French Politics

it's a bit older than that, it was about prayers in the street (in places were mosques were too small).

If you must know, Muslim collective prayers involve long, rhythmic, synchronized walks, to show unity and ritual correctness, mandatory brown shirts, to show modesty and humility, a wand or rod for ritual self-purification, holding your chest high, your chin up, your arm straight, and raising that arm up and down in a gesture of humility and worship toward the heaven that you gaze upon.

It's understandable that people would get confused.

Flash News on French Politics, for those who might think that the grass is greener elsewhere.

• Regional elections on Sunday, with the new (bigger) regions, 13 instead of 22 before.
• The Front National will probably win two of those at least - the working-class North (Nord-Picardie) and the racistland of the Southeast (PACA), where the right-wing candidate is barely less extreme than the FN one. It might even get the new Eastern region (Alsace-Lorraine-Champagne) too.
• The PS (left) will probably lose most of these regions (it was in charge pretty much everywhere before), and might even end up with less regions than the FN. For some reason, it seems that the left-wing voters aren't that motivated in the prospect of voting for a government who does everything the right-wing would dream of. Figures.
• LR (Republicans, right) will probably end up with the largest number of regions, since it might even snatch some left-wing strongholds, such as the Southwest (Aquitaine-Poitou-Limousin).

On another note, the great Nicolas Sarkozy refused to answer a judge over accusations of influence peddling, because, and I pretty much quote him, "she did not like him, and as such was biased". Really, who wouldn't like a conservative asshole who made the FN ideas legitimate in order to be elected, used a fake name to communicate with his lawyer (and commit the aforementioned influence peddling), caused absolute chaos in Libya yet says that Hollande's politics are the reason there is a crisis in the Middle-East, and is involved in a list of judiciary scandals that would make Silvio Berlusconi proud?

This guy might be president again. Help.

In Chirac's voice: Puuuuuuuuuuuutaaaaaaaaiiiin... Of course the PS is making a mess of things, that's what social democrats do. Don't you have a "Podemos" or "Ciriza" equivalent?

We do. It's called Front de Gauche (Left Front).

Aren't those a bunch of old-hat Communists from the "we fought off the Nazis" days?

The Front de Gauche both includes the Parti Communiste, the same one that may have had some very pro-USSR positions back in the day, and the Parti de Gauche, which was created by a former socialist, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who tends to overshadow everyone else. He isn't exactly young, and he tends to try and copy the famous former communist leader Georges Marchais. It might have worked twenty or thirty years ago when the communists were lacking a strong leader, but now he isn't exactly the best to gather the unsatisfied youth.

The issue being that since Hollande is supposed to be left-wing, unhappy people tend to react by voting right. Or very, very far right. The other issue is that since 2002, Sarkozy (minister then president) had a single strategy: steal Front National voters (his strategist back in the day was named Patrick Buisson, and was a former member of far-right movements such as Action Française). So to do that, he legitimized many common FN themes, such as "blaming foreign people for every issue" (or in our case, muslims) and "constantly reminding everyone how unsafe they were and how they needed order and security". Basically, it boiled down to "making Fox News proud".

And then, big surprise, ten years later, the FN is the first political party.

edited 4th Dec '15 11:34:38 AM by Julep

I'm sure that Marine Le Pen would be happy to help you, but she needs your support.

The question is, is there still any daylight between LR and FN, or has France's Overton Window come to resemble that of the US?

edited 4th Dec '15 6:05:37 PM by Ramidel

If there is any, it's not much.

Depends on what subject. There is a huge difference in views on economy - LR might be conservatives but they still are in favor of the EU, and they have a hard time disagreeing with the (rather right-wing) current politics of the government. The FN wants to leave the Euro zone, and while any FN mandate would be an utter disastrous, the "silver lining" is that the disaster would be so critical it would definitely bury their chances of being elected again if they do follow on their ideas. After turning France into a third-world country of course.

However, when it comes to security and social matters, then the right-wing of LR is identical to the FN. The main difference with the American Republicans is that the left-wing of the party is still relevant, although all may change depending on the results of the primary elections next year. The current leadership of the party favors positions on security that are virtually impossible to distinguish with the FN save for a few minor elements.

