Pundits seem to think he is going to say he will renounce. Who knows tho.

Juppé is not going.

The whole thing is such a mess. I think in many ways the election of Trump was a fluke - so much had to go his way (the mess of 16 Republican candidates in the primary, a bad Democratic candidate, the bull**** of Wikileaks and the FBI response etc) and now I'm starting to get a little nervous that something similar is happening in France where a combination of weird circumstances (historically weak PS candidate, LR in complete turmoil, leaving only Macron - a fairly novice and untested politician) is greatly increasing Le Pen's chances.

What a crazy year!

There was an opinion poll yesterday that showed that if Juppé was the LR candidate that it would be himself and Le Pen in the second round (Macron was, I think, about 5% behind Juppé in the first round). Given that that would effectively make Juppé the favourite, it must be the case that Fillon is simply refusing to withdraw and is threatening to burn it all down if LR try and remove him as their candidate. Fillon can't win, but he can stop Juppé. Seems like he's happy enough with that - even if it risks putting Le Pen in the Elysée.

This was an election that a few months ago, it seemed impossible that LR could lose. Now, it seems almost impossible that they can qualify for the second round.

France seems way behind. You don't put your spouse on the payroll for a million dollar no show job IN YOUR OFFICE! Do they not have think tanks, lobbying firms and bogus charities in France?

It has slightly amazed me the Fillon's seem to have carried this out with very little subtlety - just straight up giving her money for nothing. However, to be fair, he did also get his mate who owns a magazine to give her 100,000 euros for two book reviews and 'consultancy', so not total amateur hour.

It's impressive he's hung on, though it seemed always the case that if he didn't go willingly the rest of LR effectively had no choice. Whilst winning with him now seems tough, forcing him out the door under protest (if that was even possible) or running two candidates are even more certain to lose strategies - at least I'd guess that's what they thought.

One problem with Juppé seemed to be that, if his support numbers were real they included a lot of non LRs. Apparently he'd shed some current Fillon LR voters and pick up centrist voters who are probably currently voting for Macron. The first part of that doesn't make total sense to me, the few polls that were out didn't show a real bump for Le Pen if Juppé replaced Fillon, but from Juppé's statement yesterday and other spokespeople it appeared that was a fear. Also, given Bayrou has gone over to Macron and the rumours seemed to suggest would stay there, even if Juppé ran they probably feared the centrist vote might not be a sure thing.

It seems the plan is now for the party bigwigs to rally around him, and I saw one person claiming last night there's effectively been a deal done where Fillon will run on a mainstream LR platform (toning down his anti-judge conspiracy populist stuff) and give them places in his team in return for their public support. No idea if that can work, or will even happen.

François Asselineau is the man France needs, he's the only one proposing a frexit (euro/euroland and NATO) and cherry on the cake he's the opposite of Le Pen on basically every issue.

Now that he has his 500 signatures it'll be much harder to block him from media exposure.

Asselineau is interesting at least. He bases his ideas on a return to a government that tried to represent all the ideologies of France immediately following liberation in '44. He advocates some things that seem good (to me at least), like a BBC-style independent state funded media, and his section on secularism in French life spends a lot of its time pointing out that this idea is currently largely used to attack muslims.

However, he also appears to believe whole heartedly in conspiracy theories such as that the EU was as an American inspired plot, the Boston bombing and Boko Haram might be CIA directed, and so on. He seems to take the scepticism towards America that his hero De Gaulle had and indulge it to the nth degree. There also seems to be pro-Russia stuff lurking too, which at the very least isn't a good look these days.

He's clearly one of those politicians whose own material gives one impression and what is mostly reported about him another. His platform doesn't have the same air of just slightly sublimated fascist & racist nonsense like Le Pen's does, but I know very little about the strands of French politics he's coming from so am probably a poor judge. The intro to his presidential platform does sound like a conspiracy nut.

I couldn't find any polls that include him. I suspect he's got next to no chance of being relevant, but we'll see. He also doesn't have the 500 signatures yet, but with 480 in the bag is a big favourite to get them I'd guess.

He's against NATO so you know he's on the FSB payroll iykwim

This is the best thing they came up with to be sure people wouldn't talk about him (on top of no air time on TV), now will be much harder to put him and his terrible anti euroland and anti nato ideas under the rug.

The dude wants to put in place referendums to ask people about issues and stuff, i mean the guy is savage af. The last time we had a referendum in 2005 we gave the wrong answer about euroland, since then we have been asked to stfu and only vote for trivial stuff like wich clown will run the show (the last two we had were so bad they made Chirac's presidency look like cirque du soleil).

Who is this Asselineau guy? He seems to have a large following online but never even seen or heard the guy. Does he have a blog or something?

Andre, what do you mean with "this is the best thing they came up with to be sure people wouldn't talk about him"?

Has all the attributes of your classic russian shill.

Yeah people around the world who are asked their opinion are all using it to do **** (Brexit, Trump, Catalunya ...)

So let's just pick the guy who wants to do more referendums, even if people can't answer correctly, and even if a referendum result is 100% related to what is fed to people by medias

Have to understand that most people are not skilled enough to have any interesting POV on questions like europe, so let's just not ask their opinion

Lol andre being a frexitard.

Seriously how can you think when most problems are worldwide, that leaving europe to become a smaller entity is a good idea ?

Yeah, that's a fair summary. Despite having some policies in his platform that sound appealing it's all based on paranoid foreign policy which would see him attempt to unilaterally exit most international institutions and treaties. Which, at the end of the day, is just daft.

A very vague analogy might be a version of Trump with some admirable instincts rather than wall-to-wall awfullness - the basic and insurmountable problem of being a bit of a dummy still remains.

I doubt he's a Russian shill, at least in any literal sense. De Gaulle advocated an alliance with Russia at times post WWII, it's probably just his love of historical Gaullism coming through. Though, who knows, the FSB are everywhere.

You are bright enough to see through the whole thing and your conclusion is loldemocracy? thank you for your time bro.

Tomorrow in the press: Fillon's kids had to transfer back to him the money they "earned" from fictitious jobs, gg.

French people will give him the political funeral he deserves.

Meanwhile

lol thats pretty good

The Fillon campaign continues to have terrible reactions to all his scandals. We just found out he got mis en examen this morning (roughly 'charged'), but despite having weeks to prepare his response and get in front of the news he let the Canard break it instead.

OK if you're a gravy-train merchant, but at least be the slightest bit of a competent politician.

I hope he goes full le pen and just tell everyone that yeah he scammed us and we should just **** off now. I used to have a lot of respect for the guy. Now, to me, he is just a narcissist populist power tripping politician. He does not rank much higher than Trump to me.

Not sure when this clown is going to have to debate with anyone but i could see a Marco Rubio type of ending.

Trump is doing an amazing campaign for LePen opponents.

le pen hanging around in the lobby of trump tower, just wanting to be seen there or hoping to meet the guy, is one of the more embarrassing things ive ever seen. it should cost her the election just to be so pathetic

Trump might be the worst thing for right-wing populism in Europe. People are seeing how ****ed up it is in America and wondering if they want the same kind of leader. Might have kept The Netherlands away from populism for the time being.

Anecdotally, I'm in France and I've heard this logic from several people who initially found the ideology appealing.

That's a good point SuperUberBob. Now, if only french medias could focus more on the blaming of the press / judges from Trump, maybe they would see the parallel with fillon and le pen.