That happened only once in 2002, and he lost 80/20 in the 2nd round

Yes I'm aware but that's precisely what makes it lazy thinking, to assume that the conditions are the same because the two candidates share a last name. There are a lot of other factors at play here, like the very effective job MLP has done at normalising the party (or at least, compared to her father).

So today, Le Canard Enchainé released an article that claims Fillon's wife, Pénélope, had a fake job as Fillon's assistant when he was a député.

It could be nothing or it could be a huge blow to Fillon's campaign given that he had built his campaign on integrity. Until today, he was one of the few politicians known as clean.

Good for Macron and Le Pen which ultimately means good for Macron.

Like when Rubio going off the deep end with juvenile insults was good for Ted Cruz, and is why Americans now have a President Cruz?

It seems like the Fillon scandal isn't going to go away soon, and is a pretty bad look for him. His wife was drawing a considerable government salary as an assistant for years (up to 8,000 euros a month), but a steady stream of people who knew him professionally, including his biographer, have said they had no idea she worked with him.

Last night he claimed that his wife has worked for him 'always', since 1981. However there's various quotes from her over the years saying stuff like "I don't really have a role, I just accompany him from time to time, things like that. That's the extent of it".

He's said he'll step down if he's 'mise en examen', which is roughly something like charged with a crime in the French system, but I'd be surprised if it came to that - I'm sure there's some administrative fig leaf that was put in place to make sure no actual rules were broken. Though who knows, apparently at least 10 other deputies have contacted the authorities since the news broke to change their arrangements with assistants, presumably to make sure they're 100% above board. A few MPs were actually convicted of fraud over expenses a couple of years back in the UK, which I would never have said could actually happen.

If he just rides this out, staying a candidate and not proved to have broken rules, then I would guess it doesn't affect the election massively, but things could go in plenty of directions from here and even a small dip in support could potentially see him out of the second round. It's certainly true he cultivated an air of being the only not corrupt candidate in the primary, but as the fairly locked in nominee of a significant party then there has to be a big amount of inertia to his vote.

Who it helps the most I really don't know, the FN is mired in multiple scandals of this type already, about paying people that shouldn't be with EU funds, but, as ever, why would those flirting with a vote for them start thinking particularly sensibly now.

The french election system was entirely designed after WW2 to block extremist parties to win the presidential. If you want to win, you MUST make alliances with the candidates who lost in the first round.

This is why France is safe (for now) against the Le Pen.

Is there any realistic path for Macron to get past the first round if the PS candidate and Mélenchon are also running? It would be incredible if neither the PS nor Les Républicains make it to the second round.

The PS won't make it to the second round, it's almost a lock there (think 90%). They are fighting for the fourth and fifth place (Macron/Le Pen/Fillon are top3).

The PS is not one united block of voters. It's amazing it's been alive for so long tbh. A big part of them (think, 60%+) is more of a Marxist ideology. The remaining is more social democracy oriented. These 2 have nothing in common these days. The party is going to break soon. Hopefully sunday night after Hamon wins.

Macron has a good shot because it's not a boulevard that's open to him in the center, it's now a highway. Hamon is the PS's left wing. Think utopian crap like 32 hours working week, basic income to fight off unemployment, that sort of things. Hamon and Mélenchon share a lot of voters together. That voting pool barely overlaps with Macron. I think a lot of the usual PS voters will go to Macron too. Valls is fairly close to Macron's views on work and economics in general. Not so much on society/secularism/security/terrorism but I think/hope people will focus more on unemployment more than brown people for these elections.

Bad things that could happen to Macron are:
- François Bayrou runs (not likely it seems, think 35%)
- François Fillon is mise en examen very soon and is replaced by Juppé (not very likely he is mise en examen before the elections AND early enough that Juppé has time to run a propper campaign)
- Macron receives too much support from regular politicians and turns into just another campaign (my worst fear)
- Valls wins on sunday night

Interesting. If Macron somehow manages to squeeze through and actually wins the Presidency - what will happen with the Legislative elections a few weeks later? Do you think it would be some form of cohabitation between Macron and Les Républicains (I'm presuming PS will be very weak) or would Macron somehow be able to put together a list of candidates that support his agenda for the legislative elections (i.e. create a new party)?
I'm Irish - our system is more like the UK parliamentary system (except we do have a written constitution) - but I'm becoming more and more interested (and more and more concerned!) with how other Western countries are handling the rise of populism. I think the world might just cope with a Putin and maybe even with a Putin and a Trump but I'm not sure we'll survive a Putin, a Trump, a Le Pen and what other monstrosities are on the horizon!

