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Home » France faces runoff election tomorrow

France faces runoff election tomorrow

The New Neo Posted on by

And there’s a great of catastrophizing about how well the so-called “far right” has been doing. Sound familiar?:

National Rally’s opponents and critics warn France is on the brink of a political catastrophe if an overtly anti-immigration, nationalist and euroskeptic party wins a majority in the parliamentary election this weekend.

Isn’t it the other way around – that the reason Le Pen’s party is doing well is because France is already on the brink of a national catastrophe if nothing is done about the immigration problem – that is, in particular, the Muslim immigration problem?

More:

“We are very anxious and we are trying to get everyone to vote, trying to tell people who don’t vote to go and vote, and to try to convince people who vote for the extreme right that they are not a good answer [to France’s problems].”

I would say that, if you wish to do that, it’s necessary to come up with your own solution that seems better. But the left seems to use fear of the right as its main motivator.

More:

Since the results of the first ballot, parties on the center-right and left have gone all-out to prevent RN’s advance in the second ballot, aiming to prevent a parliamentary majority for the party at all costs. Joining forces in a so-called “Republican Front,” centrists and leftwing parties have withdrawn candidates in many constituencies where one of their candidates was better placed to beat the RN.

By offering voters a starker choice and fewer options, the anti far-right front hopes that the electorate will vote for the non-RN candidate. Whether it will work remains to be seen and analysts point out that French voters might not take kindly to being directed how to vote, or who to vote for.

Should be interesting. Much of the article focuses on divisions in French society – it seems France is experiencing political polarization similar to ours.

Political experts agree that the current febrile atmosphere of French politics, and antagonism between the main bodies of voters, are the ingredients for further civil unrest.

“You’ve got here all the recipe for a super-polarized political scene and that, of course, translates into civil society as a whole,” Philippe Marlière, professor of French and European politics at University College London, told CNBC.

“If you’ve got only 33-34% of people voting for the far-right it means the rest is wary of that, or completely opposed to it, so that will translate on every level of politics — institutional politics, party politics, the National Assembly, but also in society. You will have a very polarized society in which younger people, ethnic minorities, women, and in particular feminists, would be very worried,” he said.

In other words, they’re afraid that Muslims and the left will riot.

Comments

France faces runoff election tomorrow — 34 Comments

  1. I would hope that the French military would not stand by and watch as France is overrun by fanatical islamoleft insurrectionists. They have weapons. They should use them.

  2. France has seemed at risk from immigration for some time. Now, England has chosen what was feared for France.

  3. I second Mr. Davies’ remark(s). It will come to a bloody nation-cleaning in France, and also here. The creepy-crawley authoritarian Democrats, with their contempt for the Constitution and law and order, must be purged, the sooner the better.

  4. It looks like France will have a hung parliament, which is unfortunate. They would benefit from an NR government provided the NR has a plan for new legal norms and institutional regeneration. Chickensh!t like harassing women over their headscarves needs to be eschewed in favor of the real deal.

  5. I predict NR will come up well short of a majority and that the non-NR groups will form a coalition to deprive them any power at all.

  6. maybe, its possible like with the meloni government or the one influenced by gert wilders, but the odds are against a fix, because name the bogeyman one thinks of,

  7. How do you say “But but I’m on your side ” in French?

    Are your two commentors calling for armed military intervention for real, or just agents of the shadow banners?

  8. Yancy, you may well be correct. It that happens though, the Left is going to create a bigger problem for themselves down the chemin.

  9. It will be interesting to see if the left can swing enough votes away from the RN. RN is not “conservative” in any sense other than opposition to unlimited Muslim immigration.

    Violence is not desirable. Unfortunately France has quite a history of it, beginning in the late eighteenth century.

  10. “We are very anxious and we are trying to get everyone to vote, trying to tell people who don’t vote to go and vote, and to try to convince people who vote for the extreme right that they are not a good answer [to France’s problems].”

    I am reminded of some times that “rightist” has been thrown at me.
    1)Grad school, early ’80s, when I was informing my roommate how the pre-Reagan tax codes resulted in inflation, without any gain in real income, put you into a higher tax bracket. (which I definitely had noticed) “That’s a very right-wing thing to say.”
    2) One time in a bloc discussion on Chavista Venezuela, a commenter said that I got my information on Venezuela from right-wing Fox News. My reply was that I got my Venezuela news from Venezuelan blogs, such as Venezuela News and Views, Devil’s Excrement, and Caracas Chronicles. Not to mention working w Venezuelans in a small US company, and also having worked in Venezuela.

