Not wanting to start again the debate, but **** the religions, they are based on ****, banning a wearing that represent a radical view of a certain religion is fine,

Difficult to imagine, seems like hoping one year ago that the Trump supporters will eventually switch to Cruz/Rubio/Jeb/Kasich...

Fillon might be rightwing, but as former Prime Minister he's an establishment guy, so les deplorables will go for Le Pen.

No it isn't. It's wrong in principle and stupid in practice.

In practice such bans feed radicalism, just like banning nazi iconography. The ban only confirms the conspiratorial paranoia that is common to radical points of view.

In practice the best antidote to the stupidity of religion is education.

In principle the government shouldn't be telling people what to believe nor sanctioning those who believe wrong. Banning burkinis is no different in concept than obliging people to go to mass.

this fillon guy seems like a real pos actually. can le pen actually be worse than this?

In practice the more people will wear those stupid integrist religious signs, the more people will be tempted to follow them. best decision at first was to not talk about it, so it doesn't get any publicity, now that the damages are done, better ban it than waiting for its growth

In principle I agree school should contain hours every week, like maths or history to explain student what is wrong in every major religion (with scientific and morale arguments), and why they shouldn't believe it.

In principle religion should be forbidden to be taught to children, like alcohol and sex are

We as individuals can't say any negative **** about women now, without the world going ham, but religions can, no problem (Jews women were I live are also forced to wear long sleeves + something on their head)

Le pen can definitely be worse than a piece of ****.

Education doesn't consist in telling people what to think and what not to think. It consists in teaching them how to think and presenting them with credible empirical evidence and showing them how to use it. Children are taught about sex, and in advanced countries, where educational systems are more advanced too, it is not in a negative manner. Not teaching them about sex generally is linked to teaching them religion.

Banning things is the recourse of the pandering politician. Ban flag burning. Ban insulting the king. Ban wearing headscarves. Ban sex.

Excuse my ignorance but this fillon guy is a white male Thatcherite that wants to ban islamic attire and gay marriage up against a youthful FEMALE wanting to lower taxes and increase minimum wage !? Corrr popcorn

I really hope Emmanuel Macron can pull off a surprise. He's an interesting guy. Young, intelligent, was minister of economy for Hollande but now runs independent. He also wants to deregulate the economy, which is really necessary in France, but not as hard as Fillon. And he's socially liberal.

He's polling at 15% at the moment. If he can position himself as centrist alternative to Fillon and ride the anti traditional parties wave, maybe he can go above 20% and really challenge Fillon.

He'd crush Le Pen in the runoff. Although he's a former investment banker and married to woman 24 years older than him, so I guess there would be many ugly attacks.

I'm not sure about that. I think Macron wants to change the country entirely, in a much deeper way than Fillon.

Like, 5 years from now, how do you see the cités with Fillon as president versus Macron as president? I think Macron truly cares about the less fortunate and is in it for a true change whereas Fillon is a just slightly more liberal (in the french sense) than your regular conservative (french sense again) politician.

Also, I'm having issues understanding how can someone be economically liberal and socially conservative. For me, the two go together otherwise there is something lacking in your thinking process.

France need to build a wall around the entire country

Fillon assessment

good - liberal economic policies and reforms
bad - christian delusions
ugly - Putin sympathiser

manuel valls seems to be just about done if this holds



which maybe just about gives macron a shot at this?

Valls is gone after the second round. Very good for Macron. I saw him last week live in Quimper. Macron has a very good shot at this.

I went and voted for Montebourg today. Only because that was best for Macron to win the presidential. Oh well, Hamon isn't too bad of a pick too.

Macron keeps gaining. The left and the right are both moving away from the center and leaving him a big empty space like they're the red sea and he's Moses. It could be happening! It would be awesome to have a non-depressing electoral surprise for once.

welp (on the ground reporting)

http://www.politico.eu/article/marin...ont-banlieues/

Interesting-he's on 20% with the other two on 25%/26% respectively.

The smart money has to be on Macron. He's comparatively unknown and increasing name recognition always plays strongly in the run-up. In normal circumstances the party machines would demolish him-but he's drawing crowds and will probably get a decent grassroots operation.

