Macron wins…
…handily.
Which shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone at all.
However, it may be somewhat surprising that the polls were relatively accurate in the case of this election, at least in the general sense that they forecast a Macron landslide victory with an enormous gap between the two candidates. In fact, Macron seems to have done even better than the 20% margin predicted by most polls towards the end, getting around 66% to Le Pen’s 34%.
France now follows in the footsteps of the US and Canada in choosing a neophyte to politics for its highest post. I’m unaware of any other time in recent history when this was the case in so many major countries in the West, or even any countries in the West (unless you count this):
Macron will now face huge challenges as he attempts to enact his domestic agenda of cutting state spending, easing labour laws, boosting education in deprived areas and extending new protections to the self-employed.
The philosophy and literature lover is inexperienced, has no political party and must try to fashion a working parliamentary majority after legislative elections next month.
His En Marche movement — “neither of the left, nor right” — has vowed to field candidates in all 577 constituencies, with half of them women and half of them newcomers to politics.
Macron was a socialist just a short while ago, but some of his proposals don’t seem to fit into a socialist box:
…[Macron’s] economic agenda, particularly plans to weaken labour regulations to fight stubbornly high unemployment, are likely to face fierce resistance from trade unions and his leftist opponents.
Macron is a supporter of the EU, so Brussels can breathe a sigh of relief. But although I’m not an EU supporter, I’m also not a big Le Pen fan and would have been extremely nervous had she been elected. As commenter “expat” writes:
I’m happy about Macron because he is not the anti-American pro-Putin socialist Le Pen…She was also proposing 2 currencies, the Franc and the EU. Macron maybe an unwritten chapter, but he is said to be smart and he wants economic reforms. He did not pin himself down to many specifics, which I hope means that he will be able to look at situations and act pragmatically. We will have to wait and see.
Where have we heard that before? We’ll see.
Yes, Macron has huge challenges. But it is France that is challenged, and pretends not to see. Voting Macron is like voting for Jeb! or Kasich or Hillary. Like another youngster full of BS, Trudeau, Macron will not meet any of those challenges. Being pro-EU means, ultimately, being anti-France.
His trousers are well-creased and he has not put himself down to many specifics. That worked out real well here.
Expat is too immersed in Europe, perhaps, to get a little distance vision. Maybe he’s got ways to dodge the VAT.
Jihadist immigrants rejoice! The doors remain wide open.
Frog,
I find it scary that so many “conservatives” have jumped on the Le Pen bandwagon without knowing a thing about her positions on anything but immigration. She is a Putin friend and a socialist. She also seems to know nothing about economics. I am not a rabid Macron supporter, but I hope he will make some good decisions.
Many of us here were not rabid Trump supporters either because he didn’t seem to have done much homework into issues. We crossed our fingers and hoped. Fortunately he has has gotten some good advisors. I doubt that Le Pen would have been able to do that. Many of Europe’s problems are the result of a Brussels elite that are not immersed in Europe’s regional differences. Perhaps Macron can do something about that. I don’t know.
The questions I came away with:
* Why were the polls pretty close in this case?
* How does the turnout compare to historical norms?
For both the recent US and UK elections, there appeared to be a significant contingent of voters that just weren’t talking in public. In general, I understood that to be a reflex against a known bias (and the ridicule that often would accompany that bias).
I do have to wonder if the French media is less in the tank for partisan purposes. It’s hard to tell on the surface.
Le Pen had one issue: France for the French. She is indeed a socialist. Macron is a socialist making promises he can not keep. A new reign of terror awaits as the crescent moon and star club grows.
Expat,
I knew Le Pen was not a conservative, but I hoped she would win simply because France and the rest of Western Europe needs to be shaken up.
A vote for Le Pen was a vote for France, that is all. No reason to expect her to have succeeded all across the board any more than anyone else. Like Trump, if elected, she would have surrounded herself with some heavyweights. She would not have turned France into a big Greece.
Expat: in general you seem inclined to give people in politics the benefit of the doubt. Which is not free of hazards!
