I'm honestly not super-concerned of Le Pen winning. Both Macron and Fillon have been ahead in head-to-head polls for ages against her. At least there were times where Trump was within the margin of error or even slightly ahead against Clinton in opinion polls leading up to the election.

What should be concerning is even if she doesn't win, her getting to the second round is a clear sign of the growth of right-wing populism in France. Who's to say what happens in 2022?

Looks like le pen is in a slump after monday's night debate. Hamon and Mélenchon flippening too.

For a USAer who doesn't follow French politics much, what's this Harmon guy like? Also, how will Fillon voters split if he loses the first round?

I'll let someone else tackle what Hamon's like, but here's the info from the last two polls on the wikipedia polling page showing how voters for other candidates in the first round will vote in a Macron / Le Pen 2nd round. The numbers are the % saying they'll vote each way in the second round, so 42-44% of Fillon voters will vote Macron and so on.

	Macron	Le Pen	Abstain
Fillon	44 / 42	26 / 23	30 / 35
Melenchon	46 / 51	13 / 6	41 / 43
Hamon	70 / 71	6 / 3	24 / 26

You can get to the raw data from the links in the table here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinio...election,_2017

I don't know if those polls are particularly accurate, and I'd guess this sort of question has an even lower chance of being accurate than the straight preference of voting, but it probably gives a general idea. Bizarrely the polls say 5% of Le Pen voters will switch to Marcon in the second round, and possibly 1% of Macron voters will swap.

Hamon is the lowest line on that graph, Macron is joint highest in case you got tarped by that confusing coloring scheme.

Valls supporting Macron. Probably not that surprising that he supports Macron, maybe a little surprising that he's willing to publicly endorse him. Got to think this is the end of the PS in its current form. With Macron also picking up a few ex-Chirac ministers over the past week, his campaign is really picking up steam. Very good chance he polls ahead of Le Pen in the first round and crushes her in the second round.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39428649

Is it fair to assume Valls is only doing this as he already has an agreement with Macron to get something decent in a government? Would he go this far just speculatively? It does seem like he couldn't possibly rally the existing PS ever again after this, so he must see his political future elsewhere. If Macron wins it's tough to see there being room between him and the left PS rump for another 'movement'.

Not sure why Macron would give him an agreement, though. To try and ensure a workable majority in the Assemblé?

Seing the PS exploding is the highlight of the election for me. Hamon polling at 10%, below Mélenchon is what dreams are made of.

All those "socialists" throwing their party under the bus to jump in the Titanic Macron boat tho.

uhm, wat?


https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/sta...45103204532224

is melenchon going to make socialism great again?

How likely is it that Le Pen gives a Frexit referendum if she wins?

Very likely. She talks about having a referendum on leaving the EU, but what she actually proposes is first a referendum on a whole host of of constitutional reforms. One of which would be revoking aspects of European Treaties at the heart of the EU (but not leaving), another of which would be extending the powers of referendums themselves. After that she'll negotiate with the rest of Europe, and then after that there will be a referendum on staying in or out, and Le Pen will apparently pick a side once the negotiations are done.

It seems like she's curiously hedging her bets at the moment. She isn't really, though. She'd probably win the first referendum as she'll have just been elected president and it has a host of other populist measures. The treaty changes she proposes will cause the EU to tell her to do one, and so she'll then campaign for a leave vote.

Melenchon is here to pull a Tsipras, he is super duper slippery on leaving and never mentions the article 50.

Unlikely is my guess, National Front Inc made an absurd amount of money from their seats in the EU parlament and never pulled 1/10000th of a Farage like speech.

"One of which would be revoking aspects of European Treaties at the heart of the EU (but not leaving)"

This is exactly the same argument as Melenchon and its the same scam. There is no way to "revoke aspects of treaties" as you can only change treaties if you have an unanimous decision from the 28 members, this just the standard "another europe" bs, neither ever talk about the article 50 because they don't want it.

Yes, guess my post wasn't as clear as it could be. All she'll have after the first referendum will be a desire from the people to change some treaties, that's why she'll then go off to try and negotiate and so on.

I do think she'd follow this path, however. I read her hedging as trying to attract slightly more pro-EU voters, not any actual desire to stay. The EU is absolutely important for the FN currently as they need PR to get seats and therefore power and money, but she'll introduce PR for the other French elections and will already be president.

We'll see, I guess. Well, with any luck we won't.

I think you have it the other way around, she and Melenchon are trying to tap into the 55% of voters who voted against the european constitution in 2005. Without any actual desire to leave (they don't even have a plan).

This short video does a good job at explaining a few things about Le Pen (in french).

I never heard of that Terrain pollster and it's the first poll I see with Melenchon ahead of Fillon. Though he might get there eventually and it would be glorious. Compilation of polls from wikipedia:

Nice garf but the frexit party garf is cuter.

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The question isn't "Is Le Pen as rabidly pro-Frexit as Asselineau?" it's "How likely is a referendum under Le Pen?". I stopped that video after a few minutes as it it was claiming she had no plan after the re-negotiation, yet her no. 1 campaign pledge is to have a referendum on EU membership after the re-negotiation.

It seems the only way she'll get out of that is if either the French public vote down her constitutional changes, or the EU caves to her demands. The second is laughably unlikely, and, if we believe your reading of the 2005 vote, so is the first.

If you want me to admit that your boy Asselineau is by far the most Frexity Frexiteer then I am happy to do so. He's Frexit mad!

May i correct you once again, he's Frexit lickin' good.

This thread is the only place I know where there is an Asselineau supporter.

Met one today at the library. He went full ****** when I mentionned the 911 and dalai lama is a CIA asset conspiracies. He said that "911 can't be anything but an inside job". Duh, jet fuel can't melt steel beams.

UPR supporters hanging in libraries looks standard iyam.

Here's my sick brag: I've never met a Macron supporter irl.

So Asselineau is the French Jill Stein?

He's a perfect mix of Bernie Sanders and Charles De Gaulle.

why is this lassalle guy allowed on stage