Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron will advance to the second round of the French presidential election on May 7th.
As of last night, the vote tally stands at:
Le Pen: 23.4%
Macron: 22.9%
Fillon: 19.7%
Melenchon: 18.6%
Thoughts and comments? Who are you rooting for?
For the latest updates, see: http://www.repubblica.it/static/speciale/2017/ele…
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Called the Le Pen victory on another thread. Hope they leave the EU and Italy and Spain do as well and growth returns to France and the rest of the world. Also rooting for Kevin O'Leary in Canada in 2019! #MrWonderful
I love Kevin O'Leary.
Lmao why the hate on this comment?
Honestly shocked so many took time out of their busy 35 hr French work week to MS my opinion.
Big relief since the disaster Mélenchon-Le Pen runoff scenario is avoided. Macron should win but the Mélenchon voters seem very eager to be pig-headed about this one and sit the next round out so it could be embarrassingly close or an outright tragedy.
Let us all hope Le Pen wins and saves Europe from being destroyed by the invading hordes. And the idea of an investment banker as Président de la République is revolting.
More revolting than electing a very thinly veiled fascist? I thought this was Wallstreetoasis...
If Le Pen is a fascist, what does that make Jobbik and Golden Dawn? Ultra fascists? Her proposal of not letting France be overrun by barbarians, raiders and murderers is less in the realm of fascism and more in the realm of common sense.
revolting
Literally.
Ba-dum-tss.
For the people saying "Le Pen is fascist" please please take a look at her program and then talk, do not limit yourself to the mainstream media which is of course non objective at all.
Le Pen main program is based on: Changing the rules of the EU or leaving the EU according to what the French want, voted by referendum. Stopping massive immigration (Take the metro in Paris, you'll see...) Not afraid to say you are proud to be French (which is considered as being fascist)
Even though I have no hope (for the 2nd round) the French will be smart enough to think by themselves and not listen to the medias...
OMG if I take the metro in Paris I'll see a bunch of nonwhites!? Jesus!? How would I deal with that!? I mean, there'll be nonwhites on the metro! Maybe we should institute a special section for them, perhaps the back of the bus. You know, so I can get on the bus and feel okay.
Macron should win comfortably. He'll gather the vast majority of votes from other candidates, I would expect quite a few from Melenchon to vote for Le Pen, also some from Fillon but not a huge amount.
Macron was the minister for the economy under Hollande, which isn't an experience I believe many would want on their CV..
Next 7 weeks will certainly be very interesting in Europe!
Either of them is fine. The more disturbing news is that a socialist/communist can actually win almost 20% of the vote in France.
Right wing populism is disturbing. Emotional rhetoric to morons over facts is a problem.
You've triggered all of the first time voters.
Final score appears to be the following:
Macron: 23.9% Le Pen: 21.4% Fillon: 19.9% Melenchon: 19.6%
Any idea on how many Melenchon and Hamon voters will shift to Le Pen because of her economic stance?
Not exactly the most up-to-date info, sadly, as you can see from the numbers on the left. Nevertheless, she's still losing it if you double the FT's estimation.
Every single comment supporting Le Pen here has to do with her immigration stance. Anyone care to comment on her economic platform? Or are you guys mistaking WSO for 4Chan?
GoodBread: live in France, you'll understand why the immigration topic is so important.
Economically speaking: higher taxes on imports, preventing French plants relocation in Eastern European countries (cheaper labor) => less unemployment => higher purchasing power Lower taxes on small companies (France has the highest taxes in Europe, starting a new company is impossible here)
Blaming immigrants, legal or otherwise, that flock to Marseille, and relying on protectionism (which is anti-business) isn't going to solve France's problems. Macron, if I'm not mistaken, is very much for cutting taxes and cutting public expenditures...
Populism, while moving for morons, doesn't survive scrutiny.
Grew up in France in a banlieue with a large immigrant population. Everything turned out fine.
Higher taxes on imports => more expensive imports => less purchasing power => more unemployment. What exactly are you hoping for? For France to reopen steel factories?
I'm with Her.
I wanted Fillon because he was a good blend of conservatism and economic pragmatism, but alas: Fillon -> Jeb Bush, Le Pen -> Trump, Macron -> Clinton, and we all know how that ended.