    3) In a discussion on the Cold War, where some were claiming that Reagan had little to do with winning it, I pointed out Reagan’s policies towards Poland that assisted Solidarity et al. Source Peter Schweizer’s Reagan’s War. The reply came back that as Schweizer was a right-winger, he was not a reliable source: Reagan did nothing to help Poland. Reply: there is a statue of Ronald Reagan in Poland. Sounds like the Poles thought he helped some.

    When I hear “right-wing,” I conclude I am listening to a scoundrel.

  13. Decline is a choice. The West has made it’s choice. Through its voters. DEI in the military, open borders, subjugation of science to politics, birthrate below replacement, millions of illegal immigrants that hate you. And a political class unrestrained by voters. What. The. Hell.

  14. The pattern in French politics is that the “far right” does well in the first round of elections and then not so well at all in the second round run-offs. The left and the center vote together against the “far right.”

    Immigration and the EU are two big problems in France and they’re problems that the center (let alone the left) doesn’t want to tackle. The Establishment right in France, as in the US, are Romney/Ryan types. American conservatism doesn’t play very well in France, since the French are used to and expect a strong central government. I don’t think it really matters if Le Pen (or Trump) are Grade A certified “conservatives” if they actually can deal with their country’s serious problems and remain within the constitutional framework.

    Mélenchon and the French left make nationalist noises — opposition to globalization and “neo-liberalism” — but that doesn’t carry over into questioning mass immigration. They are very far left indeed. Their adherents include communists of one persuasion or another.

  17. }}} Much of the article focuses on divisions in French society – it seems France is experiencing political polarization similar to ours.

    I will note what I have noted before, a few days ago — there is a TikTok video, “Je partira pas” which has been making the rounds.

    Note the main audience for TikTok is the same in France as in the USA — the Zoomers. So, while we are seeing a lot of young, loudmouthed Useful Idiots on the left doing things like fighting over “Palestine”, there is a quiet majority here in the US, and, apparently, also in France, who think otherwise. The song got quite a few likes in France before being pulled by TikTok (too late!!) and much of the commentary by TikTokkers was positive, not the negative, “that’s racist!!” sort, as left-supporters would have responded. This suggests that there is an entire generation of far more conservative Zoomers out there, who can swing things to the right.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htW8r1BcJuA

    Lyrics:.
    ………………….
    O-ooh,.o-ooh,.o-ooh…………………………..O-ooh,.o-ooh,.o-ooh.

    “Je.partira.pas”…………………………………..”I.won’t.leave”.
    Si.si.tu.partiras…………………………………..Yes,.you.will.leave.
    Et.plus.tôt.que.tu.crois………………………….And.sooner.than.you.think.
    On.t’a.assez.donné……………………………..We’ve.given.you.enough.
    Maintenant.tu.peux.te.casser………………….Now.you.can.get.lost.
    Bon.débarras…………………………………….Good.riddance.
    Ne.reviens.pas…………………………………..Don’t.come.back.
    O-ooh,.o-ooh,.o-ooh……………………………O-ooh,.o-ooh,.o-ooh.

    [Couplet.1]…………………………………………[Verse.1].
    “Je.partira.pas”…………………………………..”I.won’t.leave”.
    Si.si.tu.partiras…………………………………..Yes,.you.will.leave.
    Comme.t’es.venu.tu.t’en.iras…………………..As.you.came,.you’ll.leave.
    “Je.partira.pas”…………………………………..”I.won’t.leave”.
    Si,.tu.partiras……………………………………..Yes,.you.will.leave.
    Tu.partiras…………………………………………You’ll.leave.
    Tu.partiras.avec.ta.fatma……………………….You’ll.leave.with.your.fatma.
    Pour.toi,.fini.le.RSA………………………………For.you,.the.RSA.is.over.
    Le.batteau.n’attend.pas…………………………The.batteau.doesn’t.wait.
    Crois-moi,.tu.partiras…………………………….Believe.me,.you’ll.leave.

    [Couplet.2]…………………………………………[Verse.2].
    Quand.va.passer.Bardella……………………….When.Bardella.comes.by.
    Tu.vas.retourner.chez.toi………………………..You’ll.go.back.home.
    Tu.mettras.ta.djellaba……………………………You’ll.put.on.your.djellaba.
    Tu.pourras.prier.toute.la.journée……………….You’ll.be.able.to.pray.all.day.long.
    Là.tu.commences.à.nous.gonfler……………….Now.you’re.starting.to.get.on.our.nerves.

