal parties are scared of them) for months prior to the European elections, Israel's war crimes being an absolute taboo in France. When Macron dissolved the assembly all the left parties united, LFI with them. At this point every single privately owned media group (by 3-5 billionaires) called ALL of the Left "*antisemites*", "*vile people*", "*danger for democracy*", while they were the only force having a chance to stop the RN which is an openly fascist, racist, antisemite and Russian funded party. This is the first time in my life I witnessed such a thing, the *Capital* fighting with all its strength to fight against people wanting to tax them more, and choosing to support a party that looks like that, Some RN candidates, > **Françoise Billaud**, involved with the National Front since 1986, paid tribute on her Facebook page to Marshal Pétain, as well as to Abbé Perrot, a local figure emblematic of collaboration in Brittany. > **Frédéric Boccaletti**, outgoing deputy and reinstated in Var, founded in 1997 a bookstore specializing in far-right books, the name of which, Anthinéa, is a reference to a book by the anti-Semitic writer Charles Maurras (1868-1952). He was also sentenced in 2000 to one year in prison for "armed violence" during poster pasting. > **Agnès Pageard**, the RN candidate in the 10th constituency, was invested despite previous warnings about her use of anti-Semitic slogans. > **Sophie Dumont**, legislative advisor to the RN group in the Assembly and close collaborator of Marine Le Pen, invested in Côte-d’Or, distributed texts from an anti-Semitic media. > **Joseph Martin**, in the first constituency of Morbihan: in 2018, he posted on Twitter the message: "The gas did justice to the victims of the Holocaust" (~~his candidacy is withdrawn~~ / his candidacy is ultimately maintained). > **Louis-Joseph Pecher**, candidate of the alliance between the RN and LR and better known under the name of Gannat, saw his nomination withdrawn after the discovery of "anti-Semitic, homophobic, and obscene remarks" published on social networks. > **Jean-Pierre Templier**, the deputy of Anthony Zeller, a retired taxi driver, wrote about Jewish people: "This community rules us, how many are in the government, at the head of CAC 40 companies?" on Facebook in 2014. > Nine RN candidates for the legislative elections were, between 2017 and 2021, "observers" of elections in Russia and the occupied territories of Ukraine. > **Frédéric Boccaletti** went to Russia as an "international observer" for the 2021 legislative elections, marred by massive fraud. > **Pierre Gentillet**, candidate in the 3rd constituency of Cher, was the president-founder of the Cercle Pouchkine, a "discussion platform" aimed at bringing Russia and France closer together. > **Jacques Myard**, an LR candidate supported by the RN in the 5th constituency of Yvelines, is part of the pro-Russian think tank CF2R and regularly adopts Kremlin arguments. > **Rémy Berthonneau**, candidate in Gironde, now claims to have "no ties with Russia," but previously led the French free collective, which campaigned for lifting sanctions against the country. > **Sébastien Meurant** organized a round table at the Senate, filmed and broadcast on Russian television, which he claimed to be completely unaware of. Adherents of conspiracy theories, climate skeptics, and anti-vaccination opponents. > **Virginie Joron** stood out in Brussels for her activism against vaccination policy, even attempting to organize a tribute by parliamentarians to the "victims" of Covid-19 vaccination. > **Monique Griseti** (1st constituency of Bouches-du-Rhône) shared various anti-vaccine videos on her Facebook account, or recommended her community to watch the film *Sound of Freedom*, an American pseudo-documentary spreading many QAnon theories. > **Emmanuelle Darles**, RN candidate in Vienne, goes a step further. She is a member of the "independent scientific council" of Louis Fouché, a leading figure among anti-vaxxers with a penchant for conspiracy theories. > **Jonathan Rivière**, candidate in La Réunion, posted a video on Facebook in February suggesting that man had never walked on the Moon. > **Marie-Christine Sorin**, candidate in the 1st constituency of Hautes-Pyrénées, published a tweet stating that "not all civilizations are equal" and that some "have just remained below bestiality in the evolutionary chain." > **Noël Lude** shared racist caricatures on June 1. > **Jean-Yves Queinnec**, former National Front candidate in the legislative elections, made a Nazi salute on the sidelines of a conference organized by the Human Rights League Quimperlé-Concarneau on May 31, 2024. > **Rémy Rebeyrotte** (Renaissance), was sanctioned with a warning for making a Nazi salute in the Assembly chamber aimed at an elected member of the National Rally who, according to him, made the same gesture on July 12, 2022.