You're underestimating how foolish and misinformed the "Fox and Friends" crowd is.
Maybe, but all it takes is for one more high profile incident to happen that could push a lot of fillon backers over to Le Pen.
E.g, after Fortuyn was assassinated the Lijst's support shot up, albeit briefly
France is focused on the one in one million chance they are victims of a terrorist attack when they're massive welfare state and anti-business policies have fucked their economy for decades. So instead of addressing that they push Le Pen who somehow wants to reduce the retirement age and institute protectionist policies while protecting their short work week and they give 20% of the vote to a guy on the record saying he admires Hugo Chavez & Fidel Castro. That is the state of the world folks. People are utterly uninterested in making the tough decisions so they'll scapegoat globalism. In reality the French need to cut their corporate tax rate and reform their labor laws to make it easier to be fired/ improve productivity/ lessen the power of unions. Instead they give 20% of the vote to someone who literally wants to make it illegal for profitable businesses to fire people.
I'm not knowledgeable about french politics, so GoodBread let's say Le Pen wins. does she have carte blanche to leave the EU without some legislative process? I would think she probably does not have that kinda power...but I don't know.
I don't think she'll win, but then again, I didn't think Brexit would occur.
I think that if France leaves the EU it will be disastrous, mainly because they will likely have to recreate their currency from scratch, and while France isn't in the same situation is the mediterranean countries, I don't envision the new Franc being on par with the swiss franc, the krone, the pound, or the dollar.
also, let's not forget that one of the main reasons for the EU dating back to the 50s was to prevent another war between Germany and France. with England leaving, France considering leaving (if Le Pen wins), I don't know that this is a step in the right direction...
WW3 isn't happening between France and Germany, with or without the EU. Both nations have been emasculated beyond repair.
The EU is a nice idea, but being partially governed by people the citizens never voted for leaves a sour taste. It's going to have to reform or die.
The executive is pretty powerful in France and a Le Pen win would probably be tantamount to Brexit. However, civil unrest has a long tradition in France and I'm not convinced Le Pen could hang in there more than a few months. The scale of the riots you would see in the banlieues would be unprecedented in a developed country.
The French franc would slide enough to create some benefits but probably not all that much. The deutsche mark would hurt the Germans a lot more while the lira would help the Italians a lot more.
I support Le Pen because of her stance on immigration and the EU. On the other hand, I disagree with probably 80% of her other economic policies, but the 20% of issues I agree with her party on are fundamental for preserving Europe.
Was Macron top bucket at his IB? Does this make the new exit ops IB->French President?
Time to start calling it M7 + ENA
Anyhow, my whole take on this is that Macron is a last ditch effort at electing a candidate who respects Western democratic institutions. All of the other candidates offered radical plans of varying buffoonery all with a common threads of clamping down on personal freedoms and/or the free market as a panacea for the reforms France desperately needs.
If in 5 years time some sort of grand bargain hasn't been struck with Germany with regards to structural reforms in exchange for Eurozone bonds, and EU borders are not secured and a fair quota system put in place for migrants, an extreme candidate will be elected, whether on the Left or the Right. That will be the end of the Euro, and probably the EU.
This has been my point for several years now--in principle the EU is a good concept, but as it has played out it has been a bureaucratic dictatorship that doesn't respect national borders, plus the Euro has all the weaknesses of the gold standard but none of the gold standard benefits. Germany got in the EU complete dominance over continental Europe without firing a shot. The EU experiment has been laughably bad.
I don't completely agree with regards to your gold standard assessment. The euro makes fx risk a whole lot more transparent when looking at the eurozone and given how messed up the eurozone has been, the euro's volatility has been remarkably low.
If the EU can muster the political will to make it work (ie Germany accept to give back what it gains from the euro), it should be a net positive for everyone.
As dismal of a presidency as Hollande appears to have had, he probably swayed Draghi towards a dovish stance more than Sarkozy would have.
I don't think Europe is not lurching to the right by any real stretch of the imagination. The centrists and left leaning-moderates are winning across Europe.
The Dutch rejected Wilders and kept in their moderate PM.
