As expected, it’s the Socialist candidate versus Sarkozy in the run-off:
French Socialist Francois Hollande won the most votes in the first round of the country’s presidential election, the BBC reports.
“He got about 28% of votes, according to projections based on partial results, against about 26% for centre-right incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy. The two men will face each other in a second-round run-off on 6 May.”
Even moreso than with stateside elections, European elections are always good news for conservatives, so I’m assuming that the Sarkozy did better than expected. And the popularity of Marine Le Pen is obviously an indictment of French left-wing social policies.
Chris
20% for Le Pen, all time record. GOD FUCKING DAMN IT I am SO MAD.
AA+ Bonds
LOL I remember when the idiot press explained condescendingly to America that Mohamed Merah was Good For Sarkozy
AA+ Bonds
@Chris:
And not even, like, the smart Le Pen
gogol's wife
Is there ever going to be an open thread, or better yet, a thread about this: The Times’s Public Editor has a column today, “A Hard Look at the President,” urging the Times to give up its pro-Obama bias and start being more fair in its coverage of Romney. Can you believe it? It ends, “Readers deserve to know: Who is the real Barack Obama? And the Times needs to show that it can address the question in a hard-nosed, unbiased way.” I am furious! They have a Fox News hack as their ombudsman.
Chris
@AA+ Bonds:
There was a smart one?
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@gogol’s wife:
I’ll write about it later.
Corner Stone
Are you talking about French social mores?
Alex S.
They say that Hollande will most likely win the second round of the elections. That ‘should’ be a significant shift to the left and possibly the end of Europe’s era of austerity. But since France is in danger of another ratings downgrade (and since some of Hollande’s plans are simply not realistic in this time and age) this shift will probably not be as strong as Hollande’s party moniker suggests.
Valdivia
@gogol’s wife:
is this the idiot who coined the truth vigilantes moniker and got taken to the woodshed for that?
I don’t even want to read that piece now, I am so angry just from what you said. Hope someone is giving him hell.
Spaghetti Lee
Any shift to the left right now in Europe is good news, right? Although I wouldn’t be surprised if a) Hollande was marginalized by the Austerians, b) the public dissatisfaction that led to his election was downplayed, c) the almighty banksters ‘downgrade’ France for being naughty enough to elect a Sockulist, etc. In other words, the “we’re still a center-right nation” meme getting play even in fucking France.
Davis X. Machina
@Chris: That’s 27%, if in a two candidate race.
Calouste
In other European political news, Pam Geller’s BFF, muslim-hater, neo-fascist and all-round asshole Geert Wilders has dropped his support for the right wing minority government in the Netherlands. Elections are expected in the autumn.
Wilders’ support seem to be holding steady but polls
indicate that the Christian Democrats, who were the largest party until the 2010 elections, are likely to reach only about 6% of the vote, with most of those votes shifting to the left.
handsmile
Poll results thus far suggest that Sarkozy will receive fewer votes than had been predicted, perhaps as a result of what is emerging as the key story of this first-round contest: the electoral success of the far-right Front National/Marine Le Pen.
From the Guardian’s live blog on the election:
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@Corner Stone:
Autocorrect got me, should be “moreso”.
gogol's wife
@Valdivia:
I wrote to him and suggested he resign and seek employment at Fox.
beltane
Yesterday Atrios linked to a story about the Netherlands and how Geert Wilders Freedom Party blocked a move to impose austerity measures. If the only political parties willing to take on the austerity monster are the racist, far-right populists like Wilders and Le Pen, Europe is going to be in for some interesting times ahead.
What does Tom Friedman’s cab driver have to say about the failure of sensible, pro-banker centrism on the continent?
PeakVT
Centrist Francois Bayrou, who was hoping to repeat his high 2007 score of 18%, garnered only about 9%.
Fucking centrists are everywhere. At least France has run-offs.
beltane
@PeakVT: Was Francois Bayrou the Frenchmen Select candidate?
becca
@beltane: I believe centrist is code for pro-banker these days, but I guess pro-bank centrist doesn’t sound redundant to everyone. Yet.
Valdivia
@gogol’s wife:
oh good for you. Hope he gets a few of those.
Caravelle
@Chris: Pretty much, right ?
According to France Inter, the left’s cumulated score is around 42%, which is higher than in previous elections but lower than it was in the years when it actually won. So I’m not that confident about Hollande’s chances. But then I haven’t been following French politics much in the last few years so I don’t exactly have my finger on the pulse of the nation or anything… And a bad economy is bad for the incumbent I guess.
I’m a bit sad the Greens collapsed this badly though. I remember when they were an actual viable party and all.
beltane
From The Guardian’s liveblog:
Bayrou did not give his support to either Sarkozy or Hollande, saying simply that he would be speaking with them in the forthcoming days and would “take his responsibility”.
beltane
Apologies to Monsieur Bayrou for my block-quote malfunction above.