    [Refrain]…………………………………………….[Chorus].
    “Je.partira.pas”……………………………………”I.won’t.leave”.
    Si.si.tu.partiras……………………………………Yes,.you.will.leave.
    Et.plus.tôt.que.tu.crois……………………………And.sooner.than.you.think.
    On.t’a.assez.donné……………………………….We’ve.given.you.enough.
    Maintenant.tu.peux.te.casser…………………….Now.you.can.get.lost.
    Bon.débarras.et.ne.reviens.jamais………………Good.riddance.and.never.come.back.
    O-ooh……………………………………………….O-ooh.

    .

    =====

    .

    Despite the apparent loss of the elections in the UK and France, I believe the Right is still in its ascendancy and is not a state of true concern. Yes, it means that the recovery will be, necessarily, later rather than sooner, thus being even more costly in turmoil and chaos, but this is nothing unsuprising. Humans seem to like playing brinksmanship with disaster.

  22. Barry Meislin:

    Happily I’ve reached the point where I know multiple words which might apply but I don’t know the nuances. Chat to the rescue:
    ________________

    Traffic Gridlock:

    Embouteillage
    Bouchon
    Paralysie du trafic

    Political/Negotiation Gridlock:

    Blocage
    Impasse

  24. Nonetheless, progress is being made in France, as in the United States, though not as quickly as one would wish. I found this today on Instapundit:
    _________________________________

    A cheerier take: In response to a claim that people on the right just need to persuade, a friend writes: “When Mr. Le Pen made it into the second round of the presidential election in 2002, he got 18% of the vote. When his daughter made the second round in 2017, she got 34%. When she did it again in 2022, she got 41%. They are persuading, just very slowly.”
    _________________________________

    Just what makes that little old ant
    Think he’ll move that rubber tree plant
    Anyone knows an ant, can’t
    Move a rubber tree plant

    But he’s got high hopes, he’s got high hopes
    He’s got high apple pie, in the sky hopes

    So any time you’re gettin’ low
    ‘stead of lettin’ go
    Just remember that ant
    Oops, there goes another rubber tree plant

    –Frank Sinatra and Eddie Hodges, “High Hopes” from A Hole In The Head (1959)”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvgo7K3BXI0
    _________________________________

    Those lyrics didn’t make sense to me even as a kid, but I appreciated the sentiment.

  25. huxley, little by little I am I am using DeepL to translate L’autre Joseph (the Other Joseph) by Kéthévane Davrichewy. (I have read that DeepL gives a better translation than Google Translate. Having seen how Google Translate does for Spanish to English, my assessment is that it does a fairly good job. But for a novel, I want better than “good enough.”)

    The book is about her grandfather Joseph Davrichachvili, who was a peer of Joseph Stalin during their childhoods in Georgia. There were some family rumors that the two Josephs were half-brothers. Who knows?

    Some reactions to French to English translations. In seeing French and English translation on the same screen, I can at least some of the time see how the translation went. I suspect that if I went sentence-by-sentence for the whole book, I would have picked up a rough reading knowledge of French. But why bother? While I have known some French people, that was 25-50 years ago, and then I could use either Spanish or English with them. Spanish is enough for me. I use Spanish often enough, for both speaking and reading.

    The question becomes, which is more useful in translating French: knowledge of Spanish or knowledge of English? I would roughly estimate knowledge of English is more useful, though Spanish can be useful.

    huxley, your quoting the Sinatra song from Hole in the Head reminds me of a family trip to Washington DC when a child. We didn’t go to movies very much, so it was a treat to see Hole in the Head when in DC. Still remember that song. IIRC, Sinatra used High Hopes when campaigning for JFK in 1960.

  26. Gringo:

    I haven’t used Deepl directly. I use LingQ, an app for reading target text, sentence by sentence, with online dictionaries, translation, and audio play, has switched from Google Translate to Deepl.

    Deepl seems better than Google Translate. It is fine though it won’t pick up context outside the sentence nor does it handle expressions well.

    I use ChatGPT for the stuff LingQ/Deepl doesn’t pick up. Chat is quite good at languages, even the free version, ChatGPT 3.5, which I suggest you try for questions Deepl doesn’t answer. You can even have conversations with it in your target language.

    The combination of LingQ and ChatGPT is an amazing boon. I can’t imagine learning French with paper dictionaries, textbooks and grammars.

    Reading novels (while also hearing and speaking what I read) is mostly how I’m learning French. I’ve read seven adult novels now and I’m still excited about French.

  27. The question becomes, which is more useless in translating French: knowledge of Spanish or knowledge of English? I would roughly estimate knowledge of English is more useful, though Spanish can be useful.

    Gringo:

    Spanish and English fluency are a great combo for learning French. I envy you!