France rejected Le Pen and Melencheon, and Macron (moderate) has huge odds of winning. I honestly thought Macron would have far more support on WSO as he is socially tolerant but was the only candidate that wanted to reducethe welfare state, cut labor laws, and bring back some semblance of a competitive economy.
Austria's far right is dramatically slipping in the polls to the point where they are becoming a non-factor.
Germany's far right party dropped so far in the polls in the last couple of days that the head of the party has been fired and replaced. Leaving Merkel the heavy favorite in the upcoming German elections
The Conservative party in the U.K under Cameron voted for criminal justice reform, gay marriage, and wouldn't dare try to mess with the NHS on any substantial scale. The Conservatives in England are far to the left of the Democrats in the United States.
Europe is definitely moving to the right, but to your point, Europe's right is to the left of the American left, and Europe's right is only "right-wing" on issues of immigration. Other than immigration, the European right sounds a lot like the American left circa 1938 (actually, the labor left in America was probably anti-immigrant in the 1930's, too).
I'd like Le Pen to win just to enjoy the aftermath and the sellout on the market, but she will lose, so long EU financials.
Discount Le Pen all you want but the fact of the matter is she would be a better candidate than Macron for several reasons namely the fact that Le Pen is a career politician who understands politics not only locally but on a grand stage such as the EU Congress (or whatever its called).
Macron has only served in administrative position(s) and does not know how to form coalition and ensure that his agenda and policies are turned into laws. He may have the support of anti-Le Pen voters and politicians but if he is elected than the Socialists, Communists, and Liberal wing will turn against him and he'll end up making Hollande look like a competent President.
Been following Macron since last September. He has a solid vision for France and I hope he makes it to the Élysée Palace.
Ms. Le Pen is not particularly interesting. I feel that she is trying too hard to sound extreme in order to keep people following her (a la President Trump). I disagree with her policies on both immigration and the French economy. In regards to leaving Europe, Macron summed it up--"Nationalism is war."
the fact that Macron's wife (Brigette) has a son older than Macron. and he started seeing her when he was just 15. not passing judgement, just stating facts.
Shit is weird af lol.
Congratulations to Angela Merkel for winning the French Presidential Election! /s
I find it hilarious how a Rothschild banker was parroted as a "maverick outsider".
Silver lining is that Macron is to the right of the French Socialists presently in power. Le Pen's movement, like Wilder's movement in the Netherlands, didn't win but made huge inroads into the mainstream. That's at least a moral victory, insofar as moral victories matter.
Hopefully he is able to actually enact free market reforms. The French people are seriously the worst and are determined to shoot themselves in the foot though so I doubt it'll happen. What's more likely is the situation will stay the same/ get worse as parliament stonewalls him, they will continue to scapegoat, and both the far left and the far right will continue to make gains.
Or like many people have pointed out just another Hollande. He's now President but good luck forming a coalition because you can bet the butt hurt Socialist and Left will do everything they can to fight him on any labor reforms or anything seen as pro-business.
Because fuck corporations right?
Hollande's Loi Travail was actually a further step on the path to labor market deregulation than anything done in decades including during Chirac and Sarkozy's terms. It's a very small step, but it's something.
Elections in France (Originally Posted: 04/22/2012)
It appears that the socialist candidate François Hollande is poised to win.
How will the market react if this guy aka ''75% tax rate if you make over a million'' wins?
I'm thinking it would be good news for U.S. bonds---gov't and mortgage bonds alike. It's hard to imagine that an era of austerity brought on by profligate socialist spending could result in the socialists coming right back into office.
The Europeans deserve the governments they get.
Most french companies get a lot of foreign income which doesn't get taxed by France.
Also, this is just the primary, not the general where 99% chance it will be Hollande vs. Sarkozy.
I own a french oil company. Frenchies have been dumping their stocks for years. The US and the EU has a tax treaty on dividends with them. 2-3% slump, and that's it.
Sarkozy is supposed to come ahead of Hollande in this 1st round.
However, in the 2nd round, Hollande is supposed to crush him.
If I was a wealthy guy living in France, I'd be nervous right now.
Well, france has to learn its lesson about too much government, and the US has to learn its lesson about too little.