Cassidy
What channel are you guys getting Franch Idol on? I can’t seem to find it.
Suffern ACE
@beltane: Only the millionaires who got us into this mess are wise enough to concoct the sacrifices other people must bear to get us out, he later added.
Randy P
I posted a question to a French forum pleading for some explanation of French politics so I could get some understanding of what positions these candidates had. I’ve been trying with limited success to figure that out by reading French coverage of the campaigns. I gather that Hollande has some proposals of questionable constitutionality, but I couldn’t figure out what they were. My French isn’t that fluent.
Anyway, for what it’s worth, this is one response I got, which is interesting for its view of US politics as well. This is translated but I’m reasonably sure I got it right.
So “centrist” here, according to my correspondent, is to the left of all American politicians.
Caravelle
One bit of Sarkozy’s post-election speech that cracked me up : (translated & from memory) :
“I call on everyone who loves their country more than partisan politics to join me !”
SRSLY.
Hill Dweller
@gogol’s wife: Initially, I thought the absurd coverage that’s been foisted on the American public since Willard wrapped up the nomination was the media’s attempt to ensure a horse race, but now I’m not so sure.
The Sunday shows were just undiluted right wing propaganda, but the NYT piece takes the f’n cake.
Matoko Borgia-Steeler
@Chris:
It’s depressing – but not surprising, when you consider the miseries to which the neo-liberal “elite” has brought the poor and middle-class alike. There’s really not much difference ideologically between Marine Le Pen and the teabaggers – and we all remember 2010 in the USA with deep revulsion and regret.
Mr Stagger Lee
@beltane: That is why there is no surprise that in Eastern Europe, the Fascist Right is popular. Hungary, Ukraine and others, of course, the word bankers, in that section of Europe, is a code word meaning “Jews”.
Suffern ACE
@Hill Dweller: The sleeper cells are activated
Matoko Borgia-Steeler
@Alex S.:
It’s probably the end of Merkel, if Hollande even lives up to half the things he’s said he would do. I don’t see how she sells Germany the idea that she can square the circle where the Euro is concerned without Sarkozy trotting along obediently beside her. If the Euro fails, which looks pretty likely, how does Merkel explain that to the voters? It’s not as if she’s got much claim to having made the German economy work – a lot of the reforms were put in place by Schroeder’s government.
skjellyfetti
Watching the news on TF1 in Paris all evening…
What will be interesting will be how the LePen and Mélenchon supporters break in two weeks. Personally, I very surprised by LePen’s very strong showing, Mélonchon’s disappointing 11%; also Sarkozy polled higher than expected.
Much of the disappointment is based on the general disenchantment with the direction of the EU–especially with regards to austerity and the Sarkozy/Merkel marriage designed to save the bankers and sacrifice all others. It’s expected that some of LePen’s supporters will break left–not because of rightest tendencies but because of frustration with austerity, status quo and the Sarkozy/Merkel marriage.
Oddly, many thought the LePen/Mélenchon roles would be reversed: Mélenchon would be acting more in the role of kingmaker but now it’s LePen, but it’s doubtful that LePen can control the angst of her supporters and it’s likely they’ll scatter to the four winds with many encouraged by Hollande’s anti-EU, anti-euro leanings.
Caravelle
@Randy P:
Last I checked the Socialist Party isn’t opposed to capitalism – they’re all for tempering capitalism’s excesses with worker- and consumer-friendly regulations and suchlike. The guys who gave you the 35-hour work week.
Still massively to the left of any mainstream US politician of course. Anyway, that’s Hollande.
Eva Joly is the Green candidate; last I checked (…in 2007) the Greens weren’t against capitalism either; they’re a lot like other European greens on the issues. So a lot like the socialists, but a bit more left and a lot more ecological.
Melenchon is new (well, not him, but his candidacy and party and stuff) so I can’t go with how things were last I checked, but from what I understand he’s probably closer to your capitalism-doubting leftists, but he’s probably still not close to Lutte Ouvriere & co (“Worker’s Fight”, guess what side they’re on).
Actually I’d wager he’s the result of a split in the Socialist Party because a lot of people thought Hollande was going too far to the center.
I don’t know Nathalie Artaud or Philippe Poutou, but I’ll guess they’re from two of the miscellaneous far-left parties that I call “Lutte Ouvriere &co” because LO used to be the big one, but there are always several of them and they tend to split and reform so I don’t know who’s what now. Those are definitely anti-capitalist.
And that’s excluding the Communist party, who used to be between the Socialists/Greens and the extreme left parties, but now I don’t know if they died out or reinvented themselves or are still limping around.