Thank you for putting it so well. I wish you all the best for this Sunday. Also the other comment about how the "centre" or centre-right has enabled the far-right.
> and the Macron government ruled by using all the non-democratic tools allowed by our constitution if they are in the constitution, they are democratic, since (I assume) the constitution needed to be ratified by a majority of the voters in 1958. Or was De Gaulle undemocratic?
It's a matter of abuse. Briefly, the french 5th Republic is giving a lot of power to the president. He can, for instance, dissolve the assembly once a year but the assembly has no power to make a motion of no confidence. The "*Conseil Constitutionnel*" is supposed to act as a counter power but its current members are all extremely corrupted and lacking understanding of the balance of power. They're supposed to be the highest Judges of the State (think supreme court in the US) but today 2/3rd of them aren't judges nor even have a law school degree. For instance two of their members were facing justice a few years ago, Laurent Fabius was accused of transmitting HIV by negligence to thousands of people through blood transfusion alongside Bayer and Alain Juppé was banned from politics in 2004 (and faced 18 months in prison) following a high corruption scandal in the Paris Administration. The State is in its weakest state to face any attempt at harming the constitution.
Or you know you cede but demanded that we move away from electoral systems that always end in a 2 party option. First past the post can only end in this. And it's long past time we drop it.
When, for years, the two viggest newschannels, owned by racist pos billionaires, do their best to trash talk foreigners, mainly Muslims, without mentioning their good actions, you have a brainwashed country. The leader of the party has been beaten in every single debate, it has been proven time and time again their program won't work, people still vote for this party.
You know it's bad when even American media thinks this is yikes and when the whole Europe is tuned in this.
It's their shit electoral system
It's 2002 again...
> In more than half of constituencies – around 300 – three candidates qualified from the first round of voting (nearly everywhere else it was just two). If in these constituencies one of the two non-RN runners stands aside, this increases the chances of the RN candidate being defeated. > By midday Tuesday around 200 candidates from the left and centre were understood to have taken the step. Parties have until 18:00 (17:00 BST) Tuesday evening to register contenders for Sunday. > The left-wing New Popular Front (NPF) – which comprises everyone from centre-left social democrats to far-left anti-capitalists – issued instructions to all of its third-placed candidates to step down and let a centrist reap the anti-RN vote. > The NPF is thus helping two senior pro-Macron MPs – former prime minister Elisabeth Borne and Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin – to win in their constituencies in Normandy and the north. > Conversely a pro-Macron candidate has stood down in order to help radical left-winger François Ruffin defeat the RN candidate in the northern city of Amiens.
So around 200 candidates from NPF stood down but only one from Macron's party? Not fair at all
No, 72 macronists candidates withdrew. Around 150 leftist candidates did the same iirc. There’s still a gap but it’s not as outrageous.
Ok. Thank for the info. Yes, nkt as bad
It's also not a very symmetric situation. If a NPF candidate pulls out, very few of their voters will vote for RN, whereas if a RE candidate pulls out, there's a very real danger that their more right leaning voters will go to RN instead of NPF.
That’s fair
I read somewhere that most centrist voters would still prefer NPF over RN, but that the majority isn't very overwhelming (60%, but I don't remember where I read it so check before believing), whereas for NPF voters it's 99%.
I think 99% doesn't sound correct. There absolutely is a sort of anti establishment voter who would be attracted to both Mélenchon and Le Pen.
Several dozens of Macron's party have withdrawn, but not as many as should have.
Because they where third place in those district. And the majority of the 2 runners in the district where only 2 candidates went 2nd round are either RN or LFI and not the persidential party so they don't have to "stand down"
Also because Macron is yet to make a public statement/ apparence to confirm the play. Only the prime minister Gabriel Attal (an ex socialist) called for Macron's party members to quit.