Based on my Googling, the “friendship” between Le Pen and Putin seems largely a creation of the MSM.
Macron is the French Obama, I fear.
steve.c.:
The polls before the first round of the election were very close to the actual results of the first round, although one might think the first round would have been even more difficult to predict because there were so many entrants. This article attempts to explain how they got it right.
In the final election that occurred today, the polls were correct in that they predicted a landslide victory for Marcon. But they were somewhat off in the actual total, which was even better than predicted for Marcon.
Frog:
Le Pen supported Putin’s takeover of Crimea:
There seems to be significantly more “there” there in the Le Pen/Putin connection than with Trump/Putin.
If you look at a map of wins by department, it’s striking what a small area went Le Pen’s way.
Adieu France. You’ve chosen your fate.
The SciFi author Robert A. Heinlein once observed that, “The first principle of freedom is the right to go to hell in your own handbasket.”
If sadly, I can accept that you’ve chosen a hellish fate but I cannot forgive your having chosen to send your children there too.
Anyone who voted for Le Pen should emigrate. Now. The handwriting is on the wall, as surely as it was in 1930s Germany. France and all of Western Europe is lost. By the time that it is undeniable, it will be far too late.
Ann,
That map is amazing. If you consider that one of her districts is Calais, where they have had all the immigrants trying to get across the channel to England, it’s not surprising. I thought the South was supposed to be a Front National stronghold, but maybe her father’s followers didn’t like the fact that she dropped out of the party a few weeks ago.
See this report posted at Powerline:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/05/the-french-election-our-man-in-paris-reports.php
“Macron maybe an unwritten chapter, but he is said to be smart and he wants economic reforms. He did not pin himself down to many specifics, which I hope means that he will be able to look at situations and act pragmatically. We will have to wait and see.” Change Macron to Obama. France will not be in a good place with Macron. Note that a good many people did not vote, there were a lot of mis-marked ballots. Poor France.
Neo:
Opposing Putin’s takeover of Crimea accomplished what?
Nothing. Nothing at all.
Crimea was a long-standing Russian territory until Khrushchev ceded it to USSR-member Ukraine in the 1960s, a transfer at the time that was cost-free to Russia, but yielded some good will in Ukraine. You may remember Stalin earlier had created a famine in Ukraine that killed several millions by denying food shipments, enough reason for a later goodwill gesture.
The Crimean population is very majority Russian, and it is a very strategic Black Sea port for the Russian navy.
Empty-handed opposition to the “seizure” by Russia of Crimea is pointless, useless, and shows the nasties of the planet that Obama and Kerry are (were) paper tigers. So Le Pen got some good will from Putin which might have stood France in good stead for some future event.
Of course there is more ‘there’ there in LePen/Putin than Trump/Putin, the latter hookup being one of many anti-Trump fictions created by the Left. It will be better, IMHO, to not have Putin as a serious enemy because we are simply not militarily up to it, thanks to Obama. We can no longer simultaneously fight two regional conflicts.
Putin has been as brilliant as the West has been weak. He should be respected as a formidable foe. See the Arctic; see Syria; see Crimea. He has an airbase and a naval harbor in Syria; what have we? He recognizes Russia has a very long border with Iran, so they cooperate. He plays long ball.
LePen may well have seen that. Germany is at Russia’s mercy for natural gas, so don’t expect anything there.
From the Powerline piece:
11. A few minutes ago, Macron finished giving his acceptance speech to a crowd of about 15,000 people who braved a chilly, rainy night to see him. The speech was classic for him — well-delivered lines essentially devoid of substance. However, the most repeated word was “audacity”
Classic Obama, that audacity and that speech. He had the Louvre behind him, not fake Greek columns..
Frog,
He has tried to hold Eastern European countries under his thumb for years by cutting off gas to them. He has also had quite a few people murdered. Did you ever hear of plutonium sandwiches?
