Macron in trouble

The French elections are proving interesting as Marie Le Pen goes head to head with the president in the final round with a decent chance of winning after several years of rebranding the National Front party.
There are massive parallels with what's happened in this country and her platform has overtones of the Tory manifesto.
The extreme nationalism espoused by Marie's dad has been toned down a bit - including dropping calls to leave the EU - and populist policies with vote-grabbing uncosted promises are taking centre stage including scrapping income tax for under 30s:

• Propose a referendum on immigration and put an end to the family reunification of migrants
  
• Asylum applications only processed abroad
  
• Ensure national priority for access to social housing and employment
  
• Systematically expel illegal immigrants, delinquents and foreign criminals
  
• Make security everywhere and for everyone a priority of the five-year term
  
• Reintroduction of minimum prison sentences, eliminate sentence reduction and establish a real life sentence
  
• Establish a presumption of legitimate defence for the police
  
• Achieve 85,000 prison places by 2027
  
• Renationalise the motorways to reduce the price of tolls by 15% and privatise public broadcasting to abolish the licence fee
  
• Exempt all young workers up to the age of 30 from income tax so that they stay in France and start their families here
  
• Double support for single mothers raising children while strengthening controls to prevent fraud
  
• Abolish taxes on direct inheritance for modest and middle class families
  
• Ensure France's energy independence
  
• Implement a "slaughterhouse plan" to ensure dignified conditions and ban slaughter without stunning
  
• Launch a €20 billion emergency support plan for health
  
• Put the teaching of French, mathematics and history back at the heart of the curriculum
  

She has also promised to close down mosques considered to be "extreme" and her campaign has focused on helping with the rising cost of living which has gone down very well.

Le Pen is pretty much certain to get the votes from Eric Zammour's right wing supporters but that's only 7% which is enough to put her ahead. However there is no guarantee that Macron will get enough of the left wing vote that he will need and there could just possibly be an upset on the cards.

A lot of Le Pen's policies, particularly those that relate to immigration seem to evoke the same issues we allegedly had over "controlling our borders" so it would be really interesting to see if they could be put into practice whilst remaining in the EU. Equally the populist policies of slashing taxes whilst being a vote winner, may fall foul of the economic realities of running the country as they have here.

Should be interesting.

And I always thought it was Marine Le Pen taking on Macron? Marie must be her sister or something?

Sorry Lusty, had to get that in.

I think Macron will scrape through but you never know. It always amuses me though when the media here refer to her as far right, which she most certainly isn’t. In fact in many ways she has much more in common with the far left if you look at her policies. Clearly anything to do with immigration is considered right wing as if only bigots are concerned about it. The problem today is that our increasingly woke attitude has completely removed any intelligent conversation on such an important subject, so that just to mention it brands you a racist. 

Clearly I’d love MLP to win, even if only to rid us of that obnoxious little sheet Macron. If it further leads to the end of federalist movements within the EU and returns sovereign governments in each country and a desire to trade together, it can only be beneficial. The EU as it is today is finished anyway along with the globalisation it hoisted upon us, so it’s only a matter of time before one of the majors sees sense and does a Brexit. Could just be Marine and I certainly hope so. If she can come through the televised debate on the 20th then anything’s possible and I wish her every good fortune.

I don't believe Vladimir Putin is a killer, a threat to France, to others in this region. Nothing Vladimir Putin has done would make me reach that conclusion.

- MARINE LE PEN

Whitesince63 wrote:And I always thought it was Marine Le Pen taking on Macron? Marie must be her sister or something?

Either I'm developig dyslexia or oe of the letters o my keyboard is stuck mate.
I should stick to callig her eo azi waker.

Why is it when i read whitesince63's post i always think of this man?

My god, it's the Chingford Skinhead. I'm about to lose my breakfast.

Norpig wrote:Why is it when i read whitesince63's post i always think of this man?

Thank you for the compliment Norpig, one of my all time politicians. How we could do with politicians like old Norm now?

It wasn't a compliment 63 as well you know.

boltonbonce wrote:My god, it's the Chingford Skinhead. I'm about to lose my breakfast.