    French and Spanish share Latin roots, but diverged after Rome fell and the Pyrenees mountains isolated the two peoples. Spanish remained truer to Latin (aside from its Arabic influences) than French.

    France was invaded by Germanic tribes, the Normans and Vikings which caused French to evolve in ways much different from Spanish. Later there were English influences.

    I lean towards Spanish as a bit more useful than English for learning French. The grammar is closer. (I had two years of Spanish and four years of Latin in high school.) But English vocabulary will fill in gaps that Spanish won’t.

    Spanish looks much less mysterious now that I’ve been studying French. I suspect it’s harder for a Spanish speaker to learn French than the other way around.

    But neither English nor Spanish will get you through the nightmare of hearing and pronouncing French. 🙂

  28. huxley
    I can’t imagine learning French with paper dictionaries, textbooks and grammars.
    After all, we learn our native languages by immersion in the language, picking up grammar and word meaning by context. My recollection as a young reader is that I hardly ever used a dictionary, but figured out word definition by context.

    Though e-readers with a tap give us near-instantaneous dictionary access, making dictionary access much easier than the days of paper dictionaries.

    Reading novels (while also hearing and speaking what I read) is mostly how I’m learning French. I’ve read seven adult novels now and I’m still excited about French.

    If you have read seven novels in French, you have a pretty good grasp of the language.

    (while also hearing and speaking what I read)
    That means the old “good reading knowledge but can’t speak worth a” comment, which described many doctoral students with a “reading knowledge,” may not be as common as it used to be.

    I use the text-to-speech app for the Fire HD while reading in Spanish. The app’s Spanish accent is pretty good. I certainly can’t find any complaints about it. Turns out that the normal speech pace of ~200 wpm is abut what my reading speed is in Spanish.

  29. Spanish looks much less mysterious now that I’ve been studying French. I suspect it’s harder for a Spanish speaker to learn French than the other way around.

    I would agree. The pronunciation would be a stumbling block, for starters.

    I had a computer science TA from Brazil. He would speak to me in Brazilian Portuguese. I would more-or-less understand him (which wouldn’t happen were I to hear Portuguese from Portugal. I get maybe every second or third word from an Amalia Rodrigues song.). I would reply to him in Spanish, and he would more-or-less understand me.

    But neither English nor Spanish will get you through the nightmare of hearing and pronouncing French.

    Some French spent some time trying to get me to pronounce “incroyable”(incredible) in proper French. They gave up after a half hour.

    My sister’s French teacher, a sweet little old lady, would spend summers working as a waitress in Quebec to keep her language skills up.

  30. It seems France has learned nothing from the World Wars of the 20th Century. After the bloodbath of World War I (the “War to End All Wars” — hmmm, how did that work out?), the French were afraid to oppose Hitler at all. The French (and British) could have taken out Hitler and his growing military in 1936, but they didn’t. Folks like Churchill realized that England and France were going to have to fight Germany sooner or later, and eventually they did have to fight.

    It is the same thing with things today like the Muslims overrunning France and England through “immigration,” and like the crazy lefties in the United States that threaten riots over everything. You might as well fight them now, before they get any stronger.

    Folks should go and study how Neville Chamberlain’s policy of “appeasement” did not work (and would never have worked). All you do when you try to appease bullies is to hope that they will eat you last, but in the end, you will be eaten.

  31. Hmmm. I would have thought maybe “Huis Clos” (the Sequel)…

    Unless there’s some kind of serious reason to quickly sober up (nuclear conflict?) Britain and France may well be writing the textbook on How to Disassemble One’s Country (Forward, of course, by Foucault…and Afterward, too)….

    …with the “Last Best Hope of Earth” and the “True North” not far behind….alas.

    File under: To save it you gotta kill it.

  32. At X, someone named “Cillian” has posted the results of the French election, organized by group/party, percentage of votes, and number of seats.

    https://x.com/CilComLFC/status/1810110921383010563

    His comment:

    “Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party received, by far, the most votes in France’s election today, but only won the third most amount of seats.

    The French people wanted to take back their borders and sovereignty, instead they got communism. We can’t vote our way out of this.”

    group/party % of votes seats
    _______________________________

    New Popular Front 26.8 177
    Macron & allies 22.3 148
    National Rally & allies 37.4 142
    The Republicans 5.1 39
    Other Right 3.5 27
    Other 5.0 41

  33. The ONLY solution, it would seem, would be for Macron to bite the bullet and do the right thing; viz., join forces with—NO, not the extreme Right, because it’s NOT that, it’s—the patriotic Right of Center, which forms the majority of the Right-of-Center vote.

    But will he do it…?

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