Le Pen thinks only of herself. Macron did not use the word audacity. He spoke in French. He also has some real credentials in his background, as opposed to Obama, who mainly disorganized Chicago and sucked up to Rezko, Wright, Ayers, etc.
Le Pen is not Trump.
Macron is WIERD.
He married his Teen sweetheart — and stole her away from her husband.
So now, he’s 39, she’s 64.
He’s a synthetic candidate… who is expected to hold the door open for corruption for another five-years.
4chan and Wikileaks is revealing that he is TOTALLY corrupt.
Maybe someone who really cares can tell me…was there a GOOD choice here for France?
You have free-range jihad. Marginal economy. Entrenched back-scratching among the elites. (4chan & wiki are having a field-day there) An ageing & declining numerically anglo population…and let’s go on & mention the immigrant overrun.
Is, as GB said above, adieu France, about the best any can say?
Those are genuine questions, because I’ve basically written off most of continental Europe to the socialists and immivaders for a number of years now…so if there’s light at the end of that tunnel…enlighten me y’all.
Just as an aside, the polls were relatively accurate here too.
In their final average of various polls, RCP had Clinton ahead by 3.2%. She ended up beating Trump by 2.1%.
Ironically, the poll that correctly predicted the winner of the election, LATimes / USC, ended up being amongst the least accurate…as they had Trump ahead by 3 points.
The poll numbers were reasonably accurate…they were just measuring the wrong thing.
Manju:
I wrote two posts on that very subject. They were written shortly after the election: here and here.
Macron = the manufactured candidate.
Astoundingly corrupt.
I thought she would get 3 or 4 percent more at least possibly topping out as high as 42 or even 43%; by figuring that she would get 2/3rds of Fillon’s support once people finally had to choose and might opt to send a “shake ’em up” message.
Looks like that égalité fraternité locked-arm’s-emotionalist based crap runs deep in old Francia.
Macron’s first act as President: threaten to sanction Poland if it doesn’t open its borders to refugees.
Pity, CD Projeckt Red was one of the few Western game dev companies willing to put out excellent and politically incorrect products.
Must be a lot of Satan worshippers and false votes in France there.
I, too, think that France is a goner, along with many of the other Western, increasingly “post-Christian” European nations that used to form what we once upon a time proudly called Christendom. They will, one by one, to a greater or lesser extent, fall under the “yoke of Islam.”
They’ve just let in too many Muslim invaders/occupiers, who have embedded themselves too deeply into these countries. These Muslims largely refuse to integrate, and have formed separate Islamic societies within each one of these Western nations. Muslims are boldly claiming more and more de facto jurisdiction over territory and the public square, and intimidating and rolling back native populations, their cultures, and their governments. Things have reached the point where any real attempt at fighting back against these Muslim invaders and colonizers, or attempts to expel them, would likely require French Revolution levels of violence and bloodshed.
Moreover, if nothing else, these Muslim colonists are outbreeding decadent and impotent native populations, who have obviously lost whatever civilizational confidence and agency they once had.
Over almost a 1,400 year span, their more realistic, rougher, and more canny Christian forebearers, who apparently had a much keener sense of self preservation, threw back four major attempts by Muslim invaders to conquer Europe (First, in 732 A.D. at the Battle of Tours or Poitiers, just outside Paris, then again at the Siege of Vienna in 1529, next, at the Sea Battle of Lepanto off Greece in 1571, and finally at the Battle of the Gates of Vienna in 1683).
Instead of warily keeping them out, these gullible, willfully ignorant turkeys in Western Europe have invited their Muslim invaders in through the City Gates with open arms, and will now pay the price, as will we all.
Not surprising that Macron positioned himself like Obama.
“Behind the scenes, Macron had quietly begun working with a Paris-based political technology firm, Liegey Muller Pons, started by a handful of French entrepreneurs who had volunteered for Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008.” [LATimes]
And, of course, Obama endorsed him.
The final vote was strange. Although most news outlets are reporting 66%/34%, the actual count was:
10 million: Le Pen
14 million: No vote (the Ni/Ni vote or ruined ballot)
20 million: Macron
So roughly 1 in 3 voters cast ballots against both Macron or Le Pen.