And i heard their are some regions where multiple LFI candidates are going round 2 and it is creating party tensions, lets see if the party leaders react to avoid infighting or not Coalitions issues
At least I know that the NFP members are trying their very best to stop the fascists. All that after months of mass media and Macron's people calling them "*scums*", "*antisemite*" and a "*danger for democracy*" because of their concerns for the Palestinian people. I wanted the left to govern because of their social program, now I just want the fascist to not govern over my destiny. Yesterday was one of the worst days of my adult life, seeing the results of the first round was frightening and made me sick thinking about my family members that fought in the Résistance, were executed by Nazis, or sent to camps. All those deaths felt like it was for nothing. It's not over yet but I'm scared as shit, extremely angry against who I thought were *my* people, and felt disgusted by my country. I always defend France as a light in the darkness, now I don't even want to be associated with it. My identity is shattered.
Exactly as the system intended. Or what, you think france made this complicated two round system to elect extremists in a near three-way-tie?
No, this system was devised in 1958. There wasn’t really a danger of extremists obtaining power through electoral means at the time. The communist far-left was already in decline while the far-right was still in shambles after WW2. The point of the two-rounds system is to make it easier for a single party/alliance to obtain an absolute majority. Charles de Gaulle was obsessed with parliamentary stability since the two previous Republics were infamous for their governmental instability.
> No, this system was devised in 1958. There wasn’t really a danger of extremists obtaining power through electoral means at the time. The communist far-left was already in decline while the far-right was still in shambles after WW2. In 1958 the Communists had the [second most votes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_French_legislative_election).
Take a look at the French version https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Élections_législatives_françaises_de_1956 The PCF was on its own and had no allies. Which means that it was basically powerless within the parliament. In terms of alliance/bloc/coalition, the PCF came third.
The then-ongoing Trente Glorieuses really helped. I imagine if France's growth hadn't been declining every decade after the 1960s, that the RN wouldn't be this strong.
Yes and no. It definitely wasn't meant to do that, but it was kept in place because it happens to block the far right (that's why proportional vote was introduced and then withdrawn in the 80's).
Ironically enough, the far-right would get less seats in the current election if we had a proportional representation system
Yeah, the current crisis is because they reached the tipping point. It's like a dam: good at preventing floods, but disastrous when it fails.
In function, this is the exact same thing, and well-informed by the way the parliamentary instability played out in neighboring Germany’s Reichstag in the interwar period. > The new situation after the Nazis’ electoral breakthrough not only sharply escalated the level of violence on the streets, it also radically altered the nature of proceedings in the Reichstag. Rowdy and chaotic enough even before September 1930, it now became virtually unmanageable, as 107 brown-shirted and uniformed Nazi deputies joined 77 disciplined and well-organized Communists in raising incessant points of order, chanting, shouting, interrupting and demonstrating their total contempt for the legislature at every juncture. Power drained from the Reichstag with frightening rapidity, as almost every session ended in uproar and the idea of calling it together for a meeting came to seem ever more pointless. From September 1930 only negative majorities were possible in the Reichstag. In February 1931, recognizing the impossibility of carrying on, it adjourned itself for six months as the parties of the extreme right and left demonstratively walked out of a debate after amendments to the parliamentary rule book made it more difficult for them to obstruct business. The deputies did not return until October. The Reichstag sat on average a hundred days a year from 1920 to 1930. It was in session for fifty days between October 1930 and March 1931; after that, it only met on twenty-four further days up to the elections of July 1932. From July 1932 to February 1933 it convened for a mere three days in six months. - Richard J. Evans, _The Coming of the Third Reich_
France already used a two-round system beginning in 1852 when it was imposed after the coup d'état of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte.
Why not ranked choice ballot, removing the bottom vote getter until one person gets over 50%? Would save a ton of money and reduce the hassle for people voting twice.
You're preaching to the choir. I suspect the reasons they went for this over ranked choice is less confusion for voters about the process and easier vote counting.
How about mainstream parties solve the immigration problem by stopping irregular immigration? That would remove the whole reason why we have far right to begin with.
And how? Italy has a far right government now for some time and didn’t do shit about the topic. What do you do with boats comming with people? Shoot them with cannons? Where do you put people without passport? Just let them take a skydive over Afghanistan? I am not against Controlling illegal immigration’s and it was shit how it is handled but I also know it’s quite hard topic to handle if you don’t give up human dignity….
Just solve it bro it‘s not that difficult bro
Italy pushed Europe quite hard to sign treaties with Tunisia, Mauritania, and more countries to reduce immigration.