I should probably look all this stuff up…
beltane
@Mr Stagger Lee: This is why the European fascist right and the Tea Party fascist right are not exactly analogous. The Teabagger message was “You can’t have nice things because nice things are Kenyan soc1al1sm”. The Euro-fascist message, on the other hand, is usually something like “You can have nice things, but only if you kill/persecute/expel all the Jews/Muslims/Roma living in your country.”
The difference is subtle but it is real. 20% of the vote going to Le Pen is highly alarming though not unexpected given the economic situation.
Matoko Borgia-Steeler
@beltane:
Seems to me that you could insert “illegal immigrants/Mexicans/ *cough* imperfectly white *cough* welfare moochers” instead of Jews and Roma – and you’d be pretty damn close to the teabagger message. Different targets – same mind-set. They’ve done some killing of their own already – Brisenia Flores, for one.
beltane
@Matoko Borgia-Steeler: Oh, the teabaggers are every bit as racist as their European counterparts but the big difference lies in their worship of the ideas of Ayn Rand. Our right-wingers would be happy to eliminate the blahs and the Messicans but they’ll still work to make sure no one has health care or a pension. Perhaps this is because they are not a genuine populist movement but are merely the paramilitary wing of the 1%.
Caravelle
I looked it up !
Nathalie Arthaud is with Lutte Ouvriere. Cool, they’re still around !
Philippe Poutou is with the New Anti-Capitalist Party. I guess the name says it all !
It turns out that Jean-Luc Melenchon’s party, the Front of the Left, was actually created from the fusion of the Communist party with a few other far-left parties ! So I guess the keyword was “reinvented” here.
Looking at their platform I’m not seeing any frank anti-capitalism there. A lot of anti-liberal!Europe, anti-austerity, pro-worker policies.
Also, Cheminade is from a party called “Solidarity and Progress” which is apparently inspired from Lyndon LaRouche. I’m probably remembering wrong, was that guy a “solidarity” kind of politician ?
Matoko Borgia-Steeler
@beltane:
They’ll make sure no-one BUT THEMSELVES has a pension – because they deserve it, you know. I think you are right about where the teabaggers are going as a paramilitary. I realized the other day that the right wing thugocracy has managed to revive sundown towns, by the simple expedient of creating “gated communities”. Sometimes I really hate my fellow melanine deficient persons. I look round and I am frequently amazed that the black community, for one, hasn’t staged some serious armed uprisings and massacres against us, never mind a few political assassinations along the way. Can’t say I would really blame them, when you consider how the system has been stacked against them and gamed from the get-go.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@beltane:
Part of what surprises me about the Euro technocrats’ treatment of Greece and (soon) Spain is that these were countries run by right-wing juntas within living memory.
Make things austere enough, and at some point the actual citizens will “snap” and just vote in whomever promises to swing the most bankers from the lampposts in the public square. Reach that flashpoint, and nobody much cares about “left” versus “right” anymore. They’ll just vote for whoever promises them revenge.
These idiots are playing with fire.
ciaran
“an indictment of French left-wing social policies”
im not an expert but I say its more a desire to protect those same policies, plus making sure that “they”(as in immigrants, muslims etc) dont benefit from them too much.
Heliopause
This story from AP/CBS describes Le Pen as “anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim” and Melenchon as “far leftist.” The BBC report up top describes Melenchon as “leftist” and Le Pen as “far right.” I just find that interesting.
Caravelle
Polls say 54%-46% for Hollande in the second turn. Huh.
Matoko Borgia-Steeler
The Guardian has a nice page dedicated to the results, with some good commentary:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/french-election-blog-2012/2012/apr/22/french-elections-2012-france
AA+ Bonds
@Heliopause:
Well I think there is definitely some nefarious business in how mainstream Le Pen’s equivalents on Muslims and immigrants are in the U.S.
But it’s also that the BNP, etc. has a European far-right bent that includes friendliness to protectionism, etc. that is considered way fringe here, Pat Buchanan stuff, since non-elite Republicans want tight control on labor but no control over capital across national borders
(This is why I chuckle at the supposed universal applicability of the Nolan chart and derivatives)
AA+ Bonds
@Heliopause:
Well I think there is definitely some nefarious business in how mainstream Le Pen’s equivalents on Muslims and immigrants are in the U.S.