Macron already has created his own movement and has a ton of members. He has started recruiting candidates for the législatives (probably a mix of new faces who signed for his movement and politicians who fled other parties). Lots from the centrist wing of the PS have already joined him. If he's elected president he should do well in the legislatives too. At this point half of the PS will want to join him and give him a majority, if he doesnt have one already.

The market seems to like Macron better against Le Pen than Fillon against her. As Fillon has faded so has Le Pen (a bit).

I guess it makes sense that a centrist would do better than a thatcherite conservative asking the left to vote for him. Le Pen might be running to the left of the both of them on economics as far as I can tell though. There'll certainly be plenty of banker bashing.

Where do you get your odds for different match up?

https://www.predictit.org/Market/244...France-in-2017

29% for Le Pen? If I were rich I'd load the truck on "no" lol

Show your working here. I may have missed something but it seems like you are working on the false assumption of independence.

Le Pen was 4.8 on betfair about a week ago. She's at 5.1 now. Obviously not that much and it's not a very liquid market, but it seems to be from the Fillon thing.

also, this is Juppé

Interesting, I'd have guessed a weak Fillon is better for Le Pen, and that the only way this scandal is bad for her is if it leads to Juppé as the opponent - which currently seems much less likely than just weakening him.

The scandal is bad for Le Pen, because she can't open her mouth about it. FN is paying their workers by using the same system Fillon is paying his wife.

Latest Poll (I think it was done after Fillon's latest meeting of yesterday but not 100% certain):

No Bayrou:



With Bayrou:



I'm surprised to see that Bayrou cannibalizes Fillon's votes as much as Macron's.

Second round:

Le Pen vs Fillon: 40/60

Le Pen vs Macron: 35/65

Fillon vs Macron: 42/58

Poll was done on 1032 persons, online. MOE +- 3pts.

That opinion poll is incredible.

You have to think that if Macron is as viable as that poll indicates then a decent number of Hamon's 15% will end up voting tactically for Macron and put him into the second round (especially since presumably enough PS voters remember the shambles of 2002). A couple of months ago, the only choice seemed to be Fillon or Le Pen. The left/center might actually win this thing!

how does the hamon-mélenchon alliance thing they talk about work in practice? would both names be on the ballot but only one of them the candidate?

it'll also be interesting, to put it mildly, to see how the trump admin tries to help le pen and hopefully how badly it backfires.

I'm not sure about that. The actual left is saying Macron is just another rightist politician. Some even brings the (((banker))) argument who worked at (((Rothschild))). It resonates a lot with your typical marxist voter.

For the second round, yeah, most will vote Macron. First round I don't think so. Maybe if some polls show that a Fillon/Le Pen showdown is very close but even then, I don't see it happening...

One would remove himself off the ballot and cleary asks his followers to vote for x. I doubt Mélenchon would remove himself, the guy thinks he is Tsipras (before kneeling down to the ECB) mixed with Chavez (before bankrupting his country), very dangerous guy.

Hamon vowed that his name will be on the ballot but being a spineless socialist that he is, maybe he will remove himself for the promise to be prime minister in a Mélenchon win.

Hypermind (french predictive market) gives Hamon ~13% chance not to be on the ballot comes the presidential.

Also, note that I'm completely biased in a Macron win. I try to stay objective when explaining what's going but don't take my word for it. Furthermore I thought the Brexit and Trump would never happen.

So Le Pen it is

So new accusations came out against Fillon. Pretty damning at this point. His defense strategy is terrible too. He screams conspiracy theories but does not try to prove that his family members actually worked lol.

Will Fillon be at the second round?



This morning "yes" was at 44%. Right now it's at 23. He is probably gone by next week. Hopefully he clings to his spot and try a climb from here.

Same question for Macron:



He gained around 6% today. I'm not sure that's good for Macron tbh. If Juppé replaces Fillon, that's definitely eating on Macron voters.

Yes, it's amazing to me, but I'm beginning to think it's possible he's done. Just saw that when his wife was interviewed by the police yesterday she said she had no recollection of having signed her work contract, and had no access badge or email address at the parliament where she was supposedly working.

Don't know why, with all that's going on, this story particularly bothers me, especially as this sort of corruption is rife in politics I think. I do find the particularly naked manner in which he used his political office to just hand his family about a million euros rather breathtaking. He should just pull a Trump and claim it's great deal making, I guess. However, as you say, he seems to just slightly hysterically talk about "how dare you bring my wife into this!", which comes across as totally missing the point.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38853841

I'm calling it, she will win.