Now, for the first results of the elections:

• Regions where the FN has a large lead: Alsace-Lorraine-Champagne, PACA, Nord-Picardie, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté
• Regions that should go to LR: Normandy, Pays de la Loire, Rhône-Alpes-Auvergne, Île-de-France
• Regions that should go to the PS: Brittany, Aquitaine-Poitou-Limousin,
• Regions where the FN leads but not enough to win the second round (hopefully): Centre-Val-de-Loire, Languedoc-Roussillon-Midi-Pyrénées

And then there's Corsica where everything is different and the FN is fifth with less than 10%.

Note that the PS has low scores but can usually count on some additional voters for the second round, due to people voting for Ecologists (like me) or Front de Gauche going to the PS on the second round. However, "usually" is very important, because many left-wing voters are dissatisfied with the current government and probably will not vote on the second round. This participation of left-wing voters will be paramount in many regions - even those where LR is leading, when the scores are close enough. They are almost guaranteed to win the Languedoc-Roussillon-Midi-Pyrenees (where I currently live, yay) since LR is below 20% and the (former socialist before going rogue and winning the elections, so PS in all but name) mayor of my city, Montpellier, got 5% alone which would tie PS and FN even before accounting for other left-wing voters.

And there is the matter of withdrawals after the second round. Sarkozy has already said that LR will not withdraw or merge with anyone. I don't know where the PS stands - on one hand, withdrawing means that Le Pen can keep saying that LR and PS are identical and will gain support, on the other hand, not withdrawing means that you guarantee that millions of French people will live in regions governed by the FN.

FN that already announced that they might stop funding the Planning familial - French Planned Parenthood. We are reaching GOP levels of stupidity, which means America might not be the best at everything anymore! Take that, USA!

Edit: updated.

edited 6th Dec '15 12:31:25 PM by Julep

Well, I heard that FN wants to not just withdraw France from the Eurozone, but the EU — and that would probably bring down the whole lot.

Yeah that is their final goal. I am pretty sure the economy will be in a greek-like state at that point, so I doubt they will have the time to go that far. There will be riots in the street. We ARE French, after all.

Sooooo... Do we wait a little longer for asking the Americans, the British and the Canadians to land on Normandy again and liberate us, or... ?

Finally the channel tunnel will be used as an invasion route, but outwards, not inwards like we always feared.

See how the presidential election turns out. Or how the runoffs go.

You know with the Front wanting to pull out of Nato, an alliance with Russia, and being funded by Putin, that would not be as unlikely as it seems.

edited 6th Dec '15 3:17:58 PM by JackOLantern1337

Yay, European Cuba, only racist.

Are the FN really likely to win the presidential election though?

That, we can't say. But it's likely they will reach the second round.

edited 6th Dec '15 4:32:37 PM by Quag15

Is there a possibility that some other party would try to 'use' them as a coalition partner to become the new government?

edited 6th Dec '15 4:37:50 PM by DrunkenNordmann

Not really. The ones who are closer to them on the ideological spectrum (UMP aka LR) don't want to support them against PS nor do they want to support PS against them.

Imagine it. President le Pen. In charge in one of the three most powerful countries of the EU, a key state in any European affair,and one of the most powerful armies in the world. Even disregarding what this would mean for the life of the French, I find ths constellation rather chilling. Not to mention that there is also the Pi S government in Poland who' probably love to cooperate with FN on many issues.

That does not bode well for Franco-German friendship.

And just as if I wasn't angry enough, after opening my computer for checking my mails, I'm welcomed with Le Pen's smug grin on the "news feed" loading page.

I was this close from punching my screen.

So, how expensive is the housing in Canada ? Just asking...

That feel when you see that 40% of the voters of the town you grew up in voted FN.

Three PS lists withdrew of the second round, in Nord-Picardie, PACA and Alsace-Lorraine-Champagne. Note that none of the LR lists here are guaranteed to win considering how far behind they are.