Interestingly, only 20% of the 65+ voted Le Pen, whereas 44% of the 18-24 voted for her.
I’ve seen the view expressed that a lot of Frenchmen, especially older Frenchmen, who are getting close to the end of their lives, are hoping that if they can only keep collecting their generous government benefits, sit in a little cafe or their own quiet, enclosed garden, sip a fine wine, eat good food and, finally, pass on, that’s fine with them. They don’t want trouble, and they’re just hoping that the onrushing storm will not break until after they have passed on.
I wonder if, in many and perhaps a lot of cases, that is the attitude behind many Frenchmen’s passivity and apparent helplessness in the face of the Muslim invasion of their country, and Muslims pushing themselves in and occupying more and more of the public square, meanwhile pushing native Frenchmen to the perimeter walls.
Apropos of this, last week I read a very interesting and well-reasoned piece in the City Journal by an expert on the French real estate market (see, https://www.city-journal.org/html/french-coming-apart-15125.html), who said that, from what he observed, France has a socio-political divide somewhat analogous to that here in the U.S., with our well-off East and West coast elites in big cities vs. economically depressed, small town America, fly over country.
He sees a great economic and political divide between very Left wing Paris and other larger, prosperous cities, high tech hubs, full of job opportunities and young, chic, up and comers, and the economically depressed countryside, which is older and much more right wing.
Over almost a 1,400 year span, their more realistic, rougher, and more canny Christian forebearers, who apparently had a much keener sense of self preservation, threw back four major attempts by Muslim invaders to conquer Europe (First, in 732 A.D. at the Battle of Tours or Poitiers, just outside Paris, then again at the Siege of Vienna in 1529, next, at the Sea Battle of Lepanto off Greece in 1571, and finally at the Battle of the Gates of Vienna in 1683). Snow on Pine Says:
The Catholic Popes found out where the French Albigensian lords were after that, and then declared a holy war of extermination against Albigensia.
No wonder the French blood thinned out over time. The Catholic Popes sold the Christian girls to Islamic sex traders, so all the good virtuous genes went to Islam and North Africa.
Some of the Berbers have white skin and blue eyes, strangely enough, and that dna sequence was pretty old.
How much history we have forgotten, or never even learned in the first place!
The rarely remembered or talked about Muslim slave trade is ancient, has been going on for almost 1,400 years, and still goes on today in parts of the Muslim world.
As you might imagine, actual figures are hard to come by, but by some estimates, the Muslim slave trade transported and sold a total of more than 22 million slaves (and it could be many millions more)–an estimated 5 million of them from Africa, hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions from India, and an estimated 1.5 million of them from Europe.
Europeans were captured by Muslims as–over the course of almost a thousand years–they repeatedly raided the coasts and swept through the countries in the Mediterranean–places like Italy, Corsica, Spain, and Portugal–but also raided the coasts and swept through the interior of Europe–slaves taken from places like Germany, France, and the Netherlands, and by Muslims raiding coastlines as far north as England, Ireland, Scotland, and even Iceland.
Muslims favored the exotic look of blond haired white women for their harems, many of the male slaves they captured were castrated, and so many Slavs were taken from Central and Eastern Europe that some think that this was the origin of the word “slave.”
Moreover, at the very dawn of our country’s history, the Barbary Pirates, subjects of the Ottoman Empire, often captured American ships at sea, stole their cargoes, and sold their crews and passengers into slavery.
places like Italy, Corsica, Spain, and Portugal–
Don’t forget Iceland. Ireland/Scotland even has a song about a girl being sold to a Islamic sultan.
Muslims raiding coastlines as far north as England, Ireland, Scotland, and even Iceland.
Oh you already included it, that’s good. But it surprised me to learn that Islamic raiders had reached as far as Iceland. They were veritable vikings in their sailing and raiding.
The only way to counter the vikings was to convert them to Christianity, and this began even before the Catholics.