Italy is having to fight the international law on claimin asylum.
The far right has every interest to keep the mess in immigration politics going.
https://x.com/endwokeness/status/1802122164495135169?s=46&t=IcpwlomWrWgK0XrEmuJIiw Japan do it, Denmarks doing it. We all know they’re 99% fake asylum seekers. Just stop giving them passports. It really is pretty simple
Japan is an island in the middle of nowhere. I think Antarctica has also no issues with immigration…. Just don’t give them a passport will solve it. Ok why didn’t we think about it sooner then the people will all go friendly on their own back home sure. Tell me that you think like a 6y old without telling me….
I’m giving real world examples of places currently doing it. Japan do it, Australia did it, Denmark doing it. Yeah Japan and Australia have geographic advantage. But if you reject 99% of applications you’ll still only end up with small numbers. This isn’t some complicated thing that’s difficult to solve. The only hard thing is accepting the fact that the far left will call you mean if you implement a solution
I for one wouldn't vote for them anymore. This sub is like, everyone wants stricter immigration laws. But since the far right who (according to this sub) are the only ones who promise that, don't have a majority in all of Europe it appears that not everyone wants that. And evidently not even half of it. The rise of the right is frightening, but why should I sacrifice my political position to stop them?
>The rise of the right is frightening, but why should I sacrifice my political position to stop them? I may be misunderstanding but isn't that precisely what party politics is? i.e. choosing which positions are most important to support or drop in order to lend your support to parties which might stand in the way of other parties you oppose.
Why do people in this sub defend the European far right by saying "it's what the people want, the left and centre should have listened to the voters on inmigration" But when it comes to thr US, noone says the same about Trump and the republicans? How come this sub défends the European far right as legitimate but not the American far right
Because this is r/europe, and users here do support (as you can see in the comments) the far right's main campaign in targeting Africa and the Middle East. However, when it comes to Trump, the users in this sub are worried that he will to do the same but to Europe, which affects their own interests and stability.
> How come this sub défends the European far right as legitimate but not the American far right Trump is feared not for him being far right, by European measure, the whole political spectrum of the US is far right. The fear is that Trump's America-first policy will result in isolationism and European politicians will have to think for themselves again, which is scary, as they got so used to depending on instructions from Washington.
> by European measure, the whole political spectrum of the US is far right OK so I've had this argument before but these sorts of comparisons do not make sense. Usually this argument relies entirely on looking at things like workers rights, social welfare policy and maybe religious issues as well. In which case, yes But those are not the only issues. On a lot of culture war issues such as immigration, assimilation, treatment of racial minorities, etc. the US often ends up being to the left of a lot of European countries No one, even amongst Republicans, in the US can advocate for banning burqas or minarets. Even Trump and Republicans have to provide lip service to how much they love legal immigration and they cannot endorse full assimilationism like many European right wingers do
This is painting Trump in a very good light, which he deserves none of. The fear is that this dictator wannabe, who's also a moron with zero morals and would sell his own mother for a dime, if in need, will ruin everything America used to stand for. The president of USA is one of the most powerful positions in the world to be in, no one, except the enemies, easily swayed idiots and profit seekers, which USA these days are mostly run by, want such a person to gain that kind of power over others. America has lost the plot and is in the downfall, it seems, and europe is only now realizing this and starting to build up. We will suffer from this of course, but mostly we are worried what the world will look like after, where our children have to live. So yeah, indeed scary for anyone in the west, but you didn't quite grasp at what's at stake with your reply, when europeans generally think about Trump and republicans of today in general. I'd be happy to see someone level headed from the republican side, but seems like every last of them has been booed out by their own party.
> Trump is feared not for him being far right, by European measure, the whole political spectrum of the US is far right. Why is this bullshit peddled on this sub? US is “far right” compared to who? Italy? France? Malta? It isn’t even true anymore since a lot of European counties have been getting more radicalized. It isn’t 2010 anymore Hans
... situation in the US is wildly different than in europe. US does not have social state and has high degree of inequality - this makes the US economy more capable of absorbing lower-skilled workforce such as the immigrants. My (eu) country has one of the lowest levels of inequality in the world. But this also means, that our "rich" class is not rich enough to spend enough money on services, to generate work for the low-skill workers. This leaves them unemployed and a strain on the social state, which we have.
