Elections in France: The far right has never been this close | France voted on Sunday and Marine Le Pen goes after Macron’s favorite

from Paris

Properties From the presidential election, which will be held in its first round on Sunday, With 12 candidates, it’s as bizarre as it is catastrophic. Democratic exhaustion, the displacement of moral and historical references, ideological drains, the downplaying of the most fanatical and exclusionary ideas of the far-right, the degeneration of the two parties that have alternated in power since the twentieth century, socialists and conservatives of Gaullist heritage, The vote reveals a society that seems to have left in time the roots of its core values. The most exciting feature is, again, The weight gained by the far right In these five years of the president’s term Emmanuel Macron. There is no longer one list for the extreme right, but two: a list Marine Lupine Based on Eric Zemmour. The French extreme right has succeeded in promoting its racist concerns in all media and thus imposing its ideas in all political discussions.

ideological winner

Before the first round this Sunday and after the results, The ideological winner is French neo-fascism. For the first time in recent history, the far-right candidate, Marine Le Pen, appears to be in a position to challenge the outgoing president for her seat on the throne.. He had never been so close to power. If all goes as pollsters predicted and Marine Le Pen moves to the next round, the French far right will go into the second round: in 2002 he was Marine Le Pen’s father and founder of the far rightJean Marie Le Penwho objected to it with the re-elected president Jacques Chirac And in 2017, the same Marine Le Pen. Today, two points separate her from Emmanuel Macron.

With socialism crammed into a miniature music box (3 percent), the right wing of government with percentages shrinking (8 percent) and almost the entire left almost never leaving itself, there is only one alternative left in the character and movement of the radical left led by Jean-Luc Melenchon.

helpful vote

The France Insoumise captain has been in for several weeks in an upward dynamic that puts him in third place, 5 points behind Marine Le Pen. It’s the only day the far right can be denied a banquet for a long time Society saves a pathetic debate where foreigners will be the full plate. In the face of repeated attacks by his rivals from the left, especially the socialist Ann Hidalgo (2 percent) and environmental expert Yannick Gadot (6 percent), Mélenchon challenged voters to choose a “helpful vote.”

It is useful here to prevent the far right from repeating the events of 2002 and 2017 and voting “out of strategic necessity” in the opinion polls of its popular movement. How can a voice that expresses a political conviction be transformed into another that is based solely on its usefulness? There he breathes the margin that could leave Marine Le Pen without a second round and bring back, by the way, the right/left crossover.

Mélenchon pulls a controversial photo that taints his profile and alienates many voters from that election. Al-Amoudi, with which he leads his movement, the absence of internal democracy and previous positions in the face of the horrific crimes committed in Syria by President Bashar al-Assad and his former support for Vladimir Putin, are two obstacles that frighten many voters in the Syrian arena. Leave.

Emily Laurent confesses Page 12 I was no longer confused. Melenchon tempts this progressive voter. “My candidates are the Socialists, today it is the environmentalists Gadot, but there is also the necessary vote for Melenchon to stop Marine Le Pen. I doubt between the vote on the environmental program and the strategic vote for Melenchon.”

Voters on the left feel that “too much is being asked of them, all of them, in a contradictory wave of demands,” says Benedict Dubois, an economist with a long tradition of the left. And it is not without reason. The interrogations are manifold and in several directions: “We must vote for Melenchon so that Le Pen does not pass, as we must vote for socialism Anne Hidalgo to save socialism from ruin, and, by the way, vote for an ecologist to give strength to this emerging movement. Why did they not come to an agreement among themselves before the elections? Instead of spending all these months fighting and insulting each other while the far right grows every week?, that wouldn’t have happened if they had accepted one nomination.

François, a 45-year-old professor of literature, admits “with regret in advance” that he would vote for Macron: “There is no other choice. Mélenchon is intolerable and outdated, socialists do not exist, other rights are fictional. To make matters worse, all the values ​​of the left have disappeared. From the discussions, the right and the far right rule us with their toxic values. At least with Macron, something can be expected.

Right options

The options are no better on the right. The more moderate right-wing government fighters for the Republicans don’t have much choice: they won’t vote for the far right, the candidate Valerie Pecres He disappointed them by including in his program the ideas and expressions of the far right (“French Paper”, “The Great Alternative”). “This is worse than walking barefoot on thorns. Imagine what choice we have left: Macron, far right or abstinence,” says Michel, 63-year-old doctor.

Interestingly, it was the two ruling parties who misled their electors. The socialists disappeared at the end of the term Francois Holland (2012-2017) The right wing of the Gaullist tradition was destroyed after the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy (2007-2012).

Emmanuel Macron recovered the lost treasures of both and won with them in 2017, ruling for 5 years and always maintaining his electoral leadership. Emmanuel Macron survived the self-promoted yellow vest movement with his actions, overcame the demonstrations at the end of 2019 against his reform of the pension system and survived the epidemic and the unpopular measures that, like many rulers of the world, should have followed. Taken came to get more than 12 points ahead of Marine Le Pen. However, a setback arose: he presented and explained his show poorly and a last-minute scandal cost him 5 points in a few days. About McKinsey case, a private consulting firm in the United States whose services were solicited without action by the executive branch and the Head of State Experts. The inquiries cost several million euros, and McKinsey did not even pay the corresponding taxes in France.

Teflon candidates

Macron / Le Pen lived in the face of all possibilities and contradictions. Marine Le Pen suffered after the defeat of 2017, changed the name of the party and some of its orientations. The name of the National Front was changed to Re-National Rally, while the leader whitewashed the image again. “Halawa”, “Harmony” and “Al-Ittihad Al-Watany” are their updated doctrines. However, the same tyrannical and xenophobic wolf continues to bend behind him.

His program does not appear to have been read by voters. The 47 pages of the draft devoted to immigration pose a constitutional challenge: there, discrimination and xenophobia would become a constitutional principle for France and a violation of the principles of the 1789 Declaration of Human Rights of which France has always been so proud..

Marine Le Pen was not even influenced by her closeness to Vladimir Putin, nor by the colossal contradiction of a nationalist and ultranationalist political movement., a staunch opponent of globalization, which finances its election campaigns with loans from Russian banks (2014, 9 million euros) and another loan of more than 10 million euros made by a Hungarian bank (Magyar Külkereskedelmi Bank) for the 2022 election campaign. Russia is outside the European Union and Hungary under Victor The two Europeans within the Union are, on the Continent, the two countries that are vehemently opposed to the democratic parliamentary liberalism prevalent in the West. Anything goes, any lie is the truth and nothing matters.

Climate, environment and purchasing power are nowadays issues of greatest importance to society. None of the three topics were addressed in the discussions It was not really the subject of concrete proposals. They have turned their backs on us and dealt with their stories, tangles, fascism, and complaints. This democracy exhausted me. ‘, says bitterly, Pierre Desmontes, a communist who no longer recognizes himself in the parties. There is still a sense of unreality before the elections. The choice hinges on A useful vote so that the choice of liberalism or fascism is not reactivated again.