He has got the money behind him and the right people. At this point I figure he is like 40% to go to the second round. This is going to be a glorious day for France and Europe.

French political question:

Le Pen is near automatic to make it to the second round, yes?

Is Le Pen more likely to beat Fillon (conservative) or Macron (rebranded socialist party) in the second round?

Edit: It appears via my Wikipedia opinion polls googling that regardless she would lose a runoff 60/40 to either candidate.

Macron's rise has to make it at least possible she's not in the second round. If he can rally enough supporters to get into the 25% range - which seems achievable just shaving votes from the PS and LR - then there must be some outcomes where it's Macron v Fillion in the second round. I do think it's unlikely, however, just because I'd guess to be in the second round Macron needs 3% or so of current Fillon voters, at which point he is the one probably missing out, not Le Pen.

If Hamon wins the PS nomination then there has to be a chance of an alliance between him and Melenchon. Currently that would be around 20% too, though I imagine it would instantly shed voters. Some of those would go to Macron, but it could also cause any voters wavering between Fillon and Le Pen to support whoever they think has the best chance of winning (am assuming there's movement there, but not certain). Rationally the more likely winner is Fillon, but who knows. That's maybe another way to get a non Le Pen second round, but lots of what-ifs there.

Lol @Fillon being an economic liberal, he isn't, he's just another old right conservative in economics

Only Macron has a little bit of liberalism in his ideas

Nobody is an automatic 2nd rounder, it's politics, lots of **** are going to come with the official campaign, who's gonna be the best at promising irrational things during the big TV debates ? Who's gonna be A+ at twitter ? Mélenchon is leading the youtube campaign ...

Everybody wants to do that not only Trump, Le Pen or Melenchon.

@ pyatnitski

Good analysis. One thing tho.

There is some overlap between Le Pen and Macron's voting pool. Think of the "**** everything PS / UMP" crowd that just wants to give the middle finger to the usual suspects but does not share any of the immigration hate from the Front National. Yeah, it's probably not as many people from the Fillon's clan that are possibly tempted to vote Macron but it's nothing to laugh at.

IMO, if Macron was to reach the second round, it is 40% of the time versus Fillon, 60% of the time versus Le Pen. Both of which he crushes EASILY (think 60/40).

What do you mean by near automatic? She's never been above 27% and Macron is mostly hoovering around 20%. That's certainly not insurmountable in 3 months.

I also think that it's slightly lazy reasoning to assume that everyone will gather around to stop Le Pen in the second round.

That was what happened with her Father so it is a reasonable assumption. It may not happen but it isn't lazy to go on historical precedent in the absence of alternative information.

I just don't know if I can believe that these voters exist to any great extent. I accept that the characterisation seems like it makes sense, though, and one thing I definitely don't understand in French politics is the wider political background of where voters for each party come from, and so where they're likely to move.

My impression is that the majority of Macron's voters are traditional centrists, the right of the PS and those who think liberal business orientated economics are the way forward (whose constituencies overlap, certainly). And that Le Pen's support is mostly the traditional right vote, which is now orientated around the FN after her having reduced the stigma of supporting it. Put like that it seems two distinct communities (liberal economics isn't the FN's bag at all), but obv political coalitions are never this simple in reality.

I may just be importing prejudices from UK and US politics, though, and not appreciating the novelty of Le Pen's support this time round.

Whilst I agree this shouldn't be counted as automatic, it's not lazy thinking - it's based on exactly this happening every time recently that the FN does well in a first round. It happened in the regional elections in 2015 - although there were examples of PS in some regions flirting with refusing to play ball. You can see it in the election results here:

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89...15#Second_tour

For the 'republican' left and right there's a decent correlation between share of vote and seats won, for the FN there's a discrepancy (many fewer seats). The voters for the left and right do seem to be able to effectively collaborate to some extent to maximise their effect. Also the non FN increased their votes by 25% in the second round, whilst the FN got out 13% more. The anti FN effect from 1st to 2nd round seems demonstratively real, but certainly not worth being complacent about.