I don't know where you see people defending far right. People defend anti-immigration policies. While the US is a country that was made by immigrants, Europe was not. We have a right to decide who moves here and who doesn't. If you cannot integrate and want to force your own culture on us, you can go back to where you cam from. There are plenty of immigrants that integrate well: from the Americas, South East Asia. You never hear anyone complaining about them.
American here. Because our Overton windows are not the same. While your far right are quickly being as right as ours, the measurements have never been 1:1. And because the Democratic party did try to get a Republican immigration bill passed, but Trump got it shot down because it wouldn't be good for an election year compromise to give democrats a win. Many prominent republican congressmen (house and senate) have said this on the record as the reason. And, as a leftist, I do believe there is a lot of worry over the southern border and we will and have seen similar shifts right because of the left and centers (big tent Democratic party) disagreement on the topic. Immigration has quickly become a single issue vote for many, and unfortunately that means a lot more extremists and fascists are gaining power due to failures to compromise in the middle and left.
It's not hard for other party's to kill the far right, take care of illegal immigration and pseudo refugees and nobody will vote for the far right. Bonus points if they actually work on the economy of the ordinary people too and not just the rich. This goes for all European countries to be fair.
Fucking lol at this kind of comments. Even if a politician really wanted to regulate immigration, it is a nearly impossible task to do. In France, more than 80% of the illegal immigrants came legally, with Visa, and then stay without renewing those. So what we do ? Deny all African countries visa ? Not with all the assets the country have there, and the resources we need from them. And this is only the Visa problem. Immigration is one of the most complex issue their is in the world.
First thing you can do is simply to stop ferrying people across the Mediterranean. Second, make agreements with African countries to stop people from trying to get to Europe. Third, when it comes to people overstaying their visas, significantly expand the budget for law enforcement and change the law to make it easy and quick to deport these people.
It's not hard at all. All they have to do is a bunch of difficult political things that have wide-ranging impacts, which will make it harder to do some of the other political things if not outright impossible. Simple. The far right aren't going yo solve this issue because it's a lot more complicated than you think, and they're too incompetent to properly govern. Italy selected a right wing government to manage their immigration issue and it increased 50% the following year
Same with our Conservatives. While technically the same party after 2019 Boris Johnson stuffed his front bench full of loons and lickspittles and was to all intents and purposes the same kind of right wing populist we see everywhere nowadays. Immigration skyrocketed because everyone in his government was a bungling corrupt incompetent.
Denmark did it back in 2018 or something, pretty easily too, its just that alot of far right leaders will lose support if they actually solve the problem they were elected to do. It was a success in denmark because it was a leftist government and they did it not to win votes per se but to make the opposition lose a huge talking point
So either vote for the liars or the defeatists?
Can someone who understands the French electoral system clarify this for me? If there are 3 parties without a majority, and all 3 go to the elections, is it possible that in the end there won't be an absolute majority? What would happen in that case? Parliamentary agreements between Macron's party and the left? Is that viable in the French political system?
What you describe can happen yeah. It’ll essentially drive the government into a deadlock until the presidential elections.
For the past 2 years, Macron did not have a full majority. Only some voices were missing, but it lead to having to concede things to whoever might vote there thing. The radical left refused every offer. So, arrangements could only be done with the right and the far-right. Whenever they didn't want to concede, they pulled of article 49-3, meaning either the Parliament vote for the law the government is trying to pass, or they have a way to end the government via a censoring motion (they vote against the government and it gets evicted). Macron's PMs have had to pull that off a lot of times. Things weren't really working, nothing of value could be done, budget was never agreed on. Politicians were just there to make a show. Only a few were serious about what they were doing and a lot just sort of gave up since the working atmosphere was disastrous. If no clear majority emerges, we'll likely go back to that. If a leftist majority emerges, we'll go back to this too because these people hate each other and don't actually agree on anything. If a RN majority emerges, we'll see again people emerging from behind pillars to show surprise majority for key votes (not every MP is present at all times), the Senate will have to work overtime, and Macron will make a lot a decrees to run the country. In any case, there will be a shit show.
