Monday - April 23, 2012

Only In France

The top players and their vote percentages, politically left to right:

practically a bomb throwing commie: Jean-Luc Melenchon, 11 %
the Socialist, even by French standards: Francois Hollande, 28 %
in the middle of the middle: Francois Bayrou, 9 %
in the middle, slightly right: current President Nicolas Sarkozy, 26.9 %
the “far right extremist”: Marine Le Pen, 19 %

The surprise result was that Ms. Le Pen got as many votes as she did, which really took votes away from Sarkozy. The result is that for the first time in ages - if ever - a sitting president in France has not triumphed in the first round sweeps. The race is now between Hollande, who is campaigning on the (does this sound familiar?) Hope and Change slogan le changement c’est maintenant (now is the time for change ... the change is now), and Sarkozy, who has been in charge while France has suffered a major economic downturn. And people think he’s kind of a snob. Imagine that, the fwench think this guy’s a snob. Mon dieu!

France is the 5th largest economy in the world, so yeah, it matters.

It was the first time a sitting president seeking re-election had been beaten into second place in the first round. But Sarkozy backers at his campaign headquarters chanted “We are going to win”, interpreting Le Pen’s score as more significant than Hollande’s narrow lead over the incumbent.

Before voting, opinion polls had suggested a comfortable win for the Socialist in the second round.

Le Pen, who took over the anti-immigration National Front in 2011, wants jobs reserved for French nationals at a time when jobless claims are at a 12-year high. She also wants France to abandon the euro currency and restore monetary policy to Paris.

“This first round is the start of a vast gathering of right-wing patriots,” she told cheering supporters at her campaign headquarters, without endorsing either of the finalists.

“Nothing will ever be the same again.”

Le Pen’s unexpectedly high score reflected a surge in anti-establishment populist parties in many euro zone countries from the Netherlands to Greece as austerity and the debt crisis bite.

Voter surveys show about half of Le Pen’s supporters would back Sarkozy in a second round and perhaps one fifth would vote for Hollande, making her a potential kingmaker in the runoff.
...
Sarkozy, 57, has painted himself as the safest pair of hands to lead France and the euro zone in turbulent times, but Sunday’s vote appeared to be a strong rejection of his flashy style as well as his economic record.

If Hollande wins on May 6, joining a small minority of left-wing governments in Europe, he has promised to lead a push for a bigger focus on growth in the euro zone, mainly by adding pro-growth clauses to a European budget discipline treaty.

The prospect of a renegotiation of the pact is causing some concern in financial markets, as is Hollande’s focus on tax rises over austerity at a time when sluggish growth is threatening France’s ability to meet deficit-cutting goals.
...
France’s sickly growth, along with its stubbornly high unemployment, are major factors hampering Sarkozy’s battle to win a second term, despite an energetic campaign against the blander but more popular Hollande.

Melenchon, whose clench-fisted call for an anti-capitalist revolution made him the most colorful figure on the campaign trail, called on left-wing voters to fight back and make sure Sarkozy is ousted next month.

“I call on you to come out on May 6 and beat Sarkozy without asking for anything in exchange. I urge you: don’t drag your heels, mobilize as though it were me you were sending to victory in the presidential election,” he said.

Firebrand leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon vowed to break up the Franco-German “Merkozy” leadership duo with conservative German Chancellor Angela Merkel which he said had imposed austerity on the people of Europe.

He also said France should emulate Latin America’s left-wing revolutions and nationalize oil company Total, as Argentina said this week it would do with its main energy firm.

”The revolutions in Latin America are a source of inspiration for us,” he told foreign media at his headquarters in a disused shoe factory on the eastern edge of Paris.

Melenchon said his party’s priority was to get Sarkozy out of power and then pull an Hollande government to the left.

“I appeal to you, left-wing comrades who are listening and hesitating, come and help us not just overtake the extreme-right but raise the demands of the left,” he told a campaign rally on Thursday. Clenching his fists, he joined hands with Communist leaders to sing the socialist anthem the Internationale.

Oh brother. Despite everything that the US did for France from WWII through the Cold War, despite all the revelations that have come out of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union about just how much it sucked, the Communists have always found a lot of sympathetic ears in France. I guess they took that “fraternité” aspect of their national motto a little too seriously?






So now what? The deep red commies will join up with the pale red socialists and push for the leftist Hollande, and probably get a third to half of the wobbly centrists. Sarkozy is left with no other choice than to try to hang onto the centrists while amping us his Conservative rhetoric. He has to shift his message more to the right, more against pisslam, more against unchecked open immigration, more towards fiscal restraint, more towards pumping up the economy and pushing french products for the world to buy.

President Nicolas Sarkozy hammered home pledges to get tough on immigration and security on Monday as he sought to win over record numbers of far-right voters and whittle down Socialist Francois Hollande’s narrow first-round election lead.
...
After five years of leading the world’s fifth economy, a nuclear power and activist U.N. Security Council member, Sarkozy could go the way of 10 other euro zone leaders swept from office since the start of the crisis in late 2009.
...
“Today, I return to the campaign trail,” Sarkozy said in a statement. “I will continue to uphold our values and commitments: respect for our borders, the fight against factories moving abroad, controlling immigration, the security of our families.”

... and from stage left ...

Opinion polls on Sunday said 57-year-old Hollande, who has vowed to change the direction of Europe if elected by tempering austerity measures with greater social justice, would likely win the decider with between 53 and 56 percent of the vote.

What will happen? Who knows? It’s France, so anything is possible. Meanwhile, the far-right is making a Tea Party move, trying to gain seats in Parliament.

In setting a record score for the far right in Sunday’s French presidential election, Marine Le Pen has set the stage for her National Front to try and break into parliament at a legislative election in June.
...
Doing better than her father’s 2002 score now gives Le Pen a solid base to move forward on her core targets - June’s parliamentary election and, in the longer-term, the 2017 presidential race.

Describing herself as the candidate of “popular revolt”, she has said her focus this year is to destroy Sarkozy’s ruling UMP party, the latest political heir of the postwar Gaullist tradition, and create a new, broad movement of the right.

There are already signs of in-fighting in the decade-old UMP, which like predecessors in France’s ever-shifting party system, could fall apart if he loses the presidency. A rightist faction might break the Gaullist taboo on electoral alliances with Le Pen if UMP lawmakers feel their seats are threatened.

“What we can see tonight is the great cacophony between the left and right. At the legislative elections, the French will have a definitive choice of a new right,” said Louis Aliot, National Front vice-president and Le Pen’s partner.

The party believes it can win seats in parliament seats for the first time since 1986, when a brief experiment with proportional representation gave it 35 seats. Since the return of a two-round system of constituency voting, the National Front has so far failed to secure a majority in any district.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/23/2012 at 06:46 AM   
Filed Under: • FRANCE • Politics •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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