The US has too little government?
what a shitshow
French ppl should vote for Marine LePen. She's the only legit candidate.
LOL if she was elected, with a name like Abdel you won't be welcomed.
The only candidate that deserve respect is Francois Bayrou, but his campaign failed to gain momentum. Maybe because he spoke the true and French don't like it.
Yeah, the US is definitely suffering from too little government...
Hollande 28%
Sarkozy 25%
LePen 20%
2nd round in 2 weeks: Hollande VS Sarkozy
Gini coefficients disagree with you guys. They're high even for the pre-FDR period of the 20th century.
A high GINI only means income inequality exists, so what? People do have mobility, the fact that has lessened has more to do with the fact that well paying jobs require intelligence generally and a lot of that sorting has already occurred.
French voters seem to be taking all of this in stride:
http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/france-votes-as-sarkozy-faces-defeat-…That may be true, however the mere existence of inequality isn't a bad thing, also why in the hell do you call yourself a libertarian? You're a statist.
I believe there's a time and a season for everything, including statism and libertarianism.
Long summers are great- I love summer, but if it were summer year-round, there'd be no skiing, there'd be no fall colors, and we'd have a terrible gnat problem. And the voters are starting to itch for some skiing.
Oscillations between statism and libertarianism are part of the natural political cycle in the west. It is an ancient cycle that is older than capitalism; older than economics. You can't stop winter; you can't stop a period of statism. It needs to stay long enough to freeze the gnats and for people to get their skiing in, but otherwise you have to pray it just remains mild and short so you can get back to summer.
Want a long period of libertarianism? Keep the economy growing faster than income inequality.
Someone has been watching Game of Thrones...
The "75% tax rate" is the electoral promise the least likely to have an impact on global markets. Things like bringing the retirement age to 60 and raising the minimum wage would however hurt France's fiscal credibility a great deal and send European bond markets into a tailspin.
However, Hollande is more constrained than his rhetoric lets on. If spreads on cash bonds blow out (CDS are already way up), the retirement age isn't going anywhere. Not a fun election, but it isn't really worse than what's coming in November.
Rather than France I'd focus myself over what's happening in the Netherlands and China. The former just entered a political crisis while the latter is facing the turmoil of a Communist party splitting in two and in a really violent fashion at that.
France is a perfect example of why social spending and entitlements always fail. People always want more and are always looking for others to pay for it.
High social spending, high taxes on the rich, labor friendly policies, national healthcare and people STILL WANT MORE.
But yeah, the US should be more like that sinking ship.
The US looks a bit more like it did in the late '20s. We have a weak economy and a lot of economic inequality. Eventually, the income inequality is going to leave a large enough minority of the wealthy feeling threatened that we'll move more towards American-style economic statism ala the 1930s-1970s.
There's a season for everything, including economic libertarianism and economic statism. Libertarianism and summer are a lot of fun, but at the end of summer, you start to get a lot of forest fires, droughts, and a terrible gnat population. And a lot of folks want to go skiing. Maybe winter ain't that bad as long as its short, mild, and does its job.
Yes. The lack of a gold standard allows the feds to print money and give it to the "banksters". :D Oh wait, that's us, LOL.
But I do agree with inflation-indexing for capital gains income. Especially if we're going to tax that income at 30%.
There's a season for everything, including economic statism. I don't enjoy winter and I don't enjoy 70% tax rates. I think we would have a shorter and milder period of economic statism if we pursued a system that demonstrated rich people were a blessing rather than one that engaged in class warfare. And I think the longer we spend in August and September, the more people are going to realize why we NEED winter.
Lets not pretend that what the Fed is doing is only to support "evil bankers". Allowing Congress to spend without concern benefits everyone, including "evil bankers" and people sucking off the government tit.
Less government, less spending and less restrictions on freedom is the way to go. Money that the government takes from its citizens can be better spent by the people who earn it.
Also, as I have mentioned before, there is no satiating the "lower class" or as I prefer to call them " the people who do not take advantage of the countless opportunities in this country".
Once you start giving to them you can never stop. People never appreciate what they do not earn and begin to expect it, as if they have a right to have it.