You wouldn't like his cookery book Bonce.

He has the resemblance of the bloke from Blockbusters.

karlypants wrote:He has the resemblance of the bloke from Blockbusters.

Bob Holness was a nice chap, the exact opposite of Tebbit, he's probably up there with Thatcher for the politician i most despise.

Norpig wrote:

karlypants wrote:He has the resemblance of the bloke from Blockbusters.

Bob Holness was a nice chap, the exact opposite of Tebbit, he's probably up there with Thatcher for the politician i most despise.

I might be thinking of the bloke from 15 to 1.

karlypants wrote:

I might be thinking of the bloke from 15 to 1.

That's William G Stewart

Norpig wrote:
Bob Holness was a nice chap, the exact opposite of Tebbit, he's probably up there with Thatcher for the politician i most despise.

Bob Holness was a politician?
Can I have a P...an O...an L..an I...a T...an I...a C...an I...an A...and an N Bob?

Today is the election and France has a choice between a pro-European centrist who is viewed in some quarters as too busy on the world stage and not dealing with matters at home, and a right wing populist nationalist with links to Putin.*
Macron is favourite to win but there are some key variables that could swing it in favour of Le Pen centred on who picks up the votes of those who prefer candidates who've already been knocked out of the race.
Many traditional left wing voters are likely to abstain rather than vote for Macron and there's what Macron calls the Brexit factor when many pro-Europeans thought it so unlikely they'd lose they didn't bother voting at all, so it could be very close.

Possible upset on the cards.


* Always fascinates me that the media tends to describe the political spectrum as a straight line with "left" and "right" - poles apart - whereas as the reality is circular - the extreme "right wing" almost merges with the extreme "left wing" and there's little difference between fascists and totalitarians - Hitler and Stalin for instance. Which IMO explains the Trump/Putin love in and the Russian links with our governing party.

Yes, todays the day when in all likelihood that little toad Macron will probably squeeze past MLP for another stint as President. Quel dommage. What a boost for Europe and the West it would be if the French actually fessed up for once and voted for Marine. At last without the two most selfish states running the bloc, changes can be made to finally rid the federalist nonsense and create a harmonious trading group which it always should have remained. It is only because of the imbalance between nations that the idea of Brexit, Frexit, Grexit and others surfaced in the first place. MLP winning would be the first step in breaking up the dominance of the Franco/German club and allowing all nations a more reasoned existence. It probably won’t happen but Allez Marine and Vive La France.

Whitesince63 wrote:Yes, todays the day when in all likelihood that little toad Macron will probably squeeze past MLP for another stint as President. Quel dommage. What a boost for Europe and the West it would be if the French actually fessed up for once and voted for Marine. At last without the two most selfish states running the bloc, changes can be made to finally rid the federalist nonsense and create a harmonious trading group which it always should have remained. It is only because of the imbalance between nations that the idea of Brexit, Frexit, Grexit and others surfaced in the first place. MLP winning would be the first step in breaking up the dominance of the Franco/German club and allowing all nations a more reasoned existence. It probably won’t happen but Allez Marine and Vive La France.

Whatever the outcome, voters in France have increasingly become as polarised as they have here and in the States - which I think is largely due to the reach and unfettered bias of modern media.

So the exit poles have Macron with 58% of the vote, pretty decisive in the end, so another term for the mini Napoleon. Sadly the Frogs French have as little choice in quality as we have in their leading politicians so reappointing this jumped up little numpty is all they deserve.

Whitesince63 wrote:So the exit poles have Macron with 58% of the vote, pretty decisive in the end, so another term for the mini Napoleon. Sadly the Frogs have as little choice in quality as we have in their leading politicians so reappointing this jumped up little numpty is all they deserve.

If only the French had an intellectual giant, like our Boris. A man who'd piss on your leg and tell you it's raining.

boltonbonce wrote:
If only the French had an intellectual giant, like our Boris. A man who'd piss on your leg and tell you it's raining.

And Macron isn’t the same Bonce? 🥴