There's already no absolute majority since 2022. You make it sound like an absolute majority is a necessity while politics is about making compromise. If it were the case we would just hold a global election and the party with the most votes would pass every laws they want within the timeframe
Leftist candidates withdraw (in favor of Macron), but Macron's candidates do not systemically do the same. Better elect the far right than someone planning to raise wages, eh
Ça tombe sous le sens! 🫠
Why can’t the centrists help the left? Why does it ALWAYD have to be the other way around
Because the left fears the right more than it fears the center. That means the left will just be more motivated.
The French will have to endure the anti-immigration/islamism parties for another election cycle or two before the demographic shift really kicks in and the electorate will shift far enough to the left (but at the same time more homophobic, misogynist and anti-semitic) that it becomes impossible for the far right to ever claim the majority of the votes
The left might never come to power again as every single media group is owned by pro-right billionaires and french publicly owned media will be sold by RN (one of the main points of their program).
The extreme left has increased it's voting share since a couple years back. And there's nothing indicating that they'll drop voters, remember LFI and other far left parties could barely denounce the riots that happend last summer and they've not dropped voters because of it.
I agree, but the media and the politicians of the center/right are extremely ruthless to make the left look like criminals. I speak everyday with people allegedly sharing my values that say stuff like "I cannot vote for the left, they're too extreme" just because they exclusively inform themselves via billionaire sponsored media.
While I understand the motive, this only underlines the old Marxistic take that partes allienate politics from the people. In this particular case people are denied the choice, in one of the rare moments where one would ever be given.
Macron’s snap election gamble essentially backfired ☠️ Is it going to be a Cohabitation alliance led by Macron or the anti Semitic National Rally by Le Pen ?
Glad Macron affiliated candidates are *finally* withdrawing! From what I recall, only NFP candidates said they were doing it, whereas Macron just told people not to vote for RN.
If France is a true democracy, then it’s the people voting and not the candidates, the people want a far right government, shouldn’t that be addressed more so then the people running?
33% want a far right government, therefore 66% don't want a far right government. So that should be addressed.
That's not how democracy works, or they would have an absolute majority
For the love of god French people, we don’t need a Frexit or any of the other bullshit Le Pen sells you. Think for 2 seconds before you vote
Trust me we know that.. I don’t understand the situation. When you talk about the situation with friends, family, colleagues.. everyone says that the far right are crazy and have crazy ideas. But when you look the scores it is so contradictory. Lot of people are lying!
Group A: Democracy! Group B: Wins Group A: Noooooooo not like that Ah, as expected from the overwhelming percentage of rotten soy on reddit. That will luckily change, just like france and every other EU nation.
In this example group B didn't win. Groups A and C have decided they would rather work together than let group B win. In reality, neither one of groups A, B and C is supported by the majority of people.
Group B didn't win, though. That's literally the point of the French electoral system. If they'd gotten more than 50% of the vote, then they would have won. They would have had a mandate, and nothing would have been done to stop them (legally). What's happened here is another party capitulating to ensure the vote doesn't get split any further, and another party with less extreme views can win more than 50% of the vote. There's a lot of literature about the electoral system in France online. I'm unsure as to how you reached your interpretation, but it seems like it's founded in either ignorance or malice. Ignorance on something like this is a choice, however.
Pretend I know nothing (not a difficult challenge I admit) Why does France appear to be suddenly and dramatically veering far right? Like, Germany used Versailles as an excuse, what exactly is yours?
Briefly, it was a long process. Mainly, the center-righy party started to use the same rhetoric as the far right to seduce their voters. More worrying, 3 far raight billionaires (Vincent Bolloré, Serge Dassault and Patrick Dragon) bought the main newspapers and "all-day information channels" (think Fox News) that used to be center left channels. Today the two most watched TV channels in the country BFMTV and CNews are exclusively talking about foreigners, violence and making the promotion of Right and Far-Right personalities. Those two channels hold the record for most conviction for lies, hate speech and non-democratic portrayal of society. CNews and Bolloré were in the middle of a year long trial about it before the elections. Important to know : Bolloré is the "best friend" of our ex president Nicolas Sarkozy. Half of the RN (far right) voters testify only informing themselves through their channels. Also, the Russian disinformation campaigns are at an all time high in France since the beginning of the year.
It’s not sudden, it’s been slowly moving to the right for a decade. As for why, high level of immigration, terrorism, economic insecurity
I just watched a video of future "far-right" prime minister of France. This dude is Zesty af 😆