But it’s also that the BNP, etc. has a European far-right bent that includes friendliness to protectionism, social spending, etc. that is considered way fringe here, Pat Buchanan stuff, since non-elite Republicans want tight control on labor but no controls over capital across national borders
So the BBC can use ‘far-right’ as shorthand in a way that might confuse your average CBS consumer, or, rather, piss off a bunch of Republicans who want to distance themselves and will take any excuse
(This is why I chuckle at the supposed universal applicability of the Nolan chart and derivatives)
AA+ Bonds
But yeah the far right in Europe has always worked to draw support from the masses and leftist intellectuals (the latter is usually far more successful than the former, since the David Horowitz type of authoritarian personality seems to be an international constant)
There is serious debate over this that I shouldn’t play down where scholars such as Roger Griffin consider skepticism about Nazism as a cross-class movement to be evidence of Marxist goofiness on the part of skeptics
To me it’s that common problem among Anglo-Americans where evidence from Marxists has been confused with Marxist evidence
Chris
@becca:
“Centrists” are what the bankers wish their political parties could be like, if they didn’t have to spend so much time and energy tossing red meat to the right wing base in order to get the votes they need. If they didn’t even need to pretend to be in touch, in other words.
pseudonymous in nc
@Caravelle:
That sounds about right to me. The left shifted a bit over the past week to make sure that Hollande won the first round, which in turn pushes Sarko to get as many FN votes in the next fortnight while Hollande gets to appeal to a grand anti-Sarko coalition. It’s a depressing dynamic: Sarko panders to the FN, the pandering leads to a strongish showing for the FN, so he panders some more.
It might tighten a little bit, but Hollande’s definitely going to campaign small-c conservatively until the second round (Sarko called for three debates, Hollande turned that down) to avoid any major fuckups.
Chris
@beltane:
Actually, I think their message is identical, namely: “the reason you can’t have nice things is because all those fucking Other People are gobbling up the benefits that should be rightfully yours.”
Remember, the teabaggers didn’t run against Medicare – they ran by telling old people that Obama was going to go after their Medicare and give it to other people via Obamacare. Our right wing has never actually run on a “you can’t have nice things” platform, at least not since Goldwater. And when they whine about Mexicans coming here to steal our welfare and black people getting preferential treatment in welfare, it’s because that means less for them.
The main difference between American teabaggers and European neo-fascists, I think, is the position they hold on the political chessboard. The teabaggers have had American elites and most of the right wing behind them right from the very beginning, which isn’t true in France. Conservative elites over there still support the UMP, not the FN, and the center right – “right wing but not that kind of right wing” – still exists as a voter bloc, as opposed to here where it’s basically been annihilated for decades.
(That may be changing. I’m not so much worried about the FN winning as I am about the notion that the UMP may decide to tack farther and farther right in order to prevent the FN from undercutting them – something we’ve already seen to some extent with Sarkozy campaigning on “taking back voters from the FN.” Southern Strategy French-style, in other words, which would be a fucking disaster in its own right. We’ve already seen in America what that does to a political system).
Randy P
@Caravelle: Most of these names I never ran into from my reading of Le Monde, but it seems that every day was a headline about either Hollande or Sarkozy.
Hollande was proposing a 75% something and there was some question about whether it’s constitutional. I think the word used was “tranche”. What is that all about and what’s the constitutional question?
Matoko Borgia-Steeler
@Randy P:
I believe he’s proposing a 75% tax rate on household income above 1 million Euro per annum. The question is whether he is able to so constitutionally. The key question seems to be whether such a rate would be confiscatory (which is thought to be unconstitutional) or not.
Apparently France’s Constitutional Council would rule on the issue.
Joe Bohemouth
The big story is some of Melenchon’s voters held their noses and voted Hollande, while Le Pen’s didn’t for Sarko.
Seeing as Even The Liberal New Republic is treating Hollande as the Gallic equivalent of Hugo Chavez, even a vote for that mushy apparatchik has become a radical anti-system vote.
The voters who went for Le Pen because hate the browns will mostly go for Sarko. But she didn’t get 20% with hate the browns. Hell, she didn’t even mention them in her final campaign video.
40-50% of her voters go to Sarko. The rest stay home or vote for Hollande because fk Germany/Brussels. In addition, some who didn’t vote this round will show up for the next. Common sense says they’re not going for Sarkozy.
It’s over. Get ready for mass hysteria at Berlin and Kaplan Daily.
pseudonymous in nc
@Joe Bohemouth:
The headline at Le Monde was ‘Vote FN, vote “ras-le-bol”‘, which means something like “Vote FN, vote ‘sick to death of it all’.” Hollande’s set to get perhaps a quarter of FN voters just by being the anti-Sarko (with 30% or so staying at home) but he doesn’t have to make a direct appeal to them.
What’s up in the air now is whether the FN and Front de Gauche keep momentum into the legislative elections in June. The UMP also has to deal with a post-Sarko future if Hollande wins, because the party’s been reshaped around M. le president over the past five years, and if he loses, he’s going to get out of politics and spend the rest of his life in bed with his wife.
Caravelle
@Joe Bohemouth: Her post-election speech did go to some length bout the France that had spoken, the France of the country, of farmers and factory workers and etc etc, I can’t remember them all, but she STARTED out with the France of church steeples.
Yeah. Subtle.