Illiniprogrammer, the United States has come too far to ever return to socialism, soft socialism or to soft tyranny (which socialism fundamentally is). I think we'll see a sort of "revolution" at the state level that will ultimately block the resurrection of socialism in this nation. That's not to say that there won't be a larger federal movement toward socialism, but my guess is that the united states (little 'u' and 's') that constitute the south, parts of the Midwest, the plain states and the southwest will seek nullification and will ultimately disregard court orders. With their senators and congressman and with a united front there will be no real way to enforce federalized socialism onto a group of people who reject it.
So while I agree that the tyrant movement of the progressives will continue to move ahead with its agenda, I look around the nation and see a fierce conservative movement at the state level that has been emboldened by a reinvigorated conservative populace. I'm a center-right Romney supporter, but I see little hope for the soft tyrants of socialism to impose their will on a fiercely anti-socialist populace of at least 125 million people who are armed to the teeth and who hold legislative power in over 60% of the states.
This is a fairly conservative forum. I have been one of those voters who tends to vote (R) on economic issues if they're polling at least 45%, but I don't think more than 20% of the country believes a 50% marginal tax rate is worth a revolt, and that's where the dems get to roll out all of the cool military technology. I don't really want to be involved in that decision, but if people genuinely aren't willing to compromise, I am not going to desperately try to stop the 40% wiping out the 20% if it comes to violent resistance. And I think they will ultimately do it if this country turns 1861 and the conservatives fire the first shot.
Sure. And some staunch capitalists said the same thing in the '30s. But nobody entertained the idea And you're the staunchest capitalist on the forum. I'll join the violent resistance if they try to pass some analogue to the National Industrial Recovery Act where folks are getting jailed for growing chickens on their own farms for their own personal consumption, but right we're at the complete opposite end of the economic political spectrum from that.Be patient. Winter is only here for a limited time too, and there is a season for everything. Let's hope summer lasts a little longer, that winter is short, mild, but effective, and that next summer is better. In a country that doesn't devote 10% of its income to social justice, I think these oscillations are inevitable until we consistently hit that number.
Relax; we can't stop it, and ultimately, God's in control. But it's also good to remember that God was also in control when Isaiah 3 was written. I hope the natural oscillation between socialism and libertarianism around 10% will set in before that becomes applicable.
I didn't say a violent revolution nor am I really talking about one. I'm talking about a proverbial revolution where the states seek legal nullification and ultimately civil resistance. Ideology is very hardened across a large swath of states. There's simply no way socialism creeps back in.
What you're saying lacks commonsense and is totally out of touch with reality. 4 years after the financial collapse on Wall Street nothing material has changed at all, except that a libertarian-based "Tea Party" movement has changed the political landscape. Besides, it's incredibly intellectually dishonest to call the 2000s a "libertaian summer"--Bush and Obama are as big gov't as 2 ideologically opposed people can be. One was pro-business big gov't, the other pro-gov't big gov't. As a former Freddie Mac employee, I can attest to the fact that the housing collapse was the furthest thing from a "libertarian summer". The last 20 years would more aptly be referred to as an era of crony capitalism where people well connected to the exponentially more influential federal government have made the most wealth. The libertarian movement is most likely to hasten the end of crony capitalism, which is really not even capitalism.
The fact is, you've drawn exactly the wrong conclusions from what the facts and reality would suggest.
I'd argue that Romney won the GOP nomination because people like me see that Barack Obama is an utterly incompetent human being and that Romney is a perfect foil to an era of complete incompetence (that, in fairness, began with Bush). In any event, the movement put the GOP in Ted Kennedy's Senate seat and put in 63 freshman conservatives into the House of Representatives, is about to take back the U.S. Senate, put in 30 or 31 Republican governors and 30+ state houses. A movement is much bigger than one man. Romney is simply the right man for the time--a highly competent capitalist who can raise big money to compete with an Obama machine that promised to spend $1 billion on the 2008 campaign.
Romney: right man in the right place at the right time.
In 1h30min we'll get the results.
Hopefully Hollande will win so he can impose that 75% marginal tax rate.
This is going to be so much fun.
Hollande it is!
Awsome, hopefully he'll apply his keynesian/socialist economic policies fast.
.
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